Melee rogue questions

[KDubya]

On PotD, just hit level 5.

 

Build is a Pirate theme.

 

Race = Island Amaumau, Deadfire Archipelago Raider

 

Might 20

Con    8

Dex   19

Per   10

Int     3

Res   18

 

Talents - Crippling Strike, Reckless Assault, Savage Attack, Ruffian focus

 

Wielding sabre one handed for the accuracy boost, two weapon switches have fine arbalest for initial volleys, will change to pistol when I find any. Wearing leather armor.

 

Team is two hander fighter, Kana, Monk all three in full plate on the frontline. Cipher and Durance in back, Pirate shoots twice then runs around flank and starts in with sword.

 

Cleared some of Raedric's hold to get plate, cleared Stronghold, top floor of endless (spiders) and one room of Xaurip on level one. Had to abandon here due to too many xaurip, too high deflection and too many stuns. On the way to Big City.

 

What talents would be better to take at level five:

 

1.) Escape - Currently I have no ability to get out of a bad melee other than killing the guy or getting a paralyze from the cipher. My deaths occur when either teleporters hit the rear, the frontline gets dropped or the horde spills around. Being per encounter sounds better than per rest. Is the range affected by a low intellect? Four meters sounds useful, if in my case it becomes 2.1 meters it would not be very useful.

 

2.) Dirty Fighting - 10% hit to crit is not bad, opens up another 10% in the general talents.

 

3.) Deep Wounds - lists 13 raw damage for 6.5 seconds, reduced from ten due to my low intellect. How useful is this? Does it stack, as in if I get 3 hits in every 6 seconds it'd be doing 3x13 = 39 raw damage every 6 seconds or so? That would be like a 33% damage increase, maybe more if I dual wielded stillettos. Or is it only able to hit for 13 damage and each new hit just resets the timer?

 

4.) Blinding Strike - once per encounter, lasts 6.5 seconds blind and 1.25 x damage. I think the blind would break engagement if it hit, could this serve as a form of escape?

 

Thanks for any thoughts and ideas on this.

[knownastherat]

Blinded is debuff not being blind. It helps to land hits/crits/sneak attack. Not tested Deep Wounds but in the Retal Rogue thread there is mention that it reapplies on hit. Escape is situational and short range imo besides there is Priest yes?  

[Antless]

I'd say your choice is between Escape and Dirty Fighting. The damage of Deep Wound is minimal, however not affected by INT (as the debuff is refreshed on hit) and only useful if you have a ranger engaging the same target. Blinding Strike is not much more then addition 25% base damage on a target once per fight, the debuff itself has much more potent sources (wizards, chipers).

 

Generally I'd go with Dirty Fighting, unless you have problems with getting into bad engagements  a lot. If you have a chiper in your party supporting your rogue (it sounded that way), those situations should however be fairly rare.

[Tigranes]

Dirty Fighting is the most beneficial since it synergises with almost any kind of rogue build, but having blinding strike as well as hobbling strike can be useful if you find your rogue is not sneak attacking 100% of the time (it should be). 

 

Blind doesn't literally blind them to everything. Hover over effects names in-game and read their tooltips.

[Zenicetus]

FWIW, I found Escape the least essential of those for my main character melee Rogue. I'm at level 10 and I still haven't taken it.

 

The Fast Runner talent (non-Class) gives +5 Defense during disengagement, and a +1 to movement speed in combat. Very useful for a Rogue. I took Fast Runner, plus I'm wearing a Cape of Deflection that gives an additional +15 Defense on disengagement. Adept Evasion (level 7) also helps avoid taking damage when disengaging.

 

I wasn't attracted to Escape because it's just one per encounter, and you have to manually fire it off before moving. All these other "escape" abilities are passive, they work on multiple disengagements during a battle, and I don't have to think about them. I do take hits when disengaging, but with the +Defense and Adept Evasion they're usually something minor I can shrug off. 

 

Regarding the other talents, I used Blind a lot in the early game, but not so much mid-game and later when I was working better with party CC debuffs that did the same thing, or better. Deep Wounds isn't bad, but Dirty Fighting is better because that stacks with other +Crit abilities, and will be worthwhile all the way to the end of the game.

 

[Ormag]

Dump perception, put those points into int instead.

[Nadrac]

1, it's bad, you jump away barely and he will follow you

2, handy

3, doesn't stack, only refreshes, best with slow weapons, ok choice

4, you should have started with this, now probably you have skip it til the end, too little impact

Dump perception, put those points into int instead.

He was right to dump int, slightly longer lasting limited use encounter abilities in the long fights of potd traded for survivability and damage is a no brainer

[Voltron]

Dirty Figting- 10% Hit convert to Critc. Later you gra Vicious Fighting- another 10%, totall 20% hits convert to Crritc. Grab One-Handed talent, which gives % Grazes convert to Hits-> means more Hits convert to critcs. And then grab Bloody Slaugther- low Endurace enemies 20% Hits convert to Critics, 0.5 Multiplayer to Critcs. Gives total 40% of Hit to Critics if enemy is low Endrace- usefull on bosses and tough enemies.

 

Grab to that weapon with 0.5 Critc Multiplayer (Sabers with Anihilatrion), add Merciless Hand talent- another 0.3 Crit Multiplayer, Dungeon Delver talent- 0.1 Cric Multiplayer. For total 0.9 Crit Multiplayer, and 1.4 Crit Multiplayer against low Endurace enemies.

 

Ingore Backstab and Escape and other useless skill. Grab Savage Attack, Vulnerable Attack and Merciless Assault for total 1.4 damage increase with 5 DR pass. Weapon Focus: Rufian (Sabers), One Handed Style or/and Two Weapon Style/Shield Weapon style (depends if you play solo or not).

 

And use you Rogue as more Damage less Tank focused Fighter. If you solo grab all possible talents that give debuff- Crippling Strike, Blinded Strike etc for even more damage from Sneaking Attack.

 

You will be pleased. Forget about Rogue. And welcome Blade Master build. I will post it soon with details .

[KDubya]

Thanks everyone for the advice.

 

I'll be going for the dirty fighting, hit to crit is always useful.

 

I dumped intellect as the rogue does not have any AoE and very few duration based disables. Placed those points into resolve to balance out the will save and concentration to avoid interrupts.

 

I started with crippling instead of blinding strike for the extra use per encounter. Both add the same extra damage, both set up follow on sneak attacks. Blind is better than hobbled but two is better than one.

[knownastherat]

Blinded lowers Deflection and Reflex by 20 while Hobbled Reflex by 20.

[Voltron]

Blinded lowers Deflection and Reflex by 20 while Hobbled Reflex by 20.

 

He can grab Blided later, but 2x per encouter is better to keep 1.5 damage increase from Sneaking Attack as much as possible. With his INT debuffs are not that useful for debuff itself, but more for increasing melee damage.

 

I also always take Hobbled just for 2x. If blinded was also 2x- I'take Blinded first everytime.

[knownastherat]

There was advice to take hits to crits conversion. - 20 deflection is + 20 accuracy so it should increase melee damage or? It was just note to the fact that one of them is 2x and the other 1 x ~ there are other differences. I mean, in a party, depending on make up, its possibly inconsequential and there x1.25 damage 2x per fight may indeed come on top, of priorities.