Backstabbing in combat
 

So, I rolled a rogue, don't play solo very often but when I do I try and back stab whilst in combat.
This seems to be really inconsistent. Sometimes I can just strafe through the enemy and back stab as soon as I get past them and it will register as a backstab.
I was wondering if anyone with more experience as a rogue could give me any tips on this subject or any subject really. I haven't played this game very long.

Any master Rogues want to school us on how to be an elite assasin, i would like to know too.

The best I ever manage with my rogue is to "walk through" the mob, aka run directly forward far enough that the mob turns around to face your back, then back up and hit backstab before the mob can do another 180 to face you again.

But I never got better than maybe... oh, 1/3 of my attempts actually ending up in a backstab.

The problem with that is that if you're fighting rogue mobs aka bandits from Karana you get backstabbed yourself and it hurts really bad. I've been trying a method where I turn 45 degrees away from the mob and as my back stab goes off cool down I strafe to there side and slightly behind them and hit the back stab. It seems to work okay.

Some servers you could stand on top of target & click BS.
I don't have a rogue here tho to test this... or maybe I do?

This is the most effective method I know of to do it. Of course, once you hit your 30s you can start landing Intimidate pretty regularly, at which point you can do proper backstabs consistently while the mob is feared (assuming you have SoW/Jboots).

I did Firiona Vie pirates on my rogue for a long time. I got backstabbed by them maybe once or twice while I was doing this method, out of lots and lots of my own backstabs. It's all about the timing. Rogue NPCs will click their Backstab button whenever the timer refreshes, even if they're facing your front. As you know, hitting Backstab when you're facing the front of a monster just does a regular attack. So if you're quick about running through the monster and backing up, in all likelihood that monster is not going to get Backstab to refresh in that picosecond they're facing your back.

I don't play a Rogue, but I am a computer network tech, so there is something important to remember about trying this strategy.
This is all going to come down to timing, and that timing can vary greatly. One thing to keep in mind is that the server delay from check-to-execute is going to be vastly faster than your EQ client delay from check-to-execute.
To put it in a simple to follow diagram; it's going to perform something like this:

Server..... Check geography of player and mob, check timing on cool-down, send command: Backstab, execute command: Backstab, record results.

Now your game client is going to perform this exact some sequence, but the delay for you will be many milliseconds slower than the server processor since there is no routing across the county for communication; it's all happening within the server itself.
Sometimes you'll get amazing reaction speed. The second you move and press that backstab button is the same second all those checks are made and the command executes with lightning speed.
Most of the time this won't be the case because your client has to make several routing hops to communicate with the server and this can cause a half second or even full second (or more) delay and it ends up that the server has recorded your position and command sequence different than what your client is actually showing you.

Nothing to burst your bubble or strategy, but wanted you all to be aware this may be why you are getting some crazy results from this strategy.
Take care and happy gaming. :)

Thank you. I didn't realize that the routing hops could cause it to take that long to verify my position.

Don't take what he posted to heart, because it is mostly not correct. If it was 100% correct then this strategy would never ever work. And it does work, the majority of players on the server can make it work.

Your internet connection will of course effect your level of success on this strategy. Slow connections won't work very often. Fast connections work quite often. In between connections this thing works 25-50% of the time.

Regardless of your connection you should be trying this until its clear your connection sucks so bad it won't work.

If this is as easy to do as people are making it sound, then this is very off from 1999. I don't know if it was the dialup connection or if they had checks in place to prevent rogues from doing this, but it was definitely not something that you would find a lot of success with back in 1999.