The Gear-less Rogue

[Draccus]

After a Shroud run, one of my guildmates announced a spontaneous contest/fun event. The event was a naked Tempest Spine elite run, with only Masterwork weapons, level 1 spells, and any items you find in the chests. When he said naked, he meant zero gear. No armor, accessories, clothing, trinkets, clickies, etc. Potions were allowed. A large stone was offered to anyone who pulled a ghost touch and a large scale offered to the first person who pulled a bloodstone (the gem, not the trinket).

So I headed off to the harbor to find some Masterwork rapiers. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any and didn’t feel like looking around so I bought a set of regular rapiers and headed off to Tempest Spine. I disarmed my dual Radiance Rapiers and hotkeyed my dual junk rapiers. I took off my beloved Smoke II cloak, my cherished Bloodstone, my Dragontouched armor, my Tharne’s set, my Striders, and everything else I was wearing. I dropped from 321 hp to 180 hp. My max AC went from low 60s to low 20s. My standing AB went from 40s to teens. OUCH. This was only my second time in the raid (don’t ask) so I wasn’t feeling very confident. Off we went.

We actually did far better than I expected. We finished the raid in 91 minutes (lol) and had a great time. I don’t think I’ve heard that many people laughing over voicechat in my 18 months of DDO. Some observations as well as some rogue-specific thoughts:

Zerging? Ha! Not when you’re naked. People stayed together, waited for each other, and gathered at every portal before proceeding. We discussed strategies before big fights and did crazy things like protecting spellcasters and clerics.

We acted like a bunch of kids on Christmas morning when we got to the first chest. You should have heard people getting giddy over a +4 chain shirt or an uber +1 Heavy Steel Shield of Devotion. We probably spent 15 minutes total raid time just distributing loot from the chests. The conversations were hysterical.

“Cool! Improved potency scepter. Anyone want it?”
“me”
“Oooh! Me!!!”
“Gimme!”
“Ok, roll on it.”

The arguments over who was going to get a Deathblock robe should have been recorded.

It was great to see chests completely emptied. Every potion, every arrow, every stack of 20 throwing hammers was looted and used. If someone left an item in a chest, someone else would say “Hey, get back here and pass me that Owl’s Wisdom pot!!”

I had to learn how to shed aggro again. Without my RadII’s and Tharne’s set, I was pulling aggro at the start of most fights and lost my SA’s because I wasn’t blinding anything. Where did I put my diplomacy key again?? I had forgotten how much my play style has changed as Dresek got more powerful and obtained better gear. No more charging in like a barbarian and destroying everything in sight while relying on a UMD’d heal scroll, haste, displacement clickies, a pile of Shroud items to bale me out if I get in trouble. It was back to hanging in the back, moving into position, picking mobs that already had some damage, and spamming Diplomacy like a lunatic. You know, kinda like you’re supposed to play!

Assassination was very useful. With no one zerging ahead and monsters dying FAR slower than they normally do, there was plenty of time to set up perfect dual assassinations on some of the tougher mobs.

I was highly disappointed that I couldn’t find a single trap in there even with max trap skills. I don’t have any enhancements or boost so maybe a Mechanic could have found them. Thank God for evasion because we had a lot of people die in the fire traps that I couldn’t find. In the completion screenshot, it shows two rogues in the party and 0 traps disabled. The shame! I did pull Goggles of Perception near the end of the raid. They probably would have helped a lot at the BEGINNING of the raid!

It is amazing how gear dependent we DDO players are. The gear makes the game. We crawled to the first chest. We had multiple deaths and actually doubted we’d be able to complete the raid. But once we got that first chest, things changed. Our power increased noticeably even with just a few items. Some of those high level drow in full plate that were kicking our butts at the start of the raid were dropping like flies at the end of the raid.

It was amusing to see people wearing gear you rarely see. When's the last time you saw a level 16 paladin in brigadine armor using a falchion?

I encourage everyone to try something like this. I think everyone had a great time and those who didn’t join us were very jealous as they monitored guild chat. You may never *need* to play your rogue conservatively again but it sure was fun to be reminded about what that was like.

[Devastation]

Sounds like a fun time.... just one question what are dual Radiance Rapiers?

(Yea some day I may craft a GS item for my rogue.....)

[Lorien_the_First_One]

No doubt about it, naked TS runs are always fun.

[Draccus]

Sounds like a fun time.... just one question what are dual Radiance Rapiers?

(Yea some day I may craft a GS item for my rogue.....)

A Radiance II weapon (can be any weapon) is a weapon crafted in the Shroud which is pretty deadly in the hands of a rogue. It's a DPS weapon that can have a variety of Fire and Good damage effects, depending on what the crafter wants to put on it. A common one would be Holy Flaming Burst. So it's it's doing Holy damage and Fire Damage and Fire Burst damage on a crit. You could also add some fire damage that goes off on a 20 (Flame Blast).

But that's just the tip of the iceburg. A Radiance II's weapons main attraction for a rogue is that on a crit, it blinds the target. Any subsequent attack on a blind target counts as a sneak attack.

If you've played a rogue for more than a few levels, I don't have to tell you how powerful that is. It's especially powerful on a rapier or scimitar because the crit range is so high. It's even more powerful when the wielder has Improved Crit. It's devastating when the rogue has two of 'em. Hence the dual Radiance II rapiers.

Oh, yeah, on a crit it also does 4d6 of light damage. Hehe...nasty things, those. Here's one of mine:

+5 Greensteel Rapier (1d8, 18-20/x2) With Holy, +2d6 vs. Evil, Flaming Burst, +1d6 fire, +1d10/2d10/3d10 on crit - Sunburst (2/day), +2 Dexterity (Exceptional) - Radiance (+4d6 light damage + blindness on crit)