34 point Past Life Cleric. Looking for 18Cleric/2Rogue input

[Arnez]

About to TR my Cleric. I mostly duo with my wife (who will also be TRing a monk).

Looked around the forums for an 18Cleric/2Rogue, but only posts I found were very old.
Also those builds sported a high INT (for skill points).

Is anyone currently running one? or can provide a build?

[TheDearLeader]

I've found from watching Cleric/Rogues in action that they either have high enough Int to get the traps, the Reflex saves to make it to boxes on the other side of traps, or neither.

It doesn't seem like a very complimentary combo, is what I'm saying.

May I ask what your goals are, in being Cleric/Rogue as opposed to pure Cleric?

[Arnez]

While I loooove my pure cleric- Our duo (Cleric & Light Monk) lacks sorely in the traps department. We've gone through a lot of the content together (on elite) and end up giving up on quests with traps.
We have a saying: "Elite Traps kill ALL"
If it weren't for the fact that an elite trap at level 7 can kill my level 16 Cleric, or the elite traps from Phiarlan Carnival can kill level 17 monks- then I wouldn't even be considering rogue as an option.
I was hoping some of the TRness (and 34 pt build) can make up for going non-pure.

[TheDearLeader]

Problem is, as I kind of hinted at before.. even with 2 Rogue, sometimes you have to go through the traps, or stand in them, to disarm them. You may have the trap skills, and the gear, but I doubt on Elite you'll have the Reflex to get any traps that have such requirements.

[Luckness]

I just got to wondering... why don't we see build threads requesting FvS/rogue so much? FvS get the best progression for reflex saves, which might just help this concept work. Perhaps because cleric is F2P...

Undying Court faith (+1 hit and scimitar proficiency)
Beloved of the Undying Court (+2 damage)
FvS Scimitar Specialization (+2 damage)
Valenar Elf melee damage (+2 damage)
Valenar Elf melee attack (+2 hit)
1d6 + 3 sneak attack
Haste Boost I
Divine Favor (+3 hit +3 damage)
Divine Power (Full BAB)

Not the most amazing set of buffs to melee DPS but certainly decent for a level 18 divine. A level 18 cleric gets 6 added reflex save, but a level 18 FvS gets 11 added reflex save (both get another 3 from rogue). With a proper build, gear, and buffs you should be able to get a save on many traps (but not all - monastery elite is a trial even for most rogues). You may even want to throw some AP at the problem ... you can get +2 saves against traps (from Rogue) and +2 saves action boost (from FvS) for 2 AP, not a bad deal.

[ShadowFlash]

I'm gonna have to agree with the non-synergy. Me and my wife always duo, and if we do raid or group, never without the other. It's very important to us to have the full toolbox between the 2 of us, as we only resort to cheesy hirelings when absolutely necessary. We're looking at a TR path right now also, and we both agree that locks/traps should be worked into her build, not the cleric. If it's only evasion and some needed feats, the 17/2/1 cleric/monk/fighter is always my first choice, although we're probably gonna get crazy with our next lives . I do understand your problem though, as monk doesn't synergize with a rogue splash real well either. Perhaps the FvS option is worth investigating.

Currently, my wife's AA build has high reflex and only 1 lvl of rogue (evasion from ranger). She can disarm almost all elites just fine, BUT it requires a lot of item swapping and an action boost to do so. I can't stress enough how important it is to have a dedicated quickbar to just "rogue" skills for the gear swapping and boosts needed in handling difficult locks/traps. We were also very disappointed in her splash until we geared for it...now it's great.

[Maxallu]

Go wizzy 18/rogue2 wf and have her roll a WF monk, duo away.

[Arnez]

I'm thinking about going the distance and unlocking FvS for the 18FvS/2Rogue possibility. I like having the extra spells though and Positive Energy Aura is our bread and butter. Between that and her Vampiric Stonedust Handwraps (on a light monk)- she can pretty much act as our tank while I buff and BB/Implosion.

We may have an out though- her brother just TR'd into a Rogue (he's looking at a 17Rogue/3monk)

Edit- I thought of the WF route, but we're going Premium soon and want to use our collected TP's for all the packs we want to keep.