Advice on End Gear

[Qezuzu]

Any advice on my end gear? This is what I have so far. Please note I'm looking for a reasonable balance between effort and output. (No long grinds. I think 99% is fine).

Redundancies are omitted.

Helm: Minos Legens (+20 HP, Heavy Fort)

Necklace: Epic Necklace of Venom (+40 HP, Poison Immunity, +5 AC)

Ring1: Epic Ring of Venom (+6 DEX, -20% Threat and massive CON damage on 20's)

Ring2: Ring of the Ravager (+6 STR, +1 EXC STR, +2 EXC STR)

Belt: Colethenis's Belt (+6 CON, chance of 2d6 damage and four rounds of additional damage)

Goggles: Tharne's Goggles (+5 SA Bonus, True Seeing, +15 Spot/Search)

Main Hand: Radiance Rapier (+6 Dex (should've been Flaming I know), Good Burst, Fire Blast, Radiance), Vacuum Rapier as well (Shock, Evil Burst, Shocking Blast, Trap the Soul)

Off Hand: Lightning Shortsword (Shock, Good Burst, Shocking Blast, Lightning Strike)

Armor: Epic Vulkoorim Fighting Leathers (+4 Attack, Greater Fire Resistance, +15 Hide, augmented with +2 Good Luck, +6 INT)

Gloves:

Bracers: Tharnes (-20% Threat)

Boots: +30% Striding Boots with some balance

Cloak: Greensteel (+45 HP, +6 Dex Skills, Smoke Concealment)

Trinket: Shimmering Arrowhead (+4 seeker. I pulled one on my first Shipment run, go figure)

I don't want too many more epic items, because they *are* a grind. I'm only the shard away from the Leathers, and the Venom set is so good that I'll practically need to start getting it. SFL is rare and I need all the threat reduction I can get.

For bracers I was thinking Tharne's for the set bonus, since compared to the buddies I run Epics with my damage output is abusrd (TRed Pure Halfling Assassin (STR based)).

Bloodstone is an obvious choice for my trinket. It's cost is huge though, so I'll stick with Shimmering arrowhead, which gives +4 seeker.

I'm going to make a VacII Rapier because then I'd have an Air+Positive and an Air+Negative. Plus they're both good weapons. I'll pull out my RadII only when I have aggro from my target, since the blindness movement AI does annoy some people.

[Draccus]

That's a good setup with all the bases covered. Some things to think about:

I don't see any UMD or Charisma items. That means your standing UMD is going to be somewhere around 30 (give or take, depending on feats). That's too low to rely on a Heal scroll when you need it and you're going to have to do some item swapping to get higher. Consider replacing your gloves with Seven Finger Gloves (which are a nasty grind, I admit) and using your cloak slot for your HP item. Everyone plays their rogue different but one of the most important abilities Dresek has is being able to 100% UMD a heal scroll without swapping any gear.

Have you made the LitII shortsword? If not, consider a rapier. The huge crit range makes it dramatically superior to a shortsword for only -2 AB. With all that Strength, and the Vulkoorim Leathers, your AB will be fine.

Also, take a loot at the Gloves/Bracers of the Claw set. They are as tough a grind as the venom set but +4 damage is huge. I'm still not sold on them due to the increased threat but it's tough to pass up on +4 damage.

[Qezuzu]

Note that I have the Sneak of Shadows PL feat, which gives me +10 to damage +5 to attack for 3mins per rest. 20% extra threat for +4 to damage is counter intuitive.

Yes the LitII is at Tier2... I really wish we could "deconstruct" our GS items for at least a portion of our ingridients back (like I have a double negative HP GS gloves that I'm going to trash...) I wasn't aware that the oversized penalty was only -2.

I have Titan's Grip gloves as well, so I've switched the GS item to the cloak anyway. The EXC INT on the ring has been replaced with STR. Now, I need a gloves item. I do weekly Titan runs so I'll hopefully get a 7-Fingered someday.

I have 34 standing UMD with no items switched (23 Base, +1 mastery, +1 PL feat, +4 GH, +3 Skill Focus*, +2 Luck). That's no failing a heal scroll by switching two items. When I make a +6 GS item, that will be one item. I'll certainly be recrafting my LitII into a Rapier, my RadII without the DEX, and a +6 CHR and maybe +6 INT items once I have multiple toons running shroud (I have one. Everyone else is at lvl4 :P) My EXC Skill GS's will go in the bracers spot.

*That may be replaced with PA if I get the 7-Fingered Gloves, or when I finish the GS.

[CrushingInklings]

Boots: +30% Striding Boots with some balance

Madstone boots?

[Draccus]

Madstone boots?

Situational, at best.

Being madstoned when you need to UMD a heal scroll is not worth being madstoned, for me, most of the time. I'll put them on in no-brainer raids or quests, like Shroud or VoD but if it's anything where there's even a slim possibility that I'll need to be self sufficient, I won't wear them.

That being said, isn't there something that dumps madstone rage?

[CrushingInklings]

Situational, at best.

Being madstoned when you need to UMD a heal scroll is not worth being madstoned, for me, most of the time. I'll put them on in no-brainer raids or quests, like Shroud or VoD but if it's anything where there's even a slim possibility that I'll need to be self sufficient, I won't wear them.

That being said, isn't there something that dumps madstone rage?

yes defensive stance.

and guild healing pots IMO are much better then scrolls cause you can chug them while madstoned. Does get expensive though.

[khaldan]

yes defensive stance.

and guild healing pots IMO are much better then scrolls cause you can chug them while madstoned. Does get expensive though.

110(or 132 with a healing amp ToD ring) is far, far better than a 20-30 pot. Scrolls allow me to jump out of combat for a sec, scroll, then go back in. I can't do that with a potion.

[Ayseifn]

1) If you slot your armour with +6 cha instead of int and pick up a bunny hat from the DDO store, then with just GH you'll have no fail heal scrolls in full combat duds.

2) I really like the Shintao set for rogues, the +15 concentration is great for a melee class that has no fail heal scrolls in their DPS gear. To make it work with your gear layout though you'll probably have to go for something like the epic dustless boots(use the yellow slot for GFL).

3) Healing amp is nice, you might want to shroud craft a healing amp stick(10/20/30 healing amp) to off hand when scrolling yourself. I'd suggest a monk one hander to future proof yourself in case you ever TR with monk levels, as the Jidz-Tet'ka can get you another 25% amp.

[Rusty_Can]

At first glance, you have a lot of gear which provides similar stuff: e.g.
- +6 DEX: Tharne's Bracers, Epic Ring of Venom, your Radiance II rapier;
- seeker: Shimmering Arrowhead (+4) and Colethenis's belt (+2);
- Threat Reduction: Tharne's Wraths and Greater Vulkoor's Cunning; I reckon they might stack in some weird way, but someone should run the math to see if it's actually worth having both;
- Sneak Attack: Tharne's Googles (+5), Epic Ring of Venom (+4), Epic Vulkoorim Fighting Leathers (+3).

Some stuff isn't probably providing useful effects to your character:
- Tharne's Bracers are giving you +6 armor bonus to AC, which doesn't stack with your armor;
- at high level, Venom's gear won't be providing that "massive" damage to Constitution, since its DC is not that hard to overcome (30ish?); on epic difficulty, it will prolly just be negated by epic ward;
- the Epic Necklace of Venom is providing +5 Protection bonus to AC, but is your AC decent?

You might consider:
- replacing your Ravager's set with Frenzied Berserker's (+6 Con and GFL on belt; set provides +2 to damage);
- dropping the Venom's stuff, freeing some spots.

[Qezuzu]

I am *not* TRing again.

I've been grinding epic Fens with a static group. We are pro. Did you know that if you complete the four optionals, the Hezrou fight has no Fire Demons?

I have Epic Necklace of Venom.

I am a scroll away from the Ring.

I am going for the claw set, for different purposes than the +4 to damage (I can't afford the +20% threat). The Bracers have Heavy Fort and +2 EXC CON. The Gloves have +30% Healing Amp. That's 33 more HP when self-scrolling.

With heavy Fort on the bracers I can afford to finish the epic Envenomed Cloak (scroll and Base away) and not have to change my HP GS into a MinII helm, and just a normal single shard.

I don't have any piece of the Ravager set. Right now I'm wearing a +6 CHR ring, switching to +6 INT for traps and Greater Ele resists when needed.

I didn't know Bunny hat gave +3 UMD. I'll look into this.

[CrushingInklings]

110(or 132 with a healing amp ToD ring) is far, far better than a 20-30 pot. Scrolls allow me to jump out of combat for a sec, scroll, then go back in. I can't do that with a potion.

Situational. More then not a pot does the job and doesn't require you to leave combat at all. It all depends on what you are doing.

[Draccus]

Situational. More then not a pot does the job and doesn't require you to leave combat at all. It all depends on what you are doing.

I agree it's situational but 90% of the time, that situation calls for a scroll over a potion

In my opinion, being able to no-fail a Heal scroll is the second biggest step change in a rogue's power in the game. The first is getting a RadII weapon but no-failing a heal scroll isn't too far behind.

I think that if you're pushing the limits of your rogue's capabilities, you can't deny that being able to heal 110-120 hp of damage in 2 seconds is not just convenient, it's mandatory.

Now, I'll agree that if you're spending most of your time running 40 minute shrouds with two dedicated healers or running 2-hour Epic Wiz kings with an FvS and a bard, you won't be using as many Heal scrolls. But if you're running Elite Towers with no clerics/FvSs, Epic OOB with no healers, soloing Epic Claw, and duo'ing Epic Partychrashers, you're going to want --no, NEED -- a no-fail Heal.

[Qezuzu]

I've opted to get the full Claw set. With -30% SB, Epic Venom, and Epic Claw, I still have about 33% threat reduction, BUT gain the +2 CON and +30% healing amp from the set, not to the mention the +4 damage. (and the Heavy Fort so if I ever get an epic item with a Blue augment slot I can free up my Minos).

I've augmented my epic Leather with the good luck now. I'll augment it with +6 CHR instead of INT, since INT only serves two purposes: Assassination and Traps. The less items I need to switch for UMD the better. And the +2 UMD from luck helps.

If I do get the scroll and base for the Envenomed Cloak, I'll augment that with Toughness and if I have my Bracers of the Claw I'll switch my GS HP to my helmet.

I am not sure what ToD set I want, so I'm not planning that out. I'll do this systematically, starting with those Fens sets.

[Qezuzu]

Alright, this is my final gear. Redundancies and frivolities omitted:

*HELM: Greensteel, +25 HP, +3 CHR/DEX Skills, Air Guard

*My UMD is (23rank +1SneakPL +1SM +1CHRMod +2Luck +3CHRItem +4GH) 35. I need to fit 4 more ranks into my gear for no fail Heal Scrolls with no gear switching. This sacrifices 20 HP, less than 5% of total HP, for a 95% chance to use a Heal Scroll. The other 5% will come from me switching out Crippling Strike for another Skill Mastery. This will also allow me to drop my current Skill Focus: UMD feat for Power Attack. Luckily I've saved my free feat swap, but I'll have to start collecting goddamn Siberys shards. Also, don't mention the bunny hat. I don't want to spend the TP and I don't want that ridiculous thing on my head. 20 less HP is fine.

ARMOR: Epic Vulkoorim Fighting Leathers, +4 Attack, Greater Fire resistance, +2 Good Luck, +6 CHR

NECKLACE: Epic Necklace of Venom, +40 HP, Poison Immunity

RING1: Epic Ring of Venom, +6 DEX, -20% threat and massive CON damage on Vorpal hits

BRACERS: Epic Bracers of the Claw, Heavy Fortification, +2 EXC CON

GLOVES: Epic Gloves of the Claw, +6 STR, +30% Healing AMP, +20% Threat and +4 damage

CLOAK: Epic Envenomed Cloak, +5 Resistance, Poison Guard, +7 CON, +20 HP (toughness)

BOOTS: For now, Striding Boots of Balance

GOGGLES: Tharne's, +5 Backstabbing, +15 Spot, +15 Search, True Seeing

TRINKET: Shimmering Arrowhead, +4 Seeker

RING2: Ring of the Ravager, +1 EXC STR, +2 EXC STR

BELT: Colethenis's Belt, Chance to inflict Damage over Time

WEAPONS: VacII, RadII, and LitII Rapier

Which means:

3 Scrolls from Fens
2 Seals from Fens
1 Shard from Into the Deep

1 Scroll from Chronoscope
1 Envenomed Cloak from Chronoscope

1 Tharne's Wrath from Vision of Destruction

1 Ring of the Ravager from Tower of Despair
1 Colethenis's Belt from Tower of Despair

Too much from Vale
Too much from Shroud

47 Epic Dungeon Tokens

[Xanshae]

I am just getting my lvl 20 halfling assassin rogue geared and this WILL be my setup atleast with present items available:

Helm: Helm of frost grt cold res, +7 cha, Abishai set (+3 profane str, +3 profane AC)
Neck: Necklace of Venom, +5 prot, +40 false life, poison immunity
Cloak: Envenomed cloak, +5 res, poison guard, +7 con, AUG +20 toughness, (abishai set)
Belt: Assasin belt, mostly for lvl drain possibility as a set
Boots: Striding thingies/madstones/FF when needed
Bracers: GS bracers, +45 hp, Earthgrab guard, +6 con skills (yeh i know, wont need +6 to con skills)
Ring1: Oremi´s ring, +6 wis, +1 exec con, +2 exc str
Ring2: Assassin ring, +6 dex, +1 excec int, +2 exc con
Armor: Epic vulkoorim leathers, +4 to hit, grt fire res, +15 hide, +3 sneak attack, AUG heavy fort, (colorless undecided yet)
Trinket: Epic gem of many facets (for venom set and yellow slot)
Gloves: Charged gauntlets, +6 str, grt lightning res, 10-20d6 lightning dmg on 20
Goggles:epic Time-sensing goggles, +2 exc wis, +20 to spot and search, 3x1,5min haste, yellow slot

Weaponry, Radiance II rapier, Vac II rapier, Lit II rapier (i use dual rapiers so normally radiance+lit, radiance+vac in epics)

[Ullysses]

I know it's a massive grind, but Epic lion headed belt buckle is one I'd concider.
+6 str & +6 con, plus 2 crystals, so add +6 int and +6 chr, all the stats a rogue needs on one item. Other than +6 dex, which is on tharnes bracers.

That is, assuming the wiki is correct and you can add 2 colorless to it, one in colorless slot, one in yellow slot. Don't have enough tokens yet to find out for sure.

[Draccus]

can add 2 colorless to it, one in colorless slot, one in yellow slot. Don't have enough tokens yet to find out for sure.

That's correct. You can add colorless crystals to any colored slot. The reverse isn't true though -- you can't add colored crystals to colorless lots.

Just make sure you buy the catalyst for the slot you're putting it in, and NOT the colorless catalyst. Grrr....

[Hokonoso]

my rogue uses venom set. the 20% threat does not stack with tharnes so i scrapped it and use both goggles AND bracers for greensteel items. i use the assy 3 set because it makes your SA do a substantial amount more damage (even tho it does nothing else as a set). yes this forces me to make str slot go to gloves but im working on the epic charged gauntlets so that shouldnt be a problem. for armor i have 3 different DTs i use, guards are full win and i have a 10/20% heal amp disint guard set, that is one spot where i dont see a need for epics

also im perma madstoned, that is 5 for BAB + 2 str + 4 con = 6 more attack 40 more hp, i dont umd ever until it fades then i throw on my cha tod ring for an extra 4 umd and that is generally enough to no fail heal scrolls, but very situational and generally only while soloing and after i wait out madstone fading. generally i only use umd for out of combat stuff like raise dead and teleport/greater teleport.

what i lose by not using tharnes, 1 SA (venom set has +4 SA and they dont stack so i lose 1 SA). i wear epic cloak of night so i do not lose blur or ghostly attacks, got 6 dex on both rings so no loss there, i can umd TS scrolls during the buff session so i dont lose that either. what i gain, 2 GS items, i have 45hp radiance guard goggles and blindness/disease conc opp 5cha skills bracers (really helps hit the no fail mark for a toon that dumped cha)

also i recently Tr'd to horc so will be awhile before im 20 again but before i TR'd i was flat out destroying stuff so i know it will be even more insane with 10 action boosts from horc

need to get, epic charged gaunlets and/or gloves of the claw (str slot), and i use bloodstone cause it's tried and true!

things i could do, get the full claw set epic, switch gs bracers to helm (my goggles are cleansed so no biggy) and lose the 20hp from toughness, could also get an epic armor and gain the 20hp back but highly doubt that as nothing beats DT for a rogue...

edit: p.s. tho the gem of many faces could fix me real guud, there is no way im grinding that, if i get lucky... maybe, but i highly doubt it!!!

[Qezuzu]

I don't need the Lion Belt
+6 CHR is covered by Epic Leathers
+6 STR is covered by Epic Gloves of the Claw
+6 DEX is covered by Epic Ring of Venom
+7 CON is covered by Epic Envenomed Cloak
+6 INT is for traps and Assassinations only and will go in a ring slot when neccesary.

I'm pretty sure all sources of Threat Reduction stack, but they stack multiplicitavely. Turbine should but Threat percentage and Healing Amp in the character sheet, like how AC and Saves are.

I don't want to grind for Madstone boots. I'm not even flagged for Reaver's. And I would like to use UMD a lot. 30% striders are fine for now.

With this Set-up, I can no-fail heal scrolls with GH and no switching. This doesn't count SF: UMD so I can get power attack. I'll have to switch crippling strike out for another Skill Mastery.

Epic Fighting leathers are great for a rogue. Two augment slots, +4 attack, +15 hide, and Greater Fire resistance (the most common elemental attack it seems). +2 GL and +6 CHR and it's a great boost to all skills and UMD, the most powerful skill.

I'm getting Tharne's for the SA max and the skill bonus consolidation. I'm currently wearing Sandstorm goggles.

With this I also do not need to cleanse a GS item, so I can get one of those snazzy +3 tomes.

[Ullysses]

Just a question, seems everyone wants epic/raid gear, but doesn't want to grind for it...

What are you going to do with your geared out toon then? Nothing to do at end game but raids and epics, which is where all the 'grind' gear comes from anyway!

Always wondered what people who don't want to 'grind' gear do at end game.

Sorry, don't mean to hijack the thread, just brought the question to mind.