Thief acrobat pole dancer for heroic past lives

[drwho1985]

Thanks for clicking! Looking for some help/feedback on my next heroic TR. Would like to bust out 3 heroic lives of a thief acrobat pole dancer (staffs). 36 point build with +3 tomes across the board. I do not have gnomes.

I love cleaves. Cleave cleave cleave. Would cleaves be viable on a staff slinger?
Should I take weapon finnese or does the staff training in tree make this redundant?

Here are my past lives:
3 monk
3 fighter
3 barbarian
2 pally
1 bard

Thanks a bunch!

[unbongwah]

I love cleaves. Cleave cleave cleave. Would cleaves be viable on a staff slinger?

Well, yes and no: yes in that you can squeeze in the two Cleave feats plus Sweeping Strikes, no problem; no in that two of the big advantages of Acrobat are the atk speed and doublestrike bonuses, which do nothing for Cleaves.

Should I take weapon finnese or does the staff training in tree make this redundant?

Finesse does nothing for staves; the Acrobat cores take care of DEX to-hit & dmg if you're going that route.

FYI, this is the Acrobat build I was planning for my next ITR. I stayed pure for the capstone, natch, though on an HTR-only build I might consider a deeper multiclass, such as this Zeus variant, since you won't be at lvl 20 long enough for the capstone to matter.

[drwho1985]

Well, yes and no: yes in that you can squeeze in the two Cleave feats plus Sweeping Strikes, no problem; no in that two of the big advantages of Acrobat are the atk speed and doublestrike bonuses, which do nothing for Cleaves.

Finesse does nothing for staves; the Acrobat cores take care of DEX to-hit & dmg if you're going that route.

FYI, this is the Acrobat build I was planning for my next ITR. I stayed pure for the capstone, natch, though on an HTR-only build I might consider a deeper multiclass, such as this Zeus variant, since you won't be at lvl 20 long enough for the capstone to matter.

Thanks a bunch, Unbongwah!

[drwho1985]

Just hit lvl 5 with my thief acrobat pole dancer and I must say WOW! Why didn't someone tell me how fun it would be to do traps and swing a staff?!? Im actually flower-sniffing old quests now to find those traps and hidden doors. These next 3 lives will be fun!

[unbongwah]

The good news about playing an Acrobat these days is you can pick up Acrobatics + Quick Strike by lvl 3; they're two of your most important DPS bonuses, so it's nice to be able to front-load them. The downside is Acrobats fall behind in higher levels: they don't have the single-target DPS of a TWF Assassin nor the AoE DPS of a good Tempest, barb, etc. For an HTR-only life, though, they're fine.

Among named staves, my top picks would be:

• Chieftain's Spear (ML:4) - note the 19-20/x2 crit profile and base d8 dmg (vs d6 for most staves); Bleed+Maiming is a decent combo for just about everything breathing.
• Elemental Bloom (ML:7) - note the 18-20/x3 crits which becomes 16-20/x4 w/IC:Blunt & Staff Spec @ lvl 12 Add in the other on-hit effects and it's well worth having. Has a pretty low drop rate, though, so good luck farming one!
• Theurgic Stave (ML:8) - DPS is not as impressive, but you can use the augment slots to turn it into a decent DR breaker.
• Bloody Shadow Staff (ML:12) - DPS is no better than a +5 staff, but Lesser Vampirism+Bodyfeeder are good survivability perks and Life Stealing can be fun.
• Light Unending (ML:13) - useful for DR-breaking and Vertigo boosts Sweeping Strikes DC
• Bone Crusher (ML:18) - high base dmg and 16-20/x3 crits (I think - it should now have 18-20/x2 base, but wiki still shows 19-20/x2)
• Stout Oak (ML:20) - 18-20/x3 crits (17-20 w/Pulverizer) + free knockdowns
• Sireth (ML:23) - still the classic

And the epic versions of Bloom, Crusher, and Unending, ofc.

[drwho1985]

The good news about playing an Acrobat these days is you can pick up Acrobatics + Quick Strike by lvl 3; they're two of your most important DPS bonuses, so it's nice to be able to front-load them. The downside is Acrobats fall behind in higher levels: they don't have the single-target DPS of a TWF Assassin nor the AoE DPS of a good Tempest, barb, etc. For an HTR-only life, though, they're fine.

Among named staves, my top picks would be:

• Chieftain's Spear (ML:4) - note the 19-20/x2 crit profile and base d8 dmg (vs d6 for most staves); Bleed+Maiming is a decent combo for just about everything breathing.
• Elemental Bloom (ML:7) - note the 18-20/x3 crits which becomes 16-20/x4 w/IC:Blunt & Staff Spec @ lvl 12 Add in the other on-hit effects and it's well worth having. Has a pretty low drop rate, though, so good luck farming one!
• Theurgic Stave (ML:8) - DPS is not as impressive, but you can use the augment slots to turn it into a decent DR breaker.
• Bloody Shadow Staff (ML:12) - DPS is no better than a +5 staff, but Lesser Vampirism+Bodyfeeder are good survivability perks and Life Stealing can be fun.
• Light Unending (ML:13) - useful for DR-breaking and Vertigo boosts Sweeping Strikes DC
• Bone Crusher (ML:18) - high base dmg and 16-20/x3 crits (I think - it should now have 18-20/x2 base, but wiki still shows 19-20/x2)
• Stout Oak (ML:20) - 18-20/x3 crits (17-20 w/Pulverizer) + free knockdowns
• Sireth (ML:23) - still the classic

And the epic versions of Bloom, Crusher, and Unending, ofc.

Thanks unbongwah! Im at level 12 and did have a Shadow Staff in my cache. Paired it with some un-used stone wraps and now have a woo-stick. How high does my healing amp have to be to get that woo-stick up to +2 healing per strike? My only gripe so far is that these staves wear out quickly. Should I have 2 of everything? Some of these quests are loooong.

[unbongwah]

Durability is definitely one of the downsides to being a staff build. Apart from carrying backup staves, be sure to perform adamantine rituals on your most important weapons.