Boeroer

Yes, one ranger with Persistence, the other with Stormcaller. 1.: Persistence: lvl 4 Endless Paths, southwest of the map on a dead body. Stormcaller: WM, Russetwood. After entering the Russetwood map, sneak southwest until you find a wounded wolf. Get the silver arrow that sticks in his flank. You can heal the wolf with enough survival or special spells like charm beast or just put him out of his misery. Then go to Durgan's Battery map and sneak to the northeast of the battery and climb up the watchtower (the battery lies in the norhwest of the map, the watchtower lies east of it). On th top of the watchtower you will find the bow. Arrow and bow will automatically merge and form Stormcaller. You can then bind it you your ranger and start to upgrade it (shouldn't take too long - it's already exceptional and does -6 shock DR on hit). As I said with this ranger you can use war bows first because Stormcaller works with any weapon focus. The 20 INT on your second ranger is maybe better for Stormcaller than for Persistence. The -6 shock DR debuff will last longer. I would also take Binding Roots with that ranger because those will last for a very long time with 20 INT. The shock DR debuff of Stormcaller will help your druid enormously if he uses shock spells (which he should). Relentless and Returning Storm are a great tandem and will stunlock most enemies in range while doing good damage. 2.: Both bows work fine with Twinned Arrows, Stunning Shots & Driving Flight. The rest is plain old ranged skilling. Marksman, Penetrating Shot, such things. Swift Aim doesn't work with Twinned Arrows so you could think about taking Outlander's Frenzy for more damage and attack speed. I would always take Merciless, Vicious and Resilient Companion plus Predator's Sense. I would take wolf and Stag companion, never the lion - and never two of the same because you'll confuse them all the time. Wolf is the best single target dps animal companion (he is running faster, hits faster than a bear or a lion and has 2 more base damage which means all the damage mods from merciless/vicious companion and predator's sense work even better). The stag has a 40sec carnage attack mode which it can be triggered 1/encounter. Your druid can do DoT AoE spells (Plague of Insects for example) which will trigger Predator's Sense for all the carnage targets - very powerful! The lion's roar only causes frighten (not terrify) which is quite lame and also misses a lot. The duration and AoE is also bad (the duration and AoE is determined by the pet's INT - and as you might guess a lion's INT isn't too high...). Wolf and Stag are better. The bear is not bad for a bit of tanking, but he hits very slowly.

That may be. But what does work is running around the mob with high speed and lots of deflection. Even without riposte this can be very effective. Most of the time the enemies try to follow you and totally forget to attack your party and don't use spells or things like that. It's a bit like abusing the KI. Did it once with a speedy paladin and it worked. And when you can squeeze in some ripostes and Deep Wounds for damage... why not?

Well, my trick works without kiting & fighting, and class or build don't matter - so I win.

Two rangers and their bows. There are few topics/questions that are that clear for me. 100% Persistence + Stormcaller. There are no better weapons for two bow rangers. Seriously. War bows can't compete with those. One big advantage is that you can get both quite early if you want. The parts of Stormcaller can be obtained via scouting/sneaking - no combat necessary. Persistence is the ranged weapon with the highest DPS because of it's wounding which works as a raw lash and gets calculated before DR - so this weapon is even good against high DR foes. It also triggers Predator's Sense. Stormcaller's Returning Storm gets triggered every third shot with Twinned Arrows and Driving Flight. It's base damage also works with Heart of the Storm and has a DR bypass of 11 if you use Penetrating Shot. With Stormcaller you can even use Weapon Focus Adventurer first and use war bows until you get Stormcaller (has universal weapon focus). I think most people here will agree that those are the best weapons for rangers. Edit: Twin Sting is nice as an addition but comes really late. It's also not bad for a cipher, because you can shoot two times without reloading.

Why not put on clothing? Looks less stupid and has the same stats (as long as you don't enchant it).

Yeah, that's why I wanted to add Cape of Withdrawal, Fast Runner and Graceful Retreat for +32 deflection while disengaging. Did you try that as well? Hahaha - I just realized that Escape lets you move without any engangement while you also have the +25 deflection bonus - thus obliterating my plan to provoke disengagement attacks, dammit.. So potions or scrolls have to buff your deflection - or a party member like a paladin with Reinforcing Exhortation or something.Hm, when you use Spelltonge and Riposte gets triggered a lot then maybe that rogue could prolong the deflection buffs throughout the whole encouter... ? @Loren Tyr, have a look into the code and tell us what ACC bonus and how much bonus damage disengagement attacks have please.

The best thing about Overwhelming Wave is that you can cast it out of combat and it's range is huge. You can open a combat with it even if you don't see the enemy.

Funnily the bash ACC is not that much lower than that of the main weapon. If I remember correctly it was only 5 points lower or so...? Thrust of Tattered Veils only works with Deathblowas, not Sneak Attack. It does work with Penetrating Shot though without slowing you down.

The trick is to summon a distraction, run past behing the throne, wait until combat ends and start a conversation with the steward.

I tested Battle Forged with a rogue a bit, Deathblows work, Sneak Attack works, like all the other melee stuff like Vuln. Attacks and Savage Attack - so I assume Dirty and Vicious Fighting also work - even Reckless Assault should work (if you don't take Savage Attack - they can't be stacked). So a rogue with fat armor who gets grazed a lot and has some heals can be a good thing with Battle Forged. It also stacks with normal retaliation - which also works with all of this and even deals Deep Wounds. YOu can even stack this wit a potion of Flame Shield - which also works with all those things. I recently imagined a dual sabre riposte rogue with Escape (+25 deflection), max bonus against disengagement attacks (+32), high move speed (+4 from Boots of Speed + Fast Runner), Cautious Attack, and so on to boost delfection even further and combine this with Fire Godlike and Garod's Chorus for retaliation and a potion of Flame Shield. The deflection while running in circles and provoking diseng. attacks should be high enough to get lots of grazes so riposte triggers all the time and also trigger retaliation. When things go bad and I hit 50% endurance Battle Forged with Sneak and Deathblows should kill most attackers quickly. If deflection is too low with sabres maybe hatchets work. The one that deals fatigue on hit (-10 ACC) could also be great for this rogue. If this is also not enough deflection I'd have to try out shields...

Hu? It should. Yesterday, I killed earth blights from the Dweller's party with a sabre + burning lash - only with the burn damage of the sabre (because they are immune to slash). And since wounding should work like elemental lashes it should also work like this, or not? Didn't test that with persistence lately though.

A few things in addition to what you said (which won't make the choice any easier ): Persistence: - The wounding enchantment stacks - this is especially good with Twinned Arrows - Wounding gets influenced by MIG - high MIG means more pierce damage - this means also the raw lash will be higher. But it also raises the wounding damage itself. - You can level it to legendary while Stormcaller "only" reaches superb (without any resources though) - You can enchant it with durgan steel (+15% speed, hit-to-crit conversion, higher crit damage) - The wounding's raw damage lash is calculated based on the damage before DR gets substracted. This even works on pierce immune foes. The wounding will always fully apply. You can kill everything with this bow, high DR or immunities will be no problem for the raw lash. - Wounding triggers Predator's Sense - Graze to hit can still be good against dragons, Concelhaut, bounty fighters and so on. All those fights that really matter. The trashmob fights are easy at higher lavels anyways - the weapon doesn't matter - You can enchant it with an elemental lash, adding another +25% lash that gets calculated before DR (but gets substracted by 1/4 elemental DR). Stormcaller: - Works with Heart of the Storm. Even the pierce damage gets boosted by 20%. It not only raises the weapon damage, b ut also the damage of the Returning Storm - Returning Storm gets triggered a lot because of Twinned Arrows + Driving Flight. This means you hit 4 times with one shot, raising the chance to trigger Returning Storm from 10% per shot to ~35% per shot - so every third shot you will trigger a Returning Storm which stuns and does good damage. - The cracking sound when Returning Storm procs is very satisfying. - The Returning Storm can stun other enemies as the ones you targeted with your stunning shots. However - they are both great weapons for rangers. I even did a playthrough with two rangers because I couldn't decide which bow to use. Both rangers had nearly the same damage numbers after the playthrough, Persistence slightly higher (and you can't see the damage dealt by the pet). Both can be obtained quite early (Persistence earlier of course). I also like Stormcaller for a cipher because the -6 DR and +20% damage with Heart of the Storm really help with focus generation while Persistence's wounding does nothing for focus. It lacks an elemental lash (which works with focus generation) but the +20% make a bit up for this. So, if you have a bow ranger and a bow cipher in the team you might want to give Persistence to the ranger and Stormcaller to the cipher.

No, it's cool. I only wanted to know if I recognized the origin of that snippet correctly.

Taken?

Report how it works - I only did some hich lvl bounties solo with it (which was easy - even with this more party based build). I am curious how it performs solo during midgame.

No, it does nothing for your speed. There's no "negative penalty" or something like that. That part is just wasted on clothes. The rest, like crit-to-hit conversion, works.

You get the Barricade quite late anyways. But in my experience it was a great shield to use with a rogue. Thrust of Tattered Veils with Deathblows was very deadly (high base damage). As you said, it was mainly better than a normal shield because of the Full Attacks of a rogue. In 90% of all Full Attacks like Blinding Strike the target was blinded + stunned (which triggered Deathblows) and then crit by the bash which triggered Thrust of Tattered Veils on Deathblows which also did a crit most of the time. That was enough to kill Lagufaeth with one Full Attack. The bash itself is total crap of course. I don't understand why OBS didn't improve bash at all. It clearly has bad mechanics. Imagine if bash would automatically cause disorienting on hit or a short stun on crit - or even push back a little like Knockdown. Or it would give you the Knockdown ability 1/encounter or 2/encounter like the Girlde of the Driving Wave. Then it would make sense. But I just remembered one thing: before the latest patch the Thrust (which has unlimited procs per encounter) was triggered twice each time. After the latest patch it's only one Thrust. That is a hefty drawback and may be the main reason why I found it to be awesome and you think it's not so great.

Yeah, I would never spend durgan steel on clothes. But most of the time I don't have enough steel for all the armor and weapons, so the ranged glasscannons (if any) who are not supposed to get hit will wear clothes for max attack speed.

I don't think that more CON is needed. But more RES to prevent interrupts will help - some more points in PER would also be nice for the early game. So maybe take away some points of MIG and INT, also DEX (when RES is higher and after taking Two Weapon Style you can put it to 10). So basically a more balanced stat spread. Self Healing is also useful here. I would go into melee, maybe catch some disengangement attacks. Don't get myself suppounded. As soon as I had >6 wounds or so I would retreat, cast The Long Pain and Swift Strikes and use Torment's Reach and Force of Anguish (depends on the enemy) until no wounds are left. With Boots of Speed + Long Stride you can kite everything even when you are blinded or hobbled. When I'd run out ouf wounds I would keep on firing flying fists if there are not too many enemies left. If there are, I would go back in, gain some more wounds, retreat and repeat. I would also maybe not choose the hater talents, but more useful ones for soloing. I mean the additional damage is nice and good for a dps party build, but as a solo guy you might want to take something else like Veteran's Recovery, Bear's Fortitude and so on. Eating a long disable will be your death. Maybe things like Graceful Retreat, Fast Runner and a Cape of Withdrawal (= +32 defense against disengagement attacks) would be nice for this special guy, because all that retreating can be painful if all disengangement attacks crit you. But basically it would be "back and forth, back and forth". The cape of the cheat may also be nice for this build: Escape 1/encounter can be pretty useful when you get surrounded.

Too bad it comes so late. How does Riposte with 2 reaping knives while under Defensive Mindweb sound? You can run around to provoke disengangement attacks as hell, triggering tons of ripostes and generating tons of focus while doing it.

Godansthunyr is crush/pierce and Thrust is crush. The thing is you can stun+Thrust a single enemy while you can deliver the same via riposte to others who attack you. If you wear the binding rope your riposte-Thrusts have a good chance to be deathblows. I think it's great for riposte. Helps you to tank even more enemies. I mean most people don't want to be attacked at all - but if it happens, it's good to have a chance for riposte. I don't want to generate as many ripostes as possible. That would mean - like you said - that you want the enemy to attack you all the time. I think that's not optimal for a rogue, even one with a shield. For me, Riposte is still not powerful enough to be seen as good DPS source. But it can be good to punish enemies who dare to attack you. That's why I would prefer a disabling weapon for ripostes, not a DPS one. Maybe it's just a different approach.

For me it's mainly to spare resources. And of what use is DR for a ranged char anyway?

Yeah, a rogue with shield and Adept Evasion can stand in the midst of a Fireball rain and won't get hurt much. I used my shielded Devil of Caroc together with my wizard - she's immune to all poison spells, so you can drop Malignant Clouds and Noxious Burst on her head like crazy while she enganges mobs - and also Fireballs and all the other reflex based spells didn't do much to her either. It's a nice combo. I mainly use Gadansthunyr because it makes it easier to set up Deathblows after the first hit of a Full Attack (like Blinding Strike) and makes it very likely that the following bash will crit, triggering Thrust of Tattered Veils which works with Deathblows, critting and destroying the enemy target just with one Full Attack. Unlabored Blade can't do that if it doesn't trigger Firebug. We Toki can do it as well, but it only has prone on crit - stun is better. The main reason though is that that hammer is one of the few weapons that look good with Badgradr's Barricade. It's difficult to find a fit for that blue/white/red/golden pattern.

Badgradr's Barricade procs Thrust of Tattered Veils on critical bash. It works with Deathblows and is the best shield for a riposte rogue in my opinion. I played such a rogue without Riposte (was too bad back then), just Godansthunyr and the shield and he was great. Blind the enemy, stun the enemy and proc the Thrust with Deathblows (and usually also crit). Normally that meant death. At the same time a very sturdy character - I mean for a rogue. I can only imagine how the new Riposte would add even more awesomeness with that stunning + Thrust of Tattered-Veils full attack everytime a riposte gets triggered. I forgot another approach for Riposte: stack as much defense against disengangement attacks as possible: Graceful Retreat (+12), Fast Runner (+5), Cape of Withdrawal (+15) or Night Runner (also +15). You will have +32 defense against disengagement attacks. Now you can use dual sabres (or maybe still even better hatchets) and fight like usual. But every time you run away and provoke disengagement attack you will have a +32 bonus against them, making it more likely that they will graze or miss, triggering riposte. What I didn't test but what would be very cool: Put on the shield from the Drake in Endless Paths lvl 5, stack it with another preservation item. Now, when you get prone or stunned you will have +100 to all defenses, making you nearly untouchable. Maybe Riposte gets triggered although you are prone or stunned. Somebody needs to test this. You can switch to that shield once you get stunned or go prone. You can switch weapons sets in this game at any time, even if you are disabled.

Riposte is only worthwhile if you have high deflection. Because rogues have very low starting deflection, they normally need shields to reach a value where enemies graze and miss them a lot (Riposte only triggers on grazes and misses). Or they need party members to buff their deflection (paladin's Reinforcing Exhortation for example). Riposte is a Full Attack, so it would be best to either dual wield weapons (which does noch much for your deflection, thus limiting the chance to do ripostes in the first place) or use a shield with bash. There is a shield that is perfect for this. It's called Badgradr's Barricade and it's the best option for a riposte build in my opinion - but it's in Durgan's Battery - so very late for a solo rogue. Another alternative might be dual hatchets, they will give you +10 deflection and allow full attacks. If you can manage to rebuff enemies' ACC it could also work.