90% Doublestrike War Knife Ranger

[Thrudh]

Edit: I changed from Scion of the Astral Plane to Scion of the Ethereal Plane, so technically this is a 86% doublestrike build now

Halfing 14/6 Ranger/Warlock 86% sustained Doublestrike Vistani knife build

Free feats from Ranger:

• Bow Strength
• Rapid Shot
• Die Hard
• TWF, ITWF, GTWF
• Precise Shot
• Improved Precise Shot
• Manyshot
• Evasion

Free feats from Warlock (Fey):

• Magical Training
• Deceive Item (+5 UMD)
• Dark Delirium (no-save Daze Monster - works on most champs and Orange-named and Reapers)

Free feats from Vistani

• Quick Draw
• Deflect Arrows

Heroic Leveling:

• 1. Ranger - Weapon Finesse
• 2. Warlock (Fey)
• 3. Ranger - Halfling Dragonmark / change in epics for Precision
• 4. Warlock
• 5. Ranger
• 6. Ranger - Maximize
• 7. Ranger
• 8. Ranger
• 9. Ranger - IC: Piercing
• 10. Ranger
• 11. Ranger
• 12. Warlock - Empower Healing
• 13. Warlock
• 14. Ranger
• 15. Ranger - IC: Ranged
• 16. Warlock
• 17. Warlock
• 18. Ranger - Quicken
• 19. Ranger
• 20. Ranger

Epic Leveling:

• 21 - Overwhelming Critical
• 24 - Rogue Past Life - +30 to hide 3 times/1 minute
• 26 - Perfect Two Weapon Fighting
• 27 - Epic Reflexes
• 28 - Doubleshot 10%
• 29 - Dire Charge
• 30 - Blinding Speed and Scion of Ethereal Plane (Perm Blur, +4 to all skills, +1 sneak attack damage for every 3 points of hide)

All stat level ups into Dexterity.

Hide skill is around 130 at cap with Camouflage spell, high dex, Hide cloak from Silent Avenger set, maxed hide ranks, etc. It's 160 when you activate the Rogue past-life. That's a TON of extra sneak attack damage (which I believe is increased by melee power as well). DPS noticeably got stronger when I switched to this. Exposing Strike (enhancement from Deepwood Sniper) lets you bluff a single target for 4 seconds every 6 seconds. This works on orange-names and bosses, so this is a lot of extra DPS. And a helpless mob (from Dire Charge or Balanced Attacks) also takes sneak attack damage.

Enhancements are super tight at 20. While leveling in heroics, I get the halfling dragonmarks but cannot afford them once the build is done. Maybe if I ever get all the racial APs (VERY doubtful), I could keep the halfling dragonmarks along with everything else.

At 20, I give up on Halfling enhancements entirely.

Enhancements

• 41 points into Vistani (for capstone)
• 21 points into Warlock (for brilliance)
• 11 points into Deepwood Sniper (for Improved Weapon Finesse and Exposing Strike)
• 7 points into Harper (for 1 minute Know the Angles)

Legendary Dreadnought is the Epic Destiny I use

Twists

• Balanced Attacks (Tier 3)
• Sacred Ground (Tier 3)
• Consecration (Tier 2)
• Unearthly Reactions (Tier 1)
• Cocoon (Tier 1)

End-game Gear

Silent Avenger Set:
Armor: Legendary Mist-Fallen Vestaments: 202 Fortification - 9 Parrying - PRR 50 - Profane +2 - Green slot (+2 Max Dex from Armor)
Belt: Legendary Braided Cutcord: DEX +19 - Qual DEX +4 - Qual Dodge 4 - Blurry Green slot(+2 Luck)
Cloak: Legendary Shadowhail Cloak: Hide +22, Move Silently +22, Deception +16, Ghostly - Green slot (Globe +1 EXC to all stats)

Goggles: Cannith crafted: INT +15 - Spot +22 (or True Seeing) - Insightful INT +7 - Yellow slot (+2 Festive INT)
Wrist: Legendary Lore-Fueled Packbanner: Ins CON +9 - PRR 50 - Insightful Doublestrike +10 - Green slot (+8 STR)
Ring: Legengary Ring of Prowess: +8 Melee and Ranged Power - +14 Deadly - +28 Accuracy - Green slot (250 SP)
Ring: Slaver crafted: CON +17 - 185 Devotion - Stunning +20 - Quality CON +4
Gloves: Cannith crafted: Doublestrike +17 - Healing Amp 61 - Insightful Dex +7 - Green slot (+40 hps false life)
Necklace: Legendary Ward-Inscribed Pendant: Deadly +16 - CON +19, Natural Armor +19 Yellow slot (Deathblock)
Trinket: Cannith crafted: 9% Doubleshot - +12 Resistance - Insightful Stunning +8
Boots: Cannith crafted: Dodge 15 - Sheltering +38 (for the MRR) - Ins Dodge +7 Green slot(+8 CHA)
Head:Legendary Executioner's Helm: +17 Seeker - Relentless Fury (5% more DPS) - +4 Quality Combat Mastery - Insightful Deception (more sneak attack damage) - Green slot (+8 WIS)


Ranger levels

• 14 levels in ranger is for all the feats, both TWF and ranged, plus evasion, favored enemies, and a few spells (most ranger spells are worthless these days unfortunately)

Warlock Levels

• 1 level of warlock - gets you access to UMD as a class skill and is enough to get Feigned Health (4 AP) which gives good amount of temp hp for the lower levels. This is very helpful when playing reaper at low heroic levels.
• 2 levels of warlock - bumps your UMD skill by 5, and lets you Wand and Scroll Mastery 75%, which again is very useful in reaper to heal yourself. The 75% bonus on your Cure wands negates much of the reaper self-heal penalty.

This is all I used throughout most of heroic levels. For someone like me, with limited reaper APs at this point, the extra survivability using warlock levels was worth it.

• 4 levels of warlock - gets you brilliance (temp hp equal to your CON score every few seconds, or 2x CON score in epic), but that takes 21 AP, and I had too many other things I wanted throughout most of the heroic levels to bother with it until I was almost at epic levels anyway.

I'm finding brilliance is quite good throughout epic levels and even at cap... I have about a 60 CON at cap, and 120 temp hp every few seconds does indeed help, even in reaper. It's noticeable if I forget to turn on my aura when logging into the game.

• 5 levels of warlock - gives you the opportunity to take tier 5 warlock abilities, specifically useful would be Shining Through and self-cast Displacement. 20 more heal amp would also be nice. I have yet to play with this at cap... I finding my defense is good enough that I don't want to give up the offensive power of Tier 5 Vistani or Tier 5 ranger for the defense of warlock yet.
• 6 levels of warlock - I'm finding extraordinarily useful. I went Fey for Dark Delirium. and I love that ability... It's basically a no-save Daze Monster, where the monster just stands there and does nothing for 30+ seconds. It has saved me many times to shut down a tough champ or orange-name (it even works on reapers!) while I deal with the rest of the trash.

Notable Spells:

• Freedom of Movement
• Sleet Storm
• Cure Moderate Wounds
• Jump
• NightShield

Sleet Storm from Warlock (enemies are blinded and slowed 50% and you get sneak attack damage) and Freedom of Movement from Ranger are a great combo when soloing (Sleet Storm affects party members too so not so great in a party)


Doublestrike calculations:

• 9% 3 martial sphere Epic Past Lives
• 17% Cannith-crafted gloves
• 10% Lore-fueled Packbannner (Insight bonus)
• 5% Knife Specialist (Vistani enhancement)
• 5% Celerity (Vistani enhancement)
• 5% Perfect Two-weapon fighting (Epic Destiny Feat)
• 15% Silent Avenger Set

=66% passive

20% Rapid Slash (Vistani enhancement, active attack, 10 sec duration, 10 sec cooldown)

=86% sustained Doublestrike (since duration matches cooldown)

Plus other Vistani enhancements give you 10% more attack speed that stacks with haste.


TLDR:
Good DPS from Vistani (86% Doublestrike!), matched with defense from Warlock. Dark Delirium is a great no-save single-target spell that works on most champs and orange-names AND reapers. Freedom of Movement combined with Sleet Storm is a good combo for solo play. CMW and Cocoon is enough for most healing. Excellent ranged ability as well with Improved Precise Shot and Manyshot. Melee AOE is the main weakness of this build.

I should play around with a centered monk variant (11/6/3 ranger/warlock/monk), but this build does very well as is.

[Thrudh]

Any thoughts on gear or feats?

Are the 21 APs and 6 levels of warlock worth it? Or would it be stronger as a pure ranger, or with 6 levels of fighter, or 6 levels of monk?

[Kodwraith]

Any thoughts on gear or feats?

Are the 21 APs and 6 levels of warlock worth it? Or would it be stronger as a pure ranger, or with 6 levels of fighter, or 6 levels of monk?

Does 14 ranger get you anything over 12 ranger that's better than two more warlock levels (or two rogue levels)? Why 14/6 over 12/6/2 or 12/8? 8 warlock gets you a level 3 spell which can be Displacement or Haste or dimension door. 4 ranger gets you FoM, but not much else. If you took 2 monk, you can get centered with daggers from the vistani tree (T3), then you get double bonuses from Scion of Astral plane. Throwing daggers will still uncenter you. core 5 vistani gets you the +crit and range but not until 18, whereas you'd get it at 12 with the tempest/DWS trees.

Whether or not it's "stronger" depends on what you want to do with it. A pure ranger typically optimizes around either melee or ranged. You're missing the entire Tempest Tree which is somewhat surprising, I would have expected Vistani + Tempest + enough DWS to get weapon finesse. You can also potentially take ImpCrit thrown and have passable ranged dmg with daggers as well.

21 APs into ES for Brilliance seems a very odd choice. The temp hitpoints are just small. Even with a CON of 60, that's only 120 hPs. At cap, these will get one-shotted off in no time flat. There simply aren't enough HPs to matter until you go up to T5 for Shining Through. At least spend 3 more AP and take the 3d4 to all attacks light dmg. You're aura is very weak without many warlock levels and you don't take anything to convert the dmg to alignment/light dmg instead of force. The top of the ranger Tempest tree would serve you much better.


This will very likely not be as strong as a pure ranger or a ranger/fighter or a ranger/fighter/monk (or a monk using daggers). I ran a 15 pally/5 lock for awhile and eventually rerolled into a pure pally and was much happier.

[Kodwraith]

Does 14 ranger get you anything over 12 ranger that's better than two more warlock levels (or two rogue levels)? Why 14/6 over 12/6/2 or 12/8? 8 warlock gets you a level 3 spell which can be Displacement or Haste or dimension door. 4 ranger gets you FoM, but not much else. If you took 2 monk, you can get centered with daggers from the vistani tree (T3), then you get double bonuses from Scion of Astral plane. Throwing daggers will still uncenter you. core 5 vistani gets you the +crit and range but not until 18, whereas you'd get it at 12 with the tempest/DWS trees.

Whether or not it's "stronger" depends on what you want to do with it. A pure ranger typically optimizes around either melee or ranged. You're missing the entire Tempest Tree which is somewhat surprising, I would have expected Vistani + Tempest + enough DWS to get weapon finesse. You can also potentially take ImpCrit thrown and have passable ranged dmg with daggers as well.

21 APs into ES for Brilliance seems a very odd choice. The temp hitpoints are just small. Even with a CON of 60, that's only 120 hPs. At cap, these will get one-shotted off in no time flat. There simply aren't enough HPs to matter until you go up to T5 for Shining Through. At least spend 3 more AP and take the 3d4 to all attacks light dmg. You're aura is very weak without many warlock levels and you don't take anything to convert the dmg to alignment/light dmg instead of force. The top of the ranger Tempest tree would serve you much better.


This will very likely not be as strong as a pure ranger or a ranger/fighter or a ranger/fighter/monk (or a monk using daggers). I ran a 15 pally/5 lock for awhile and eventually rerolled into a pure pally and was much happier.

Ok I lied, the VKF +1 crit rang/mult is also level 12. I think the ranger +25% offhand doublestrike will still be more powerful since at T5 Tempest you get full offhand damage. I think 20 ranger with Tempest 41 / DWS 6 / VKF 33 might be more optimal.

You loose you very weak aura, your 120 odd temp HPs and the Boss stun. Much much more melee DPS, full stat DMG to offhand, hit 4 targets at a time.

[Thrudh]

Ok I lied, the VKF +1 crit rang/mult is also level 12. I think the ranger +25% offhand doublestrike will still be more powerful since at T5 Tempest you get full offhand damage. I think 20 ranger with Tempest 41 / DWS 6 / VKF 33 might be more optimal.

You loose you very weak aura, your 120 odd temp HPs and the Boss stun. Much much more melee DPS, full stat DMG to offhand, hit 4 targets at a time.

You make very good points... thanks for the feedback...

I really do like that boss stun though... It's great to take a tough champ or reaper or orange-named out of the fight.

Also, the reason I went 14 ranger was for FoM... That and Sleet storm are a nice combo... But I guess I could scroll sleet storm on a pure 20 ranger, right?

Also I need 7 points for Harper so my Dire Charge will stick... So I'll only have have 26 points for Vistani.... And I sure like 11 points for DWS, Exposing Strike is pretty decent. But maybe I could try just 6 points in DWS.

[Kodwraith]

You can always try it and see how it works.

With only 6 levels of 'lock are your DCs for you boss stun high enough to matter? Your aura will be very, very weak for a huge investment. You will do drastically more dmg shifting AP points into tempest and using dance of death at T5 to hit 4 targets at once. Especially if they're stunned from dire charge. The better boss technique is to take IC:Ranged and kite with Multishot and Pin.

Also I need 7 points for Harper so my Dire Charge will stick...

KTA is great but wearing Stunning gear and insightful Combat Mastery will help be most of your DCs. You're going to be a DEX based toon, so getting DEX high enough seems the best plan. Stunning Blow is wate because your STR wont be high enoguh to matter. I run my monk main with a DireCharge DC of about 115ish.

The core problem with the build is it will be alot less DPS than a melee tempest ranger, less DPS and versatility than a pure lock, less useful than a rogue splash.

Consider you AP split as a prime example. Specialize in one thing and do it well. A pure tempest Ranger with daggers with a large VKF splash will out DPS this build by a wide margin. Yes they won't be able to stun the odd orange named. But everythign else will go down twice as fast.

[Thrudh]

With only 6 levels of 'lock are your DCs for you boss stun high enough to matter?

Dark Delirium is no-save, which is nice. If you hit the monster, they have a 10% chance to break free of the daze. And it works on reapers. Very nice to shut down a carnage reaper, deal with the trash, then kill the reaper by itself.

KTA is great but wearing Stunning gear and insightful Combat Mastery will help be most of your DCs. You're going to be a DEX based toon, so getting DEX high enough seems the best plan. Stunning Blow is wate because your STR wont be high enoguh to matter. I run my monk main with a DireCharge DC of about 115ish.

My Dire Charge stun with KTA is 122... Without it, it would drop to around 113 I think.

The core problem with the build is it will be alot less DPS than a melee tempest ranger, less DPS and versatility than a pure lock, less useful than a rogue splash.

Consider you AP split as a prime example. Specialize in one thing and do it well. A pure tempest Ranger with daggers with a large VKF splash will out DPS this build by a wide margin. Yes they won't be able to stun the odd orange named. But everythign else will go down twice as fast.

Tempest isn't really that great of a DPS tree... At least not until Tier 4 and Tier 5.

Start with my current build using the Vistani capstone.

So let's compare

21 AP in Enlightened Scholar gets me

• 130 Temp HP every 4 seconds
• +25 hp
• +19 PRR
• +24 MRR
• Perm Shield (+4 to AC)

21 AP in Tempest gets me

• +9 AC
• +19 PRR
• +9 MRR
• +3 to hit/damage
• +3 to Reflex saves (+6 against traps)
• +3% Dodge

Splashing Tempest doesn't really seem worth it...

So instead, you suggest I go pure 20 ranger so I can get the Tempest capstone

41 in Tempest gets me

• Dance of Death
• Full attribute bonus to off-hand
• +5% Doublestrike
• +10 MP, PRR, MRR
• +4 Dex
• +25% off-hand Doublestrike
• +5% incorp (stacking)
• +4% more Doublstrike
• +4 Melee Power
• +7 to hit/+7 to damage

Drop back to 21-28 AP in Vistani and I lose

• -20 Melee Power
• -20 Ranged Power
• -5% attack speed
• -2 to all attributes
• -10 PRR
• -10 MRR
• Short 15 second buffs every 60 seconds that give +1 crit range/mult and +10 enhancenment (plus silver/good/ghost touch)
• Short 20 second buff every 60 seconds that gives 20% Dodge (and Max Dodge), 30 PRR, 30 MRR

I'm not seeing Tempest as a huge upgrade except for Dance of Death and hitting 4 targets at once... I actually lose 6 MP and 20 RP, and 5% attack speed... Assuming all enhancements stack, I do gain another 9% doublestrike on my main hand (making this the 99% doublestrike build!) and 25% more doublestrike on the off-hand.

So it is an upgrade in DPS, but only slightly. The big difference is Dance of Death, but that doesn't help against bosses.

You sure 20 pure ranger is the way to go?

[Zretch]

21 APs into ES for Brilliance seems a very odd choice. The temp hitpoints are just small. Even with a CON of 60, that's only 120 hPs. At cap, these will get one-shotted off in no time flat. There simply aren't enough HPs to matter until you go up to T5 for Shining Through.

You're thinking about brilliance vs shining through wrong. The amount of temp hitpoints doesn't matter as much as the amount of temp hitpoints over time.

With the ES 3 core (level 6), your aura ticks every 4 seconds. Brilliance at a 60 con is giving 120 hitpoints every 4 seconds or 30 hitpoints per second of "healing".
Shining Through has a 30 second recast and gives 8x con, so ST at 60 con is giving 480 hitpoints every 30 seconds for 16 hitpoints per second of "healing".

Brilliance will sustain you better in any fight that lasts longer than 20 seconds, and for a build that isn't heavy on AoE, fights against larger packs of mobs will take longer than that.

Brilliance gets even better as you gain Warlock levels. At 12 lock (core 4), Brilliance ticks off every 3 seconds for 45 hitpoints per second with a 60 con. At 18 lock (core 5), it's every 2 seconds for 60 hitpoints per second. Shining through never gets better.

Shining Through is a fixed 0.2666 * Con per second in both heroic and epic levels.
Brilliance scales from 0.25 * Con per second at 6 -----> 0.375 * Con per second at 12 -----> .5 * Con per second at 18 in heroics to 0.5 (Core 3), 0.75 (Core 4), to 1.0 (Core 5) in epics.

Play an ES Warlock in EE or ER and you'll quickly realize that Shining Through is only for "oh ****" moments and your baseline sustainability comes from a combination of brilliance blunting incoming damage and a twisted consecration + sacred ground spot filling whatever damage gets through.

[Thrudh]

Been running this build at cap for a while now.

It's doing quite well... Vistani knife fighting being the focus. Strong single-target DPS build, with evasion and decent self-healing.

It's technically a 86% Doublestrike build now, since I swapped out Scion of the Astral Plane for Scion of the Ethereal Plane. I didn't realize how much DPS that added, since this guy is a dex build with maxed out hide, access to the Camouflage spell, using the hide cloak for Silent Avenger set anyway, and I swapped in the Rogue PL for another +30 to hide 3 times/1 minute.

Plus I have Exposing Strike with 11 enhancement points in DWS which lets me get 4 seconds of sneak attack every 6 seconds against one target - great for orange-named or boss fights.

Going with Vistani capstone (41 points) and 11 points in DWS, and 7 points in Harper leaves me exactly 21 points left-over.

21 points in ES gives more benefits than 21 points in Tempest or increasing to 33 points in DWS. I already get the 20% morale bonus to Doublestrike from Vistani, so Killer in DWS is not needed.

And I think the temp hp from warlock are quite useful. 130 temp hp refreshing every 4 seconds does indeed help me survive in reaper 1-5.

Other good variations were discussed above... All I get for Ranger 14 is Freedom Of Movement. Again, pairing that with Sleet Storm can be useful, but one can get that 10 minute FoM potion from remnant turn-in or FoM boots.

So going 12/8 Ranger/Warlock is a possibility to get self-cast Displacement. Or I like the idea of 11/6/3 Ranger/Warlock/Monk and go centered with some Monk feats.

I edited the first page to reflect two changes in feats (Swapping in Rogue PL at 24, and changed the level 30 Scion feat)