Wolf form sneak attack and other questions for shadar-kai build

[Gywiden]

How does sneak attack work when you are in wolf form (particularly winter wolf)?

I ask because I'm thinking of doing a build that is a Shadar-kai 11 druid/9 rogue (or possibly throwing in some fighter for the kensei tree).

My focus is going to be melee, and I want to increase my sneak attack with the rogue levels and Shadar-kai enhancements.

Will this work? In what situations does sneak attack die apply? I remember getting sneak attack without sneaking when I ran as a wolf in a past life, but I forget.

Also, I'm thinking of focusing on two weapon fighting and slashing feats. This still works correct?

[Krelar]

How does sneak attack work when you are in wolf form (particularly winter wolf)?

I ask because I'm thinking of doing a build that is a Shadar-kai 11 druid/9 rogue (or possibly throwing in some fighter for the kensei tree).

My focus is going to be melee, and I want to increase my sneak attack with the rogue levels and Shadar-kai enhancements.

Will this work? In what situations does sneak attack die apply? I remember getting sneak attack without sneaking when I ran as a wolf in a past life, but I forget.

Also, I'm thinking of focusing on two weapon fighting and slashing feats. This still works correct?

You don't need to sneak to get sneak attack damage you just need to not have agro, or use abilities like bluff/deception that make a mob vulnerable to sneak attack temporarily. (nothing to do with being a wolf or not)

Animal forms use bludgeoning feats regardless of the type of damage they do.

Two weapon fighting currently works but is considered a bug so likely fill be fixed at some point. (I wouldn't hold my breath though)

If you put in fighter for kensei it's important tyo realize that none of the crit multiplier/threat enhancements work on animal forms. (The melee power does though)

[Gywiden]

You don't need to sneak to get sneak attack damage you just need to not have agro, or use abilities like bluff/deception that make a mob vulnerable to sneak attack temporarily. (nothing to do with being a wolf or not)

Animal forms use bludgeoning feats regardless of the type of damage they do.

Two weapon fighting currently works but is considered a bug so likely fill be fixed at some point. (I wouldn't hold my breath though)

If you put in fighter for kensei it's important tyo realize that none of the crit multiplier/threat enhancements work on animal forms. (The melee power does though)

Wait, so wolf is slashing damage but bludgeoning feats would work whereas slashing wouldn't? Lol, that's beyond stupid. But good to know. I'll take those instead.

So if two-handed fighting will likely be nerfed, what melee-build feats will work?

[Amundir]

I've personally avoided the TWF bug for wolves and I took the SWF line so my wolf benefits from the Natural Fighting doublestrike and SWF increased attack speed. Up through lvl 17 it's been a terror build just walking through most stuff, however i've also taken monk light fists so i've had healing as I fight for the most part, but as you get in higher levels having healing trickle in at 1-3 diminishes.

[unbongwah]

http://ddowiki.com/page/Sneak_attack

All sources of SA dmg stack except HE rogue dilly feat with actual rog lvls. Also gear bonuses only stack if they're different types; i.e., enhancement + Insightful stack, two enhancement bonuses do not.

The easiest way to get SA on a wolf build IMO is Deception gear; with your high atk rate you should see plenty of procs. Or you could use a weapon with blinding effects such as Celestia; again, high atk rate means high proc rate, even with the low 18-20 crit range on wolf builds. Or if you go the rgr 6 route like so many wolf builds, Dance of Death + Exposing Strike combo is your best friend.

If you really want to go heavy on sneak atks, consider rog 12 / rgr 6 / druid 2 like this build. Basically you replace the crit dmg from winter wolf form with tons of SA: 6d6 from rog lvls, 3d6 from ISA epic feat, up to 9d6 from Enhancements (presuming SDK), though probably there's not enough APs to max those out. 36 Tempest (DoD + Thousand Cuts) / 24 Assassin (Lethality + max Killer) / 11 DWS (Exposing Strike) / 3 Acro (Fast Movement which applies in wolf form IIRC), leaving 6 APs to tweak things.

[Gywiden]

I've personally avoided the TWF bug for wolves and I took the SWF line so my wolf benefits from the Natural Fighting doublestrike and SWF increased attack speed. Up through lvl 17 it's been a terror build just walking through most stuff, however i've also taken monk light fists so i've had healing as I fight for the most part, but as you get in higher levels having healing trickle in at 1-3 diminishes.

I like the idea of SWF. However, do you have nothing equipped in your right hand? I know you can have an orb in the right and still have SWF work, so that sounds like a good option, but I'm curious if you can have other stuff in your hand if you are in wolf form. I'm planning on getting an Epic Reincarnation and pick up Fast Healing to get a similar effect to your monk levels .

http://ddowiki.com/page/Sneak_attack

The easiest way to get SA on a wolf build IMO is Deception gear; with your high atk rate you should see plenty of procs. Or you could use a weapon with blinding effects such as Celestia; again, high atk rate means high proc rate, even with the low 18-20 crit range on wolf builds. Or if you go the rgr 6 route like so many wolf builds, Dance of Death + Exposing Strike combo is your best friend.

If you really want to go heavy on sneak atks, consider rog 12 / rgr 6 / druid 2 like this build. Basically you replace the crit dmg from winter wolf form with tons of SA: 6d6 from rog lvls, 3d6 from ISA epic feat, up to 9d6 from Enhancements (presuming SDK), though probably there's not enough APs to max those out. 36 Tempest (DoD + Thousand Cuts) / 24 Assassin (Lethality + max Killer) / 11 DWS (Exposing Strike) / 3 Acro (Fast Movement which applies in wolf form IIRC), leaving 6 APs to tweak things.

Thanks! I forgot about equipping deception gear so that will come in handy. I'm actually thinking of revising my build to 17 druid/2 rogue/1 fighter. I forgot how much I like the pup and I want him to survive, and I figure if he is also deceiving the enemy a lot that will probably be more important than the extra sneak attack dice from 9 levels in rogue. Plus I can do better spell casting on the side that way even though that won't be my focus. I like your rogue build! I may try that out for a rogue life in the future, but I am wanting to do a couple more lives as druid. I solo, and I like to summon and use a hireling, so I'm going for the +6 to all stats (I have +2 from one life already).

Overall: I'm guessing that if I revise to SWF and bludgeoning weapon feats those will work? What about feats like Power Critical, Improved Critical: Bludgeoning, and the Weapon Focus line (Greater and Superior). Will I get the bonuses from those in wolf form if I select them all in bludgeoning form? (not counting power critical of course since it isn't bludgeoning specific, but I still want to know if that works)


,

[unbongwah]

At the risk of being blunt: how far are you willing to gimp your melee DPS in order to keep your pet's survivability? Because melee DPS of pure or mostly-pure wolf druid is gonna be pretty bad compared to the exploit-y heavily-MCed builds like the one I linked or Togg's. There's simply not enough melee DPS buffs in the higher-level druid abilities & NW cores to keep up.

This build I posted a while ago is basically a caster druid who uses wolf form for a little DPS and a lot of temp SPs from Essence of the Shrike. A more, ahh, flavorful variant could ditch a couple of feats for the Augment Summoning feats instead; and run in Primal Avatar for the summoning buffs + wolf-form DPS bonuses. But that's trying to make the most of a bad combo (summoning + melee wolf druid), which is not nearly the same thing as an actually good combo.

[Gywiden]

At the risk of being blunt: how far are you willing to gimp your melee DPS in order to keep your pet's survivability? Because melee DPS of pure or mostly-pure wolf druid is gonna be pretty bad compared to the exploit-y heavily-MCed builds like the one I linked or Togg's. There's simply not enough melee DPS buffs in the higher-level druid abilities & NW cores to keep up.

This build I posted a while ago is basically a caster druid who uses wolf form for a little DPS and a lot of temp SPs from Essence of the Shrike. A more, ahh, flavorful variant could ditch a couple of feats for the Augment Summoning feats instead; and run in Primal Avatar for the summoning buffs + wolf-form DPS bonuses. But that's trying to make the most of a bad combo (summoning + melee wolf druid), which is not nearly the same thing as an actually good combo.

Thanks, those builds actually answer a lot of my questions. And I agree, it might be wise to ditch the pup hehe. I think I'll probably do something similar to Togg's. I just need to decide if I would want to do SDK or PDK, because if I do SDK I would need to figure out if I was swapping out the Ranger or the Fighter aspect of that for the Rogue aspect. Part of what I'm planning is to get in an Iconic Past life, and I don't want to deal with getting an LR +1 heart to do SDK in Togg's build. Though that would be kind of fun to do that build but swap out a few enhancements to get the SDK sneak enhancements, so who knows, maybe I'll do that after all.

[unbongwah]

Maybe SDK rog 5 / rgr 6 / druid 9?

Leveling order: Rog 1 / druid 1-8 / rgr 1-6 / druid 9 / rog 2-5.

Feats: SWF (1), Precision (3), Dodge? Emp Heal? (6), ISWF (9), IC:Blunt (12), GTWF (15), GSWF (18), OC (21), Natural Fighting (24), then either two more NF feats or maybe Epic DR @ lvl 27 if you're feeling squishy.

Enhancements: 36 Tempest (DoD + TC) / 23 DWS (Exposing Strike + max Killer) / 13 NW (Fatal Harrier) / 8 Assassin (Venomed Blades) [EDIT: alternatively 11 DWS / 23 NW / 39 Tempest for Four Legs Good + EotShrike + Evasive Dance]

It might have even higher DPS than Togg thanks to extra SAs + Venomed Blades as well as Evasion; but it will definitely be squisher too w/out Stalwart D. bonuses.

[Gywiden]

Maybe SDK rog 5 / rgr 6 / druid 9?

Leveling order: Rog 1 / druid 1-8 / rgr 1-6 / druid 9 / rog 2-5.

Feats: SWF (1), Precision (3), Dodge? Emp Heal? (6), ISWF (9), IC:Blunt (12), GTWF (15), GSWF (18), OC (21), Natural Fighting (24), then either two more NF feats or maybe Epic DR @ lvl 27 if you're feeling squishy.

Enhancements: 36 Tempest (DoD + TC) / 23 DWS (Exposing Strike + max Killer) / 13 NW (Fatal Harrier) / 8 Assassin (Venomed Blades) [EDIT: alternatively 11 DWS / 23 NW / 39 Tempest for Four Legs Good + EotShrike + Evasive Dance]

It might have even higher DPS than Togg thanks to extra SAs + Venomed Blades as well as Evasion; but it will definitely be squisher too w/out Stalwart D. bonuses.

True! I probably could find some way to compensate for that a little bit by changing gear around (for example, replacing Litany of the Dead with something more defensive). I'll have to play around with it. This was very helpful, thanks!

[Amundir]

I like the idea of SWF. However, do you have nothing equipped in your right hand? I know you can have an orb in the right and still have SWF work, so that sounds like a good option, but I'm curious if you can have other stuff in your hand if you are in wolf form. I'm planning on getting an Epic Reincarnation and pick up Fast Healing to get a similar effect to your monk levels .

No, I only have a weapon in my main hand. Being a monk, an orb in my off hand would uncenter me which would take away my ability to be in my stance and such.