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Giving Up, Asking For Help
caewin
Member Posts: 42 Arc User
Neverwinter is my first MMO, as is evident to anyone who has ever interacted with my TR. No, I'm not naming her; I've had some horrible interactions, and I don't want to start off on the wrong foot. That said, I come humbly, mask in hand, to ask for the help (tips and advice) of the more experienced in playing my character. I rebuilt her at level 60 following what I'm reasonably certain was Banelorne's Stealth-Based Executioner build, although I think the current daily I have in slot 2 in different. I'm still not satisfied with it, I know that. She's a halfling. I didn't know they weren't a good TR choice when I made her. I was feeling very cliche at the time. On her own, she's okay. With the GF I play regularly with, she's okay. Put her in a 5-person dungeon, and she's the one getting zapped back to the campfire. Constantly. I will take whatever bits and pieces of advice you can give. Please. I genuinely enjoy playing her.
~K
~K
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At all costs avoid the red circles and large animations.
In solo play there is almost nothing that will hurt much.
In duo play, small instances etc. Very little will one shot you.
5 man dungeons, MANY red circles on the ground will kill you. Many large scale animations without red circles can/will also kill you. i.e. Big troll with huge mace winds up for a very slow but massive swing... All of this must be avoided else campfire trip.
An excellent place to practice this is the new Cyclops warriors in the Malabog area of Sharandar. These guys hurt a reasonable amount with thier telegraphed attacks. Your goal here to is to kill them without being hurt. ie Dodging or moving away or stealthed ITC (makes you immune for a few seconds) from thier frontal attacks.
Staying alive is the first bit of dps.
Sadly there isnt a class or a race which most of the above doesnt apply to. So much of a 5 man dungeon is about staying alive. You will learn to dps more and more once you learn how to survive.
If you are using a spec that is similar to mine then I believe you shouldn't have much trouble staying alive in dungeons while dealing damage. One of the parts in my guide in which I think I may have failed to explain properly would be which powers to slot at what situation. Whenever I play with other people in dungeon runs, I typically slot what would make things easier for the party, and skills that would increase my own overall survival in order to not tax my teammates to revive me if I fall. Staying alive should be one of the most prioritized tasks in dungeon runs as it prevents situations where your entire party has to wipe because the overall effectiveness of the party has been reduced by having 1 player dying.
I typically slot Smoke Bomb, Shadow Strike and Impossible to Catch in runs. Smoke Bomb is an incredible tool for trash management (Not adds. We don't deal with the adds). It helps your CW get the trash in their Singularities much easier while giving your Cleric a nice room to breath while maintaining your allies. We can help clean up trash with Duelist's Flurry, but the best class for dealing with trash in a legit way are GWF's and CW's. Leave the trash to them while we take care of the mobs with the highest amount of HP. We're good at burning things down via single target damage. I swear by Duelist's Flurry, it deals an incredible amount of consistent damage and is quite reliable. It also gives us CC immunity on the 3rd hit (the one where our character does the fast-paced strikes) People may like to use Lashing Blade for extra bursts every 20~ or so seconds, but I'd much rather use that encounter slot for something that will prevent me from dying (Shadow Strike) and increasing my uptime against these types of mobs (ITC). Increased chances of survival means your DC can concentrate on the other party members and less on you. We've got pots for healing anyway. Shadow Strike is an effective tool to regain an entire Stealth meter back. It doesn't remove the aggro on you but it helps elude the attention of your enemies. ITC on the one hand is just plain incredible, as it is a useful tool in negating majority of the damage your foes deal to you for 5 seconds. It's much easier to land DF while ITC is active. And the fun part is activating ITC while in the middle of your DF rotation doesn't stop DF.
Also it would be great if you can take note of your surroundings whenever you are in boss fights. We may be concentrating on the boss but it doesn't mean the adds can't take a whack on you. Dodge all the red areas you see. If you don't have any more stamina, you have ITC to soak up that red. What I do when I face bosses is whenever they use a red melee range AoE ability, I just pop ITC while in Stealth so I dodge all their attacks for 5 seconds. During this 5 secs, I use Shadow Strike first then start a single DF rotation then back to Stealth. Use dodges only when you're about to get hit with a dangerous attack as we have a limited amount of dodges per stamina bar.
My build is there for players who like to play solo but can also play in group content if the need presents itself. It's not a cookie-cutter DPS build but is also able to assume its role, so long as you have the gear for em. It all starts with the gear, IMO.
Right now I'm (slowly) working on my third TR (had to try Drow, also have a Half-Elf as a secondary and a Tiefling as my main). My Half-Elf TR took the Saboteur path while my Tiefling TR took more of the executioner path (a bit similar to Banelore's with some subtle differences). I joke around with my guild saying I have "paper armor" because I can very easily be one-shotted and just earlier today during the delve I was sent back to the campfire a few times. The worst situations from my experiences is when I'm being bounced around like a pinball unable to move and land in a nice shiny red circle and if I don't die, before I'm able to move I'm bounced to another lovely red circle -_- It happens. And given the whole "paper armor" aspect of it, I add on, "it doesn't matter if I have paper armor - I shouldn't be taken a hit" of course, we all know, your going to take hits... on a slight side note with that said... I just got my third boon today and decided to go with 700 HP over 2% AP and I'm quite pleased with that, as there were several times that little bump in HP saved my *** from being one-shotted (not every time of course, but enough to where it was noticeable).
As for tips you request... sometimes we run out of stamina a bit quicker than we'd like... a lot of times we don't really need to dodge... after a few runs and you get more accustom to certain enemies and their attacks and their movements prior to the actual attack a small side-step is sufficient enough, especially if you have +movement gear/class feats/enchantments.
Also, Duelist Flurry.. after your first strike you can side step, strike with a second strike, side step, then go into your flurry. This can help a lot with avoiding attacks while maintaining an offensive and with more +movement, you're able to side step further/arc around the foe more between the strikes.
And I think todesfaelle pretty much covered a fair amount.
When doing a delve, more so with random people, focus more on survival for the party than damage output. I almost *always* have Smoke Bomb set for delves. The only times I really don't is when I go with a guild static party and we know how each other play and what each of us needs to do/expects from each other - or - when there's another TR and he's using Smoke Bomb then I'll change that encounter, even then, depending on how the party is doing, on occasion I'll keep it ready.
If all else, mix it up a little, try different combinations and encounters and class feats than you normally do - you just might find something you feel is more accommodating to the situation at hand.
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Also dont be afraid to switch up ur powers during the dungeon as different needs arise, like slotting impact shot to help out dropping mobs of ledges in the areas of dungeons that allow it.... and specially for boss fights. I for example tend to use smoke bomb in the dungeon itself but i switch it out for wicked reminder on bosses as they cant be dazed and we tend to be stuck spanking their butt.
I dont see many people use this in bosses but i also swear by bns + tactics on them. get an extra dodge roll for those aoes that will practically fill ur ap bar so u can pop lurkers sooo much more often.
Nothing at all wrong with a Halfling. Mine is a Halfling and I love her
Dodge red stuff...really all there is to it in this game =/
Question: I've used Lashing Blade in my arsenal since the second I was able to get it. A fair bit of my strategy, apart from DF in stealth, is to time LB just right and it works pretty well in PvE. Not so much in PvP. I do get "ragdolled" there a fair bit by experienced players as soon as my LB causes me to leave stealth.
So, should I learn to live without it and try something else? Impossible to catch seemed useless at first in normal areas. Never tried it Dungeon Delves or PvP.
I love ITC for PVP. ITC makes sure that I don't get CC'd while in the middle of my DF rotation. Oftentimes I use Lashing Blade, Shadow Strike and Impossible to Catch for PVP. When I know my teammates will need less people in tower 2, I slot encounters for max stealth and harass the opponent's tower and contest it for as long as possible in order to attract my opponents to come to me. ITC is very useful to get out of CC and prevent them for 5 seconds since CC is flying in every single place you look. CW's have tons of CC, GWF's and GF's spec for CC in PVP, and even DC's have CC. Cookie cutter TR's tend to forgo CC and go for pure damage, since we're proven to be effective like that. ITC is useless for questing but the most valuable perk you get from ITC is you get to eat up red areas and powerful attacks with it. Think of it as something that gives you the ability to tank things for 5 seconds and is pretty much our ultimate defense.
Thanks for the tips. I'll have to experiment with ITC in PvP.
I've just started doing it two days ago and god know there's enough time to experiment. Last night in my match, well... at least I wasn't ragdolled. I was obliterated, even in stealth, as soon as I entered the terrain. My whole (random) team managed one single kill in ten minutes. It's amazing that only one guy quit.
Mistake # 1
What server you on ?
Myself and todesfaelle do tons of testing and are always reaching out to the TR community if they need assistance.
Dragon.
Your insights and tips are certainly appreciated. I'm a casual player with a job and a young family, so I get an hour per day late at night, tops. I'm not expecting to beat players that spend tons of hours and $$$$, but I would like to win a PvP match eventually.
Very fun game, but seems to me they should find a way to make more balanced matchups.
I'll definately give ITC a try tonigh.
Her at-will's are Sly Flourish and Duelist's Flurry, encounters are Lashing Blade, Path of Blades, and Smoke Bomb, and dailies are Bloodbath and Whirlwhind of Blades, though Bloodbath is basically the only daily I have points in that I like. I do have a retraining token, and I'm eying Shocking Execution very closely.
First, for the gear, your stats seem to be too spread out. I'll try to make suggestions that would be possible with farming and buying cheap stuff from the AH. You may wish to concentrate on capping Armor Penetration first since it's the easiest to cap. You can get a lot of Armor Penetration from the Battlefield Skulker set and they are actually quite easy to get, much easier than most of our other T2 sets. All you need is a bit of patience and time in running Gauntlgrym, and you'll be seeing Armor Penetration of 1550 after getting the entire set + the main hand and off-hand weapons. The weapons are REALLY good. The cap for Armor Penetration is 2530 if I remember correctly. That's exactly 24%, the damage mitigation most bosses and mobs have. You can reach this cap by getting the Skulker Set and getting more gear/enchants that provide you with Armor Penetration. You'll need 980 more to reach the cap. You can do this by getting a Piercing Berserker Belt (+243 ArPen, +133 Crit), Grand Exorcists Necklace of Blessings (+150 Power/Crit/ArPen), and Pyrotechnic Bands (+125 Power/ArPen +175 Crit). You can get 154 more from Trickter's Exquisite Shirt and Trickster's Exquisite Pants (+77 ArPen each). Finally, by slotting 2 of your offense slots with at least Rank 6 Dark Enchantments, you can get Armor Penetration above the target cap. It'd be better if you made your own Rank 6 Darks since they are pretty costly in the AH for Rank 6 enchantments. But if you wish to save space for enchantment slots, what you can do is invest on a single Rank 7 Dark Enchantment, and you'll be almost exactly at the cap, 3 points above I believe. But Rank 7's are expensive for us casual players. You should still have 4 offense slots available after this so you might want to slot them with at least Rank 6 Azure Enchantments for added crit. You want your crit to be as near to 50% as possible in order to make the most out of the Executioner Path.
Next, your feats. We have only one viable path for us which is the Executioner as the other 2 paths grow pale in comparison to the bonuses we can get from the Executioner Tree. I suggest making the most out it. From what I can see, all you need is to allocate 5 points to Brutal Backstab to get +25% additional critical severity while stealthed and you're pretty much good to go for your Paragon Feats. You may also wish to go for Devastating Shroud instead of Cruelty's Reward for your tier 2 feats in executioner. This will make sure that using Lashing Blade after using Shocking Execution hits 10% harder. Not to mention it's easier to fight bosses when their attention is on you, so you'll want your aggro to be higher than usual lest you want the boss to be juggled around making it harder for you to land Duelist's Flurry stacks.
We can make a bit more adjustments for your Heroic Feats, however. You may wish to get 5/5 on Improved Cunning Sneak for increased Stealth duration. As executioners, and together with the Skulker Set's ability to increase our damage by 5% when in stealth, the bonuses we get from Stealth is just too good to pass on. Much better than what we have when we're out of stealth.
With the item and feat setup I just recommended, you may wish to try Lashing Blade, Shadow Strike, Impossible to Catch as your main boss fight encounters. Lashing Blade hits hard specially when used from Stealth, Shadow Strike is there to regain your Stealth, and Impossible to Catch will be used mainly to eat Red Areas and survive them while still being able to keep your uptime against the boss.
I hope this helps. I'm a TR on budget myself and have never spent a dime on the game yet so I've got a bit of experience in being a scrounger in terms of gear.
One of my big problems, and I know it's a big problem, but I'm not sure how to work over it, is that once I'm past that initial stealth, I forget to go back into stealth. That's where Smoke Bomb and Path of the Blade have come in handy for me. I'm trying to get in the habit of stealthing more, though, and I'll try out the encounters you suggested. As far as the items, I'm on Dragon, and apparently everyone else already knew how awesome they were, because the only things I managed were two Pyrotechnic Bands and a Trickster's Exquisite Shirt. My deflection score makes me want to cry now, but arm pen is creeping up, and my crit strike is over 2000. I've got a bid in on a Grand Exorcist's Necklace of Blessings, but for the armor set, the only thing I could find was the head item. Is Gautlgrym the only area that drops Battlefield Skulker?
Seriously, any suggestions on dailies besides Bloodbath? I'm not feeling it on the other ones I have ranks in. The only two I don't have ranks in are Courage Breaker and Shocking Execution, so naturally those are the two standing out to me, the latter more than the former. Thank you, so much, everyone who's responded, for your patience, by the way. I'll get this. I will.
Edit: I don't do any PvP, nor do I have any interest in doing so. Also, I've found a Grand Exorcist's Necklace of Blessings since replying earlier. Now for the belt.
It doesn't drop. You earn enough of the Grym currency to buy it. Since these items are now BoP, you probably can't find them on the AH, or the prices will be very inflated if you do.
Re: dailies
Most people use Lurker's Assault against bosses, to extend stealth and thereby increase their damage and crit. Despite LA having been given a nerf, using Duelist's Flurry while in LA remains your big boss-melter. Bloodbath can be a real save-your-skin skill (panic button), so it isn't necessarily a bad thing to have slotted. I think the two moves you're eyeballing tend to have more utility for PvP, so it might not be such a bad thing to have skipped them.
Re: PvP
For an actual stealth-based build, the armor sets from doing PvP-style content, either normal or Gauntlegrym (GG), are almost mandatory because of their stealth-extending set bonuses. For GG, you do get the coins for participating, and it has PvE elements as well. I admit I've never actually done any of it because I haven't picked a guild yet.
If you're going executioner and concerned more about fulfilling your role in a party, you don't need to worry so much about extending stealth.
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Also, I noticed the Piercing Berserker's Belt is a blue item? Is it a common misconception that T1/T2 level 60s should have all purple items, or is that me being dumb?
Neverwinter Census 2017
All posts pending disapproval by Cecilia