Boeroer

What is the best melee weapon for your rogue can't be answered universally. It depends on your build and how you play. If you ask 10 experienced players that question you will get like 20 different answers. But probably the answer you'll get the most is sabres. A rogue who takes a lot of special attack abilities like Crippling Strike, Blinding Strike and so on profits most from using two weapons. Those special attacks are full attacks - meaning that you will hit with each weapon in quick succession - even if you're a slow guy otherwise. Singe Weapon usage is widely considered inferior to any other style except n the early parts of the game where you will have a lot of misses. Using companions for debuffs is - in my opinion - the best and fastest way to enable sneak attack and death blows. You can do it by yourself - but debuffing enemies should be your number one priortity anyways so why let the rogue do that? He should focus on dealing damage. Ideally you want to raise your ACC and lower enemies' defenses at the same time. If you have two weapon sets for melee weapons then you don't need to worry about different damage types on one weapon. For example a rogue who wants to use Estocs can easily switch to a Pollaxe in his 2. weapon slot if he meets enemies who are immune to pierce damage. Normallly you can do this with every Weapon Focus group. For example Ruffian has pierce (Stiletto), slash (sabre) and crush (club) - Soldier has pierce/crush (war hammer), slash/pierce (great sword) - Adventurer has pierce (Estoc), slash/crush (Pollaxe) and crush (flails). So you don't trap yourself with a special Weapon Focus in terms of damage type. However - it can be quite convenient to have two damage types on one weapon. Sabres have the highest base damage of all one handed weapons. Since all damage bonunes (+x% damage) are calculated with that base damage, it's a good bonus for a rogue since he stacks a lot of those damage bonuses. The fact that there are two sabres in the game that also double your bonus damage for critical hits make those two sabres ideal for rogues who tend to crit a lot. However - it's not only damage you should consider when planning your rogue. Although I have to admit that dual sabres is always a solid choice for a melee rogue. I - on the other hand - like to use characters that are sturdy but also do ok damage. I seldomly build melee glass cannons or pure tanks nowadays. I want to have a party of six in which everybody is doing damage and everybody can at least stand a few hits without kissing the ground. For me the game is way easier this way. The "old" apporach of using a sturdy or tanky front line that holds off the enemy while my glass cannon backline or flankers do all the damage is so much fuzz and the outcome in terms of damage dealt is nearly the same as if everybody just deals ok damage. THe difference is that I don't have to babysit all my squishies. The good thing is you can achieve this with nearly every class - rogues also. What I mean is you make him sturdier but still ensure he does good damage. You can do that with a shield. His dps will suffer, true, but a rogue with a sabre and a shield still does a lot of damage - while suddenly being able to be at the front line without passing out all the time. The netto outcome for me is that those rogues do even more damage at the end of the day because they don't go k.o. all the time. But that's just my gusto and approach.

I tested it a long time ago. As far as I remember I tested it with potions of Infuse with Vital Essence. There's a Belt of Bountiful Healing that does the same. It's a fairly common random find. If you have that AND the cloak it's the best combination I guess. Of course one could argument that a blunting belt is still better. But in terms of regeneration I think that will be the maximum (besides raising MIG and INT). So, for maximum regeneration you would need: Constant Recovery + Rapid Recovery + Cloak of the Tireless Defender + Belt of Bountiful Healing + He Carries Many Scars + Survival Bonus. The only thing in this list that comes late is the plate armor. That thing is like it's made for your build.

Shod-in-Rave.

The DR bonus only applies while your health is below 25%. As soon as you reach 25% or higher it vanishes. At least it used to be so. I didn't test this for a long, long time. And it's only the armor's DR that is taken into account and gets multiplied by 1.5, not your whole DR. Again: it used to be that way - no idea about the present state. With a plate that's quite nice - but still a bit situational. For your build it might be a good synergy though.

Unfortunately this is not right. It gives you +50% DR if your HEALTH is lower than 25%. Isn't that what I said? (without giving the exact percentages). Oh, is it HEALTH instead of ENDURANCE? I never realized that! That could make a huge difference for my low con Fighter Build, if so. Does the "scars" armor work the same way? Yep. It's the same enchantment.

With Fast Runner, Long Stride or Zealous Charge, Boots of Speed, Survival Movement Bonus and The Last Tower shield you can get a +9 move speed bonus. Try it out! It's hilarious.

Unfortunately this is not right. It gives you +50% DR if your HEALTH is lower than 25%.

What do you mean? PER? It's needed for the damaging chants (Come, Sweet Winds of Death, The Dragon Thrashed) as well as for all offensive invocations. Of course you don't need it if you only want to use summons and buffs. But if you drop DEX and PER your reflex will be abysmal no matter which shield you use. By the way the "White Worms" invocation is one of the most powerful spells if used with cleverness: lure all enemies of a map to one choke point and kill them there (don't reload because all the dead bodies will be gone). Then, when you face encounters that are really tough on that map, retreat to the pile of bodies and use that invocation. It works over and over again on the same bodies. I used it to clear Crägholt Bluffs with ease. Commander Beralrion, that poor lass... died from 30 explosions that came out of his former comrades. Like this:

I have to add that I use the outworn buckler (Pallegina) as well as little savior (Kana). So all my defenses would be -10 each without them. I also use Redfield on Hiravias which also works like +3 to all defenses - but since it's a passive ACC debuff aura I don't take it into account here.

That's why 3 DEX and good PER are not a problem. With the higher PER you can compensate the -8 ACC from large shields while you get lots of reflex and deflection out of it. So basically you have better results if you have 18 PER and a large shield than 14 PER and a medium shield. But that is even better than 10 PER and a small shield. That's because you profit two times from the shield's deflection value: it raises deflection AND reflex.

It will give you one wound for 8 damage instead of 10. I like it - but many say it's not worth it.

Well chanter tanks can do very well with 3 DEX as long as you give them good PER (reflex will be bad otherwise).

My tanks currently have: Me, chanter: 127/116/120/124 on lvl 14. That is more than I need in 95% of all encounters. Dragons are a different issue of course. Kana: 117/110/120/114 Hiravias: 112/108/126/114 Pallegina: 102/100/128/112 With two chanters who have the Dragon Thrashed you really want to avoid to get mind controlled. If you ask me why I play with 4 tanks (or "tanky" characters): They are not pure tanks but also deal lots of damage - which basically makes the game supereasy.

Crit bonus damage should also get multiplied. At least it says so.

If you want to dual wield and use Swift Strikes then DEX 10 is ok. But I think I would do like 15/15/15/15 for the first four stats. But I doubt it will matter after the first few levels.

Durador? That friend of Rodriguez?

Why Palleginas Breastplate? It gives you +50% DR when your health (not endurance) drops below 25%. I find this to be quite underwhelming most of the time.

Sure? Because it got buffed to +150% damage and with the cloak you can get invisible 2 times per encounter. Together with an opening attack from stealth and Shadowing Beyond and maybe a Nightshroud in the second weapon slot you could have a max of 6 backstabs in one encounter. And Backstab stacks with sneak attack and deathblows. Just saying.

That's nice to hear.

He? I never experienced such a problem. If I only have 2 points left and want to enchant an exceptional item to superb the game will let me. Or what are you guys talking about?

Once you can take Iron Wheel you need no thicker armor than robes. The mechanic is great: If you don't have wounds you will get them fast (low DR) - but while you accumulae wounds your DR will get higher (up to +10). It's great! You can also compensate the lack of thick armor with high CON and healing like Silver Tide. And also higher deflection. Higher deflection means more grazes which still help with the wound gain but don't knock you over so fast. The Lavender Wreath AndreaColombo suggested is very nice for a monk (or anybody else who wants to get hit). It retaliates with Sickened so to say. The fact that the monk can also cause Weakened with Enervating Blows leads to hefty debuffs that you apply passively. That's really nice. And anyway that Lavender Wreath only looks good if you're wearing robes or monk's outfit. As I said in another thread: High MIG + Veteran's Recovery + regenerating item + Belt of Bountiful Healing + Survival Bonus: Healing Multiplier leads to a nice effect. And if you still fell like going down too much you can always put on Shod-in-Faith.

The Cloak of the Master Mystic can save your butt - and it works quite well with backstab, too.

Yeah - for a dual wield sabre or battle axe rogue it doesn't make a lot of sense.

So does that mean I want to be helping the Knights of the Crucible in Defiance bay for their faction perk? (And maybe getting 7 points in Survival for DR +2 might be nice too)? I've heard others poo poo these options, but if every little bit of DR helps... prototype00 How is +4 DR poo poo? Sure - the +15 ACC from survival is better if you know what to expect. But against kith enemies there is no ACC bonus. So +2 DR is the next best option. Merciless Hand or Mob Justice make no sense for the Backlash Beldam. +2 DR totally does.

Yes, the Backlash Beldam starts like an ordinary melee cipher and only gets fancy when you manage to get retaliation items and if you are able to crat your own potions of flame shield. And then later - with the new high level power Defensive Mind Web and Reaping Knives the cipher totally rocks the house. But in 3.0 also the chanter keeps on getting better an better because the Brisk Recitation and so on. I will put it like this: If you like casting a lot I would use the cipher, if you like low micro then use the chanter.