Optimizing SoD - help

aaramis75

Hey folks, having spent some time now as TR, I'm enjoying the Exe path with Scoundrel running a close 2nd.
However, while I'm happy with my SoD damage on Exe, I want to ensure I'm maximizing my damage and not missing anything, so I could use the help of any vets.

Here's my current setup:
- assume eLoL set and combat advantage;
- starting with a Smoke Bomb, then a Flurry and hitting stealth around the 3rd hit, allowing for a crit DoT
- quickly follow with an encounter power before I run out of stealth (generally WR), and to start the SoD timer.
- continue on with a 2nd flurry, maybe with a Dazing thrown in before it. (general encounter setup is WR/Dazing/Smoke for single-target)

If my daily is filled, I'll throw a Lurker's in after my WR pops me out to go back into stealth (using Invisible Infiltrator) to get stealthed Dazing + part of a 2nd flurry chain.

Am I missing anything else here? Would you throw in a Shocking Exe (if MI) or Hateful Knives (if WK)?

For encounters, Lashing would clearly draw better numbers, but the CD on it turns me off, allowing me to only use it every 2nd (or 3rd if timers don't line up) SoD. As the SoD timer is 6 seconds, I'm trying to line everything else up with that (i.e. stealth timer within 6 seconds, and encounters on 6sec or so CDs after recovery and everything else factors in).

Any tips? Am I missing anything obvious here that could escalate my damage significantly?
Any help is appreciated.

Cheers.

*edit* - noticed a grammatical error. Had to fix it!

jonkoca

By no means a long term TR but my usual rotation now on mobs is stealth dazing (LB if single target) proccing SD, then lurkers (single target) or WoB (multiple), immediate smoke from stealth, itc for a power boost from the feat plus ensuring no interruptions to the folllowing DF. If lurkers then DF with a late entry to stealth to make sure the bleeds crit. I usually have first strike on, because in a party everything dies so quickly that at most you'll get in one rotation before it's all over.

Smoke with high power and critted does a tonne of damage in the background, and keeps most mobs from interrupting you while you whale on them.

aaramis75

magenubbie said:

I do run with LB instead of smoke on bosses. Smoke just does some DPS, but its cooldown is almost as horrible as Lashing and I can crit much higher with LB. My even bigger problem is that smoke doesn't proc SoD by itself, forcing me to waste either DS or LB to activate it. Not exactly optimal.

Yeah, the only way to trigger SoD via smoke is to drop smoke, then stealth - the next tick will crit. But as you said, it's a waste of a stealth hit when dazing, WR, or even LB are so much better off.

I'll run some tests later this week, I think. I suspect the LB SoDs + your "lesser" SoDs may still outdps what I'm doing currently, especially if I can generate enough AP that I can Lurker's + spam WR every other SoD, and then when AP isn't full do the LB route.

aaramis75

jonkoca said:

By no means a long term TR but my usual rotation now on mobs is stealth dazing (LB if single target) proccing SD, then lurkers (single target) or WoB (multiple), immediate smoke from stealth, itc for a power boost from the feat plus ensuring no interruptions to the folllowing DF. If lurkers then DF with a late entry to stealth to make sure the bleeds crit. I usually have first strike on, because in a party everything dies so quickly that at most you'll get in one rotation before it's all over.

Smoke with high power and critted does a tonne of damage in the background, and keeps most mobs from interrupting you while you whale on them.

Yeah, the stealthed smoke is certainly my go-to for AoE, but that's generally not a problem. Trash seldom survives stealthed smoke + blade flurry x 4. And if Lurker's is up, it's then smoke -> lurker's -> flurry x ...lots.
Smoke was moreso used in single-target as an extra form of DoT while I'm flurrying away and using stealthed WRs and dazing.

That's 2 votes for LB now, though - interesting.

jonkoca

I think it depends on your party tbh. If you're with a bunch of gwfs, then you know the boss will go down fast, so you may as well go with LB, despite the long cd. If you're in for a longer haul, then dazing or wicked is better, because of the charges / lower cd, giving you more uptime on sod in the long term. Situational, depends also on the boss mechanics, synderith first stage where she teleports away for example, or vilandra, you should probably go with LB, as you probably won't get a double SoD on them anyway, so ay as well hit harder on the first.

ghoulz66

Note that WK's vengeance pursuit does not consume stealth and can proc it. So WK's don't make half bad exe's.

You can still run around while using it, the debuff stays on the target for a while. Not bad for eToS boss, you can teleport with her. Or approach a mob, designate the biggest target with VP to proc SoD then drop a smoke bomb from stealth.

aaramis75

ghoulz66 said:

Note that WK's vengeance pursuit does not consume stealth and can proc it. So WK's don't make half bad exe's.

You can still run around while using it, the debuff stays on the target for a while. Not bad for eToS boss, you can teleport with her. Or approach a mob, designate the biggest target with VP to proc SoD then drop a smoke bomb from stealth.

Yeah, I noticed that on test server (my TR there is WK; live is MI). It's certainly a nice option, but I feel like my SoD nosebombs without the ability to do back-to-back stealthed hits as one can as MI.
That said, there's just something about WK... It's always been very tempting.