What drives a poor reputation for the Rogue class?

[strangebloke]

[SPOILER=Strangebloke]
Okay... Strangebloke, this thread is 17 pages long, and I think the first time I replied to you was a couple of pages back and it was to agree with you. I have no idea why you think I'm misconstruing anything YOU said when you and I have not been engaging for the vast majority of this thread. When I did AGREE with you, you made a comment about how people get their hackles up over innocent comments that are in no way suggesting people don't play the class/subclass. You've said repeatedly now that no one is saying the features are useless, and there are no dog whistles.

I have the sense, given your comments about not posting here, not liking these discussions, and your lumping yourself in with the greater conversation despite only joining recently, that someone complained, and you've come running to white knight for your buddies.

The problem is... everything on the internet is eternal. So you can try and pretend that people are being misunderstood and you're confused, but let me clear things up for you. See comments from this thread saying that the features we've been discussing are no better than a background, or a skill proficiency/tool proficiency. In other words... useless:

I genuinely just don't know what to say man.

You keep saying that people are saying its useless. They don't say this, haven't said this, have in fact said the opposite many many times.

The point is that there's a good deal of air between "literally useless" and "almost always less useful than other comparable features at level 9." Infiltration expertise is useful in some scenarios. But overall, the subjective assessment they're presenting is that rogues can by default already be very good at this disguise/forgery/bluff kind of infiltration, so its kind of overkill to have an entire level of your class there to just go from "consistently hits DC 17" to "consistently hits DC infinity."

take this quote (don't know from whom)

The point is that in the campaigns that don't have those counters, you don't need a dedicated Infiltration subclass feature anyway, because without those things you can get by with a bog standard disguise kit and Deception Proficiency/Expertise anyway. You thus have no reason to pick Assassin over a subclass with features that will make it more likely you can both survive and contribute outside of that niche. Neither version of Assassin has anything that makes it special; as stated above, 2014's false identity is foolproof until it isn't (and even when it is, what benefit that specifically gets you is vague at best) and 2024's is rendered moot by the tool+skill=continual advantage rule.

The word here is "get by with" and "no reason to pick assassin over other benefits." This is an assessment of mechanical utility relative to alternatives. You are better off with infiltration expertise, but you can get by without it. In short, its useful, but you don't need it to have a good disguise. This is something you've said yourself, when you point out that an assassin can still impersonate someone, they just can't use the level 9 ability. The phrase "no reason to pick assassin over a subclass with [other] features." similarly does not imply that it doesn't do anything, just that other subclasses generally do more. Its an assessment of opportunity costs. The feature is pretty strong when it works, but would be more useful at level 3 than at level 9 when you're only 2 levels away from reliable talent and a big increase to your proficiency. (People also generally expect really strong features at level 9)

Its certainly not a statement of judgement against someone who just wants to play the class anyway. Something can be strictly suboptimal and still fun to play. These are just separate discussions entirely. Ludicsavant helped make a video on youtube where they take a monk into a challenge encounter and beat everything where more 'optimal' builds failed, so I think you see that we all understand that something that offers less utility overall isn't necessarily a harsh condemnation.

Again, to put this into perspective, in super smash bros melee, there's a character named Roy, who is strictly just a worse version of another character, Marth. And not like a little bit worse than Marth, like a LOT worse. marth is close to the best in the game, roy is close to the worst. The devs made Marth deal more damage at range and roy deal more damage when right next to someone, but its definitely better to do big things when you're far away than when your close, and the balance team messed up and made Marth WAAAAY better. But the best Marth player in the world (Zain) actually also plays Roy a lot and at one point based on his performance with roy alone was top 20 in the world. Roy is really bad but still has some edge cases where he can do some unique stuff. Zain really likes playing Roy and thinks he's funny and interesting. Would he ever ever ever argue with someone to say that Roy was actually more useful than Marth???? Obviously not, but he isn't playing roy because he's good. He's playing Roy because Roy's his boy and he likes roy.

I think its productive to separate questions of what is strictly the highest possible utility, from questions of what is interesting or potentially enjoyable. If you vibe with Assassin that's chill, but I think you could buff the subclass A LOT without making it close to overpowered.

This aged like milk.

consistency is the bugbear of little minds. I'd certainly be happier if I didn't subject myself to these conversations, but here we are.