S.W.A.T. Team: Top-Shelf Rogues, Top-Shelf Adventuring

[katz]

Constructs! A classic challenge for a rogue.

there was some oooh-ing and aaahhh-ing over my dual smiters and how fast they were killing things. ha HA! my portal beaters have NEW LIFE!

but yeah. was loads of fun. laughed my ... off

[parowan]

I decided to stop pouting about the epic scrolls and see who was around for some SWAT action. Unfortunately it was already quite late Saturday night, so we ended up a threesome: Foejaeger, Krimsonrane, and Fwelcyr. Still, we had all the necessary ingredients for a successful SWAT team: 1. Brains (Foe), 2. Muscle (Krim), and 3.... moral support? Rugged good looks? (Fwel).

As a warmup we hit Mindsunder elite. Any concern about the Charisma-draining mobs hampering our UMD was premature. They all went down way too fast - I think I saw a chr-drain hit me once. The only hiccup was when a certain novice didn't realize he'd left his madstone boots on until he tried to heal himself...... Graciously the lady toons propped me up during that embarrassing two minutes.



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Notice the newbs didn't even have discs with them (not that it matters post-U13).

Sadly, it was already so late we weren't up for anything too serious, so we headed over to Epic Partycrashers. We knocked this out with little trouble, if not particularly fast.



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Judging from those craptacular screenshots with the pillar in the foreground (oops) you might guess that the lateness of the hour was beginning to tell. In fact, we suffered our first casualty as Krimson had to log before he dropped unconscious.

Foe and Fwel went on though, and completed the remaining optionals. Still with nary a death, although the grind of that guy under the stage almost had me wishing for death. It's been a LONG time since I ran those optionals (sculpture swap, stagehand, urn, abishai) and I wasn't sure how we'd tackle the abishai. But like a good rogue, Foe had an answer for everything, and he proved little challenge. Less than the stagehand in fact. I certainly learned a few things, so it was a good night, even without scrolls.



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[Qezuzu]

My geared-to-the-teeth rogue is nearing level 14 and will be joining you soon...

We'll run epic Deeps, OOB, VON3/4... I'm **** confident.

[delsoboss]

I bought the Sharn Syndicate pack on the recent sale and the quests are funny and very rogueish in style.
The Stormreaver Fresco is wonderfull and i played it all stealthy unlocking all the deposit boxes, collecting junk and sneaking past the guards to finish un-aggroed.
I thought about the quest, i thought about this thread and here it comes:

The Dillinger Challenge: Gather your team of rogues and ransack the Lordsmarch Bank as fast as you can. To complete this challenge you need to unlock and open all the deposit boxes in the vault area (no need for the optional iron defender and the undead dwarves) and get out unnoticed by the guards. Which will be the faster gang of bank robbers?
Rules: elite only, levels ? *, no using the lever in the front hall to open the deposit boxes (on your rogueish honor!), screenshots (2 or 3) that show the boxes open.

* I thought about this more as a funny relaxed competition than a real test of skills since the boxes have low OL checks too, so it'll be open to all levels and all splashes of rogues or whatever has OL and wants to try (we even risk getting some smarter-than-thou wizard or more-charming-than-thou sorcerer partyin the competition!)

[parowan]

After a month hiatus some of us on Orien were hankering for SWAT action, so we threw up an LFM (always happy to spread the SWAT gospel to new initiates) and headed over to eClaw. Soloing this one is something a number of us have done for R.O.G.U.E., so we didn't anticipate much trouble. Rather than take the opportunity to do a group sneak we favored the irony of killing everything.

Sure we could have avoided bloodshed. But sometimes a rogue prefers violence

Team Members:
Darockness
Flayke
Foejaeger
Fwelcyr
Krimsonrayne

29 minutes, 90 kills, but sadly no scrolls. Couple seals though. Note Foejaeger's disappointment that we weren't perfect in our destruction (forgot to go for ransack). I suspect she rolls her eyes every time I get my gimp self killed. There should be an emote for that... /fwelcyrfacepalm





This one isn't particularly challenging, but maybe we'll do it again sometime, sneakystyle.

It was just me and Foejaeger after that. We decided to take a leisurely stroll through the swamp and do Mired in Kobolds elite. Amusingly, neither of us could open elite, so I pulled in a cleric friend to open for us, then promptly told her to scram

The two of us waltzed through the quest and killed the baby wyrm at the end. I'd left an LFM up, so long-time SWATer Gedian came along to help with the momma. And before the final stroke we were joined by scale-seekers Pixill and Menada. As usual, I did have to spend time PMing with non-rogues who apparently wish they were rogues because they kept trying to get into the party.

Frankly, this was easier than we thought it might be - anticlimactic even. But as you can tell by the way they're crying on each other's shoulders, our kobold pets were traumatized by the experience. RenHoek has been refusing to levitate for me ever since.





Finally, on a whim, we threw up an LFM for a SWAT Team Shroud. Not surprisingly, there wasn't enough interest at the time, at least not from people who were off-timer. So we're giving advanced notice: All-rogue Shroud planned for Orien this Saturday at 9pm EST!

[parowan]

Not enough people showed up for a planned shroud attempt, so instead we decided to just do an epic. Last Stand is one that we had been wondering about: there isn't really anywhere for a rogue to hide, and could we keep the npc alive? Thinking about the welfare of others, especially annoying npcs, is not usually a rogue's forte.

A standard strategy in our SWAT runs has been to pull mobs whenever possible, so that we can focus and don't get overwhelmed. That's not really possible in Last Stand, and things got pretty hectic. Fun, but kinda intense.

My idea of everyone sort of keeping an eye on the npc was, well, stupid. I know I wasn't able to check in on him very often. But he lived, and I'm guessing it was due to the attentions of Gedian - whose occasional heals also saved me once or twice I believe. Or maybe it was Max. I don't know. All I know is that I may say "everyone will be self-healing" but sometimes it seems like I mean to say "everyone will be healing me!" An early lag spike caused two deaths - and the penalties and loss of buffs inevitably snowballed for those two party members.

When the boss came I thought maybe we should take care of the zombies first, but then I couldn't remember whether they'd just keep respawning (I think they do) - evidence of the hours of preparation that went into planning this *roll eyes* So instead we ignored them and focused on the boss - who wasn't much trouble cause he can't do much to hurt rogues - although he did hop around like an oversized kobold.

Fruits of our labors: 1 scroll (a throwaway I believe, verge or something), and a Seal for the claw gloves - which went for roll, won by Glane. So while looking out for the well-being of others may not be a rogue's natural inclination, the protection racket can be profitable

Team Members:
Fwelcyr
Gedian
Glane
Maximadan
Operative
Pickt

17 minutes, 69 kills, and not only did we keep the npc alive, but a few of his friends as seen by the optional completion.



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[katz]

we r legends



i'll let Fwelcyr do the bragging on the happenings tonight.

[parowan]

we r legends

*snip*

i'll let Fwelcyr do the bragging on the happenings tonight.

Yes Pickt, you now have permission to TR

Here's some more screenies of Orien's all-rogue shroud.

[parowan]

Orien did it again. Props to Krimsonrayne&co. (1,2)

I expect these things to be de rigueur for self-respecting rogues with the added power of epic levels/EDs.

[parowan]

Orien's SWAT team strikes again. Under Pickt's leadership we hit some classic raids, taking down Sulu in VOD like a red-headed stepchild and then sending the HOX mammadog to the big doghouse in the sky, both quests taking far less time than it took to gather the group.

TOD hit some snags with the shadows ignoring solid fog and acid fog, so that one will have to wait for another day.

Pics

[Qezuzu]

Not much SWAT activity on Orien as of late...

Anyway, for all-rogue raids, based on my experience:

Easy:
The Titan Awakes
Reaver's Fate

Medium:
Vision of Destruction
Hound of Xoriat
The Thirteenth Eclipse
Plane of Night (epic normal)

Hard:
Tower of Despair
Plane of Night (epic hard)
Ascension Chamber
Medium raids on hard/elite
The Demon Queen (epic normal)

Elite:
The Master Artificer (epic normal or hard)*
The Lord of Blades (epic normal)*
The Chronoscope (epic normal or hard)
Caught in the Web (epic normal)
The Demon Queen (epic hard)
Tower of Despair (hard/elite)
Ascension Chamber (hard/elite)

Dante Must Die:
The Demon Queen (epic elite)
Plane of Night (epic elite)
The Chronoscope (epic elite)
Caught in the Web (epic hard or elite)
The Lord of Blades (epic hard or elite)*
The Master Artificer (epic elite)*

*I have very little experience with these raids
**Dante Must Die is a term in gamer circles for extremely hard difficulties. Based off of Devil May Cry's highest difficulty setting, which can only be described as "the developers don't intend for this to be possible."

For anything below Hard, I think your average, reasonably geared Rogue can suffice.

For Hard I think you'll need a few all-star rogues, but the rest can be average. For Elite, maybe half the party should be "highly" geared.

For Dante Must Die (and perhaps elite raids), the incoming damage for your party is tremendous. You have no shortage of DPS, but every single one of your party members should have considerable resistance against damage. The main difference between a normal raid party and an all-rogue party is the amount of healing going around. With just one or two divines, there is a lot going around, so you can slack off on your own defenses. But when there's little healing going on, this is not an option. You will need to give up some DPS if you plan on doing this. A dead rogue is no help.

• Shadow Form is a must, make sure everyone gets a charge. Give everyone a chance to mark the first mob you see, then kill it
• If you don't want to use Shadow Form or Shadowdancer, use Unyielding Sentinel or some other ED that has a emphasis on Defense. But 25% incorporeality is significant
• High healing amp, 170% (10/20/30% items combined) is easy
• +80 AC
• +700 HP
• Highest dodge you can get. Shadowdancer gives a nice +7%, IF you can get the charges.
• As high a PRR as possible. For a rogue with Light Armor and 25 BAB (with clicky), you'll have something like 14 PRR. Eww. If you plan on going for Dante Must Die raids, you may want to consider:
  
  • Combat Expertise, gives higher AC. Combine with the Dreadnought TierII ability for an additional 20 PRR. Switch this feat for whatever stance you normally use (power attack, precision)
  • Adamantine Bear Cloak. +9 PRR.
  • Have one or two people in raid have the Magister TierI ability, Sigil of Spell Warding, for +3 AC and +15 PRR for everyone in range.
  
  
• Combine all that and you get 55 PRR, or about 28% reduction in damage. This is significant
• Debuff the boss with whatever you can

All in all, for the top raids, I believe they can be done. But there is almost no margin for error. Everyone in your party needs to be highly geared and very experienced, and you need to plan and communicate thoroughly. Really, this amount of criteria lowers the number of viable rogues on each server to only a few, but we'll see if anyone can do this.

[Qezuzu]

Well, after writing the above, I couldn't NOT try my best at achieving my own criteria. So guess what I did all day.



Note that I'm also protected by 25% incorporeal miss chance, and some dodge.

[Qezuzu]

So, is SWAT dead?

[katz]

of course not. it's just never been terribly active.

if anyone wants to try anything, they are free to say "hey, lets go do __________!"




been thinkin of taking another stab at TOD... but i been busy leveling up my druid.