Master Assassin: an int based build

[WangChi]

Kukri proficiency is provided by the epic midnight greetings in this build, rogues do not get kukri proficiency for free.

[DragoonaMan]

This is an extremely fun build to solo, especially at lower levels.

[Vengenance]

Does anyone know if the Epic Spare Hand affects the Assassinate DC?

[karl_k0ch]

Does anyone know if the Epic Spare Hand affects the Assassinate DC?

As far as I know, Assassinate is not considered to be a tactical feat, and thus not effected by Combat Mastery, Fighter DC increase or the corresponding Dwarven enhancement.

[Riekan]

With the changes that came with the new expansion, what epic destiny are you shooting for? Are you doing a respect for the 21 dex required for isa and if so what are you taking away from to get there?

[Sylvenon]

With the changes that came with the new expansion, what epic destiny are you shooting for?

The Shadowdancer ED is made for Assassins, This should be your main ED, and others should only be considered for twists. Period.

Most of the abilities in this ED rely on your Int modifier, and it also offers means of increasing your Assassinate DC by +6...even if you don't take any of the offered Int increases.

[Mellkor]

I just wanted to chime in here. I have not had any time to play this game at all since the expansion came out due to work load, and will not have any time until September. I will certainly update this build as soon as I can. Until then, PLEASE discus what works well for you in regards to the new stuff.

Thanks!

-JR

[Vengenance]

I used this as a template for my rogue and I must say it has been really fun. I went mechanic until 12 and used repeaters with the arti dillatante (I also have a couple ranger past lives so the extra damage is nice). I hit 12 last night and switched to Assassin and man was it fun. At level 12 I have a 28 Int and doing desert quests on elite I pretty much landed my assassinate on everything including a couple of orange names.

I really hate sneaking so it took a bit to get my twitch sneak/assassinate skill to work well, but with some practice it'll suit my play style. I must say I really have fun playing this character and so far with only a 26 strength my too-hit hasn't really suffered yet even on elite content.

[Gridwalker]

What I see is this...

No Haste Boost IV, no PA, Max assassinate DC. Sacrificed non situational damage in favor of situational damage and trash killing ability. This can be overcome with radiance or other means of rendering mob of his Dex bonus on AC but still if you go dual Greetings u must go bluff to to enable SA. On other hand u have good scrolling ability and u can be scroll healer in some raids but any decent raid party would prefer more for u to do damage then to heal.

Trash is trash, if party's only way of disposing trash is assassin then that party has a problem.

[Lleren]

What I see is this...

No Haste Boost IV, no PA, Max assassinate DC. Sacrificed non situational damage in favor of situational damage and trash killing ability. This can be overcome with radiance or other means of rendering mob of his Dex bonus on AC but still if you go dual Greetings u must go bluff to to enable SA. On other hand u have good scrolling ability and u can be scroll healer in some raids but any decent raid party would prefer more for u to do damage then to heal.

Trash is trash, if party's only way of disposing trash is assassin then that party has a problem.

From the original post below:

There is enough left over for haste boost IV or whatever else you like.

In situations where getting aggro cant be avoided, I also swap out one of the EMG's with a greensteel Radiance II or Lightning II kukuri depending if the mob is blindable or not

It brings it own heals, it dps's, it instakills, and it was a few points a hit behind the max dps options for a Rogue of the time the post was made.

[karl_k0ch]

This can be overcome with radiance or other means of rendering mob of his Dex bonus on AC but still if you go dual Greetings u must go bluff to to enable SA.

That's not true. EMG has Improved Deception which is a reliable enabler of sneak attacks.

That having said, I thing that an Int score in the lower 30's is decent enough to get a reliable assassinate chance (10 base + 20 rogue + 12 int + 2 emg + 6 Shadowdancer = 50). Personally, I would not go Int-based, but rather Dex-based (if you are willing to use a really small set of weapons) or Str-based.

[sandypaws]

I just wanted to chime in here. I have not had any time to play this game at all since the expansion came out due to work load, and will not have any time until September. I will certainly update this build as soon as I can. Until then, PLEASE discus what works well for you in regards to the new stuff.

Thanks!

-JR

I'm actually really enjoying the Fury ED on my rogue, as well as twisting Pin from Shiradi. Fury grants a ton of extra damage and survivability, Pin is essentially an 18 second stun with no save that works on just about anything orange named and below (I'm not ranged specced, but throwing daggers work fine for initiating pin). Having adrenaline for the knockdown is way more useful than I thought it'd be, too. You do lose out on the fortification kill/the ability to sneak attack immune critters/level drain immunity from the SD destiny, but then there just aren't a ton of quests comprised of mainly non-living constructs and undead. Unfortunately, one of them is the new raid. Drp. Anywho, for those types of quests, swap back to SD.
I did used to have major problems versus elementals, but I find dual wielding the new level-drainers from the expansion pack takes them down awfully quickly. Probably don't need to switch back to SD for those.

[Qezuzu]

What I see is this...

No Haste Boost IV, no PA, Max assassinate DC. Sacrificed non situational damage in favor of situational damage and trash killing ability. This can be overcome with radiance or other means of rendering mob of his Dex bonus on AC but still if you go dual Greetings u must go bluff to to enable SA. On other hand u have good scrolling ability and u can be scroll healer in some raids but any decent raid party would prefer more for u to do damage then to heal.

Trash is trash, if party's only way of disposing trash is assassin then that party has a problem.

There have been a lot of discussion about STR vs. INT/DEX rogues on these forums.

The consensus is that no one will agree, however I can tell you that dumping STR and PA is less than a 5% decrease in damage.

Also, Sneak Attack has not been "situational" or "not dependable" for a very, very, very long time.

[Vengenance]

I've played a dex rogue to cap or at least the cap of the day and while I liked it I found it to be lacking. I next built a strength rogue to cap (level 20) and had a ton of fun with this but wasn't super excited about it's performance in Epic although it wasn't that bad. My current build is an int build similar to the one Melkor put together and I'm loving it. My rogue is now level 18 (Holding at 17) and should hit 20 this weeked. He's a 36 point build with +3 tomes in all relevent stats and has pretty nice gear. I started with a base 16 strength and 16 int, but put all level ups so far into int.

This build was slow out of the gate but as soon as I hit level 12 I haven't looked back. I've been able to assassinate almost all vulnerable mobs in elite content at level. Often you can assassinate to mobs at once and now having mastered the Jump-Sneak-Assassinate Combo the pace has really picked up allowing me to play at my normal aggresive manner. In all but undead heavy content I decimate the kill count. I think I only have a 26 strength atm and so far I've never had a to-hit problem. I keep precision on at all times and use DP clickies if I think there might be a problem. By far this has been the most fun I've had on any rogue I've played. Thanks for putting this up Cully!

-Jer

[Kmnh]

The Shadowdancer ED is made for Assassins, This should be your main ED, and others should only be considered for twists. Period.

Most of the abilities in this ED rely on your Int modifier, and it also offers means of increasing your Assassinate DC by +6...even if you don't take any of the offered Int increases.

I could easily see an int based rogue going Draconic Incarnation.

Daunting Roar, Go Out with a Bang, dragon breath, flyby attack, Energy Vortex... All the offensive stuff from DI is int-based and you can take +6 int with destiny points. Twist "Stealthy" in and go crazy

[Tid12]

I could easily see an int based rogue going Draconic Incarnation.

Daunting Roar, Go Out with a Bang, dragon breath, flyby attack, Energy Vortex... All the offensive stuff from DI is int-based and you can take +6 int with destiny points. Twist "Stealthy" in and go crazy

I could easily see all rogues go for FotW

Shadowdancer is so broken that it's not worth it at the moment. Its main features are broken and devs won't acknowledge it. Dark Imbuement is a joke, Consume has a broken DC, Executioner strike broken.

DI would offer more to an INT rogue but the Breath and the Vortex wouldn't do a lot of damage for a rogue. Go out with a bang is so pathetic with its 50% health required to use it that I haven't it on my hotbar. It would offer some CC with Daunting Roar and Flybly but it's not worth it.

On the other end, FotW offers a lot. Adrenaline charges, +100 hp, Primal scream for another 50 HP (or 75) and +2/3 dmg, Tunnel Vision, Injury (bleed), Sense weakness, + Attack bonus if you miss with Unstoppable Fury, Evil outsider bane + Cold iron to all of your weapons and and awesome Epic moment (not like Dark imbuement, 2d6 damage, so underwhelming).

My rog just switched from SD to FotW and I'm having a lot more fun.

[Kmnh]

I could easily see all rogues go for FotW

Shadowdancer is so broken that it's not worth it at the moment. Its main features are broken and devs won't acknowledge it. Dark Imbuement is a joke, Consume has a broken DC, Executioner strike broken.

DI would offer more to an INT rogue but the Breath and the Vortex wouldn't do a lot of damage for a rogue. Go out with a bang is so pathetic with its 50% health required to use it that I haven't it on my hotbar. It would offer some CC with Daunting Roar and Flybly but it's not worth it.

On the other end, FotW offers a lot. Adrenaline charges, +100 hp, Primal scream for another 50 HP (or 75) and +2/3 dmg, Tunnel Vision, Injury (bleed), Sense weakness, + Attack bonus if you miss with Unstoppable Fury, Evil outsider bane + Cold iron to all of your weapons and and awesome Epic moment (not like Dark imbuement, 2d6 damage, so underwhelming).

My rog just switched from SD to FotW and I'm having a lot more fun.

FotW should have been available to all classses from the start. It fixes everything that can ever go wrong on a melee character

I'm currently Dreadnought, but all my twists are from fury: Sense weakness, Primal Scream and Tunnel Vision.

I figure a deep int rogue wouldn't want to give up the int increases.I switch to shadowdancer when I really want a high-DC assassinate. Going from 51 to 54 DC is a big jump on epic elite content.

[Tid12]

FotW should have been available to all classses from the start. It fixes everything that can ever go wrong on a melee character

I'm currently Dreadnought, but all my twists are from fury: Sense weakness, Primal Scream and Tunnel Vision.

I figure a deep int rogue wouldn't want to give up the int increases.I switch to shadowdancer when I really want a high-DC assassinate. Going from 51 to 54 DC is a big jump on epic elite content.

Indeed it is a big jump.

However, my rog is a finesse based, 53 Int DC without any Int enhancements from Destiny and with just ship buff is enough for me and I have still room for improvement (missing a +4 tome) so I can reach 54 also. When I was on SD, I also had Sense Weakness and TV. However my third Twist was 40% fort from US.

I don't really like LD after having tried it for my rog so I ended up being FotW. One twist was of course for Stealthy, the second one for Brace for impact and the third for Grim's Precision for 15% fort bypass (mandatory for trash with heavy fort on EE and raid bosses). Also, I like the Cold Iron from FotW and EOB with all those demons.

Not regretting it so far. If they will ever fix SD, I might go back to it but right now, it's either LD or FotW.

[Vengenance]

FotW should have been available to all classses from the start. It fixes everything that can ever go wrong on a melee character

I'm currently Dreadnought, but all my twists are from fury: Sense weakness, Primal Scream and Tunnel Vision.

I figure a deep int rogue wouldn't want to give up the int increases.I switch to shadowdancer when I really want a high-DC assassinate. Going from 51 to 54 DC is a big jump on epic elite content.

Does anyone have a good idea on what DC we should be shooting for on EE? My rogue is only level 23 and I have a 51 DC assassinate, which is great on EH but I haven't tested it yet on EE. Stiill looking to finsih my Epic Midnight Greetings, but that seal has been very evasive. Is the best place to pull that seal still Bargain of Blood cause if it is my luck just sucks! I've pulled plenty of scrolls and various crappy seals but nothing of any worth. Been sacking this quest weekly on EH, any input would be greatly appreciated.

[.Revenga.]

With 50'ish DC you'll be able to get most low fort enemies. On melee mobs it varies from somewhat unreliable to don't bother with it, depending on the kind of mob.