I made this post for some other thread today and thought I should also post it to the class forums in case anyone wants a PvE build they can try.
My character is 2844 Total Item Level (TiL) and deals really good damage in PvE. She is constantly winning paingiver in groups with equal TiL, and even beating other TR's that are over 3K TiL. Of course she rarely out damages GWF's that are well geared and played properly, but that's a given in Neverwinter. She is totally setup for PvE because I rarely PvP. I don't think I would consider doing PvP until she is at least 3500 TiL.
From my experience TR is very enjoyable to play, and very powerful in groups or when solo. The combination of high single-target and AoE damage, plus a TR's ability at constant crowd control makes the class one of the best. Therefore I highly recommend TR as a main class. It's even possible this build could work great in PvP as well since I made sure it had high deflect without having to sacrifice mush dps (I like balanced builds over glass canons)
I have tried several builds, came up with them myself, and settled on this as best for PvE.
Race: Half-Orc
Class: Trickster Rogue
Paragon Path: Master Infiltrator
Feat Line: Executioner
Starting Ability Scores (these are the scores I rolled originally in 2013; they could be better if the strength was higher, but they are decent)
15 Str
10 Con
20 Dex
10 Int
08 Wis
13 Cha
Add all ability score increases to Strength and Dexterity for final scores:
22 Str
12 Con
27 Dex
12 Int
10 Wis
15 Cha
Then after equipping maxed Golden Belt of Puissance and adding Campfire your scores are:
25 Str
13 Con
30 Dex
13 Int
11 Wis
16 Cha
Heroic Feats:
- Action Advantage (1/5)
- Weapon Mastery (3/3)
- Toughness (3/3)
- Cunning Ambusher (3/3)
- Endless Assault (3/3)
- Lucky Skirmisher (2/3)
- Scoundrel Training (2/3)
- Disciple of Strength (3/3)
Paragon Feats:
- Flashing Blades (5/5) [Saboteur]
- Roll With The Punches (5/5) [Scoundrel]
- Bloody Brawler (5/5) [Scoundrel]
- Arterial Cut (5/5) [Executioner]
- Vicious Pursuit (5/5) [Executioner]
- Dying Breath (5/5) [Executioner]
- Death Knell (5/5) [Executioner]
- Last Moments (5/5) [Executioner]
- Shadow of Demise (1) [Executioner]
Powers
Class Features:
- Skillful Infiltrator
- First Strike
Encounters:
- Dazing Strike
- Lashing Blade
- Smoke Bomb
At-Wills:
- Sly Flourish
- Duelist's Flurry
Dailies:
- Shocking Execution
- Whirlwind of Blades
Boons:
- Sharandar: Dark Fey Hunter, Fey Elusiveness, Elven Haste, Elven Ferocity, Elvish Fury
- Dread Ring: Conjurer's Gambit, Evoker's Thirst, Illusion Shimmer, Shadow Touch, Endless Consumption
- Icewind Dale: Encroaching Tactics, Refreshing Chill, Sleet Skills, Cool Resolve, Winters Bounty
- Underdark: Primordial Might, Primordial Regenesis, Drow Ambush Tactics, Dwarven Stamina, Abyssal Strikes
- Tyranny of Dragons: Dragon's Claws, Dragon's Gaze, Draconic Armorbreaker, Dragon's Greed, Dragon's Thirst (1/3), Dragon's Fury (1/3), Dragon's Revival (1/3)
Active Companions:
- Dancing Blade (Erinyes of Belial is better but costs 10 times as much)
- Seige Master
- Air Archon
- Fire Archon
- Ioun Stone of Radiance (Summoned)
For combat you Stealth in on a fresh group of mobs and hit them with Dazing Strike which crits them all for huge amount because of First Strike (and it's even better if your Artifact Off-hand Class Feature is set to First Strike). Then you smoke bomb and use at-wills to finish them off. Whenever your daily is up, and there are lots of mobs, Stealth and hit Whirlwind of Blades for huge crits on every mob. Otherwise keep using encounters when they are ready, stealth and use smoke bomb when you can because it stuns everything for a long time and deals a lot of critical "damage over time" to them all. If the mobs have high health I start with Flurry to get some bleeds going, then switch to Flourish to finish them off.
With the feats and companions you deal the most damage after the mob has less then 50% health: your damage begins to skyrocket from the Fire Archon plus Death Knell and Last Moments. I made sure to upgrade all my companions to Purple to get the most damage increase out of them and it really pays off, someday I will upgrade Dancing Blade into Erinyes of Belial for another +5% Crit severity.
P.s. I only use Shocking Execution when fighting a single target like a boss or mini-boss.
I can't think of anything else to say at the moment. If anyone makes this TR build I hope they like it.
Comments
- class features of First Strike and Skillful Infiltrator are nice and all, but if you're MI, do consider Invisible Infiltrator and Infiltrator's Action. You'll get more bang for your buck with those. Stealth -> encounter power -> Daily -> re-stealth -> encounter power is just plain silly dps when you need it.
And if you're WK, I'd instead suggest the Adv Pos + Op Dark route, given that you can re-stealth usually within 6 sec as an Exe that gives you perma CA which is just plain fun. Not to mention the artifact offhand powers can give you either -20% damage taken (Adv Pos) or slow a target by 50% (OpDark). Both have value in both PvE and PvP.
- stealth -> Dazing Strike is all fine and dandy if the mobs are densely packed. In my experience, they seldom are - or if they are, the second you stealth one or two tend to run after the next target (your companion, a teammate, etc.), which again messes things up. Throw in CWs blasting things across the room, Paladins doing similar, and so on, and it can get frustrating pretty quick at times. This can also mess up your SoD, as the game will randomly apply it to one of your targets and not necessarily the one you want. Consider stealth -> Smoke Bomb -> Blade Flurry for AoE trash, and for single-targets...well, it gets a bit trickier. Have a look at my "SoD help" post on page 1 for some further tips for maximizing SoD damage.
- dailies -> again, you'll probably get more out of Lurker's + one other of your choice.
- don't discount the value of Wicked Reminder for single target fights. It rocks, especially from stealth. If you enter stealth at the end of a Flurry, you'll get auto-crit on the bleed and still have enough stealth to throw out a WR, starting your SoD. You can then Lurker's to re-fill your stealth bar (thanks to Invisible Infil), and then throw out another encounter (Lashing blade for crazy dmg, but only available every other SoD; Dazing otherwise). Great SoD damage that way.
- Sly Flourish vs. Cloud of Steel is debatable. I prefer CoS, as it gives me a range dps option when there's a long-standing AoE red circle around the boss that I had to tumble out of.
So, a number of things. I'm not OP, but I found some of your Class Feature recommendations a little strange. While I do agree that every PvE MI should run Invisible Infiltrator, I'm curious as to why you'd recommend Combat Advantage over a straight-up percentage increase of +4% Critical chance, which equates to 1600 crit that you don't have to stack (which gives you flexibility if you want to stack something else or stack Crit even higher). To put that into perspective, that's more than two Rank 12 Azures (+1400) combined, and slightly lower than 4 Rank 12 Brutals (+1680 crit) combined. So even at the highest level, that's a lot of points.
In PvE group play, a rogue will always have combat advantage because of party members positioning. And if a TR is not positioning itself for combat advantage, then the TR is at fault for being a bad TR (in the same vein that a TR who does not use WR on bosses is a bad TR). Wouldn't that make InfilAction redundant? Especially when you consider that it means unslotting First Strike, Tactics, or Skillful Infiltrator. Skillful Infiltrator is not only superior for solo play (movement speed, deflect bonus), but CA isn't that necessary for campaign areas anyway since everything dies quickly.
On Oppressive Darkness: since this is a PvE build, I also find it strange that you recommend Oppressive Darkness. Sounds great on paper, but it adds literally HUNDREDS to your overall damage output. That's not great. OD does not reap the benefits of buffs/debuffs, it's not affected by your power, and it accounts for a very small percentage of your overall damage. You can test it yourself if you'd like. I think it's based on weapon damage, which for rogues is pretty terrible in PvE.
1 - you won't always have CA. At least I don't. Solo, skirmishes, or even dungeons where there's plenty of mobs / spawns, even assuming there's a tank that'll mark stuff, they might be busy holding off that big ugly monster in the corner and expecting the rest of you to clean up the 30 little guys on the other side of the room. And keep in mind, CA = +15% damage. That outweighs a potential +4% crit (and let's be honest here, it's probably +3% - most don't have plenty of extra power points to take this to R4).
2 - OpDark shines with AoE. Throwing out blade flurry x 8 or so (if using Lurker's) = several hundred damage x number of targets hit x number of hits (in this example, 8).
So yes, OpDark could use a boost, but the damage still adds up, especially with certain builds.
http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/1209115/oppressive-darkness-in-pve
There's a thread on Oppressive Darkness. Let's assume you hit the maxed observed hit EVERY TIME (unlikely, but I want to show that even in optimal conditions, it sucks) for Rank 4 OD: 756. You hit the maximum amount of targets with Blade Flurry: 5. You use Blade Flurry x8. Taking your formula:
756 x 5 x 8= 30,240 extra damage from Oppressive Darkness.
OD is not boosted by Lurker's Assault, Crit Severity, Crit chance, Power rating, buffs, debuffs. It will not hit higher than the amount observed, and if it does (someone in that thread mentioned it may be based on weapon damage, and a new Legendary set may raise the damage ceiling), it will be less than 100 extra damage.
30,240 damage spread across 5 enemies. That's a little over 6k extra damage per enemy, assuming you are hitting the maximum amount of targets with the maximum amount of damage with the maximum amount of attacks possible. Toward SoD, that adds 3k to ONE enemy.
One enemy takes 9k damage, 4 others take 6k damage, total added damage from OD: 33k.
That's LESS than the amount of added damage than OP's First Strike (with offhand feature) stealthed lashing blade, a gap that gets bigger with the more crit severity OP has. I just tested this: Rank 4 First Strike + offhand feature + specced exactly as described above + a greater vorpal (38% severity) nearly doubled the damage of the first hit: for LB, I hit 50-60k sans FS, 90-100k with FS. On top of that, SoD adds 25-30k and 45-50k at the very least, respectively. For Dazing Strike, 30kish sans FS and 50-60k with it, plus 50% of those totals from SoD
So one could add a collective 30k damage using up a daily and a class feature spot, or one could add that damage to the first strike of combat and have 3/4% extra crit to take advantage of buffs/debuffs for the rest of the fight, extra deflect for defense, and extra movement speed for CA positioning.
(I'm admittedly a bit lost on your first point of CA--how you don't always have it. If you're not attacking the target everyone else is attacking, why not just use dazing strike, smoke bomb, or both to automatically grant yourself combat advantage in your one on one battle with the add? Why does one need to dedicate a feat to something they can easily obtain by moving a bit more? Also, do you have a specific example/fight where a tank would pull a tough enemy and leave you to attack an enemy that you can't get combat advantage on and have to fight one on one despite being in a party with four other people? A common one is the scorpion pull in elol, but 3 others attack the non-pulled one with you.)
Sorry for not addressing your original post! Question:
You took some Deflect feats rather than other feats that could potentially increase your damage output. Am I right in assuming that rather than building to maximize damage, you're aiming to achieve a good damage output and some semblance of survivability at the same time?
Edit: Oh whoops. You said that. That being said, how do you compare to people who run bonding runestones? I see you use an augment, and in my experience any GWF, SW, and CW running Rank 10, 11, and 12 bonding stones leave me in the dust in terms of damage when I use my augment (it's a lot easier to keep up when I run bonding stones and get Companion Gift stacks). Do you have the same experience or do you manage to keep up with properly specced players who run the bonding strategy?
Hi, thanks for your question. Yes I favor balancing some survivability with damage output, which is why a chose to take a few deflect boons and a feat. I have not seen that it handicapped my dps in any significant way, but it really made my character able to survive because my deflect is 40% atm.
As for your question about Bonding Stones. I actually have never tried it. I have seen how powerful they can be and will try it in the future unless it gets nerfed or something. Right now I am satisfied with the Augment, but yeah, when i get more AD and can afford the high level Bonding Stones I will set it up.
Sorry I was tired and didnt mean to type i hate lashing blade (lol), i meant to say i hate using lurkers assault + blade flurry. it feels like a very boring, robotic way to play hitting the key 8 times in a row: swoosh, swoosh, swoosh, etc. it's fine for others, but just not my play style.
https://account.xbox.com/en-us/screenshot/8813cdce-a0b9-4200-91e6-d1df9e87fb6f?gamertag=Respectpays&scid=8dd60100-6cc0-42f2-bb3e-c47b184a79f5
ps: if u think you want to be serous send me a msg on xbox
Mostly PvP rogues go for high recovery so they can have their Shocking Execution up as quickly as possible. PvE rogues do not need that much recovery in the current state of the game because power is simply superior in every way up to a certain point when it comes to playing an end-game PvE MI Exe. While I agree that recovery is a really strong stat for the Master Infiltrator rogue's overall damage increase, the dungeon layouts and the difficulty of the trash mobs do not require you to have your dailies up at every group of monsters to be able to cut through them. The scenario where you'd need your daily up is first and foremost in high HP pool single target fights(boss fights). But even then, running with a heavy buffer/debuffer group allows you to basically finish the fight before you can get your 2nd daily cast off.
Recovery (especiall AP gain) is a really strong stat for the purposes of outscaling challenging content. But right now, Exe TRs can't even fully utilize their existing feat bonuses, because fights just don't take that long and there aren't mechanics that would require you to finish off low-health opponents quickly. It all comes down to Paingiver in the end.
Here, wrote something similar, and to lazy to write agian:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Neverwinter/comments/49t9ky/recovery_question/
There are places where recovery can work great, Sabo for example, or if you use lurker->BF (tc4) but even there to much of it and it's a significant loss.
Especially for mi-exe, nothing lives 6 seconds for SoD to proc. You need a boss to even get to the second rotation. So recovery is not the stat I would take.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Neverwinter/comments/46kr1i/help_with_tr_stat_distribution/
(I'm not using/talking about the build in the thread, this is in general)
Recovery reduces your cooldowns and boosts your action point gain. Although the stat itself is linear and works by providing 1% recharge speed increase for every 200 points and 400:1% AP gain, the way it reduces your cooldowns is not. The way it works is as follows:
New CD = Old CD/(1+Recharge Speed Increase)
Which means that at low levels of recharge speed increase, it reduces your cooldowns quite quickly but the higher you get, the less it reduces your cooldowns. It also means that if you have 100% recharge speed increase, it halves your cooldowns. Here is a nice picture for you of how recovery works:
Here is a graph as an example, with an ability with a 20 second base cooldown and looking at 0% recharge speed increase to a 400% recharge speed increase:
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=plot+20/(1+B),+B+=+0+to+4
and here is a graph showing the return on investment:
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=derive+20/(1+B),+B+=+0+to+4
You should be able to see that at very low recovery levels, it gives much better return on investment then at higher recovery levels. This is very easy to test yourself, just put points into recovery, look at how much it increases your recharge speed increase, then look at your cooldowns. Then take the base CD of your ability and divide it by 1+recharge speed increase. You should find the tooltip CD matches the CD given by the formula.
Those are main and secondary stats, CA,AP gain, are all the same for all classes but are not linear.
Your gripe is completely unfounded, and Incorrect. And especially the claim about recovery.
So I have not played neverwinter in over 2 years and was just wondering about the following, When I stopped playing my character had some awesome gear, I just want to find out what can I get now that is better? This is what I have.
Armor
Murderous Jester's Helmet
Battlefield Scavenger's Armor
Battlefield Scavenger's Bracers
Elusive Agent's Boots
Demonweb Wrap
Minor Grand Fugitive's Belt of Revolt
Trickster's Embroidered Shirt
Fancy Leather Pants
Weapons
Battlefield Scavenger's Long Dagger ( Plague Fire Enchantment )
Cruel Dagger of Parrying
Equipment
House Xorlarren Signet
Temperred Evader's Ring
Any advise would be appreciated
Kind Regards
Farmboy102
After reading this and making the changes, I am back to being a bad dude again, so just wanted to say I appreciate the write up.