Notes from a Shadar-kai rogue past life

[Marshal_Lannes]

Needing a rogue past life, and inspired by a thread speculating on why Shadar-kai are viewed as a substandard iconic race, I decided to run a Shadar-kai rogue to get my rogue PL, an SK PL, and to experience if, in fact, SK were unplayable. Since I've never used the Inquisitive tree before I've chosen to go the inquisitive crossbow route. After forum searching and reviewing several rogue inquisitive threads I took my 15 levels in the following manner:

13 rogue/2 artificer

INT level-ups, feats

1 - Point blank shot
3 - Precise shot
4 - (arty) Rapid reload
6 - Precision
9 - Rapid reload
12 - IC ranged
15 - Insightful reflexes

For equipment, I've chosen to wear the Wallwatch set from Sharn (Wildwood vest, Wallwatch circlet, Wildwood gauntlets) while wielding the Nightshade Shooter and the Dumpster Fire rune arm (for the double damage imbues). I do not have a deception/improved deception item yet. The most obvious one to use, the Umber Brim, clashed with the Wallwatch set. I could use Golden Guile when I level up but that clashes with the L16 Necklace of the Glib Tongue which seems a natural Inquisitive fit.

Right off the jump, I quickly realize how powerful inquisitive feels. Having just played an artificer who used repeating crossbows the RoF I'm laying down with non-repeating crossbows is superior. I don't even think it's close. It certainly doesn't feel close. Now, one of the interesting elements of DDO is that you're at your character's power peak at L15 - with my Wallwatch set and weapon/rune arm combo I'll never be this powerful again until level 29 and my power will slowly decline as I move toward 30 and the quests get harder since essentially my character will be using this same weapon combo until L21. So we must take that in mind. Even so, if this is Inquisitive now (and without IPS), what was this tree like before nerfs! Everything melts away and I haven't even properly optimized when to use No Holds Barred basically only using it for red names at the moment.

A slight drawback to jumping in at L15 with an iconic is you get all your tree abilities at once so if you aren't familiar with them they have a tendency (for me anyway) to sit on the toolbar unused. As such, I haven't used Arresting Assault or Hit the Streets all that much. Likely I will have a chance to explore those more when quests start pushing back some.

I'm using the martial inquisition style and the optimistic path. I haven't fully decided on how I'm going to complete my leveling. 18 rogue/2 artificer seems to be popular although for those who like to go fast 17 rogue/2 artificer/1 barbarian has its fans. I'm also considering my own variation with 16 rogue/2 artificer/ 2 FVS. War Soul has a lot of nice low-hanging fruit and I could go the divine inquisition style getting crossbows as a favored weapon. The hang-up there might be a lack of APs as I'm not sure I'd be able to stretch them that far.

Now the question, does Shadar-kai add anything to this build? Well, not really but it doesn't exactly detract from it either and it does allow me to start off at L15 on a TR. I found value in that as already I'm a machine gun-toting agent of the inquisition who can dominate quests. Are there any negatives? Self-healing is the one that stands out at the moment. Like the rest of you, I dislike scroll healing but that's pretty much your only option and with a starting CHA of -2 from SK you are forced to use a CHA skills item simply to get Heal scrolls off at a 100% clip (at L15 anyway). It's not as much of a hindrance to the inquisitive as other classes because you aren't being hit often on R1 since everything is usually dead before they can strike back.

[Marshal_Lannes]

I got to 20 extremely fast on this build. So fast that I didn't even have time to theorycraft my FVS addition, but I soon realized I don't have the APs for it so I stuck with 18 Rogue/2 artificer. I ended up going 41 points in Inquisitive, 24 points in Mechanic (you pretty much need fletching, I mean you're always running out of bolts the most inopportune time without and 10 ranged power on top of it for 3 APs is ultimately a no-brainer) 3 in TA for fast speed, 3 in Feydark for shadow weapons, 1 in Renegade for 10 HPs, 8 in Harper for KtA. The build remains powerful, very powerful up through 20. We shall see how it fares into epics.

[Marshal_Lannes]

Extremely smooth ride through epics. First forays into R10 were promising. One thing I'm debating - for my L30 feat I took Scion of Arborea (20 ranged power +4 weapon enhancement) but I wonder, would Scion of Fire be better? 10 PRR/MRR and 2d20 fire damage per hit scales with spell power. Since I wear the Legendary Dumpster fire which has combustion on it, would that with RoF end up being more DPS than Arborea? I'm going to feat swap and test this out before I TR.