TOPIC: Rogue Builds

I'll add

Every slotless token (more helpful if you remember they exist)

Wade Schwendemann (Dr. Uid) wrote: Every slotless token (more helpful if you remember they exist)

Word. Having a Lamp of the Marid doesn’t matter if you don’t remember to use it.

There are some good suggestions above, I'd add that unless you are aiming for Epic there's no need to chase down most of the BiS tokens specifically, you'll find a lot of almost-BiS tokens are interchangeable as they do similar things. I would say that the only must-have tokens are:

• Either of the Guided Strike Items.
• Either Necklace of the Sneak or Raphiel's Sneaky Necklace.
• Any one of the four best weapons (Nightshade's +2 Short Sword; Nightshade's +2 Throwing Dagger; Assassin's Crossbow & Lenses of Agility; Asher's +5 Viper Strike Fang & 2 Viper Strike items).
• (Arguably) Libram of Looting.

As long as you have those then you can fill your remaining slots with pretty much any strong tokens which add at least 2 to hit, damage, or saves, and you'll be able to play at any level all the way up to and including Nightmare.

Fred K wrote: #1a - Lenses of Agility - it is assumed you have these for any ranged rogue build since you can't sneak attack at ranged without them.

BeLinda Mathie wrote: For a ranged rogue:
Lenses of Agility/Lenses of Vital Insight

Just to avoid any confusion, you don't need Lenses of Agility/Vital Insight if your ranged weapon is Nightshade's +2 Throwing Dagger, it has the ability to perform Ranged Sneak Attacks built into it. You would however need a second copy of it to throw if playing a Ranged build using one of the necklaces above.

Lross made a good point that quite a few items are interchangeable or near each other in power. There are some that are distinctly separate in being a great deal better than everything else:

Bead of guided strike - bracers BiS are the legendary charm bracelets. As such, because guided strike it critical (see what I did there) to rogue, it is always a rogue priority.
Raphael’s necklace - 17-20 threat range and sneak attack twice makes it a huge distance better than the 2nd best item for neck.
Libram of looting - never have to choose treasure or hint - with it being reprinted, every rogue should have one.

Ranged build:
Lenses of agility/vital insight - you can’t sneak at range without them. The dex bonus also helps all other range weapon attack classes as well.
Assassin’s crossbow - huge distance in damage between it and the next ranged rogue weapon. X3 damage with a 17-20 threat range is outrageous.

Melee build:
Surtur’s belt - +7 str and bis for a lot of melee classes
Either nightshade weapon - double your sneak dmg on a crit

Fred K wrote:
Assassin’s crossbow - huge distance in damage between it and the next ranged rogue weapon. X3 damage with a 17-20 threat range is outrageous.

Until your damage bonus on range is 20 or higher the nightshade throwing dagger is better than the crossbow. Also the dagger does take advantage of strength bonuses as well making it a better choice if you are trying to balance your melee and ranged attacks.

Wayne Rhodes wrote:

Fred K wrote:
Assassin’s crossbow - huge distance in damage between it and the next ranged rogue weapon. X3 damage with a 17-20 threat range is outrageous.

Until your damage bonus on range is 20 or higher the nightshade throwing dagger is better than the crossbow. Also the dagger does take advantage of strength bonuses as well making it a better choice if you are trying to balance your melee and ranged attacks.

Agreed that the assassin’s crossbow isn’t great to have until you get either the relic or legendary rogue necklace. Once you have either of those, it becomes the BiS rogue weapon.

Nightshade’s dagger is a good weapon. I would disagree about doing a balanced build, though. Splitting your focus between melee and ranged is akin to the old multi-function printer (can do everything but badly.) The ranged build starts getting powerful quickly but has the downside that quite a few of the damage boosting tokens are only good for ranged classes and casters. The melee rogue build has more crossover with melee classes (except without class specific weapons and armor.)

I recommend focusing on the rogue only items when you see good deals on them. I saw a raphael’s go for $700 recently, for example. Don’t pay premiums for items like the assassin’s crossbow unless there isn’t anything left to max out your build. I suspect an alternative yo it will ge out within a couple years anyway based on tge geated debates.

Fred K wrote:

Wayne Rhodes wrote:

Fred K wrote:
Assassin’s crossbow - huge distance in damage between it and the next ranged rogue weapon. X3 damage with a 17-20 threat range is outrageous.

Until your damage bonus on range is 20 or higher the nightshade throwing dagger is better than the crossbow. Also the dagger does take advantage of strength bonuses as well making it a better choice if you are trying to balance your melee and ranged attacks.

Agreed that the assassin’s crossbow isn’t great to have until you get either the relic or legendary rogue necklace. Once you have either of those, it becomes the BiS rogue weapon.

Nightshade’s dagger is a good weapon. I would disagree about doing a balanced build, though. Splitting your focus between melee and ranged is akin to the old multi-function printer (can do everything but badly.) The ranged build starts getting powerful quickly but has the downside that quite a few of the damage boosting tokens are only good for ranged classes and casters. The melee rogue build has more crossover with melee classes (except without class specific weapons and armor.)

I recommend focusing on the rogue only items when you see good deals on them. I saw a raphael’s go for $700 recently, for example. Don’t pay premiums for items like the assassin’s crossbow unless there isn’t anything left to max out your build. I suspect an alternative yo it will ge out within a couple years anyway based on tge geated debates.

These are the numbers on the dagger vs crossbow.



The main point I was making on balance was that because strength bonuses adds to damage on ranged thrown weapons the dagger allows you to largely do both. If you go with the crossbow you need to focus on range only.

For example if I’m using the crossbow I would use kilt of dungeonbane for dex, if I’m using the dagger I likely go str and up my melee to hit, melee damage, and ranged damage.

The truth is the crossbow only becomes crazy good in crazy high end builds.

Ad for the legendary and relics, they help both weapons equally at 20 damage bonus. The dagger well be helped more below and the crossbow well be helped more above because they both get there bonus on crits not just 20s

Wayne Rhodes wrote: The truth is the crossbow only becomes crazy good in crazy high end builds.

Quoting for truth. Sometimes the discourse about the crossbow being “too good” seems to overlook that it only applies to folks who have VERY high-end builds. Some players have such builds, so we should consider the edge cases. But it isn’t at all true that the crossbow is BIS in all rogue builds, or even all rogue ranged builds. The build needs the relic or legendary rogue neck plus a bunch of base ranged damage to really dish out damage (for two rounds).

Wayne Rhodes wrote:

Fred K wrote:

Wayne Rhodes wrote:

Fred K wrote:
Assassin’s crossbow - huge distance in damage between it and the next ranged rogue weapon. X3 damage with a 17-20 threat range is outrageous.

Until your damage bonus on range is 20 or higher the nightshade throwing dagger is better than the crossbow. Also the dagger does take advantage of strength bonuses as well making it a better choice if you are trying to balance your melee and ranged attacks.

Agreed that the assassin’s crossbow isn’t great to have until you get either the relic or legendary rogue necklace. Once you have either of those, it becomes the BiS rogue weapon.

Nightshade’s dagger is a good weapon. I would disagree about doing a balanced build, though. Splitting your focus between melee and ranged is akin to the old multi-function printer (can do everything but badly.) The ranged build starts getting powerful quickly but has the downside that quite a few of the damage boosting tokens are only good for ranged classes and casters. The melee rogue build has more crossover with melee classes (except without class specific weapons and armor.)

I recommend focusing on the rogue only items when you see good deals on them. I saw a raphael’s go for $700 recently, for example. Don’t pay premiums for items like the assassin’s crossbow unless there isn’t anything left to max out your build. I suspect an alternative yo it will ge out within a couple years anyway based on tge geated debates.

These are the numbers on the dagger vs crossbow.



The main point I was making on balance was that because strength bonuses adds to damage on ranged thrown weapons the dagger allows you to largely do both. If you go with the crossbow you need to focus on range only.

For example if I’m using the crossbow I would use kilt of dungeonbane for dex, if I’m using the dagger I likely go str and up my melee to hit, melee damage, and ranged damage.

The truth is the crossbow only becomes crazy good in crazy high end builds.

Ad for the legendary and relics, they help both weapons equally at 20 damage bonus. The dagger well be helped more below and the crossbow well be helped more above because they both get there bonus on crits not just 20s

A bonus of +40 ranged damage can be done before hitting the “crazy high end builds.” The max build is about +52. Assume +2 rare boots vs BoFW, relic ring rather than legendary is +4 v +6, and cut 2 +3 items and you still have a +40 build. Ranged damage on a crit at +40 assuming assassin’s crossbow is 120 dmg plus 20 sneak plus 3 times weapon damage (18-30). 158-170 dmg on a ranged sneak versus melee +40 w nightshades is 80 dmg plus 40 sneak plus 2 time weapon dmg (12-20) 132-140 dmg.