A New Hope (pure rogue)

[bazukar]

This build is obsolete and no longer relevant as is. Currently under reconstruction.






My first demi was a pure rogue. On paper they looked great and I thought they could do good damage as well as tank and do the standard roguey things. He was fun to play and he tanked well but as far as damage...well...he didn't

So I got him demi and he sat there moldering as your typical port-a-rogue while I wracked my brains for ideas on how to make him more relevant as a pure rogue, as it kind of rankled being told that I needed to go mish rogue if I wanted what I was seeking.

Then came the rogue edits and the UUU nerf. Go uni or tank the carpet. As well pure rogues got some interesting carrots including this nifty little free action attack/debuff. So I went back to the drawing board with some more experience under my belt and better build knowledge and sought to make a build that was flexible, did all the duties that were expected of a rogue and had a damage option.

I think I have succeeded.



Elf - Undying

Stats at creation <sub>{DD+14}

Str 16 [18] {36}
Dex 20 [22] {66}
Con 6 [10] {30} Con arty
Int 12 [14] {32}
Wis 8 [10] {28}
Cha 8 [10] {28}

All stat points to dex

Bullheaded at creation

Feats 2-20

Weapon proficiency exotic (kukri)
Weapon finesse
Shield proficiency
Weapon focus
Greater weapon focus
Improved critical

Rogue bonus feats

Crippling strike
Opportunist
Defensive roll
Improved evasion

Feats 21-40

Armor skin
Epic prowess
Epic weapon focus
Improved sneak attacks

Rogue bonus feats

Skill mastery
Slippery mind
Epic dodge
Improved sneak attacks

You should end up at imp sneak 6 at 40

Feats 41-60

LSA Discipline
Legendary weapon focus
Legendary will
Legendary fort
Legendary luck
Great dex 1-2

Pandect - Sneak


Ab 101 at DD assuming craft weapon is 120.

Threat range and crit multiplier are 11-20 x3

Attack progression would be:

101, 96, 91 Base
101, 96 Bonus with wrap/toyshop boots.

Taunt/pp attack is 52d6 per round assuming it lands

If you have a duellist's destiny you can dual wield

99 94 89 MH
99 94 OH
99 94 Bonus

Ac is 144 with 120 Craft armor

Saves
65
81
64 (68 w/ dim maks)


Skills in my normal gear pre bardsong

Concentration 30/57 (90 with HH)
Craft armor 63/97
Craft weapon 63/87
Disable trap 63/82
Discipline 63/126
Hide 63/96
Listen 63/120
Open lock 63/101
Pick pocket 63/96
Parry 63/127
Search 63/124
Set trap 5 ranks
Tumble 60/93
UMD 11/54

So theres alot that could be done with this build. First is a slight weakness in this build. Only capping at 126 in search or DT. You'll need items with skill focus in each in order to search/disable the deep stuff. The feats and stats were far too tight for me to be able to pop 2 more points into int or pickup those feats and get everything else I thought the build needed. Also, paragons will give another 2 to int making 127 without those items possible. (I didn't find it very hard to get those 2 items, took me all of 10 mins, turns out I even had a patterned aug with SF search)

Feats could be saved/changed by using a different pandect, wearing something with shield proficiency or not taking an exotic weapon proficiency. You could also drop legendary luck for something else, but as this is a melee toon that will be on the front line I felt the saves needed to be a bit higher. However you could easily get around taking LL if you used the abos shield and dim mak robes. I did things this way so as to allow more flex with gear and also to not have to depend on a certian gearset.

Some won't like the lack of innate self conceal. I haven't missed it at all. Even with only displacement while wearing toyshop boots, all the way through hell to demi 2 I sat at a 94-98% dodge rate.

The damage was impressive even at x1 in a shield. While it isn't top tier, assuming you maximize your sneak attack time and use the taunt/pp attack every round you'll easily be at tier 2, in some areas 1.5.
*caveat: you have to use toyshop boots if you want to do competetive damage. You'll do acceptable without, but if you want to do good damage they are a must. I reccomend having 3 pairs+

The way I play this build requires some micromanagement. I have several items with castable effects that I use to help maximize my damage, and tanking.

Freedom of movement. You can slap a supernatural aug on just about anything and call it a day. Generally someone will be around to cast it on you but having it and being able to do it yourself on the fly (especially after death) is helpful.

Death ward (lvl 45+) This spell protects from many death effects that item immunity won't cover.

Pendant of the seer. I consider the invisibility purge from this item a must have on all my melee toons. Not only does the effect lower conceal for you, it helps any other melee attacking creatures in it's AoE.

Aura of vitality. Generally not a must have, but really handy to have if you're missing a cleric druid or bard and need some dodge AC.

Memnoch's keeper. The UEF is short duration but sometimes it's nice to have for extra ac in case you're missing some dodge.

Edit: knew i forgot something. Don't forget an ashen shugars belt or something else for epic mage armor if you're short on dodge ac.

Shadow shield pots are nice.

If you can, get a pally to make you a holy avenger rod. While it's really short duration, having breach on your weapon is really handy in some areas. (sadly it wont work on aboleths )


Weapons: Having properly crafted weapons is critical. I can't stress this enough. While looking at mob healing etc I came across Rain's staffmaster build and he actually had a pretty good setup there so I used that for hells.

highergroundpoa.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=quasistaffmaster&action=display&thread=16190


Mostly I use 2 weapons and have a crafted min weapon for things that heal on div/sonic as it's not used regularly. Being min I dont have to worry about IoF wich is handy. I prefer dis weaponry to DB as I like not having to worry about keen, and if theres no IoF or GMW I can at least do some damage.

I usually use

16 Cold
16 Sonic
16 Acid
16 Divine
2d12 Positive
2d12 Negative

and

16 Fire
16 Sonic
16 Electric
16 Negative
2d12 Magic
2d12 Divine

With a min weap at (i actually built this specifically for ekolids)

16 Cold
16 Fire
2d12 Magic
2d12 Pos


I get the first 2 buffed and make sure they are maintained, the min weapon I usually leave alone.

To really maximize this guy requires alot of work. He can be played like a straight tank, no toyshop boots and just wade in and he does fine. But if you have another tank or two in the party he really begins to shine. Running in after the other tanks have grabbed everything's attention and sneak attacking pit fiends and males to death is amazingly satisfying.

Mob beating on a caster? Go take it out. The taunt attack, while unreliable even at max skill on the big critters, is pretty effective on most other mobs. The debuff is nice and will often give the caster that extra second or two they need to heal and GV or escape. And heaven help anything crittable.

I've played this build at x1 from tia to nessus and gotten it x2 now. It was alot of fun to play and very rewarding. I have to admit it was also pretty funny seeing ppls reaction to a pure rogue doing good damage, and at x1 at that.

I haven't finalized his gear yet. Things that you'll need are a visor of vigilance and asmo belt, you'll probably want a good set of dim maks and the rest is up to you and randomization. If you dont need confusion immune I reccomend an orudins oath to keep craft weapon and armor up, a well randomed one could max out both with bardsong. Make sure you have your status immunities covered and you should be fine.</sub>

[bazukar]

Update

On hells runs at x2 where I can maintain a 40%~ sneak rate I have been averaging 160k damage. Malad was a tad rough due to pens but we had an MMoD tanking all the spawns so I was able to hit 176k. Much more than that would be pretty tough due to how often i end up tanking and being unable to sneak. I suppose if I was just meter whoring and going for max damage I could break 200k, but it wouldnt really help the run any.

Did a decidedly rogue unfriendly zion 1 and 2 today and did 150k. While it may sound mediocre keep in mind on that run you are pretty much cursed the majority of the time, and on a toon with 100 or less ab pens + curse hurts. Weapons were crafted for hells, not abyss, and I also missed a few spawns.

Defensively he's holding up, getting 66% conceal from camo and maintaining a 95% dodge rate or better. Had a rocky spot or two today in the abyss as I didnt have stun immunity covered 100% of the time and it showed when it wasnt haha. He stands up to str checks on normals fairly well, but paragons you'll need a bard. Elites can get dicey even with a bard so unless you really have to, try not to be the first one to run in.

Still looking to improve my gearset. It changes quite a bit based on the situation. With a pair of breach boots on with a mord and imm ring he becomes amazingly sturdy, and can swap to damage by popping on the toyshop boots. I havent been brave enough to try dual wielding past min because of how often i've been tanking but it was fun while it lasted

All in all i'm really happy with the build and it's play. I only see it getting stronger as it gains more demi iterations.

[bazukar]

Just thought I'd add this as it came up in discussion today.

SF search is easy to come by. SF disable it turns out is a bit more problematic. One solution that may appeal to many is to simply not take exotic proficiency and use one of the other weapons elf rogues are proficient in, and use the feat for SF DT. You could also always drop an imp sneak feat for it. Nothing says you need to take all 6. I just did the min-max thing

[bazukar]

So a brief update. While I've been stuck at nessus for awhile trying to get x3 I've been playing around in other runs and the abyss. This build is holding up well and doing pretty good damage and tanking. The str drain is ridiculously helpful on alot of the nasty critters, goristro and mariliths being the main ones. With an 11-20 crit range it's pretty fun watching them fly and helps to even out your damage when you can't be sneaking.

This may ruffle a few feathers but I feel the need to post this here. As of this writing I feel that the free action attack is not worth bothering with. After some parsing and studying of logs it's become my conclusion that it's just not effective. The debuff on the mobs isnt very helpful, and is impossible to land on anything you would need to get it on, even with a skill of 127. (which is difficult to get without wearing non optimal gear or having to depend on poor augs) The damage from the taunt attack is pretty horrible, rarely seeming to break 85~, while on the dummy i was regularly hitting 200~

While I find any skill vs mob concentration to be fairly mediocre (not in effect per se, just hit%) your free actions would be much better spent on bluff or persuade or...pretty much anything.

That's not to say that you should just drop the imp sneaks though. Just on some basic math, figuring average damage on your imp sneaks to be (8d6/2) 24~, over the course of an average run it wouldn't be farfetched to assume you landed 1500 attacks. Which would come out to 36,000 damage. Obviously it could be quite a bit less, or even a bit more, but even lowballing it a bit 30k damage per run isn't so bad. And on a longer run the numbers creep higher.

So in the end you have 6 feats to play with. You could keep them in imp sneak for damage, put them in self conceal, put them in focus feats, or even pick up more dex or str to boost your stats. It's all up to how you want your rogue to play. (7 feats if you don't use an exotic weapon) [8 if you aug imp crit] <9 if you use pandect or item for shield prof>

[buddhamind]

Str drain? Do tell

[bazukar]

Nov 28, 2011 13:44:54 GMT buddhamind said:

Str drain? Do tell

Crippling strike allows you to do stacking str damage on a successful sneak attack. In the hells it's really only useful on Orthon, gelugon, brachnia and, if pure, buerozas (especially sup/elites). Anything else you can drain can be instakilled relatively easily.

In the abyss your main target is mariliths, though you can also drain molydeus (they should be stunlocked by a bard though) goristro (not that many around) and if pure, alkaliths. There are several other mobs that can be drained in the abyss but most aren't a serious threat, shouldn't be hit, have ridiculous conceal or can be instakilled.

There is a pretty large niche role for rogues in the abyss besides opening chests. Being able to drop a Paragon marilith or alkalith (if pure) down to 3 str is a pretty big deal and should not be overlooked. In addition to tanking the AB of a critter it also tanks their discipline skill, allowing easier use of combat feats like vanilla CS.

[buddhamind]

Is it on the radial? Can I hotkey something like !action cripple opponent? I'm excited to get a new thingy to play around with on my rogue.

[bazukar]

The str drain is automatic assuming you took crippling strike as a rogue bonus feat, successfully land a sneak attack, and the mob isn't immune to ability drain. Some mobs that aren't immune to ability drain are immune to sneak attacks, which is why only a pure rogue can drain bueroza and alkaliths.

There are actually a decent amount of things that can be drained, but I never really have a chance to do it as generally there are too many things that need tanking or killing first.

[fallenwizard]

Buddhamind, grab a low level char and go sit in east road and let the bandit rogues hit you

[buddhamind]

I see. Thanks for the info.

[bazukar]

Thought I'd give a brief update after my hiatus.

I still think the build is solid and relevant, but after all the updates and doing several runs I just don't think it's possible for a sword n board pure rogue to do even remotely competative damage on a run regardless of comp. Before the update I was able to hang in there reasonably well, but now I'm just getting smoked.

You could try to adapt this to a dual wield setup but I'm not entirely sure 2 more attacks a round would make up for the damage difference I have been experiencing.

On the plus side, if you swapped to a self conceal optimization and took paragon anchoring in addition to the 3 penalty reduction feats I think you could make a nigh unkillable unitank that could stand up to anything short of a paragon goristro if you geared it smartly. (48 to str checks with anchoring 2 item and paragon anchoring feat pre uuu with +16 and your paragon stat bonuses)

I'll be tooling around over the next few days in order to try and update the build.

Pure rogue for life!

[Crazy]

Talk to Remulux about his pure rogue. Halfling using a morningstar for the 50% damage, was doing very nice damage and tanking. Don't know if he was uni or just high dex.

[bazukar]

I have talked to him actually, partied with him just recently It's str iirc and did tank pretty well. The problem is that while it might do damage, I don't think a pure 2 hand str rogue would have enough attacks per round to do competative damage. I could see a possibility of it maybe, with a specific gearset but you'd have to have over 90% sneak time, which means no tanking. Pure rogues are stupid dependant on sneaks for damage.

When I say competative I mean at least 75%+ of say a non Qstaff damage monk. I should probably stop there though, as far as i know remmy is the only one pushing the pure 2h envelope.

I can say from my experience though, my damage has fallen quite a bit behind on my dex rogue, and im really not sure dual wield would be enough to get me back where I was. Not to mention I'd be losing 17 shield ac.

[jeanhelixü]

Wrap of the Dark Prince for Divine Power can give a pure rogue 6 attacks a round. It automatically bumps you up to 4 base if you weren't already in addition to the normal bonus attack per round. So 4 base + 1 haste + 1 div power.

[bazukar]

This is true. Unfortunately it requires you to have one of the rarest and most contested items on the server next to a temporal autocaster. And relying on an item to give you "basic functionality" as a melee class is a bit too close to broken for comfort. Don't think I liked "having" to wear toyshop boots if I wanted to do decent damage pre update.