Tweaking Your PVP Rogue Builds For Mod 17/18, Here Is Some Info:

trgluestickz

I have created a small list of info on how to tweak rogue PVP builds for mod 17. There wasn't enough stuff changed for me to write a full length new guide so this is what I made instead:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vT3_LqA2T6Dh9IGMnSRyJET0glgYEM8hPusqZFpFA1q7LtH0--myzNoaQjPyfIyWJTR9bBt8y-lL0X2/pub

Updates:
My build has evolved several times since this guide was written. Read the posts below for details on how my build has changed. None of the below updates have been added to my mod 17 guide link yet.

There are now some build update posts for mod 18 in this thread:

aixis2000

....

trgluestickz

Update:
There are essentially 5 variants of my mod 17 PVP rogue build, this should help you better understand your options. This info isn't in my guide I posted above, this is an extra info post:

Cooldown reduction glass cannon build that runs a little bit below optimal stats:
This build requires the griffon mount passive + artificer's persuasion insignia power + wyvern venom coated knives artifact in order to work. For 1 out of every two rotations you do, your cooldowns are cut in half. You can fire 6 encounter powers within around 7.5 seconds with this. This build seems to be the best overall right now, and is also one of the 2 strongest build options for killing wizards. But it does come up short in a few situations:
---- It falls a little bit short vs good healer warlocks and clerics since they can heal back to full health like every 3 seconds and what you really need vs that is a build that dishes out max damage in 1 rotation.
---- It also seems to have a harder time vs full AP gain glass cannon rogues. If you can dodge their daily or hit first with your rotation, you have the upperhand but otherwise, you are going to be killed in one shot every 17 through 35 seconds. Very much a rock paper scissors matchup lol.

Optimal offense stats + blast scepter in primary slot, glass cannon build:
This build is what I was running when I made my guide. Its the best option for downing healers.
Its the other really good option for downing wizards too.
This build has the highest encounter damage hits out out any I've tried. Blast scepter is terrifying and I often get 400k or larger assassinates after using it. Your teammates will also get the damage bonus vs targets you hit with scepter and it comes with a useful stun effect, I think its better than soulsight crystal.
I've also seen a few 700k shocking executions on this build but that's rare, its possible for this build to hit 840k but never seen that occur on anything besides a test dummy.

Optimal offense stats + smokebomb + staff of flowers, glass cannon:
This build was what I ran for most of the last PVP season, its got a great all around performance but seems to be a little bit outdone by my cooldown setup.
This build has a very strong CC and damage over time rotation. You cast smokebomb from stealth + staff of flowers. Ideally you'll also have some toxic blades feat stacks and duelist's flurry bleeds active when you use this rotation.
Your damage encounters are also more likely to hit hard while your staff + smokebomb is on the field, you'll have your crit/power buffed a bit and your foes will be slower and easier to hit.
This build also doesn't change powers very often, which is convenient.

Full AP gain glass cannon with a little bit below optimal stats:
This build uses most AP gain sources available and when setup right, it can generate dailies once every 17 through 35 seconds. Note that you won't get the lower end of that range all the time and sometimes HAMSTER will happen in PVP that delays you from getting your daily back, it could take closer to a minute to generate a daily in these situations.
Some of the things you use on this build are: flail snail passive + envenomed storyteller's journal + ap gain corrupt black ice overloads + ap gain boons + lathander's dew potion
This build has some strong areas but doesn't seem to be as good for overall high preformance.
---- This build seems to mostly function as a glass cannon slayer. In matches vs tankyer players this build was less effective when I tried it and something felt off. It also seemed to be more dependent on what kind of team composition it has supporting it.
---- Similarly, this build has a weakspot vs tanky AP gain rogue builds, especially in dueling scenarios. Tanky ap gain rogues are very common on PC.

Tanky AP gain rogue + paladin sigil or envenomed storyteller's journal:
This build usually runs either really high defense or really high crit avoid with some defense added. It also uses most or all of the same AP gain sources the glass cannon version uses.
This build has some strong areas but most of their strong areas are less relevant right now for winning matches. This build is oriented more towards dueling. You end up with a lower death count when you use this in matches but are able to kill fewer players.
Strong enemy players also aren't as intimidated by tankyer setups and tend to play differently vs them, for winning matches as a tanky rogue this is usually not a good thing.

trgluestickz

I just finished upgrading my cooldown reduction PVP loadout to have 30k deflect. I only lost around 6k power and a tiny bit of crit and armor pen. The cooldown and ap gain loadouts have the smallest stat pool out of those 5 builds I posted above so if I can do 30k deflect on those, it is even easier to do on the max stat loadouts. This means if you want slightly more survivability on the glass cannons I posted without dropping any significant amount of damage, you can have 30k deflect for sure and could probably do something similar with 30k crit avoid instead.

A note on foehammer's favor elixir, using this, you will notice more of a drop in damage than if you kept running wild storm elixir. You could just change between elixirs as needed, they are cheep enough to do that with.

Update: I now recommend going for 30k or 35k crit aviodance over deflect. Deflect is still good but so far, I'm having better luck with critical avoidance.

trgluestickz

The image above is a pure PVP glass cannon using my blast scepter loadout. I removed some more power and shuffled some things around to get 80k to both armor pen and crit.
This loadout is designed to take down healers. Against healers with 90k defense or less and 55k crit aviod, you'd want to lose a little bit of armor pen and gain a little more crit. I am using all crit severity pots for this loadout. With watermelon sorbet, the power rating is around 71k. The only reason I'm not using sorbet is because they cost an arm and a leg now.

Update: This stat setup for this build is no longer the strongest overall but it is still BIS vs people with high but not maxed defensive stats. The strongest version of my build overall is listed below in my next post:

trgluestickz

Major Update:
The damage formula for crit severity, combat advantage, and % damage buffs was changed after I wrote my guide. CA and Crit Sev are much stronger now and % damage buffs got weaker but are still good. I finally got around to testing a high CA build.

Pictured above: 80k crit, 80k CA, and 80k power all at same time. I suspect I'll be turning up my armor pen to around 45k instead of keeping my 80k power. You mostly trade your extra power for armor pen if you stack 43k armor pen, so don't worry about losing your perfect 80k for CA or crit.

Offense enchantments are 8X woven tales r15 and defense slots are radiant r15's. Fully potted and on PVP hotenow map. Using crit sev pots and grand summer feast in place of watermelon sorbet.

According to janne's stat/damage modifier calculating tool, this build has a very scary damage modifier of 3.7 through 3.9 damage vs low defensive stat targets and in theory will also outpreform my usual 80k armor pen and 80k crit setup vs people with 108k defense and high crit aviod. The middle numbers for defensive stats and high but not maxed defensive stats had odd results, this CA loadout was a little bit weaker than the pure armor pen and crit loadout vs the high but not maxed defensive stat setups but was keeping pace still. Realistically I think having a little more armor pen will outdo the full 80k power for this setup.

I also ran some comparisons using that tool for the 106k power and 80k crit build I used to run, it was inferior to the CA loadout even vs low defensive stat targets. Its damage was around 3.1 modifier vs low defensive stat targets and half of that or less vs anyone with higher defensive stats.

In a nutshell: I made a new Crit, CA, and Power loadout and its outpreforming my other stat setups so far. I also have a armor pen and crit loadout that is still really good and slightly better vs people with high but not maxed defensive stats. The worst one was my old power and crit setup from when mod 17 first dropped.

Other tweaks you can make to this setup:

You can swap the 10k mount stat bonus ( I use 10k crit normally) out for 50k HP. You do lose some damage but your dps will still be through the roof. The extra 50k HP gives you noticeably better survivability and is an easy switch to do. You would swap out the leading ring of the teacher for a second borrowed ring and you would swap out the 4k crit shirt for 4k combat advantage.

To convert this setup to a cooldown build, all you need to do is swap out the 10k mount stats for the griffon mount bonus and put your wyvern venom coated knives artifact into your primary slot. To keep your crit at 80k, you also swap out the leading ring of the teacher for a second borrowed ring and you would swap out the 4k crit shirt for 4k combat advantage.

Minor ability scores tweak:

Put all your ability score points into dex and strength now, ignore my old ability score advice from my build guide.

Minor kits tweak:

Swap out the stamina gain jewels for combat advantage.

trgluestickz

Survivability Update:






The images above are the boon and insignia setup I recommend now. The main change is turning on all of the healing potion bonuses, these apply to PVP potions and change your potion heals from around 30k per tick to around 50k per tick.

I also put the survivor's blessing insignia power back on, it used to be unable to proc from shadowclad's deflection but this has been fixed.

For stacking critical avoidance, you would stick 5 campaign boon points into the critical avoidance boon (usually I take out 5 points in power and/or healing potion boons to do this) and 1 PVP boon point into critical avoid (you remove the point in power to do this).

For running 80k power instead of maintaining 43k+ armor pen, you'd put one PVP boon point into the power boon. So you'd have 1 point in crit, 1 point in armor pen, and 1 point in power.

When mod 18 hits, put your new boon points into that 3rd healing potion campaign boon I didn't take yet.

trgluestickz

First Thoughts On New Mod 18 Gear For PVP Rogue:


Dungeon Gear:

lionguard head
(is a BIS option for PVP)

lionguard chest
(BIS for PVP)

Infernal forged arms or lionsguard arms
(Isn't quite BIS but are both good and about tied with eachother)

Infernal forged boots.
(Probably a BIS Option for PVP, the bonus has no maximum stacks number listed so bonus could be meh or good depending on the stack limit)


Hunts and Bag Gear:

Infernal Offering Helm
(Can compete with Lionsguard Head as a BIS option for PVP)

Fancy Duelist Mask of Cormyr
(BIS for PVP in 1vs1's)

Dark Ritual Robe
(Not BIS but the best out of new hunt chests for PVP.)

Spiked Defender Vambrace
(BIS Option For PVP)

Shielded Defender Vambrace
(Also BIS Option For PVP)

Armando's Dueling Boots
(Not BIS but probably best option out of new hunt boots for PVP. Mostly these are good for stats, the bonus probably too weak)


Pants and Shirt:

Infernal forged raid trousers
(massive stat/hp increase over primal paints and offers both crit avoid and defense. Speed bonus is inferior to one on primal pants and imperator's pants. I probably do have to switch to this.)

Infernal forged restoration shirt and infernal forged raid shirt
(The bonus is probably worse than the ones on the older 4k stat shirts I recommended. You do get a stat/hp increase over older items but its not as big)


Other:

New book of vile darkness artifact:
(this artifact is 3k power, 1.5k armor pen, and 1.5k deflect. Its worth having as stat increase option but isn't likely to be a good primary slot arti for PVP. It might be decent buff/debuff arti for TOMM though.)


Dark remnants artifact gear:
(Worth owning for the set bonus but its probably better to stick with the apprentice set for PVP. The necklace has exact same stats as my necklace of the mad mage, which makes it a great choice. The belt's stats for PVP are meh.)


Succubus and incubus companion:
(These would only have potential in icewind dale PVP. They both offer the same dazing companion power)

trgluestickz

Pictured Above:
My first PVP build upgrade for mod 18, using my crit/CA/power stat setup. I made this loadout on day 2 of mod 18, nobody has the new dungeon gear yet but I already have all the good hunt gear.

My power will change to 80k once I get new pants and shirt. My HP will also increase significantly.

trolltitan

Hi MarigoldsTheShredder...what are you doing ?

trolltitan

Interesting build tho, I pm me when you update it later

trgluestickz

Figured it was time to release an update on PVP rogue builds in mod 18, its overdue and its been a while since I posted anything here.

Most of my recent focus has been on making PVP tournament rogue builds, in general up to date PVP tournament builds have a lot more HP than solo que oriented builds do. Solo que oriented builds have 380k or less HP and tournament/premade builds tend to have minimum 420k and maximum 520k HP.

There are two defensive stat combos I've been working with a lot lately,
One of them is 30k deflect combined with high HP (380k through 520k)
The other is 40k crit avoid combined with my bare minimum recommendation for HP in mod 18 (360k)

The best defensive stat combo for both 1vs1s and many premade vs premades right now seems to be 450k HP combined with 30k deflect. As an important quirk to be aware of, high hp/deflect builds have a big advantage over builds with lower HP in 1vs1s.

For solo que, you can lower your HP more and gain even more offense stat room.

Here are some screenshots of by two best solo que oriented rogue builds, I went a couple months without even having a solo que oriented build and finally got around to making some:


That screenshot above is a solo que deflect/hp build with 66k CA. Using HP/deflect allows you a lot of room for offensive stats while still maintaining good defenses, but comes at the downside of making it easier for enemy players to stack more offense stats they can use against you.


The above screenshot is the crit avoid stacking version of the 66k CA HP/deflect build. Figured I'd show you that version too for comparison with the deflect/hp one.
Crit avoid costs significantly more stat points to build for than HP/deflect does, but it is just as viable. Some of the time, it will be best to use a crit avoid stacking build instead of always running HP/deflect. Same goes for vice versa.

The offense enchantments I used for these two builds are 4X woven tales, 4X shiny coin, and 1 tenebrous
I used the giant frog legendary mount bonus to get a perfect 66k CA.

66k combat advantage is a sweetspot for CA, you cut through almost everyone like butter with that, I was surprised how different it feels from 50k.
Honestly I like 66k CA better than having 70k or even 80k, you can slot 66k on balanced builds that work in a majority of situations fairly easily but its much harder to do a balanced build with larger CA numbers that is good in a majority of situations.