Fun DPS builds?

[SimpleEnigma]

For my next playthrough I want something that just obliterates npcs. Preferably strong single target damage to quickly snuff out high priority targets (I'm looking at you ogre druids). For single target dps can anything challenge rogue and ranger? I'm planning for this build to be my first triple crown completion so rogue seems like a poor choice in that regard. Would a spellsword wizard be in the same realm? A rogue seems fun but their affinity to faceplanting once they inevitably get aggro during some fight has me looking at other options.

[Boeroer]

You can check if Two Weapon Style now works with shield bash. If it does, you could try out a rogue with the Badgradr's Barricade shield. In 2.03 it used to have unlimited Spell Strikings of Thrust of Tattered Veils. Meaning that if you crit with a bash (has about the same ACC than main weapon) you will cause the Thrust. That means high defense with the potential to do high DPS. If you stack up enough attack speed - for example with Outlander's Frenzy, speed weapon, Durban steel and so on, you will have no recovery. You can combine that with Shod-in-Faith for survivability.
Badgradr's works with Penetrating Shot and Deep wounds and Sneak Attack and all. So you could use an opening shot from a arquebus (maybe add Backstab), catch a crit from some weak mob (Shod-in-Faith triggers) and then switch to weapon & shield. If you don't plan to reach 0 recovery or Bash doesn't work with Two Weapon Style anyways, then I would recommend going for lower DEX, but higher MIG and INT (great for Shod-in-Faith) and take the Drawn in Spring Dagger later on. This way you don't need to be superfast to get lots of DPS. With 20 MIG and 18 INT you will do about 20 raw DoT with Deep Wounds and +25% raw damage with Drawn in Spring's wounding. Add Boots of Speed. That way you can attack different foes and run away while the damage ticks.
If speed is your goal, I'd use the Rimecutter or Strike Hard or Unforgiven. Maybe Starcaller is also nice because of the stun. From time to time (if you build a crit based rogue every second strike or so) the Thrust will go off and interrupt or even kill foes. The shield also reflects ranged attacks including targeted spells. With Adept Evasion you will have good defense against spells, be it targeted or AoE (against reflex).

 

Edit: rofl... Durban Steel... "Hello Africa, tell me how you're doin'!"

Edited February 9, 2016 by Boeroer

[Raven Darkholme]

Cipher.

[Boeroer]

Cipher.

Detailed advice indeed.

[HawkSoft]

 

Cipher.

Detailed advice indeed.

That is accurate for v3…

[Boeroer]

What I totally forgot about Deep Wounds: You can apply it in an AoE if you use any scroll or spell that causes crush, pierce or slash damage (from Spell Bind items like Bittercut for example). It's really great to cause 20 raw damage in an AoE plus the initial damage of the spell. Another reason I like to go with high MIG and INT and Depp Wounds on my rogues...

 

 

edit: Depp Wounds? Savvy?

Edited February 9, 2016 by Boeroer

[KDubya]

What I totally forgot about Deep Wounds: You can apply it in an AoE if you use any scroll or spell that causes crush, pierce or slash damage (from Spell Bind items like Bittercut for example). It's really great to cause 20 raw damage in an AoE plus the initial damage of the spell. Another reason I like to go with high MIG and INT and Depp Wounds on my rogues...

 

 

edit: Depp Wounds? Savvy?

 

Since Deep Wounds resets every time you hit the target what use is a high intellect that merely extends the duration of the DoT?

 

Might controls the damage per tick and Intellect controls the number of ticks. Or is this wrong?

[Raven Darkholme]

 

What I totally forgot about Deep Wounds: You can apply it in an AoE if you use any scroll or spell that causes crush, pierce or slash damage (from Spell Bind items like Bittercut for example). It's really great to cause 20 raw damage in an AoE plus the initial damage of the spell. Another reason I like to go with high MIG and INT and Depp Wounds on my rogues...

 

 

edit: Depp Wounds? Savvy?

 

Since Deep Wounds resets every time you hit the target what use is a high intellect that merely extends the duration of the DoT?

 

Might controls the damage per tick and Intellect controls the number of ticks. Or is this wrong?

 

Can't you stack this, like the effect of Drawn in Spring?

[hilfazer]

 

What I totally forgot about Deep Wounds: You can apply it in an AoE if you use any scroll or spell that causes crush, pierce or slash damage (from Spell Bind items like Bittercut for example). It's really great to cause 20 raw damage in an AoE plus the initial damage of the spell. Another reason I like to go with high MIG and INT and Depp Wounds on my rogues...

 

 

edit: Depp Wounds? Savvy?

 

Since Deep Wounds resets every time you hit the target what use is a high intellect that merely extends the duration of the DoT?

 

Might controls the damage per tick and Intellect controls the number of ticks. Or is this wrong?

 

 

This is correct.

[Boeroer]

As I said you can hit several targets - one after the other and watch them bleed out. This can be an equivalent of AoE damage. If you use a ranged weapon for example you can shoot one foe after the other. When you return to your initial target, it will have suffered a lot from the DoT effects and those will soon run out. This also works with melee weapons if you play a tanky rogue and get surrounded by several foes (you can also use Retaliation to apply Deep Wounds by the way). That way you can spare some points of DEX and still do lots of damage.

 

If you use scrolls or spell bindings like Concussive Missiles to apply Deep Wounds, the INT not only helps to boost the DoT damage (I assume you don't want to use a scroll every few seconds to refresh the effect ) but also wit hthe size of the AoE. Last not least - your afflictions from special attacks last longer.

 

Another thing are the cross-class talents. Now that they are all 1/encounter, Outlander's Frenzy and Aspirant's Mark are good choices for a rogue. With high INT you can hit an entire group of enemies for a long time for -8 deflection and reflex. This is great for rogues who build on crits. Combine that with Gallant's Focus and Weapon Focus and you'll get a ton of crits. Outlander's Frenzy has a longer duration with high INT. You can reach 0 recovery with it (by yourself and without consumables) and therefore boost you DPS into the stratosphere where few other talents can put it. GOod thing, too: you don't need any DEX to do that.

 

I know a lot of people think INT is wasted on a rogue, but I don't think so. 

Edited February 9, 2016 by Boeroer

[SimpleEnigma]

Bleed rogue sounds interesting, but I think I'm kinda jonesing for a build with massive burst. Anything that can just chunk down a beefy enemy in a couple shots? I assume it will involve guns or a two hander. 

[Mocker22]

What about something like Boeroer's melee ranger. Use a 2her and dps pet. The combined dps is staggering.

[Seeders]

That 6 chanter party from the other thread is good dps.  I am cruising through every fight on PoTD.

 

 

I sprinted to town, sold almost everything i had (robbed the wizard and sold all his stuff), and bought a full party of high might and intelligence dump dex moongod chanters at level 2.  

 

Give them all the Foe AoE -Endurace Drain chant because it stacks.  Also get Summon Phantom so you can summon 6 of those.

 

I rested, talked to the tree, then robbed the fighter for his chest piece and sabre.  

 

Then I freed the cook, killed the wolves, and ran up and killed the bear.       

 

Then I did the Grain quest, then completely cleared temple of Eothas.  Killed the wisps, the Skaldur kings, everything.  Now im heading south at almost level 4.  

 

So far so good.  

Edited February 10, 2016 by Seeders

[Abalon]

id recommend just going straight ranger once you get lead splitter youll be one shottiing a ton of enemies its pretty fun look up at the ranger guide off of steam not to mention once you get the soulbound bow its incredibly good at level 12 you shoot like 4 arrows a shot with driving flight and twine arrows

[Boeroer]

A melee rogue with high damage per hit: using great swords and summon Firebrand from time to time. It's base damage is huge and it's also annihilating, meaning double damage on crits. For the times you don't summon it: Hours of St. Rumbalt is nice for a crit build. It has +12 ACC from the start. It also has annihilation and does prone on crit. You can always open fights with a shot from an arquebus or arbalest (Aedrins Wrecker is nice later on because it comes superb).

 

But I think when it comes to raw DPS not much will beat the Resolution/Purgatory setup because you can have quite some Full Attacks as a rogue. Knockdown also becomes a full attack now if I'm not mistaken. Put on a Girdle of the Driving Wave for another Full Attack then.

[ottffsse]

Don't dual wield rimecutters make very good dps on a rogue? (I got two for some reason in my last playthrough). Sure they don't have any utility but both have speed enchantment and crit damage bonus as battleaxes.

[ottffsse]

 

 

 

 

Cipher.

Detailed advice indeed.

That is accurate for v3…

 

Hihi I did a damage per hour in combat calculation on a "we just dps" party once and cipher was going at a nice 1200+ clip (from the start of the game I had a consistent party). Next in line was barbarian at just over 1000, rogue was at about 750 (no deathblows until high level unfortunately but after that it goes higher). Per rest casters were not run though as I was speeding and did not want to rest.

[Boeroer]

Using dual Rimecutters is great. You can easily achieve 0 recovery rate and still use Vulnerable Attack and a thicker armor. Let's say you have Outlander's Frenzy, Durgan Steel and two Rimecutters:

 

1.25(Outlander's Frenzy) * 1.2 (left Rimecutter's speed) * 1.2 (right Rimecutter's speed) * 1.15 (durgan steel on left Rimecutter) * 1.15 (durgan steel on right Rimecutter) + 0.2 (Two Weapon Style) = 2.58. That's no recovery at all with a big buffer. You can now put on a durgan reinforced plate (-0.35): 2.23 - still no recovery. Now substract Vulnerable Attack (-0.2): 2.03. You're on the edge of 0 recovery. You don't even need Gauntlets of Swift Action or something like that. If your Outlander's Frenzy runs out even a cheap Potion of Power will do. You don't need potions of Alacrity.

 

The best part is that you don't need any DEX to achieve 0 recovery. DEX gets applied on your final recovery. Since you don't ahve any, it doesn't do anything to speed up your recovery. Theoretically you could dump it to 3 - but then you would feel a difference because it also influences your attack animation. Leaving it at 10 might be a wise choice. DEX 20 is totally wasted for a rogue with 0 recovery in my opinion. 

 

Kaylon came up with a nice trick to get two Rimecutters quite quickly (if you don't want to use the console): Go to Lle a Rhemen (). There's this dial on the ground and you'll get an option to wait there for several hours. That way you don't need to do a lot of clicking as you would have to do if you were resting. Just hit the "wait" option until Azurro offered you two Rimecutters.

Edited February 10, 2016 by Boeroer

[SimpleEnigma]

 

 

 

Cipher.

Detailed advice indeed.

That is accurate for v3…

 

Hihi I did a damage per hour in combat calculation on a "we just dps" party once and cipher was going at a nice 1200+ clip (from the start of the game I had a consistent party). Next in line was barbarian at just over 1000, rogue was at about 750 (no deathblows until high level unfortunately but after that it goes higher). Per rest casters were not run though as I was speeding and did not want to rest.

 

Was there a ranger in this group? I thought they were among top dps.

[Boeroer]

Top single target DPS maybe. But if you hit a group of 6 with a lame lvl 3 Fireball for 40 damage each - how do you want to compete with that.

[SimpleEnigma]

Sinle target dps is what I want. Someone to make the annoying enemy druids/wizards/priests/etc disappear!

[limaxophobiacq]

My last PotD run I had a ranger and got The Rain of Godagh Field, Durgan Enhanced it, and had angios gambeson (also durgan enhanced). That gets you 0 recovery without using Swift Aim when Alacrity is on.

 

At level 13 get twinned arrows and when you have Alacrity on you'll be firing a fairly ridiculous amount of arrows.

 

With stunning shots you can also stunlock anything your animal companion can manage to engage.

 

It's not a one-shot kill build but it is strong focus-fire/death by a thousand cuts.

[Abalon]

Ranger or melee rogue in that case both are incredibly powerful

[Boeroer]

For removing casters an Island Aumaua Bleak Walker with all FoD related talents/abilities, Quick Switch and two arquebus is also nice. FoD (+50%) + Intense Flames (+25%) + Burning Lash (25%) * 1.2 from Scion of Flame + Remember Rhakan Field (+25% ) = +120% burn damage + 25% corrode. Only two shots with +20 ACC - but those really hurt. After that he can switch to Sword & Board and be a great support tank.