What is the strongest Baldur’s Gate 3 rogue subclass?

The rogue is a popular class choice for players of Baldur’s Gate 3Both for its skill expertise and its adaptability. It is the Fourth-most popular choice players make for custom charactersAnd is pretty unique as far as martial options in the game go. Rogues are the only weapon-centric class that doesn’t get extra attack, instead focusing on insanely high damage from each individual hit using sneak attack and stealth tactics.

The rogue’s subclass options tend to improve tactics, but in drastically different ways. Players have three choices for their subclass when playing as a rogue: Thief, murderer, and arcane trickster. The choices come from Dungeons & DragonsBut with a few key changes that add and/or take away from their usefulness. Players may wonder which of the subclass options classifies as the strongest, and while the decision is ultimately subjective, there are some objective metrics to assess how strong the options are.

Early abilities are the most important for multiclassing

Rogues often dip into other classes, making this worth considering

The rogue subclass grants abilities at third and ninth level, meaning they get one ability fairly early and another fairly late. This makes the third-level subclass features the most importantBoth because they’re available for the majority of the game, and because players who multiclass with Rogue likely won’t reach ninth level with it. Multiclassing is a popular choice for rogue characters. They benefit greatly from getting extra attacks from other martials, and their intelligence focus makes them a possible match for wizards.

All of this is to say that the subclass with the best third-level features gets a massive advantage. That would be it thief, which gets an additional bonus action each turn. This is huge; Actions and bonus actions are the most valuable resources characters have in combat, and bonus actions can do a lot in Baldur’s Gate 3. Thieves can drink an extra potion, take an extra off attack, use cunning twice, and the list goes on. This feature is not only the best rogue subclass ability, but also One of the best subclass abilities in the entire game.

The Assassin and Arcane Trickster features are good, but they just can’t match up. The assassin gains advantage on attack rolls against creatures that have not yet gone into initiative, and Automatically crits when they hit a surprised creature. These both work wonderfully with the rogue’s sneak attack, and the other feature assassin gets on this level, which restores their action and bonus action at the start of combat. This means that Assassins can start combat with a surprise attack and still have their turn after rolling initiative.

The trickiness of ranking the trickster

Spellcasting varies very strongly, making this subclass a wild card

Then there’s the Arcane Trickster. The trickster is drastically different from the first two options because of being a spellcaster. They get Mage hand

and two other level three cantrips, as well as three first-level spells from the wizard list. There are some restrictions, the spells must be from certain schools of magic, but spellcasting is still an immensely powerful tool. Roots of this subclass can be collected Shield Or Magic Missile

Can raise ritual spells like Find familiar

Or Disguise yourself

And they learn more spells as they level up.

Unlike the other two subclasses, The Arcane Trickster technically has abilities at levels five, seven and tenWhen they get new numbers. They eventually get level-two options, viz Cloud of Daggers

And Misty step

Which can be very useful. This means that this subclass is best when players stick with rogue, or multiclass several levels in wizard.

There are also changes Mage hand They get into third level. They cast it invisible and can use it to unlock doors and chests or disable traps. That’s all well and good, but the issue comes with a twist Mage hand That Baldur’s Gate 3 Introduced. Mage hand Can now only be used once per short rest, Which diminishes the usefulness of this feature quite a bit. Still, Mage Hand can be a lifesaver in certain situations, like pushing enemies or setting off traps.

High-level rogue subclasses are mostly a lowdown

A lot of commitment for not much payoff

Unfortunately, the rogue subclass features at level nine aren’t very good. The thief, who starts out looking so promising with an extra bonus action, gains an ability called Supreme Sneak that allows them to use an action to become invisible. This can be nice, but the invisibility breaks when the rogue interacts with something, and it can only be used once per short rest.

Similarly, the assassin gains an underwhelming feature called Infiltration Expertise. It functions essentially the same as Disguise yourselfLet the assassins change their appearance at will outside of combat. It’s good, until you consider it The Arcane Trickster could have had the same ability with a spell six levels ago.

The trickster’s ninth-level feature is pretty good, though it may not be particularly useful depending on their spell choices and intelligence modifier. It gives creatures disadvantage on saving throws against the rogue’s spells, as long as the rogue is hidden when they cast them. Theoretically, this gives the rogue a good chance of causing enemies to drop saves, and could be good for spells like Stop man

. But the arcane trickster will typically not have a super high intelligence modifier, and The spells they choose tend to affect themselves.

Which rogue subclass is strongest?

A fairly even fight between three options

The Rogue is an odd case where there aren’t really any clear winners or losers in their subclass choices. The Thief and Assassin both have very bad ninth-level abilities that the Arcane Trickster can emulate, but they also get great early features that make them viable. The Thief and Assassin are both really strong as multiclassing options, though The Arcane Trickster is best when fully committed to.

Technically, this probably makes the Arcane Tricksters the most useful subclass for Rogues, as it’s the one that functions best on its own. Still, no one can deny the strength that a Thief brings to a multiclass build with a Monk or Fighter, or the power of the Assassin-Gloomstalker combo. each Baldur’s Gate 3 Rogue subclass has its perks, and finally, It comes down to what kind of rogue players want to be.