thanks for this guide, i got the ACT plugin and have been doing some testing. its a very good sustainable dps build. i recently got my greater vorpal enchant and am sustaining just over 16k DPS on the test dummies
Very well written guide, trouncing the other two stickied guides in practical helpfulness and experienced reasoning. I'm almost convinced the given feat spec is currently unmatched in terms of pure damage output - aside from two choices I'm not as sure of. Firstly, the selection of Cunning Stalker over Underhanded Tactics. Combat advantage contributes as much as 20% multiplicative damage. Considering a TR is (should) be in position for combat advantage wouldn't a 4% or so flat damage increase overcome the increased AP gain? Maybe this choice of skill would be worthwhile if Lurkers Assault could be used every 60 seconds or so, but realistically that isn't always the case. Also to consider is that AP cannot be gained while Lurker's Assault is active. That is 10 seconds of zero effectiveness in contrast to the multiplying effect Underhanded Tactics would have while Lurker's Assault is active.
Similarly, with the last tier of the heroic feats, I would assume 3% increased At-wills damage would be better than a roughly 0.3% across the board increase in damage. Unless Duelist's Flurry contributed less than 10% to overall damage, even at a glance one can assume the prior is better, no? In spite of this, it is only 1 feat point, and a small concern in the wide scope of things.
I also have a question which wasn't covered in much depth in the original post, and I'm not sure whether it's been discussed in previous posts, but I would like your input on this:
When is the optimal time in a rotation to use Lashing Blade? There is a lot of maths behind this with dozens of variables such as recharge speed, critical chance, slotted skills etc etc.
The answer isn't quite as simple as "on cooldown" or "during stealth", but rather what should the player do if Lashing Blade comes off cooldown with a full stealth bar? What if it comes off cooldown with half a stealth bar? What if the player has a full stealth bar and Lashing Blade is 8 seconds from coming off cooldown?
I'm sure you see where I'm going with this, and unfortunately I do not have a rogue at level 60 to accurately analyse the numbers myself. Lashing Blade isn't the largest contributor to overall damage, but if that is the case, at which point does the stealth refill from Decoy overtake it?
So many questions, perhaps some of which you have already figured out from experience, maths or otherwise. If you would like assistance with additional theorycrafting in pursuit of helping the community (as you have already done by writing a guide), I would be glad to contribute.
@hellion You probably took some heroic feats that gave pure stats that my build does not. That will cost you some gear score. Also, how is 20% more damage on a skill that I suggest using in all situations bad? Yes it does little damage, but I had the points to spare to do more damage on a skill that I always use.
@epicerlol When choosing Stalker over tactics I was keeping in mind that for a lot of bosses I don't have combat advantage 100% of the time. Most of the time I am tanking the boss and quite frequently no one else is attacking it. Even in stealth I do not always have combat advantage. This greatly reduces the value of CA for me. (Also I am not sure if the charisma bonus is additive or multiplicative, need to test it). You're right that in ideal situations Tactics *should* be better. But I tried to make the spec not have to depend on completely ideal situations.
You seem to misunderstand how Disciple of strength works. It's a flat 2% damage buff per point, for a total of 6%. It's additive, not multiplicative. A 2% flat damage buff across all skills is far better than a 3% buff to only at wills (even if flurry does provide in the neighborhood of 60-80% of our dps). Again you also have the problem of frequently having threat, and therefore losing that buff.
As far as your question on lashing blade goes, I do not have a definite answer. I know for certain that you will optimize your damage from lashing blade by using it from stealth as often as possible, but I do not know for certain if it is worth sacrificing uptime on stealth to be able to use lashing from stealth every time. I would guess that the answer is yes based on how our bleed currently works. The correct way to apply our bleed currently is to apply it from lurkers when the battle starts and not let it drop the rest of the fight (unless it isn't critting). This means that stealth has no bearing on your bleed damage after the first application during lurkers. Our bleed is generally near half of our dps, with a large portion of the rest of our dps being lashing blade (and the actual flurry from duelist's flurry).
So that said, my guess as to the optimal use of lashing blade would be to open the way I suggest in the guide, maintain your WR stacks, then manage your passive stealth generation and shadow strike usage to ensure you can lashing blade from stealth every time, and definately with lurkers (which you should be getting a lot more frequently than once per minute, I have close to 40% ap regeneration on my rogue).
I usually use lashing for the first time after my first DF chain because of the increased crit severity (both 1DF and 1 Lashing under my first stealth). Once I get 5 stacks, then I use lashing on cooldown.
You're missing the point. There wasn't anywhere more useful to put those points. So 20% more damage on a skill that you are always using is actually quite good, especially when it is essentially free.
Also, many updates to the main post including: Racial bonuses, Primary stat priorities, Gearing strategy, corrected Duelist's Flurry mechanics, Invisible infiltrator potentially being our best passive (1+15%*crit severity buff to our bleed damage), and more.
aherioMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 5Arc User
edited May 2013
Hey, finally someone who has no probs in testing hours and hours just to get some more dps etc
I have a question bout companion,
I wonder if the Jagged dancing blade is worth picking up, do you have any infos on this?
Dont have the ADs for the cat and dont wanna spend cash atm, but could get this blade if its worth the slot.
There is actually. Class features used in the build are listed directly under the feats picture. Enchantments are listed near the end and have their own header. I also discussed each class feature individually in the part of the guide where I discussed all the skills.
Movement is the only useful to instances utility enchant. And I gave stat priorities in the post. You use whatever enchants you need to to reach the stat priorities.
Thank you for this guide! Currently leveling and am new to the game, so this will help me a GREAT deal!!
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psychojonMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 3Arc User
edited May 2013
I'm confused as to how you spec into the powers, it doesn't seem possible to get pass 19 points without having to spend one on one of the skills you have at 1. Am I missing something here?
@physchojon Good catch. I have been using photoshop to modify my power tree to save time, but I apparently made a mistake last time I changed it. Should be correct now.
Hello - thanks for the great guide. Just 2 things:
1. Drow adds +2 Charisma as well as +2 Dex.
2. Why is Strength > Dex > Char? Strength add 1% damage - is 1% crit < 1% damage? Also Char is 1% damage while combat advantage (which, so far, seems to be all the time). Is pet damage/stats irrelevant?
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xemperormaoMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 2Arc User
edited May 2013
The Cat right now is the best pet. It currently grants 100% of its stats to the summoner just like the Stone, but also has an inherent Crit + Recovery buff.
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lepapaMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero UsersPosts: 0Arc User
Strength is a flat damage buff that you get 100% of the time, and increases stamina regeneration. There is extensive math in a different forum showing that 1% damage will always be more valuable than 1% crit (except possibly at very extreme, and unobtainable, levels of crit severity). As for Charisma vs Dexterity basically the comparison is 4% CA damage and 4% pet stat bonus vs 4% crit and 4% deflect. I always value CA damage bonuses at about 75% or so of their face value since always having CA is unlikely. Even with that charisma *should* be stronger. But crit is still a very valuable stat. I changed the guide to say Dex >= Charisma. Mostly I just like having the high crit, given how important it is that our first bleed be a crit. And the pet stat bonuses will scale depending on how much you invest in your pet. For example, with my pet 4% stat bonus gets me a total of 105 stats. So it's not particularly valuable since that is spread over 4 stats. Better than nothing, but not particularly good.
Also updated drow racial, and reflected that drow is probably better than half orc. Faerie fire functions as a 3% damage buff if you mitigate the damage resistance of the enemy through armor pen.
I am also unsure whether 1 charisma = 1% CA damage or CA damage +1%. I have not tested this yet. Have you seen anyone do math for this?
@xemperormao The stone is also usually cheaper, and doesn't die randomly sometimes.
Gearing Suggestions
For now I suggest shooting for between 1500-2000 armor penetration (to completely remove most PVE mob's mitigation, still testing on the exact number for bosses). Currently it is possible to take mobs to negative resistance while using things such as Wicked reminder, faerie fire and Ray of Enfeeblement in conjunction with Armor Pen, so it is very strong. I suggest also suggest shooting for as close to 50% crit as possible (After 50% the value of crit rating drops off rapidly). After this stack recovery to around 3k (if your gear is good enough to support that). I use the number 3000 as I have read different reports of this being a major point of Diminishing Returns. So proceed to stack further at your own peril.
What about power? Focus on crit/arp/recovery and just disregard power? I've been using radiant gems. Should I switch them all to crit gems? 47% crit atm
I will update it with my thoughts on when it would be worth using any power. But power does not scale, the only reason you'd want power is whenever diminishing returns causes the other stats to be less valuable than power. Currently between having 11000 GS and my decked out Stone of Allure I am still not quite at that point.
I can comfirm "heavy" DR points for different stats as follows. I define these breakpoints as when the decreases in value of the stat begin to follow an exponential curve (decreases by a specific amount per set number of points):
Crit
The value of crit rating decreases by ~3.5% per 200 points after ~1900. This equates to about a 19% decrease in value per 1000 points.
Armor Penetration
Up to the maximum suggested value of ~2223 (22%) armor pen there is basically no dropoff in value. Armor pen is amazingly efficient.
Recovery
Recovery begins to lose value at a rate of ~3% per 200 points after ~2900. This curve does not really play nicely, but it does level out after 2900.
Power
Power is completely linear with no DR. 25 power adds +1 weapon damage.
*Video guy's numbers did not mean what I thought they did on further inspection. Making my own spreadsheet. The following numbers will probably change*
Suggested goals:
1. 2223 ARP
2. 2700 Crit rating
3. 3000 Recovery
As much power as available.
My determination of the value of recovery is just an estimation based off what I have seen and in no way based in hard math. So take that with a grain of salt. I can say for certain that the order of stat priorities is correct though, but the exact numbers for crit rating and recovery are still in the air. Also I like having 50% crit, which currently costs me 3387 crit rating.
Also updated drow racial, and reflected that drow is probably better than half orc. Faerie fire functions as a 3% damage buff if you mitigate the damage resistance of the enemy through armor pen.
What happens when there's more than one drow in the group? Does the effect stack or would you be better off going Half-Orc at that point?
Stealth wouldn't drain when you used Lurkers. After a couple dungeon today, i found out sometimes it runs out, and sometimes doesn't... not sure what's happening
Comments
Similarly, with the last tier of the heroic feats, I would assume 3% increased At-wills damage would be better than a roughly 0.3% across the board increase in damage. Unless Duelist's Flurry contributed less than 10% to overall damage, even at a glance one can assume the prior is better, no? In spite of this, it is only 1 feat point, and a small concern in the wide scope of things.
I also have a question which wasn't covered in much depth in the original post, and I'm not sure whether it's been discussed in previous posts, but I would like your input on this:
When is the optimal time in a rotation to use Lashing Blade? There is a lot of maths behind this with dozens of variables such as recharge speed, critical chance, slotted skills etc etc.
The answer isn't quite as simple as "on cooldown" or "during stealth", but rather what should the player do if Lashing Blade comes off cooldown with a full stealth bar? What if it comes off cooldown with half a stealth bar? What if the player has a full stealth bar and Lashing Blade is 8 seconds from coming off cooldown?
I'm sure you see where I'm going with this, and unfortunately I do not have a rogue at level 60 to accurately analyse the numbers myself. Lashing Blade isn't the largest contributor to overall damage, but if that is the case, at which point does the stealth refill from Decoy overtake it?
So many questions, perhaps some of which you have already figured out from experience, maths or otherwise. If you would like assistance with additional theorycrafting in pursuit of helping the community (as you have already done by writing a guide), I would be glad to contribute.
@epicerlol When choosing Stalker over tactics I was keeping in mind that for a lot of bosses I don't have combat advantage 100% of the time. Most of the time I am tanking the boss and quite frequently no one else is attacking it. Even in stealth I do not always have combat advantage. This greatly reduces the value of CA for me. (Also I am not sure if the charisma bonus is additive or multiplicative, need to test it). You're right that in ideal situations Tactics *should* be better. But I tried to make the spec not have to depend on completely ideal situations.
You seem to misunderstand how Disciple of strength works. It's a flat 2% damage buff per point, for a total of 6%. It's additive, not multiplicative. A 2% flat damage buff across all skills is far better than a 3% buff to only at wills (even if flurry does provide in the neighborhood of 60-80% of our dps). Again you also have the problem of frequently having threat, and therefore losing that buff.
As far as your question on lashing blade goes, I do not have a definite answer. I know for certain that you will optimize your damage from lashing blade by using it from stealth as often as possible, but I do not know for certain if it is worth sacrificing uptime on stealth to be able to use lashing from stealth every time. I would guess that the answer is yes based on how our bleed currently works. The correct way to apply our bleed currently is to apply it from lurkers when the battle starts and not let it drop the rest of the fight (unless it isn't critting). This means that stealth has no bearing on your bleed damage after the first application during lurkers. Our bleed is generally near half of our dps, with a large portion of the rest of our dps being lashing blade (and the actual flurry from duelist's flurry).
So that said, my guess as to the optimal use of lashing blade would be to open the way I suggest in the guide, maintain your WR stacks, then manage your passive stealth generation and shadow strike usage to ensure you can lashing blade from stealth every time, and definately with lurkers (which you should be getting a lot more frequently than once per minute, I have close to 40% ap regeneration on my rogue).
You can also see a better formatted version of the guide here.
Also, many updates to the main post including: Racial bonuses, Primary stat priorities, Gearing strategy, corrected Duelist's Flurry mechanics, Invisible infiltrator potentially being our best passive (1+15%*crit severity buff to our bleed damage), and more.
You can also see a better formatted version of the guide here.
I have a question bout companion,
I wonder if the Jagged dancing blade is worth picking up, do you have any infos on this?
Dont have the ADs for the cat and dont wanna spend cash atm, but could get this blade if its worth the slot.
This is my stone:
The eldritch stone in a defensive slot gives x% bonus stats (9% with a rank 8).
You can also see a better formatted version of the guide here.
How much did you pay for that?
You can also see a better formatted version of the guide here.
You can also see a better formatted version of the guide here.
You can also see a better formatted version of the guide here.
You can also see a better formatted version of the guide here.
1. Drow adds +2 Charisma as well as +2 Dex.
2. Why is Strength > Dex > Char? Strength add 1% damage - is 1% crit < 1% damage? Also Char is 1% damage while combat advantage (which, so far, seems to be all the time). Is pet damage/stats irrelevant?
Also updated drow racial, and reflected that drow is probably better than half orc. Faerie fire functions as a 3% damage buff if you mitigate the damage resistance of the enemy through armor pen.
I am also unsure whether 1 charisma = 1% CA damage or CA damage +1%. I have not tested this yet. Have you seen anyone do math for this?
@xemperormao The stone is also usually cheaper, and doesn't die randomly sometimes.
You can also see a better formatted version of the guide here.
What about power? Focus on crit/arp/recovery and just disregard power? I've been using radiant gems. Should I switch them all to crit gems? 47% crit atm
I can comfirm "heavy" DR points for different stats as follows. I define these breakpoints as when the decreases in value of the stat begin to follow an exponential curve (decreases by a specific amount per set number of points):
Crit
The value of crit rating decreases by ~3.5% per 200 points after ~1900. This equates to about a 19% decrease in value per 1000 points.
Armor Penetration
Up to the maximum suggested value of ~2223 (22%) armor pen there is basically no dropoff in value. Armor pen is amazingly efficient.
Recovery
Recovery begins to lose value at a rate of ~3% per 200 points after ~2900. This curve does not really play nicely, but it does level out after 2900.
Power
Power is completely linear with no DR. 25 power adds +1 weapon damage.
*Video guy's numbers did not mean what I thought they did on further inspection. Making my own spreadsheet. The following numbers will probably change*
Suggested goals:
1. 2223 ARP
2. 2700 Crit rating
3. 3000 Recovery
As much power as available.
My determination of the value of recovery is just an estimation based off what I have seen and in no way based in hard math. So take that with a grain of salt. I can say for certain that the order of stat priorities is correct though, but the exact numbers for crit rating and recovery are still in the air. Also I like having 50% crit, which currently costs me 3387 crit rating.
Link to the spreadsheet I used for anyone interested:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgK7NUdr8JPldFlsc1lJZng0MmYtMWFyT2F5TW5lblE&usp=sharing
Nothing fancy, just easy to use and understand numbers.
You can also see a better formatted version of the guide here.
What do you mean it no longer refills stealth?
What happens when there's more than one drow in the group? Does the effect stack or would you be better off going Half-Orc at that point?
You can also see a better formatted version of the guide here.
Stealth wouldn't drain when you used Lurkers. After a couple dungeon today, i found out sometimes it runs out, and sometimes doesn't... not sure what's happening