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Post by chainlink on Jul 10, 2007 23:55:32 GMT
Was thinking about a similar build, for exactly thesame reasons. Question I have is, why didnt u take like 17 lvls of AA? Or even 19, 1 wiz, and 20 Rogue? Making your CC rogue, in order to continue boosting your pick lock skill, for LL level ups. Would this not give u a MUCH better AB? Aeternus The main reason is rogue bonus feats which enables you to get all the stuff I listed, take more AA levels and the build will suffer either in defense (epic dodge SC etc.) or inability to open BUR chests in the hells. Your ab will be fine as proven by doing all the levels up to Nessus with Trueshot and putting out a decent quantity of damage.
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Post by phalthallus on Aug 24, 2007 12:52:58 GMT
You could drop the legendary fort feat since you'd still have 60 fort and still take ESF: Discipline and the great dex. I did actually modify the stats a bit. You can see the changes following this link. But with this being chainlink's thread, I didn't want to keep cluttering it up with another post for a couple of changes. Essentially, as noted at the top of my edited post: I swapped out Great Fort + LL Fort for Epic Fort, giving me one more (pre-epic) feat, and still having 60 fort. I chose Weapon Finesse, for the reason that Chainlink gave. If you were going with Wild Elf, you could take one of the bow feats that Yukio gets for free, making this build somewhat viable with an "open" subrace that everyone has access to.
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Post by Trazik on Aug 27, 2007 7:03:05 GMT
I have a half-fiend variant on this build, and it is fast becoming a favourite of mine. He is level 56 I hope to get him Phleg tagged this week (currently Dis tagged) in order to use the exotic bows.
Until I can get some BUR gear for this guy, I will probably just use him for Rona and "helping-others" legendary runs, but there is great satisfaction in being able to open any legendary chest in the module (and perhaps eventually any hells chest). Additionally the sneak attack damage is very large, you just need to utilize it well.
I may consider reincarnating him with up to 19 AA levels (as Aeturnus noted) because I believe the feats for my build can be juggled around to still get Epic Dodge and SC5. However, I will start reviewing the "reincarnatability" of my builds once the 2 week notice drops.
Trazik
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Post by phalthallus on Aug 27, 2007 13:14:43 GMT
Was thinking about a similar build, for exactly thesame reasons. Question I have is, why didnt u take like 17 lvls of AA? Or even 19, 1 wiz, and 20 Rogue? Making your CC rogue, in order to continue boosting your pick lock skill, for LL level ups. Would this not give u a MUCH better AB? Aeternus You could certainly do this, and you would get a boost to your AB. I'm not sure it would be MUCH better, because BAB is calculated up to 20. This build gets 8 (9 actually, but only 8 count) AA levels by 20. Since it's a full-bab class, it only helps AB in chunks of 4. So if you could eek out 12 levels by 20, that gives +1 more AB. I don't think you can get 16 levels by 20, because of the pre-req's for AA (namely a BAB of +6). Looking at it some more, you could go 1 Bard/7 Rogue/12 AA (just barely hitting the +6 BAB requirement), for a BAB of 18. This build gets 1 Bard/10 Rogue/9 AA by 20, for a BAB of 17. Only 1 better, but 1 is 1. Your epic bonus feats remain the same with this idea, losing 2 rogue epics but gaining 2 AA epics. You would lose about 40 skill points I think (AA's get 4/level, Rogues get 8/level; multiply that by 10 more AA levels should = 40 skill points, I think), so you'd get one less thing to max. And with a build that would like to max Open Lock, Disable Trap, Search, Discipline, Parry, and probably UMD for the soon-to-be-here additional UMD'able items, I'm not sure which of those I'd drop. Listen would be nice too, depending on how it's modified in the coming updates, so I think losing 40 points would hurt. On the other hand you'd get 20 more hp's. I'm not sure it's a drastic change either way. The skill points seem to be the biggest loss going a 19 AA route. But you'd gain +1 BAB and +20 hp's. At least that's how I see it. Could be wrong, and it wouldn't be the first time. Wouldn't even be the 100th time.
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Post by Trazik on Aug 27, 2007 13:58:38 GMT
You can only take maximum 10 AA levels before lvl 20, so the Bd1-Ro7-AA12 is a bit theoretical. I believe the point of taking so many AA levels would be Enchant Arrow AB bonus. For example, AA9 gives EA5, while AA19 gives EA10. +5 AB is alot, but to be honest not needed with the build. At level 56 and using a DB bow, my character has 88 AB unbuffed according to my character sheet. This compares to my lvl 60 RDD using a Dispater weapon (74 Str). The AA9 vs AA17/19 discussion comes down to skill points + sneaks vs AB + HP ... in other words -> personal preference. Mine will probably remain on Ro29, just need to shuffle skill points from UMD to Listen, since I have not found 50+ UMD that great. Trazik
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Post by phalthallus on Aug 27, 2007 15:06:28 GMT
Good point on the 12 AA scenario. I had forgotten about the Enchant Arrow. That's a good point as well. But to me, 29 Rogue still seems more worthwhile, as you said, with the build having a pretty good AB anyway.
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Post by chainlink on Aug 29, 2007 7:56:33 GMT
As I have full lore I think I'm going to swap this out for parry after reincarnation to give this build some crit immunity, listen would also be useful but as I already had Blind Fight I'm not convinced it would be a massive improvement.
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Post by phalthallus on Sept 30, 2007 17:42:18 GMT
I'll let Chainlink decide if this should get moved back to the Build section, from the Archives, but I just wanted to update this with Lycan, since I think it's more viable again. You spend a few pre-epic feats that you wouldn't with Yukio or Erinyes, but I still think it's an okay build.
"Lycan" (secret UltraRare subrace) - no race requirement (changes Appearance) DEX +4, CON +2, CHA -2, free feat: Dodge, free feat: Improved Initiative, 10% vulnerable piercing, regenerates 4hp/round, increased base movement rate - fast
Note: The feats don't help that much, but the dex and con are both welcome additions, and the increased base movement race is nice for an archer as well, when you need to get out of danger's way. Seeing a wolf throw arrows is silly though, so you've been warned. :p
I went with Half-Elf, to avoid the XP Penalty of going Rogue/AA/Bard with Elf, and to avoid the -2 Con of using Elf (and wizard instead of bard).
Starting Stats (modified) (60) STR: 8 DEX: 18 (22) (45 - see notes at bottom) CON: 12 (14) WIS: 8 INT: 16 CHA: 8
Note: I lowered con by 2, and added 4 intelligence, as compared to the Yukio build I posted, to max a few more skills, with recent changes made to HG.
01: Rogue(1): Luck of Heros 02: Rogue(2): {Evasion} 03: Rogue(3): Weapon Proficiency: Martial, {Uncanny Dodge I} 04: Rogue(4): DEX+1, (DEX=23) 05: Rogue(5) 06: Rogue(6): Weapon Focus: Longbow 07: Rogue(7) 08: Rogue(8): DEX+1, (DEX=24) 09: Rogue(9): Point Blank Shot 10: Rogue(10): Improved Evasion 11: Bard(1) 12: Arcane Archer(1): DEX+1, Iron Will, (DEX=25) 13: Arcane Archer(2) 14: Arcane Archer(3) 15: Arcane Archer(4): Blind Fight 16: Arcane Archer(5): DEX+1, (DEX=26) 17: Arcane Archer(6) 18: Arcane Archer(7): Improved Critical: Longbow 19: Arcane Archer(8) 20: Arcane Archer(9): DEX+1, (DEX=27) 21: Rogue(11): Great Dexterity I, (DEX=28) 22: Rogue(12) 23: Rogue(13): Defensive Roll 24: Rogue(14): DEX+1, Great Dexterity II, (DEX=30) 25: Rogue(15) 26: Rogue(16): Epic Dodge 27: Rogue(17): Great Dexterity III, (DEX=31) 28: Rogue(18): DEX+1, (DEX=32) 29: Rogue(19): Self Concealment I 30: Rogue(20): Epic Weapon Focus: Longbow 31: Rogue(21) 32: Rogue(22): DEX+1, (DEX=33) 33: Rogue(23): Self Concealment II 34: Rogue(24): Self Concealment III 35: Rogue(25) 36: Rogue(26): DEX+1, Self Concealment IV, (DEX=34) 37: Rogue(27) 38: Rogue(28): Self Concealment V 39: Rogue(29): Epic Prowess 40: Rogue(30): DEX+1, (DEX=35) 41 42 Dex +1, Epic Skill Focus: Disable Traps (DEX=36) 43 44 Dex +1 (DEX=37) 45 Epic Skill Focus: Search 46 Dex +1 (DEX=38) 47 48 Dex +1, Legendary Luck of Heroes (DEX=39) 49 50 Dex +1 (DEX=40) 51 Legendary Will 52 Dex +1 (DEX=41) 53 54 Dex +1, Epic Fort (DEX=42) 55 56 Dex +1 (DEX=43) 57 Great Dexterity IV (DEX=44) 58 Dex +1 (DEX=45) 59 60 Dex +1, Legendary Weapon Focus: Longbow (DEX=46)
The Pandect of choice would be the Rapid Shot/Rapid Reload book. I chose Improved Critical over this feat, knowing I could get it from the pandect.
Final saves at 60 were calculated at 62 Fort, 62 Will, 72 Reflex iirc.
Skills to max include Parry, Listen, UMD, Search, Disable Trap, Open Lock, Tumble, Craft Weapon, Craft Armor, Hide, and one other, maybe Pickpocket, or Appraise to make some more cash. :) Bluff is another consideration, lowering enemies AB, and in essence raising your AC. But I think a lot of people are taking Taunt, and since they won't stack, it may not be worth taking. You could always take Set Trap, in hopes that the traps are being upgraded, but as others have said when I looked at it, most parties will typically not want to wait for you to set traps. Still, it could be an interesting option. Lore is always another option. Since you'll be picking locks in Dustbone, and the lower Hells runs, you may wind up being bank, so it's nice to be able to ID. :) Having 16 INT really allows for a lot of flexibility. Drop Parry if you want, to pick up something. There is a lot of variety, so make it your own.
I reincarnated my Yukio with this build, and am looking forward to leveling it more now (he's currently only 38 but Immo). Choosing Lycan over Yukio nets me some better stats. I think I started it with 14 con/20 dex, so this nets me +1 AB/AC more, at no terrible loss.
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