Originally Posted by
Firewall
Both seem to be interesting builds but i think we both follow quite different goals. While your builds seem to max out Basedamage or Sneak Attack Damage (and Range) while maintaining good survivability mine is designed to be viable for Epic Elite Quests (not soloing) and aims to get the highest possible shuriken attack speed with the highest survivability and CC possible and let spelltouched and shiradi procs as well as other added effects do the rest.
Also i want a pure shuriken build only and not switch between two-weapon fighting or bows like you probably do in your first build.
To be honest if i wanted to rely on sneak attack damage i would focus on that with mostly rogue levels, improved sneak attack and a greensteel radiance II shuriken plus a high Deception item because i dont like the idea of my damage being dependant on not having the aggro of mobs.
What you loose:
- Fighter levels give you quite bad Saving Throws to begin with and very few Skillpoints, which i think add a lot to the build (Concentration, Spot, Hide, Move Silently, Jump, Balance, Diplomacy (just enough for Audience with the Queen))
- Adding a Rogue levels makes you loose BAB. While this is not a problem right now with the coming Level cap of 30 you can reach a max BAB of 25 and since you gain faster attack animations with each full 5 points of BAB even loosing one point will make your attacks slower compared to 25
- Ranger special attacks add a nice amout of situational and burst damage but i'm not fond of having lots of buttons with special attacks maintaining all cooldowns and micromanage situational usefulness. Others may prefer a different playstyle but with my build you have all the damage and procs on your weapon all the time and the only thing you have to manage is the cooldown of your ten thousand stars.
6 Level Monk vs. 20 lvl Monk:
- 20 Levels of monk give you the best Base Saving Throws of all Classes
- Monk capstone core enhancements which in case of ninja spy add +2 DEX. With my current setup i get 7 points of DEX just from enhancements (2 from Drow, 2 from Ninja Spy, 2 from Ninja Spy capstone core, 1 from Henshin Mystic). You will loose at least the 2 points from the capstone which will lower your attack chance and damage.
- Vorpal on every attack at full range! I think many people underestimate vorpal. It adds 100 Points on damage on mobs above 1000 HP which averages to 5 points per hit but in addition it also has a chance of doing up to 999 points of damage if it hits a mob below 1000 HP which is quite a lot
- +2 crit range! This is in my opinion the best advantage of the build. I think you misunderstood me in that i want the improved crit range for the poison proc and added base damage. Thats absolutely not the case! The improved crit range is necessary (especially on epic elite!) to proc weapon effects that activate on crit and have no save which in combination with Improved Precise Shot adds a lot to CC and survivability:
>Shimmering Arrowhead (Trinket): Crippling on Crit -> NO SAVE
>Greensteel Radiance II Shuriken: Blindness on Crit -> NO SAVE (50% Concealment plus AC and save debuffs plus auto sneak attacks!)
>Spelltouched Life Stealing (fixed effect) Shuriken: Life Stealing chance on Crit -> NO SAVE
This is great crowd control which works even on orange named monsters!
- 9 points of AC which you might compensate with ranger levels on favored enemies. With Combat Expertise and Bulwark of Defense and a GH White Dragonhide Robe you can have AC way above 100 and have great saves and Dodge Bonus in water stance or even switch to Ultimate Mountain stance and add even more AC, PRR and crit multipliers which enables you in combination with Ki Shout to play the (intimi-)tank if needed.
- +20% running speed and abundant step: In my opinion the bread and butter of every ranged build which enables easier kiting and reaching safe spots. Abundant Step is especially useful to get out of hairy situations too
- Spell Resistance (which in combination with drow spell resistance enhancements makes it viable)
- 10 DR/Epic and being a Lawful Outsider (Immunity to Hold Person)
- Wholeness of Body: Free healing between fights
- Improved Evasion (except if you take it as a rogue feat)
- Ultimate monk stances! If you splash in other classes than monk you will have to spend two additional feats just to max out the monk stances which devalues taking the ranger levels for feats quite a bit.
Just adding some fighter levels to add a bit of damage just does not make up for it in my opinion or only if your goal is to make a max DPS Epic Hard build. I would prefer your ranger rogue build in that case.
Some things to consider:
Epic Destinies
While Fatesinger on the surface seems to add very nice bonuses to damage you have to remember that Tailwind does not stack with a Deadly item since both are competence bonuses. The same is true for the guild airship damage buff. Also the bonus damage from Turn of the Tide does not work on red named bosses as the enhancement text explains which favors shiradi.
Shiradi's Double Rainbow does not only add bonuses to damage but also adds CC in form of Flesh to Stone and Prismatic Ray Procs as well as the Driders Web Trip. The most useful proc by far is Nerve Venom which paralyzes the enemy for 6 seconds and makes it helpless with NO SAVE. Also you can add Pin and Otto's Whistler which also make mobs helpless depending on your preferred AP layout.
Items
While Spelltouched Shuriken seem to be very random in their damage output they are the only ones where you can have a good chance to have certain weapon effects on for example Improved Paralyse, Life Stealing, Aligned, Lightning Strike and other high damage procs. I for example was lucky and have a 2d6 Force Damage, Fracturing, Lightning Strike Shuriken with -1 DEX damage on it which is a very good universal damage item. My most valuable spelltouched shuriken is a 2d6 Fire damage, Incineration, Life Stealing adamantine shuriken which is awesome on Epic Elite. Having a good base item is the basis on which you can have good reliable damage with spelltouched. The high attack rate smoothens out the unreliabilities of the damage procs.
Enhancements
Halfling Master Thrower and Kensai Keen Edge do not stack since both are competence bonuses. You should consider that in your build 2. They both do not stack either with Ninja Master so only with 20 Levels of monk you can achieve a +2 crit range. If this was not the case i would already have switched my drow into a halfling and the thrower build would be quite overpowered. ^^
Ninja Poison is not really a blast but with the enhanced crit range and the high attack speed it is sure worth taking to do considerable damage in boss fights. Even most undead seem to be vulnerable to poison damage (even ghosts and wraiths).