New Rogue Weapon tips

[dankvader]

Hi all,

I am DankVader a lvl 6 Rogue on Kyhber. I have been trying to keep some +3 shortswords and +3 light maces as my usuall weapons in my backpack. I also have a +2 shortbow of pure good and a Muckbane. This was great for me until I went to Delera's Tomb. Luckily i was able to get a +1 undead bane mace and a +1 pure good mace which helped.
My question is, should I try to find some +4 Rapiers or go some other route? Also i was hoping i could get some guidance on what level to have certain types of weapons, like i hear about radiance II, whatever that is....

[Angelus_dead]

Rapiers are the typical Rogue weapon, although depending on your character another kind could possibly be better.

At level 6 you'll want to try to get a +4, and replace it with +5 at level 8. However, you'd also want to have something like +2 Holy, and use it on most enemies unless they're not evil or have such high AC that the additional +2 helps you hit. (In the future, +5 Holy of Righteousness is pretty nice).

Radiance 2 is something you could get from the level 16 Shroud raid, so it isn't anything to think about for quite some time!

Remember, if you ask around with established players you can easily get someone to hand you a few +4 items of whatever kind.

[Draccus]

At low levels (say, under 6), you’re primarily going need 3-4 groups of weapons.

DPS – This should be as high a + as you can find. At low levels, your attack bonus is generally low compared to monster AC so you’ll want to ensure you hit things. I’d rather have a +4 Shortsword than a +1 Flaming Shortsword. These weapons will be your bread-and-butter and you’ll be using them for the majority of your encounters. As you increase in level, you’ll want to find weapons with multiple damage modifiers (Holy, Flaming, Shock, Pure Good, Righteousness, etc.) and will accept a slightly lower + when you are confident you won’t be missing.

Ooze beaters - A pair of muckbanes stayed in my pack until I hit 16.

Undead beaters – you’re definitely going to want something for skeletons. Skeletons are tough for rogues because a) they’re sneak attack immune and b) they have damage reduction against slashing and piercing weapons. Look for good bludgeoning weapons. Note that they don’t have to be Undead Bane. A Holy Light Mace of Pure Good does better damage to a skeleton than a Light Mace of Undead Bane. You may also want to carry some slashing weapons for zombies as they have damage reduction against piercing weapons. I still carry a dedicated pair of undead beaters at 20.

At higher levels, you’ll want to keep improving your DPS and Undead weapons because you’re going to be using them all the time. Your muckbanes are fine. For DPS weapons, look for elemental bursts and pure good with as high a + as you can find. For undead beaters, Holy of PG or Greater Undead Bane are your goals. At this point, you’re also going to add some more groups.

Stat Damagers – Con, Str, and Dex damage can do wonders against tough opponents so keep an eye out for Wounding, Puncturing, Weakening, or Enfeebling weapons with high crit ranges and good +’s. These weapon tend to be ridiculously priced on the AH so be careful before dropping a ton of plat on an overpriced weapon.

Power 5 – At around level 12, you can start using Paralyzers, Vorpals, Disruptors (vs. Undead), Banishers, and Smiters. These weapons all have very specific uses so you won’t be using them as much as your standard DPS weapons but one of them in your off hand can work miracles. A paralyzer combined with your DPS weapon can turn a dungeon doorway into a slaughterhouse.

Construct Banes – Constructs are another tough monster for a rogue; particularly a dex-based rogue. Constructs play a part in loads of quests and raids at all levels so keep your eye out for these as well. I always carry a pair of Light Maces of GCB.

Transmuters – in the mid levels, you’ll start to see monsters with Damage Reduction for certain metals (silver, adamantine, cold iron, etc.). Transmuting weapons will help you bypass most of this DR.

At the highest levels, you’re going to be looking at crafted weapons. That is a topic of its own and you’re, literally, months away from having to worry about it. Crafted weapons are obscenely powerful and you’ll want to do a ton of research before making one. Fortunately (?) you’ve got a lot of raiding and ingredient collecting to do before you can even consider making your first one. When you do, though, you’ll be talking about things like:

Radiance II – Combine holy damage with fire damage and massive light damage on criticals with a blindness effect that makes every one of your attacks a sneak attack and put it on a +5 weapon that does more base damage than a regular weapon. Are you drooling yet?
Mineral II – Holy damage, Acid Damage, and transmuting to bypass most damage reduction.
Lightning II – The highest pure damage weapons in the game.
Triple Positive – Holy everything with greater disruption for undead insta-kills and a raise dead clickie for your dead friends.

There are loads more options, too.

[kamimitsu]

A_D and Dresek have pretty much covered everything, but I wanted to add a couple of things.

At some point, you can upgrade your Muckbanes to some kind of Light Mace of Everbright. Everbright will work nicely against oozes without getting damaged (and since it's bludgeoning it won't make the oozes split), and as a bonus it won't take damage from rust monsters either. I found it a nice slot-saver as my oozes and rusties set.

Be on the lookout for cursespewing. If you don't have 2 Disruptors, Smiters, or Banishers, it's nice to pair your cursespewer (or even better Improved Cursespewer) with them so that when the monster has to make it's save against the effect (disruption, etc.), it will be less likely to make the save.

[Eljin]

what about keen weapons? i would have thought having a 15-20 crit range with a burst enchantment or bone breaking or maiming or anything else that does cool stuff on a crit would be awesome.

or are there just too many common mobs that are immune to crits?

[Timothea]

At some point you'll likely want to take the feat Improved Critical: Piercing, assuming you're using Rapiers for the better crit range. The feat doubles the crit range for all of your piercing weapons but doesn't stack with keen. Your rapiers become crit 15-20, your shortswords 17-20.

To add to what was stated above about zombie beaters and vorpals, sickles are a good choice for a halfling rogue, dwarven axes for dwarves, and one of the elven lines gets scimitars, I believe.

[Eljin]

ah yeah of course. i totally forgot about improved crit, even tho almost every one of my pnp dps characters take it.

[dankvader]

Ok so now I am a lvl 11 rank2 rogue and hopefully soon to be a lvl 12 assassin II rogue. My dex is currently 24 and i have weapon finesse feat. At 12 i plan on taking Improved Crit :Piercing.

My main weapons are +5 rapiers

My undead beaters are light maces (+1 seeker and +2 silver) of Pure Good.

I have dual muckbanes.

I also have everbright shortswords for rust monsters.

I have a couple questions though.

For Constructs are light maces of GCB the way to go?

What is the best bet for Elementals?

Do i need to be carrying +5 light maces for any reason?

What +elemental damage is good to replace my +5s with? (I found a +1 shocking burst rapier of vertigo but dps doesnt seem worth it)

Why are rapiers so expensive? (ie. +5 Acid Rapier of Pure Good = 1million gold)

[Draccus]

Greater Construct Banes are exactly what you want for constructs. They're very useful for other things you'll find in many high end raids too (columns, pillars, portals, etc). I used to only carry my GCBs for running The Shroud (which starts with having to destroy 15 portals) but found so many other places to use them that I carry them all the time now.

Your undead beaters look fine. Keep an eye out for even better versions. Holy Light Maces of PG are very common and easy to find/buy. Holy Burst of PG would be even better. The best undead beater would be a Holy Burst of GUB but good luck finding one. Mine are pretty weak -- a pair of +3 of GUB light maces. I've yet to find a Holy version.

If you're short on pack space, you can dump the shortswords of everbright. Use your muckbanes on Rusties if you need to melee them. BTW, you can assassinate a rust monster with your bare hands :) That's my favorite way to take care of them!

For elementals, best is a Greater Elemental Bane. I, for some reason, don't have any. I usually use stat damagers on them but I really need some GEBs. Stat damagers used to be the best way to kill an elemental since you could Con-damage them to death. Now, I'm not so sure. I need to get some GEBs

As for your improved DPS weapons, there are a couple things to look for. Elemental damage is the easiest to find, so a +5 Acid Rapier is great. Of course, the problem is that you'll find some monsters immune to the damage type of your weapon. That's a risk you'll have to take. I would say going with Acid or Shock would minimize that risk. Flaming is probably the most risky, especially at higher levels.

The best non-crafted DPS weapon? Hmm...depending on the mob, probably something like a +5 Shock Burst of Pure Good. Don't know if that's even possible given the level restrictions. Holy of Pure Good is a fantastic choice for lots of monsters. Not so much against animals or spiders, but great against everything else.

Now, that all being said, one thing to seriously consider is an Of Backstabbing weapon in one hand. I used a +4 Acid Rapier of Backstabbing (+5/+8) in my off hand until I got my second Radiance II. Once you complete the Vision of Destruction raid a few (20 for me...grrr) times you should get a pair of goggles that will give you the same Backstabbing bonus but until then, look for a good +5/+8 backstabber for one hand (the bonus applies to all weapons!).

Why are rapiers so expense? I think this goes back to the old Con-damage = Death days. Because Con damage was so effective, thousands of characters were made to use Wounding of Puncturing Rapiers so lots of rapier-focused characters are running around. Now that Con damage isn't as effective, I think you'll see rapiers drop in price.

[dankvader]

So i guess it is time for me to start hunting for decent deals on some elemental damage. I have been searching for elemental and construct bane but haven't found anything on the AH in rapiers or Shortswords, at least on Kyhber.

Another question is when do i start looking into crafting? And what is good to craft first?

[Draccus]

Another question is when do i start looking into crafting? And what is good to craft first?

The long, long journey to crafting starts at level 12. That's when you can first get access to the Vale of Twilight. But you probably won't craft your first item until you're level 16ish.The path is simple, but not easy.

1. Access the Vale of Twilight by talking to some guys in The Twelve.
2. Complete the 5 quests in the Vale: Rainbow in the Dark, Coalescence Chamber, Let Sleeping Dust Lie, Running with the Devils, and Ritual Sacrifice. These quests are very, VERY fun.
3. Once you've completed those 5 quests, you'll do a simple little "crafting quest" to teach you some basics and then you are flagged for the most popular raid in the game: The Shroud.
4. Run the Vale Quests and Shroud multiple times to collect ingredients for crafting. Basically, you make the weapon with ingredients collected in the Vale quests and upgrade the weapon with ingredients gathered in The Shroud.
5. Be warned that it will probably take you 10-30 Shrouds before you're close to completing your first weapon. You can only run The Shroud every 3 days so you're talking a few months before you can craft.
6. In between raids, you can run quests for loot and possibly trade for some of the ingredients you need. The more you trade for, the fewer Shrouds you need to run. I made some very good trades and made my first weapon before my 20th Shroud.

Your first weapon will be a Radiance II. Don't question it; just make it.

[dankvader]

Thank you guys so much for the input.

I found a +4 holy rapier of backstabbing and am using that for my offhand. I am still looking for a +4/5 acid or elec rapier for my primary.

I was able to find a +4 holy light mace of pure good too. (i need 20UMD for it though)

Still havent seen any GCB or GEB weapons. but at least i know what to look for.

I have been running Gianthold to try and get a vorpal or paralyzing drop.

[Nanith]

Caution: Newbie question ahead, proceed with caution.

Do any of the before mentioned weapons take the place of ghost touch weapons? It seems like ghost touch weapons are necessary for some quests in House K for example.

[Razcar]

So i guess it is time for me to start hunting for decent deals on some elemental damage. I have been searching for elemental and construct bane but haven't found anything on the AH in rapiers or Shortswords, at least on Kyhber.

Another question is when do i start looking into crafting? And what is good to craft first?
Weapons in DDO tends to shift in three different phases, with one fourth optional phase.
These phases will overlap 2-4 levels.

Phase 1 - Low levels 1-8
Here it is mostly about DPS, and DPS weapons. As high plus as you can get, and some extra stuff as holy/PG etc, as detailed above. A Muck bane, some blunt of PG/Holy for undead, something Ghost Touch at the end of this phase for Delera's et. al.

Phase 2 - Med levels 8 - 14
Here we enter the domain of the "power five", as they used to be known. It is not all about DPS, as you can now Vorpal mobs, Paralyze or Disrupt them etc, which in many cases is very effective. The DPS weapons (still needed for bosses, and others) gets an upgrade here to better secondary effects, and/or Greater Banes get used for special mob types.

Phase 3 - High levels 14 - 20
This is crafting-country. The "old" DPS weapons get replaced by Mineral II's, Lightning II's, Radiance II's. The "power five" dies out due to mob blanket immunities and high saves, the only one with some staying power is the Vorpal. Old friends such as Ooze weapons gets cleaned out. Many mobs and most bosses here will have high Damage Reduction that has to be overcome. The occasional nice Greater Bane survives, but crafted Shroud weapons will be your bread and butter.

(Phase 4 - Epic - level 20)
This is yet not so common, but will probably be run more when old raids get Epic:fied one after one. Here we see crafted weapons, mixed with special effect weapons such as Improved Destruction and Weighted.

[Razcar]

Caution: Newbie question ahead, proceed with caution.

Do any of the before mentioned weapons take the place of ghost touch weapons? It seems like ghost touch weapons are necessary for some quests in House K for example.
Yes it's good to have. Just get any old weapon with Ghost Touch, as long as can avoid their 50% miss chance the incorporable monsters have low HP and AC and will mostly get cooked by Walls of Fire anyway.

[cyzzie]

i see a lot of talk about rapiers (especially radiance II) but i don't see anything about scimitars. do scimitars not come with radiance II? or, is there an advantage that rogues have with piercing weapons?

i have a low lvl halfling rogue at the moment but thinking of changing it to an elf for the scimitar enhancements. would that be a bad idea?

[JCMcBoo]

I am running a dwarven Rogue 3/Ranger 6 with TWF and I carry paired +4 light maces as my main weapons with paired Muckbanes for oozes/puddings etc. and paired +2 dwarven axes for zombies or higher DPS if needed. I'm not sure if it's the best plan but I thought I would add my input.


>

[Angelus_dead]

i see a lot of talk about rapiers (especially radiance II) but i don't see anything about scimitars. do scimitars not come with radiance II? or, is there an advantage that rogues have with piercing weapons?
Rogues do not get proficiency with scimitars. Also, many rogues use Weapon Finesse to attack, which does not work with scimitars. Aside from that, you can go ahead and use them.


i have a low lvl halfling rogue at the moment but thinking of changing it to an elf for the scimitar enhancements. would that be a bad idea?
The Halflings' enhancements for Cunning and Guile are no worse than the Elf racial weapon enhancements.

Also notice that elves have equivalent enhancements for rapiers and scimitars (which are nearly equivalent weapon choices)

[PedigreeDN]

People keep talking about Radiance II. Is there such a thing as Radiance I? If so, is it an acceptable alternative for someone who doesn't want to grind the same raid over and over?

[Draccus]

Wow...old thread being rez'd here :)

Yes, your ghost touch weapons will eventually be replaced by items that give the ghost touch property to your weapons. Spectral Gloves, Ethereal Bracers, and the Tharne's Set all give your weapons the ghost touch property. It's a bit funny that incorporeal monsters tend to die out after about level 12 or so but Turbine brought them back with a vengence in the high level Inspired Quarter quests. Many of us found ourselves at the bank going "now, where did I put those bracers?!?"

As for RadII's, yes, a RadII scimitar is just as effective as RadII rapier. The reason you hear less about them is because many rogue are dex based and scimitars aren't finessable. A strength based rogue using Khopeshes, for example, may opt to make RadII scimitars for the higher crit range.

[Razcar]

People keep talking about Radiance II. Is there such a thing as Radiance I? If so, is it an acceptable alternative for someone who doesn't want to grind the same raid over and over?
Unfortunately no. Radiance I gives you two charges per rest of Sunburst, totally pointless (and some other effect like for example healing amp) . Radiance II gives you Blindness on crit plus 4d6 light damage. You have to do the double supreme shard. It is expensive. But worth it.

Be careful though, you cannot upgrade to Radiance II one tier III effect one at a time, it has to be applied at the same time for the last tier, i.e. you have to imbue both shards of supreme power, and then imbue them together, then lastly apply it to the weapon.

[Draccus]

Be careful though, you cannot upgrade to Radiance II one tier III effect on at a time, it has to be applied at the same time for the last tier, i.e. you to imbue both shards of supreme power, and then imbue them together, then lastly apply them to the weapon.

That is probably the single most common mistake made when drafting a dual shard weapon. And it must be DEVASTATING after collecting all those ingredients.

The correct sequence for Tier III on a dual shard item is:

Make Shard 1
Make Shard 2
Combine Shards
Add final shard to weapon.

But what people often do is:

Make Shard 1
Add to weapon
Make Shard 2
Try to add to weapon...epic fail.

The only thing salvageable from that catastrophe is the second shard. So you're not out your greensteel, 12 smalls, 12 mediums, and 24 larges. Instead, you're only out your greensteel, 12 smalls, 12 mediums and 12 larges. Also, you're left with a junk weapon since a pos/fire/pos or pos/fire/fire doesn't even give you a Tier III bonus effect.

[cyzzie]

thanks for the answers to my post and this thread in general. good info.