Rogue balancing

[Yomar]

The Thief is pretty balanced, but his evolution the Rogue is not cause a trait called "strong", I explain, the Rogue beside beign cheap (24gp) goes increases his dammage from 4-3 to 6-3, his hp from 24 to 40, gets a multi hit ranged attack (4-3), and skirmish.
Now at night with backstab (much easier with the skirmishing ability) can inflict 14-3, the thing is that with the strong trait he can inflict a whopping ammount of 18-3 for a total of 54 !
He's hard to hit so if he has also resilient or quick trait, makes him really hard to hit, since now even ranged units get damaged if they attack him.

Now, this can be redolved easly, by simply lowering his damage by 1 point, from 6-3 to 5-3.

[Hejnewar]

I think I will challenge this statement!

In my opinion Rogue is perfectly fine unit. Now to prove that I will show some examples.
Let's as our test subject use Swordsman without resistances, both units are on flat and are strong, Rogue always has his backstab.
And now let's use some math but to to make it easier all strikes will hit but HP will be directly affected by defense of unit.

Rogue will deal 54 dmg, Swordsman will strike back with only 36 (remember Rogue still has his resistances) of them, but now comes Swordsman turn, he will strike dealing 36 dmg but in return he will recive only 27. (In total 81 vs 72.)

HP of Rogue is 41 and Swordsman's is 56, defense of Rogue is 0,6 and Swordsman's is 0,4. Now I will add defense to them using this formula =HP/(1-defense). Results will be as follow, Rogue HP with added defense will be equal to 102,5 and Swordsman's will be equal to 93,33.

As shown above Rogue should win this encounter but non the less it's very close one. During day Swordsman will surely be victorious, Swordsman can also defend a lot better than Rogue and can be used as good frontline unit (even without his good resistances ).

This can be challenged by saying that Rogue has more MP and skirmisher (but to be fair without them he wouldn't get enough backstabs) and that Rogues simply shouldn't fight units that are good in melee combat, problem with that is that players won't usually put their expensive ranged units in range of backstab and without second Rogue it will be hard to get that backstab and even if they do Rouge will probably need to end up behind enemy lines with many enemy units around.

Now in defense I will say that his presence on battlefield will impact how other players position their units forcing them to protect their precious units in certain way as well as worry about villages more because Rogue can easily take them, also with less enemy units on the battlefield Rogue will have even easier time getting backstabs.

In Age of Heroes getting Rogue is not a bad deal, but you need to remember that you are paying almost as much as for 2 thieves that if strong can deal even more dmg and zoc more units leaving less gaps in your defense (and taking your own villages will take longer) also getting him in your first recruitment can backfire if you play against chaotic faction.

Feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

TD;DR
For gold Rogue is good unit but not op one.
For xp Rogue is great unit (and should be one).

[Yomar]

You forgot that he has 60% so the Swordsman will land less hits, while he with only 40% def will be hit more times, things will be also much worse if the Rogue will attack from any other terrain but flat (something that a half decent player will certainly try to do), cause there he will get 70% def, then even if he would get wounded badly he can run away, while the other units (like the Dwarvish Guardsman)will protect him.
Plus he is cheaper than the Swordsman, and has ranged.
Also the Thief needs very little XP to advance compared to many other units.
After all the Javlineer only gets 1 extra damage, why not doign that with the Rogue too ?
Plus the Rogue can Evolve to the awesome Assasin.

[Hejnewar]

You forgot that he has 60% so the Swordsman will land less hits, while he with only 40% def will be hit more times, things will be also much worse if the

How did I forgot that? Its counted in here:

HP of Rogue is 41 and Swordsman's is 56, defense of Rogue is 0,6 and Swordsman's is 0,4. Now I will add defense to them using this formula =HP/(1-defense). Results will be as follow, Rogue HP with added defense will be equal to 102,5 and Swordsman's will be equal to 93,33.

Rogue will attack from any other terrain but flat (something that a half decent player will certainly try to do), cause there he will get 70% def

Yes but any decent player would also put his Swordsman on 60%. Increase from 60 to 70% is equal to 1,33 while increase from 40 to 60% is equal to 1,5. Swordsman would appreciate this exchange.

then even if he would get wounded badly he can run away, while the other units (like the Dwarvish Guardsman)will protect him.

In early game I wonder how would your composition and village grab look like if you have Rogue and Guard in it. I already talked enough about late game.

Plus he is cheaper than the Swordsman, and has ranged.
Also the Thief needs very little XP to advance compared to many other units.
After all the Javlineer only gets 1 extra damage, why not doign that with the Rogue too ?
Plus the Rogue can Evolve to the awesome Assasin.

Even without his resistances Swordsman wasn't that far away from winning against Rogue at night. And I think they are worth more than 1g and that ranged attack combined.
Yeah I talked about this too Rogue is great unit if you get him from level up. But as I said it's ok.
Javelineer also gets much better ranged attack.
I think that Royal Guard is better unit and you can get it for less xp from Swordsman.

[Krogen]

Nothing beats Dwarvish Fighters and Spearmen when it comes to how much they gain from a level up, also considering how difficult it is to get there. (Some drakes might come close.) Rogue, while a good unit, is extremely vulnerable to pretty much every opponent. It's one of the level 2s with the shortest average lifespans. You can't say the same about Swordsman and Steelclad, that can tank almost anything and are great on the offensive too. Both of those are extremely versatile, while Rogue has a really limited use.

[Yomar]

Well, steelclad is hard to kill, lot of HP resistant to everything, but at least he's much more expensive and also needs a lot more XP to level up than a Rogue and is also slower.

[Yomar]

Royal guard if not in village will be poisoned and dammaged from assasin, then Assasin runs away and he dies slowly zoced by Dwarven Sentinels that can also hit him with ranged and get no retail or/and killed by Dragonguards (no resistances against pierce).

[Hejnewar]

Royal guard if not in village will be poisoned and dammaged from assasin, then Assasin runs away and he dies slowly zoced by Dwarven Sentinels that can also hit him with ranged and get no retail or/and killed by Dragonguards (no resistances against pierce).

I don't think that's fair. Dwarf player has whole army while Loyalist player has only one unit. Looking at this description orcish assassin could accomplish exactly the same thing. (Also he can't run away in 1v1 because both Assassin and Royal Guard have 6 mp.)

Nothing beats Dwarvish Fighters and Spearmen when it comes to how much they gain from a level up, also considering how difficult it is to get there. (Some drakes might come close.)

I agree with Dwarvish Figter -> Steelclad being 1st but Spearman -> Swordsman I think is 3rd, Elvish Shaman -> Elvish Sorceress just gains more in my opinnion. I was also thinking about some UD units. I don't think drakes gain that much because thier base cost is high.

[Merith]

I think that Rogue has the bonus damage is because it's a glass back-stabbing cannon.

In retrospect, if you have the rogue go against other good terrain defenders, such as the saurian, or nagas, they would have a tough time hitting each other. Let's assume they are alone, no back up for that turn, they both kinda satisfy the work of grabbing a village and defend it, or distract the enemy and survive. Then, Rogue can just run away next turn with their skirmisher ability and live to stab another day.

Now, if they have the dmg reduction, that'll severely reduce the capability of them doing anything significantly in close combat against any lvl2 or lvl3 units (not counting lvl1, rouge being lvl 2 would be bullying lvl1 to death). If they don't have their backstabbing active, they might as well be a level 1 unit, with a target on their back (being level 2 = more kill xp).

Hence Rouge is fine right now. If anything, I'd see him as a "high risk, high reward" unit. If he lives, fulfill his duty as distractor, village grabber, and dmg dealer, then I'd say that's a worthy rouge, that he'd served his purpose.


"YOU SEXIST! DIEEEE"

PS: Okay, okay, I forgot, all pronouns are interchangeable with female (She/Her) and male (He/Her)

[Yomar]

Javlineer does only 1 extra damage compared to spearman and Lv2 Fencer does only 5-5.
Yes maybe Rogue is a high risk but gives more reward than risk, for example the Horseman have much higher chances to be hit back and if you loose him, you lost a lot of money, if you play Age of Heroes, Rogue is cheap so loosing him after that he killed Red Mage for example is really worth it.

I meant Assasin can run behind Dwarven guards, and be protected well from any unit.

I'll prove it.

Let's compare two similar units the Rogue and the Duelist, both lv2 units, boot elusivefoot, both have melee and ranged and both have skirmish and same resistances.

Duelist costs much more 32 against 24.
But Rogue has backstab, ok, but not only, If its night a Rogue dont even needs backstab to attack especially if strong (9-3).
Now comes the good part, even if its day, a strong Rogue deals more damage than a Duelist if he uses backstab, even if the Duelist has strong trait.
And the Rogue is a Chaotic unit !

Now if its Age of Heroes if Rogue dies too after killing the Duelist, you lost more money, if it was default age you still loose in the exchange, because the Tihef needed much less XP to advance, so you lost XP, and this is true for many other units, cause most other units are more expensive and need more XP, to advance.