Best Hooked Blade Upgrades

[samthedagger]

I am thinking of crafting a couple of enhanced hooked blades from the Attack on Stormreach pack and wanted to hear some opinions on which set would be best. Here are my options if I understand correctly:
-Infectious Hooked Blade (demon fever on critical hits)
-Bloody Hooked Blade (temp hp on critical hits)
-Destructive Hooked Blade (destruction property)
-Petrifying Hooked Blade (flesh to stone on vorpals)

The rogue I am planning to use them for is Str-based. I am mightily tempted by the prospect of two bloody blades and the aid it will give to squishy rogue HP, but the more practical part of me believes that the CC aspects of petrifying blades is the wiser route. The infectious blade just doesn't seem worth it with everything that is immune to stat damage. What are your thoughts?

[AndyD47]

My reasoning was while stone prison is good assassin 3 basically does the same thing.

I really like the extra H.P. for solo'ing (it procs all the time),and the particle effect looks real neat.

Just gotta find another mark for my second one and really looking forward to it.

Edit:If you have the bits for it,might be worth putting petrifiying on the staff just to have handy.

[sirdanile]

Bloody hooked blade because it looks freaking sick and procs a lot, realy cuts down on hp damage.

[Jaid314]

i'd go with bloody as well, personally.

[quitzquizar]

Well i personally made up 2 petrifying hook blades to test out.. thinking yep, going to get stoning!

Trouble is, you don't stone that much. That ability is for the harder foes you might encounter, because lesser foes (orcs, gnolls, etc) you are going to chop up pretty easy anyway probably long before you hit the natural 20 to stone them, and they fail their save. If i take them into higher level dungeons and epics, chances are i will have more of a chance to hit that 20 on the higher hp foes, but they will probably make their saves easier. I quickly discovered that my simply paralyzing weapons did better than my petrifying hook blades.

I also would suggest the bloody hooked blade for 2 reasons.. one, getting back some temp hps is always great in any situation. And more importantly, that feature is activated on a CRITICAL not on a natural 20. If you are a combat rogue or fighter type your going to have improved criticals, better chance for crits, etc. So you will benefit from that ability much more.

Thats not saying the petrifying hook blades aren't good, they are still nice and if you do get some 20 hits you are doing limb slicing, maiming, and chance to petrify.. not bad. But After dual welding a pair for a bit, they aren't really beneficial until maybe you encounter epic or high level foes with lots of hps that their effects have a chance to work. Against normal 15+ level quest foes, my paralyzing kopeshs worked 100% better. I did switch to my petrifying hook blades against tough foes like red named, frost giants, etc stuff with higher hps that i wouldn't kill in 5 seconds.

Go with the bloody hook blades first. At high levels you might make up a pair of petrifying ones to see how they work, but by then you might just have your greensteel stuff and not worry about it. I regretted making petrifying instead of bloody.

[samthedagger]

Well i personally made up 2 petrifying hook blades to test out.. thinking yep, going to get stoning!

Trouble is, you don't stone that much. That ability is for the harder foes you might encounter, because lesser foes (orcs, gnolls, etc) you are going to chop up pretty easy anyway probably long before you hit the natural 20 to stone them, and they fail their save. If i take them into higher level dungeons and epics, chances are i will have more of a chance to hit that 20 on the higher hp foes, but they will probably make their saves easier. I quickly discovered that my simply paralyzing weapons did better than my petrifying hook blades.

I also would suggest the bloody hooked blade for 2 reasons.. one, getting back some temp hps is always great in any situation. And more importantly, that feature is activated on a CRITICAL not on a natural 20. If you are a combat rogue or fighter type your going to have improved criticals, better chance for crits, etc. So you will benefit from that ability much more.

Thats not saying the petrifying hook blades aren't good, they are still nice and if you do get some 20 hits you are doing limb slicing, maiming, and chance to petrify.. not bad. But After dual welding a pair for a bit, they aren't really beneficial until maybe you encounter epic or high level foes with lots of hps that their effects have a chance to work. Against normal 15+ level quest foes, my paralyzing kopeshs worked 100% better. I did switch to my petrifying hook blades against tough foes like red named, frost giants, etc stuff with higher hps that i wouldn't kill in 5 seconds.

Go with the bloody hook blades first. At high levels you might make up a pair of petrifying ones to see how they work, but by then you might just have your greensteel stuff and not worry about it. I regretted making petrifying instead of bloody.

This is very helpful info.

+1 and thanks.

[Snormal]

One bloody, one destructive. Rogue attack bonus is lacking.

[Jaid314]

actually, now that i think about it, i could also see the benefit of having petrifying also. there are a decent number of enemies that are immune to other CC, but not flesh to stone. undead (yes, they can be petrified) and duergar for example. but they're more something you bring out for special occasions, not something you use all the time.

personally, i like petrifying on the staff of shadows, because there's some nice synergy there (and also, you can hit a held mob, neg level it down, proc a flesh to stone, and now it's much more reliably held since saving throws happen a lot less often)

[quitzquizar]

well like said petrifying are still nice blades, but I just made up a bloody hook blade today and tested it out instead of my petrifying, and i have to say i greatly enjoyed the hp bonus effect the bloody hook blade gave my combat rogue.

What it does? You hit something.. on your crit you get +15 hps temp. Like a spell. It is like a little +15 hp buffer.

Your in combat.. fighting.. many foes.. your doing damage.. often that +15 bonus comes up.. if something hits you, its like they are doing -15 less damage because you have a +15 hp buffer. Next time you crit something, another +15 (if you have lost the previous +15, it won't of course go over +15). So you'll have a +15 buffer for the next hit you take..

See the benefit? Every time you hit crit you have a chance to reduce the damage of the next attack by 15, ANY damaging attack.. spells, melee, etc. Your rogue or fighter is in melee combat with dual bloody hook blades.. constantly putting +15 hps as a buffer to damage. Its almost like having 15 DR, even vs magic attacks. Of course its not up all the time, but with a hasted dual kopesh warrior with improved crits and other weapon skills, it shows up actually pretty often.

And guess what, i was hitting crates in a quest.. and it gave me the +15 hp bonus hitting objects because you can crit on those objects also.. portals.. quest shipping crates.. other non-monster type objects that you can crit hit on.. crystals, etc. If you can crit something, it will give you the temp bonus hps.

Its just play style. I still love not being hit in combat at all by using dual paralysis weapons, but paralysis weapons are only +1 or +2 at lower level, while your hook blades are +5. Paralysis weapons don't have many extras on them, the hook blades do.

[Burtle]

I made the Infectious and Destructive blades... but since I finished my Min2 Khopesh I started using my Destructive in combo on my Kensai.....

But as I usually say... to each their own.

[theboatman]

Rocksplitter + Hooked Blade

Maiming Rocksplitter!!

Yes I realize this goes against the flavor of your question, but honestly this is the best use of the Hooked Blade with the Cauldron upgrading system.