Henshin vs TA: am I missing anything?

[BigErkyKid]

We have been talking about class balance and I was thinking of rolling a stick build (I know, I know...).

Can TA be even compared to hen shin mystic? The mystic looks massively better. Aside from the monk goodies (feats and the rest), the hen shin packs 75 melee power, compared to the 10 MP of TA. Can the extra goodies from TA remotely make up for it?

Thoughts?

[unbongwah]

If we're talking pure builds, Acrobat advantages include: lots of sneak atks, +15% atk speed at lvl 1 instead of 20, extra +5% atk speed in epic lvls, higher Doublestrike (Cartwheel Charge + Opportunist is +23%, GM Wind is +12% base +3% w/Running w/Wind Twist). The Acrobat also gets two knockdown / AoE DPS options that Henshin lacks: Sweeping Strikes and Followthrough ("After tumbling, for 6 seconds your basic attacks with two handed weapons strike two targets per swing instead of one and gain On Vorpal: Your target is knocked down.").

That's just the DPS side, other QoL improvements include Improved Defensive Roll, trap skills, full UMD, etc. Then again, the Henshin gets Shadow Veil, free healing from either Fists of Light or Shadows Cannot Exist w/out Light, etc. So it's an apples-to-oranges comparison, IMO.

[Selvera]

We have been talking about class balance and I was thinking of rolling a stick build (I know, I know...).

Can TA be even compared to hen shin mystic? The mystic looks massively better. Aside from the monk goodies (feats and the rest), the hen shin packs 75 melee power, compared to the 10 MP of TA. Can the extra goodies from TA remotely make up for it?

Thoughts?

My thought would be yes; the goodies from TA can "remotely" make up for it. Henshin is probably better, but they are at least close enough to be compared. (Dexterity is just converted to hit/damage/AC/Reflex)

Offense:
Henshin (Passive): +8 hit, +10 damage, 2d8+ fire on hit, 6d10+ force on crit, 80 melee power, 15% attackspeed, +1 threat range, +1 multi
Henshin (Active): Monk Attacks, Cauldron of Flame (5 hit/damage, +1 multi, 2d6 stacking fire damage/2 seconds), Pretty uninspired ki bolt and incendiary wave, +1[w] attack that puts 2 stacks of vulnerability, Quick Strike (same as TA), +3[w] with +1 crit threat/multi, Void Strike, Balance of Dawn.
Henshin (Stance): (+1 multi on 19-20) OR (+1 hit/damage and 12% doublestrike) OR defensive stance

TA (Passive): +12 hit, +17 damage, 12d6 sneak attack, 10 melee power, +1 threat range, +1 crit multiplier, +30% helpless damage, 12% glancing blow effects, 20% attackspeed, 20% doublestrike
TA (Active): Haste boost, Quick Strike (same as Henshin), +6[w] line attack, +3[w] Tripping Cleave, After tumbling attacks hit 2 targets

Defense:
Henshin (Passive): 15 PRR, 6% dodge, 3% dodge cap, 16 AC, 12 fort, 13 Reflex, 14 will, Wis to AC, 12 fire resist, 20 HP, Improved Evasion
Henshin (Active): Caldron of Flame (20 PRR, 10 MRR, 15% dodge/max dodge)
Henshin (Stance): (2 AC, 12% dodge, 8% max dodge, +5 saving throws) OR (60 HP, 20% AC, 15 PRR) OR offense stance

TA (Passive): Light Armour = 20 PRR, 8% dodge, 13% Max dodge, A (high) chance that an attack will do half damage when you're below half health. 4 AC, 6 fort, 16 Reflex, 6 will, Immune to most knockdowns and slippery surfaces, Pass through enemies with tumble, Improved Evasion
TA (Active): 50 PRR for 20 out of 90 seconds,

Utility:
Henshin: Fists of Light, Abundant Step, Monk Finishers, 30% movespeed
TA: Traps, Vault, 40% Threat reduction, 20% movespeed

So to sum it up; Thief Acrobat has quite a few basic stats better then Henshin; including double-strike, attack-speed and hit/damage (a lot of that comes from the extra dex available). However Henshin has a ton of extra melee power to make up for these. Lighting the candle is significant damage, but it pales in comparison with the sneak attack damage of thief acrobat (If they can get it!).

Henshin has a lot of options for special attacks and can pretty constantly spam them out, some of them being incredibly powerful (cauldron of fire). Thief acrobat has much fewer options for special attacks, but they are all pretty powerful sounding.

Defensively; TA seems to edge ahead in terms of PRR and dodge, Henshin has a significant advantage in AC and saves. However Henshin's active defenses (cauldron of fire) sounds like its better then TA's option. TA also has more mobility in combat.

Utility: This is essentially traps vs movespeed + self healing and finishers.

[BigErkyKid]

Thanks for the comparisons.

Full disclosure: I really want tor un a half-orc TA with double helpless damage stacking.

That said, has anyone bothered to run some comparisons on the DPS? I trashed my spreadsheets last time I deleted DDO and AFAIK lama is not up.

My suspicion is that the DBS and bit of extra damage can hardly compete with the MP; not even going into the monk advantages over rogue (heals and the rest).

But if I am proven wrong, I'll happily roll that derpy TA. I have almost all the gear and all the good staves in the game, so I am ready :P

[Phil7]

If we're talking pure builds, Acrobat advantages include: lots of sneak atks, +15% atk speed at lvl 1 instead of 20, extra +5% atk speed in epic lvls, higher Doublestrike (Cartwheel Charge + Opportunist is +23%, GM Wind is +12% base +3% w/Running w/Wind Twist). The Acrobat also gets two knockdown / AoE DPS options that Henshin lacks: Sweeping Strikes and Followthrough ("After tumbling, for 6 seconds your basic attacks with two handed weapons strike two targets per swing instead of one and gain On Vorpal: Your target is knocked down.").

That's just the DPS side, other QoL improvements include Improved Defensive Roll, trap skills, full UMD, etc. Then again, the Henshin gets Shadow Veil, free healing from either Fists of Light or Shadows Cannot Exist w/out Light, etc. So it's an apples-to-oranges comparison, IMO.

I haven't played a stick build in years, but DPS-wise I think the monk is ahead. +70 MP is a lot
And that Cauldron thing looks nice for boss fights. I'd say propably better dps on bosses with cauldron active and most likely stronger cleaves due to the +70MP and the +1 crit on 19-20.

Rogue will propably have an easier start with the +15% atk speed at level 1 and some useful situational survivability with Spinning Wall and Uncanny Dodge.
And traps ofc, but for dps at cap I would choose monk. Both builds in pure look fun tho

[Viciouspika]

I don't think you just chose one or the other. A combination of both is more ideal and versatile. I'm currently running a 18 monk/1 rogue/1 wizard build that is doing some nice dps. Glancing blows about 100, hits 200, and crits 800-1200 without optimal gear at level 23 and only 1 epic past life. Don't have a rogue equivalent yet. Last rogue based acrobat was an acrobat II/ Kensai I. If i remember correctly, Sneak attacks were around 100-150. Monk healing is great if you plan a heal and invest in a devotion and lore item because you have minimal disruption in DPS to heal your self and others. My next build is going to be an 18 rogue/1 monk/1 wizard build after i finish a couple more Past Lives.

You should look at the other trees in monk or rogue enhancements to assist in your decision making process. Shinto and ninja spy have some nice cores for healing amp and 25% incorporeal defense. Rogue has Assassin killer bonus for 20% doublestrike iirc. Since you want to do a half-orc, the glancing blows in the Acrobat tree should stack with Half-orc enhancement. I personally believe that the monk other enhancement trees make the monk based acrobat more survivable. Even thought, Tier 5 acrobat is better than tier 5 henshin Mystic.

Why one wizard level? Acrobat are fighting with a flimsy staff that breaks too often. Nothing sucks for them more than arriving at a boss fight with your #2 or #3 weapon. I think only three classes offer item defense enhancements fighter/paladin/Wizard iirc. Item defense, a cleave, enhanced mage armor, echos of power, and wizard feat wins over the paladin and fighter options. I usually take extend for wizard feat to extend the nightshield and protection from evil spells to protect against magic missile spams, and command spells.

For epic destinies, dreadnought for dps works wonders, but I run in grandmaster of flowers for the ki strikes and AOE drifting lotus for some crowd control.

Ran with a pure Thief Acrobat about a month ago, he had about 10 more kills then I did, but don't know how many past lives, heroic or epic, he had.

Hope this helped some.

[Qezuzu]

Some Acrobat builds, with Improved Uncanny Dodge, are able to boost to 100% dodge at higher levels, so that's a pretty big plus. Spell traps are also being ignored by everyone, very high DC Webs and Glitterdust is quite strong.

Breaking down classes into "if it has less DPS it's weaker" is why the game is in the state it is right now.

[BigErkyKid]

Some Acrobat builds, with Improved Uncanny Dodge, are able to boost to 100% dodge at higher levels, so that's a pretty big plus. Spell traps are also being ignored by everyone, very high DC Webs and Glitterdust is quite strong.

Breaking down classes into "if it has less DPS it's weaker" is why the game is in the state it is right now.

Listen, I am not trying to start a fight. We all have our play styles, groups / guilds, and what not. If this was a balance discussion I would be all over that statement.

That said, at this point I am interested in DPS comparisons. If you don't care, I am still happy to hear your thoughts about the comparison. But please don't judge me! rolf

[Aelonwy]

One of my alts, Vaelyns, is currently a rog/fighter TA and a half orc. I'm enjoying her quite a bit so far. Her previous life was human monk HM. She was a handwrap build that I altered on the fly after the monk changes to a Qstaff build because I absolutely loathed the hit-box issues I was experiencing fighting with handwraps. Then I met a new issue. An ordeal so aggravating I shelved her for awhile.

The issue was the durability of staves. It can be incredibly frustrating getting less than halfway through a dungeon and your best weapon is broken not because you accidentally sapped a rustmonster or wacked an ooze but because staves in general just do not have enough durability. Yes the adamantine ritual helps but often its not enough. In my opinion, Item Defense is a critical enhancement to the enjoyment of playing a quarterstaff build.

Eventually, I tossed some paladin levels on my monk on her previous life and managed to escape the aggravation. No matter what you decide Henshin Mystic or Thief Acrobat you are going to want to fit in something with access to Item Defense. By the way Rock Elementals... very hard on staves, I cringe when I see them on Vaelyns. I find an adamantine staff (with adamantine ritual on top of it) especially the Theurgic Stave from Threnal works best on those guys except when the devs have them cunningly grouped up with rustmonsters as they are found in TOEE and Rainbow in the Dark.

[Jetrule]

For a quarter staff wielding melee I favor 15 pali 2 rogue 3 monk. But I needs my self heals and defensive stance. I run it in heavy armor and get attack speed from rogue and melee power and quick strike from henshin. 24 in sacred defender and the rest in kotc. str based. If i am going to play a melee monk it will have 41 points in shianto. I was so much happier when I played shianto monk versus henshin or ninja based.

If this is a 1-20 build I wouldn't be afraid to multi class rogue and monk and 3-6 pali. But if I were just picking one it would be rogue for trap exp. and early attack speed/ uncanny dodge.

[Selvera]

Staffs break

True. This is why I would always use randomloot staffs or the Dreampiercer on trash and pull out the good staffs for bosses. Dreeampiercer literally never takes durability damage as far as I can tell. (And randomloot seems to have the same durabilty as any other weapons).

[Jetrule]

True. This is why I would always use randomloot staffs or the Dreampiercer on trash and pull out the good staffs for bosses. Dreeampiercer literally never takes durability damage as far as I can tell. (And randomloot seems to have the same durabilty as any other weapons).

Thats another reason I like the pali based staff fighter. 25-75% item protection.

[BigErkyKid]

All this feedback is truly appreciated.

So far I am contemplating either pure hen shin, 17 points in half horc VS pure acrobat, also deep in horc.

The theme of the build is trying to get high helpless damage to be a nice trash cleaner (and decent boss DPS).

Not intended as a leveling build, rather to stay at cap and do reaper quests there.

I have to admit I am very scared of rolling the TA as it would limit me to decent groups in reaper (0 solo ability).

As for staves, I have 2 epic elemental blooms with adamantine ritual, sireth, e stone crusher, etc. So durability is not an issue.

Thanks again and any thought is appreciated.

[Morroiel]

So here's the dilemma:

20 monk - probably the best build for straight up dps on a qstaff, but you have to live with the fact that objectively you are playing a MUCH weaker build than shintao handwrap monk. Also AP ends up REALLY tight if you have kta for decent DCs. Survivability is fairly good with incorp, high dodge (with cauldron), high prr, and decentish AC + displace clickies (ofc). Will be even better when ravenloft comes out due to the tainted ability line.

20 rogue - honestly garbage as its less dps and the survivability is absolute trash

18 rogue / 2 monk - not terrible dps in reaper, invuln dodge clickies let you do silly things but when they are on cd, you are pretty **** squishy for high skull reaper

14 rogue / 6 monk - honestly roughly on par with the 18 rogue / 2 monk build and you can pick up double helpless damage boosts, while grabbing shadow veil and more prr.

12 rogue / 6 monk / 2 pally - most defensive build for high skull endgame reaper. One of the roulette tank archetype builds a few players experimented with when reaper first went live. I personally don't think the focus on defenses are worth it. The dps loss is too great.

12 monk / 8 rogue - haven't actually tried this variant but I imagine it could actually be quite strong. Over 100% dodge clickies, improved evasion, abundant step, double helpless mob damage boosts (though AP might be a bit tight to fit in kta as well). Haven't done single target dps but this is probably where I'd land if you 100% want the 2x 30% increase to helpless.



My suggestion - roll 20 monk, play as a qstaff while leveling to get it out of your system. Once you hit cap, LR or ER and level back up as a handwrap shintao monk and enjoy 12-14k dps with strong utility. Abundant step + w/ pls and enough reaper points and building correctly enough effective hp to survive a hit by trash in high skull reaper, means you can effectively hold your own. Stuns, instakills, cc, etc.

If you want the flavor of an acrobat or just want to feel what its like to be invulnerable, I'd probably run the 12 monk / 8 rogue build (check the AP first to make sure its not too tight).

Regardless I wouldn't do half orc, I'd probably do human and run dex/wis based. If you plan on doing high skull reaper, you're going to want shadow veil which means you get dex to hit and damage if you want it.

[Saekee]

I just TR'd out of a henshin splash--did 3 epic past lives. 2 used henshin's tier 5. But not with a staff--SWF. I found that ninja & henshin tier 5s were great with SWF, henshin especially with PSWF. Having void strike obliterate any non-boss 10% of its uses was really fun.
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...ons?highlight=

If I were to use henshin again for a run I would do 14 Pally/6 monk SWF with Oathblade

DPS with ninja tier 5 on SWF means a near constant doublestrike of around 70%, better than TWF due to attack speed boost; hit haste boost on bosses and BAM.

[BigErkyKid]

So here's the dilemma:

20 monk - probably the best build for straight up dps on a qstaff, but you have to live with the fact that objectively you are playing a MUCH weaker build than shintao handwrap monk. Also AP ends up REALLY tight if you have kta for decent DCs. Survivability is fairly good with incorp, high dodge (with cauldron), high prr, and decentish AC + displace clickies (ofc). Will be even better when ravenloft comes out due to the tainted ability line.

20 rogue - honestly garbage as its less dps and the survivability is absolute trash

18 rogue / 2 monk - not terrible dps in reaper, invuln dodge clickies let you do silly things but when they are on cd, you are pretty **** squishy for high skull reaper

14 rogue / 6 monk - honestly roughly on par with the 18 rogue / 2 monk build and you can pick up double helpless damage boosts, while grabbing shadow veil and more prr.

12 rogue / 6 monk / 2 pally - most defensive build for high skull endgame reaper. One of the roulette tank archetype builds a few players experimented with when reaper first went live. I personally don't think the focus on defenses are worth it. The dps loss is too great.

12 monk / 8 rogue - haven't actually tried this variant but I imagine it could actually be quite strong. Over 100% dodge clickies, improved evasion, abundant step, double helpless mob damage boosts (though AP might be a bit tight to fit in kta as well). Haven't done single target dps but this is probably where I'd land if you 100% want the 2x 30% increase to helpless.



My suggestion - roll 20 monk, play as a qstaff while leveling to get it out of your system. Once you hit cap, LR or ER and level back up as a handwrap shintao monk and enjoy 12-14k dps with strong utility. Abundant step + w/ pls and enough reaper points and building correctly enough effective hp to survive a hit by trash in high skull reaper, means you can effectively hold your own. Stuns, instakills, cc, etc.

If you want the flavor of an acrobat or just want to feel what its like to be invulnerable, I'd probably run the 12 monk / 8 rogue build (check the AP first to make sure its not too tight).

Regardless I wouldn't do half orc, I'd probably do human and run dex/wis based. If you plan on doing high skull reaper, you're going to want shadow veil which means you get dex to hit and damage if you want it.

Thanks for the breakdown!

I come from playing for months (with a break in between) a pure Shintao human monk DEX (main) / WIS. It really is a blast and I dare say the best melee reaper around (for what it is worth).

The problem I had with it is that it is just too good. It has excellent single target DPS (1st tier), a toon of utility, and decent AoE. With PL investment and good gear it's just a killing machine. But again, just too good and felt very vanilla.

I wanted something a bit more wacky and thematic, hence thinking of the helpless "double boosting". TA/henshin are the only ones that realistically can dip into horc so far, as AP are too tight for a shintao. It would be diminishing DPS for a shintao not to go into henshin (I was playing even without shadow veil to get as much MP as possible). It would be DEX based though, and just grab boosts and damage + from horc (not go STR route, it is a trap).

By the way, I have played a lot of staff builds, so I know of all their problems (PS - sounds pretentious, I know *some* of the problems)
1) Staff animations: as annoying as TWF for animation breaks, you lose the extra speed when not static, no twitching.
2) Lack of good staves: some named, but bad breaking DR possibilities, low +W, overall inferior weapons.
3) Focus on single target: when the game is an AoE fest.

I just cannot bring myself to do a pure TA. It's just so weak and party dependent

So since we have some recognized builders up here, I may as well ask.

What would be the best "fun" melee build (and yet decently competitive) you guys can think of that uses 17 AP in the horc tree? Assuming no racial PL (burn them all!).

Thanks in advance, and many thanks to everyone contributing to the thread.

[Phil7]

I just cannot bring myself to do a pure TA. It's just so weak and party dependent

So since we have some recognized builders up here, I may as well ask.

What would be the best "fun" melee build (and yet decently competitive) you guys can think of that uses 17 AP in the horc tree? Assuming no racial PL (burn them all!).

Thanks in advance, and many thanks to everyone contributing to the thread.

Not my personal most fun build or min-maxed, but still competitive and super beginner friendly. A build that I also came up with and was planning to post on the forums after having tried it, but Slarden was faster than me
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...ers?highlight=

Of course I know you are not a beginner Erkid, after all you have given me advise before when I created my main toon, but still check it out. I'm pretty sure you could combine it with H-orc and if u want to use staves with it, go ahead you have wizard levels so you can take Item Defense.

I agree about Thief Acrobat... I too would not play a pure thief acrobat. I am spoiled from playing end game melee builds with crazy AoE damage and splashing monk levels.

You could also play a 18fighter/2monk cetus variant as h-orc which is still my personal favorite melee build.

[Viciouspika]

Based on pure dps and just the Henshin mystic and Thief Acrobat trees, a pure monk acrobat will out dps a pure rogue acrobat while soloing, and versus Sneak Attack resistant mobs(undead, oozes, constructs and plants). A pure rogue will only out dps a pure monk in a group. I'll try to back this up with some math.

Lets make several assumptions; equipment, attribute, basic melee feats are the same. Several things cancel each other out or are the same. So I didn't take them into consideration: Quick strike(Same for both classes), bonus attack speed (15% speed bonus monk gets it at Henshin cap and rogue get at Tier 1), crit multiplier and range for the base weapon(both get +1 at tier 5).

According to MrCow's calculations, @20 BAB gets 86.96 attacks per minute which monks claim for Furry of Fists, @15 BAB gets 85.75 attacks per minute. Base weapon d6 quarterstaff with no crit modifier since both are the same.

Monk: 75 melee power
At 89.96 x 3 damage x 1.75(melee power)= 456.54 damage per minute(DPM). With Light the candle stance, 89.96 x 8(2d8 average) fire damage = 695.68 DPM. For at total of 456.54 + 695.68 = 1,152.22 DPM with no Stance bonuses.

Wind stance get 15% attack speed with 12% double strike: 89.96 x 1.20 x 1.12 = 112 attacks per minute. At 112 x 3 x 1.75 = 588 DPM plus stance at 112 x 8 = 896(DPM) for a total of 1,484 DPM.

Rogue: haste boost 30% for 30 seconds out of a minute, 20% double strike, 10 melee power:
At 85.75 x 1.15 haste(15% for full minute) x 1.20 strike = 118.34 attacks per minute. At 118.34 x 3 damage x 1.10 power= 390.52.

Assuming minimum sneak attack for a deception(+5% sneak attack) and improved deception item (+10% sneak attack) and +12d6 damage (36 damage) at 150% melee Power or 15 melee power total.
At 118.34 x 1.15 = 17.75 sneak attacks per minute. At 17.75 x 36 x 1.15 = 734.85 sneak attack DPM. Rogue total DPM: 390.52 + 734.85 = 1,125.37.

Thus, a pure monk in wind stance does 1,484 vs a pure rogues 1,125.37 DPM.

This does not include special attacks from both trees, different monk stances, or any other trees. Hopefully, I got the math right as well as the formulas. I was my first attempt at a trying to figure out the damage.

[slarden]

Where a monk wins is on defenses more than dps. As pointed out a an acrobat maxing sneak damage will do great while alive and not focused on healing. The problem is a rogue melee is too squishy when dodge is below 100%. Threat reduction isn't what it used to be with new aggro mechanics.

[Jetrule]

Based on pure dps and just the Henshin mystic and Thief Acrobat trees, a pure monk acrobat will out dps a pure rogue acrobat while soloing, and versus Sneak Attack resistant mobs(undead, oozes, constructs and plants). A pure rogue will only out dps a pure monk in a group. I'll try to back this up with some math.

Lets make several assumptions; equipment, attribute, basic melee feats are the same. Several things cancel each other out or are the same. So I didn't take them into consideration: Quick strike(Same for both classes), bonus attack speed (15% speed bonus monk gets it at Henshin cap and rogue get at Tier 1), crit multiplier and range for the base weapon(both get +1 at tier 5).

According to MrCow's calculations, @20 BAB gets 86.96 attacks per minute which monks claim for Furry of Fists, @15 BAB gets 85.75 attacks per minute. Base weapon d6 quarterstaff with no crit modifier since both are the same.

Monk: 75 melee power
At 89.96 x 3 damage x 1.75(melee power)= 456.54 damage per minute(DPM). With Light the candle stance, 89.96 x 8(2d8 average) fire damage = 695.68 DPM. For at total of 456.54 + 695.68 = 1,152.22 DPM with no Stance bonuses.

Wind stance get 15% attack speed with 12% double strike: 89.96 x 1.20 x 1.12 = 112 attacks per minute. At 112 x 3 x 1.75 = 588 DPM plus stance at 112 x 8 = 896(DPM) for a total of 1,484 DPM.

Rogue: haste boost 30% for 30 seconds out of a minute, 20% double strike, 10 melee power:
At 85.75 x 1.15 haste(15% for full minute) x 1.20 strike = 118.34 attacks per minute. At 118.34 x 3 damage x 1.10 power= 390.52.

Assuming minimum sneak attack for a deception(+5% sneak attack) and improved deception item (+10% sneak attack) and +12d6 damage (36 damage) at 150% melee Power or 15 melee power total.
At 118.34 x 1.15 = 17.75 sneak attacks per minute. At 17.75 x 36 x 1.15 = 734.85 sneak attack DPM. Rogue total DPM: 390.52 + 734.85 = 1,125.37.

Thus, a pure monk in wind stance does 1,484 vs a pure rogues 1,125.37 DPM.

This does not include special attacks from both trees, different monk stances, or any other trees. Hopefully, I got the math right as well as the formulas. I was my first attempt at a trying to figure out the damage.

I like the mathematical breakdown and if I am following correctly though it seems solid except for the fact that deception and improved deception items in my experience provide near constant sneak attacks since the duration is 4 seconds and 4 seconds or so for improved deception. Improved deception actually states it causes bluff for a unspecified "short time". Once it procs however it will over write itself on each proc and start a fresh 4 seconds. To maximize sneak attack damage at level 30 you need to pick scion of the ethreal plane and have assassins trick or the water elemental strike and good fortification bypass to open with. Shiv is ideal but it only works with daggers/kukris now. Some where in the forums is a thread by Nokowi which demonstrates the high percentage that deception and improved deception provides sneak attacks. Even just one efect ends up providing a very high percentage of sneak attacks especially on bosses.

I find it very hard to gear or build for both deception and improved deception though with loosing a gear slot for basically one or two effects at level 30 a ring of shadows and back stabber gloves or a necklace from lords of dust is just bad gear except for deception. Going high in harper tree for improved deception is a huge trade off same with running shadow dancer. Though I do think that destiny is under rated. A old loot gen with deception is a garbage weapon outside of deception. I can generally only fit one deception item. Which is why I love assassin more for sneak attack builds or 6 ranger for the level 6 DWS core exposing strike. The unbalincing strike ki attack is good but it needs a heavy investment in monk and honestly KTA to be highly reliable since it gets a save.