Advice for solo POTD Rogue Tank

[Jojobobo]

So I've made a tank Rogue solo on POTD, using Riposte and Retaliation with Deep Wounds. So far it's going okay, Retaliation/Riposte with high deflection and Deep Wounds is a great means of crowd control with plenty of enemies dying from just attacking me - and Rogues have plenty of means to inflict conditions for a sneak attack and get good damage. All that said, I wasn't too sure on my final talents/abilities, here's what I have so far:

 

1 - Crippling Strike

2 - Weapon and Shield style

3 - Reckless Assault

4 - Vulnerable Attack

5 - Deep Wounds

6 - Deflecting Assault

7 - Blinding Strike

8 - Superior Deflection

9 - Riposte

 

Now on 10 I'm definitely taking Cautious Attack, but what would your recommendations be for 11/12/13/14/15/16 be?

 

I maxed Con and Might, dumped Dex and maxed Resolve - so I was thinking for the talents maybe just getting Bull's Will and Snake's Reflexes to shore up my reflex and will to the same level as my fortitude as well as getting Vicious Fighting for extra damage. Ideally I want to do as many of the horrible boss fights (Adra/Alpine Dragon/Kraken) as possible - so are there better talents to be taking for these two?

 

For my abilities, I was thinking Withering Strike and Sap due to more sneak attacks as well as Dirty Fighting for extra damage, do these sound good? I wasn't sure whether to get Adept Evasion to get many more misses on attacks targeting Reflex, or if Feign Death can be used to get out of combat for situations where I've taken out about half a mob but want to take a breather - however I wasn't sure if the mechanics worked like that.

 

Also, what's the best armor for going solo? Originally I was going to go Argwes Adra, but I noticed Second Chance took a heavy nerf so I wasn't sure if there wasn't a better option. I currently have Hiro's Mantle, but thought I might be able to wear the Coat of Ill Payment and instead use a different cloak/amulet.

 

Laslty, what's the max mechanics skill needed to open everything up now? I'm not keen on spamming chests to find Gloves of Manipulation, if I find them I find them and if I don't I don't - but I still don't want to overshoot mechanics but a large margin pointlessly.

 

Thanks in advance, if the character goes well I'll do a class build for it and make sure to credit any good suggestions I get here. Also if you think my current ideas are solid, feel free to say so and I'll carry on as is.

Edited February 28, 2016 by Jojobobo

[helmino]

Curious too about a build from someone that had succes with this build and some insight about it!

[Boeroer]

Why did you max MIG? You maybe should lower MIG a tiny bit and put that into PER. Your fortitude defense will already be good but your reflex will be bad because you dumped DEX. MIG is not so superimportant for a rogue. 

 

As a tank with low DEX it can be worthwhile to take Deep Wounds - it also works with retaliation. You can also use Sura's Supper Plate in order to get dual retaliation (it stacks). Together with Vulnerable Attack, high MIG and later Ryona's Vambraces it will do 2*10 damage on most foes and it will apply Deep Wounds wich should add another ~20 raw damage on top without doing anything. Also look out for the Aila Braccia shield in Twin Elms - it's extremely good against any sort of targeted ranged attack (spell or shot). Especially the Lagufaeth can stunlock you and then you're done. With that shield they will stun themselves. Big help this one, really. It turns every ranged graze into a miss and reflects it back to the attacker. So: if you get pummeled in melee use Sura's, if you get shot use Aila Braccia.

 

Depp Wounds also applies to any spell that does pierce/crush/slash damage. If you use Bittercut you will have Vile Thorns, a cone shaped AoE pierce spell. All foes that get hit will also get Deep Wounds (=+~20 raw damage). The White Crest Armor has Overwhelming Wave that stuns and does crush damage - same thing: Deep Wounds in a huge AoE. Scrolls that can do this: Bounding Missiles, Concussive Missiles and Twin Stones - maybe Insect Swarm also works - not sure about that one.

 

Using spells/scrolls as a rogue with high MIG and INT plus Deep Wounds can be really great. Your ACC is very high so most of the spells will hit or even crit.

Your best friends as I said are spells that cause any form of pierce/slash/crush in an AoE. But things like Fireball from that sabre in the Endless Paths (siphon knowledge from Maerwald's soul) and that staff in Twin Elms (both have 3 Fireballs per Rest) are also nice even without Deep Wounds.

 

If you take the Cloak of the Master Mystic plus Backstab and Shadowing beyond you will get rewarded if a crit ever hits you: up to 2 free +150% backstabs out of stealth (Backstab got buffed to 150% dmg bonus). If you do this with an arquebus and target a debuffed enemy that also qualifies for sneak/deathblows the damage will be devastating. +300% damage for a normal hit is just insane. You can always add two more of that in a tough fight with Shadowing Beyond if you need to. And your opening move should also be a backstab shot from stealth. So you can do a maximum of 5 backstabs in one encounter: 1 from stealth, 2 from the cloak and 2 from the ability. Even six if you use Nightshroud I think.

 

These are just ideas I have  - I seldomly do solo runs but I have tons of experience with party PoTD runs with all kinds of chars. Maybe this ideas inspire you.

 

edit: what I forgot: With Blaidh Golan (hide armor) and that Irfyn something Solace shield (medium shield fom the stupid drake in the endless paths) you will have +100 to all defenses when you are prone. It's quite funny. I don't know if Riposte works if you are prone (would be nice) but surely this might be abusable somehow.

Edited February 28, 2016 by Boeroer

[Kaylon]

Watch some paladin solo videos to see their equipment/talents/tactics. You don't have Faith and Devotion but at lv16 and with some of the new items you should be able to tank at least the Adra/Alpine dragons long enough to kill them. 

 

PS. Bosses not immune to stun will be rather easy once you have Sap, but you need to max your int... 

Edited February 28, 2016 by Kaylon

[Boeroer]

Fits with the Deep Wounds/Spell thing I mentioned above.

[Jojobobo]

Why did you max MIG? You maybe should lower MIG a tiny bit and put that into PER. Your fortitude defense will already be good but your reflex will be bad because you dumped DEX. MIG is not so superimportant for a rogue. 

I'm hoping to get 5 damage for Deep Wounds eventually, not sure if it's possible but I'll wait and see. I don't seem to have really suffered for leaving PER at the base of 10 so far, so I think the build is fairly solid, and the drop to reflex from low DEX is somewhat counter-acted by the Weapon and Shield Style which adds shield deflection to reflex.

 

I'll try your shield choices and see how it works, currently I'm running Larder Door as I'm not even close to act II yet which is nice as it gives you an extra chance for your per encounter attacks to land. I'll also look into Bittercut, and some other of the physical damage spell items you mentioned.

 

Would you say that Backstab + Shadowing Beyond > Snake's Reflexes + Bull's Will then? As I mentioned, my reflex is boosted quite a lot by using a large shield despite my low DEX and my will benefits from my high RES (to give you an idea of how much Weapon and Shield Style benefits reflex, currently my reflex and will are equal - with nothing else boosting reflex apart from an exceptional Larder Door) - so I wasn't sure if the resistance talents might be overkill. Backstab + Shadowing Beyond would also make something like the Silver Flash a beast.

 

Would also you recommend me getting both Dirty Fighting and Vicious Fighting? 20% hit to crit rate sounds pretty beastly, which is why I'm interested. I'm not too bothered about Deathblows, it seems like too much hassle to get working (it seems like the main way is Shadowing Beyond + other per encounter, but my INT is super high so they tend not to last long), especially seeing as I attack so slowly.

 

Watch some paladin solo videos to see their equipment/talents/tactics. You don't have Faith and Devotion but at lv16 and with some of the new items you should be able to tank at least the Adra/Alpine dragons long enough to kill them. 

 

PS. Bosses not immune to stun will be rather easy once you have Sap, but you need to max your int... 

I'll give some a watch, thanks for the tip.

 

Curious too about a build from someone that had succes with this build and some insight about it!

What I've listed is pretty successful if you want to give that a try, I'm pancaking a lot of enemies right now due to Retaliation and Deep Wounds (the biggest pain is of course getting Hiro's Mantle - fortunately for me it was the first item Azzuro offered, then again he was the last dilemma I could get at Caed Nua, so I feel like I deserved it). As I said I'm mainly just looking to optimise now, hence the questions.

 

High mechanics is pretty much a must early game for a Rogue, it allows you to get to Raedric only having to kill 2 people on the rooftop nearest the vines (thus getting XP even if you don't want to kill him) and do Buried Secrets (for the one Phantom you have to fight, you can use an Ooze to block the door and then hit him with a staff/ranged weapon so he doesn't stun lock you) fairly trivially.

 

Once you're at level 4, doing Caed Nua isn't too bad. If you use Rymrgand's Mantle and a staff you can lure one Shadow to the left of the stairs blocking the path of the Phantoms, allowing you to tank hits from the Shadow and kill the Phantoms with a staff/ranged weapon as before (hint, kill Durance). Maerwald is easy by just luring him into one of the other rooms with all the monsters there, and once you hit Defiance Bay things really start to open up in terms of you getting much more XP.

Edited February 28, 2016 by Jojobobo