Braven

While it has fear immunity, you can also easily get fear immunity with a 2 lore scroll, or a low level priest spell, for dragon fights (only time fear is really an issue). sadly, no amount of accuracy makes up for losing a weapon elemental lash enchantment, so targeting will is not a big deal even if Will is always lower. Lashes simply do more damage than a critical hit. The fact it also can't have Durgan steel is yet another good reason to avoid the sword. The soulbound dagger is much better, I think, since "firebug" can do huge amounts of damage and it has a very important attack speed buff. Probably the only soulbound I think is worth using.

I meant withering strike and fearsome strike. I would take Sap for sure; great ability. However, that is a level 13 ability, not a level 9 one. Might is an additive bonus. You are right that it is not as impactful, damage-wise for rogue because they already have access to a lot of additive bonuses and they don't have any multicative damage forms which benefit more from might (like paladin and monk's lashes or ranger's wounding ability). If you don't plan of using self-healing I would be very tempted to not bother with might at all, unless you want to quick switch guns or only use ranged attacks. Then you probably want max might just because other stats are less helpful.

1. None of them. Remember, you can always take lower level abilities. I think both level 1 abilities, for example are better 2. I would take Reckless. 3. I like Might for healing. Rogues, being squishy benefit a lot from healing items like Shod-in-faith boots, which are boosted from might. Also easier to trigger since rogues often have a low deflection score. Veterans recovery talent is another good option.

Does one-handed style talent work now for dual-wields or sword and board in normal weapon melee? If so, it could be great for a low perception build that plans on grazing a lot. Also, large shield users who have lower accuracy. It is strange that one-handed style worked with a two-handed weapon; seems like a bug. I wonder if it only happens when using a special ability (like envenomed strike). Would it also trigger on a standard melee auto-attack?

Pets are actually quite strong for tanking. In the late game, they can have DR ratings in the mid-20s and also don't have to worry about health since they only have an endurance pool. Later, they can get 2 knock downs just like fighter has and uses the Rangers intelligence for the prone duration (instead of the pet's dismal intelligence). In white march 2, three of the new ranger abilities directly help pet tanking. One heals the pet twice/encounter, another revives the pet, and the third grants you benefits if the pet is knocked out. I recommend the ranger has high might for the healing, if you want the best pet tank. Chanters can also make for good front liners, since there is little reason not to throw plate armor on them and their base deflection is good. The AOE damage chants tend to annoy enemies into attacking them too, helping to keep engagement as long as the chanter's INT is good. I think the party will do just fine. Because your casters can "go nova" for tough fights, you can be as strong as you need to be as long as you rest when you needed and are not afraid to unload your spell arsenal.

I don't think so. Weapon effects (other then some exceptions, like stat bonuses) do not help spells to my knowledge. Effects like graze to hit, accuracy boosts, multiple damage types, and crit. damage modifier shouldn't help spells. However, a shield accuracy penalty will effect spells and a hatchet will still give you a deflection boost. If all you ever plan to do is cast spells and never use your weapon, you are best off with either a hatchet or a weapon with a stat or defensive enchantment. In your other hand you should wear a shield. A small shield has no penalties and will give you more deflection. Some other shields give you passive defensive bonuses, like protection from stun/prone, and are also good choices. Sadly, It really doesn't help for a wizard to hold a quarterstaff or dagger because it seems like something a (classic DnD) wizard should use. Usually those have zero benefits. Of course, you can just stick with a ranged weapon in case there is a gap in spell casting to get a shot off.

Is the 1/4 DR penalty applied again, even if the same damage type? I wonder if the MIN damage rules still apply with lashes. I guess high DR can reduce the damage quite a bit. Monk's four (non-raw) lashes means essentially double DR (and the lash half can't be bypassed). Also, I think paladin has 4 lash DRs (same as monk) as they also have 4 non-raw sources. Even though intense flames claims to modify the existing FoD lash the the description, nothing really works that way. Probably because the Unity files are modulized into separate asset files, everything is applied separately and don't really consider each other. Similar to how "rapid recovery" shows up as a separate number from "constant recovery", even though it claims to modify the later.

Very true. Immediate monster lash at the start of combat is a really great benefit. I am not saying monk is better than paladin or is a better monster lash build; I am just trying to figure out the max damage math for comparison of that one aspect since it can be confusing/deceptive in pillars. It is worth noting that even with just two wounds, monks have a respectable 100% in lashes, a full attack ready, and 25% attack recovery bonus to more quickly spam another afterwards. That will do around 100 damage in my comparison example, only 20% worse than paladin. Two wounds only takes a couple seconds to get in harder difficulties so it is basically at the start of combat. After playing around with a new monk for a bit and looking at the combat log, I see that Torments reach's +50% is actually a lash, not an additive bonus, so my above math is wrong; it is actually a bit better though sadly it is "crush" instead of an elemental type we can further buff. I have also noticed that vulnerable attack doesn't affect lash DR at all, making that a bad talent for monster lash. It is only a flat 5 damage max per attack which is clearly not worth the talent's downside. I imagine other DR-bypass also doesn't work. New math with TR lash and blood testament with the example 50 regular damage (before lashes): Elemental lashes +45% fire (turning) +25 shock (swift) +25 fire or shock (enchant) = 95% * 1.2 = 114% Non-Elemental lashes +18% raw (testament) +50% crush (torment) = 68% Final Damage 141. (Caveat: Lashes will approx. double overall DR) Side note: fire and shock utility talents combined only add about 9.5 damage in this example under optimal conditions. I think I would save those for last if taken. Other melee ones probably have a bigger impact on DPS.

Does monk's "blood testiment" also work like a lash, multiplying total damage? Another good item for monk's version of monster lash.

The thing is, though, if you land a "monster lash" critical with Resolution or Purgatory they should actually do more damage than bittercut (if Kaylon's testing is accurate and it provides a normal, additive bonus instead of a multiplier to all weapon damage). You can still take the spirit of decay and scion of fire talents to boost the lashes, like you did with 2xBittercut. If you only graze/hit, or fight a high slash DR enemy, Bittercut will do a little better in that situation since purgatory/resolution's advantage is with critical hits only. Annihilation enchant (on patch 3.02) adds a 50% damage modifier which is over twice Bittercut's 20% spirit of decay bonus. If Bittercut performs better than those sabers (when landing a critical hit), then something else must be going on with the math that we are missing.

You are missing a lash. Paladins can get lashes in these ways: 50% (base FoD) 25% (intense flames talent all paladins can take) 25% (bleak walker specific talent) 25% (weapon enchant) That is 125% lashes * 1.2 = 150% -- Side Note If spirit of decay is just a 20% additive bonus, then the damage is not much different than sabers with annihilation, like double Purgatories, since you going to be landing critical hits often with the kind of build using dual sabers; particularly paladins since they have huge accuracy bonuses. Granted, the enemies that actually matter are generally not getting critically hit often and probably have a higher slash DR, so in that respect Bittercut is superior. The difference maker, though, is that Purgatory comes with a huge healing bonus when combined with monster lash (at least if lashes count toward the endurance drain... I am not sure). In theory, it should restore 50 endurance per full attack (not considering DR). Add in, say, a 60% heal multiplier survival bonus and we are talking 80 endurance healed. Could even go higher with 25% item bonus. For a monk, that seems like a much better deal than dual bittercuts since they will want a big heal after taking 10 wounds (80 damage) to power up. They also don't have a corrode lash that benefits from spirit of decay anyways and is one less wasted talent. With that kind of healing you probably don't need Veteran's recovery or Shod-In-Faith boots anymore allowing for more equipment options to fill in the void. For the truly power-hungry, you could instead use the wax with the fireball saber for 6 fireballs in a single weapon slot. 9 fireballs per battle possible with only 2 weapon slots.

Assuming the lashes work as Boeroer suggested. A FoD attack should add 150% (125% in lashes * 1.2) more damage than a regular attack of the same hit quality. If a regular hit does 50 damage, than FoD should be 125 damage. A monk with optimal swift-strike torments reach, who would otherwise hit for 50 damage (same damage upgrades as paladin) would do: 50 + 8 (torments reach additive bonus) * 114% (95% in lashes * 1.2) = 124.12 damage If I am understanding the mechanics correctly, (optimal) monk has nearly the same potential damage output as paladin's FoD, though it takes longer to setup and doesn't have the big accuracy bonus. There is also much to be said about killing the dangerous enemy immediately instead of waiting for 10 wounds. However, in a hypothetical long fight in which two FoD is not enough, the monk will do better since they can perform "unlimited" monster attacks and also provide a bit of AOE with torment reach also. Overall, I think Paladin has it best but monk could be interesting for solo. Talent-wise, the monk needs 4 (lightning swift attacks, fire bonus, shock bonus, corrode bonus), while the paladin also needs 4 (intense flames, remember the fields, corrode bonus). -- UPDATE: The rogues sadly come in third for single attack damage, even if I give them backstab and deathblows, because they can only get a 25% lash. If savage attack actually stacked with their class ability or they could actually backstab properly with activated abilities, it might be a different story. On the plus side they do have great accuracy, need less talents, and have a lot of activated full attacks that can be spammed from the start. On the downside, they are much squishier and performing multiple full attacks use up most of their class abilities. Normal: 50 Sneak: 8 Deathblows: 16 backstab: 24 = 122.5 Damage with lash (97.5 damage without backstab and instead using one of their 25% damage boosted full-attacks with deathblows)

For a full party, I think it is great. Also, chanters generally have few talents they really need, so this is an easy pick in my opinion. All of the endurance regeneration abilities got a big buff in 3.0. I particularly like Veteran's Recovery since it heals a lot more now and scales with level. The bad news is that most of them have ability durations so they work much better with higher INT. I guess the developers wanted to punish melee classes more if they dump INT (fighters in particular). All of them (constant recovery, ancient memories, rapid recovery, veteran's recovery...) are best if you have both high MIGHT and INT. Even more so for ancient memories since it is AOE.

If it is lashes that make the difference, monk should be really powerful. Fully buffed, they have +45% fire lash, +25% Lightning lash, +25% (custom lash). Torment's Reach also comes with a +50% damage modifier and an AOE effect. It has lower accuracy, but is otherwise more damaging than FoD and can be used "unlimited" instead of twice/encounter. Would be interesting to see if that is completely broken. If it -is- buggy (and I don't think anyone would be surprised if it is) and spirit of decay increases all damage types done with Bittercut (it helps the "slash", so maybe? Would need testing.), having more damage types is better since both elemental bonuses will apply to the lashes then. Maybe the custom lash could be frost and you get all 4 element talents for the ultimate elemental monk? Frost would also help the frost twin. Would take a ton of talents though but I kind of like the theme.

So are the lashes multicative and weapon itself additive? OR both additive. It isn't clear exactly how it works and of course the UI never explains how the math is done and the wording the same for both additive and multicative math. :/ If it applies to both, then the lashes basically get "double" boosted in some fashion. I tried Spirit of Decay and Bittercut but it wasn't that impressive. Didn't seem much different than other sabers. But it only had 1 lash instead of 3 lashes like the paladin. I also don't quite have deathblows and haven't tried backstab yet, but it would seem Bittercut is best with paladin. Not bad with rogue, but not game breaking either.

Maybe there is buggy lash behavior when combined with spirit of decay. Since it also increases other damage types, maybe it buffs the fire lash too, independently? if it is additive for the weapn itself, how does it work with elemental lashes?

I sadly discovered that savage attack does not stack with reckless assault. They suppress each other.

Dual Bittercuts would work pretty well for DPS builds with lower accuracy (non-maxed perception) since they don't require crits to be good, like the other sabers with annilihilation enchant.

It would be nice if there was a way to debuff only certain DR types to fool the game into picking the elemental type.

Runner's shot (and Wounding shot) doesn't work like a lash - the 80% is applied to the final damage (after DR) ie it sucks vs high DR targets. Even so, when you are hitting for well over 100 with a single backstab (I was doing over 100 even at level 2 with a crossbow), high DR will only eat up a small percent of the total damage so it will still do a ton of extra damage. Because it is per-encounter, you could just shoot, escape (with boots of speed and/or rogue ability) and get the backstab/wounding/escape back again. You don't have to worry about the enemy healing back up because it is dead from the snipe. Most of the bounties are in open fields so that strategy should work for those battles. All you need is a level 4 rogue.

I usually advocate INT and have a lower opinion of CON. Most rogue build would benefit more from INT because the afflictions also helps the party or they want to maximize deep wounds, however, for this build, you don't need super long durations to make deathblows viable because everything dies within a few seconds anyways if you have a high attack speed (part of the reason I use dual weapons) and massive backstabs. On the other hand, CON is really helpful since there is no room in the build for endurance regeneration (outside of draining weapons) and solo builds need more endurance since they take all the hits. In the late game, 10 INT is still possible by shifting over the rest bonus (+3 int) and wearing the +4 int ring. Base durations should be enough to get deathblows and sneak attacks off. I don't strictly play solo (not going for an achievement). I am okay having guys hangout in the stronghold (no way I am giving up the stronghold items). One advantage of going solo is that some abilities no longer seem so bad. Feign Death seems bad since it prevents you from contributing to the battle for 10 seconds or so. But with solo, it is not a bad thing since enemies will just wait there for you to get back up and you get a big heal and invisibility (and backstab) out of it, which is great. I'll do some kind of write up after I finish. I will try a couple combinations and see which I like better with retraining, as far as the INT/CON/RES balance and whether to go with double BitterCuts or Double Purgatory. Bittercuts are more damaging I think, but the healing from Purgatory could be really useful. One bad thing about backstabs is that you can't really "open" with something like a potion. When you start combat you are already surrounded. I am thinking of utilizing the "escape" ability to get away after backstabbing in order to get some breathing room to summon figurines or drink a potion. In wide open areas, you could also probably backstab/escape/stealth/repeat to get more value from backstab and note use up per/rest abilities. You don't even need to take the actual escape ability since there are a couple good items that already have it (cape of the cheat and tax collectors mantle), though eventually you will want to replace those with Cape of the Master Mystic since that is core to the build (if it isn't still bugged) If you are not against retraining in the late-game, I would say that low INT is always best early on since you won't get the talents/items/abilities to take advantage of INT until late game. Belt of chimes comes with -1 Stealth which is not great with this build, and the Binding Rope belt is really great since it has synergy with sneak attack and death blows. Now that I think about it more, Resolve should probably be around 10 just for the concentration since there are better items for the equipment slots. That still leaves around 10 for CON which is probably all that is actually needed. I wish there were more ways to boost concentration without spells/potions.

Runners shot does seem really nice for alpha strikes and is one of my planned talents. Hopefully it will actually work with backstab. Only downside is that it is a primary attack, so not as good with dual weapons. Would be great with a gun backstab, if it works. There is really no reason not to use both dual weapons and a gun since you can switch weapons with (effectively) zero recovery penalty if you do so while invisible. With decent INT, you could probably reload even the biggest gun while invisible before the duration runs out without the any talent investment. If playing solo there is no rush to come out of invisibility.

Good point. Often the extra damage is overkill and afflictions don't matter if the enemy is dead (or even one small hit off) Currently the big guns do more damage for a backstab opener, even with both weapons triggering backstabs, as a level 5 (maybe that will change with switch to sabers and melee exclusive talents), but dual weapons are faster for the next action which is more important, I think, since both are usually overkill. I am experimenting with a high CON dwarf rogue with dumped INT and Resolve (will save is mostly useless when soloing anyways and things die so fast that affliction duration doesn't really matter). I am hoping to find some stronghold items to fix the concentration problem of low resolve. The goal of my build is to take all of the per/rest abilities and max potential when only considering a single battle. Some of the optional battles I just sneak past with high stealth to save time/abilities, so overall not really resting much more. Off the top of my head, there are now at least six ways to get backstabs for a single battle: Stealth, 2x Shadowing, the soulbound mace, cape of master mystic, and feign death. Makes the backstab talent quite nice. There are also some nice items with rogue powers, like the tax collectors mantle. A lot of people hate on backstab, but if you think about it 6x150 is 900x total damage increase. Most people think talents that increase damage by 15% (without downsides) is pretty good, but it would take 60 attacks to equal the damage of backstab, which realistically isn't happening. And I am not even taking into consideration the DR penalty all those additional attacks would incur or the fact that immediate damage is much better than slow damage. A lot of people take weapon mastery as a fighter which is only a 10% additive damage bonus, 90 times worse! --- For this build, I am considering two options: I could retrain most of the CON into INT for shod in faith, veterans, deep wounds, venom, feign death, and invisible duration. With that setup, I would use double Bittercut sabers for the vile-thorns / deep wounds synergy and also take spirit of decay. Because INT modifies invisibility duration, I could passively heal with veterans/shod-in-faith while invisible and watch enemies slowly bleed to death from deep wounds. You can also switch weapons and reload weapons while invisible, which is kind of like an action speed boost. Nice thing about solo is that your team mates aren't dying while you are waiting in the shadows preparing to strike next. The other option is to forgo INT completely (and save talents by not taking deep wounds, veterans, venom...). For healing, double "Purgatory" sabers (copied with wax) backstabs is basically a lay-on-hands up to 6 times per battle in the late game and doesn't take any actions or require Intelligence. With the large health pool, purgatory healing will be well supported. This setup has less good talent options, but that is okay because backstab already eats up two of them and optimal melee damage requires a few more.

I have been playing around with a backstabbing rogue for a solo build. It is now more interesting since it was changed to 150% extra damage. I have noticed some strange things with dual wielding and full attacks. If you use a full attack ability (like crippling strike), only the second attack gets the backstabs for some reason if backstabbing from stealth. Hoever, if you backstab using a normal attack, both weapons get the bonus backstab damage. Unless interrupted before the second weapon hits. In that case the second weapon does not get the backstab. It is annoying that activated abilities work differently then an auto attack; seems like a bug. To mitigate, I have been doing normal, dual weapon attacks for opening backstabs and then following that up with the full-attack activated abilities to clean up other minions.

That makes sense; I wasn't thinking of the hit-to-crit conversion.