What class for your main character in PoE?

Ive been doing the Rogue last couple years when given a choice, i really like sneaky gameplay and having the tension of knowing a hit or two can knock me on my ass proper. Questionable ethics as well, I prefer to play as close to a totally pragmatic, "shady" (if not outright evil) character as well. Basically, I've found it more fun to plan an asshole than a white knight

Open up with a nice ranged attack or dagger in the spleen, hoping for nice traps to play with

Originally Posted by Kordanor
What I don't like at the moment is that rogues can get a backstabtalent at level 2 which they can only use if they are invisible, which you can only be if you use another talent, which you get on level 4 and is 2 times per rest. So that is pretty horrible and unlike they change that till release I wont use both of them.

Invisible or stealthed, so you can get one at the start of a fight if you stealth your rogue first, from what I read somewhere else. So basically, you get one backstab per fight (as long as you remember to stealth or notice the enemy before they notice you and you stealth) and at level 4 you get an ability that lets you in-fight 'stealth' perhaps?

So a rogue is still the most efficient class for mechanics. For those that like to min and max, rogue is the obvious choice for mechanics.

Originally Posted by wolfing
Invisible or stealthed, so you can get one at the start of a fight if you stealth your rogue first, from what I read somewhere else.

If you can due it out of stealth I would not do that anyways. Why? Because the aggro system is extremely dull. Enemies just run to the closest character they see. So if you manage to sneak very closely to them as a rogue he will be attacked by everyone until you use another ability to get him out of there. In addition 100% bonus damage isnt really a lot as the bonus is additive. So lets assume you have 18 might, which is 18-10=8, 8*3%=24% dmg. And you do a crit, which is 150%, and you got an enchantment which is 25% i think. You end up with a total of 199%. With the 100% its just 299%, and not 398%.
Of course it also depends on difficulty.
That said, I am not even sure you can do it out of stealth because the tooltip states invisibility. And Stealth != invisibility. I also have read that this was a bug which was only possible with backstabbing friendly NPCs.

Originally Posted by xSamhainx
Ive been doing the Rogue last couple years when given a choice, i really like sneaky gameplay and having the tension of knowing a hit or two can knock me on my ass proper. Questionable ethics as well, I prefer to play as close to a totally pragmatic, "shady" (if not outright evil) character as well. Basically, I've found it more fun to plan an asshole than a white knight

Open up with a nice ranged attack or dagger in the spleen, hoping for nice traps to play with

You might also consider playing a Paladin. Yeah, right. Paladins in PoE are not the "good" ones. They are just dedicated. One paladin order consists of dedicated mercenaries, prefering dialogue options which are pragmatic or stoic (Answering: "…")

But there is also one Order called the Bleak Walkers which get bonusses for answering Aggressive or Cruel in Dialogues. They also come with more aggressive abilities.

Originally Posted by Thrasher
So a rogue is still the most efficient class for mechanics. For those that like to min and max, rogue is the obvious choice for mechanics.

While true, of what use is a mechanics skill of 14 if there is only one lock in the game for which you need a skill of 11, which can disarm with a skill of 10 and 3 lockpicks?

I have not decided on a class yet, but I know I'll be playing as a Godlike.

Originally Posted by Kordanor
If you can due it out of stealth I would not do that anyways. Why? Because the aggro system is extremely dull. Enemies just run to the closest character they see.

That's not accurate in the the latest beta.

I had an enemy fighter knockdown a party member that was engaged to it in melee (1vs1) since the beginning of the fight to run off to my wizard in the back that was not attacking the fighter at all. This was almost at the end of the encounter (only 2 enemies were left).

I had a enemy rogue use Shadowing Beyond (rogue in-combat invisibility) to escape the two party members attacking him since the start of the fight and go backstab another party member farther away that just moved to his second enemy after defeating the first one.

Stone Beetles loves to borrow to spawn right next to your backline as well, instead of dealing with the frontline.

Yeah, maybe that was over simplified. But would you "open" the combat with a rogue backstab? Without using an immediate "blink"? I haven't tested it yet, but from what I saw so far that sounds like suicide. Maybe less suicide if you backstab with a gun, but still - the range of a gun is not that big.

Opening in melee I never tried yet. I mostly open with a ranged spell, sometimes ranged weapons.

I did rogue with blunderbuss behind the frontline while everyone was in scout mode though. But rogue in melee, yeah, probably suicide at low levels. Although, you can probably time a CC spells with it and get the rogue out of there fast.

Originally Posted by Nerevarine
This sounds more along the lines of Fallout 1/2 or Arcanum, where you couldn't be a "jack of all trades" but you certainly could get very creative with your character build.

It does sound like you can be a jack of all trades though. With only 5 non-combat skills, and the ability for any class to learn any skill, the only choices you have to make are who learns which skills.

That's the case, yes. So you could say that the group is a "jack of all trades".
But what is negative about that?

It's not necessarily "negative", but it doesn't leave much for the imagination. The IE games were superior in that aspect with their greater variety of skills.

I don't think so. But I also can't paint a scenario where it would leave more to the imagination.

Well..maybe if want to leave it to your imagination "what would have been in this chest".

Well, that is an interesting dilemma…On one hand, I was greatly agitated by how class-specific character builds were in the D&D RPGs, with the feeling of being "railroaded" down a very specific development path. On the other, I can see your point now, JDR.

I guess I'll just have to play PoE myself at some point when the price goes down to say for sure, but on paper I think I will enjoy it more just because it sounds like a lot more fun developing each character to be unique rather than following a rigid path.

Time will tell!

I was originally leaning towards chanter, cipher, or druid. However, after learning that there will be companions of all of those classes, I'm leaning towards monk or barbarian, as there will be no companions of those classes.

Originally Posted by Kordanor
I don't think so. But I also can't paint a scenario where it would leave more to the imagination.

You don't think that having more variety and/or choices is superior in most cases? You have an interesting way of viewing things then.

Just give me one scenario as an example. Maybe I just don't get what you mean.

Originally Posted by Kordanor
While true, of what use is a mechanics skill of 14 if there is only one lock in the game for which you need a skill of 11, which can disarm with a skill of 10 and 3 lockpicks?

Is that true, or are you just hypothesizing?

I am just hypothesizing. But a skill of 15 (the max) will not be required for anything as you can also use a lower skill with lockpicks. So you have to think "how many of these locks will exist in the game? And is this worth 11 skillpoints just for the last point"?
And I am pretty sure that this is the same case for the other numbers between 10 and 15.

Of course nobody will be able to say for sure until they finished the game.

It really grates on me not opening that last lock. Even if it only reveals a dagger of ultimate mediocrity.