All correct. It's great for utility and extra damage. All it lacks is a decent way of gaining combat advantage - therefore it makes a superb second trick. But CA is massively important.
Superb. Spot on. The easiest way to gain combat advantage for focus fire. And it allows you to cut through complicated melees. Probably the best trick for combat - but can feel like easy mode.
Is
nothing compared to tactical trick. No movement benefit and actively encourages you to not focus fire. Don't bother with this.
Useful and versatile - but alas eclipsed by Tactical Trick or the shift two for flanking and then shift back to your own lines would be wonderful. You don't really need this if you have tactical trick (or vise-versa).
This is a utility power. Are you always getting CA and playing a sneak-heavy game? If so it's nice. If not, get something that allows you CA or has combat potential.
*** The dividing line. You get 5 tricks total, so unless you have a niche build, I don't see why you would take the options listed below.
For one thing, Ambush Trick doesn't belong above the line unless you're trying to solo.
You miss the point of this trick - and you only need a STR of 12 to use it properly. The point isn't that strength modifier damage is a lot. It's that you can do a full MBA to your primary foe and shank a minion in passing. It's good if your DM uses a lot of minions and pointless if he doesn't or you have a wizard or invoker that specialises in wiping them out.
Shift 2 is seriously nice for setting up flanking. And it ensures that your foe can not get away or out of the flank most of the time as they use their move action to stand up. Also helps focus fire by giving melee allies CA (other than your flanking partner). Very good for mangling controllers and artillery who don't want to be in melee.
Initially I thought this sucked - but the more I think about it the more I like it. Any monster with any sense flanked by a rogue is going to try and escape the flank because Sneak Attack is a killer. (Yes, they are going to shift in the rogue's direction, but that's another issue). Normal way of escaping a flank is to shift - at which point you OA them while they are still flanked for full basic + sneak attack damage - i.e. as much as you did on your own turn. This makes the damage from Ambush Trick seem entirely irrelevant by comparison. And it utterly screws certain annoying monsters like skirmishers or kobolds.
Sucks. Simple as that. Sucks badly enough that it needs errata to become useful (I'd give it Sneak Attack damage in addition to charisma modifier damage if you don't have combat advantage - and it would
still be a poor choice even if you wanted to solo (charisma modifier to damage not measuring up to +2 to hit (Combat advantage) and +1 damage/tier (Light Blade Expertise with combat advantage) for Ambush Trick) unless for some bizarre reason you wanted to play a sniper.
I suspect that over the long term, the big argument over these tricks will always be Tactical vs. Ambush.
Tactical
every time. Tactical encourages you to focus fire. Ambush encourages you to spread the damage around.
Ranged Thiefs who love flitting in and out of shadows might place Escape Artist's Trick or Sneak's Trick higher in the list.
Sneak's is superb for ranged thieves. And will largely cover the few uses of Ambush Trick.
I find it interesting that all of the tricks are oriented toward a Move First, Attack Second turn. I'd like to see them add a trick that works best when you Attack First, Move Second.
Me too (arguably Escape Artist's). Probably would be defensive in nature.
And it's worth remembering that melee characters who take their share of lumps contribute much more to the team than ranged plinkers. Even Knights and wardens go down under focus fire as much as monsters do. If you're on the battle line you're preventing the monsters focus their fire as easily.
