Few questions on mechanic... mechanics

[inspiredunease]

I've come back again (as we all do :)), and rather than deal with the equipment tetris hell on my main, I'm starting a vanilla mechanic on another server entirely for the full flower-sniffin' experience. I don't really need help with the build (am going with a plain-jane 20 human GXB build that I think is pretty self-explanatory), but I could use clarification on a couple of mechanics (oh me so funny, hahaha).

How the hell does ranged sneak attack damage work?

I've tried reading the wiki page, but I'm pretty sure it's several years out of date, and doesn't really discuss sneak attack other than stating that it doesn't work outside of PB range. Is this still true? It seems to be anecdotally, but I felt sure I saw it last night at least a couple of times. Either way, should my first shot be proccing a sneak attack? It feels like it should as it passes the critera "The target is unaware of the character's presence." Does it matter if I'm in stealth or not (obviously this will matter if I need to be in PB range for it to work, as I doubt I can get into PB range without being in stealth to get the first hit without them noticing me). Finally, is the list of conditions on the wiki page still accurate, and on a vanilla character with no equipment or resources, what is my best bet for maximising sneak damage ASAP? I would basically like to play the character like a sniper, dealing maximum damage and preferably simply one-shotting the target, then ducking back into stealth. I've levelled the character up to 3 in Korthos (haven't done Misery's Peak yet) doing roughly this (with the addition of a fighter hireling for cannith crystal and a heal-bot passive cleric for most of the island quests).

Must haves

I'm not going to need to run everything on a first lifer in order to cap, so what are the must haves in terms of equipment for a rogue that don't require much/any grinding (I'm not intending on running quests/chain more than once, and probably no raids (Not against them, I'm just not in a guild and don't want to waste valuable play time on sitting around waiting for PUGs to form))? Please assume I know all the obvious stuff (stats, false life, VOM, etc), but what chains would you target on a "most bang for buck" basis (VIP account). I will almost certainly play the character to 28, so please bear this in mind. The basic idea is to play the character with equipment that I find as I go along, I am not meta-gaming to get the best equipment for multiple TRs or anything; that's how I ended up burning out last time.

Setting traps

How good are these now? I want to dabble in them a little, as this is a self-sufficient (possibly with little involvement in the auction house) run, and I will obviously be grabbing trap parts as I go anyway. Can I solo quests that would otherwise be a pain in the bum without them? Please note, I'm not referring to the traps gained from enhancements here, but the ones you can craft at the crafting station (by the way, where the hell is this now? It no longer seems to be in the harbor).

Finally

Any other advice on playstyle or any tips and tricks would be welcome. I've mostly played various melee characters zerg-style in DDO up until now, and really want to make this run something a bit different and special. As I said at the start, I think the build is reasonably easy to put together, but given that most of the guides I've read have been for multiple-completionists with oodles of gear, knowing the pitfalls for a 32 point no-tome character would be awesome.

[unbongwah]

How the hell does ranged sneak attack damage work?
Basically (A) you need to be within PBS range (15m to start, Mechanic enhs increase this) and (B) your target needs to be vulnerable to sneak atk based on the criteria listed on the Wiki page (http://ddowiki.com/page/Sneak_attack).

Does it matter if I'm in stealth or not
No.

Finally, is the list of conditions on the wiki page still accurate
AFAIK, yes.

what is my best bet for maximising sneak damage ASAP?
Equipping a Deception / Imp Deception item (http://ddowiki.com/page/Deception). As a gt xbow user, you'll definitely want Divine Artillery (http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Divine_Artillery), which also has deception. Leverage (http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Leverage) would be good too.

[inspiredunease]

Thanks Unbongwah. It's quiet in here.

[FuzzyDuck81]

Other gear to look out for - shimmering arrowhead from weapon shipment gives crippling on crits (50% movement slow), and once in epics if you can get a tendon slice version of the ring of dun robar, that'll help too, with a 10% chance on any hit to apply tendon slice, slowing enemies down too. The 2 effects stack, and they also stack with leg shot, so they can provide some very powerful crowd control options to keep things at a nice safe distance.

[Saekee]

Other gear to look out for - shimmering arrowhead from weapon shipment gives crippling on crits (50% movement slow), and once in epics if you can get a tendon slice version of the ring of dun robar, that'll help too, with a 10% chance on any hit to apply tendon slice, slowing enemies down too. The 2 effects stack, and they also stack with leg shot, so they can provide some very powerful crowd control options to keep things at a nice safe distance.

This is great advice and it is very fun in epics to also hit them with Pin while under the other three effects.

Just to add: try working Bluff onto your hotbar. On ranged attacks it is another useful active skill. You might need to add gear to increase it. A bluffed mob gets the yellow cardplayer symbol over their head, often turns them around, and makes them vulnerable to sneak attacks.

(A skilled assassin can use this with the right timing to assassinate a charging aggroed mob.)

[inspiredunease]

Other gear to look out for - shimmering arrowhead from weapon shipment gives crippling on crits (50% movement slow), and once in epics if you can get a tendon slice version of the ring of dun robar, that'll help too, with a 10% chance on any hit to apply tendon slice, slowing enemies down too. The 2 effects stack, and they also stack with leg shot, so they can provide some very powerful crowd control options to keep things at a nice safe distance.


This is great advice and it is very fun in epics to also hit them with Pin while under the other three effects.

Just to add: try working Bluff onto your hotbar. On ranged attacks it is another useful active skill. You might need to add gear to increase it. A bluffed mob gets the yellow cardplayer symbol over their head, often turns them around, and makes them vulnerable to sneak attacks.

(A skilled assassin can use this with the right timing to assassinate a charging aggroed mob.)

Thankyou both. Any ideas on anything to look for in the lower levels?

I am already using bluff, but hadn't thought of trying to stack extra skill for it. These (http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Gloves_of_Deceit) look nice. I'll have to hope to get lucky at the end of waterworks!

Still looking for any advice on using traps. Anyone had any experience with them? Or are they just ignored as useless? I thought they'd been revamped and were supposed to be at least (vaguely) useful now.

[Erofen]

Other gear to look out for - shimmering arrowhead from weapon shipment gives crippling on crits (50% movement slow)
;)

[FuzzyDuck81]

Thankyou both. Any ideas on anything to look for in the lower levels?

I am already using bluff, but hadn't thought of trying to stack extra skill for it. These (http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Gloves_of_Deceit) look nice. I'll have to hope to get lucky at the end of waterworks!

Still looking for any advice on using traps. Anyone had any experience with them? Or are they just ignored as useless? I thought they'd been revamped and were supposed to be at least (vaguely) useful now.

traps are great now - the damage ones are decent up to mid levels, and the spell traps rock hard all the way up to epic elite - go for persistant AoE ones, otherwise they might not work though.. so glitterdust (blind stuff & get sneak attacks on em), web (crowd control) & hypnotic pattern (another cc option) are your best bets. Hypno isn't quite as good since damage will break the CC on them, but i find the obvious visual effect can be handy in stuff like the eveningstar challenges to give you an easy way to tell where enemies have appeared from.

[Erofen]

Still looking for any advice on using traps. Anyone had any experience with them? Or are they just ignored as useless? I thought they'd been revamped and were supposed to be at least (vaguely) useful now.
Web traps are your friend. Other than that meh.

Edit: Ninja'd

[FestusHood]

Has anyone else noticed that the elemental traps consistently do about 30% or so less damage than the numbers on them imply? I've tried them up through level 19 versions, and the displayed damage numbers never even reach the expected average amount in any case.

They should probably remove the save from the bottled grenades. They don't do much damage anyway, so having it always be halved makes them tough to justify using.

[MysticRhythms]

Has anyone else noticed that the elemental traps consistently do about 30% or so less damage than the numbers on them imply? I've tried them up through level 19 versions, and the displayed damage numbers never even reach the expected average amount in any case.

They should probably remove the save from the bottled grenades. They don't do much damage anyway, so having it always be halved makes them tough to justify using.

1) Are you a pure Rogue? The DCs for the traps are tied to Rogue level in addition to Intelligence modifier.
2) Is your Intelligence maximized? See above.
3) Are you taking enhancements to improve the DCs?
4) Are you maximizing your Ranged Power stat? Many of the alchemicals scale damage with 200% Ranged Power. I think the ooze alchemical stacks with Melee Power according to the wiki.