Training Advice For Rogues
Though this site is about the rogue guild, since there seems to be a lack of any current guides for rogues, and a lot of things have changed over the recent years, I figured I might as well write something up. For now I will focus on melee ambush builds primarily, though a lot of this stuff applies in general. I will keep adding to this as I have more time.
To go over a few major changes for those returning to the game:
1)Light armor and Scale armor proficiency skills. You gain +20% Evasion DS, +10% Evade chance, and the base CvA of your armor is reduced to 0, when wearing robes or leather armor. You gain +15% Evasion DS, +5% Evade chance, and the cost of martial stances is reduced to 0, in Scale armor (Brig, for example.). You learn these at level 30.
2)Combat Maneuver skills have been added/changed significantly. You can see the list here (scroll down to the list), but I will try to offer some advice on which ones to train, though it's fairly broad based on your level, playstyle, etc.. A good strategy is often to get 1-4 ranks in a skill rather than mastering it, due to the heavy cost of getting higher ranks. Some really good ones to train are: Combat mobility, 1-4 ranks of combat focus, 1 rank of combat toughness, 1-4 ranks of combat movement, 1-3 ranks in evade specialization (I have 2, myself), 1 rank of Mug (You could need more depending on your pickpocketing skill.), Predator's Eye if you use small weapons, Eviscerate, and Surge of Strength 1-5 ranks. Some other good ones that are subjective to your build, are: punch or kick mastery (Generally punch is better for ambush), Whirling Dervish is fantastic for TWC ambush builds, and Acrobat's Leap if you are a short race or hunt tall things a lot. Some of the offensive cmans can be useful, but the guild skills are free and don't require spending cman points, and they cover most of what most people might need.
Another thing to consider with cmans, is getting some ranks in a skill for defensive purposes. For example, if you get groin kicked a lot, you can get some ranks in it, even if you never intend to use it yourself, simply to increase your defense against it. 20% of CMAN defense comes from your knowledge in the skill.
3)Feats are skills that are given to you based on your level. To copy straight from the Wiki:
"The FEAT verb is used to train in and activate Feats. The various skills can be trained via FEAT LEARN. Skills may be unlearned via FEAT UNLEARN, and the lists of skills to learn can be viewed via FEAT LIST. FEAT HELP {Specialization} provides detailed information on each of the skills.
USAGE: FEAT {skill} {target} or FEAT [option] {args}
Options:
LEARN {skill} - Spend Feat Training Points for skills
UNLEARN {skill} - Unlearn skills known to you for Feat Training Points
IST {type} [extra] - List skills by type - {type} can be ALL, - Any profession (or PROFESSION itself) may be included at the end
INFO - Displays your current skill training info HELP {skill} - List information about the selected skill
WIKI {skill} - Show Wiki output for the selected skill
WIKILIST - Show Wiki list output for skills Note: {skill} references above require use of the skill mnemonic.
Skills like Vanish and Silent Strike, which used to be cmans, are now feats. FEAT vanish, and FEAT silentstike, to use. Silent Strike was changed so that it includes UCS attacks, Waylay (See #10 for more info on this), and attacks with it can now be aimed. Feat silentstrike [attack modifier] <target> [aimed location if aiming]
Light and Scale armor mastery are also feats, as I mentioned earlier. There is also a new feat called Kroderine Soul, which is a massive choice if you decide to undertake it (and can only be undone with a fixskills). With Kroderine Soul, you will increase your DF Redux, and it will also apply to ALL sources of damage, including spells! Also, durations of hostile spells against you are reduced. The tradeoff, is you can no longer wear spells, which is a very hefty tradeoff to consider!!
Another feat that is useful, is called Shadow Dance: "Activate Shadow Dance for 60 seconds. Silent Strike, Cutthroat, and Subdue can be used for no stamina cost and sneaking will incur no roundtime. Applies Shrouded with a power of 30 while Shadow Dance is active." It has a 300 second cooldown, and you learn it at level 50.
The last notable feat is called Martial Mastery: You gain an AS/UAF bonus equal to TRUNC((Secondary Weapon Ranks + Tertiary Weapon Ranks) / 8). This bonus is capped at +50, and is reduced by 5% for every spell known over 5.
To simplify what this means - You get bonus AS (Or UAF if you are a UCS brawler) for training in secondary weapon skills. So say you train 2x edged weapons and 2x ranged weapons - You get bonus AS for training the second weapon skill. If you get 400 ranks in weapon skills besides the one you are currently using, you will get a +50 AS boost, which is the max.
The latter portion, is to make it so that you can't get the martial mastery AS bonus if you are getting a bonus from the 425 spell (+AS). You can only choose one or the other.
4)Lockmastery Focus. Or LM Focus for short. This skill comes with lockmastery from the guild, and it is almost always better than 403/404 (locklore/traplore), so you no longer need to learn spells as a locksmith, if you don't want to.
5)Stalking and Hiding - The benefits of what used to be shadow mastery, are now built into stalking and hiding skill, and also improved upon slightly. I would recommend 3x hiding skill at lower levels, until you are able to hit 120 hiding ranks. The benefits are as follows:
6)Enhancives - Depending on how far back you go, there is a "new" system, where you can enhance skills or stats beyond where you can normally train them at your level. These usually come as item drops in the treasure system, and a good place to look for them is on Playershops 4.0 (lichproject.org). Enhancives cap at +50 for skills and +40 for stats (stat, so +20 bonus), +50 for max health/mana/stamina, +50 max regen for health/mana/stamina, +3 max spirit, and +3 max spirit regen. This is probably the best way to boost your character if you are willing to deal with it. The downside is that they run out of charges, and require you to go to a treasure master at an adventurer's guild and pay bounty points to recharge them. Many will crumble if you let them get to 0 charges, so I'd recommend you use a lich script like ;crumbly, and make highlights with sound alerts (The in game message is "faintly pulses with light and you sense its enhancive magic will be depleted soon."). You can also purchase armoires from the advguild treasure master, which instantly puts them on or takes them off for you, which is great for only using up charges when you are hunting and save them when resting, when you don't need the enhancives anyways. Note that a crumbly enhancive will last you forever as long as you always recharge it before it completely runs out.
7)Armor Skills: Rogues can now learn up to 4 armor skills, based on how many armor ranks you have. Their effects are applied for 4 hours, and can be given to you or another player, but you can only have 1 armor skill buff active on you at any time. The Rogue armor skills are as follows:
Armor Spike Mastery: When hit with an attack you have a chance to reactively spike your foe. At Rank 1, this applies when hit with brawling or natural weapon attacks. At rank 2, this applies when hit with any melee attack. 2 ranks is the max trainable. This one is an exception to the rule of being able to only have 1 active skill. This skill is always active and is not one of the 4 hour buffs, and therefore also can't be applied to someone else.
Armor Support: Reduces encumbrance by a number of pounds equal to 5 + ((Armor Group + 1) * Rank). 5 ranks is the max trainable.
Armored Evasion: Reduces the Armor Action Penalty by (Rank * (7 - Armor Group)) / 2. 5 ranks is the max trainable. This skill was changed so that it can go negative, meaning, if your armor is light enough that your ranks would take you below 0 action penalty, you actually get a boost. As an example, robes are ALREADY 0 Action Penalty, so if you get rank 5 armored evasion, you will actually get a boost worth the difference between robes and augmented chain. In terms of evade DS, that is +8% in robes, though this also applies to things like maneuver defense, UCS combat, standing, etc.. The penalty for using this in heavy armor is pretty high, but it's still one of the best armor skills to use if you wear plate.
Armored Stealth: Provides a bonus to Stealth rolls equal to (Rank * 2 * (5 - Armor Group)). 5 ranks is the max trainable. I'd only recommend using this in Scale armor or lighter, as the bonus is too low in heavy armors.
8)Weapon Skills - New weapon skills have been added, which are essentially combat maneuver skills that you get for free by training in weapon ranks. Here is the wiki on them: Category:Weapon Techniques - GemStone IV Wiki (play.net)
9)Locksmith Pool - Players can now drop off locked boxes for locksmiths to open, and pick them up later. See the wiki about it: Locksmith pool - GemStone IV Wiki (play.net) This has largely curbed the use of the town locksmith, and most people use player locksmiths to open their boxes again.
10)Waylay - This is a skill that was added to give us an attack that deals a lot of damage instead of inflicting heavy critical wounds like ambush. You use it from hiding just like ambush, except you do not want to aim it. WAYLAY [target]. It gets stance pushdown just like ambush, and instead of adding +crit weighting to your attack as ambush does, it instead adds damage weighting. Like ambush, it is based mostly on your ambush skill. This is great for critters you are unable to kill through critical attacks, such as non-corporeal critters and pirate captains. If you are a UCS ambusher, I would recommend using a brawling weapon for it, though it DOES work with your bare fist.
Some details from the wiki: "The bonus damage weighting is equal to the following (DEX bonus + (Ambush skill bonus / 2)), subject to the end roll result of the attack. 100% of the calculated bonus is applied if the end result is at 250, then ±1% for every 2 points below/above 250, capped at ±100%. The bonus damage is subject to randomization and stacks with normal weapon properties (such as additional critical or damage weighting)."
11)Divert - This is now learned for free upon mastery of Rogue Gambits. It also can now divert to a specified adjacent room, or you can not specify and it will be random. In case you don't know what divert is, it is an ability that lets you force a critter to move to an adjacent room. You must be hidden to use the ability. It's great if there is a swarm and you want to force them into a room where they are alone, for safer killing.
12)Stun Maneuvers changes - Details about this are found in my Stun Maneuvers guide, but basically two new abilities were added upon mastery of the skill. FLEE and HIDE. Flee will cause you to flee to an adjacent room that has no critters in it, and HIDE will attempt to hide (You must still pass the hiding check to succeed.).
13)Mug - I already mentioned this under the cman changes, but it's a large enough addition I thought it warranted mentioning on its own here. Mug allows you to loot a critter with an attack of your choice. CMAN MUG [attack type] [target] [location]. For example "cman mug punch kobold head." Essentially Mug is like getting a second looting of a critter, as you can still search as normal after killing it. You can only attempt to mug a critter once. Mug also works with heirloom bounties, making rogues absolutely fantastic at those tasks. Mug can be used from the open or from hiding (it gets a bonus to success chance from hiding.), and success is based on your ranks in it as well as your pickpocketing skill. If you are 2x in pickpocketing you only need 1 rank in Mug.
14)Adventurer's Guild - I mentioned this a little before. Depending on how far back you go, this may be new to you. Honestly I should probably make this #1 on this list, because YOU SHOULD NOT NEGLECT THE ADVENTURER'S GUILD. Let me repeat that one more time. YOU SHOULD NOT NEGLECT THE ADVENTURER'S GUILD!!!! The adventurer's guild allows you to complete bounties, which can saturate your mind when you turn them in (That is, it fills your mind with experience BEYOND fried. In fact you should try to turn bounties in when your mind is completely full, when possible, because any XP you are rewarded that goes beyond your saturation capacity, is literally instantly earned. This is the absolute fastest way to earn XP in the game.). You also receive extra silvers, and bounty points, which can be spent on things like FIXSTAT and FIXSKILLS potions. You can also upgrade your adventurer's guild badge as you get more lifetime bounty points (That is, even if you spend your BP, the points you've earned still upgrade your badge.), and eventually can enhance up to three stats and/or skills to +10 with it. As I also mentioned earlier, you can also use bounty points to recharge enhancive items. There is an adventurer's guild in every major town, and you can ;go2 advguild, (and ;go2 advguard, and for certain tasks. ;go2 npchealer for herb tasks.).
15)Bless Changes - You no longer need a blessed weapon to attack undead, and instead will simply lose 25% of your weapon's damage factor against them. You can now bless any weapon regardless of its properties, with no reduction in swings before it wears off (flares, crit weighting, etc.). If a skilled cleric blesses your weapon it can also get holy flares against undead, as well as anchor non-corporeal undead so that they don't disappear for 30 seconds (Finally we can search them for loot!).
16)Service Skills - Service skills, such as wizard enchant, are now able to be performed basically instantly. No more giving your item to a wizard for months. Instead, they can gain the needed pool of resources to enchant it beforehand, then apply it to your item without you having to wait (The exception being if you need to wait for them to build up the resources, which is capped at a certain amount per week. Wizards can enchant items up to 7x as before, Sorcerors can ensorcell weapons/armor/shields (Which gives various boosts on weapons, and -CvA on armor and shields.), Monks can give you a tattoo that can enhance a stat up to +10, Warriors can add weighting to weapons and padding to armor, Rangers can create an item that makes you resistant to various elements, bards can permanently unlock loresongs on items, and Clerics can sanctify weapons/armor/shields, giving weapons permabless, holy flares, and increased AS or CS vs undead and armor/shields added DS/TD and sheer fear protection against undead. All the classes are slated to eventually get a service skill (as well as Bards, since loresong unlock hardly counts.).
17)Invoker - The Invoker is an NPC that was introduced, that appears for 15 minutes every 4 hours during the day, and every 2 hours in the evening. Use the lich script ;invokertime, to see when the next time she comes around will be. She appears only in the Small Park in Landing currently, room 288. Ask invoker for spells, to get 4 hours of every class's spells.
Training Basics:
No matter your level, I would train this way as a baseline:
1x Armor (Until you are trained for what you want to use and/or the armor skill ranks you want.)
2x Weapon Skill
1x Combat Maneuvers
1x Shield or Two Weapon Combat (Depending on your choice.)
1x Physical Fitness
2x Hiding
2x Ambush
2x Perception
2x Dodging
2x Pickpocketing (Ok ok, I am kidding. Or am I?)
25-50 Climbing/Swimming depending on your level and where you hunt.
10-20 Arcane Symbol Ranks (If you are a locksmith. You want this for glyph traps and scarabs.)
A few things to consider beyond this baseline:
I can't stress enough, the value of saving TPs, and spending some time hunting to determine your greatest weaknesses, then training to fill in for your needs! If you are unsure if you should be improving your hiding more, or your CM, or physical fitness, armor, or whatever else, save the points and go out and hunt! Then you can determine your greatest needs! As long as you train the baseline skills listed here, you can fill in the rest later!
Are you struggling to get the AS needed to kill reliably? Get more Combat Maneuvers and/or TWC. Is your lack of hiding skill driving you crazy? Pump some more TPs into it then! Are you dying to maneuver attacks? Get more CM/dodge/perception/PF! Are warding spells killing you? Get more combat focus and/or armor use for using heavier armor. Struggling to pick boxes? Get more disarm/picking ranks. Need more DS? Get more dodge, TWC, Multi Opponent Combat, or shield ranks, or more CM for the Combat Movement passive cman (Dodging being the best source of +DS of all of those.)
As I mentioned earlier, I would 3x hiding at lower levels if possible, to get 120 hiding ranks as soon as you can. As an ambusher I'd say this should be priority 1 before all other things. You can also choose to spend your extra points on 2-3x picking/disarming, 2x Combat Maneuvers, 2x Two Weapon Combat, and 2x Physical Fitness. 3x picking is a tough one to afford, so 2-2.5x might be better for you. If you go shield I would stick to 2x dodge/1x shield use, until you have 3x dodging (which for most is a post cap goal.), THEN go 2x shield. 2x armor may also be a good choice if you are trying to get the 70 ranks needed to wear metal breastplate at lower levels. I'd also recommend squeezing in 5-25 Multi Opponent Combat ranks as early as you can manage, for Force on Force purposes (More on this later.).
Some people recommend 2x Physical Fitness as a baseline, but I actually rank it lower than other things, myself.
UCS (Unarmed Combat System) ambushing is a very viable build for an ambushing rogue. You aim for the head or neck (punch/kick head) because it is 100% crush damage. When you use a UCS attack from hiding, you usually get a free tier up in positioning, which is why rogue's make for good unarmed combat users. The drawback is that you usually have to hit them twice to kill them (Though you can get up to about 50% first hit kills with enough skill), but the second attack is near guaranteed to kill in most situations. UCS ambush pairs well with Mug, since you can mug punch from hiding and get your free tier up.
Archery is a very viable and strong build for rogues, and I will get into greater detail on that at another time as I update this guide. There have been a lot of recent changes to how it works, especially ammo management. Check out the wiki: Ranged Weapons - GemStone IV Wiki (play.net)
Ultimately, I recommend you choose your weapon based on RP choice, and work around that. But For edged weapons, daggers are good for ambushing eyes, and handaxes are great for ambushing heads. If you have specific weapon type questions just hit me up on Discord.
What armor to use?
I get asked this question probably more than any other question, and my answer differs from the advice many rogues give. I feel that the best armor for a rogue is metal breastplate or double leather, in most cases. Not brig you ask?!?! Nope, I actually think that brig is less appealing now because of the armor masteries (It's not bad, it's just that I feel the other armors are a better choice depending on your situation.). If you have a good set of brig though, by all means keep it, as the differences are not massive. Some people also use scale armor mastery to switch between martial stances as part of their combat strategy.
The reason I like plate armor, is you get a LOT of -CvA, which is the same thing as +TD. So if you wear metal breastplate, you get -18 CvA, or +18 TD. That's 20 more TD than what brig gives you (since brig gives you -2). Sure, you lose some DS because of it, due to less evade DS, but it protects you against the stuff that usually kills you. That time you got immobilized and then killed? Plate might have saved you because you can take a greater beating (especially if you have good padding/redux), and gives you -3-5 CER against maneuver attacks. And those pesky warding spells? Going plate is the best way to protect yourself. Plate saves your bacon in those "Oh CRAP!" situations! If you need more DS, go see the invoker, or use a small statue. Or train more dodging. Or get some +dodging/agility enhancives. Also keep in mind that SMR2 defense has MASSIVE diminishing returns, and in my testing, a fully trained capped rogue lost only 1% SMR2 defense going from no armor to full plate (Also keep in mind, metal breastplate is the same Action Penalty as only augmented chain, if you use rank 5 armored evasion, which is significantly less than full plate.). Also armor has no impact on stealth, which has been a rumor going around since the beginning of time. It only impacts vanish chance, but you can use silent strike with no penalty.
But as I said, double leather is also a great choice, and much more popular for most rogues. You get a lot of extra DS from Light Armor Proficiency, and your CvA isn't as bad as it used to be in it.
Ultimately, rogues are probably the most flexible class in the game when it comes to armor. We can make any type of armor work, from robes all the way to full plate, which is pretty cool if you ask me!
Essentially, I think that you should choose your armor based on your greatest weakness, unless for your character's image, a certain type of armor especially fits.
Also, keep in mind that if you feel plate throws off your character's image, RP wise, there are armor concealers and shimmering trinkets which completely hide it. Shimmering trinkets are the best thing ever added to the game in its entire history, so you should get one :D
A few further notes on maneuver defense (SMR2). The primary stat to help you defend against it is Agility, with Dexterity and Intuition being secondary. As for skills, physical fitness, dodging, combat maneuvers, and perception all have EQUAL weight in helping you defend. I had mentioned 1x Physical Fitness as a baseline earlier, but going 2x in it does help against these kinds of attacks (as well as gives you more redux), though I feel that for most rogues, getting more combat maneuvers, dodging, or hiding is more important than going 2x PF. By all means, do all of it if you can afford the TPs!
What Society?
To be honest, all the societies work well for a rogue. I don't really like giving my opinion on this. Look it up yourself and decide:
Sunfist: Guardians of Sunfist - GemStone IV Wiki (play.net)
Council of Light: Council of Light - GemStone IV Wiki (play.net)
Voln: Order of Voln - GemStone IV Wiki (play.net)
Hunting Thoughts/Opinions
Your main bread and butter as an ambushing rogue, is the stance pushdown and added crit weighting of ambush. A rogue trained in ambush can get up to 50 CER crit weighting guaranteed to be added to their attacks from hiding (Just like crit weighting from other sources, you MUST do enough damage to get a minor wound against the critter for that weighting to apply. This especially comes into play when using small weapons against heavy armor. For example, a dagger needs to get a 247 end roll in order for your crit weighting to apply when attacking plate armor.). 50 CER is five times that of heavy crit weighting (10 CER) on a weapon!! The stance pushdown of ambush has a random component, but if fully trained you will get them down to offensive stance or very close to it, no matter their stance. So no need for feint or anything like that! Another often overlooked benefit of ambush, is that it cuts the target's Evade/Block/Parry chance in half, which is a pretty big deal.
A big mistake I see a lot of players do, is hunt exclusively in offensive stance. Some even brag about it like it makes them cool or something. Don't be a scrub, and stance dance. Even if you don't script, you can include it in your macros. "Stance offensive \r ambush critter head \r" and make a macro for "stance defensive \r." Or just include it in your scripts. Also, if you are unable to reliably weather the attacks of a critter, you can wait for it to take its action, then attack right afterwards. Unless you are really slow to attack, you can usually get back into defensive stance before its next round. A.k.a. stance dancing.
"Oh but Midgar, I'm so awesome they can't touch me with their AS. Defensive stance is for weaklings!" Well my friend, enjoy getting pounded by those maneuver attacks and combat maneuvers, because those are also HIGHLY impacted by stance. Hunting in offensive stance doesn't somehow mean you are better at the game, it actually means you are worse at it. Learn to play.
I would recommend that you ALWAYS try to complete a bounty for your hunt. Personally I will never hunt without a bounty. I can't stress enough the importance of not neglecting the adventurer's guild bounties (as I said very clearly earlier in this guide.). I see a lot of people not utilizing it, which is greatly reducing your XP gains, as well as not getting you bounty points, which at the very least can net you extra silvers and a better badge. Your advguild badge is potentially one of the best enhancive items there is in the game, as it can eventually have +10 to three stats and/or skills. When you do a bounty, you want to make sure you turn it in when your mind is completely full, and it will saturate you with the XP bonus. This is why it's so good for XP. I personally was too stubborn to do bounties for a long time, stuck in my pig headed old ways, and I absolutely regret it big time! Not only that, but rogues are amazing at kill bounties because we are great at killing single targets, and Mug works on heirlooms!
Another thing I'd like to mention, is Force on Force. I touched on this briefly earlier. A lot of rogues get destroyed by swarms because of this. Basically, for every multiple critter in a room that attacks you, your defense is decreased due to FoF. This also applies to focused mstrike attacks against you. To reduce or eliminate this DS reduction, you want to train in Multi Opponent Combat. If you ONLY are training it for defensive purposes, a good goal is to try and get 25 ranks of it.
Skills like sweep and subdue can be useful, especially if you need to immobilize a critter for defensive purposes. One thing that is pretty cool about ambush though, is that it's possible to utilize other strategies to cut these skills out, if you so choose. For example, if you are having to subdue a critter in order to hit them hard enough to kill them, you might actually be able to kill faster if you moved to a slower weapon, and cut out subdue. As a goal, you can even strive to improve your AS, through enhancives, training, enchants, and so forth, in order to get high enough end rolls to not even need these moves, even when using the fastest of weapons like a dagger. The beauty of ambush, is it's already performing one of the most important things of a set up move - stancing the target down.
Obviously there are still times where the various cmans are useful, even if you strive to cut them out where possible. For example if it's a tall critter and you need to prone it to hit the eyes or head. Or if you can't handle a swarm without using shield throw, eviscerate, divert, or other swarm beating move. Or if it's a perceptive critter and you need to eyepoke or dirtkick it to hide against it, etc.. I also like to subdue pirate captains before I waylay them, since you can't kill them in one hit anyways. I also cutthroat liches on occasion when South Scatter is swarming (because destroying their phylacteries is annoying.).
A strategy I personally like to utilize when possible, is relying on Vanish and/or silent strike (as long as you have enough stealth skill. This can always be improved through enhancives, armored stealth, and ascension.). For example, if I am in a swarm, I can just silent strike ambush them, and then I don't need to worry about eviscerate or divert, etc.. Or if a critter evades, blocks, or parries my attack, I can quickly jump back into stealth with Vanish (getting stamina regen enhancives makes this especially easy.). This is an alternative strategy to immobilizing critters with cmans, and is the fastest method of killing as a rogue. Some people tell me this way of hunting is less fun, but whatever, I think being slow to kill things is less fun! Another sometimes overlooked thing, is that vanish and silent strike are removing your hiding RT, and thus can even be utilized purely offensively, simply to speed up combat (You can even blow more stamina using qstrike to reduce RT even further, if you so choose.). Personally, combat is more fun for me when I utilize these skills.
And again, let me reiterate that there are exceptions to this. For example, one of the capped hunting areas I like to hunt at, the Atoll, has Psionicists that cast with a very high CS, and have an open cast spell that can knock you out of hiding. In this case, unless you have really fantastic TD, you very well might want to lead with an immobilizing skill like subdue, since vanish/silent strike might not save you.
Another thing to keep in mind, is that if you hit a critter in the head or neck, and it doesn't kill them, and you inflict a rank 3 wound on them, the next attack will hit the chest if you aim for the same spot (This does not apply to UCS though). In this case, switch from the neck to the head, or the head to the neck, depending on where you first attacked. if you are aiming for the eye, it will automatically target the other eye for you, which is pretty nice.
The best ambushing weapons for a rogue are the dagger, katar, handaxe, ball and chain, and mace, purely mechanically speaking.
Again, I still feel your weapon choice should be mostly RP based, so take my mechanical advice as far as you care to with all of this.
A dagger is actually the best weapon a rogue can ambush with (without an absolutely obscene investment in Blackjack to be superior by a mere 5%), if you can field a high enough AS and have enough crit weighting (be aware that DEX bonus also gives crit weighting.). This is because of its speed, coupled with its 66% puncture chance. A puncture to the eye is guaranteed to kill if you get a rank 7 or higher crit. This is not possible with other crit types, as they need a rank 9 crit to guarantee death (slash to eye, or crush to head/neck). Also, a dagger works with Predator's Eye stance, which gives you only a 15% chance to miss as opposed to 25% otherwise.
Crush only weapons can also be great if you aim for the head or neck. Though they require a rank 9 crit to insure death, they have a 5% higher chance of landing than if you aim for the eye (this is what I was referring to with the Blackjack comment earlier). If you can get enough AS or crit weighting that getting a rank 9 is not a problem, then this can be quite effective.
Archery is also one of the strongest forms of combat a rogue can use, but it almost requires a whole new guide all in itself since the training and skills you use are almost completely different than a traditional melee ambush build, and it also has two styles - Open archer or sniper. I will at least touch on these two styles, to hopefully help you decide which route to take if you want to use ranged weapons.
Open archery's main value is that it costs very few training points - training points you can spend on picking, or even spells (a lot of open archers like to learn ewave, for example.).
A sniper, on the other hand, is someone who uses ranged weapons from hiding. In this case, it does NOT get the added critical damage of melee ambush, but it DOES get the stance pushdown and reduced EBP chance. You also can remain hidden when firing, whereas melee will take you out of hiding unless you burn stamina to use silent strike. This is more costly training point wise than an open archery build, because of the need of hiding skill.
One thing to consider when choosing an open archery vs sniper build, is the reduction in Evade/Block/Parry from sniping. Even if you don't need the stance pushdown to kill just fine, you will still get EBPed twice as often with an open archery build. This alone can make sniping a lucrative choice, depending on your training point circumstance.
In my opinion, since the introduction of Predator's Eye, ranged weapons are inferior to melee weapons in most circumstances. Unlike melee, you can train off the 1 second aiming RT penalty, but I no longer feel that is enough of an advantage to overcome the benefits of melee (largely due to TWC or shield benefits.). No doubt, it's still a very strong and viable build, if you choose to go the ranged route, and does have some advantages depending on what you plan to hunt.
Though this site is about the rogue guild, since there seems to be a lack of any current guides for rogues, and a lot of things have changed over the recent years, I figured I might as well write something up. For now I will focus on melee ambush builds primarily, though a lot of this stuff applies in general. I will keep adding to this as I have more time.
To go over a few major changes for those returning to the game:
1)Light armor and Scale armor proficiency skills. You gain +20% Evasion DS, +10% Evade chance, and the base CvA of your armor is reduced to 0, when wearing robes or leather armor. You gain +15% Evasion DS, +5% Evade chance, and the cost of martial stances is reduced to 0, in Scale armor (Brig, for example.). You learn these at level 30.
2)Combat Maneuver skills have been added/changed significantly. You can see the list here (scroll down to the list), but I will try to offer some advice on which ones to train, though it's fairly broad based on your level, playstyle, etc.. A good strategy is often to get 1-4 ranks in a skill rather than mastering it, due to the heavy cost of getting higher ranks. Some really good ones to train are: Combat mobility, 1-4 ranks of combat focus, 1 rank of combat toughness, 1-4 ranks of combat movement, 1-3 ranks in evade specialization (I have 2, myself), 1 rank of Mug (You could need more depending on your pickpocketing skill.), Predator's Eye if you use small weapons, Eviscerate, and Surge of Strength 1-5 ranks. Some other good ones that are subjective to your build, are: punch or kick mastery (Generally punch is better for ambush), Whirling Dervish is fantastic for TWC ambush builds, and Acrobat's Leap if you are a short race or hunt tall things a lot. Some of the offensive cmans can be useful, but the guild skills are free and don't require spending cman points, and they cover most of what most people might need.
Another thing to consider with cmans, is getting some ranks in a skill for defensive purposes. For example, if you get groin kicked a lot, you can get some ranks in it, even if you never intend to use it yourself, simply to increase your defense against it. 20% of CMAN defense comes from your knowledge in the skill.
3)Feats are skills that are given to you based on your level. To copy straight from the Wiki:
"The FEAT verb is used to train in and activate Feats. The various skills can be trained via FEAT LEARN. Skills may be unlearned via FEAT UNLEARN, and the lists of skills to learn can be viewed via FEAT LIST. FEAT HELP {Specialization} provides detailed information on each of the skills.
USAGE: FEAT {skill} {target} or FEAT [option] {args}
Options:
LEARN {skill} - Spend Feat Training Points for skills
UNLEARN {skill} - Unlearn skills known to you for Feat Training Points
IST {type} [extra] - List skills by type - {type} can be ALL, - Any profession (or PROFESSION itself) may be included at the end
INFO - Displays your current skill training info HELP {skill} - List information about the selected skill
WIKI {skill} - Show Wiki output for the selected skill
WIKILIST - Show Wiki list output for skills Note: {skill} references above require use of the skill mnemonic.
Skills like Vanish and Silent Strike, which used to be cmans, are now feats. FEAT vanish, and FEAT silentstike, to use. Silent Strike was changed so that it includes UCS attacks, Waylay (See #10 for more info on this), and attacks with it can now be aimed. Feat silentstrike [attack modifier] <target> [aimed location if aiming]
Light and Scale armor mastery are also feats, as I mentioned earlier. There is also a new feat called Kroderine Soul, which is a massive choice if you decide to undertake it (and can only be undone with a fixskills). With Kroderine Soul, you will increase your DF Redux, and it will also apply to ALL sources of damage, including spells! Also, durations of hostile spells against you are reduced. The tradeoff, is you can no longer wear spells, which is a very hefty tradeoff to consider!!
Another feat that is useful, is called Shadow Dance: "Activate Shadow Dance for 60 seconds. Silent Strike, Cutthroat, and Subdue can be used for no stamina cost and sneaking will incur no roundtime. Applies Shrouded with a power of 30 while Shadow Dance is active." It has a 300 second cooldown, and you learn it at level 50.
The last notable feat is called Martial Mastery: You gain an AS/UAF bonus equal to TRUNC((Secondary Weapon Ranks + Tertiary Weapon Ranks) / 8). This bonus is capped at +50, and is reduced by 5% for every spell known over 5.
To simplify what this means - You get bonus AS (Or UAF if you are a UCS brawler) for training in secondary weapon skills. So say you train 2x edged weapons and 2x ranged weapons - You get bonus AS for training the second weapon skill. If you get 400 ranks in weapon skills besides the one you are currently using, you will get a +50 AS boost, which is the max.
The latter portion, is to make it so that you can't get the martial mastery AS bonus if you are getting a bonus from the 425 spell (+AS). You can only choose one or the other.
4)Lockmastery Focus. Or LM Focus for short. This skill comes with lockmastery from the guild, and it is almost always better than 403/404 (locklore/traplore), so you no longer need to learn spells as a locksmith, if you don't want to.
5)Stalking and Hiding - The benefits of what used to be shadow mastery, are now built into stalking and hiding skill, and also improved upon slightly. I would recommend 3x hiding skill at lower levels, until you are able to hit 120 hiding ranks. The benefits are as follows:
- 30 ranks: -1 sneak RT
- 60 ranks: -1 hide RT
- 90 ranks: -1 sneak RT
- 120 ranks: -1 hide RT
6)Enhancives - Depending on how far back you go, there is a "new" system, where you can enhance skills or stats beyond where you can normally train them at your level. These usually come as item drops in the treasure system, and a good place to look for them is on Playershops 4.0 (lichproject.org). Enhancives cap at +50 for skills and +40 for stats (stat, so +20 bonus), +50 for max health/mana/stamina, +50 max regen for health/mana/stamina, +3 max spirit, and +3 max spirit regen. This is probably the best way to boost your character if you are willing to deal with it. The downside is that they run out of charges, and require you to go to a treasure master at an adventurer's guild and pay bounty points to recharge them. Many will crumble if you let them get to 0 charges, so I'd recommend you use a lich script like ;crumbly, and make highlights with sound alerts (The in game message is "faintly pulses with light and you sense its enhancive magic will be depleted soon."). You can also purchase armoires from the advguild treasure master, which instantly puts them on or takes them off for you, which is great for only using up charges when you are hunting and save them when resting, when you don't need the enhancives anyways. Note that a crumbly enhancive will last you forever as long as you always recharge it before it completely runs out.
7)Armor Skills: Rogues can now learn up to 4 armor skills, based on how many armor ranks you have. Their effects are applied for 4 hours, and can be given to you or another player, but you can only have 1 armor skill buff active on you at any time. The Rogue armor skills are as follows:
Armor Spike Mastery: When hit with an attack you have a chance to reactively spike your foe. At Rank 1, this applies when hit with brawling or natural weapon attacks. At rank 2, this applies when hit with any melee attack. 2 ranks is the max trainable. This one is an exception to the rule of being able to only have 1 active skill. This skill is always active and is not one of the 4 hour buffs, and therefore also can't be applied to someone else.
Armor Support: Reduces encumbrance by a number of pounds equal to 5 + ((Armor Group + 1) * Rank). 5 ranks is the max trainable.
Armored Evasion: Reduces the Armor Action Penalty by (Rank * (7 - Armor Group)) / 2. 5 ranks is the max trainable. This skill was changed so that it can go negative, meaning, if your armor is light enough that your ranks would take you below 0 action penalty, you actually get a boost. As an example, robes are ALREADY 0 Action Penalty, so if you get rank 5 armored evasion, you will actually get a boost worth the difference between robes and augmented chain. In terms of evade DS, that is +8% in robes, though this also applies to things like maneuver defense, UCS combat, standing, etc.. The penalty for using this in heavy armor is pretty high, but it's still one of the best armor skills to use if you wear plate.
Armored Stealth: Provides a bonus to Stealth rolls equal to (Rank * 2 * (5 - Armor Group)). 5 ranks is the max trainable. I'd only recommend using this in Scale armor or lighter, as the bonus is too low in heavy armors.
8)Weapon Skills - New weapon skills have been added, which are essentially combat maneuver skills that you get for free by training in weapon ranks. Here is the wiki on them: Category:Weapon Techniques - GemStone IV Wiki (play.net)
9)Locksmith Pool - Players can now drop off locked boxes for locksmiths to open, and pick them up later. See the wiki about it: Locksmith pool - GemStone IV Wiki (play.net) This has largely curbed the use of the town locksmith, and most people use player locksmiths to open their boxes again.
10)Waylay - This is a skill that was added to give us an attack that deals a lot of damage instead of inflicting heavy critical wounds like ambush. You use it from hiding just like ambush, except you do not want to aim it. WAYLAY [target]. It gets stance pushdown just like ambush, and instead of adding +crit weighting to your attack as ambush does, it instead adds damage weighting. Like ambush, it is based mostly on your ambush skill. This is great for critters you are unable to kill through critical attacks, such as non-corporeal critters and pirate captains. If you are a UCS ambusher, I would recommend using a brawling weapon for it, though it DOES work with your bare fist.
Some details from the wiki: "The bonus damage weighting is equal to the following (DEX bonus + (Ambush skill bonus / 2)), subject to the end roll result of the attack. 100% of the calculated bonus is applied if the end result is at 250, then ±1% for every 2 points below/above 250, capped at ±100%. The bonus damage is subject to randomization and stacks with normal weapon properties (such as additional critical or damage weighting)."
11)Divert - This is now learned for free upon mastery of Rogue Gambits. It also can now divert to a specified adjacent room, or you can not specify and it will be random. In case you don't know what divert is, it is an ability that lets you force a critter to move to an adjacent room. You must be hidden to use the ability. It's great if there is a swarm and you want to force them into a room where they are alone, for safer killing.
12)Stun Maneuvers changes - Details about this are found in my Stun Maneuvers guide, but basically two new abilities were added upon mastery of the skill. FLEE and HIDE. Flee will cause you to flee to an adjacent room that has no critters in it, and HIDE will attempt to hide (You must still pass the hiding check to succeed.).
13)Mug - I already mentioned this under the cman changes, but it's a large enough addition I thought it warranted mentioning on its own here. Mug allows you to loot a critter with an attack of your choice. CMAN MUG [attack type] [target] [location]. For example "cman mug punch kobold head." Essentially Mug is like getting a second looting of a critter, as you can still search as normal after killing it. You can only attempt to mug a critter once. Mug also works with heirloom bounties, making rogues absolutely fantastic at those tasks. Mug can be used from the open or from hiding (it gets a bonus to success chance from hiding.), and success is based on your ranks in it as well as your pickpocketing skill. If you are 2x in pickpocketing you only need 1 rank in Mug.
14)Adventurer's Guild - I mentioned this a little before. Depending on how far back you go, this may be new to you. Honestly I should probably make this #1 on this list, because YOU SHOULD NOT NEGLECT THE ADVENTURER'S GUILD. Let me repeat that one more time. YOU SHOULD NOT NEGLECT THE ADVENTURER'S GUILD!!!! The adventurer's guild allows you to complete bounties, which can saturate your mind when you turn them in (That is, it fills your mind with experience BEYOND fried. In fact you should try to turn bounties in when your mind is completely full, when possible, because any XP you are rewarded that goes beyond your saturation capacity, is literally instantly earned. This is the absolute fastest way to earn XP in the game.). You also receive extra silvers, and bounty points, which can be spent on things like FIXSTAT and FIXSKILLS potions. You can also upgrade your adventurer's guild badge as you get more lifetime bounty points (That is, even if you spend your BP, the points you've earned still upgrade your badge.), and eventually can enhance up to three stats and/or skills to +10 with it. As I also mentioned earlier, you can also use bounty points to recharge enhancive items. There is an adventurer's guild in every major town, and you can ;go2 advguild, (and ;go2 advguard, and for certain tasks. ;go2 npchealer for herb tasks.).
15)Bless Changes - You no longer need a blessed weapon to attack undead, and instead will simply lose 25% of your weapon's damage factor against them. You can now bless any weapon regardless of its properties, with no reduction in swings before it wears off (flares, crit weighting, etc.). If a skilled cleric blesses your weapon it can also get holy flares against undead, as well as anchor non-corporeal undead so that they don't disappear for 30 seconds (Finally we can search them for loot!).
16)Service Skills - Service skills, such as wizard enchant, are now able to be performed basically instantly. No more giving your item to a wizard for months. Instead, they can gain the needed pool of resources to enchant it beforehand, then apply it to your item without you having to wait (The exception being if you need to wait for them to build up the resources, which is capped at a certain amount per week. Wizards can enchant items up to 7x as before, Sorcerors can ensorcell weapons/armor/shields (Which gives various boosts on weapons, and -CvA on armor and shields.), Monks can give you a tattoo that can enhance a stat up to +10, Warriors can add weighting to weapons and padding to armor, Rangers can create an item that makes you resistant to various elements, bards can permanently unlock loresongs on items, and Clerics can sanctify weapons/armor/shields, giving weapons permabless, holy flares, and increased AS or CS vs undead and armor/shields added DS/TD and sheer fear protection against undead. All the classes are slated to eventually get a service skill (as well as Bards, since loresong unlock hardly counts.).
17)Invoker - The Invoker is an NPC that was introduced, that appears for 15 minutes every 4 hours during the day, and every 2 hours in the evening. Use the lich script ;invokertime, to see when the next time she comes around will be. She appears only in the Small Park in Landing currently, room 288. Ask invoker for spells, to get 4 hours of every class's spells.
Training Basics:
No matter your level, I would train this way as a baseline:
1x Armor (Until you are trained for what you want to use and/or the armor skill ranks you want.)
2x Weapon Skill
1x Combat Maneuvers
1x Shield or Two Weapon Combat (Depending on your choice.)
1x Physical Fitness
2x Hiding
2x Ambush
2x Perception
2x Dodging
2x Pickpocketing (Ok ok, I am kidding. Or am I?)
25-50 Climbing/Swimming depending on your level and where you hunt.
10-20 Arcane Symbol Ranks (If you are a locksmith. You want this for glyph traps and scarabs.)
A few things to consider beyond this baseline:
I can't stress enough, the value of saving TPs, and spending some time hunting to determine your greatest weaknesses, then training to fill in for your needs! If you are unsure if you should be improving your hiding more, or your CM, or physical fitness, armor, or whatever else, save the points and go out and hunt! Then you can determine your greatest needs! As long as you train the baseline skills listed here, you can fill in the rest later!
Are you struggling to get the AS needed to kill reliably? Get more Combat Maneuvers and/or TWC. Is your lack of hiding skill driving you crazy? Pump some more TPs into it then! Are you dying to maneuver attacks? Get more CM/dodge/perception/PF! Are warding spells killing you? Get more combat focus and/or armor use for using heavier armor. Struggling to pick boxes? Get more disarm/picking ranks. Need more DS? Get more dodge, TWC, Multi Opponent Combat, or shield ranks, or more CM for the Combat Movement passive cman (Dodging being the best source of +DS of all of those.)
As I mentioned earlier, I would 3x hiding at lower levels if possible, to get 120 hiding ranks as soon as you can. As an ambusher I'd say this should be priority 1 before all other things. You can also choose to spend your extra points on 2-3x picking/disarming, 2x Combat Maneuvers, 2x Two Weapon Combat, and 2x Physical Fitness. 3x picking is a tough one to afford, so 2-2.5x might be better for you. If you go shield I would stick to 2x dodge/1x shield use, until you have 3x dodging (which for most is a post cap goal.), THEN go 2x shield. 2x armor may also be a good choice if you are trying to get the 70 ranks needed to wear metal breastplate at lower levels. I'd also recommend squeezing in 5-25 Multi Opponent Combat ranks as early as you can manage, for Force on Force purposes (More on this later.).
Some people recommend 2x Physical Fitness as a baseline, but I actually rank it lower than other things, myself.
UCS (Unarmed Combat System) ambushing is a very viable build for an ambushing rogue. You aim for the head or neck (punch/kick head) because it is 100% crush damage. When you use a UCS attack from hiding, you usually get a free tier up in positioning, which is why rogue's make for good unarmed combat users. The drawback is that you usually have to hit them twice to kill them (Though you can get up to about 50% first hit kills with enough skill), but the second attack is near guaranteed to kill in most situations. UCS ambush pairs well with Mug, since you can mug punch from hiding and get your free tier up.
Archery is a very viable and strong build for rogues, and I will get into greater detail on that at another time as I update this guide. There have been a lot of recent changes to how it works, especially ammo management. Check out the wiki: Ranged Weapons - GemStone IV Wiki (play.net)
Ultimately, I recommend you choose your weapon based on RP choice, and work around that. But For edged weapons, daggers are good for ambushing eyes, and handaxes are great for ambushing heads. If you have specific weapon type questions just hit me up on Discord.
What armor to use?
I get asked this question probably more than any other question, and my answer differs from the advice many rogues give. I feel that the best armor for a rogue is metal breastplate or double leather, in most cases. Not brig you ask?!?! Nope, I actually think that brig is less appealing now because of the armor masteries (It's not bad, it's just that I feel the other armors are a better choice depending on your situation.). If you have a good set of brig though, by all means keep it, as the differences are not massive. Some people also use scale armor mastery to switch between martial stances as part of their combat strategy.
The reason I like plate armor, is you get a LOT of -CvA, which is the same thing as +TD. So if you wear metal breastplate, you get -18 CvA, or +18 TD. That's 20 more TD than what brig gives you (since brig gives you -2). Sure, you lose some DS because of it, due to less evade DS, but it protects you against the stuff that usually kills you. That time you got immobilized and then killed? Plate might have saved you because you can take a greater beating (especially if you have good padding/redux), and gives you -3-5 CER against maneuver attacks. And those pesky warding spells? Going plate is the best way to protect yourself. Plate saves your bacon in those "Oh CRAP!" situations! If you need more DS, go see the invoker, or use a small statue. Or train more dodging. Or get some +dodging/agility enhancives. Also keep in mind that SMR2 defense has MASSIVE diminishing returns, and in my testing, a fully trained capped rogue lost only 1% SMR2 defense going from no armor to full plate (Also keep in mind, metal breastplate is the same Action Penalty as only augmented chain, if you use rank 5 armored evasion, which is significantly less than full plate.). Also armor has no impact on stealth, which has been a rumor going around since the beginning of time. It only impacts vanish chance, but you can use silent strike with no penalty.
But as I said, double leather is also a great choice, and much more popular for most rogues. You get a lot of extra DS from Light Armor Proficiency, and your CvA isn't as bad as it used to be in it.
Ultimately, rogues are probably the most flexible class in the game when it comes to armor. We can make any type of armor work, from robes all the way to full plate, which is pretty cool if you ask me!
Essentially, I think that you should choose your armor based on your greatest weakness, unless for your character's image, a certain type of armor especially fits.
Also, keep in mind that if you feel plate throws off your character's image, RP wise, there are armor concealers and shimmering trinkets which completely hide it. Shimmering trinkets are the best thing ever added to the game in its entire history, so you should get one :D
A few further notes on maneuver defense (SMR2). The primary stat to help you defend against it is Agility, with Dexterity and Intuition being secondary. As for skills, physical fitness, dodging, combat maneuvers, and perception all have EQUAL weight in helping you defend. I had mentioned 1x Physical Fitness as a baseline earlier, but going 2x in it does help against these kinds of attacks (as well as gives you more redux), though I feel that for most rogues, getting more combat maneuvers, dodging, or hiding is more important than going 2x PF. By all means, do all of it if you can afford the TPs!
What Society?
To be honest, all the societies work well for a rogue. I don't really like giving my opinion on this. Look it up yourself and decide:
Sunfist: Guardians of Sunfist - GemStone IV Wiki (play.net)
Council of Light: Council of Light - GemStone IV Wiki (play.net)
Voln: Order of Voln - GemStone IV Wiki (play.net)
Hunting Thoughts/Opinions
Your main bread and butter as an ambushing rogue, is the stance pushdown and added crit weighting of ambush. A rogue trained in ambush can get up to 50 CER crit weighting guaranteed to be added to their attacks from hiding (Just like crit weighting from other sources, you MUST do enough damage to get a minor wound against the critter for that weighting to apply. This especially comes into play when using small weapons against heavy armor. For example, a dagger needs to get a 247 end roll in order for your crit weighting to apply when attacking plate armor.). 50 CER is five times that of heavy crit weighting (10 CER) on a weapon!! The stance pushdown of ambush has a random component, but if fully trained you will get them down to offensive stance or very close to it, no matter their stance. So no need for feint or anything like that! Another often overlooked benefit of ambush, is that it cuts the target's Evade/Block/Parry chance in half, which is a pretty big deal.
A big mistake I see a lot of players do, is hunt exclusively in offensive stance. Some even brag about it like it makes them cool or something. Don't be a scrub, and stance dance. Even if you don't script, you can include it in your macros. "Stance offensive \r ambush critter head \r" and make a macro for "stance defensive \r." Or just include it in your scripts. Also, if you are unable to reliably weather the attacks of a critter, you can wait for it to take its action, then attack right afterwards. Unless you are really slow to attack, you can usually get back into defensive stance before its next round. A.k.a. stance dancing.
"Oh but Midgar, I'm so awesome they can't touch me with their AS. Defensive stance is for weaklings!" Well my friend, enjoy getting pounded by those maneuver attacks and combat maneuvers, because those are also HIGHLY impacted by stance. Hunting in offensive stance doesn't somehow mean you are better at the game, it actually means you are worse at it. Learn to play.
I would recommend that you ALWAYS try to complete a bounty for your hunt. Personally I will never hunt without a bounty. I can't stress enough the importance of not neglecting the adventurer's guild bounties (as I said very clearly earlier in this guide.). I see a lot of people not utilizing it, which is greatly reducing your XP gains, as well as not getting you bounty points, which at the very least can net you extra silvers and a better badge. Your advguild badge is potentially one of the best enhancive items there is in the game, as it can eventually have +10 to three stats and/or skills. When you do a bounty, you want to make sure you turn it in when your mind is completely full, and it will saturate you with the XP bonus. This is why it's so good for XP. I personally was too stubborn to do bounties for a long time, stuck in my pig headed old ways, and I absolutely regret it big time! Not only that, but rogues are amazing at kill bounties because we are great at killing single targets, and Mug works on heirlooms!
Another thing I'd like to mention, is Force on Force. I touched on this briefly earlier. A lot of rogues get destroyed by swarms because of this. Basically, for every multiple critter in a room that attacks you, your defense is decreased due to FoF. This also applies to focused mstrike attacks against you. To reduce or eliminate this DS reduction, you want to train in Multi Opponent Combat. If you ONLY are training it for defensive purposes, a good goal is to try and get 25 ranks of it.
Skills like sweep and subdue can be useful, especially if you need to immobilize a critter for defensive purposes. One thing that is pretty cool about ambush though, is that it's possible to utilize other strategies to cut these skills out, if you so choose. For example, if you are having to subdue a critter in order to hit them hard enough to kill them, you might actually be able to kill faster if you moved to a slower weapon, and cut out subdue. As a goal, you can even strive to improve your AS, through enhancives, training, enchants, and so forth, in order to get high enough end rolls to not even need these moves, even when using the fastest of weapons like a dagger. The beauty of ambush, is it's already performing one of the most important things of a set up move - stancing the target down.
Obviously there are still times where the various cmans are useful, even if you strive to cut them out where possible. For example if it's a tall critter and you need to prone it to hit the eyes or head. Or if you can't handle a swarm without using shield throw, eviscerate, divert, or other swarm beating move. Or if it's a perceptive critter and you need to eyepoke or dirtkick it to hide against it, etc.. I also like to subdue pirate captains before I waylay them, since you can't kill them in one hit anyways. I also cutthroat liches on occasion when South Scatter is swarming (because destroying their phylacteries is annoying.).
A strategy I personally like to utilize when possible, is relying on Vanish and/or silent strike (as long as you have enough stealth skill. This can always be improved through enhancives, armored stealth, and ascension.). For example, if I am in a swarm, I can just silent strike ambush them, and then I don't need to worry about eviscerate or divert, etc.. Or if a critter evades, blocks, or parries my attack, I can quickly jump back into stealth with Vanish (getting stamina regen enhancives makes this especially easy.). This is an alternative strategy to immobilizing critters with cmans, and is the fastest method of killing as a rogue. Some people tell me this way of hunting is less fun, but whatever, I think being slow to kill things is less fun! Another sometimes overlooked thing, is that vanish and silent strike are removing your hiding RT, and thus can even be utilized purely offensively, simply to speed up combat (You can even blow more stamina using qstrike to reduce RT even further, if you so choose.). Personally, combat is more fun for me when I utilize these skills.
And again, let me reiterate that there are exceptions to this. For example, one of the capped hunting areas I like to hunt at, the Atoll, has Psionicists that cast with a very high CS, and have an open cast spell that can knock you out of hiding. In this case, unless you have really fantastic TD, you very well might want to lead with an immobilizing skill like subdue, since vanish/silent strike might not save you.
Another thing to keep in mind, is that if you hit a critter in the head or neck, and it doesn't kill them, and you inflict a rank 3 wound on them, the next attack will hit the chest if you aim for the same spot (This does not apply to UCS though). In this case, switch from the neck to the head, or the head to the neck, depending on where you first attacked. if you are aiming for the eye, it will automatically target the other eye for you, which is pretty nice.
The best ambushing weapons for a rogue are the dagger, katar, handaxe, ball and chain, and mace, purely mechanically speaking.
Again, I still feel your weapon choice should be mostly RP based, so take my mechanical advice as far as you care to with all of this.
A dagger is actually the best weapon a rogue can ambush with (without an absolutely obscene investment in Blackjack to be superior by a mere 5%), if you can field a high enough AS and have enough crit weighting (be aware that DEX bonus also gives crit weighting.). This is because of its speed, coupled with its 66% puncture chance. A puncture to the eye is guaranteed to kill if you get a rank 7 or higher crit. This is not possible with other crit types, as they need a rank 9 crit to guarantee death (slash to eye, or crush to head/neck). Also, a dagger works with Predator's Eye stance, which gives you only a 15% chance to miss as opposed to 25% otherwise.
Crush only weapons can also be great if you aim for the head or neck. Though they require a rank 9 crit to insure death, they have a 5% higher chance of landing than if you aim for the eye (this is what I was referring to with the Blackjack comment earlier). If you can get enough AS or crit weighting that getting a rank 9 is not a problem, then this can be quite effective.
Archery is also one of the strongest forms of combat a rogue can use, but it almost requires a whole new guide all in itself since the training and skills you use are almost completely different than a traditional melee ambush build, and it also has two styles - Open archer or sniper. I will at least touch on these two styles, to hopefully help you decide which route to take if you want to use ranged weapons.
Open archery's main value is that it costs very few training points - training points you can spend on picking, or even spells (a lot of open archers like to learn ewave, for example.).
A sniper, on the other hand, is someone who uses ranged weapons from hiding. In this case, it does NOT get the added critical damage of melee ambush, but it DOES get the stance pushdown and reduced EBP chance. You also can remain hidden when firing, whereas melee will take you out of hiding unless you burn stamina to use silent strike. This is more costly training point wise than an open archery build, because of the need of hiding skill.
One thing to consider when choosing an open archery vs sniper build, is the reduction in Evade/Block/Parry from sniping. Even if you don't need the stance pushdown to kill just fine, you will still get EBPed twice as often with an open archery build. This alone can make sniping a lucrative choice, depending on your training point circumstance.
In my opinion, since the introduction of Predator's Eye, ranged weapons are inferior to melee weapons in most circumstances. Unlike melee, you can train off the 1 second aiming RT penalty, but I no longer feel that is enough of an advantage to overcome the benefits of melee (largely due to TWC or shield benefits.). No doubt, it's still a very strong and viable build, if you choose to go the ranged route, and does have some advantages depending on what you plan to hunt.