Haplok

"All crit skills"? You mean all of Blind Fighting? I suppose you could optimize your equipment towards crit chance, in which case I suppose its not necessary. But yeah, a crit means more Focus = more SA damage. Particularly if you have trouble penetrating enemy armor...

Hm.. so it costs 2 Bond to apply 1 stack... and you need 2 Bond for each following stack? My initial understanding of this ability was different, that each hit (regarles of attack ability/autoattack) after the first "marking" would add stacks. So without resource regeneration effects, you can apply max 5-6 stacks (and do nothing else)? Then its not so great, unless you build your party for it (include a high level Cipher for Brilliant)... Although you could maybe maximize its effects with an aoe melee weapon? Edit: Silly me.... Forgot that resources regenerate between encounters. So you actually only need multiple enemy groups. Still, that means that it's not as awesome, as it takes several encounters to maximize stacks... and you may not encounter that many of one race.

With the new melee Accuracy stacking boosts Ranger gets in 3.0 beta (against an enemy race/type?), I wonder if that class won't become the king of critical hit rate. Wonder how well that would go with Monk Swift Flurry/Heartbeat & multihit WotEP. The Accuracy (& Defense or Damage) stacks would quickly cap with a multihit weapon...

Nope. All 3 subclasses are vastly better. For different applications, of course. Unless maybe you can't stand ANY penalties and 10% Sneak attack loss means a lot to you.

Hmm, love for the ranger, nice! Stacking even MORE accuracy? Ranger will really be a crit machine now. Plus optional defensive bonus, great for melee!

I wouldn't rely on Body Attunement too much.

Brilliant is a powerful ability of a class which needs distinctive abilities and a bit of love IMO. I agree with some previous posters that it could make sense to look into how (what level/how fast) spell slots are restored by Brilliant, since the relatively fast restoration of highest level spells appears to be a problem. But I would rather not see it taken away.

Thank you for the complete explanation! Didn't think about 35% PL bonus. Wish the mechanics were more transparent. Why only 35% Sneak for Trickster though? I think it'd be more like 50% at PL VII? Edit: Wonder what would be the result with a light offhand for Crippling Strike spam. Then the attack speed would be the same. Only every second attack though, so it's closer but still not the same. Guess damage wise SA would have a slight edge. There is one issue with that calculation: it doesn't take into consideration enemy armor. SA doesn't care about it, but the base attack portion does. So if you can't easily penetrate, then I think alternating can still be the better damage option. Plus on wounded targets, Devastating Blow would certainly be the superior choice. Finally... can SA crit? The raw part of it cannot, I think? If so, then crits could also allow Crippling Strike to pull ahead.

Sorry, I don't know what all these numbers mean. I don't think I was getting 37 damage from 1 Sun & Moon hit. More like 20-something. But then again, this was at level 13, without Deathblows and with less Sneak damage. What is included in those multipliers? 2.6/2.35? 1.35? 60% Legendary, 50% Sneak, 50% Deathblows? 35% Might bonus?? If so, the new dual wielding malus seems too small. And the regular damage portion of SA attack would be a little higher. Still interesting.

If its a multiclass with other damaging abilities, then you'll do more damage by alternating, though. If not, then spam away.

That's one way to do it of course. Allows SA every attack while keeping the deflection somewhat high, so tanky. But the damage output is not stellar with Sun & Moon from what I've seen.

Hm, I think you're right. But that would also mean that it can't quite work in aoe like we thought we figured it out some time ago. Base attack part of SA can't quite feed the SA on next target? Unless special rules apply for aoe? Eh, its complicated! Edit: Maybe special aoe rules after all, as Kaylon wrote.

Fair enough, perhaps I've been too aggressive in confronting my opinions with other's visions/concepts/fun. Apologies. Though in the last post I mainly wanted to clarify that you can't quite pump focus and use SA at the same time (that's how I understood what Kaylon wrote). It works if you alternate, like you wrote.

I have wondered about its limitations, but didn't know how it works. Thank you.

The damage is lower than on the main target but certainly higher than what other classes can do. Also since you can apply afflictions in an AoE (using rogue abilities or cipher spells) the raw damage is further increased by sneak attack/deathblows. It is not higher then (sneak attack boosted) Amra aoe damage, Eager Blade aoe damage or Engoliero Ghost Blade damage. While those alternatives have the benefit of killing the primary target much faster and less worry about optimal positioning. Of course you can't trigger those effects on every hit, but with a Rogue you probably shouldn't spam SA on every hit either, as that would be a damage loss. Sorry, but those weapons don't come even close to the AoE damage of the WotEP. And yes, a cipher/rogue will be able to spam SA every hit against multiple enemies. My experience is different. And if you spam SA every hit, you're actually lowering your damage output by not taking advantage of Crippling/Devastating Strike. SA damage at 10-30 Focus is entirely unimpressive. If when you hit multiple targets for 30-40 damage you get only 10-30focus then your entire game should be different... Only it doesn't work like that. Unless you're NOT using SA, then it's right, you can accumulate a lot of Focus from hitting several targets. When you do use SA with an aoe weapon, like WotEP, Focus gets generated and spent as you hit each target. So after you finish the attack, you only have Focus from the base attack on the last target. And that's usually not an impressive figure with WotEP low base damage.

Hm, provided that you can bunch the enemies together. I find that in most encounters I can't. I mean sure, some will surround the first charger with lots of engagement (like Eder), but I tend to first focus on rogue chargers (who ignore engagement with Escape and threaten my back row), casters and ranged. Only then I worry about finishing the group that surrounds the tank - and they are usually easy pickings.

On DoC I typically take Self-Mending. +2 AR when Blooded seems more valuable to me then a weaksauce self-heal on crit.

Sounds neat. Though I believe the Nalpasca/Berserker will be quite fragile. Even if he can run Blade Turning, ranged focus fire would spell his doom quickly? Not quite as fragile as a Helwalker / Berserker though...

Rogues. Long nothing. Then Monks Then Berserkers

Instruments of Pain. Yeah, it's nice. But you have to consider that it's doable at level 19, when the game mostly ends. Meanwhile if swift flurry and heartbeat drumming aren't a priority, you can achieve somewhat similar results with dual blunderbuss mortar weapons, obtainable at level 5.

Sure, they are a pretty great class. Not a prime DPS material... but prime material for various multiclasses, which can include DPS.

The damage is lower than on the main target but certainly higher than what other classes can do. Also since you can apply afflictions in an AoE (using rogue abilities or cipher spells) the raw damage is further increased by sneak attack/deathblows. It is not higher then (sneak attack boosted) Amra aoe damage, Eager Blade aoe damage or Engoliero Ghost Blade damage. While those alternatives have the benefit of killing the primary target much faster and less worry about optimal positioning. Of course you can't trigger those effects on every hit, but with a Rogue you probably shouldn't spam SA on every hit either, as that would be a damage loss. Sorry, but those weapons don't come even close to the AoE damage of the WotEP. And yes, a cipher/rogue will be able to spam SA every hit against multiple enemies. My experience is different. And if you spam SA every hit, you're actually lowering your damage output by not taking advantage of Crippling/Devastating Strike. SA damage at 10-30 Focus is entirely unimpressive.

Maybe you were stealthed? Then the recovery is boosted so much, that individual effects are insignificant. Or maybe you were looking at another character. Pet's "main" powers affect only the main char (secondary effects are party wide).

If you lead the charge with dumped Deflection, then you do need it. The cool thing is that you CAN lead the charge, be Flanked and Bloodied and still (usually) survive.

The damage is lower than on the main target but certainly higher than what other classes can do. Also since you can apply afflictions in an AoE (using rogue abilities or cipher spells) the raw damage is further increased by sneak attack/deathblows. It is not higher then (sneak attack boosted) Amra aoe damage, Eager Blade aoe damage or Engoliero Ghost Blade damage. While those alternatives have the benefit of killing the primary target much faster and less worry about optimal positioning. Of course you can't trigger those effects on every hit, but with a Rogue you probably shouldn't spam SA on every hit either, as that would be a damage loss.