Starting a TR to chill from the end-game shenanigans, what attributes go for?

malkybutt · May 2015

I've read all the last topics which have made me only more doubtful so I dunno what to go for since I've never touched a TR before cause in mod5 they were everywhere. Play-style would be a good mix of pvp/pve. Reading around there are lotsa people suggesting going int for the recharge speed while others suggest going CHA for the deflect and advantage bonus or DEX/CHA to stack as much deflection as possible..what to do? STR/INT or STR/CHA or DEX/CHA?
In PVP I see those TRs who hit and run, roll around, gets in stealth, poke you, roll around, stealth and wear you out to death..I'm thinking to do something like that but dunno how to allocate attributes mainly..other stuff will come with playing and understanding the class more. Cheers!

trgluestickz · May 2015

For TR ability scores, those vary wildly depending on what your build and play style is. I'll try my best to describe a couple builds and what stats they are likely to use. In order for me to give you better advice on what kind of ability scores you would need, I need a more detailed description of what you want your rogue build to do and how you want to fight.

Dex is not a bad stat but you don't actually need to stack it for most builds. If you are building a pure defensive rogue build you probably should stack dex. If you want a rogue with extremely high crit strike and crit chance for some reason(you don't actually need tons of crit strike to do massive damage), you should probably stack dex. If you want good defenses and a lot of damage, a pure damage build, or a permastealth build, you do not need to stack dex. Dex is not as good in neverwinter online as it is in other games with rogues despite it being labeled as our main stat.

Permastealth rogues, and rogues who took the scoundrel feat tree are the ones I can best describe as far as rogues that wear you down over time are concerned. Technically the play style you described can be done with most builds to some degree but some builds work better for this tactic than others. Many rogues with the saboteur feat tree fit your description of your play style better than permasteathers and scoundrels but I'm not as knowledgeable on sabs. I'd recommend asking sabotuers for more information if the two wear out builds I'm about to describe don't sound like what you want.

Permastealth rogues are builds designed to stay in stealth 100% of the time or as close to it as they can get. Permastealth builds are all about taking stealth refilling powers and using them as often as possible and timing them well to stay in stealth forever. If you want to make a permastealth build, you will HAVE to stack intelligence and recovery. Cooldown reduction is what makes it possible to get your stealth refiling powers off often enough to achieve permastealth. Permastealth rogues do high damage owing to most of them being executioners and the fact that stealth gives you 100% chance to crit. They are are not usually cookie cutter 1 shot kill rogues though. They are invisible most of the time and this allows them to whittle down health gages over time without worrying as much about getting hit. Their power setups are primarily ranged. Shadow strike, impact shot, bait and switch, gloaming cut, and lurker's assault are popular choices with these rogues. Obviously cloud of steel is popular too but that power is popular with most rogues. Most commonly, these builds will stack intelligence, charisma, and 1 other stat. Charisma's damage bonus will be up all the time since stealth gives you combat advantage. This build does not need dex though some stack it anyway for some reason. Because permastealth rogues are in stealth so much, they don't need any crit strike or crit chance. They don't need as much deflect as other builds either since their main defense is being invisible and attacking at a distance. Not all rogues who stack intelligence are permastealth rogues, in fact, a lot of other builds use intelligence as well.

Rogues who take the scoundrel feat tree are typically the polar opposite of the permastealth rogue though use a similar wear down over time strategy. They use stealth the least out of the other feat trees and rely heavily on deflect, dazes, other cc's, and lifesteal to stay alive out in the open. They would benefit greatly from hp as well. The damage they have is limited but what damage they do have is base damage rather than burst damage(executioners use primarily burst damage). They weaken you over time and try to keep you cc'd while they get lots of attacks off. They whittle your health gage down like the permastealth rogue builds but they do it while in plain sight. They are more likely to turn to melee powers than the permastealth rogue. Strength is probably the best stat for a scoundrel. They can take dex for more deflect too since they lack the executioner's burst damage and fight out in the open, having more crit chance would also come in handy. Constitution is a viable option for a scoundrel who is trying to get extremely tanky. Intelligence stacking can work too since shorter cooldowns means more dazes more often as well as being to get more attacks off quicker while your opponent is subdued. Wisdom is an excellent option since it grants control bonus and control resist, both of which are of huge help to someone who likes cc's. The only reason a scoundrel would ever take charisma is if they were trying to get even more deflect.

Personally I am a master infiltrator halfling pvp oriented rogue with the executioner feat tree. I have a very odd build but its shown itself to be extremely powerful. I'm strongly melee oriented, am not a permastealth rogue, have extremely high damage, decent defenses(particularly deflect), and use lots of cc's especially daze. I stack armor pen, power, crit severity, recovery, movement speed, deflect, and control bonus more than anything else. Crit strike is not something I stack since I kinda end up with some anyway. I'm more of a cookie cutter 1 shot kill rogue but owing to the other features of my setup, I can turn to wear down over time tactics for tougher foes. I stack strength, charisma, and wisdom; I don't stack dexterity but it still ended up high and will hit 20 counting my artifact belt. I avoided taking base ability scores that have an 18 in dex since that 18 sucks points out of my other stats.

Also, here is a link that tells you what the ability scores provide for each class, including TRs:

http://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Ability_Score

spqwn · May 2015

I rolled max Dex/Cha for PVP and am currently using a Dex/Str belt. This results in 54% deflect chance (with skillfull infiltrator) and I'm far from BIS.
Deflect is very good for PVP since TR is the only class with 75% deflect severity.
Int is not that good anymore since you can stack Recovery very easy. Also Recovery gives you 1% per 200 points spent.
Str gives you some bonus damage, but for survivability, i'd choose deflect.
For max deflect, you can go with the Greater Charisma belt.

damnwidget · May 2015

Saboteur is the easiest way to go Perma-Stealth but is not just useful for that, it's also the tree that gives you more output damage now that the Executioner capstone is nerfed and bugged.

Saboteurs do loads of damage when they hit from stealth, I am running a Sabo-Max-DPS build using stealth just to maximize my DPS output, I was executioner before and I am doing twice the damage that I was used to do being executioner.

The damage that you deal from stealth is just insane, lot of sabos go with CoS as SO hits really hard and you can normally fire 5 of them, then roll to an oponnent, use DS (or input here your preferred encounter power) and refill the stealth meter (winning 20% damage output boost as well), fire 5 more CoS and then use SS to refill their stealth one more time, then wait until OwTS procs using ItC if necessary (you can add to this the Return to Shadows feat that refill 50% (bugged, tooltip says 25%) of your stealth meter when you use an encounter power from behind a target (impact shot twice for example will fill your bar again).

I don't play like that, I stack as much DEX/STR as I can 29/25 actually and use stealth to boost my DPS output pretty much like I did when I was executioner, the results are great, my survability is not as good as perma-stealths but I don't die at all or a couple of times if I defend nodes alone.

In general if you choose sabo:

Hit from behind your target gives you 10% RI and 10% Power Rating increase
Hit from stealth gives you 75% of your weapon damage as Piercing Damage (ignores DR)
Refill your stealth bar using an encounter when your OwTS is on gives you 20% of DPS boost

You can use that to run a non-perma-stealth saboteur or go to a more stealth build, is up to you.

P.S: The most important thing to understand is that you are gonna be always the main target for the enemy, ALWAYS, there is too much hate against rogues and much more against perma-stealth ones.

Just my 2 cents.

malkybutt · May 2015

trgluestickz wrote: »

For TR ability scores, those vary wildly depending on what your build and play style is. I'll try my best to describe a couple builds and what stats they are likely to use. In order for me to give you better advice on what kind of ability scores you would need, I need a more detailed description of what you want your rogue build to do and how you want to fight.

Dex is not a bad stat but you don't actually need to stack it for most builds. If you are building a pure defensive rogue build you probably should stack dex. If you want a rogue with extremely high crit strike and crit chance for some reason(you don't actually need tons of crit strike to do massive damage), you should probably stack dex. If you want good defenses and a lot of damage, a pure damage build, or a permastealth build, you do not need to stack dex. Dex is not as good in neverwinter online as it is in other games with rogues despite it being labeled as our main stat.

Permastealth rogues, and rogues who took the scoundrel feat tree are the ones I can best describe as far as rogues that wear you down over time are concerned. Technically the play style you described can be done with most builds to some degree but some builds work better for this tactic than others. Many rogues with the saboteur feat tree fit your description of your play style better than permasteathers and scoundrels but I'm not as knowledgeable on sabs. I'd recommend asking sabotuers for more information if the two wear out builds I'm about to describe don't sound like what you want.

Permastealth rogues are builds designed to stay in stealth 100% of the time or as close to it as they can get. Permastealth builds are all about taking stealth refilling powers and using them as often as possible and timing them well to stay in stealth forever. If you want to make a permastealth build, you will HAVE to stack intelligence and recovery. Cooldown reduction is what makes it possible to get your stealth refiling powers off often enough to achieve permastealth. Permastealth rogues do high damage owing to most of them being executioners and the fact that stealth gives you 100% chance to crit. They are are not usually cookie cutter 1 shot kill rogues though. They are invisible most of the time and this allows them to whittle down health gages over time without worrying as much about getting hit. Their power setups are primarily ranged. Shadow strike, impact shot, bait and switch, gloaming cut, and lurker's assault are popular choices with these rogues. Obviously cloud of steel is popular too but that power is popular with most rogues. Most commonly, these builds will stack intelligence, charisma, and 1 other stat. Charisma's damage bonus will be up all the time since stealth gives you combat advantage. This build does not need dex though some stack it anyway for some reason. Because permastealth rogues are in stealth so much, they don't need any crit strike or crit chance. They don't need as much deflect as other builds either since their main defense is being invisible and attacking at a distance. Not all rogues who stack intelligence are permastealth rogues, in fact, a lot of other builds use intelligence as well.

Rogues who take the scoundrel feat tree are typically the polar opposite of the permastealth rogue though use a similar wear down over time strategy. They use stealth the least out of the other feat trees and rely heavily on deflect, dazes, other cc's, and lifesteal to stay alive out in the open. They would benefit greatly from hp as well. The damage they have is limited but what damage they do have is base damage rather than burst damage(executioners use primarily burst damage). They weaken you over time and try to keep you cc'd while they get lots of attacks off. They whittle your health gage down like the permastealth rogue builds but they do it while in plain sight. They are more likely to turn to melee powers than the permastealth rogue. Strength is probably the best stat for a scoundrel. They can take dex for more deflect too since they lack the executioner's burst damage and fight out in the open, having more crit chance would also come in handy. Constitution is a viable option for a scoundrel who is trying to get extremely tanky. Intelligence stacking can work too since shorter cooldowns means more dazes more often as well as being to get more attacks off quicker while your opponent is subdued. Wisdom is an excellent option since it grants control bonus and control resist, both of which are of huge help to someone who likes cc's. The only reason a scoundrel would ever take charisma is if they were trying to get even more deflect.

Personally I am a master infiltrator halfling pvp oriented rogue with the executioner feat tree. I have a very odd build but its shown itself to be extremely powerful. I'm strongly melee oriented, am not a permastealth rogue, have extremely high damage, decent defenses(particularly deflect), and use lots of cc's especially daze. I stack armor pen, power, crit severity, recovery, movement speed, deflect, control bonus, and recovery more than anything else. Crit strike is not something I stack since I kinda end up with some anyway. I'm more of a cookie cutter 1 shot kill rogue but owing to the other features of my setup, I can turn to wear down over time tactics for tougher foes. I stack strength, charisma, and wisdom; I don't stack dexterity but it still ended up high and will hit 20 counting my artifact belt. I avoided taking base ability scores that have an 18 in dex since that 18 sucks points out of my other stats.

Also, here is a link that tells you what the ability scores provide for each class, including TRs:

http://neverwinter.gamepedia.com/Ability_Score

That's what I call a huge help. Thanks a lot for spending time and so much typing to claryfing that stuff mate, so appreciated! Now I have to decide wheter going MI or WP once the attributes are done lol. Cheers!

damnwidget wrote: »

Saboteur is the easiest way to go Perma-Stealth but is not just useful for that, it's also the tree that gives you more output damage now that the Executioner capstone is nerfed and bugged.

Saboteurs do loads of damage when they hit from stealth, I am running a Sabo-Max-DPS build using stealth just to maximize my DPS output, I was executioner before and I am doing twice the damage that I was used to do being executioner.

The damage that you deal from stealth is just insane, lot of sabos go with CoS as SO hits really hard and you can normally fire 5 of them, then roll to an oponnent, use DS (or input here your preferred encounter power) and refill the stealth meter (winning 20% damage output boost as well), fire 5 more CoS and then use SS to refill their stealth one more time, then wait until OwTS procs using ItC if necessary (you can add to this the Return to Shadows feat that refill 50% (bugged, tooltip says 25%) of your stealth meter when you use an encounter power from behind a target (impact shot twice for example will fill your bar again).

I don't play like that, I stack as much DEX/STR as I can 29/25 actually and use stealth to boost my DPS output pretty much like I did when I was executioner, the results are great, my survability is not as good as perma-stealths but I don't die at all or a couple of times if I defend nodes alone.

In general if you choose sabo:

Hit from behind your target gives you 10% RI and 10% Power Rating increase
Hit from stealth gives you 75% of your weapon damage as Piercing Damage (ignores DR)
Refill your stealth bar using an encounter when your OwTS is on gives you 20% of DPS boost

You can use that to run a non-perma-stealth saboteur or go to a more stealth build, is up to you.

P.S: The most important thing to understand is that you are gonna be always the main target for the enemy, ALWAYS, there is too much hate against rogues and much more against perma-stealth ones.

Just my 2 cents.

Interesting..Sabo also fascinates me more rather than Exe at the moment. Just one thing: If you use stealth to boost your damage, wouldn't be wiser going CHA instead of DEX to boost Combat advance damage (which comes from stealth and in other ways like wizzy or marks from fighters and such? Thanks a lot for your input and help doe.

spqwn wrote: »

I rolled max Dex/Cha for PVP and am currently using a Dex/Str belt. This results in 54% deflect chance (with skillfull infiltrator) and I'm far from BIS.
Deflect is very good for PVP since TR is the only class with 75% deflect severity.
Int is not that good anymore since you can stack Recovery very easy. Also Recovery gives you 1% per 200 points spent.
Str gives you some bonus damage, but for survivability, i'd choose deflect.
For max deflect, you can go with the Greater Charisma belt.

How you perfmor in PVE instead? Does the lack of str weights on your DPS? CHeers for helping, especially about the INT-Recovery part.

s1lv3rdrgnforum · May 2015

IMHO, there is no reason to go Sab. Everything you can do in Sab you can do in Exec with more damage.

trgluestickz · May 2015

damnwidget wrote: »

Saboteur is the easiest way to go Perma-Stealth but is not just useful for that, it's also the tree that gives you more output damage now that the Executioner capstone is nerfed and bugged.

Saboteurs do loads of damage when they hit from stealth, I am running a Sabo-Max-DPS build using stealth just to maximize my DPS output, I was executioner before and I am doing twice the damage that I was used to do being executioner.

The damage that you deal from stealth is just insane, lot of sabos go with CoS as SO hits really hard and you can normally fire 5 of them, then roll to an oponnent, use DS (or input here your preferred encounter power) and refill the stealth meter (winning 20% damage output boost as well), fire 5 more CoS and then use SS to refill their stealth one more time, then wait until OwTS procs using ItC if necessary (you can add to this the Return to Shadows feat that refill 50% (bugged, tooltip says 25%) of your stealth meter when you use an encounter power from behind a target (impact shot twice for example will fill your bar again).

I don't play like that, I stack as much DEX/STR as I can 29/25 actually and use stealth to boost my DPS output pretty much like I did when I was executioner, the results are great, my survability is not as good as perma-stealths but I don't die at all or a couple of times if I defend nodes alone.

In general if you choose sabo:

Hit from behind your target gives you 10% RI and 10% Power Rating increase
Hit from stealth gives you 75% of your weapon damage as Piercing Damage (ignores DR)
Refill your stealth bar using an encounter when your OwTS is on gives you 20% of DPS boost

You can use that to run a non-perma-stealth saboteur or go to a more stealth build, is up to you.

P.S: The most important thing to understand is that you are gonna be always the main target for the enemy, ALWAYS, there is too much hate against rogues and much more against perma-stealth ones.

Just my 2 cents.

I've been pissed for some time now about the nerfs my feat tree got and have been eying the saboteur feats. I'm hoping not to have to change my feat tree but It's looking like I may need to until the executioner tree improves. I'm going to experiment with these two feat trees and see for myself which works better. I'm looking for more damage so I'll probably at least keep the executioner feat near the beginning that gives me more crit severity and do saboteur for the rest if I decide saboteur does more damage. I often have to cut fleeing people off from the sides or front to get attacks off so I'm worried about the sheer number of feats saboteur has that give you bonuses for attacking from behind a target. At the same time, a lot of the executioner feats are even harder to get proced since many require an enemy to have died near you. I'm not too thrilled about the idea of giving up the feats that executioner provides that make it so an opponent at low health takes a lot more damage. I use cloud of steel to execute opponents a lot so losing those two feats might harm me. My biggest concern is losing the executioner end feat. Not because of the damage, but because that feat is supposed to make it so my stealth regen is no longer interrupted when I take damage. It seems to only reduce how much stealth I lose from damage but It's significant and saves my hide a lot of the time.

s1lv3rdrgnforum · May 2015

trgluestickz wrote: »

I've been pissed for some time now about the nerfs my feat tree got and have been eying the saboteur feats. I'm hoping not to have to change my feat tree but It's looking like I may need to until the executioner tree improves. I'm going to experiment with these two feat trees and see for myself which works better. I'm looking for more damage so I'll probably at least keep the executioner feat near the beginning that gives me more crit severity and do saboteur for the rest if I decide saboteur does more damage. I often have to cut fleeing people off from the sides or front to get attacks off so I'm worried about the sheer number of feats saboteur has that give you bonuses for attacking from behind a target. At the same time, a lot of the executioner feats are even harder to get proced since many require an enemy to have died near you. I'm not too thrilled about the idea of giving up the feats that executioner provides that make it so an opponent at low health takes a lot more damage. I use cloud of steel to execute opponents a lot so losing those two feats might harm me. My biggest concern is losing the executioner end feat. Not because of the damage, but because that feat is supposed to make it so my stealth regen is no longer interrupted when I take damage. It seems to only reduce how much stealth I lose from damage but It's significant and saves my hide a lot of the time.

1. SoD has never been on the official change log. The Dev's simply refuse to admit that it's changed at all. Whether this gets addressed in the future is anyone's guess. SoD has long been a sore point with other classes because of it's confusing mechanic and the use of the word "piercing".

2. I played Executioner through mod 3, 4 and 5 and while there was definitely some time where the whole TR class seemed broken, by the time Mod 5 came around I felt like I knew the path pretty well. Mod 6 came around and I abandoned Exec tree to go Sab because I felt the Sab tree was more survivable. After getting used to Mod 6, understanding what I can solo, what the damage is like in Sab and how useless "one with the shadow" actually is, I moved back to Exec and have been very happy to do so.

The problem is pretty simple. Sab is very stealthy. One would then assume that Sab would = more damage because we 100% crit in stealth. However, there are two basic facts that work against this. One, Duelist Flurry is our #1 DPS ability. Despite the extra stealth from Sab tree, it doesnt make DF that much better. Second, the biggest feat difference between Exec/Sab and Sab/Exec is "Last Moments". 25% *damage* (not weapon damage, not damage for 6 seconds if you're behind) on EVERY mob under 40% and most of the time 70% health. Exposed Weakness or Shadow born are then just icing on the cake + SoD which despite being broken remains an incredibly useful capstone.

Put simply, Sab gets a lot of extra stealth but lacks the ability to put that stealth to good use. Exec gets all the damage but forces you to slot Shadow Strike to maximize your other two encounters under stealth.

Also, in my experience, Gutterborn is *not* on par with the equivalent Exec feats. While it does proc *alot* it is not often enough.

malkybutt · May 2015

Thanks a lot for all your replies guys, I'll probably try both sabo and exec with AD respec. Just one thing, waht to go for as attributes now, DEX/CHA, STR/DEX or STR/CHA xD?

trgluestickz · May 2015

malkybutt wrote: »

Thanks a lot for all your replies guys, I'll probably try both sabo and exec with AD respec. Just one thing, waht to go for as attributes now, DEX/CHA, STR/DEX or STR/CHA xD?

What you will need for abilities depends on what your build is and your play style like I said before.

If you want maximum damage from your abilities, decent defenses, and use stealth a lot(not restricted to permastealth by any means though permastealth is included), I'd recommend stacking charisma and strength. Many people who take only one deflect granting ability score go with dex instead of charisma but this is not necessarily better when you consider that both charisma and dex give you the same amount of deflect. If you use stealth much and want tons of damage, which you probably will if you are either a saboteur or an executioner, charisma is going to be of more help than dex and strength is a no brainer. If you want maximum deflect and decent damage, stack both charisma and dex. If you were do do something that is not in stealth most of the time like a tanky rogue or a scoundrel, dex will be better than charisma since you will need much more crit strike and crit chance. The more stealth you use, the more useful charisma will be to you damage wise. The less you use stealth, the less often the damage bonus from charisma will come in handy. Strength is a solid source of damage no matter how much stealth you use but you are more likely to see it stacked in people who use less stealth I've noticed. If you made something that is out in the open most of the time(as in more than normal) like a scoundrel but want it to have a little bit more damage and a little bit less tankyness, strength and dex would be the way to go.

malkybutt · May 2015

trgluestickz wrote: »

What you will need for abilities depends on what your build is and your play style like I said before.

If you want maximum damage from your abilities, decent defenses, and use stealth a lot(not restricted to permastealth by any means though permastealth is included), I'd recommend stacking charisma and strength. Many people who take only one deflect granting ability score go with dex instead of charisma but this is not necessarily better when you consider that both charisma and dex give you the same amount of deflect. If you use stealth much and want tons of damage, which you probably will if you are either a saboteur or an executioner, charisma is going to be of more help than dex and strength is a no brainer. If you want maximum deflect and decent damage, stack both charisma and dex. If you were do do something that is not in stealth most of the time like a tanky rogue or a scoundrel, dex will be better since you will need much more crit strike and crit chance. The more stealth you use, the more useful charisma will be to you damage wise. The less you use stealth, the less often the damage bonus from charisma will come in handy. Strength is a solid source of damage no matter how much stealth you use but you are more likely to see it stacked in people who use less stealth I've noticed. If you made something that is out in the open most of the time(as in more than normal) like a scoundrel but want it to have a little bit more damage and a little bit less tankyness, strength and dex would be the way to go.

YEa I got that from all these replies, thanks for summing it up. I'll play a rogue and see how things will go while leveling up and such, I always can throw him a respec token and reassign the points once at 70. Thanks again dude, cheers.

gomok72 · May 2015

spqwn wrote: »

I rolled max Dex/Cha for PVP and am currently using a Dex/Str belt. This results in 54% deflect chance (with skillfull infiltrator) and I'm far from BIS.
Deflect is very good for PVP since TR is the only class with 75% deflect severity.
Int is not that good anymore since you can stack Recovery very easy. Also Recovery gives you 1% per 200 points spent.
Str gives you some bonus damage, but for survivability, i'd choose deflect.
For max deflect, you can go with the Greater Charisma belt.

My build is similar and I am at 60% deflect chance, a lot of people including other Rogues have accused me of exploiting, because they can't one shot kill me. I'm currently Dragonborn Sab,
but switching to Drow because of the high Dex and Charisma I can get with that race (plus they look better in Pirate Commanders gear).
The way the Rogue abilities work I have found little difference with a Str/Dex build ( I still knock the **** out of most classes).
Dex/Cha I would say is better build for pvp now, as Sab semi perm.

damnwidget · May 2015

malkybutt wrote: »

Interesting..Sabo also fascinates me more rather than Exe at the moment. Just one thing: If you use stealth to boost your damage, wouldn't be wiser going CHA instead of DEX to boost Combat advance damage (which comes from stealth and in other ways like wizzy or marks from fighters and such? Thanks a lot for your input and help doe.

This is a really good question. I stack DEX because I am not that long in stealth so I need crit outside stealth and DEX also gives you the deflect chance. I stack combat advantage bonuses from boons and artifacts and they work pretty well.

Right now I have 10k power, 5.5k Crit and 7k ArPen when flagged for PvP I can usually kill anything in my same gear range (2.6k ilvl) (except shield tab CW with charged negation) with just Tab + Get back target + Dazing Strike (One with the Shadows procs my stealth refills) + Tab + Shocking Execution, if target is not dead yet, Duelist Flurry ends him/her.

s1lv3rdrgnforum wrote: »

1. SoD has never been on the official change log. The Dev's simply refuse to admit that it's changed at all. Whether this gets addressed in the future is anyone's guess. SoD has long been a sore point with other classes because of it's confusing mechanic and the use of the word "piercing".

Totally true, I even wrote a ticket about that capstone not doing what the tooltip says and I never got an answer

s1lv3rdrgnforum wrote: »

2. I played Executioner through mod 3, 4 and 5 and while there was definitely some time where the whole TR class seemed broken, by the time Mod 5 came around I felt like I knew the path pretty well. Mod 6 came around and I abandoned Exec tree to go Sab because I felt the Sab tree was more survivable. After getting used to Mod 6, understanding what I can solo, what the damage is like in Sab and how useless "one with the shadow" actually is, I moved back to Exec and have been very happy to do so.

I guess that depends how you use the stealth refill and how stats maxed your character is, for me, stealth + CoS is not enough to kill equally geared people so I use the capstone in other creative ways.

s1lv3rdrgnforum wrote: »

The problem is pretty simple. Sab is very stealthy. One would then assume that Sab would = more damage because we 100% crit in stealth. However, there are two basic facts that work against this. One, Duelist Flurry is our #1 DPS ability. Despite the extra stealth from Sab tree, it doesnt make DF that much better.

As everything else in the world, that depends, I am myself a fan of DF, I always stack it but is not our only melee At-Will. Right now, from stealth, SO procs three times when DF is used, two for the first two slashes and one for the flurry one but it procs 4/5 times for SF, that is 4/5 times * 75% of your weapon damage. If you use GC instead the RoI is even bigger as you recover 10% of your bar when you hit with it so you really lose just 5% between slashes and it procs SO every time that you hit with it. I don't use it because I don't like it but is really good choice to boost your overall damage.

s1lv3rdrgnforum wrote: »

Second, the biggest feat difference between Exec/Sab and Sab/Exec is "Last Moments". 25% *damage* (not weapon damage, not damage for 6 seconds if you're behind) on EVERY mob under 40% and most of the time 70% health. Exposed Weakness or Shadow born are then just icing on the cake + SoD which despite being broken remains an incredibly useful capstone.

I agree, all those feats are really useful and improve the overall executioner TR damage over time I was really afraid of lose those ones when I moved to Sabo until the moment that I realized that a LB from behind a target was doing 10k more damage than a LB from stealth using all those feats from the Exe branch, and I am serious here, I was really surprised myself.

I am pretty sure that the feats tree works really different for different TR builds and they should vary a lot depending of which stats do you stack, I stack as much ArPen that I can and with very small variations of my play style since I moved to Sabo the results are really interesting.

s1lv3rdrgnforum wrote: »

Put simply, Sab gets a lot of extra stealth but lacks the ability to put that stealth to good use. Exec gets all the damage but forces you to slot Shadow Strike to maximize your other two encounters under stealth.

I disagree with that, I use dazing strike a lot myself to make targets not able to dodge my SE with really good results, I wear a P.Vorpal and being Half-Orc I have 105% Crit Severity + 50% of the p.Vorpal so my SE hits really hard.

s1lv3rdrgnforum wrote: »

Also, in my experience, Gutterborn is *not* on par with the equivalent Exec feats. While it does proc *alot* it is not often enough.

It's working pretty well for me, I already have 70% of RI without it so I am not sure if that is why it works fine for me or is just that I feel it just do a pretty decent work. That said, I think I would trade it for Last Moments without a blink.

Btw, I don't use any feat that procs when some one dies, I really liked Dying Breath but it's counterpart in the Sabo tree sadly is not that great.

trgluestickz · May 2015

damnwidget wrote: »

I am pretty sure that the feats tree works really different for different TR builds and they should vary a lot depending of which stats do you stack, I stack as much ArPen that I can and with very small variations of my play style since I moved to Sabo the results are really interesting.

Do you think my build would convert well to sab? My build was described in my first post. One thing I did not mention in that post was that I do use stealth a lot but avoid having more than 1 stealth refilling power on my encounter bar at a time. I use the basic 3 encounters in pvp: dazing strike, lashing blade, and deft strike. The only one that ever leaves my bar is deft strike which sometimes gets swapped out for 1 stealth refiling power or impossible to catch.

s1lv3rdrgnforum · May 2015

trgluestickz wrote: »

Do you think my build would convert well to sab? My build was described in my first post. One thing I did not mention in that post was that I do use stealth a lot but avoid having more than 1 stealth refilling power on my encounter bar at a time. I use the basic 3 encounters in pvp: dazing strike, lashing blade, and deft strike. The only one that ever leaves my bar is deft strike which sometimes gets swapped out for 1 stealth refiling power or impossible to catch.

Smokebomb is our highest dps encounter because it has no target limit, followed by Dazing strike and then Blitz. LB is good if there are a lot of debuffs (DC, MoF CW) in the party and you have high crit severity. (if your LB isnt hitting for over 100k then u probably should be using Dazing Strike unless it's a boss) With only 2 targets DS can almost equal LB after cooldowns and with 3 easily surpasses. Mob heavy dungeons like VT are great for SB/DS combo's.

My typical rotation in both Sab and Exec is SB/DS/SS I swap this up at boss for ITC/LB/WR. I've seen some players who have only one rotation .. no matter if it's PvP, mobs or boss. ITC/SB/SS. This is a testament to how powerful Duelist Flurry/CoS is.

trgluestickz · May 2015

s1lv3rdrgnforum wrote: »

Smokebomb is our highest dps encounter because it has no target limit, followed by Dazing strike and then Blitz. LB is good if there are a lot of debuffs (DC, MoF CW) in the party and you have high crit severity. (if your LB isnt hitting for over 100k then u probably should be using Dazing Strike unless it's a boss) With only 2 targets DS can almost equal LB after cooldowns and with 3 easily surpasses. Mob heavy dungeons like VT are great for SB/DS combo's.

My typical rotation in both Sab and Exec is SB/DS/SS I swap this up at boss for ITC/LB/WR. I've seen some players who have only one rotation .. no matter if it's PvP, mobs or boss. ITC/SB/SS. This is a testament to how powerful Duelist Flurry/CoS is.

I have considered swapping out lashing blade in dungeons(except for the bosses) since the mobs have so much health and it doesn't do much to them but I will keep it for everything else. It's amazing in pvp and useful for any sort of level up or campaign monsters.

Smokebomb is an amazing pve power but is lacking in pvp for most things. There is however 1 strategy it can be used for that might just cause it to start ending up on my bar as much as deft strike. I can hit someone with a dazing strike, clobber them, and just as the daze is about to wear off pop smoke bomb, and keep clobbering them. Though I can't see it being reliable for anything else in pvp for a number of reasons. It's ridiculously easy to see smoke bomb coming and dodge if you have any mobility at all and half a brain. I see tons of rogues use it in pvp but most of the time, it misses everybody but those who weren't paying attention or happen to be tanks. If you want to fight good players, smokebomb is too unreliable. Even when I do get hit with smokebomb, which is not common, I can usually just walk out of the radius and usually end up fine. Often, I don't even end up being the target of the person that dazed me if he hit anyone else. Rogues always seem to go for the people that stayed in the radius whenever possible and I simply don't comply. I can also just dodge straight through it if it's already on the ground and continue a pursuit completely unharmed and I've observed that avoiding the radius effortlessly is not limited to rogues. It's not even that useful as a means of forcing people off a platform to gain points. The power simply does not last long enough to keep them off for long, and many times, a tank will just stand there and wait for it to wear off.

Dazing strike will stay on my bar for all things except maybe cc immune bosses with weak mobs(like dragons), its good to see another rogue endorsing it, a lot of people don't use it. Its really reliable. In pvp, it easily out competes smokebomb when it comes to how often it hits its target and can also hit multiple people. Its faster and much harder to avoid than smokebomb. It also does a lot of damage and delivers all of its damage at once so I could see it being used as a mass instant execute for a bunch of people with low health too.

Blitz honestly never impressed me much, I doubt I will wield it in pvp but it may preform better in pve. Maybe it will become what I use on dungeon mobs instead of lashing blade If I don't find something better.

I too use duelist's flurry as my main at will along with cloud of steel. Amazing power with a laundry list of uses and a number of beneficial effects not even mentioned in the tooltip. cc immunity during the third strike, bleed being able to crit independently of whether or not the triggering blade strike was a crit, and that incredibly helpful drag effect just to name a few.

I'm at a loss of what ITC, WR, SB, and SS are short for, I'm not too good with abbreviations.

damnwidget · May 2015

trgluestickz wrote: »

Do you think my build would convert well to sab? My build was described in my first post. One thing I did not mention in that post was that I do use stealth a lot but avoid having more than 1 stealth refilling power on my encounter bar at a time. I use the basic 3 encounters in pvp: dazing strike, lashing blade, and deft strike. The only one that ever leaves my bar is deft strike which sometimes gets swapped out for 1 stealth refiling power or impossible to catch.

Really you have an odd build stacking WIS, I understand it gives you more CC resist and control bonus but I think you can get them from artifacts and expend your points in CHA, STR or DEX (as you don't seems to care about being perma so I understand you don't care about INT).

If you are not 100% of the time in stealth, you want to have high crit chance and more if you are one shot oriented as you need higher crit rate to put your P.Vorpal to work (I am just guessing that you use some kind of Vorpal enchantment).

I never use DS (Deft Strike) nor in PvE or PvP, I don't find it useful at all (except if you want to exploit the Return to Shadows feat bug, I don't even have that feat in my build as I dislike nasty cheaters and exploiters). We rogues can run fastest than any other class so we can catch any one with minimal effort, anyway, that is just how I felt about that skill, if it works for you, just use it as long as it's useful for your play style.

I only slot one refilling power, usually SS (Shadow Strike) as it dazes the target if you use it from stealth.

About your encounter powers, I usually find myself replacing LB (Lashing Blade) with SS as you don't really hit that hard other players with it with all that Trans.Negation and Tenacity all over the place, it only crits hard in bad geared people so it's pretty much useless except for finishing someone with low HP. The max that I can hit with it to a equally geared HR (1900 Tenacity) with no Trans.Negation and using First Impact is between 32 and 38k taking into account that this damage is just because First Impact and the HR (that is my wife :P) is really soft doesn't give LB too many value as a PvP slot encounter. Again, if it's working for you, just go on.

I always have slotted ItC (Impossible to Catch) this one is always there no matters what (in PvP I mean). Just to finish, I never use SB (Smoke Bomb) in PvP for the same reasons that you already explained in you last post.

trgluestickz · May 2015

damnwidget wrote: »

Really you have an odd build stacking WIS, I understand it gives you more CC resist and control bonus but I think you can get them from artifacts and expend your points in CHA, STR or DEX (as you don't seems to care about being perma so I understand you don't care about INT).

If you are not 100% of the time in stealth, you want to have high crit chance and more if you are one shot oriented as you need higher crit rate to put your P.Vorpal to work (I am just guessing that you use some kind of Vorpal enchantment).

I never use DS (Deft Strike) nor in PvE or PvP, I don't find it useful at all (except if you want to exploit the Return to Shadows feat bug, I don't even have that feat in my build as I dislike nasty cheaters and exploiters). We rogues can run fastest than any other class so we can catch any one with minimal effort, anyway, that is just how I felt about that skill, if it works for you, just use it as long as it's useful for your play style.

I only slot one refilling power, usually SS (Shadow Strike) as it dazes the target if you use it from stealth.

About your encounter powers, I usually find myself replacing LB (Lashing Blade) with SS as you don't really hit that hard other players with it with all that Trans.Negation and Tenacity all over the place, it only crits hard in bad geared people so it's pretty much useless except for finishing someone with low HP. The max that I can hit with it to a equally geared HR (1900 Tenacity) with no Trans.Negation and using First Impact is between 32 and 38k taking into account that this damage is just because First Impact and the HR (that is my wife :P) is really soft doesn't give LB too many value as a PvP slot encounter. Again, if it's working for you, just go on.

I always have slotted ItC (Impossible to Catch) this one is always there no matters what (in PvP I mean). Just to finish, I never use SB (Smoke Bomb) in PvP for the same reasons that you already explained in you last post.

I personally have found deft strike to be of excellent help though smoke bomb and impossible to catch may start ending up on my bar more frequently. Right now, despite me building into movement speed a lot, I'm still too slow to catch someone who is spamming their stamina movement or happens to be a rogue. The rogue is the one I have the most to worry about letting out of my sight.The specific tactic I use to catch people and stick with them is a very old but little used tactic I picked up from a video by a player named Desolo. I use deft strike to catch up to people who are trying to run to a side platform, get away from me, and to get to people on top of pillars and walls. I jump and use cloud of steel while moving forwards for as long as I can and dodge roll when the person is about to get out of my cloud of steel's range. If the person gets too far ahead, I usually use deft strike to slow them down and catch up to them. This tactic works even better with the elemental fire weapon add on power that gives cloud of steel a slow effect. I'm not a pure 1 hit kill rogue by tactic but that kind of cookie cutting was what my build was designed for(along with the controller-like tendencies) and it seems to work pretty well. Another really useful thing I use deft strike for is guarding a side platform. When the other team is being mobile and consistently sending back capers, I will start guarding the platform on their team's side. Often people will be on their mounts either while on the platform or will arrive on their mount. Their guard is often down when they think they are alone and the last thing they expect is a sudden dismounting deft strike, dazing strike, and lashing blade. I could dismount them with cloud of steel too, but that takes longer and alerts them to your presence long enough for them to react.

The only thing I try to avoid using lashing blade on is decently geared tanks(unless that have only a tiny fragment of health left) since they usually have too much health and defenses for it to do much. On strikers and controllers however, I have yet to run into any real cons of lashing blade. If it does not kill them outright it will put a good dent in them most of the time. I've also noticed that it's easier to damage someone who is dazed and if I start using the dazing strike + smokebomb tactic, I'd be trying to wrack up as much damage as I can during that window using things like lashing blade, shocking execution, and duelist's flurry. If I keep executioner, this tactic would be at its most amazing in 1vs1 since shadow of demise would be a guaranteed proc.

As for wisdom stacking, Its hard to get a lot of control bonus and control resist but not hard to get a lot of the stats the other abilities could have given me. I'm planning to take artifacts that give me more control bonus too but there doesn't appear to be much variety as far as other sources of control bonus are concerned. There are a lot more ways to acquire the other things the other stats could have given me. It only costed 2 voluntary level up points and the automatic involuntary points to get my wisdom stat reasonably high in my case. All my other level up points went into strength and charisma and both are quite high. Dex because of my artifact belt hits 21 not counting campfire bonuses. Its lower than my strength and almost tied with charisma but still, three stats over 20 and enough leftover to boost wisdom is good with me.

mjytresz · May 2015

Strength and Intelligence.

Also, for the ******* who said Exec > Sab, let me see you permastealth in Exec.
Permastealth as in, as soon as you're visible, you're getting 1-rotation'd from a CW.

mesalox · May 2015

mjytresz wrote: »

Strength and Intelligence.

Also, for the ******* who said Exec > Sab, let me see you permastealth in Exec.
Permastealth as in, as soon as you're visible, you're getting 1-rotation'd from a CW.

I think i'm one of the ******* ( like you said ) who don't play sabo, don't play perma, and don't fear CW......

Starting a TR to chill from the end-game shenanigans, what attributes go for?

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