Dathon typed up the following commentary for his character, Red_RidingHood, and sent it to me a couple of months after we finished the Rogue journey. I have turned it into html and reproduced it below. Thanks for taking the time, Dathon!
As per Sullla’s request, I volunteered to write up some of my thoughts and memories from the Rogue run. Herein contains my musings and rambling on the subject. I apologize in advance for the lack of pictures; Sullla and Sirian made much better journalists.
In the Beginning
When Sirian first posted his Rogue variant on the RBD forums, I was intrigued by the idea, but held off on signing up for two reasons. One, I was a complete rookie at team Diablo play. I’ve played for a several years in single player, both before and after the Expansion, but never found online to be worth the aggravation of lag, server crashes, rude/dumb people, etc. Second, I wasn’t sure about committing six hours a week to a single gaming endeavor. That may not sound like much to most people, but I’m much more of a “casual” gamer than most of the RB crowd. Well, as the team started shaping up, I noticed a couple other “team rookies” had signed on, and after reading about the journey of the EST on Sirian’s site, I decided the experience would probably be worth the commitment, so I volunteered for the last slot.
This gave me the unique vantage point of choosing my character after just about everybody else had posted their decision. I wanted to use skills that nobody else had picked, so I drew up plans for a blue-rogue ice kitten with Ice Blast and Blizzard, and a red-rogue fire ranger with Inferno and Meteor backed by Shiver Armor. After noting that both Sirian and Sullla had picked good chilling skills, I went with the fire rogue. Red_RidingHood was conceived! My reasoning for inferno was that it was on the way to meteor and synergized with it to boot. I could stand behind one of the more tanky characters and provide some serious fire damage in Hell when we hit the physical resistance. At least, that was the plan. My goal was to make a dual-purpose character with weapon/shield on the second slot and plenty of life to provide a light tank when called for. At least, that was the plan. But as always, reality reared its ugly head.
The Best Laid Plans…
In the beginning, Red_RidingHood played as I expected. Our standard MO in Normal was Sirian and/or myself, later joined by Cy and Sullla, tanking while our teammates made neat little pincushions out of the monsters. My usual Diablo fare has been ranged attackers, so playing some melee, especially with such a fragile character, was an interesting experience. Learned a lot about timing, frontage, and how to get yourself in trouble REALLY fast. But with constant improvements in equipment and stats, I was able to tank groups of 1-4 fairly well.
Nightmare marked the first chink in my plans. It was here that I thought Inferno would start to see some real use as I hid behind some of the tanks to provide better fire damage to groups. Well, in reality, we were all quickly losing our ability to post up enemies for any length of time. Plus, Meteor proved much better at smashing groups of enemies, particularly maggots, pups, and skelies. So I took Inferno high enough to max Meteor at 5, and left it as a novelty to be whipped out for amusement in places like the Claw Viper Temple altar.
Hell was when my plans and reality really diverged, however. As I mentioned, our tanking powers were diminishing rapidly as the monsters got stronger. My heavy investment into Vitality still did not give me enough to engage more than 1-on-1 most times. I found the Coldsteel Eye cutlass in Nightmare Act 3, I think, and that helped a lot, but I was still taking lots of damage on melee. Then I got a look at what Cy was doing. You see, he had assumed the primary Prevent Monster Heal duty in early Hell (maybe sooner) with Garnet. As such, he was rarely using his bow, and aside from the PMH, his throwing axes didn’t do a whole lot. So rather than just sit around and collect dust, Cy decided to try his hand at some serious tanking. And with Energy Shield backed by high levels of Telekinesis, this worked remarkably well! Cy quickly became the point man of many battles, just standing there posting up the baddies after tagging them. So, I offered to switch roles with him. He got the Cutlass and I took his PMH axes, allowing him to become a very effective melee warrior. As Sirian joked once, Cy with his Cutlass often could attack faster while chilled than most characters normally.
Cy and I made our switch early in Hell Act 3 (or thereabouts). Going to PMH duty was an interesting change of pace, a whole new set of prioritizing attacks, placement, etc. Then Sirian crafted a VERY nice rare war javelin with PMH, nice damage, very fast attack, and some other goodies I’m sure (I never actually saw the thing). This helped the team immensely. It also, unfortunately, put me out of a job for my second slot, except on the rare occasions when he wasn’t present.
Voodoo Magic
So coming into Hell Act 4, I was still trying to find something useful to do with my Rogue’s second slot. Then I made a nice 3-socket Death Mask with some jewels/runes I’d been saving (where’s the connection? Hang on a sec…). After donning my new toy, somebody made the snide comment that I looked like a Voodoo shaman or something. That got me thinking about hexes, and suddenly it hit me: Curses! No, not four-letter words, daggers, and lightning bolts. I’m talking Necromancer skills, available on wands and knives in the form of charges. So Red_RidingHood started scanning the vendors and snapping up charges of Weaken, Dim Vision, Confuse, Terror, and Lower Resist as they became available. While too expensive to repair, they were plentiful enough in the stores that I had a stashful by Act 4, when we really started hitting the wall on challenge. Since I didn’t have an endless supply, I tried to save the curses for especially difficult fights. Weaken and Confuse helped out against melee monsters, while ranged attackers got hit with Terror and Dim Vision. Lower Resist was saved for Diablo, the Ancients, and Baal and his minions. Adding this second dimension to Red_RidingHood make the last two acts much more strategically enjoyable, deciding when to fight, when to curse, what to use, etc. Plus, it was a great feeling on the occasions I was able to save one of my teammates from certain death with Terror or Weaken, or halt a rapidly advancing mob that threatened to push us out of an area with Confuse.
Teammates
Overall, participating in the Rogue Revival has been one of my best gaming experiences. Reading through the events on Sullla’s site, some of the challenges we managed to overcome: Nightmare Forgotten Tower, Hell Claw Viper Temple, the last two Acts… the stuff players yearn to be a part of. Glorious battles that will live in my mind for quite awhile.
However, the truly memorable part of the whole experience was the team. The further we advanced, the better we became at functioning as a single unit, to the point where almost no obstacle seemed insurmountable. These were all truly skilled, thoughtful, dedicated individuals who came together to make something better than the sum of its parts. My impressions, in the same no-particular-order that Sullla used:
AlanSHB: The Happy Teleporter has come! 
Alan helped us out several times with quick teleport scouting to find doorways or waypoints, and was always quick on the verbal warnings over TeamSpeak. Plus, those Hydra pets were wonderful for pinning annoying pests like leapers to the walls. We missed you man!
ErickSinda: Well, if we were going to lose Alan, at least we got somebody of equal caliber to take his place. Erick’s mousework never ceased to amaze me. He could post up a monster with continual quick alternations of Ice Blasts and regular attacks for minutes on end. Plus, his fearlessness was contagious; more than once, he held the Rogues to victory in a hot situation by refusing to retreat. Sadly, RL claimed Erick before the finale, but his aggressive spirit was always there.
Hawkmoon: Another fearless player not afraid to get up close and personal with the enemies. And a spouter of wit and inane commentary to boot. Hawk rarely drew attention to herself, yet it was still very noticeable when she wasn’t around. Hawk also had a good eye for the mini-map and would never hesitate to charge to the aid of an isolated teammate. Blessed is the team whose reinforcements include Hawkmoon!
Sullla: Without a doubt, Sullla was the hardest of us all to kill, as evidenced by Svava capturing the highest level on the team. That’s not to say he’s a coward; Sullla regularly spent time on the front lines, bashing enemies in with his scepter like some beefed up Paladin. Rather, Sullla always seemed to know the moment when the situation went from dangerous to lethal, and managed to escape while others hit the deck. Well, except when gauging the extreme danger of the fires from trapped urns 
A special thanks for taking the time/energy to record our exploits.
Jaffa: Jaffa was the only team member without a mike, and as such, ended up the quietest of the group. And it fit perfectly with his choice of large cross bows. “Speak softly, and carry a bazooka” Seriously, there were many times in Nightmare and even early Hell where Jaffa would lead some highly-lethal foe (lightning enchanted comes to mind) into some dark corner and mug them. Solo. In an eight player game. Yikes. A steady team player and a pleasure to fight beside.
Cyrene: Otherwise known as the jester, dancing around spewing wit and puns every which way. If you’ve never played with Cy before, you owe it to yourself to find him one night for the humor value alone. That and he’s a hell of a player with a great blend of creativity, skill, and in-your-face aggression.
ME0003: Wayne’s play-style struck me as very steady, not too flashy or daring, but just get the monsters on the floor. Like Hawk, Wayne had a good eye for seeing people in trouble and was usually right behind to lend a helping hand. Plus, if we ever got tired of the Diablo soundtrack, we could listen to him humming along to his own music over the head phones.
Sirian: Sullla summed up Sirian’s contributions pretty well. Every team needs somebody to hold it together, to be the glue that binds all of the individuals and give them focus. Sirian’s style of passive leadership provided this for us in spades and probably was the single biggest contributor to how much we grew and prospered. Thanks for letting me be a part of this, and I look forward to reading your gaming insights in the future.
