Guide to playing Scout/Rogue

Note: Much of the advice in here applies for most other scouts but there is information in here particular to s/r.

Hello all! I’m Aerimorla from the Grimdal server, and YES, I do play a scout. Yes! It is level 50! But I know what you’re thinking… Why would anyone roll a scout at this point? Well, hopefully I can convince you to at least take me seriously. The s/r has the following qualities/

-Free hearth recall every 8 minutes instead of 60
-Highest Dexterity and dodge of all class combos (besides r/s)
-Very high critical rate due to s/r elites
-Both classes use exact same stats, so you can switch classes at any time when you get tired of scouting
-Very good ability to kite (better than mage)
-Can boost party DPS by ~20%
-Scout/Rogue gets 3 different interrupts, 2 defense debuffs, and a variety of slows/stuns
-Can see those rogues BEFORE they jump you
-No mana pots needed and few hp potions needed due to rechargeable energy forms

Cons

-REQUIREMENT to be able to gear yourself out. In order to keep up with other classes you need good gear.
-Very few AoEs (1 viable AoE)
-Low dps in comparison to a well-geared mage?
-Lasso Master is useful but removes some versatility.
-High repair bills. Must buy arrows and repair bow often.
-All other problems associated with scout
-You may not be taken seriously by other players… Prove them wrong.

So at this point I hope you are considering rolling a scout of some kind, at least. I won’t go into leveling since that just takes time…

Gear loadout: The scout requires the exact same stats as rogues, so for instance gear you WILL be rolling against them. A scout should stack stamina and dex with slightly more stamina. 

Since gear gives different bonuses when +’d depending on what kind, you should wear some cloth and some leather pieces to maximize your payoff. I recommend:

Leather Hat, Upper Body, Belt, Pants, Gloves
Cloth Shoulders, Boots, cape

For weapons you want to dual-wield with a dagger in the main hand. Assuming your primary goal is to play scout, feel free to stat out both melee instead of tiering one.

Your bow should be modded as soon as you can bother learning. Tier 3 or 4 is not expensive and will help you keep up with other classes. At low levels a crossbow is preferable, but once you get speed-shooting-mastery, switching over to a bow may be a good idea. For reference, a bow has a faster attack speed, higher range, and usually lower dps than an equivalent crossbow.

Gear to use at certain points in your life:

Jass’ Crossbow: lvl 14, reflex II stat. Drops off poisonous dragonflies
Luis’ Test Item (bow): lvl 21, Observance III stat. Drops off Qilana dwarves.
Victim’s Cross (xbow): lvl 24, blue rarity. Drops inside Forsaken Abbey
Heavy Assault Crossbow: lvl 28, blue rarity. Drops off Fire Mane Boars in Aslan
Wolfsbane Crossbow: lvl 33, blue rarity. Quest reward for killing Olias in Dragonfang
Bone-Piercing Flame: (bow): lvl 38, blue rarity, Precision IV stat. Drops inside NoM
Kesur’s Bow: lvl 42, blue rarity. Drops inside Mystic Altar.
Blood-stained Longbow: lvl 44, blue rarity. Quest reward for epic II quest.
Frost Bow (xbow): lvl 48, blue rarity. Quest reward for epic I quest.

At level 50 there are a variety of blue bows/crossbows that drop inside instances or off Ravenfell/WC elites. The only epic quality weapons for a scout are bows from Ice Dwarf, Treasure Trove, Minotaurs, or finishing the Epic Weapon Quest.

At 55 you can grab blue bows or crossbows from various mobs in Savage Lands or Heart of the Ocean. Purple bows drop from HotO and Hall of Survivors.

Armor: 
Level 15-22: Yolta set or silverspring set
Level 22~30: Dream files set or Forsaken Abbey Set (“Road’s End”)
From level 30-47 there are no easily obtained sets, so replace the items you have with high-durability (>100) white items and practice some transmuting.
Level 47-50: 3 items from the Tempest Height Set.

Other sets to try for at the high end include the cyclops leather set, Lyk set, or arena set. The Treasure Trove and HotO set bonuses are underwhelming.
Save your Ravenfell and Epic quest rewards until you know you can use them properly.

Note: For the Vahtos set, you should pick caster over melee. The melee set bonus is underwhelming and the caster set sells for much more if you get a high-durability item. 

Skills: I recommend leveling most skills up to 5 levels behind your current level up to level 40, and then max them as you see fit. This allows them to be effective without costing too much tp.

Scout General Skills to level:

Shot: This will become your main skill at high levels. Level it up with your other skills and max after you hit 50 and grind some tp. High priority

Vampire Arrows: Enormously useful at first, but doesn’t scale well. Level up to 40, then perhaps consider maxing depending on use.

Joint Blow: Level up to 25 or so for the extra slow time

Blood Arrow: Don’t level since you can’t heal to back it up. Useful for getting out of roots such as lasso or numbing dagger. Low Priority

Throat Attack: Do not level, it serves only as an interrupt.

Swiftness: Useful, but gets diminishing returns. Low Priority

Speed Shooting Mastery: Increases overall dps and lowers shot cooldown. High Priority

Elite Skills:

15/15: Weak Spot: Long range attack that increases chance to crit by .3% to 4.8%. Useful on longer fights. I personally don’t use this a lot, but I know people who do.

20/20: Blinding powder: Mid-Range attack that stops enemy attacks for 5 sec. VERY useful as it also interrupts spellcasting. So it’s like throat attack, except with longer range and no focus cost.

25/25: Lasso Master: Converts your lasso into Master Lasso. Bound enemy can’t move OR attack, but is healed to full. This skill is similar to numbing dagger and is very useful for big pulls in instances where the mobs hit especially hard. It also has many uses in PvP.

30/30: Sapping Arrow: Reduces enemy defence by 1-26% for 12 seconds. This skill is important in instances and in regular fights for boosting the party AND your dps. Use it often!

35/35: Poisonous bite: If this skill crits, it briefly reduces the enemy’s max hp. I’m not sure why you would use this often.

40/40: Exploiting Shot: If a Shot skill crits, it causes the enemy to take extra damage for 8 seconds. The effect can be triggered every 20 seconds. Damage is about 3%-14%. This takes similar priority to sapping arrow.

45/45: Deadly Counterattack: Your piercing arrow may increase critical hit rate by 1-12% for a few seconds. Similar to exploiting shot in that it can only be used once every 20 seconds.

50/50: Poisonous Spit: Reflected shot is “fixed” in that its damage no longer decreases. Combo shot and reflected shot may also do poison DoT if you are carrying poison powder. The poison may be triggered every 20 seconds. I’m not sure if anyone has actually gotten this elite yet so its usefulness is unknown.

Rogue General Skills of use:

Shadowstab: This is your only good melee attack. In boss fights you may decide to run up and use it to inflict an extra DoT and when mobs/players reach you it’s a useful tool for defense. You should level this skill anyway while leveling your rogue.

Blind Stab: Don’t level it; the effect stays the same. (similar to throat attack). This skill lowers enemy accuracy, so you can take advantage of it and your high dodge when kiting.

Agility: Further increases your dodge by 2-7%. 

Scout Skills to level:

Wind Arrows: Your standard attack, weave this in with shot. High Priority

Ranged Weapon Master: Increases accuracy and damage… High priority

Mana Drain: Useful in PvE, but other players have large mana pools so this skill has limited effect. Level to 40 or so depending on use.

(Master) Lasso: Level to 35-40

Piercing Arrow: Situational. It is actually more useful than the name implies, hitting enemies in a decent-sized area around the target. Low Priority

Eagle Eyes: Increases chance to crit by .5% to 10.5%. Since the s/r relies on crits often, high priority.

Snipe: Your opener/nuke attack, but it is very weak. Generally not used unless you have time to spare and need extra damage. Low priority.

Combo Shot: Your other opener attack. High damage, low cooldown and cast time make this a very important skill to any scout. High priority.

Reflected Shot: Useless.

Concentration: Doubles focus regeneration for 30-105 seconds. This is a very useful skill when on the move or in continuous fights. High priority

Target Area: Increases chance to crit by .5 to 5.5% and accuracy by 1-11%. Costs 3 focus per second. While this is a powerful skill it has very high focus costs, so you should only use it during concentration and when not moving.

Other Passive Skills (can’t be leveled)

Wrist attack: Reduces enemy damage given by 30% for 5 seconds

Off-Hand Training: Allows you to dual-wield.

Arrow of Essence: Increases damage by 20% and attack speed by 15% for 15 sec. 5min cooldown

AutoShot: An auto attack skill that has the same fire speed as shot. Weaker but important as it boosts dps. Trigger whenever you can afford the extra arrows.

Frost Arrow: Wind Arrows may slow the opponent for 6 seconds

Detection: Allows you to see hidden enemies from further away. Costs 5 focus every 3 seconds and should be popped whenever moving into a pvp-likely area such as major towns.

Joint Cripple: Gives joint blow a 55% chance to lock the enemy in place for 5 seconds. They cannot move even if they take damage. Similar to a close range lightning skill.

Neck Strike: Spinkick the enemy to stun them for 6 seconds. Your 3rd! interrupting skill. Stun breaks on damage

Serenity: Resets all skill cooldowns except arrows of essence. Skill has 8 minute cooldown. Useful during boss fights.
Note: Serenity effectively reduces the cooldown for your hearth recall to 8 minutes. Reduces the need for a mount or buying teleport runes.

Strategies

In PvE the usual rotation is to open with sapping arrow, snipe, or combo shot with autoshot activated.

Note that shot, comboshot, and autoshot have no global cooldown and so you can use another skill immediately.

Skills to use:
Vampire arrow, shot and combo shot, 
wind arrow or shadowstab if everything else is on cooldown.
Reapply sapping arrow, joint blow, or blind stab if needed.

In instances you may be called on to use master lasso to stun certain mobs if your tank can’t handle a very big pull. (Treasure Trove, Ice Dwarf Kingdom Heroic mode, HotO for example).

Against bosses you can blow concentration, arrows of essence, and target area if you have a tank and can stand still to take advantage of the focus regeneration.

Now, sapping arrows and mana drain also come into play. Apply constantly
If your tank is having trouble or your priest is stunned, you may want to try joint blow and wrist attack to slow the boss while the tank strafes briefly. 
Note: Do not try on Boddosh.

If YOU are tanking for whatever reason, use joint blow liberally and only stop to fire comboshot/autoshot or regen focus briefly.

In PvP: 

As a scout you will mainly focus on 1v1 fights. If the odds are with you, then feel free to stand still as some other guy takes the damage, but in 1v1 you must keep mobile while doing damage. It is ALWAYS a good idea to use master lasso to position yourself and fire off a powerful opening attack.

Against fellow scout: This is really about who can get the first blow off and who is geared better. You want to use master lasso to open off in your favor (snipe, comboshot, sapping arrow, etc.)

Against Rogue: You can detect a rogue at close range, stun him, and run off to a better distance, but if he gets the jump on you, you can expect to lose. Stun with lasso, run off and pot, wait a bit to heal and then try your luck. The problem with rogues is that they will use shadowprison at distance to prevent you from attacking as they close in. But, this drains their energy and can only be used once to good effect. You can try to negate it with frost arrow or joint blow but it comes down to surviving the beating and running off again.

Against Warrior: The problem here is that warriors do heavy damage AND can close distance with surprise attack. If they hit you try to joint blow and run backwards. At that point they are helpless. But in all likelihood they may kill you while you are still in close range.

Against knight: The same strategy for warrior applies here, except knights do less damage and have higher hp, so expect a longer fight. Knights are relatively rare in PvP however.

Against Mage: This is tough. The mage does high damage but is vulnerable to your attacks. Ranged weapons also help negate lightning.
The Mage will try to close quarters with lightning and discharge you, then Purgatory Fire you to death or flame you, neither of which will end well. Even worse, most mages are m/p, so they will blow holy aura and heal when you weaken them. However, it CAN be done. You MUST kill them quickly so that they can’t stun you.

Against Priest: Well, this is rather hopeless. The Priest can slowly DoT you to death while healing through your damage, so unless you can kill them very quickly the best option is to not fight.

Hopefully this guide was helpful to you and you are now considering rolling a scout!
Replies, questions, criticisms are appreciated.

Aerimorla — 58/47 S/W — 16.2k hp — 46% crit — 9.2k patk —
Theducky2 — 56/55 P/M — 17.1k hp — 11k mp — 15k gheal —

Credits go to BlueExile.