Vile Ninja

[Haphazarduk]

There have been a few different builds around Alchemist and VKF and Maelodic suggested something similar to this build a while back.

Here's my take on a poison knife fighter.

Helf Alchemist 16/Monk 3/FvS 1

32 Point Build First Lifer

Str 8 Dex 16 Con 14 Int 16 Wis 14 Chr 8
(You can increase Int but I like minimal use of tomes and GTWF requires 17 Dex)

Key Skills:
Concentration
Bluff
UMD
Heal
Move Silently
Hide
Search


APs (80):
Vistani 41
Vile Chemist 22
Ninja Assassin 13
War Soul 4

Standard Feats:
1 Improved Feint
3 Extend
6 Two Weapon Defense (Swap to Adept of Forms at 17)
9 iTWF
12 IC:P
15 GTWF
18 Master of Forms

Alchemist Feats:
4 Battalion Brew (Int to Damage)
8 Quicken
12 Simple Weapon Expertise
16 Liquid Courage

Monk Feats:
1 TWF
2 Precision


Sting of the Ninja gives us ninja poison on critical hits which we can use to build damage/vulnerability or purge for extra damage via dark exploits.

War Soul gives us Battle Trance although it keys off Wis so won't be quite as good as KtA - still, it works for the APs we have.

Vile Chemist gives Poison Weapons, Full BAB, 4 Feats, some extras and some great melee support spells.

VKF gives DPS.

Alchemist have a pretty good array of combat buffs that other classes don't have access to. The Potion Action Boosts are great if a little slow to cast so Quicken is essential. Extend is for Displacement Draught and similar. The poison imbues are actually not bad either and elemental weapon is always an option.

In particular I find the debuff/cc spells pretty good from Alchemist - at low level Glue Bomb is great.

Healing is ok via admixtures although I can see spell points being a concern on some quests. UMD is very useful here for out of combat healing.

The Reactions of Alchemists are tricky but useful once you get the hang of them and, done correctly, can make a big difference at the start of a tough fight.

Master of Forms is for Master of Flame and improved crits on 19-20. On most other builds it wouldn't be worth two feats but on this one I think its justified.

Why Half Elf? Because I love Improved Feint and the SA dice from Ninja do help. For solo runs IF is an incredibly useful panic button.

Another option is to go Human and free up two feats but the build isn't feat constrained particularly so its no big deal. I did theorycraft a human version will all the ranged feats as well as melee to make use of the thrown knife capability of VKF but it doesn't work well with monk levels (which I always thought was an oversight not to have monks be able to use throwing knives through VKF).

Currently in low mid heroics - will report back on progress.

Hap

Edit: Have swapped to Wis rather than Chr for Battle Trance - thanks adamr09!

[Saekee]

since in fire stance try the ring perfect pinnacle. Blinds mobs like crazy

[adamr09]

This looks fun! What do you suggest for level progression? Also, how do you feel this build would do on the HC server based on what you've seen so far? Is it too back loaded?

Also, why not invest into wisdom instead of charisma?

[Haphazarduk]

This looks fun! What do you suggest for level progression? Also, how do you feel this build would do on the HC server based on what you've seen so far? Is it too back loaded?

No, it doesn't feel too back loaded. I did invest into Shintao for the PRR in earlier levels and it's not a 'run in and slash' type build but doing well so far. I'm not a HC player myself so not sure how it would fair but it feels decent soloing so would hope it did ok. There is still some weirdness in Alchemist abilities but they don't get in the way too much and will be resolved in time. The utility is great, especially with the action boost spells.

Also, why not invest into wisdom instead of charisma?

Good question! Partly because I wanted Chr for Bluff and UMD but mainly because I've been playing Pally builds recently and automatically chose Chr instead of Wis Wis would probably be better for the saves and AC.

Hap

[adamr09]

Trying this out myself (just made a level 15 iconic version to test). Seems like Ninja Poison is not applying most of the time with daggers. I see the purple numbers once in while but not after most crits. Have you experienced this at all?

[PsychoBlonde]

Trying this out myself (just made a level 15 iconic version to test). Seems like Ninja Poison is not applying most of the time with daggers. I see the purple numbers once in while but not after most crits. Have you experienced this at all?

Are you using Examine on your target to make sure you're building stacks?

[adamr09]

Are you using Examine on your target to make sure you're building stacks?

No, but I see the crit which should apply a stack along with the vulnerability, right? When I played a shortsword monk I would see the purple poison numbers from the stacks, so I figured that the Vile Chemist poison damage would also show as purple after I crit. Maybe the vulnerability is being applied but it just isn't showing as purple from anything other than Ninja Poison stacks?

[Haphazarduk]

No, but I see the crit which should apply a stack along with the vulnerability, right? When I played a shortsword monk I would see the purple poison numbers from the stacks, so I figured that the Vile Chemist poison damage would also show as purple after I crit. Maybe the vulnerability is being applied but it just isn't showing as purple from anything other than Ninja Poison stacks?

It's definitely applying the Ninja Poison. I went into the Searing Heights and tested it on the First Mate - it works with daggers as well as shuriken. You're right though its not showing vulnerable afterwards although it isn't doing that with shuriken either (and I suspect short swords). Will take a bit more investigation to see if the vulnerability is actually working and whether its just a UI issue but should be straight forward enough to check. Will also open a ticket - no idea if its a known issue or not.

What's a good boss with lots of hp that's easy to get to and doesn't do huge amounts of damage in mid heroics?

Hap

[Xgya]

It's definitely applying the Ninja Poison. I went into the Searing Heights and tested it on the First Mate - it works with daggers as well as shuriken. You're right though its not showing vulnerable afterwards although it isn't doing that with shuriken either (and I suspect short swords). Will take a bit more investigation to see if the vulnerability is actually working and whether its just a UI issue but should be straight forward enough to check. Will also open a ticket - no idea if its a known issue or not.

What's a good boss with lots of hp that's easy to get to and doesn't do huge amounts of damage in mid heroics?

Hap

You could try to use the safe spot on the chains at the end of A Break In The Ice in the Storm Horns and whack at the ice giant there.

I'm trying to think of other places with safe spots and high HP bosses, but that one definitely fits the bill.

[crystania]

intrigued by the build

[Selvera]

Ok; so I'm also looking into the idea of building a Vile Ninja build; but I'm pretty dubious about multiclassing it too heavily; have you tested out the build enough to know if dipping that many levels of other classes is worth it?

My quick math on damage dice from vile chemist (and similar trees = EK); add up to this:
20 levels alchemist has 100% of possible elemental damage procs per hit.
18 or 19 levels alchemist has 85% of possible elemental damage procs.
15 to 17 levels alchemist has 58% of possible damage procs.
12 to 14 levels alchemist has 46% of possible.
9 to 11 levels has 27%; 6 to 8 levels has 18%; 3 to 5 levels has 9%.

So your build above dips 4 levels out of alchemist; resulting in a loss of 42% of possible elemental damage procs per hit, do you feel like it gains enough from these levels to make up for it? I've been looking more at like a 2 level monk dip; which only loses 15% of elemental procs but still gains evasion, elemental stances and limited monk trees attacks/defenses, which I'm currently thinking could make up for the loss.

[SocratesBastardSon]

Ok; so I'm also looking into the idea of building a Vile Ninja build; but I'm pretty dubious about multiclassing it too heavily; have you tested out the build enough to know if dipping that many levels of other classes is worth it?

I'm going to jump in here. I've mentioned my version in passing a few times, but wanted to try it out in epic before posting the build.

I went with Alch 13/Mo 6/FvS 1. I put 21 pts into Vile Chemist, 38 pts in Ninja, 12 pts in Falconry for WIS to damage, 4 in Warsoul for the obvious reasons, and the rest into Aasimar.

First, the downside. I've had a lot difficulty for reasons I can't quite figure out getting Touch of Death to land, so I'm tempted to remove it. Second, I'm not sure Deadly Exploits is worth it either. So is Ninja with poisoner no good? On the contrary! It's awesome. Love it and will be playing it again. Where it shines is in the finishing moves and then GoF. I fight with dual Envenomed Blades, including an epic version I made, and I ended up with something I did not anticipate: enormous amounts of CC. The DPS is decent, but not top-tier, not surprisingly, but with all of the paralyzing, helpless, stunning, and knockdowns, I often have at least 50% of attackers out of the fight at any given point.

Boss damage is good too, Ranged is solid. Lots of poison damage, even against poison-immune mobs. Defenses are excellent between monk abilities, Orchidium reaction/spikes, and Alchemist spells like Displacement.

For it all to succeed, imposing lots of Fort debuffs is essential, particularly since I only have 6 levels of monk. I do that via Toxic Augmentation, Contamination (thrown, spell and melee), triple Dark strikes, Divine Will, and equipment. Stunning and Concentration have to be as high as possible, not surprisingly.

The build is very clicky and rotation sensitive, however. You need to know your way around a monk and weave the VC attacks into the right places. But once you figure it out, it's one of the easiest builds I've done for low reaper (R2-4) content (I have NOT done Legendary raids or high reaper quests, and don't anticipate it would do well there, but, this build has consistently surprised me, so...). And fun. Pure, glee-cackling fun. It's hard to describe, other than saying you gotta try it to believe it.

It's good for groups or solo. But as I said, it's not an auto killer, you have to actually play it for it to work. So if you don't like fussy builds, this is not for you. If you like min-maxed builds, this is not for you. It's very balanced and designed for survivability and action across a wide spectrum of situations.

One of these days I'll stop being lazy and post it.

EDIT: I figured out why Touch of Death wasn't hitting as hard as it should. The DCs on it are 20 pts worse than finishing moves. I had thought they were all the same. More, Tactical bonuses like Legendary Tactics from Dreadnought and Reaper's Tactics boost finishing moves but not Touch of Death or Dark strikes. Weird. You'd think a t5 attack that costs 50 ki would benefit from tactical bonuses to stunning.

[aradelothion]

Standard Feats:
1 Improved Feint
3 Extend
6 Two Weapon Defense (Swap to Adept of Forms at 17)
9 iTWF
12 IC:P
15 GTWF
18 Master of Forms

Trying to plan this out, how are you getting to BAB6 by level 9 for ITWF?