For the first neverwinter gold public beta weekend, participants had the opportunity to play as one of three classes which loosely helped represent the core of the "holy trinity" class options. Of the three available options, the Trickster Rogue represents raw melee DPS, with some basic crowd control abilities thrown into the mix as you advance your character.
In this article we'll be taking a look at what makes the trickster rogue tick, offer our thoughts on the class having played it through to level 30 (the cap durinig the beta weekend) , and offer a number of tips that can help improve the quality of life for a trickster rogue dramatically.
Trickster Rogue Class Overview
During character creation, the official description of the trickster rogue informs you that:
"The master of stealth and misdirection, the Trickster Rogue maneuvers across the battlefield and strikes from the shadows with paired daggers. The Trickster dodges in and out of melee, inflicting massive damage on foes with a flurry of deadly blows."
While that is certainly a technically accurate description of the class, it also rings of the kind of generic MMO class description that is all too common during the character creation process. So let's take a look at what each of those core elements mean in the life of a Trickster Rogue to give you a better feel for what the class is all about.
Stealth and Misdirection
A core class ability of the Trickster Rogue is Stealth which is mapped to the [Tab] key by default. This ability unlocks early on, with each activation lasting for 5 seconds. Upon entering stealth you'll slowly replenish your stealth meter, and it must be full again before successive uses of the power.
Stealth is less about sneaking around in the shadows, although that would be incredibly handy for scouting purposes, or disabling traps for your party members. Instead, stealth helps you accomplish two key things: reducing threat, and increasing the damage caused by your at-will and encounter powers. Many of your powers will also have additional interactions or functionality based on whether or not you're in stealth when activated.
Misdirection comes in the form of some of the encounter powers you can slot in the [Q], [E], and [R] slots on your action bar. Perhaps the most critical of all your available encounter powers is Bait and Switch. Upon activation, Bait and Switch will drop a decoy while your character jumps backwards out of harm's way. Any enemies that are near the decoy will attack it instead of you.
So on a base level, this power is a critical survival mechanic. However, each time the decoy is hit you also gain Action Points which can allow the Trickster Rogue the ability to use their Daily Powers quite frequently. Likewise, activating Bait and Switch from stealth will instantly refill your stealth bar.
A basic usage scenario would be to hit Stealth, run up to a group of mobs, hit Bait and Switch, then reactivate Stealth to deal damage while your decoy absorbs any incoming damage that would have otherwise been directed at you.