Rogue builds anyone?

[Lasci]

Dual-wielding is fine. Single weapons is fine. Two-handers are fine. Ranged rogues are fine.

 

Seriously. There are very minute differences between these builds and, frankly, your 'build' is rarely going to determine what weapon you have to use. Play through the game with a rogue that has max might and dexterity and use every weapon choice until you find something that you like. Don't choose a weapon focus ever. Don't choose a weapon style until you're comfortable making that choice through your own experiences.

 

There are a myriad of good builds posted throughout the half dozen rogue threads spread through this forum. Find one and adapt it to your wants. And ignore the hilariously inaccurate psuedo-math that everyone is throwing out there to make their particular brand of a class seem better than everyone else's. 

 

tl;dr don't take backstab or escape, max might and dex, and experiment with what weapon type/style you want to use.

[Guest Arjuna]

 

There are a myriad of good builds posted throughout the half dozen rogue threads spread through this forum. Find one and adapt it to your wants. 

 

ok, maybe I'm just too dumb to search for it in a proper way, but I still haven't found ANY -- not to speak of myriads, lol -- solid post or thread providing viable insight on a gun-rogue build...

there are some beta-builds but I think they don't help much now.

[Cronstintein]

Well for starters look two posts above yours

[Alpha_Omega]

One issue is that two-handers definitely seem to have a leg over fast one-handers in many situations:

 

Fast 1h weapons attack every 44 frames if dual wielded

2h weapons attack every 84 frames

Thus, the dual wielder hits roughly 2x as often (slightly less actually).

 

But looking at base damage (8-12 vs 20-29), 2h weapons deal more than 2x the damage of 1h weapons.

 

This imbalance alone, combined with the Rogue's opportunity to have many "full attack" abilities with minimal recovery time, means 2h weapons appear strictly superior to dual-wielded fast weapons.

I found the same thing with my testing. I was all about dual wielding daggers, but 2h was the way to go in the end. I've not gotten to good magic weapons though so maybe dual wield will pull ahead with the right magic buffs. Edited April 3, 2015 by Alpha_Omega

[Lasci]

 

 

There are a myriad of good builds posted throughout the half dozen rogue threads spread through this forum. Find one and adapt it to your wants. 

 

ok, maybe I'm just too dumb to search for it in a proper way, but I still haven't found ANY -- not to speak of myriads, lol -- solid post or thread providing viable insight on a gun-rogue build...

there are some beta-builds but I think they don't help much now.

 

 

There's this thread and another entire thread going over rogue builds and optimization. You just have to put a smidgen of work into reading the posts.

 

Max might and dexterity. Get all of the requisite ranged and gun-based abilities. Marksman. Gunner. Precise Shot. Weapon focus early if you want it at all. Don't get Backstab or Escape. Use both of your weapon slots for guns; one with the most damage to start the fight and another with faster reloading to use throughout. Make sure to have both a Cipher and a Chanter; the former helps set up sneak attacks, the latter increases your attack speed.

[AlphaMagnum]

If it hasn't been said already, I recommend the following at minimum for a dual-wield rogue (regardless of what weapon you're dual-wielding):

 

Abilities:

 

Blinding Strike - per encounter, huge Accuracy/Deflection debuff, activates Sneak Attack

Reckless Assault - huge boost to damage

Deathblows - Flanking + any other CC = lots of bonus damage

Withering or Crippling Strike - neither is great, but at least Crippling offers 2x per encounter burst damage

 

Talents:

 

Vulnerable Attack - 5 DR Bypass is strictly superior to the 20% IAS you lose in return

Two-Weapon Style - 20% IAS is pure benefit with 0 drawbacks

Savage Attack - 20% Damage is strictly superior to the 5 Accuracy you lose in return

Weapon Focus - 6 Accuracy is always good

 

The remaining abilities/talents can be to taste -- if you're using Dirty Fighting, Vicious Fighting is a no-brainer.  Deflecting Assault may help reverse the squish from Reckless Assault.

[rheingold]

I agree with pretty much everything LasCo said, the guys with the Mathis have way to much time on their hands. Dual wield ends up doing insane damage. Only issue is I would take escape, it can be useful under certain circumstances. The path finding is not great and sometimes you can get stuck - ie having the tank holding a door means the rogue ends up twiddling his thumbs. The invisibility also can work, mainly to avoid engagement attacks. Backstab is useless though. Thing is a rogue only needs a few skill/talents to work well and they are obvious so I always end up taking escape and invisibility as well.

[rheingold]

Lasci - bloody autocorrect

[lionspaw]

One issue is that two-handers definitely seem to have a leg over fast one-handers in many situations:

 

Fast 1h weapons attack every 44 frames if dual wielded

2h weapons attack every 84 frames

Thus, the dual wielder hits roughly 2x as often (slightly less actually).

 

But looking at base damage (8-12 vs 20-29), 2h weapons deal more than 2x the damage of 1h weapons.

 

This imbalance alone, combined with the Rogue's opportunity to have many "full attack" abilities with minimal recovery time, means 2h weapons appear strictly superior to dual-wielded fast weapons.

 

Where are you getting the 20-29 figure from for two handed weapon base damage? It's listed as 14-20 for me. 

 

And you shouldn't be comparing two handers to dual wielding fast one handers, you need to compare it to dual wielding Sabre, which is 12-18.

 

Do you know the dual wield attack speed of Sabre's? It could very well be true that two-handers (esp Estoc) still comes out ahead, but it would be good to know. 

[Guest Arjuna]

 

 

 

There are a myriad of good builds posted throughout the half dozen rogue threads spread through this forum. Find one and adapt it to your wants. 

 

ok, maybe I'm just too dumb to search for it in a proper way, but I still haven't found ANY -- not to speak of myriads, lol -- solid post or thread providing viable insight on a gun-rogue build...

there are some beta-builds but I think they don't help much now.

 

 

There's this thread and another entire thread going over rogue builds and optimization. You just have to put a smidgen of work into reading the posts.

 

Max might and dexterity. Get all of the requisite ranged and gun-based abilities. Marksman. Gunner. Precise Shot. Weapon focus early if you want it at all. Don't get Backstab or Escape. Use both of your weapon slots for guns; one with the most damage to start the fight and another with faster reloading to use throughout. Make sure to have both a Cipher and a Chanter; the former helps set up sneak attacks, the latter increases your attack speed.

 

 

Well thank you, but it's not like I'm too lazy or anything, because I've read through this thread multiple times and I don't find it particulary helpful.

They all recommend -- just like you do now --  to max out dexterity; but isn't the usefulness of dex for a gun-rogue at least questionable because it doesn't help with the agonizing long reload time on guns; and isn't the attack speed on guns per se like superfast? Plz correct me if I'm wrong, I'm just here to gather enough viable and tested information for my future build.

[Lasci]

 

 

 

 

There are a myriad of good builds posted throughout the half dozen rogue threads spread through this forum. Find one and adapt it to your wants. 

 

ok, maybe I'm just too dumb to search for it in a proper way, but I still haven't found ANY -- not to speak of myriads, lol -- solid post or thread providing viable insight on a gun-rogue build...

there are some beta-builds but I think they don't help much now.

 

 

There's this thread and another entire thread going over rogue builds and optimization. You just have to put a smidgen of work into reading the posts.

 

Max might and dexterity. Get all of the requisite ranged and gun-based abilities. Marksman. Gunner. Precise Shot. Weapon focus early if you want it at all. Don't get Backstab or Escape. Use both of your weapon slots for guns; one with the most damage to start the fight and another with faster reloading to use throughout. Make sure to have both a Cipher and a Chanter; the former helps set up sneak attacks, the latter increases your attack speed.

 

 

Well thank you, but it's not like I'm too lazy or anything, because I've read through this thread multiple times and I don't find it particulary helpful.

They all recommend -- just like you do now --  to max out dexterity; but isn't the usefulness of dex for a gun-rogue at least questionable because it doesn't help with the agonizing long reload time on guns; and isn't the attack speed on guns per se like superfast? Plz correct me if I'm wrong, I'm just here to gather enough viable and tested information for my future build.

 

 

I don't understand how neither of these threads is helpful to you.

 

What else are you going to max instead of dexterity? Perception for interrupting? That's only marginally useful considering you're using guns. Intelligence? It doesn't affect enough of the rogue's abilities to be meaningful. Constitution? You shouldn't be getting hit anyways. Resolve is completely pointless to max.

 

I'm a bit confused about your confusion.

[NoxNoctum]

Is it possible to build a viable dual wielding rogue that doesn't have a ton of might?

 

I'm playing an elven female rogue and for RP purposes I just don't want to get a ton of might. Can I make do with say 13? I was thinking along these lines:

 

Might: 13

Con: 6

Dex: 18

Per: 16

Int: 12

Res: 13

 

I was thinking that relatively high deflection from Per and Res would balance out low Con. And obviously I'll be putting my tank(s) front and center. I'm barely ~1 hour into the game so I can restart if needed.  (already have a few times...) 

 

I want a BIT of Int for conversation options also frankly again for RP purposes. I could min-max it but don't want to play a character that's dumb as a rock .

[Guest Arjuna]

 

 

 

 

 

There are a myriad of good builds posted throughout the half dozen rogue threads spread through this forum. Find one and adapt it to your wants. 

 

ok, maybe I'm just too dumb to search for it in a proper way, but I still haven't found ANY -- not to speak of myriads, lol -- solid post or thread providing viable insight on a gun-rogue build...

there are some beta-builds but I think they don't help much now.

 

 

There's this thread and another entire thread going over rogue builds and optimization. You just have to put a smidgen of work into reading the posts.

 

Max might and dexterity. Get all of the requisite ranged and gun-based abilities. Marksman. Gunner. Precise Shot. Weapon focus early if you want it at all. Don't get Backstab or Escape. Use both of your weapon slots for guns; one with the most damage to start the fight and another with faster reloading to use throughout. Make sure to have both a Cipher and a Chanter; the former helps set up sneak attacks, the latter increases your attack speed.

 

 

Well thank you, but it's not like I'm too lazy or anything, because I've read through this thread multiple times and I don't find it particulary helpful.

They all recommend -- just like you do now --  to max out dexterity; but isn't the usefulness of dex for a gun-rogue at least questionable because it doesn't help with the agonizing long reload time on guns; and isn't the attack speed on guns per se like superfast? Plz correct me if I'm wrong, I'm just here to gather enough viable and tested information for my future build.

 

 

I don't understand how neither of these threads is helpful to you.

 

What else are you going to max instead of dexterity? Perception for interrupting? That's only marginally useful considering you're using guns. Intelligence? It doesn't affect enough of the rogue's abilities to be meaningful. Constitution? You shouldn't be getting hit anyways. Resolve is completely pointless to max.

 

I'm a bit confused about your confusion.

 

 

Thanks again for your swift response. Let me try to clear things up.

 

My points/questions are as following:

- why should I max dexterity if it doesn't affect the reload speed, which is imo the main problem with guns?

- wouldn't it be better to max intellect in case it'd affect the blunderbuss spread, which I of course don't know?

- I don't want to play an island aumaua and do the quick switch thing...

- I don't say that dexterity is useless, but on a gun-rogue it's maybe far less useful than on melee or arbalest rogues...

[lionspaw]

I find it hard to pick out the best race for a melee rogue without metagame knowledge. Ranged is obviously wood elf.

 

For melee rogues, there are three contenders:

1. Aumaua. 2 Might is great, pretty much the best stat for DPS. Both subtypes have useful racials, but i think the extra weapon is better for melee rogues because you want at least your primary weapon(s), ranged weapon, and shield + hatchet or 2 hatchets if you are getting focused. you may also want to carry an alternative set of weapons for high DR targets or something. The extra weapon slot just seems more useful than knockdown resistance to me. 

 

2. Death Godlike. 1 dex is pretty damn close to 1 might for damage, so it's basically down 1 Might compared to Aumaua. Death Godlike racial is a 5% damage increase in the best case (1.2 damage for 25% of the fight is 5% more damage overall). So Death Godlike has 2% damage advantage. However, they can't wear helmet. I assume there are some damage increasing helms, and at a rate of more than 2%, so Death Godlike is probably less effective than Aumaua. And we haven't even consider the extra weapon set or knockdown resistance from Aumaua's yet. 

 

3. Boreal Dwarf. Accuracy is such a good DPS stat. 15 Accuracy is somewhere between 15% and 20% damage increase under deflection normal scenarios. But I just don't know how many Wilder and Primordial creatures there are relative to other types over the entire game. Dwarves also have 2 Might, but they get -1 Dex, so its pretty much just 1 Might. Does their racial make up for 3% damage? Probably. But then Aumaua's still have their own racials other than +2 might. 

 

special mention: Hearth Orlan. I see some people overvaluing their racial for melee DPS. In the best case, 50% of your attacks are "hits", so the racials turns 10% of those into criticals. But criticals are just 50% more damage than hits, so 5% of your attacks get 50% more damage. The overall damage increase is about 3.7% (taking into account of misses), less in all other non best case scenario, which is a little over 1 Might. So it's strictly worse than Aumaua for DPS builds. 

[baconstrip]

Is it possible to build a viable dual wielding rogue that doesn't have a ton of might?

 

I'm playing an elven female rogue and for RP purposes I just don't want to get a ton of might. Can I make do with say 13? I was thinking along these lines:

 

Might: 13

Con: 6

Dex: 18

Per: 16

Int: 12

Res: 13

 

I was thinking that relatively high deflection from Per and Res would balance out low Con. And obviously I'll be putting my tank(s) front and center. I'm barely ~1 hour into the game so I can restart if needed.  (already have a few times...) 

 

I want a BIT of Int for conversation options also frankly again for RP purposes. I could min-max it but don't want to play a character that's dumb as a rock .

I'm playing a rogue with 14 might and I have absolutely no problem with HARD difficulty. My Rogue still does by far the most damage in my group

[mazeltov]

For melee rogues, there are three contenders:

 

Since we gamed out in another thread that you can control the conditions under which the Human ability activates, suddenly they look like a strong choice for DPS builds. The 15% extra damage is nice, but the real peach is +7 Accuracy during the buff time.

 

Never has shooting your Rogue in the head with an arbalest at the start of combat been so fun and profitable.

Edited April 4, 2015 by mazeltov

[noules]

If it hasn't been said already, I recommend the following at minimum for a dual-wield rogue (regardless of what weapon you're dual-wielding):

 

Abilities:

 

Blinding Strike - per encounter, huge Accuracy/Deflection debuff, activates Sneak Attack

Reckless Assault - huge boost to damage

Deathblows - Flanking + any other CC = lots of bonus damage

Withering or Crippling Strike - neither is great, but at least Crippling offers 2x per encounter burst damage

 

Talents:

 

Vulnerable Attack - 5 DR Bypass is strictly superior to the 20% IAS you lose in return

Two-Weapon Style - 20% IAS is pure benefit with 0 drawbacks

Savage Attack - 20% Damage is strictly superior to the 5 Accuracy you lose in return

Weapon Focus - 6 Accuracy is always good

 

The remaining abilities/talents can be to taste -- if you're using Dirty Fighting, Vicious Fighting is a no-brainer.  Deflecting Assault may help reverse the squish from Reckless Assault.

For DW builds you should also definitely take Deep Wounds. Deep Wounds doesn't stack with itself, but it does 4 damage (one tick) immediately on application, even on refresh, making Deep Wounds basically +4 damage per hit (plus the small DoT), making it pretty much a superior Vulnerable Attack. This isn't obvious since it doesn't show up on the combat log, but you can see how it works by attacking a party member.

[Daemonjax]

Deep Wounds doesn't stack with itself, but it does 4 damage (one tick) immediately on application, even on refresh, making Deep Wounds basically +4 damage per hit (plus the small DoT), making it pretty much a superior Vulnerable Attack. This isn't obvious since it doesn't show up on the combat log, but you can see how it works by attacking a party member.

 

 

Good info.  That should be in the combat log.

[Fimconte]

 

Thanks again for your swift response. Let me try to clear things up.

 

My points/questions are as following:

- why should I max dexterity if it doesn't affect the reload speed, which is imo the main problem with guns?

- wouldn't it be better to max intellect in case it'd affect the blunderbuss spread, which I of course don't know?

- I don't want to play an island aumaua and do the quick switch thing...

- I don't say that dexterity is useless, but on a gun-rogue it's maybe far less useful than on melee or arbalest rogues...

 

Dex affects attack speed and recovery time, both of which benefit ranged weapons.

 

Blunderbuss doesn't have spread.  

 

Play as Wood Elf and carry a pet chanter + pick up gunner at level 4/6/8.  

 

Dex is great, especially on high damage weapons that easily punch through DR.

[AlphaMagnum]

 

If it hasn't been said already, I recommend the following at minimum for a dual-wield rogue (regardless of what weapon you're dual-wielding):

 

Abilities:

 

Blinding Strike - per encounter, huge Accuracy/Deflection debuff, activates Sneak Attack

Reckless Assault - huge boost to damage

Deathblows - Flanking + any other CC = lots of bonus damage

Withering or Crippling Strike - neither is great, but at least Crippling offers 2x per encounter burst damage

 

Talents:

 

Vulnerable Attack - 5 DR Bypass is strictly superior to the 20% IAS you lose in return

Two-Weapon Style - 20% IAS is pure benefit with 0 drawbacks

Savage Attack - 20% Damage is strictly superior to the 5 Accuracy you lose in return

Weapon Focus - 6 Accuracy is always good

 

The remaining abilities/talents can be to taste -- if you're using Dirty Fighting, Vicious Fighting is a no-brainer.  Deflecting Assault may help reverse the squish from Reckless Assault.

For DW builds you should also definitely take Deep Wounds. Deep Wounds doesn't stack with itself, but it does 4 damage (one tick) immediately on application, even on refresh, making Deep Wounds basically +4 damage per hit (plus the small DoT), making it pretty much a superior Vulnerable Attack. This isn't obvious since it doesn't show up on the combat log, but you can see how it works by attacking a party member.

 

 

I've never used Deep Wounds before but that's wild.  +4 damage per hit is excellent, particularly if you're dual-wielding the (slightly) improved fast 1h weapons.

 

Do DoTs not show up at all in the combat log?  I've honestly never used one so I don't know how they work.  How do you know that you're dealing 4 damage?

[Veynn]

Deep Wounds doesn't show in the combat logs I think. It does show when you hover your mouse on an enemy.