Dragon Age Inquisition Guide: How to Play Rogue

Begin as a Melee Rogue

Ranged rogues are pretty cool, not as badass as the dual-wielding melee ones, but they do their job. The thing is Dragon Age: Inquisition doesn’t give players a lot of party options on the first hours. This means you are stuck with Cassandra, Solas and Varric.

Since variety is key during combat, having two similar ranged characters isn’t as useful as having an additional option with different skills. A melee rogue can poison enemies, hunt down archers and mages, use traps, and hastily help weaker party members. Additionally, having a close combat oriented character will also help you move around easily, especially when trying to close rifts.

Don’t worry about skills. You can always respec your character later if you are still willing to become an archer or simply want to try a different build.

Never Forget That You Are Not a Warrior

All in all, rogues aren’t supposed to be in the frontline whatsoever and you must get in and out of combat very often. Since their skill bonuses are triggered by distance (ranged) and flanking and backstabbing attacks (melee), rogues are support characters.

Whenever in combat, let your warrior taunt enemies and build enough aggro so you can attack from behind or from a distance without disrupting the scene. If this doesn’t work out, Dragon Age: Inquisition features lots of evasion skills for the rogue class: Knockout Powder, Evade, Stealth, Caltrops and Leaping Shot will allow your rogue to move away quickly.

Be Smart When Selecting Who You Are Attacking

Rogues can deal a lot of damage in a short amount of time. Selecting enemies wisely can make an enemy mob disappear in no time; it all depends on what kind of rogue you created.

The choice of enemies depends heavily on skills. Ranged rogues get better effects against less harmed adversaries with skills such as First Blood or Full Draw.

On the other hand, melee rogues are better when attacking from behind or while flanking. Instead of fighting melee enemies right away, the dual-dagger rogue should focus on the weaker foes while the tougher ones are being taunted by the party’s warrior. Once all enemy mages and archers have been hastily eliminated it’s time to turn to assist duty and get to the flanking and backstabbing magic.

Spam the Stealth Skill

In Dragon Age: Inquisition, rogues can make themselves invisible anytime the skill’s cooldown isn’t active. Now, as said before, this can always be used to avoid being attacked when an enemy decides to focus on your character. Nonetheless, there are several other ways in which Stealth can be used to the rogue’s advantage.

First of all, attacking while being hidden will increase the damage done by 50%. Moreover, Stealth can be used as a combat beginner, allowing your character to move deep (or even behind) enemy lines or a beneficial position before it all begins.

In the same way, you can always activate Stealth after a kill is done to approach your next target unseen. This will not only avoid a lot of damage, but buy some time until skill cooldowns are over.

Finally, Stealth can also be used to approach and revive felled companions without generating threat.

Save Poison for the Tougher Characters

Let’s be honest. Common enemies in Dragon Age: Inquisition don’t really last a lot. When your party does its stuff, it’s all over in a heartbeat. If your rogue got the poison skill, remember not to waste on the first enemy you see. Yeah, it’s not like you are going to lose something by using it soon, but having to wait 24 seconds until you can use it again can be a lot depending on the situation.

This works for most of the character’s abilities. It may seem a bit silly in the first parts of the game, but when you really learn the skill priorities and the times in which their uses are most effective, the tougher battles and even bosses become a lot easier.

Set Your Rogue to Use the Least Amount of Potions

Inefficient AI settings can disrupt your whole fight-plan and leave you without vital healing potions way before your expected.
Since rogues have several evasive skills, it may be a good idea to set their potion consumption to emergency-only situations (10% healing potion threshold). If you pay enough attention to  HP bars you can use evasive skills to save your rogue. Depending on the skill this may even force a change of objective in the enemy’s AI. In the worst of cases you can always use potions manually.

This may be tough in the beginning, since it requires players to be completely aware of what’s going on during combat. Nonetheless, the advantages can be pretty great, from saving potions for your main melee fighter to avoiding frequent trips to refill your potion stock.