Keeping them down! Or how dumb can you be and get the most out of Tall Grass.

[KDubya]

I was curious and I was bored. What combination of stats and equipment do you need for a Rogue to knockdown his target and to get a follow up attack before they lose the prone effect?

 

As with all my testing I used a tavern out of combat hitting one of my own guys.

 

 

 

Wearing Leather armor and using Vulnerable Attack and getting a hit for the prone effect, grazes are too short and crits are always long enough.

 

 - 26 Dexterity and 7 intellect let you get a follow up attack on the target before they lose the prone effect. I did not have a way to increase Dex any more so I started to increase intellect to get the result I was looking for.

 

- 22 Dexterity and 8 intellect let you get a follow up attack.

 

- 20 dexterity and 9 intellect let you get a follow up attack

 

- 11 dexterity and 10 intellect let you get a follow up attack

 

 

 

 

With Padded Armor and using Vulnerable Attack

 

- 23 Dexterity and 7 intellect lets you get a follow up attack

 

- 20 Dexterity and 9 intellect lets you get a follow up attack

 

-26 Dexterity and 7 intellect lets you get a follow up attack I did not have a way to get Dex higher than a 26 for my test

 

- 21 dexterity and 8 intellect lets you get a follow up attack

 

 

 

Conclusions - You need at least 7 Intellect to have a normal prone be long enough. A +2 item and +2 from casita casserole will get you the +4 easily without requiring specific inns. To get by with 7 intellect you need padded and 23 dexterity (Deadfire Archipeligo + non Dwarf + +2 item + +2 Rauatai Sweet Pie)

 

If you want the option of leather armor and the freedom of just needing a +2 from food and a +2 item you want to have a base intellect of 4 not 3. if you got intellect to 26 with a 22 dex you could hit again on a graze in case you were curious

 

My recommendation for a dumb Rogue who intends to use Tall Grass is:

 

Island Aumaua for the extra weapon slot with

Might - 12 - Rogues get a lot of bonuses so can cut here.

Con - 10

Dex - 19

Per - 15 - accuracy helps with the crit and the prone effect hitting

Int - 4 - the only duration I care about is the prone from Tall Grass

Res - 18 - mainly for dialogue but the deflection will help if you swap to a shield for more defense If your not going for the dialogue you can leave at ten, place six in intellect for a ten and put another two in might or perception.

[hilfazer]

Good research. Care to do some more with attack speed buffs?

 

 

Or maybe better not. If we'll talk too much about this weapon it may get destroyed ):

[Boeroer]

I used some rogues with Hours of St. Rumbalt and Tall Grass and so on and I have to say it's better to pump INT and DEX and drop MIG. Damage is still high enough and the extra duration helps a lot. Anyone noticed that Shatterstar and Strike Hard have higher than normal interrupt durations? Together with the Godanwhatever Warhammer that stuns it's a nice dual wield Combo for disabling - stunning and interrupting all the time

[KDubya]

I used some rogues with Hours of St. Rumbalt and Tall Grass and so on and I have to say it's better to pump INT and DEX and drop MIG. Damage is still high enough and the extra duration helps a lot. Anyone noticed that Shatterstar and Strike Hard have higher than normal interrupt durations? Together with the Godanwhatever Warhammer that stuns it's a nice dual wield Combo for disabling - stunning and interrupting all the time

 

 

During my playing around with this I was thinking that either a dual hammer build like that or dual axes with We Toki. The extra attack speed from two weapon style might push it down to where the rogue can always get the effect on the follow up.

 

The great thing about Tall Grass and St Rumbaults is that you can buy them as soon as you can get to Dryford. I forgot where I got the Godstunner hammer but it was in Act III, Strike Hard and We Toki are both on sale in Twin Elms Act III as well.

 

The prone effect works better than the stun in that the recovery is longer. With the prone the target will start to get up, at this point he gains back his deflection and is not treated as prone but he still needs to go through the stand up animation. Full plate and stupid would probably be enough to keep someone tied up this way due to the animation but you'd lose the prone effect.

[Ymarsakar]

The thing about Tall Grass is first, don't talk about Tall Grass.

 

Joke from Fight Club.

Edited September 26, 2015 by Ymarsakar

[KDubya]

Did some testing with Starcaller, the flail that causes stunning. Not sure if it is working as intended but even when you have the little starcaller icon stating 'stunned' there is no change in the targets deflection like there is with the prone effect. Maybe its stun is different than a regular stun?

 

Did some work with We Toki, with 21 dex and a mere 4 intellect, using two weapon style with We Toki and Edge of Reason I was able to knock down with We Toki and then hit him with the other axe getting the prone debuff for the second weapon.

 

We Toki with a small shield has the same break points as the two hander weapons do as far as dex and intellect go.

 

Looks like We Toki with a vicious off hand weapon would work nicely. Prone him with the axe and then hit him for extra damage. With the cipher phantom foes or just another guy flanking you could set up your own death blows. You lose the safety of a reach weapon like Tall Grass but gain another weapon's worth of enchantments. Probably be real nice for a dual wielding carnage Barbarian.

[Boeroer]

We Tokio plus Edge of Reason is good. This dual wielding approach where your first strike debuffs and the second hits harder also works with interfering weapons like blesca's labour as primary weapon: you cause -5 deflection with +5 ACC (club) with the first hit or crit and then the second strike will even more likely crit (and cause prone or stun). That's very good against high deflection targets. You can craft Cladhalidingdong to be stunning AND vicious - thats setting up sneak attack affl. plus 20% bonus in one weapon. Another spear does -5 defl. on hit. This is a great setup for dual wielding rogues and is early to get. Spears also give +5 ACC.

 

The stun effect from weapons is not the same affliction as the "normal" stun you get from spells and special attacks, that's true. It does count for sneak attacks though. So you can combine stunning weapons plus overbearing weapons to cause deathblows without using special attacks.

[gkathellar]

Hmm. But here's a question: what combination of Dex + Int does a ridiculous carnage-lockdown build need to make their next attack just as the opponent gets up from Prone?

[KDubya]

Hmm. But here's a question: what combination of Dex + Int does a ridiculous carnage-lockdown build need to make their next attack just as the opponent gets up from Prone?

 

It'd be the same as the rogue.

 

I believe that a 26 intellect and a 22 dex would let you get by with a graze with Tall Grass. Dual wielding would reduce that, not sure how much but it would be in reach with minimal buffs. The trick would be consistently critting.  Maybe that barb AoE sickness to lower the fortitude would help with that? My barbarian experience is really limited.

 

Now is there another weapon like We Toki that is one handed and has a prone on crit effect?

 

You could dual wield We Toki and the Godstunner hammer or Starcaller flail and have prone on crit and stun on crit all working on carnage as well. As long as you could crit you could have some crazy CC.

 

Tall Grass gets you 10% hit to crit and rogues can get another 20% which makes it easier with the pike. Barbarians have lower accuracy, miss out on Reckless Assault and the hit > crit conversions.

 

Barabrian with carnage might do better with some of those 10% on hit effects from Grey Sleeper Estoc or the Soulbound Great Sword.

[Boeroer]

Barb with threatening presence + brute force + interrupting blows, max per and gauntlets of acc +5 works really well with a priest who uses painful interdiction. I had mabec's morning star and the grey sleeper. While the sleeper was ok and summoned a lot of vessels the morning star was just ridiculously good. I had max int, per and dex plus an overseeing ring. Mig was not so high. The carnage radius was very high and interdiction plus threat. pres. lowered fort by more than 30 points - resulting in lots of crits and a stunlocked group of enemies. One of the best CC+DPS things I ever had. There is no duration - CC effect is endless and damage is also great. Tall Grass maybe even better because you crit more often and with the reach you can position the center of carnage even better. I just took the morning star because of the high interrupt. I had no idea if I would crit a lot and figured that a long interrupt with a normal hit/graze would also do good CC.

Edited September 26, 2015 by Boeroer

[Teioh_White]

I'm not sure if Barbs Sicken effect Stacks with a Weakened effect, I seem to remember it not doing so back in april when I checked. Beyond that, most enemies already have 10 or so more Fort than Deflection, so Brute Force really not a huge boost to acc. Plus the whole, Interdiction last a about 12 seconds or so once per encounter, so won't be a huge portion of a fight. Priest can help open up a nice alpha with Radiance+Interdiction, just wish the AI could handle that at the least.

 

Of course, once an enemy gets stunned once, it's deflection goes in the crapper, leading to easier stuns to stun lock them, so maybe that's what you were noticing. (Though, off the top of my head, I don't know if the Stun goes 100% after a crit, or if it then has to pass a seperate for check).

 

Barbs do though get a lot of use out of even crit-proc weapons. Even though they have a min 28% less chance to crit than a Rogue would, they're likely getting 3-4 chances to proc on something per swing. And of course, they get to apply that basically 1 sec interrupt stun with the morning star to everything, just for landing a hit, which is really nice. (I mean, any caster can do more crazy stuff to that same group of people per encounter, but the phys classes have to take what they can get).

[Boeroer]

It stacks and lowers fort for more than 30 points because besides the -20 and -10 some attributes are also lowered which lets fort drop even further. And with a fast attack rate the CC was better than any of the spellcasters because you need no resource like focus or per rest spells. You do stunlock everyone around you plus doing lots of damage. My barb was nr. 1 concerning damage while at the same time doing CC. It was the easiest PotD playthrough ever. Well no... 4 ciphers doing 4 times Amplified Wave after Interdiction was easier... but less fun.

Edited September 26, 2015 by Boeroer

[Teioh_White]

Yeah, you're right it does stack, went and tested it with my old Barb playthrough in Sun and Shadow. Sickened gave it minus 14 Fort, and Weakened tacked -27 on top of that for a total fort loss of 41 (minus whatever their natural fort had over deflection, which is about 9 normally). Which is really nice, but still only about 12 seconds per encounter. Good to stack stack with radiance to really get some free aoe pain going at the start of a fight right as the first wave bunches up on the frontline, but 12 seconds isn't that long the harder fights.

 

And i wouldn't get too exicted and call it better than casters, haha, they'll do nutty things even on a per encounter basis at end game. That barb playthrough I used the Hours instead of Marbec with the same set up, so prone isntead of stun. It really was more just double'n down on Barbs strength rather than opening new doors. That is, killing trash mobs at melee range. He still struggled with any of the harder fights without caster support, as barbs can't do much about status effects.

[KDubya]

So let me see if I have the good on crit weapons here:

 

In no particular order:

 

Two Handed on crit

1.) Tall Grass Pike - prone on crit and an inherent +10% hit>crit, reach weapon

2.) St Rumbaults great Sword - prone on crit and +.5 crit multiplier

3.) Some Great Sword at Salty Mast - prone on crit

4.) Mabec's Morning Star - stun on crit, 3 DR bypass and bigger base interrupt duration

 

Two handed on hit

1.) Soulbound Great Sword Redeemer - few 10% on hit effects

2.) Soulbound estoc - some 5% and 10% on hit effects

3.) Pike with - defense on hit

 

One handed on crit

1.) We Toki - battle axe with prone on crit

2.) Godansthunyr hammer - stun on crit, bigger than normal interrupt

3.) Starcaller Flail - stun on crit, cast Mino's minor missile on crit (once), fast attack speed and 10% damage as burn

 

One handed on hit

1.) Strike hard Hammer - -5 defense on hit, +20% attack speed

2.) Some spear - -5 defense on hit

 

 

For a Rogue Tall Grass is great since it lets you stay behind someone else and not necessarily get in melee combat. For dual wield or with a shield We Toki is great for the prone. The stuns from Godan and Starcaller do not seem to decrease the targets deflection, it seems more like a bigger interrupt. It still locks them up but doesn't give the extra benefits of prone.

 

For a Barbarian - Mabec's looks to be the better choice for two handers. The stun on crit is nice, but the DR bypass will also go out via carnage as well as the bigger interrupt.

 

 

A Dual wielder could use We Toki for the prone and then something else or go two hammers with Godansthunyr and Strike hard.

 

The sickening aura and Brute Force might not help with the accuracy but the debuff would make the stun or prone go easier.

 

I still need to roll a barbarian and the carnage CC looks pretty fun.

[Boeroer]

Nice list. You only forgot Cladhaliath. It's one handed, has +5 ACC since it's a spear and can stun on crit plus extra +4 ACC when attacking the same enemy as a teammate if you wish (good synergy with minor threat).

 

And there's also all arbalests that have prone on crit and especially Aedrin's Wrecker that additionally stuns on crit. But they are too slow to keep someone down with the normal rate of fire. But you could use quick switch and more weapon slots to pin somebody down with prone-crits until all shots are fired. Maybe use Hold-Wall as last weapon in row since it has the speed enchantment.

 

Then we have two warbows: Borresaine that stuns on crit and Sabra Marie that confuses in crit. They are fast enough to pin an enemy down or confuse him all the time if your int and dex is high enough.

 

It's a pity there are no overbearing or stunning hunting bows since they are so fast.

Edited September 27, 2015 by Boeroer

[KDubya]

Rangers do get Stunning Shots which stun on a hit or a crit. Works nice with hunting bows.

[hilfazer]

Half-Mast - prone on crit, slash/crush damage type and is already superb.

[Boeroer]

Right. Forgot about both. I never use Half-Mast because you get it late and the other poleaxes are not so special.

 

I never had Stunning Shots since I never used a Ranger. But it's the same: you get it very late.

 

Most of the two handed weapons mentioned above (including ranged) you can pick up very early.

 

p.s. why is there no stunning or overbearing quarterstaff in the game? Would be fitting. There is no great quarterstaff I can think of.

Edited September 27, 2015 by Boeroer

[KDubya]

You get a Ranger's Stunning Shot at level eleven so it's not that late. Give Sagani and Itumaak a try now in 2.0, they are much improved. Give Sagani Stormcaller and she is beastly. Her high perception pretty much gets her an extra 10 accuracy so when Itumaak dies she is about as accurate as she was back in 1.06 when the pet was alive. The pet is a lot sturdier and hits for 60+ damage, give him the knockdown talent and he is as good as a Fighter

 

The Stormcaller has a -6 lightning DR debuff that lasts for a 9+ seconds. If your team had lightning lashes on their weapons they'd benefit greatly from this due to how lashes work. And the 10% chance to cast Returning Storm on hit or crit is just crazy good and it can activate many times per battle.

 

For a good Quarterstaff there is Durance's at the start, free burning lash at a time when you can't enchant it yourself due to low level or lack of ingredients. Slap on a Fine enchantment and it'll carry you till you find better. Helps a bunch with the shades in the temple.

 

The next good, and probably the best one available is Llawran's Stick from the secret area on level three of Endless Paths that needs the Sabre to open. It comes with +20% attack speed and Fine, nothing else on it so you could add a lash and run it all the way up with Superb and the Durgan Steel for a pretty decent fast attacking reach weapon, the only one that comes with the speed enchant. I use it on Kana as another option besides his W&S or bow, but leave it at exceptional with a lash on it. Kana doesn't get many crits so those weapons would be a waste.

 

If you had two barbarians on the team one could have the CC via dual wielding We Toki and Starcaller flail or Mabec's and the other could use the Quarterstaff for faster attacks with reach. The good thing being that speed always works and does not need a crit. I think only the Estoc from the Endless Paths has speed and it can't fit a lash on it due to having marking.

 

Another thought is to use it on a Cipher, with the +50% speed boost from Time Parasite you could go Jedi with +85% attack speed that has reach to allow you to stay safer behind the line.

 

Even a Monk with Swift Strikes could get it up to +45% speed as soon as you get it and then +60% with Durgan.

[Boeroer]

Yeah - I know all weapons. But still: quarterstaffs are a little meh because there's no real Superstar among them. There are several other weapons with speed - like Danyula (spear), March Steel dagger, Hold Wall (arbalest), Rain of Godagh Field (war bow) and so on. So it's not that special. I think quarterstaffs lack the equivalent of Tall Grass or Tidefall or Blade of the Endless Paths etc. And don't dare to say "Wendwalker"...

Edited September 28, 2015 by Boeroer

[KDubya]

It is the only reach weapon that has the speed enchant. If you don't need or want an effect on crit and just want maximum damage while having the safety of reach that Quarterstaff is all you got.

 

For a Barbarian you want things with on hit or on crit status effects for Carnage mayhem, Rogues get better hit>crit which makes Tall Grass so nice, plus the status effects help them get Deathblows. If all you want is fast damage output, like a Cipher, the speed Quarterstaff is great for the safety of reach. You have Amplified Wave to fuel, why care about an on crit prone?

 

But I agree that thematically a prone inducing Quarterstaff just fits.

[Boeroer]

With cipher you are right. It may be an OK weapon for a melee cipher - or for a wizard until lvl 9 who wants to go melee with the parasitic staff but doesn't want to Rest too often. It's not that this staff itself is bad (that you get it so early is actually good) - but the weapon group itself lacks a real winner like Tall Grass and so on. The real gold ones have two special enchants that you can't put in yourself and that are very powerful. Great Swords for example have two real stars (H. of St. Rumb. and Tidefall).