Why do rogues move side to side

That's how I tend to play it. So I'll go in and do some of the events or try to kill one of the bosses, which adds this element of tension because you never know if somebody might come in and try to go hostile on you while you're doing stuff like that. Luis Barriga: If you renounce the error of your ways you can turn off your hostile flag back in town, have a priest absolve you. But if you're the kind of player that's really into PvP, and you're like, no, I want people to know that I'm here to gank them, we have a really cool mechanic called the Vessel of Hatred.

The more people you kill and the longer you remain hostile, you become marked on other people's map. So now they know there's somebody really dangerous around. So they know to stay away, or to try to form a group to try to take you down. John Mueller: Yeah, you also have a lot of shards because you've been killing players! Luis Barriga: Right.

After farming shards against monsters for a certain while, you might have like or If someone sees a Vessel of Hatred, and they know they haven't turned in those shards, they might be in the thousands. You're a very attractive target! The more high-skilled players on the team really enjoy that mechanic.

They're kind of like sharks circling the waters. It sounds very backstabby! One of my questions was going to be, can I gank as a Rogue, but clearly you can gank as a Rogue in this game! John Mueller: Yeah. It's a perfect mechanic for the Rogue. With some of the specialisations you can ambush pretty well, like with the Shadow Realm specialisation. Luis Barriga: If you don't like PvP, you're not forced to go into these areas. We entice you with some rewards, but there's nothing mandatory here.

There's nothing like that. You don't need to be there to beat Lilith or anything like that. There's other cool stuff in the open world. If you're a pure PvE player, the camps feature is really going to speak to you.

Diablo 4 takes place after the events of Diablo 3, when Malthael decimated humanity. So you might have these places of importance that once had human inhabitants, like churches, or lighthouses, or strongholds and forts and things like that, that have fallen or are now cursed to have like vengeful ghosts or demons.

Maybe someone did a pact with someone they shouldn't have. Each one of them has its own backstory. You find them through exploration in the world, you complete the combat there, and then you flip them into a friendly encampment, where now NPCs are approaching, you might see vendors, quest givers, maybe one points you to a newly-opened dungeon. But also you will see other players in these small encampments.

They might be there to approach a unique vendor, but also because it gives you access to a new waypoint. It's a way to get mastery over the world and quickly get through around the world by doing PvE content.

There is so much Diablo 2 DNA The ideas are well-developed in MMOs like World of Warcraft, which I love and play it and have worked on a bunch of myself. We've taken some of those ideas and applied them in a in a very different scale. We think that Diablo 4 with this vision of like, post-apocalyptic, almost humanity struggling to get by, doesn't feel super right when it's more players than NPCs in a field where you're fighting over spawns, and where a villager feels like yeah, I could have my pick of like 10 adventurers or 20 adventurers to help me with a mundane problem that I have.

So it was really important for us that players are almost there to remind you that you're lonely and all on your own when you go into dungeons. So, on your way to the dungeon, you might see one or two people and it really adds something to the game because you're like, wait, wait! I need to ask this person where they got the trophy, or I need to ask them if like they can point me in the right direction because they have clearly completed the same quest I'm on.

So having those glimpses of seeing other players, as opposed to going into a location where there's always a huge amount, we find feels really good. And then once you go down that dungeon instance, it's just you and your party. It's super familiar Diablo gameplay. We think that the combination is working super well. John and I spent countless hours over the break just playing the game.

We're huge fans of Diablo obviously, but we also play a lot of open-world games. And we're like, yeah, this is ticking all the boxes for us. So we really like the way that it's going. John Mueller: There's a feeling when you're in the open world, if you see another player you want it to be scarce enough that you're curious and not annoyed. Like, why is this person intruding on my space or taking my loot or something like that?

That would feel really bad in Diablo. When we would encounter somebody it was always like, oh! Who's that? What are they doing out here?

And sometimes you group with them, or maybe they're running the same quests. But it's pretty rare, which makes it cool. The world events, though, when you know you're going to take on something really big, that's when you want to have more players and it makes it more engaging because you see lots of different players with lots of different play styles and builds and gear.

That feels really good in the open world. That allows the dungeons to remain pretty much completely intact, the way that people would expect them to be. Luis Barriga: It's actually not a hard number. Your party size is still four. But then we have heuristics to group people and shard people and things like that. So it can vary. If a ballpark helps, it's about two to three times the size of a party, roughly, because we want that flexibility as you invite people to not have to now split off into two shards and things like that.

So it's a number that actually fluctuates a little bit, as opposed to saying, it's always 12 people, go! It's a floating number that goes up and down, depending on people adding new people to the party. How do you balance these world events difficulty wise for players of different skill and power levels? Luis Barriga: There's definitely some amount of math that goes into the encounters like that, that are balanced for a group.

They scale a little bit. So basically, if you have below a certain threshold, you shouldn't expect that these are tuned for you. So if you're below a certain level, you might not be ready to do these. And if you don't see other players around you might not be able to do them at all. But, whether you have eight or 10 players, there's a certain adaptability we have when we spawn the boss to make it the correct difficulty for that group.

While these are challenging, and they do require a lot of people, they don't require the super intricate teamwork of MMO raid fights. You don't need to make a hard party to be able to take on these. They're more organic events. We want to create the impression that this is something that is going to take more effort than just a single player.

We zoom the camera out. We make sure you understand this is gonna be a dangerous thing. You do need to pay attention to the mechanics, but it isn't the sort of demanding, like, okay guys, we wiped, let's try it 12 times or whatever.

That's not the expectation. We do have areas where you push content, but they don't happen in these organically matchmade areas. Key dungeons is an example of something that caters to to players that progress more and more. Diablo 4 is non-linear, where players can go to any act they want at any time. In terms of telling the story, how do you manage that? Luis Barriga: There's definitely pieces. So there's a beginning, there's an end. And there's some zones that you can do in any order. But there's definitely a sequence to which zones are in this part, versus a zone that comes in at the end.

So that's how we've taken that approach. Players of big world RPGs should be pretty familiar with the structure. There's a few variants out there of it. For example, you get this moment where you have a choice to go into one of three zones, and you can do them in any order. But at some point, the story is gonna converge and everything makes sense. Now you're ready for that ending motion in the story. John Mueller: In practice, you'll get caught up in side quests and other things and other objectives, and you'll do a little bit of story, and then you'll go off and do something else.

The world pulls you around a little bit, just by the nature of this kind of space. I found it to be really refreshing to not be locked into, like, I have to do the campaign. I can do it at my own pace, and it really doesn't prohibit my feeling of progression. I'd love to talk about damage numbers. I'm a big fan of Diablo 3 but the numbers are now very high - into the billions.

What's your philosophy for Diablo 4? Will you scale them lower so they're more meaningful? Luis Barriga: Diablo 3 didn't start there. We got there over time. Players should expect that your character will feel like they are getting more powerful, but we're absolutely trying to keep the numbers under control.

We're absolutely trying to make sure that out the gate, it puts us in a place where we're not going like, two months in we're talking about doing a squish or anything like that. So, I absolutely agree. The one caveat is, it's still a Diablo game. Even in Diablo 2 that progress you feel towards the higher levels, that you do feel more more powerful, is still there. So it's something we want to tap into in Diablo 4, that there's a cool feeling to your progression as a character, that you do feel much more powerful at max level than at level one, but then we don't get into stratospheric numbers out the gate.

We do also have some philosophies in place that we're talking about that maybe will prevent us from getting into those high numbers. As an example, we've talked about being more okay with nerfing things. After a season ends and before the next one begins, you might see some nerfs to keep things under control. That's one of the things that maybe there was a little bit of a difference in philosophy that can lead to that creep.

But over time, I would expect that as we add more content, those numbers might get a little higher. We're gonna try to do everything we can to keep them chill, but at the end of the day, if it ends up being the sacrifice of like, oh man, this is what feels good, and it's like, maybe going from a certain number to a little bit higher, that's something we can tolerate.

But I agree with you - we want to avoid being in the billions out the gate! You've said the world is inhabited by deadly monster families of thematically linked creatures, and that they work together to present interesting strategic challenges. Once the rogue has made their first move, there are two main options. Strategic use of Vanish can also be very powerful, but he must be wary for any DoTs present.

In a Capture the Flag scenario e. Warsong Gulch , a rogue can often make a good flag-bearer by staying in stealth for part of a battle, then grabbing the flag and running like hell while a mage freezes the enemy in place. Abilities like Sprint , Shadowstep and the talent Improved Sprint can give the rogue a way to cross large open spaces with extreme speed.

In raid PvP go for the healers. Rogues are good at interrupting spells and making a caster's life hell. Just stealth and while everyone is working fighting at the front creep around back and get the healers and mages. You can inflict a lot of damage in a matter of seconds, but after that your damage will drop sharply. You want your enemy to be dead well, as close as possible in the first ten seconds or so. Alternatively, open up by sneaking up behind them, use pickpocket and then Backstab or Ambush if you are high enough.

Rogues main attribute is Agility and should be the foremost thing equipment is chosen for. In PvE situations, it's best to also have equipment that boosts Stamina as Rogues generally have low hitpoints. Each point of Stamina equals 10 more hitpoints.

Spirit is also helpful to avoid long downtimes between fights. As of 3. A link to start off your research Stat Weights. First, Recuperate no longer always breaks stealth. As an additional note that probably applied in 4. This means that, in dungeons or areas where you are killing multiple enemies in groups, it is wise to make a habbit of tapping your recuperate button after every pull.

Since Recuperate does not conflict with any other HoT in the game i. Since the 4. To do this, find a neutral, but attackable mob. Stealth, use Premeditation, then use Recuperate. You won't attack the mob but you will gain a HoT. This can be done every 20 seconds, i. Keep in mind your recuperate will break stealth, so this should be done after clearing the area of hostile mobs first.

For bonus points, get 3 points in Energetic Recovery and in an area with an even mix of neutral and hostile mobs you should be able start each battle with about 5 seconds of Recuperate remaining, generating 60 extra energy during that time, i. If you're desperate, you can also do this trick on a hostile mob. Stealth, Sap, Premeditation, Recuperate, Vanish. This is a pretty lousy way to waste your Vanish cooldown, but again, if you're desperate, a heal is a heal. Of course, if you're grinding in a very sparsely populated area, where you are unlikely to need Vanish very often, you might as well.

This basically stems from the concept that if they can't attack you, they can't harm you. This is especially effective for fighting warrior mobs, or in general anything that will deal a great deal of damage with just one hit. This assumes you are not using any DOT poisons. I prefer Instant Poison on the main hand and Crippling Poison on the off hand which deals extra DPS on assassination moves, and a chance to slow the mob during normal rolls.

This is an alternative stunlock for mutilate rogues. Specc'd right, and assuming everything hits, your mob will only have 2 seconds to do any damage on you. If everything goes dandy, a mob of similar level will be killed in about 18 seconds.

But don't be dependent on this, as this will receive a nerf when Cataclysm comes out for play. Rogues will rely on passive survivability rather than Stun locks. It is in fact possible to use Deadly Poison in a stunlock build and use envenom instead of eviscerate , but you need to look for the deadly poison tick.

Deadly poison only ticks once every 3 seconds so it's very possible to see it tick, hit gouge and get behind for a mutilate before it ticks again but it might take some practice. Envenom in general actually does superior damage to eviscerate even though you wouldn't say so while looking at the descriptions because Envenom ignores armor. Especially if you have the Vile Poisons talent maxed. Whatever the situation, the key thing to remember is that you are there to deal damage and up the group's average DPS.

In practice, this means two things - killing things fast, and minimizing downtime. Killing things fast is, in general, the easy bit. The Rogue is born for this very task! Minimising downtime typically means not dying, and letting the Tank take all the hits. Make good use of Feint if you find you're stealing aggro from the tank. Conversely, if you see a cloth-wearer in trouble, help them out and try to pull the mob off them and onto you.

Resist the urge to start dps 'ing like mad though, but instead make sure the tanks picks up the mob from you asap since even though you might be able to kill it eventually, you require too much healing which needlessly increases the stress on the healer. Rogues need to be very aware of the entire area that you're doing battle in. Most classes will be content to stand behind the tank and let him hold aggro, hitting the target with their nukes, melee and ranged attacks.

But you need to be behind the mob being tanked to do your best damage. This may mean you're further down the hallway than the rest of your party. Look around before you just slip behind the mob by default.

Are you going to end up pulling an add or worse a group of them because you'll be in a threat radius that nobody else is in? Then maybe it might be better to forgo some DPS in favor of party survival. Think about what skills you use, especially when the fight starts. Instead, it might be wiser to start slow. By using Garrote to open with and following up with a rupture after a few more combo points you not only minimizes the chance you pull the tanks aggro , but you will make full use of armour piercing effect of bleeds on the usually highly armoured elites.

Using deadly poison instead of instant poison further enhances this effect. How you get the combo points for your initial rupture is debatable and highly dependant on your talents, but generally backstab is not recommended until the tank establishes a good threat level.

Healing will be focused on the Tank first, and depending on the situation and how many healers there are, there may not be enough for you. Be sure to back off and use First Aid to heal yourself; healthstones and healing potions can also be useful. For emergencies, be ready to use abilities such as Gouge , Kidney Shot and Evasion - these can make the difference between life and death for the group.

Just be aware that not all enemies can be stunned, especially bosses and many enemies in large raid PvE. Also see: Rogue PvE tactics for a guide on how to assist specific classes. Rogues are the most useful in group situations. Since you want to increase the group's DPS it's necessary to focus your equipment on Agility. Stamina is a secondary consideration to help keep the rogue alive.

Strength , while common in rogue gear before The Burning Crusade, has essentially been replaced with the more useful Attack Power. Engineering's Goblin Jumper Cables it does not depend upon spec, gnomish engineers can also get it can save the group from wiping, and they give you an excuse to vanish and save your own hide otherwise it may anger your party members.

Be sure to get the XL version asap, as it is much more effective. Chance to work is also increased if the target has not released, so tell your rezzer at the start of the instance. Outdoors, your main role is simply dealing damage.

You may, on occasion, have to help out with some Crowd Control using Sap before a pull. Enter a dungeon and the Rogue can really start to shine. You are the group's eyes and ears. Make sure you know how to use Distract and Stealth to move about undetected. Your role will be to scout ahead and call the shots. Quite often you won't be the actual puller, but you will direct the puller to tell them what mobs are around.

You will also be called upon to use Sap a fair bit. Once battle commences, your role is much as it is in any other group situation. However, you'll often find mobs are elite and have a very high Aggro Radius , making you less effective than normal.

If this is the case, be ready to use other abilities such as Rupture , and also Expose Armor if there's no Warrior If there are Warriors, don't use it, as they'll likely need to use Sunder Armor to keep aggro, but that can't be used if Expose Armor is active on the target. A rogue can also use Feint to attempt to get the mob to switch targets from the rogue to another player if the rogue is in danger of being killed.