Another proposed Ninja Spy / Tempest Build

[Eurytos]

I've been playing DDO since 2006 and I've never leveled a rogue past 6. I've always wanted to, just never got around to it. This isn't much of a rogue (2 splash), but it has rogue skills. This build will primarily use a shortsword in wind stance for attack speed using ki strikes. On enemies like undead, constructs and elementals, this build has the option of handwraps (2d6 base damage) and touch of death.

Race: Drow
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Path: Inevitable Dominion (Dark)
Drow provides shortsword attack and damage enhancements for use with Ninja spy. Lawful Neutral to allow use of litany of the dead in the future and handwraps do not require a UMD20 check for pure good. Greensteel shortswords do not have a UMD requirement. Drow also provides the possibility of incorporating the Drow Scorpion Wraith PrE to this build.

Level Split: Monk12/Ranger6/Rogue2
Monk 12 for teir 3 stances, abundant step, ninja spy II, etc. Ranger for Tempest, which stacks with the 7.5% insight from wind stance3. Ranger also provides Improved Two Weapon Fighting for free. Rogue 2 for rogue skills, haste boost, sneak attack.

Starting Stats 32 Point:
STR: 16
DEX: 15
CON: 14
INT: 13
WIS: 8
CHA: 10

Strength based for damage, DEX at minimum required with +2 tome for greater twf. Use a +2 dex tome for GTWF and a +1 INT tome at level 3 for much needed skill points.

Average Gear Unbuffed Stats:
STR: 30 (16 + 5 levels + 2 tome + 6 item + 1 exceptional)
DEX: 26 (15 + 6 item + 2 tome + 3 Wind Stance)
CON: 20 (14 + 6 item + 2 tome - 2 Wind Stance)

Planned Level 20 Combat Strength
STR: 38 (16 + 5 levels + 2 tome + 6 item + 1 exceptional + 2 exceptional + 2 madstone + 2 rage + 2 yugo)

Level Progression
1. [ROGUE] Dodge
2. [RANGER] Favored Enemy: Your Choice
3. [RANGER] Quickdraw
4. [MONK] Power Attack
5. [MONK] Mobility
6. [RANGER] Spring Attack
7. [RANGER]
8. [RANGER] Favored Enemy: Your Choice
9. [RANGER] Toughness
10. [ROGUE]
11. [MONK] Path of Inevitable Dominion: Fists of Darkness
12. [MONK] Improved Critical: Piercing
13. [MONK]
14. [MONK] Toughness
15. [MONK] Greater Two Weapon Fighting
16. [MONK]
17. [MONK]
18. [MONK] Skill Focus: UMD
19. [MONK]
20. [MONK]

Skills
Max Concentration
Max Search
Max Disable Device
Close to Max Use Magic Device
Open Locks, Spot only on Rogue levels with excess points

Enhancements
With Ninja Spy II not yet released, it's hard to plan the full enhancement setup, but at a minimum, one should look to have:
Master Wind Stance
Master Earth Stance
Master Fire Stance
Drow Melee Damage II
Drow Melee Attack II
Rogue Haste Boost I
Ranger Tempest I
Racial Toughness II
Touch of Death
All-Consuming Flame
Winter's Touch
Static Charge
Porous Soul
Way of the Elegant Crane II or III
etc.

Ideal Equipment (Shortsword/Kama):
Ravager ToD Set: +7 STR Ring, +2 exceptional STR added
This set bonus adds 1d12+1 damage to every swing with a weapon. It does not work with handwraps, so use this only with shortswords.

Shintao Monk ToD Set: +6WIS/+1STR Ring, +2 exceptional CON added
This set bonus provides +2 attack and +2 damage to all hits and gives you +15 concentration from the necklace.

Weapons:
Mineral II Shortswords, Lightning Strike II Shortswords, Vorpal Kamas, hell, maybe Epic Sting? haha

Ideal Equipment (Handwraps):
Frenzied Berserker ToD Set: +7 STR Ring, Holy Burst added
Use this instead of the Ravager set when using Handwraps. Provides the same amount of strength and provides +2 damage per punch from set bonus.

Henshin Mystic ToD Set: +6WIS/+1CON Ring, Burst effect of choice added
This necklace will give you enhance ki generation for touch of death, especially when fighting things that cannot be crit. 1d4 Fire damage added on every punch.

Weapons:
Greater Undead Bane, Greater Elemental Bane, Greater Construct Bane

[grodon9999]

Do those abilities work for Drow? Character planner won't let me dump CHR.

[Angelus_dead]

This build will primarily use a shortsword in wind stance for attack speed using ki strikes. On enemies like undead, constructs and elementals, this build has the option of handwraps (2d6 base damage) and touch of death.

It'll be hard to play a character that has Touch of Death and yet decides to mostly not use it.

3. [RANGER] Quickdraw

Apparently you'll use Quickdraw to change to handwraps for TOD?

[Eurytos]

Do those abilities work for Drow? Character planner won't let me dump CHR.

Oops, yes they work, but CHA should be 10.

[Eurytos]

It'll be hard to play a character that has Touch of Death and yet decides to mostly not use it.


Apparently you'll use Quickdraw to change to handwraps for TOD?

Not necessarily. Touch of Death is roughly ~33 dps (500/15). When fighting normal targets, that's fairly insignificant and the melee speed + double lightning strike weapons should easily make up for it.

Also, if you figure 4 swings per second, with 1d12+1 (6.5+1 or 7.5 average) from ravager set per swing = 30 DPS from ravager alone.

Quickdraw is there for haste boost and when you do swap weapons. For example, swap to kama for vorpals, swap to handwraps for undead/elemental/construct/etc.

I haven't run the numbers yet but I'm hoping shortsword pulls ahead in overall damage on targets that can be crit. After all, 17-20 crit range with the attack speed of 20% madstone + 10% tempest + 7.5% wind stance and the occassional 15% haste boost should be pretty good.

[grodon9999]

This split could be the next Exploiter, I see servers full of drow ninjas all over the place.

I'm thinking halfling for mine, it's just too much fun watching your toon repeatedly punch a monster in the balls.

[xEthreal]

Im just wondering...

Why tempest over kensai?

[Eurytos]

10% Speed > ~+2-3 damage. Also, Ranger provides more skill points than Fighter. Skill points needed for rogue skills. On Favored enemies, ranger will do equal or better damage as well.

[TreknaQudane]

I'm not sure how worth it that Drow enhancements would be for this kind of character.

I'd honestly do this as a Human, you end up with an extra build point to assign (14 Int instead of 13? And end up with about 42 more skill points to distribute over the life of the character due to the Human bonus skill points and get the extra feat.

Of course if they ever do that Scorpion Wraith thingy, Drow is definitely the better choice.

[Eurytos]

Yup, that's my reasoning for drow. Hoping Scorpion PrE adds more flavor to this. Personally, I hate drow, they're ugly, scrawny, and purple

[zealous]

Not necessarily. Touch of Death is roughly ~33 dps (500/15). When fighting normal targets, that's fairly insignificant and the melee speed + double lightning strike weapons should easily make up for it.

Also, if you figure 4 swings per second, with 1d12+1 (6.5+1 or 7.5 average) from ravager set per swing = 30 DPS from ravager alone.

Quickdraw is there for haste boost and when you do swap weapons. For example, swap to kama for vorpals, swap to handwraps for undead/elemental/construct/etc.

I haven't run the numbers yet but I'm hoping shortsword pulls ahead in overall damage on targets that can be crit. After all, 17-20 crit range with the attack speed of 20% madstone + 10% tempest + 7.5% wind stance and the occassional 15% haste boost should be pretty good.

SS:7 holy + 3.5 lightning + 10-15 lightning strike + 1.1 lightning burst + 0.7 lightning blast + 7.5 ravager + 12 crits~42-47
Unarmed:7 alignment + 10.5 greater bane + 7 holy + 3.5 lightning + 1.25 bursts + 2 ring + 6 crits + 3.5 full off hand str +~4 due to higher attack speed +2.5 base damage=47.25

Additionally unarmed can potentially add:
4 icyburst
~8 Touch of death
4 higher enhancement bonus

Unarmed is some 4% faster, roughly equivalent to some 4ish damage/swing.

				Unarmed		SS		Relative APS
Duration			0,62		0,674	
Offset				0,08		0,125	
Offset/Duration			0,129		0,185	
Duration mod unboosted		0,703		0,633	
Duration mod boosted		0,598		0,538	
Unboosted rate increase		1,349		1,427	
boosted rate increase		1,540		1,604	
avg incr, no qd			1,415		1,481	
avg incr, qd			1,445		1,5128	
APS, no qd			2,281		2,196		1,039
APS, qd				2,331		2,244		1,039

[Symar-FangofLloth]

It'll be hard to play a character that has Touch of Death and yet decides to mostly not use it.

I'm hoping they'll allow ToD with weapons :/

[Jakarr]

Wind stance with short swords? Did I miss something

[xEthreal]

If they allow ToD rings and Touch of death to work with shortswords i will make this build immeadiately.

This seems fun though nonetheless.

[Eurytos]

Wind stance with short swords? Did I miss something

You did, Ninja Spy PrE was just announced yesterday and it includes Shortswords as Ki weapons.

[SolarDawning]

So basically, the build I'm planning also, except you're going drow for shortsword enhancements, while I'm going halfling for more sneak attack synergy.

Great minds think alike, Eurytos. They'll both probably be fun to play.

At this point, I'm happy with the PrE due to the Shadow Fade ability. Whatever tier 2 turns out to be will just be a bonus on top of what we know already.

[Eurytos]

So basically, the build I'm planning also, except you're going drow for shortsword enhancements, while I'm going halfling for more sneak attack synergy.

I thought about halfling too, but since I don't plan to roll a new character soon (currently doing 2 TRs to my monk back to back right now) I was hoping for news about the Scorpion Wraith PrE.

And I agree about Shadow Fade. At first I was disappointed thinking it was just a lower level shadow walk, but the fact that the 25% blur stays on is a welcome addition. Not to mention, ki regen. Ki Regen + Capstone regen will be very nice on a monk. I could only imagine what the ki situation would be like if teir 2 added another +1 ki regen. Toss the Oremi's necklace once and for all? Doubtful.

[Timjc86]

I always wanted a way to get Abundant Step on my rogue.... This looks like the closest I'll be able to get for a while. This is definitely something I will be contemplating.

[Aspenor]

hmmmm...i like it...i like it a lot. thanks eury.

[Valiance]

I already have a character at level 7 that will have the planned level split of 12monk/6ranger/2monk. However it is a derivative of the special forces build and will be Elf with full arcane archer abilities.

That way you stick with handwraps which I think are slightly more dps, get the nice concelament and sneak attack bonuses and yet can switch out to the nice manyshot ability when needed.

V