Rogue hires...

[Konsumer]

How is it possible that a rogue can't rogue? Even with 3 druid past lives and a greater heroism, the level 23 rogue can't search out traps in spies in the house elite? Which is a level 23 quest. If he were a player I'd boot him. Which is what I did anyway.

Come on DDO. Get good.

 

[TedSandyman]

I bought a rogue from the store to help with the spell traps in The Lost Thread. The store purchased rogue at the quest level could not disable the traps. I quickly complained bitterly on the forums, of course, and was told that Spell Absorption works on those traps. I was happy to learn about spell absorption, but it still galls me to no end that the rogue was unable to rogue. They are worthless in some situations. Not worth any money at all if they cant do what they are supposed to do. They should be fixed or taken out of the store.

 

[Grimreaperz]

That’s crazy. I had no idea that at epic levels they’re so buggy. I’ve not experienced this problem at lower levels. However the distance for searching seems quiet low. What I would like implemented into rogue hires would be to send the hireling in a certain direction then search that area. With the current system you have to be in the area and bring the hire to you. Kinda makes little sense to have a trapper if you have stand in the trap to search for it.

 

[DYWYPI]

For dealing with Spell Wards you could use 'Dispel Magic' scrolls if you have the relevant UMD, etc. The Spell Wards in 'The Lost Thread' on Elite, should be CR:23. The Scroll can remove 4–12 levels from the Spell Ward per successful casting. Thus, on average, it'd likely take about 3 successful castings to completely dissipate one of those Spell Wards.

All the older (vendor purchasable) Epic Rogue Hirelings have Search DCs lower than Search DC:55 (even if they use their Skills boost if they have one on their hotbar).

Note: Level 20 quests on Epic Elite have a minimum suspected Search DC of 59. The quest 'Spies in the House' has a suspected Search DC of 61 on Epic Elite.

Albeit the Rogue Hirelings still flat-out cheat; they don't even need to have adequate search DC for "unrevealed" trap Control panels to be able to attempt to Disable them.

In other words they can fail [Search DC] to find the Control Panel, but still magically attempt to disable it; as if they had revealed it via a successful Search – even though it's invisible to the players.

If you want to "improve" them, then they should have to obey the same rules as the Characters, i.e. if they fail the Search check they cannot attempt to disarm any Control Panel – that hasn't yet been revealed.

Their actual Search DC values are mostly fine, as they are suitable Search DCs for: Epic Normal, up to Level 30, or Epic Hard at around Level 23. They just blatantly ignore the fact "unrevealed" control panels can exist, which pretty much makes a mockery of the Search rules with regards to Traps. :-/

 

[Misadventure]

Those rogues came out more then 5 years ago, nobody updated their built, thus they are outdated builds which makes them fail epically on their job. I bet their enhancement trees got reset long ago and nobody went to redo it.

 

[Alternative]

I haven't used them much, but it seemed like the lvl 21 rogue was more specced for traps than some of the higher ones.

 

[Scrag]

On what difficulty are you playing? Normal? Hard? Elite? Reaper?

I would assume that no hireling is going to do reaper whatsoever, and may have trouble with elite.

It takes massive investment in trapping (gear, skill points, past lives, whatever) to be able to do it. An ungeared, max skill, no other features rogue is going to have a hard time with traps in reaper, and frankly most likely just fail.

Why should a hireling outperform a player?

 

[mbartol]

I get it, trapping takes some investment, but a store-bought rogue hireling has one job. It doesn’t really need to sacrifice any opportunity cost to focus on anything but trapping.

I think all pets/summons/hirelings should be scaled based on quest difficulty the same way mobs get bumped in higher difficulty. There’s no reason for them to be relegated to complete pointlessness.

 

[DYWYPI]

The Epic Hirelings are possibly not intended for soloing Epic Elite within Bravery Bonus on their own nor should they be. Hirelings are not specifically designed to deal with the challenge of Reaper.

Like I explained prior Rogue hires can be made to Disable unrevealed trap Control panels without even needing to use their Search skill. Furthermore, 'Reaper mode' does not increase required: Search or Disable DC values. The Epic Rogue hireling Disable Device skills will likely be aimed for being reliable for Epic: Normal or Hard settings.

 

[Scrag]

I get it, trapping takes some investment, but a store-bought rogue hireling has one job. It doesn’t really need to sacrifice any opportunity cost to focus on anything but trapping.
...
There’s no reason for them to be relegated to complete pointlessness.

At which point a party of humans has been rendered pointless.

 

[mbartol]

Some people run solo. Personally, I don’t buy hirelings from the store, but am sympathetic to the OPs complaint.

And besides, a rogue hireling capable of trapping would never make a human player pointless.

 

[l_remmie]

The only rogue hire who does anything at all is Lilo. At lvl21. With her boost and a GH she can do early epics. And even then roll a 1 and its boom! I only bring her for some secret doors and locked chests.

 

[TedSandyman]

For dealing with Spell Wards you could use 'Dispel Magic' scrolls if you have the relevant UMD, etc. The Spell Wards in 'The Lost Thread' on Elite, should be CR:23. The Scroll can remove 4–12 levels from the Spell Ward per successful casting. Thus, on average, it'd likely take about 3 successful castings to completely dissipate one of those Spell Wards.

All the older (vendor purchasable) Epic Rogue Hirelings have Search DCs lower than Search DC:55 (even if they use their Skills boost if they have one on their hotbar).

Note: Level 20 quests on Epic Elite have a minimum suspected Search DC of 59. The quest 'Spies in the House' has a suspected Search DC of 61 on Epic Elite.

Albeit the Rogue Hirelings still flat-out cheat; they don't even need to have adequate search DC for "unrevealed" trap Control panels to be able to attempt to Disable them.

In other words they can fail [Search DC] to find the Control Panel, but still magically attempt to disable it; as if they had revealed it via a successful Search – even though it's invisible to the players.

If you want to "improve" them, then they should have to obey the same rules as the Characters, i.e. if they fail the Search check they cannot attempt to disarm any Control Panel – that hasn't yet been revealed.

Their actual Search DC values are mostly fine, as they are suitable Search DCs for: Epic Normal, up to Level 30, or Epic Hard at around Level 23. They just blatantly ignore the fact "unrevealed" control panels can exist, which pretty much makes a mockery of the Search rules with regards to Traps. :-/

Yes you can use dispel magic on those, if you are a magic user.

So am I supposed to buy a thief and a magic user?

When I play thief, I CAN disable those WITHOUT any dispel magic.

Any competent thief will be able to disable those.

If you splash in thief and don't really dedicate yourself, then you might need dispel magic, but any person or NPC who is pure thief should be able to disable traps at level.

The point of this topic and my post specifically is that any thief in the ddo store, paid for with real money, should be a decent thief and should be able to do this simple task. The fact that you CAN use dispel magic doesn't change that fact.

 

[TedSandyman]

At which point a party of humans has been rendered pointless.

If you feel this way, then we shouldn't have hirelings at all. And as for my post, if the thief cant thief, then so be it, but take the worthless thief out of the store.

 

[SiliconScout]

At which point a party of humans has been rendered pointless.

One could only wish. There are times I don't mind "humaning" but that's usually with people I know. Playing with groups of randos is very potpourri at times and all it takes is 1 jerk to put a real damper on an evening.

I find about half the groups I join up either don't have or don't use voice at all and don't appear to watch the chat so it often feels like you are running with a handful of hires that I don't even have a hotbar for.

Don't get me wrong grouping up can be fun and some of my best times were playing with others, as were some of my worst. Alas the best times are more in the past and those worst are more recent so I will freely admit I mostly solo now unless someone I know is on.

That all said the rogues cost actual money and can only be bought in the store. They should be able to do their job, even if that means they have a chance of failure on Elite difficulty but when they just outright can't manage it, sometimes on normal or hard, that is unacceptable.

I am with the OP here.

 

[Talam]

I agree. Purchased an epic one for first time in HC, couldn't find anything, just dropped him and prayed.

 

[DYWYPI]

Those (vendor purchasable) Epic Rogue Hirelings are also available for purchases using Platinum pieces at the appropriate Hireling vendor as previously stated.

Ted, I mentioned [Dispel Magic] scrolls (UMD Difficulty: 28) with regards to an 'alternative method' (if someone really was bothered enough) to dissipate the Spell Wards without having a [Rogue] in the party. Even my pure Barbarian can easily use Dispel Magic scrolls because I invested some points in the UMD skill for her.

For example, it means my Level 20 pure Barbarian could easily "disable" the highest (Epic Elite) CR:36 rated Spell Ward in the game – on average (5 successful castings). In contrast my Rogue would have to heavily invest in equipment and training if she were to use Disable Device for a Spell Ward; the [CR:36] Spell Ward would likely have a Disable device DC near 116. A Disable Device skill of 116 isn't as easily to attain as getting enough UMD for using a simple Dispel Magic scroll. I can tell you this, at Level 20; my well-geared Rogue likely wouldn't be able to reach a Disable Device skill of 116...

I'll reiterate; the Epic Hirelings are possibly not intended for soloing Epic Elite within Bravery Bonus on their own nor should they be. The Epic Rogue hireling Disable Device skills will likely be aimed for being reliable for Epic: Normal or Hard settings.

The Rogue Hirelings still flat-out cheat; they don't even need to have adequate search DC for "unrevealed" trap Control panels to be able to attempt to Disable them.

Thus, the hire's Search skill is effectively unlimited; they'll never fail to locate a Trap Control Panel, whereas my Rogue would need a Search DC of about 100 for Level 32 on Epic Elite.

The problem you seem to be having is you are expecting far too much from the Rogue hire, they aren't really meant for doing Epic Elite at Level. Elite is intended for full, well-prepared, well-balanced groups of 6. Maybe SSG should use better wording in their descriptions, and mention those rogues were designed for cakewalking traps in Epic Normal content.

Perhaps you should take it up with SSG and ask them directly why those Rogue hirelings were purposely designed for helping with Epic: Normal or Hard, rather than Epic Elite. I can make an educated guess as to why they chose to aim their Disable skill for Epic: Normal, and possibly Hard, setting environments. It actually makes a lot of sense – even if you don't agree with their decision.

 

[somenewnoob]

I haven't used them much, but it seemed like the lvl 21 rogue was more specced for traps than some of the higher ones.

This. Lilo is the one to get. Have never had trouble with him on R3 doing traps in spies, picking doors in Broken Chains......he's the better one.

 

[DYWYPI]

Level 21 Lilo Blackstitch (Rogue Mechanic), does have the +3 Skills boost so it would make some sense as to why she performs well for her level (when that boost is active).

 

[Coffey]

Does casting prayer, greater heroism and foxs cunning on a rogue hireling help?