We’re all awaiting this release with great excitement, but let’s take a step back and review what each subclass really means in terms of abilities, builds, what do they bring to a party, etc. As an aside, this is the way I view them. Feel free to comment!
BLADEDANCER
A dual-wield hack 'n slash master of bladed weapons and poisons. They can debuff/poison enemies with skill and a high amount of dodge or movement to avoid enemy rebuttal. Commonly not with a high HP pool as they wear limited armor. Scale armor being the highest they can wear, but with a dodge/movement penalty, Cloth allows a higher dodge/movement bonus. Leather has no bonus or penalty as it’s the standard for rogues. Bladedancers only use ranged attacks as a means to draw enemy attention or initial poison attack, but only through knife throw skill. No bows/crossbows for these guys! They are fearless and eagerly taunt enemies to come at them and suffer their dual-wield onslaught. While bravado is their style, it usually ends up being their detriment as well.
FALCONER
Falconers are basically a scout for themselves or a party. They send their trusted companion ahead to scout and even mark enemies long before they are even in range for attack. (How this will work with current mechanics is a question. I don’t know about you others, but I’m pretty tired of the as soon as I can see them, they can see me play. Hopefully, this class will alleviate that.) Falconers are a mix of Bladedancer and Marksman. They can use both skills equally well, but not as well as their namesakes. They are a balanced player opting for tactical advantage over pure melee or ranged attacks. They hide in shadows well and concealment is their forte. Their companion is their eyes for range and they should be able to make use of this ability by marking enemies or debuffing them through blind attacks rendering them easy (relatively speaking) kills. Falcons can also carry small packages for delivery such as blinding poison, fire, explosive, etc. These packages can be small AOEs to debuff/attack enemies. Otherwise, the falcon itself can attack as a blinding attack or even a bleeding attack. They become greater companions as they level up by being more deadly, carry larger packages or scout longer distances. (Read: see more map ahead versus the standard view at the moment)
MARKSMAN
The master ranged assassin. Able to hit and critical from a long range using bows/crossbows. Their arrows come in many varieties; flame, poison, explosive, etc. While primarily a ranged character, they do possess the abiilty to set traps and keep their foes at range. Capture kind of traps, blinding traps, poison traps, slow traps, etc. are their mainstay besides their ranged abilities. ( It should be noted here that a marksman should have a far seeing range greater than the current view port, but less than a Falconer.)
With all that being said, the Rogue class itself has some inherent skills. (Passives) All have dagger skills and poison skills. All have the ability to dodge or conceal themselves. All have high dexterity from the start and the ability to parry attacks, magical or physical, using small buckler-type of shields keeping in mind that a magical shield is needed to parry magical attacks. (Perhaps new affix/suffix to specialize in different forms of magical attacks)
Again, this is the way I view the Rogue class in a general sense. Feel free to add or rebut any of this. Keep the discussion on an even keel and let’s see if we can’t flesh this out to a greater detail. I’ve read all the posts here and suggestions for the different skills. Some are right on the money and some are way out there. It is my opinion that most of the characters in the game are already overpowered. I can use ANY subclass at the time and grind to level 100 because this game is WAY too gear dependent. In my opinion.