75 réponses à ce sujet

[OcelotRex]

been trying to put all of this together as I am ready now to move to a rogue and I want to do this right as I have started many characters, gotten them to different points and started over. I am looking for a DPS build from my research, dual wield rogues seem to be one of the best.

Race:

I am taking the elven route here, of the city variety. Makes sense to me from a RP standpoint as I am going for character with a chip on their shoulder willing to do anything to further themselves. Also theirs a late gate item to receive that doesn't hurt with this choice.


Attributes: 
From what I have read in this thread here's the mins that I need:

Strength: 20 - for felon's coat 
Dexterity: 35 - for the evasion talent
Cunning: 22 - for skills

Starting stats for this Race +  Bonuses from Quest 

Strength: 10 + 4 = 14 (need 6 for min)
Dexterity: 14 + 4 = 14 (need 21 for min)
Cunning: 14 + 4 = 18 (need 4 for min)


That makes 31 to reach those minimums. From the starting 5 and 3 per level, that's meeting my requirements by level 9. After that, from what I read cunning + lethality + exploit weakness = high DPS.

Am I correct in this assumption? Should I then pump cunning and ignore all stats?

Skills/Talents/Specializations:
Here's where I am having the most trouble as to what my goals should be first. Since I am planning to make at least level 20 and with tomes to purchase and plot events, that should be 25-26 talent points. That should be plenty to get everything I would need to kill anything I need. Here's my plan:

Rogue Talents:
Dirty Fighting Tree - 3 ranks
Below the Belt - 4 ranks
Stealth - 3 ranks (should I go 4? Does the power of blood talent dark passage work well?)

Dual Weapons:
Branch 1 - 3 ranks
Branch 2 - None, or 2 for riposte
Branch 3 - 3 (momentum)

Assassin:
2 Ranks for sure (Unsure if lacerate or feast is good?)

And thats where I need help. I am thinking of pairing with duelist, maybe bard since high cunning (woudl be my second choice, to me it seems that Bard is good for the + attack but requires 3 talent investment where duelist gets that attack [albeit on just the PC] plus keen defense with 3 points)

Party:
I am thinking about Alistair for my tank, Wynne for healing, and then either -
Leliana - as an archer and for lockpicking (see questions below)
- or - 
Morrigan - for a damage mage but I cannot seem to get synergy with the group as she is "evil" and everyone else is "good"

Questions:

• Without putting 1 rank in the deft hands tree, can I open chests with just cunning and if so how much is needed to open the toughest locks?
• Does the Felon coat have other items I can get a set bonus with or should I mix and match?
• Am I missing any important attributes? Which one's should I get first? With my DW warrior, I went for Momentum ASAP. Should I do the same?
• Is coercion effected by cunning also (the persuade dialogue option)? If so do I need 4 levels of it?
• What skills should I focus in after coercion and combat skills (for DW tree)? I assume traps and poisons.

Thanks all in advance for the help!

[stillnotking]

Evasion is not a useful talent for DPS rogues. You shouldn't be getting hit if your tank is competent (and why wouldn't he be, since you're controlling him too?). If you do get in trouble, level 3 Stealth is an aggro dump.

Stealth - Yes, it is useful. There have been several threads discussing it in detail. Being able to lob grenades/set traps while stealthed is worth the price of admission, and there are many other uses as well.

Specialization - Lacerate is excellent, Feast of the Fallen is OK. For a second spec, Duelist and Bard are both good. Bard is probably better if you don't have another rogue in your group, because of the party buffs it gives. Ranger is meh. Some people swear by it but I've never found a whole lot of use for the summoned creatures, other than as mana batteries for a Blood Mage.

Stats - Enough Str and Dex for gear, the rest in Cunning. I don't worry about min/maxing too much here, or holding off getting gear upgrades so that I can shave a few points of Strength in the end game. The end game is really short and easy anyway, and I'd rather have the extra power while leveling up.

Talent order - Momentum is the single best DPS talent available to rogues. Get it ASAP. After that, I'd recommend building up the Lethality tree and the Dual-Weapon Mastery tree, with the odd point thrown into Stealth and Deft Hands (if you are picking your own locks).

[Zan Hakudou]

I see a lot of people recommending Momentum around here. Is Haste not as popular as I thought?

[stillnotking]

Zan Hakudou wrote...

I see a lot of people recommending Momentum around here. Is Haste not as popular as I thought?

Momentum is better than Haste and does not stack with it.

[Silensfurtim]

OP, read this:



http://social.biowar...66/index/223777



The Mother of all Dual Weilding Rogue Threads

[OcelotRex]

stillnotking wrote...

Stealth - Yes, it is useful. There have been several threads discussing it in detail. Being able to lob grenades/set traps while stealthed is worth the price of admission, and there are many other uses as well.

I was planning on 3 ranks at least, what I meant was the 4th worth getting for the boost and is the blood talent any good?

[Taritu]

Without the 4th rank in stealth you won't be able to stealth in boss fights. Yes, it's worth it, if you're going that far, might as well get it.

For myself, I find evasion useful, while in principle the rogue should be backstabing, sometimes enemies are scattered, not all on the warrior (you don't always want to run around and gather them all up and taunt is not infinite range) and the rogue needs to clean out some trash. A matter of preference, but with the right equipment you can get very high evasion and dex. I just ran through most of the elven quest with a 3 rogue, Wynne party. Worked fine, but my main has plenty of defense.

Ranger's really on worth it if you're going to pump 4 points into it, but at that point I find it very useful. The bereskan is a pretty capable tank and the spider has very nice utility abilities. That said, it's a better fit for archer rogues, and I usually just give it to Leiliana.  It's extremely useful if you want to solo on nightmare, however.

One point of poisons and one point of traps is enough, if you want to use them (and at the least you should use poisons) have other characters go to level 4 in them and make them for you. Zevran is already specced in poisons, in particular, so I usually just drive him to level 4.

Felon's coat is not a set item, if you're using it, mix and match and give the drakeskin stuff to Zevran and Leiliana.

Modifié par Taritu, 05 janvier 2010 - 02:39 .

[stillnotking]

OcelotRex wrote...Questions:

• Without putting 1 rank in the deft hands tree, can I open chests with just cunning and if so how much is needed to open the toughest locks?
• Does the Felon coat have other items I can get a set bonus with or should I mix and match?
• Am I missing any important attributes? Which one's should I get first? With my DW warrior, I went for Momentum ASAP. Should I do the same?
• Is coercion effected by cunning also (the persuade dialogue option)? If so do I need 4 levels of it?
• What skills should I focus in after coercion and combat skills (for DW tree)? I assume traps and poisons.

To answer a couple more of these:

1. Each point in Deft Hands is worth 10 cunning for locks/traps.  60 Cunning is required to deal with any lock or trap that can be picked or disarmed, but there is a -10 intrinsic modifier, so you need a total effective Cunning of 70.  If you're going the Cunning route, you will not need to put 4 points in the Deft Hands tree.  However, it sorta depends how early you want maxed lockpicking.  If you only put 1 point in Deft Hands, you will only be able to open the toughest chests at the very end of the game, meaning you will have a lot of backtracking to do (if you even bother to do it).

2. Nope, Felon Coat is a stand alone item.

3. Yes, Momentum is an exceptional DPS talent.  It should be noted that in melee heavy parties you may be better off getting Haste at the expense of your personal DPS (35% from Haste vs. 43% from Momentum, but Haste is party-wide).  If you are going that route then you would forego Momentum entirely.

4. Yes, Persuade checks are influenced by Cunning.  Every rank of Coercion is worth 25 Cunning, and the toughest Persuade checks in the game require 100 effective Cunning.  Therefore, having 4 ranks of Coercion will allow you to always succeed with Persuade and Intimidate.  (Intimidate checks Strength rather than Cunning.)

5. You only need one point in Traps and Poisons, provided you have a party member to make them for you.  One point in Stealing opens up some lucrative quests in Denerim.  You need 4 points in Combat Training.  The rest is pretty much up to you.  Survival can be handy to give you a little more information about monsters.  Rank 4 Coercion gives better dialogue options in some cases.  Skills are sort of optional for the most part (other than Combat Training), so do what you feel like.

[Wuxia]

For attributes I would say NOT TO PUT ANY points in anything but DEX and CUN. The reasoning for this is that you can get all of the attribute points you need from equipment bonuses (and the fade) for equipment and you only need DEX and CUN for skills/talents.

On my DW CUN rogue I got DEX up to 30 then put every other point in CUN. With a decent equipment setup I had 50 DEX, CUN in the high 70s and a CON of 30 at level 18.

Putting points in STR to equip good items early is pointless - by the time you have the STR req you won't have the equipment. However, when you have the equipment you will probably already have done the Fade and have some decent stat boosting items like the Harvest Festival Ring and Andruil's Blessing.

I would also recommend Assassin/Bard over Assassin/Duelist because of it's awesome syngergy with your high CUN.

Modifié par Banon Loire, 05 janvier 2010 - 05:36 .

[OcelotRex]

Silensfurtim wrote...

OP, read this:



http://social.biowar...66/index/223777



The Mother of all Dual Weilding Rogue Threads

Read this post. Great info.

1 question: are dex based rouges viable on the 360?

[OcelotRex]

Banon Loire wrote...

For attributes I would say NOT TO PUT ANY points in anything but DEX and CUN. The reasoning for this is that you can get all of the attribute points you need from equipment bonuses (and the fade) for equipment and you only need DEX and CUN for skills/talents.

On my DW CUN rogue I got DEX up to 30 then put every other point in CUN. With a decent equipment setup I had 50 DEX, CUN in the high 70s and a CON of 30 at level 18.

Putting points in STR to equip good items early is pointless - by the time you have the STR req you won't have the equipment. However, when you have the equipment you will probably already have done the Fade and have some decent stat boosting items like the Harvest Festival Ring and Andruil's Blessing.

I would also recommend Assassin/Bard over Assassin/Duelist because of it's awesome syngergy with your high CUN.

Dexterity of 30? Is that for the whirlwind talent? 

Also, as an elf with starting 10 str, getting to 20 str with Andruil's Blessing, Harvest festival ring, and key to the city would require buying the belt for 100G. That can take some time especially since the felons coat cost 80g, Any other ways to get to 20 str without the belt?

[stillnotking]

OcelotRex wrote...
Also, as an elf with starting 10 str, getting to 20 str with Andruil's Blessing, Harvest festival ring, and key to the city would require buying the belt for 100G. That can take some time especially since the felons coat cost 80g, Any other ways to get to 20 str without the belt?

Again, let me say that I think it's very silly to gimp yourself for many levels while you save up 100g in order to avoid putting a couple of points in STR.  Yes, those points will be mostly (not entirely) "wasted' in the end game, but the end game is easy anyway, and it's 5% of your character's life!  Not to mention the fact that you won't notice having 2 less points in Cunning at level 20.

There is a tendency on these forums to focus on the end game to a truly ridiculous extent.  This isn't WoW, where you get to max level and then the "real" game starts.  Leveling up is the game.

[Haplose]

OcelotRex wrote...

Banon Loire wrote...

For attributes I would say NOT TO PUT ANY points in anything but DEX and CUN. The reasoning for this is that you can get all of the attribute points you need from equipment bonuses (and the fade) for equipment and you only need DEX and CUN for skills/talents.

On my DW CUN rogue I got DEX up to 30 then put every other point in CUN. With a decent equipment setup I had 50 DEX, CUN in the high 70s and a CON of 30 at level 18.

Putting points in STR to equip good items early is pointless - by the time you have the STR req you won't have the equipment. However, when you have the equipment you will probably already have done the Fade and have some decent stat boosting items like the Harvest Festival Ring and Andruil's Blessing.

I would also recommend Assassin/Bard over Assassin/Duelist because of it's awesome syngergy with your high CUN.

Dexterity of 30? Is that for the whirlwind talent? 

Also, as an elf with starting 10 str, getting to 20 str with Andruil's Blessing, Harvest festival ring, and key to the city would require buying the belt for 100G. That can take some time especially since the felons coat cost 80g, Any other ways to get to 20 str without the belt?

Helm of Honnelath is also +2 all stats. It's also available right after Lothering, in the Stone Prisoner DLC, together with the Harvest Ring (+4 Str and something else). You MIGHT need 20 Str to equip the helm, depending on Tier I think. But then just temporarily equip any other +2 Str item o 2x +1 (I think there are several) and then remove = problem solved.

10 starting Str + 4 Fade + 4 Harvest Festival Ring + 2 Helm of Honnelath = 20

Bard maybe more party friendly. But if you take Leliana or if you think more about your char, you could still consider Duelist. That's +10 Attack AND Defence (quite useful for a Cun Rogue... less needed by a Dex Rogue) but ALSO 15 seconds of criticals from any angle every minute - including against enemies immune to backstabbing, including in Dual Striking mode.

Momentum is very usefull for sure. But I would also get Coup-de-Grace ASAP, probably before the Lethality line
Initially the difference between your Str score and Cunning score is not THAT much.


Feast of the Fallen is great! At least if you like active play with your main char like I do. I used a lot of Dirty Fighting, Ripostes, Pinpoint Strikes (often with Dual Striking). I often went ahead and scouted in front of my party, checking for traps, layout... but also often soloed some encounters on these scouting missions (Nightmare). Granted, this was on my Dex Rogue build, so he was probably significantly more survivable. Anyway the Stamina regeneration that FotF provides was especially usefull then. If you only ever backstab the backs of enemies which engage your Tank or are frozen by your mage, you don't really need Stamina, so your priorities would be different.

Modifié par Haplose, 06 janvier 2010 - 12:31 .

[Wuxia]

OcelotRex wrote...

Banon Loire wrote...

For attributes I would say NOT TO PUT ANY points in anything but DEX and CUN. The reasoning for this is that you can get all of the attribute points you need from equipment bonuses (and the fade) for equipment and you only need DEX and CUN for skills/talents.

On my DW CUN rogue I got DEX up to 30 then put every other point in CUN. With a decent equipment setup I had 50 DEX, CUN in the high 70s and a CON of 30 at level 18.

Putting points in STR to equip good items early is pointless - by the time you have the STR req you won't have the equipment. However, when you have the equipment you will probably already have done the Fade and have some decent stat boosting items like the Harvest Festival Ring and Andruil's Blessing.

I would also recommend Assassin/Bard over Assassin/Duelist because of it's awesome syngergy with your high CUN.

Dexterity of 30? Is that for the whirlwind talent? 

Also, as an elf with starting 10 str, getting to 20 str with Andruil's Blessing, Harvest festival ring, and key to the city would require buying the belt for 100G. That can take some time especially since the felons coat cost 80g, Any other ways to get to 20 str without the belt?

 Now that you mention it, I can't remember why I got dex up that high.

 As for 106g for the belt, I don't understand the problem. It's not as if money is REALLY scarce in this game.

[OcelotRex]

106g is not that bad, by itself. Its the 8 for the coat, 100 for another dagger, the mage robes, staff, etc. Money stops getting scarce after maybe level 15, but I am trying to plan my route there.

[tetracycloide]

Cheap and/or easy to obtain items that add strength for Felon's Coat:



Key to the City, requires one fight and adds 2 Strength

Harvest Festival Ring, requires several fights and the stone prisoner DLC, adds 2 Strength

Lloyd's Magic Ring, requires Lloyd be persuaded to fight in Redcliff and survive, adds 2 Strength

Ornate Leather Belt, available at a merchant I do not recall which one, adds 1 Strength



At this point a human or dwarf rogue has enough strength, with the fade essences and fonts, to equip any light armor. An elf will require an additional point, one hard point is probably easiest but there are other options like andruil's blessing or the heart of witherfang (found on witherfang's body). Both are a question of how long a rogue wants to wait to equip the felon's coat although killing witherfang before the coat is even avaliable for sale is certainly not impossible or even difficult.

[OcelotRex]

From what I am seeing, you can get the key to the city without even starting any of the dwarf quest. If I were to do that, would there be any bugs if I ran there after the world map opens, then did other key quests without coming back for a long time?

[mosspit]

For those interested to get 20 str without spending ANY hard points in str and without respec.

Dwarves and Human:
Get Ornate Belt from Old Tegrin (+1), Llyod's Magic Ring (+2), either dlc Harvest Ring or Key to City (+2) and Fade (+4) for a total of +9

Elves:
In addition to above, get a barbarian mace (+1). You get can this at Haven from the room with the Love Letter. I entered with a lvl 13 main and lvl 12 party and it is tier 3 with a str req. of 15. The mace may be a rng item but if you get it you can get 20 str around the same time felon's coat is available.

Modifié par mosspit, 07 janvier 2010 - 10:04 .

[OcelotRex]

Ok. What did I do wrong?



Built as described above. Pumped dex to 24 and got momentum by level 3. I was doing aroung 30% of party damage but I figured that was to be expected since I put no points to strength. Then continued on through to lothering and on to the mage's tower to boost stats from the fade. By level 6 or so I was doing 10 damage or so backstabbing in lothering and not having a good time of it. In the tower it was much worse as I could not hit any yellows with consistancy and the orange revenant was a whif fest. I had to drop difficulty to casual to survive the desire demon on the top floor (which I did because it got me to level 8)...



I had been pumping cunning and nothing else since level 3 so I was just about 30 or so in the stat now. I picked up 2 stealth talents, 2 dual weapon first row, everything up to leathality, momentum, and left dex at 24. Strength is still 10. I am using tier 2 dagger thorn of the dead gods in main hand and an enchanted in the offhand.



Once I hit level 8 I thought I was going to start doing a good bit more damage. Turns out, it goes from 10 on average to 23. With momentum, its a steady chipping effect, but nowhere near the level I thought it would be.



What did I do wrong?



If dex helps with hitting, but not added to the damage (xbox 360) and cunning with lethality helps with damage and not hitting the target, when does this build start working?



Also, why am I being targeted first when allistair has threaten activated, wears heavier armor, and does a bigger share of the damage? And the PC is targeted from the get go even before he swings.

[mosspit]

From what I can see your build looks good. Damage-wise it make sense. The next significant jump in damge will come when you get exploit weakness, tainted blade (if you got dlc). With auto-attacking or backstabbing, you might not hit a higher dmg per hit as compared to say a dw warrior. However, daggers provide the best atk spd afaik so best atk spd + gd dmg per hit = excellent dps.

Moreover, runes and poison deals fixed dmg per hit and benefit the most from high atk spd. That and the fact backstab only uses mainhand for runes, you can better control which runes you wanna proc more often (ie GM elementals, paralyze). Lastly, mages sustaining weapon enchantments add dmg per hit too.

If you look at other dicussions on cun in dmg calculation for rogue skills, you will find the effect on cun per point invested is not earth-shattering. The point is cun affects many talents at the same time (dmg, armour pen, atk through lethality, exploit, SoC, tainted blade, etc) and all these add up.

For better hitting rate, you will need Dueling or SoC. Cun rogues will generally suffer from subpar atk early game. If you find your rogue missing too much have a mage cast heroic offence. Have Alistair get taunt (which is MORE effective than threaten). I will expect you will be more satisfied with the dmg output in a few more levels... As a rough gauge my lvl 16 rogue (PC version, Nightmare) does ~53 dmg (no tainted blade and no end game weapons).

Modifié par mosspit, 08 janvier 2010 - 02:11 .

[OcelotRex]

mosspit wrote...

From what I can see your build looks good. Damage-wise it make sense. The next significant jump in damge will come when you get exploit weakness, tainted blade (if you got dlc). With auto-attacking or backstabbing, you might not hit a higher dmg per hit as compared to say a dw warrior. However, daggers provide the best atk spd afaik so best atk spd + gd dmg per hit = excellent dps.

Moreover, runes and poison deals fixed dmg per hit and benefit the most from high atk spd. That and the fact backstab only uses mainhand for runes, you can better control which runes you wanna proc more often (ie GM elementals, paralyze). Lastly, mages sustaining weapon enchantments add dmg per hit too.

If you look at other dicussions on cun in dmg calculation for rogue skills, you will find the effect on cun per point invested is not earth-shattering. The point is cun affects many talents at the same time (dmg, armour pen, atk through lethality, exploit, SoC, tainted blade, etc) and all these add up.

For better hitting rate, you will need Dueling or SoC. Cun rogues will generally suffer from subpar atk early game. If you find your rogue missing too much have a mage cast heroic offence. Have Alistair get taunt (which is MORE effective than threaten). I will expect you will be more satisfied with the dmg output in a few more levels... As a rough gauge my lvl 16 rogue (PC version, Nightmare) does ~53 dmg (no tainted blade and no end game weapons).

Thanks for the info. I was just a little jazzed at the fact that my dual weapon warrior was doing twice the damage (albeit at a slower rate) at the same level but was a lot less prone to being killed. Once better armor is bought and I get some other higher level items I am sure the build comes together nicely.

I think this has taught me a lot about building characters. Either gimp yourself in the beginning to make the endgame uber or build a good build that stands up in the early game that doesn't do massive damage in the later part of the game.

On a side not, on the casual level I was doing massive damage! makes me worry about turning this up to hard. Those who play on higher difficulties must really have the patience to micromanage (or play on the PC...)...

[mosspit]

Glad it was useful. it really comes down to what you want to get from the game. In my case I build my char to grow and scale as much as possible with the enemies I face so that it is satisfying to kill a tough opponent at a point when my char build is maxmized item and talent-wise (Gaxkang and Cauthrien I'm looking at you). Others like to achieve the highest possible dps regardless of game progress or do awesome dps by skill spamming.



Rogue do require a fair bit of micro-management for positioning esp. at the start. I think anyone who watched how I tackled my origin boss by kiting will just enter facepalm city. But it is possible and indeed satisfying when I made it past early game. In the end, its just "your game, your call".

[krisd2]

If you put all those points in cunning and not dex won't it make you miss all the time later in the game?



I don't get it.

I suck at this game lol

[mosspit]

krisd2 wrote...

If you put all those points in cunning and not dex won't it make you miss all the time later in the game?

I don't get it.
I suck at this game lol

See if the following make sense.

If you consider a standalone cun rogue in late game, he/she will typically be an Ass/Bard or Ass/Duel. Talent-wise, the rogue's hit rate will be powered by Song of Courage (high CUN score) or Duelist. IIRC combat movement gives atk bonus when flanking. Item-wise cun rogues typically wear felon's coat, helm of honnleath, silverhammers tackmasters and rosethorns. That will bring the rogue's dex to high 30's / low 40's.

As a party, the rogue will benefit from champion's rally (with motivate) given possibly by the party's tank. High def enemies may require buffing via heroic offense. Next, will be debuffers like warcry, weakness, etc. To be honest, rally alone is sufficient enough.

A cun rogue will almost always have more misses than a more dex oriented rogue. The subpar atk score is compensated by good dmg potential and amazing utility.