staffie: monk or rogue based? and: do i need more staves?

[Makkuroi]

Hi,

Which combination of rogue, monk and pally is best for a str-based staffy in your opinion?

13 rogue 4 pally 3 monk - knockdown immune
10 rogue 4 pally 6 monk - more feats
12 monk 4 pally 4 rogue - abundant step, monk PL, more feats

and do i need more specific staves when I have chieftains spear, theurgic stave, stout oak and sireth? (got a crafted holy of undead bane, too)

[Ehmadeus]

and do i need more specific staves when I have chieftains spear, theurgic stave, stout oak and sireth? (got a crafted holy of undead bane, too)[/QUOTE]


Those are all great staves. I have done two staff lives so far and Theurgic/Stout Oak/Sireth were all fantastic. I have a Rahl's Might I like to use for deception sometimes also. I always carry three to four staves when I'm in the Stout Oak stage, since you can beat it done to nearly broken in a long quest - just to be safe.

As for levels, I have done a Monk/Ranger/Druid staff life (human - weird, very survivable, barely acceptable DPS) and also a 'Zeus' life (12 Rogue/6 Paladin/2 Monk - I know that isn't the 'ultimate' version, but I level slowly). The Zeus life has been an eye-opening experience as far as DPS and survivability. I have to say, deception/improved deception makes deep rogue really nice - if you don't have access to those, then it is mostly a wash between deep rogue and deep monk - except for trapping skills and Thief Acrobat tree has 'better' buffs in the +15% attack speed and better Quick Strike up time (it really does make a big difference). I think I'd like a 3rd Monk level for unbalancing strikes - but I'm living pretty well without it.

I'll let other people give more definitive advice regarding level splits. I have found stick builds to be rather fun so far.

Don't forget, TA gets a slower recharge, resource-free abundant step equivalent, in Vault, at tier 5. I like abundant step because it recharges faster, but Vault doesn't use resources - your mileage may vary.

[XL_Jockey]

I've done a few staff builds and my favorite right now is 15Pal/3Rog/2Ftr. Holy Sword and Zeal give you the same crit profile that Acrobat would in T5, you still get the staff attack speed and such, and you can wear heavy armor which I find is much better for melee than wearing robes/light. My toon is a Bladeforged but Horc would be a great choice also.

Of the splits you mentioned I like 10Rog/6Mnk/4Pal next. You'll need Shadow Fade for survivability.

You could also make a Dex-based Acrobat with Dex to hit/dmg and get decent stats and awesome reflex saves. Mine had high 60's DEX without any crazy items or tomes. In that case you'd go more Rog. My build went 13Rog/6Mnk/1Wiz. You can take Defensive Roll as one of your Rog feats and Improved Defensive Roll from the Acrobat tree and get some better survivability.

But with the way the game is now I much prefer heavy armor users, and my current Acrobat is sitting at roughly 100AC, 150PRR, 100MRR without putting too much focus in defense. He's much easier to play and stay alive now than when he was a monk splash, and I really like monk splashes.

[Firewall]

...and do i need more specific staves when I have chieftains spear, theurgic stave, stout oak and sireth? (got a crafted holy of undead bane, too)

Two very powerful staves for heroic levels are:

- triple positive greensteel
- Breeze (upgraded) from the heroic Abbot raid

[cru121]

There's also Pal 15 / Rog 2 / anything 3 Holy Sword QStaff option.

[elg582]

Drop the monk; you need armor.

I have a 12 monk/5 rogue/3 paladin that was crazy, but U23 wrecked it.

Why not 15 paladin/5 rogue?

[unbongwah]

Why not 15 paladin/5 rogue?

Staff Spec is redundant with Holy Sword and costs 32 APs, so why bother on a pally 15+ staff build anymore? Which opens up other options for those levels; see my Hozoin-Kyuu for a pal 15 / rog 3 / rgr 2 staff+bow build.

[Makkuroi]

Actually im running a pally staff build atm, currently 14 pally 3 rogue 1 monk, but mainly for pally PL. Ill run one of the rogue variants next life, just looking far ahead for a staff build when i get completionist (still 5 lives to go).

Ill compare and might consider going back to 15 pal 4 rogue 1 (monk or fighter). One advantage of being centered is dance of flowers, but a non-bladeforged could just swap between pajamas and armor depending on quest or situation. The pally variant has the advantage of tier5 kotc which is nice on a fleshy. The cleaves and healing amp are very nice, cores are also great, holy retribution gets a bit useless in higher level quests since it only works on mobs with less then 1k hp. Its seems holy retribution works on glancing blows so its nice against tons of trash (wheelon heroic for example).

about staves: farming abbot is not an option for me, and im out of shards of power...

edit: where do i get improved deception in a non-weapon slot? Havent played much rogue so far...

[Ehmadeus]

RE: Improved Deception on a non-weapon.

This is one of the easier items to grab for it:
http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Golden_Guile

[Holybird]

For lower lvls: Anything you have.
For 6-Gs: http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Arlyn's_Staff
Use GS to lvl 20 but if you don't have Gs then I would recommend: http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Rahl's_Might
After 20: http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Stout_Oak_Walking_Stick
And at lvl 23 change to: http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Sireth,_Spear_of_the_Sky


And other staffs I found working pretty nice:
http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Stave_of_the_Seer
http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Staff_of_the_Shadow + other mutations of it
http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Chieftain%27s_Spear
http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Theurgic_Stave

I like these, but I am not a staff-build master so this is just my opinion