Solo POTD Rogue build

[DynEira]

Mornin' 

I've been playing POE for a while over 40-50 hours so far and really enjoying it but I can't settle on how challenging I want the game to be so I'm looking to do it without having a 6 member party. A mix of RP and a challenge is the goal so I'm thinking about a few different options as follows. 

 

A rogue slave with a godlike Moon Paladin/Fighter guardian sent to liberate the Awakened one.

I build around talents I like so for my rogue I would be thinking along the lines of:

Blinding Strike

Escape

Riposte

Adept Evasion 
Deep Wounds
Shadowing Beyond

High def Paladin/fighter capable of holding aggro and tanking like a mofo. 

 

The idea I have in my head is of a dirty fighting rogue (maybe more in common with a fighter) who can dance around the battlefield and single out spellcasters but tank well enough to survive trouble. 

Would this work? 
What would my starting might/con/dex be for both?
Focusing on skills such as lore/mechanics for the rogue and survival on the fighter?

 

My other idea would be a chosen one cipher/chanter solo run. Starts with a gun shot and then dives into battle. My preference would be pale elf chanter as I've always quite liked the class. Would a chanter work with the above? 

I could RP two pale elf slave family who escaped captivity, one becoming Awakened and now both searching for a cure.

Any help or guidance to do so would be very much appreciated. 

Thank you! 

[Boeroer]

Riposte is only worthwhile if you have high deflection. Because rogues have very low starting deflection, they normally need shields to reach a value where enemies graze and miss them a lot (Riposte only triggers on grazes and misses). Or they need party members to buff their deflection (paladin's Reinforcing Exhortation for example).

Riposte is a Full Attack, so it would be best to either dual wield weapons (which does noch much for your deflection, thus limiting the chance to do ripostes in the first place) or use a shield with bash. There is a shield that is perfect for this. It's called Badgradr's Barricade and it's the best option for a riposte build in my opinion - but it's in Durgan's Battery - so very late for a solo rogue.

Another alternative might be dual hatchets, they will give you +10 deflection and allow full attacks. If you can manage to rebuff enemies' ACC it could also work.

Edited July 29, 2016 by Boeroer

[Loren Tyr]

Well, Larder Door is an early bashing shield so that would work with it. But I'm somewhat hesitant about bashing shields to be honest. I've been pouring over weapon speeds lately, and though I haven't looked into the bashing shields specifically yet, but since they decrease the attack rate of your primary weapon (and bashing itself isn't that potent) you'll end up doing less damage with them. As far as I'm aware it also doesn't yield the dual-wielding bonus (well, doesn't avoid the non-dual-wielding penalty, technically), though even if it did it I'm fairly sure it would still drop DPS. Like I said, I still have to do the exact math on it, but I'm fairly sure my initial impression will hold. Which means this is really something they should fix in PoE2 as well, since having Bash on a shield should be a bonus rather than a penalty (though I'd prefer if they didn't put it on shields at all, and made it more like a Fighter-specific talent they can take after Weapon&Shield style). 

 

Anyway, Riposte and Strike abilities obviously do benefit from the fact that the bashing shield adds another attack, but you have to wonder whether that is worth slowing down your normal attacks for. In terms of a Riposte Rogue I'd probably go with a Durganized Old Gerun's Wall instead. You lose a bit more ACC of course but the extra deflection and 25% hit-to-graze is going to result in a nice boost to your Riposting (also, helps with the not dying). A potion of Wizard's Double can be quite helpful for that as well I'd say. If you're building for high Deflection that extra +40 can really put you over the top. It'll probably come down at some point, but you can get a lot of Riposting done in the meantime (and against enemies who have ACC at least 10 points lower than your Deflection, it won't come down at all). Not sure whether the OP would really want to go for a Riposte Rogue of course, but just a thought.

[DynEira]

Well, Larder Door is an early bashing shield so that would work with it. But I'm somewhat hesitant about bashing shields to be honest. I've been pouring over weapon speeds lately, and though I haven't looked into the bashing shields specifically yet, but since they decrease the attack rate of your primary weapon (and bashing itself isn't that potent) you'll end up doing less damage with them. As far as I'm aware it also doesn't yield the dual-wielding bonus (well, doesn't avoid the non-dual-wielding penalty, technically), though even if it did it I'm fairly sure it would still drop DPS. Like I said, I still have to do the exact math on it, but I'm fairly sure my initial impression will hold. Which means this is really something they should fix in PoE2 as well, since having Bash on a shield should be a bonus rather than a penalty (though I'd prefer if they didn't put it on shields at all, and made it more like a Fighter-specific talent they can take after Weapon&Shield style). 

 

Anyway, Riposte and Strike abilities obviously do benefit from the fact that the bashing shield adds another attack, but you have to wonder whether that is worth slowing down your normal attacks for. In terms of a Riposte Rogue I'd probably go with a Durganized Old Gerun's Wall instead. You lose a bit more ACC of course but the extra deflection and 25% hit-to-graze is going to result in a nice boost to your Riposting (also, helps with the not dying). A potion of Wizard's Double can be quite helpful for that as well I'd say. If you're building for high Deflection that extra +40 can really put you over the top. It'll probably come down at some point, but you can get a lot of Riposting done in the meantime (and against enemies who have ACC at least 10 points lower than your Deflection, it won't come down at all). Not sure whether the OP would really want to go for a Riposte Rogue of course, but just a thought.

Ahh thank you! So a rogue with a few less might points, 12 con and higher dex/per would be a way forward if I went down this route? And a paladin tank standing next to him so they'd be going toe to toe with enemies? 

 

I guess I'd need a third weapon slot so I could have a ranged to start and then alternate between dual weapons and weapon&shield depending on the fight?

[Jojobobo]

I played a tank Rogue to level 13 or so solo until my laptop got fried, this was before the buffs in 3.03. Though it sounds like you're not actually playing solo anyway with the talk of a Paladin?

 

I dumped Dex and took high Int (16, to hit 20 with Gwyn's Band) plus Con (18 with Rymyrgand's Boon) and Might (so that it'd hit 21 naturally, with 4 damage Deep Wounds), used Larder Door (would have used Badgradr's Barricade when I got it) and Drawn in Spring (with I managed to get before Act 3), with White Crest Armor for Overwhelming Wave for AoE Deep Wounds and Hiro's Mantle for Retaliation.

 

The idea, being Moon Godlike and with Veteran's Recovery plus using Belt of Bountiful Healing and the x1.6 Survival Bonus, was if you stay alive for long enough the enemies die because Retaliation is doing raw damage all the time (the main reason as to why I dumped Dex, as my source of damage was coming from Retaliation - it was pretty funny killing Vithrack's who'd paralysed locked me this way). The 20 Int, 21 Mig, 18 Con gives you 1200 health approx (from what I remember) and the healing to match and make use of that whole pool. When you add in things like Combusting Wounds from the Ring of Searing Flames and Envenomed Strikes (in a similar way to Boeroer's Mad Hornet build but going for tanking instead of DPS) you can easy drain the enemies health without much difficulty. Shadowing Beyond also is a great help solo, allowing you to half finish mobs and come back to them after a rest or always secure perfect positioning.

 

The main reason why I haven't picked the build back up (my hard drive was wiped, so the save was lost) is that with the improvements to Retaliation and Adept Evasion I was actually having a hard time working out where to squeeze them onto the build - as they weren't good enough to take in 3.02 so I didn't bother. Now that they are good enough, I had concerns that is I took too many of my per encounter attack abilities away I would never be able to stack them and get Deathblows (before I was taking Blinding Strike, Sap, Crippling Strike and Withering Strike - axing a couple of these or other nice abilities, like Dirty Fighting, is easier said than done).

 

So I can confirm those builds work (I was well into Act 3 and a bit into WM part I) - I doubt you would be able to tank boss monsters but with Persistence and Deep Wounds I would say kiting them isn't out of the question. I wouldn't use Escape personally as Shadowing Beyond does the same thing but better. If you were buddying up with a Paladin, you'll do even better.

Edited July 29, 2016 by Jojobobo

[DynEira]

Thanks for the information, Jojobobo.

 

Yeah I was going to go dual characters because boss fights like Raedric's hall tend to overwhelm with tanky mobs and I don't know if I have the ability as a player to full on solo run. 

I guess if there are only two characters being used I could also go for a Monk/Rogue and while it would take intense management during difficult fights I would be able to cause a LOT of mayhem in fights? A monk attracting the attention and flooring people with his abilities would free my rogue up to attack a little more allowing me to go lighter on con and have a higher dex for 1vs1 duels? 

My reason for escape is I just really like it, haha. 

And thanks for the answers so far. I know I sound like I'm fairly ignorant but it's been a task finding reliable information via google that doesn't date back to 2015! So I really appreciate the information that's been provided so far. 

[Boeroer]

Badgradr's Barricade procs Thrust of Tattered Veils on critical bash. It works with Deathblows and is the best shield for a riposte rogue in my opinion. I played such a rogue without Riposte (was too bad back then), just Godansthunyr and the shield and he was great. Blind the enemy, stun the enemy and proc the Thrust with Deathblows (and usually also crit). Normally that meant death. At the same time a very sturdy character - I mean for  a rogue. I can only imagine how the new Riposte would add even more awesomeness with that stunning + Thrust of Tattered-Veils full attack everytime a riposte gets triggered.

 

I forgot another approach for Riposte: stack as much defense against disengangement attacks as possible: Graceful Retreat (+12), Fast Runner (+5), Cape of Withdrawal (+15) or Night Runner (also +15). You will have +32 defense against disengagement attacks. Now you can use dual sabres (or maybe still even better hatchets) and fight like usual. But every time you run away and provoke disengagement attack you will have a +32 bonus against them, making it more likely that they will graze or miss, triggering riposte.

 

What I didn't test but what would be very cool: Put on the shield from the Drake in Endless Paths lvl 5, stack it with another preservation item. Now, when you get prone or stunned you will have +100 to all defenses, making you nearly untouchable. Maybe Riposte gets triggered although you are prone or stunned. Somebody needs to test this.

You can switch to that shield once you get stunned or go prone. You can switch weapons sets in this game at any time, even if you are disabled.

Edited July 29, 2016 by Boeroer

[Loren Tyr]

Ah ok. I though the Barricade triggered when you got crit yourself, this indeed makes it more suitable. Though I'd still wonder about the loss of attack speed in terms of DPS. I'm thinking of going with a tanky Riposte Rogue after my current playthrough (maybe even do PotD for once), I do rather like Old Gerun for that. 

 

Disengagement attacks are at a bonus to accuracy and damage by the way (they should, at least; come to think of it I never actually checked how high it is), that does compensate the additional defense a bit (though not nearly the +32, of course).

 

As far as I know Riposte triggers regardless of status effects (somewhat counter-intuitively). I checked this a while ago when someone suggested it then in connection to the Preservation enchantments as well (quite possibly you, actually), and as I recall it did work. I think it's basically just implemented like any other retaliation effect, except using a standard Full Attack rather than a custom one. I'll recheck tonight though. 

[Kazuma]

Too bad you couldn't melt down weapons and armor to acquire some unit of essence that you could then use to enchant things with some of the "unique" enchants. Balance it by making it only practical to do by sacrificing other uniques or items with higher lvl enchants. I'm always bummed when I realize I can't get something until mid-late game.

 

Speaking of rogues I still haven't picked mine up. Looks like I already planned on using Godansthunyr+Barricade.

[mosspit]

I am currently playing through as a Riposte MC Rogue, but in a party not solo. Closing in on the end.

 

Riposte is kinda nice but it is not earth-shattering good. Assuming the Rogue's defence is sky-high, it still "only" procs 20-30% of the time. It is good against trash mobs and is an alternate way of playing a rogue that is still viable.

 

As mentioned, Badgradr's Barricade is no contest. You need a bash + proc shield to make up for the loss in dps for the traditional dps version. But Godansthunyr is debatable. This is because you would want enemies to still attack the rogue to trigger riposte and do more dps. I opted for Unlaboured Blade - High dmg, rare but good proc and can gain extra acc from normal WF and Flick of the Wrist.

 

From my experience, this rogue fares well vs deflection and reflex attacks. Weapon and Shield Talent, Cautious Attack and Adept Evasion has decent synergy. One of the things that can put the rogue to danger is magic attacks so get a hgher CON to have a good endurance pool to withstand attacks. Can afford Cautious Attack due to Riposte. 

[Boeroer]

Yeah, a rogue with shield and Adept Evasion can stand in the midst of a Fireball rain and won't get hurt much. I used my shielded Devil of Caroc together with my wizard - she's immune to all poison spells, so you can drop Malignant Clouds and Noxious Burst on her head like crazy while she enganges mobs - and also Fireballs and all the other reflex based spells didn't do much to her either. It's a nice combo.

 

I mainly use Gadansthunyr because it makes it easier to set up Deathblows after the first hit of a Full Attack (like Blinding Strike) and makes it very likely that the following bash will crit, triggering Thrust of Tattered Veils which works with Deathblows, critting and destroying the enemy target just with one Full Attack. Unlabored Blade can't do that if it doesn't trigger Firebug. We Toki can do it as well, but it only has prone on crit - stun is better. The main reason though is that that hammer is one of the few weapons that look good with Badgradr's Barricade. It's difficult to find a fit for that blue/white/red/golden pattern. 

Edited July 29, 2016 by Boeroer

[mosspit]

Godansthunyr is good if your aim is to disable. I have used it for a short while and the disable is nice.

 

But in the context of Riposte. No I do not recommend it. Riposte needs an enemy to be able to act and attack, and not be hard cc-ed. Reason for Unlaboured Blade is decent weapon with a good proc effect. Plus it has speed property to slightly offset the loss of dual wield speed. If the Rogue doesn't use Riposte then yes, Godansthunyr is good. But still have a alternate weapon set as Godansthunyr and bash are both crush type. Unless of course you depend on tattered veil to provide pierce.

Edited July 29, 2016 by mosspit

[Boeroer]

Godansthunyr is crush/pierce and Thrust is crush.

The thing is you can stun+Thrust a single enemy while you can deliver the same via riposte to others who attack you. If you wear the binding rope your riposte-Thrusts have a good chance to be deathblows.

I think it's great for riposte. Helps you to tank even more enemies. I mean most people don't want to be attacked at all - but if it happens, it's good to have a chance for riposte. I don't want to generate as many ripostes as possible. That would mean - like you said - that you want the enemy to attack you all the time. I think that's not optimal for a rogue, even one with a shield. For me, Riposte is still not powerful enough to be seen as good DPS source. But it can be good to punish enemies who dare to attack you. That's why I would prefer a disabling weapon for ripostes, not a DPS one. Maybe it's just a different approach.

Edited July 29, 2016 by Boeroer

[Loren Tyr]

I would tend to agree that Riposte is more something to add to the arsenal of a defensively minded rogue, rather than something to specifically build around. It still can be quite fun to go in a "Riposte Rogue" direction though, ie. a rogue build that does frequently utilize it.

 

In any case, I still contend that the utility of Bashing shields remains debatable. I've checked now, it definitely does not count as dual-wielding, though bashing shields do have a short recovery (I tested with Larder Door, but I would assume this to be a constant across Bashing shields). In my testing (21 DEX Rogue, padded armour, no attack speed bonuses) the duration of a full main weapon + bash was about 50% longer than attacking with just the main weapon and regular shield equipped. Not as bad as I expected due to the short recovery of bash. Nevertheless, in general I sincerely doubt whether a shield bash is really worth half a main weapon attack, and once you get to the more powerful weapons it certainly isn't. A possible exception to that would be the Barricade due to its unlimited Thrust procs, but even then by very rough estimate I reckon you'd still need to crit on 50%-75% of Bash attacks to break even. Obviously a stunning hammer does help in that regard though, and the bash shield does get the usual ACC level bonus for abilities to help it along a bit.

 

With regard to Riposte, it indeed works when disabled; when paralyzed at least, but we can safely assume that generalizes to prone and stun as well. 

[mosspit]

Godansthunyr is crush/pierce and Thrust is crush.

The thing is you can stun+Thrust a single enemy while you can deliver the same via riposte to others who attack you. If you wear the binding rope your riposte-Thrusts have a good chance to be deathblows.

I think it's great for riposte. Helps you to tank even more enemies. I mean most people don't want to be attacked at all - but if it happens, it's good to have a chance for riposte. I don't want to generate as many ripostes as possible. That would mean - like you said - that you want the enemy to attack you all the time. I think that's not optimal for a rogue, even one with a shield. For me, Riposte is still not powerful enough to be seen as good DPS source. But it can be good to punish enemies who dare to attack you. That's why I would prefer a disabling weapon for ripostes, not a DPS one. Maybe it's just a different approach.

You are right about the dmg type.

 

But I stand by what I said about Riposte. If you take Riposte, I do not think Godansthunyr is optimal. I personally would not place a Rogue under a situation where it is mob'ed since it still not defensively strong enough to be a main tank.

 

Godansthunyr will help the Rogue tank better since the attacker will be stunned. But it is not useful in triggering Riposte. That is my point.

 

 

I would tend to agree that Riposte is more something to add to the arsenal of a defensively minded rogue, rather than something to specifically build around. It still can be quite fun to go in a "Riposte Rogue" direction though, ie. a rogue build that does frequently utilize it.

 

In any case, I still contend that the utility of Bashing shields remains debatable. I've checked now, it definitely does not count as dual-wielding, though bashing shields do have a short recovery (I tested with Larder Door, but I would assume this to be a constant across Bashing shields). In my testing (21 DEX Rogue, padded armour, no attack speed bonuses) the duration of a full main weapon + bash was about 50% longer than attacking with just the main weapon and regular shield equipped. Not as bad as I expected due to the short recovery of bash. Nevertheless, in general I sincerely doubt whether a shield bash is really worth half a main weapon attack, and once you get to the more powerful weapons it certainly isn't. A possible exception to that would be the Barricade due to its unlimited Thrust procs, but even then by very rough estimate I reckon you'd still need to crit on 50%-75% of Bash attacks to break even. Obviously a stunning hammer does help in that regard though, and the bash shield does get the usual ACC level bonus for abilities to help it along a bit.

 

With regard to Riposte, it indeed works when disabled; when paralyzed at least, but we can safely assume that generalizes to prone and stun as well.

I would say Riposte needs some degree of specialization. Because it is like getting a sweet spot (but maybe it doesn't even exist). A defensive minded Rogue can get other better shields than Badgradr's Barricade, that adds to a tankiness of a Rogue, and in the same vein the Rogue can be built very defensively like much less emphasis on PER. With Riposte, you would not want to sacrifice too much on offense as otherwise the "free" full attacks become weak. And the best bash shield is needed for Riposte to both push defense high enough to help trigger it, and qualify for a full attack (Thrust makes all the difference).

 

Even so, I am still on the fence whether Riposte is worth it. It is rare enough that I do mini celebration in my head when I see one goes off lol.

Edited July 30, 2016 by mosspit

[Kazuma]

Lol, sorry. I didn't mean to imply that Godansthunyr is good/bad for riposte. Just what I had down for my build for the devil. I think it was probably Boeroer's suggestion from my earlier thread. I was mostly looking at it as an extra disable. Though I do have riposte in my build. Not sure if there's something better to take or not. I think I just stuck it in there because of the buff it got in 3.03. /shrug.

 

Personally I'm not that worried about it because my rogue is pretty much just there for the companion story.

 

Too bad there wasn't evasion tanking in PoE. Though I suppose there is in a manner of speaking, but having only high reflex is not really viable. I guess it's a bit more reasonable to think a rogue doesn't have a supernatural ability to avoid any incoming attack. One-on-one sure. N+1 not so much

[Kaylon]

Riposte with 2 weapons under Defensive Mindweb is huge...

[Boeroer]

Too bad it comes so late. How does Riposte with 2 reaping knives while under Defensive Mindweb sound?  You can run around to provoke disengangement attacks as hell, triggering tons of ripostes and generating tons of focus while doing it.

Edited July 30, 2016 by Boeroer

[Loren Tyr]

I would say Riposte needs some degree of specialization. Because it is like getting a sweet spot (but maybe it doesn't even exist). A defensive minded Rogue can get other better shields than Badgradr's Barricade, that adds to a tankiness of a Rogue, and in the same vein the Rogue can be built very defensively like much less emphasis on PER. With Riposte, you would not want to sacrifice too much on offense as otherwise the "free" full attacks become weak. And the best bash shield is needed for Riposte to both push defense high enough to help trigger it, and qualify for a full attack (Thrust makes all the difference).

Even so, I am still on the fence whether Riposte is worth it. It is rare enough that I do mini celebration in my head when I see one goes off lol.

 

But like I said, I don't think a Rogue (Riposting or otherwise) should be using Barricade to begin with. I've been crunching some numbers on it, but even with the Thrust the Barricade has difficulty compensating for the loss in main hand attack rate. 

 

In my earlier testing I came up with a Full Attack duration of Sabre + Bash at 50% more than just Sabre with regular shield. Comparing the damage for that same rogue, wielding a simple Resolution Sabre with Lash with or without Barricade, it turns out that you need to have a reasonably high (accuracy - deflection) differential for the Sabre+Barricade to even equal the damage output of Sabre+Shield alone, let alone exceed it. In this setup, if the target has 0 DR you only need +8 to break even, but at 5 and 10 DR that's already +20 / +22. But that's not counting Sneak Attack, which doesn't apply to Bash or Thrust. If you are Sneak Attacking the break-even points at 0, 5 and 10 DR are +27, +37 and +46. If you have Deathblows and it applies, this drops back down to +17, +22 and +29, since for some reason Deathblows does work on spells and abilities. 

 

And certainly you get a bit more mileage out of Full Attack effects if you have Barricade, but on the other hand your main weapon will likely improve considerably whereas the Bash and Thrust essentially never do. And this significantly affects the equation. In the above scenario, if I replace the Fine enchantment with an Exceptional enchantment, the break-even points at 0, 5 and 10 DR become: 

- normal attack: +22, +32, +38

- sneak attack: +37, +47, +58

- death blows: +24, +30, +37

 

So frequent Riposting might slightly increase the argument for Barricade because it is a Full Attack effect, and will increase the Riposte damage by something like 25% - 75% (again depending very much on DR, Sneak/Deathblows yes/no, and main weapon damage). But whether that's worth it will depend very much on how often Riposte actually triggers. Moreover, that's as compared to a medium shield of the same quality; the generally higher Riposte rate that a large shield like Old Gerun's Wall offers (which is already Superb and has hit-to-graze conversion on it) may well balance that despite the larger accuracy penalty (it also helps to keep you alive longer). 

[Kazuma]

So, to summarize, you might be able to achieve dps parity (non-Bash vs Bash) on trash with relatively low deflection and DR. But in tough encounters (moreso in PotD I would assume) you're better off with going with a non-bash shield, having higher deflection, sacrifice an indeterminate number of ripostes, and ultimately have a more consistent dps rather than a slightly higher alpha strike.

 

Did I misunderstand anything?

 

Might be interesting to get some video of rogue solo fights illustrating the difference. Of course time trials would only make sense if you had many datapoints due to RNG.

[Boeroer]

You get the Barricade quite late anyways.

 

But in my experience it was a great shield to use with a rogue. Thrust of Tattered Veils with Deathblows was very deadly (high base damage). As you said, it was mainly better than a normal shield because of the Full Attacks of a rogue. In 90% of all Full Attacks like Blinding Strike the target was blinded + stunned (which triggered Deathblows) and then crit by the bash which triggered Thrust of Tattered Veils on Deathblows which also did a crit most of the time. That was enough to kill Lagufaeth with one Full Attack. The bash itself is total crap of course. I don't understand why OBS didn't improve bash at all. It clearly has bad mechanics. Imagine if bash would automatically cause disorienting on hit or a short stun on crit - or even push back a little like Knockdown. Or it would give you the Knockdown ability 1/encounter or 2/encounter like the Girlde of the Driving Wave. Then it would make sense.

 

But I just remembered one thing: before the latest patch the Thrust (which has unlimited procs per encounter) was triggered twice each time. After the latest patch it's only one Thrust. That is a hefty drawback and may be the main reason why I found it to be awesome and you think it's not so great.

Edited July 30, 2016 by Boeroer

[Loren Tyr]

@Kazuma: that's correct, only if your accuracy is sufficiently much larger than the deflection of your enemy does (normal speed) weapon + Barricade start to outdamage weapon + regular shield. And if you have a good main hand weapon that differential is going to be very high, in a range where you're probably ripping through them anyway. So the improvement of the Full Attack abilities is rarely going to compensate for that. Especially if you have a main hand weapon that imparts a status effect, because with the Bashing shield that's going to be attacking less frequently, something you'd realistically have to weigh against the Barricade as well.

 

@Boeroer: a double Thrust would definitely shift the break-even points downwards quite a lot, I just ran that through my script as well. It also means the gap between the two widens much more quickly. 

[mosspit]

But like I said, I don't think a Rogue (Riposting or otherwise) should be using Barricade to begin with. I've been crunching some numbers on it, but even with the Thrust the Barricade has difficulty compensating for the loss in main hand attack rate. 

 

In my earlier testing I came up with a Full Attack duration of Sabre + Bash at 50% more than just Sabre with regular shield. Comparing the damage for that same rogue, wielding a simple Resolution Sabre with Lash with or without Barricade, it turns out that you need to have a reasonably high (accuracy - deflection) differential for the Sabre+Barricade to even equal the damage output of Sabre+Shield alone, let alone exceed it. In this setup, if the target has 0 DR you only need +8 to break even, but at 5 and 10 DR that's already +20 / +22. But that's not counting Sneak Attack, which doesn't apply to Bash or Thrust. If you are Sneak Attacking the break-even points at 0, 5 and 10 DR are +27, +37 and +46. If you have Deathblows and it applies, this drops back down to +17, +22 and +29, since for some reason Deathblows does work on spells and abilities. 

 

And certainly you get a bit more mileage out of Full Attack effects if you have Barricade, but on the other hand your main weapon will likely improve considerably whereas the Bash and Thrust essentially never do. And this significantly affects the equation. In the above scenario, if I replace the Fine enchantment with an Exceptional enchantment, the break-even points at 0, 5 and 10 DR become: 

- normal attack: +22, +32, +38

- sneak attack: +37, +47, +58

- death blows: +24, +30, +37

 

So frequent Riposting might slightly increase the argument for Barricade because it is a Full Attack effect, and will increase the Riposte damage by something like 25% - 75% (again depending very much on DR, Sneak/Deathblows yes/no, and main weapon damage). But whether that's worth it will depend very much on how often Riposte actually triggers. Moreover, that's as compared to a medium shield of the same quality; the generally higher Riposte rate that a large shield like Old Gerun's Wall offers (which is already Superb and has hit-to-graze conversion on it) may well balance that despite the larger accuracy penalty (it also helps to keep you alive longer).

Firstly, I was referring specifically to Shield selection for Riposte. I already acknowledge that a full defensive Rogue can opt for better shields. And a dps rogue can just go dual Bittercuts or whatever. If you do not want to discuss Riposte by itself, let us default to agree to disagree. A Riposte build is not an optimally defensive or offensive build, and I feel that it does need to be built around. Otherwise either Riposte rate is bad or the free full attacks is not effective. Besides defensive mindweb (aka I Win Button) of course. But there are more broken things you can do with defensive mindweb than Riposte.

 

Secondly, let us consider Gerun's 28def and Badgradr's 20def. Have exceptional upgrade on Badgradr's Barricade is reasonable I feel. The 8def difference will loosely translate to 8% increase chances for Riposte to proc. The hit-to-graze conversion loosely translates to 3.5%. So 11.5% increased Riposte rate for Gerun's as compared to Badgradr's.

 

In my playthrough as a riposte rogue I am getting 30% more crit counts than hit counts. So let us set Thrust rate as 50% (since Shields will have lower acc).

Badgradr's has bash (6-9 ave 7.5dmg) and Thrust (18-35 converted ave of 13.2 (50% of 27.5)). For Gerun's setup to outdamage Badgradr's, the 11.5% main hand dmg needs to exceed 20.7 or 180dmg total. On top of this do note that Gerun's incur -4 more acc penalty than Badgradr's. Also Badgradr's Barricade is able to reflect 10% of ranged attacks.

 

So based on mainhand ave 180dmg autoattack dmg (likely more since Thrust can be augmented by Sneak Attacks/Deathblows). I will say it is unlikely for that to happen and so Badgradr's Barricade is the best choice for Riposte.

Edited July 31, 2016 by mosspit

[Boeroer]

Funnily the bash ACC is not that much lower than that of the main weapon. If I remember correctly it was only 5 points lower or so...?

 

Thrust of Tattered Veils only works with Deathblowas, not Sneak Attack. It does work with Penetrating Shot though without slowing you down.

Edited July 31, 2016 by Boeroer

[mosspit]

Ah good to know.