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[Flash081]

The Bringer of Storms, the Squall, the Hurricane, you are:

The Tempest

 

 
Skills: The 25 point build.
 
Dual Wield (8):

• Twin Fangs - Core damage skill 2 hits at 500% weapon damage with upgrade
• Ripping Fangs - Upgrade skill to get Twin Fangs to 500%
• Flank Attack - Use it to move around, re-stealth, and activate Ambush
• Skirmisher - Adds re-stealth component to Flank Attack
• Dance of Death - Largely irrelevant skill but fulfills requirement to get down the tree
• Sneak Attack - Doubles your chance to crit with flanking/back attacks.
• Deathblow - High damage skill while Twin Fangs is on CD
• Thrill of Victory - 1 point for 100% increase in base damage is worth it. The CD part is irrelevant.

Sabotage (2):

• Caltrops - Fairly useless skill required to get down the tree.
• Looked Like it Hurt - Returns 10 stam on crit.

Subterfuge (7):

• Stealth - Obvious reasons
• Lost in the Shadows - Changing Stealth to instant is extremely noticeable in combat.
• Evasion - Required skill to get down the tree. Irrelevant in most situations, but maybe it will save your life?
• Evade - Very useful skill that also happens to be a requirement to progress down the tree.
• Ambush - 50% Armor Penetration, hide yo kids.
• Shadow Strike - High damage skill that reduces CD of another core abilities with upgrade
• Quick Blade - Reduces Stamina cost on Shadow Strike and allows for the CDR.

Tempest (8):

• Flask of Fire - Core damage ability. No Stamina and no Cooldowns on abilities for 8 seconds with upgrades.
• Unquenchable Flames - Upgrade for Flask of Fire to allow your skills to have no Cooldown.
• Flask of Frost - Oh, Ship! button.
• Fury of the Storm - Required skill to move down the tree that will activate periodically for +10% damage
• Thousand Cuts - Core boss burst ability.
• Killer's Alchemy - A 15% damage buff while you have flasks on.
• Flask of Lightning - Your set-up skill. Stops enemies and activates Ride the Storm.
• Ride the Storm - Gives your Flask of Fire an extra 3 seconds, which greatly increases damage output.

Total Skills: 25, which is exactly max level + the Inquisition perk. (You can have more with Amulets of Power, but I didn't include those)
 
 

Skills not fit for the Storm: An overview of notable skills we pass up.

 

Dual Wield:

• Bloodied Prey - From my understanding it's based on flat health which makes it the worst skill available to rogues.
• Unforgiving Chain - Borderline useless for our build. If you're attacking from the front, you're doing it wrong.
• Parry - Bad skill not applicable to our build, we don't get hit.

Archery:

• First Blood - Decent passive and definitely worth considering if you find an Amulet of Power for an extra skill point.

Sabotage:

• Poisoned Weapons - We don't have space for this. We are using too many abilities already and a 50% damage bleed isn't worth the Stamina or time to activate.
• Hook and Tackle - Worth considering if you find 2 Amulet of Power. Still a pretty weak way to spend 2 skill points. You can move around the battlefield easily enough with Flank Attack.
• It Beats Walking - If you take Hook and Tackle you have to take this. The ability isn't worth 20 stamina.

Subterfuge:

• Easy to Miss - The first ability you get with an Amulet of Power or if you're Human. It's awful to have your target turn around and hit you mid combo and mess everything up, but if your target is taunted it shouldn't be a problem. There's no room to substitute any of the other skills if you're limited to 25.
• Hidden Step - The upgrade to Evade. Worth looking into as one of your amulet of power abilities. Passive 300% damage for 1 skill point is good, but  it's situational so it doesn't make the initial cut.

 

Gear: I won't tell you exactly what items to get, but instead what you need from all of your gear combined. It's easy to shuffle stats onto different pieces.

 

Crit Chance:

• You'll want 50% chance to crit. Remember that Cunning adds to your crit so your base stats will factor into this as well. Easiest way to accomplish this is full CUN/DEX on crafted armor.

Armor Penetration:

• You'll need around 40-50% Armor Penetration. One of the easiest ways to do this is Offensive metal crafting slots and the 20% Armor Penetration Ring.

Mastercraft:

• Use Fade-Touched crafting on your weapons to add % chance to cast Hidden Blades.
• Use Fade-Touched crafting on your armor to add +Guard on hit (extremely important if playing on Nightmare)

Fire/Frost Resistances:

• I suggest going full resistances on armor upgrades (extremely important on Nightmare) because you will get 1 shot by dragons if you don't.

Accessories:

• Superb Cooldown Amulet - Best in slot for spamming abilities
• Superb Potions Belt - Can also use resistances belts, but I like potions.
• Superb Ring of Twin Fangs - Best in slot for damage.
• Superb Ring of Armor Penetration - Little wiggle room with this one if you want to stack it all on your weapon crafting instead of getting + Crit Damage.

 

Stats: Double Daggers!? What does it mean!!?

 

• 100% chance to crit
• ~95% Armor Penetration (50% from Ambush and ~45% from gear)
• 20% chance to cast Hidden Blades on hit
• 10 Stamina returned per crit
• Guard generation on hit

 

Skill Rotation: Rain down that damage. NOTE: The % damage outlined is LESS than actual because I'm not adding crit, stealth, stats, and ring modifier bonuses.

1. Start the fight - Run in with your tank and taunt your focus target. Taunting is extremely important if you don't have Easy to Miss.
2. Flask of Lightning (-20 Stamina) - Get into position while everyone is frozen in time.
3. Flask of Fire (-20 Stamina) - If you have Cole in your party (which I highly suggest) use Mark of Death right as you pop Flask of Fire. You have 8 seconds of carnage and destruction.
4. Stealth (Free) - Silence before the storm.
5. Twin Fangs (+20 Stamina) - Lightning strikes! 1000% weapon damage with 2 crits
6. Twin Fangs (+20 Stamina) - You are The Night. 1000% weapon damage with 2 crits.
7. Twin Fangs (+20 Stamina) - Did Hidden Blades proc yet? Meh, doesn't matter. 1000% weapon damage with 2 crits.
8. Twin Fangs (+20 Stamina) - Forecast for tonight: torrential downpour. 1000% weapon damage with 2 crits
9. Twin Fangs (+20 Stamina) - Do you feel bad yet? 1000% weapon damage with 2 crits
10. Deathblow (-50 Stamina) - Your Flask of Fire is over, but so is their life. 

That's your Magical Christmas Land burst. You'll find that many mobs will never survive that onslaught so use Flank Attack to bounce around the battlefield. When your flask is on cooldown you want to use Shadow Strike as much as possible to get it back up. Every crit restores 10 stamina and you have 100% chance to crit from flank/back. You will have no issue spamming damage abilities. 

 

If your target has high armor weave Flank Attack into your rotation to trigger Ambush:

1. Start the fight
2. Flask of Lightning (-20 Stamina)
3. Flask of FIre (-20 Stamina)
4. Stealth (Free)
5. Twin Fangs (+20 Stamina)
6. Flank Attack (+20 Stamina)
7. Twin Fangs (+20 Stamina)
8. Flank Attack (+20 Stamina)
9. Deathblow (-50 Stamina)

Because of the animation of Flank Attack you won't be able to fit in as many skills. Especially because it can be a little wonky and shift you through the target so you have to use it to go back to them again.

 

Notes & POI: Points of Interest, I know you were wondering.

 

• I usually run with Cole and Mark of Death. If it's a Dragon I'll do this combo after I've popped 1k cuts. You always want to 1k cuts with Mark of Death active because the damage potential is asinine. The Flask of Fire + 1k Cuts thing will get fixed. That's 100% a bug.
• You won't get perfect scenarios with your flask, but 8 seconds is a LONG time and you can fit a lot of skills in that window. I have had issues with Flank Attack not putting me correctly behind the target, which takes away a good bit of theoretical damage.
• Why not go Assassin instead to get Hidden Blades and Knife in the Shadows? Because I think the main draw to Assassin is the Auto Crit from stealth and 25% armor pen, and I don't think those two abilities are worth a whole specialization and 5 point investment. Especially if you run Assassin Archer Cole for Mark of Death (Don't use him as DW because AI is awful with DW Rogues).
• If you're not max level you want to prioritize Flask of Fire and it's upgrade, Twin Fangs and it's upgrade, Stealth and it's upgrade; work your way to Ambush, and then fill out the Tempest tree.
• This build will make a lot of fights very trivial, but it doesn't do well against mines and aoe.
• All of your hits will generate guard, which is great in the event that you start getting hit or pull aggro.
• Twin Fangs will jump a long way. You don't have to be right next to your target for it to hit. 
• You don't have to worry about being in stealth all the time with this build as long as your target has low armor. The 100% crit chance relies on your position, not on stealth.
• This build is heavily focused on your playing the Inquisitor in 3rd person as per the reason above. If you find yourself enjoying Tactical Camera more, this isn't for you.

[lvt_Aad]

You know, I often think this level of theory-crafting is wasted on a single player game. Especially since nightmare is not that hard, as any class, if you use tactics correctly.

 

But this was really well written. And after reading it I really want to try it out now. So thanks!

[Zahnen]

You know, I often think this level of theory-crafting is wasted on a single player game. Especially since nightmare is not that hard, as any class, if you use tactics correctly.

 

This was a lot of theorycraft in your eyes?  My poor sweet child.

[HeroxMatt]

It's still useful for those who are either:

1) uncertain of what to play as

2)new to the game and unsure of how the skills work.

 

What I love about the way you've built your Tempest is that pretty much everything has INSANE cooldown. With Flask of Fire you can spam so much already, but with the added Shadow Strike (which removes Cooldown) and Flank Attack which is basically Stealth w/ zero cooldown. The amount of Activated Skills you can then use pretty much doubles. So it's an extremely fast build that, by constantly activating Activated Skills, makes up for any DPS comparisons.

 

I know you linked it in a post on my Guide/Advice thread, but do you mind if I link it in the first post? You'll have the credit for it, obviously.

[themageguy]

Excellent build OP.

[SomeoneStoleMyName]

Looks solid, and the easy to read format and your stabs at humor made it an enjoyable read as well.

[cn3wton]

Pretty good, I like that you include ambush as its a skill a lot of people seem to ignore.

 

Makes me want to write up my build at some point...

[Flash081]

 

I know you linked it in a post on my Guide/Advice thread, but do you mind if I link it in the first post? You'll have the credit for it, obviously.

 

Feel free!

 

 

Makes me want to write up my build at some point...

 

Do it, man!

 

...stabs at humor...

 

I see what you did there, touche!

 

 

 

 

Thanks everyone for the feedback, I appreciate it.

[lastpawn]

Question: Why use Thousand Cuts over Mark of the Rift?

 

PS Upvoted for the "hide yo kids" comment, made me laugh.

[SpaceV3gan]

This is clearly a very late game build. You don't get to own a full set of Superb Accessories and 25 Ability Points before having played for several hours over many days and having to overcome many though encounters in the game with a character that looks nothing like the one described.

It is certainly a phenomenal build, but I tend to have an issue when people come up with builds having in mind playing a part of the game which is between the later and the latest. Don't take it personally, I whined for the same reason on builds for the previous games...

Also, I wish I could play a Dual Wielder Rogue on PC effectively, but with the controls being terrible as they are, it didn't happen on my first playthrough. I had to go the easier Archer way. Still, I am looking forward to play a DW soon, and I might ultimately use your build or something similar in the future

[Blackstork]

I do not agree with few very critical things your post state. Especially by the fact you forfeit 25% bonus to your weapons damage which is not cumbered by armour, and more damage per second of poison weapons. your build do less damage and less effective than few been posted in rogue build thread. PW is too good to pass.

[themageguy]

What race are we choosing for our tempest?

[Boboverlord]

It's so gooood, though it feels like I'm in Monster Hunter, killin things for craftin, to get really powerful in late game. ;(

 

And I must level myself to 20 at least to outdamage Assassin DW. T_T

[Blackstork]

PW + full Tempest do more damage hands down, PW alone is 500% WD skill which is surpass armor and not reduced by it, which above that adds 25% damage modifier to your weapon damage, which is modifier of all damage caluclations.

Flank Attack glitch is rare, and i often find myself not being able to hit  target because it is to far for twin fangs

you understimate power of constant stealth provided by flank attack, and power of knock poder which always means nightmare within my party. Ranged detonators are much much better, because you do need to invest any movements into performing them.

Why not 11 points in tempest? Again, this cripples your damage output. 

It is clear that PW + SS right subrefuge tree + Flank attack + stamina feats from DW and full tempest tree provides more utility, more damage and more defence (hence cloak spam and zapping on battlefield from target to target , poisoning them)

 

Sure, i automaticlly have TF on such build as well, and can perform same things with not less damage in single target fights (i also use Cole in same way you do), but i have utility to deal with adds/ or to deal with tough encounters with many mobs. 

[lastpawn]

PW + full Tempest do more damage hands down, PW alone is 500% WD skill which is surpass armor and not reduced by it, which above that adds 25% damage modifier to your weapon damage, which is modifier of all damage caluclations.

Flank Attack glitch is rare, and i often find myself not being able to hit  target because it is to far for twin fangs

you understimate power of constant stealth provided by flank attack, and power of knock poder which always means nightmare within my party. Ranged detonators are much much better, because you do need to invest any movements into performing them.

Why not 11 points in tempest? Again, this cripples your damage output. 

It is clear that PW + SS right subrefuge tree + Flank attack + stamina feats from DW and full tempest tree provides more utility, more damage and more defence (hence cloak spam and zapping on battlefield from target to target , poisoning them)

 

Sure, i automaticlly have TF on such build as well, and can perform same things with not less damage in single target fights (i also use Cole in same way you do), but i have utility to deal with adds/ or to deal with tough encounters with many mobs. 

 

Poison Weapons is 25% more damage for 10 seconds every 24 seconds. The 25% bonus is nice for sure, during the 10 seconds it lasts. But I don't know how you get that 500% damage from it, since it's 25% for up to 10 seconds, right?

 

In any case, there are only 8 abilities we can use. So what do you replace with PW?

 

Because I don't care for poison damage over time effect, I prefer using a warrior with Horn of Valor for a far superior damage boost.

[Dank Rafft]

Great guide. I use a similar build but don't go that deep into the Tempest tree.
 

Mastercraft:

• Use Fade-Touched crafting on your weapons to add % chance to cast Hidden Blades.
• Use Fade-Touched crafting on your armor to add +Guard on hit (extremely important if playing on Nightmare)

What's the specific name of the Fade-Touched items (best ones)?
 

I don't know how you get that 500% damage from it

He's referring to the poison DOT effect. PW in combination with Fighting Dirty lasts 12,5 seconds. The last hit within the base duration adds the last poison effect which lasts additional 8 seconds. So you have ~20 seconds of poison duration. ~20 times 25% weapon damage per second add up to 500% weapon damage. 500% sounds like a lot but if you translate it to DPS it's negligible.
But Infected Wounds in combination with Thousand Cuts and Hidden Blades enchantment is huge.

[Dank Rafft]

Question: Why use Thousand Cuts over Mark of the Rift?

Because MofR deals nearly no damage to bigger/steadier targets (bosses). TC can hit 38 times (tier 3) for 400% weapon damage each. If you add the Hidden Blade enchantment you get (roughly):
38 * (400% + 0.1 * 300%) = 16340% weapon damage

[Dank Rafft]

Btw, how come you can use Ride the Storm without putting a point into Flaskmaster?

[yevinorion]

This build looks very intriguing. Especially for a Casual/Normal run where you can just have fun with the Tempest abilities and not be too concerned with having to have the utmost max damage like Assassin. My rogue is still only level 8, but I think I might go with this build when I spec into Tempest. Thanks for the build!

[Rynas]

Thanks for this - really useful info!  It's been serving as a good basis for my NM solo experiment.

 

One thing:

 

20% chance to cast Hidden Blades on hit

 

 

This isn't how it works, according to testing here: http://forum.bioware...afting-testing/.  The percentages apparently don't stack.  In my own testing, I haven't been able to find a statistically significant difference between having it on both weapons vs. only one.  A good alternative could be Fade-Touched Bloodstone, which gives +7.5% damage for each enemy within 8 meters (which seems pretty huge).

 

Also:

 

Twin Fangs (+20 Stamina) - Lightning strikes! 1000% weapon damage with 2 crits

 

 

I'm pretty sure it's more than that, isn't it?  500% weapon damage per hit x2 hits = 1000% weapon damage with NO crits.  With +100% crit damage it should be 2000% total weapon damage.

[Moritsuna]

There are more than 8 skills suggested to be used, I can't use more than 8 on my ps4

[Phaze50]

 What's the specific name of the Fade-Touched items (best ones)?

 

Those would be: Fade-Touched Plush Fustian Velvet for the Hidden Blades proc and Fade-Touched Silverite for 5 Guard on Hit.

Take care though...for some reason both of those materials exist in 2 versions. The other version always has the exact same name but a different effect that is generally pretty crappy.

So if you find the two materials I mentioned and they mention Masterwork Boni like "7.5% extra focus on hit" or "10% chance to deal lightning damage" then it just means the game trolled you and gave you the wrong version of the item. Just keep farming.

 

 

 

As for the build, I really enjoy it. I was using a similar build but with way less points in Subterfuge and more in Sabotage for fully upgraded Poisoned Weapon and I gotta say PW isn't as impressive as many people make it out to be.

Sure it's roughly 500% weapon damage that ignores armor if you fully enhance it with passives, but it takes almost 20 seconds to deal those 500%. Honestly most enemies my DW Tempest Rogue focussed on barely survived 6-7 seconds (for big ones like Huskar Alphas) or 2-4 seconds (for the usual random mobs) and that was on nightmare. So at best 60% of those 500% DoT-dmg will be wasted, bringing it down to 200%, at worst 90% will be wasted and PW deals an impressive 50% weapon dmg.

It's only useful against bigger bosses and dragons and even then, what skill are you gonna take out to use it? I'm guessing everyone wants to keep Stealth for safety so there's only 7 slots left. Flask of Frost is what keeps you alive in those big fights so it's needed, Flast of Fire and Flask of Lighting shoot your effective dps (as in "DPS seen through the enemies eyes" since measuring dps with Flask of Lightning is pretty hard otherwise) through the roof.

 

As for the rest? 

Twin Fangs = 500% weapon damage if you do not crit, at least 700% weapon damage if you crit (with 0% additional crit damage). Can be used 3 times during 1 PW cooldown, so thats at least 1500% weapon damage while PW is ticking for its 500%.

Flank Attack = 200% on non-crit, at least 280% on a crit. Can be used 3 times during PW cd dealing at least 600% weapon damage, getting you into flanking position, stealthing you for defense and activating ambush to give your other skills armor pen.

Shadow Strike = 600% non-crit, at least 840% with a crit. 1.5 uses during 1 PW cd, so at least 900% weapon damage. To that you'll need to add all the additional dps from having 4 seconds shaved off of all your other skills which is just as immeasurable as Flask of Fires and Flask of Lightnings damage.

 

For the last one there are 2 options.

I prefer Evade because I want some kind of defensive solution for when Flask of Frost is on cd. So the skill doesn't only reposition you but still deals 300% WD (420% on minimal crit) and can be used as long as you have the stamina for it. Meaning, if you happen to use it twice during PWs horrible cooldown you'd at least get 600% weapon damage and some actual utility on top (reposition + taunt).

 

The other solution would be Deathblow and I'm going to split that in 2 parts. Since this is about bossfights I'm going to ignore the "resets its cooldown on kill" part since that doesn't come into play:

 

Pre-50% = Somewhere between 200% and 350% WD, 280% - 490% with lowest crits. 3 uses during 24 seconds = at least 600% - 1050% WD during 1 PW-cycle. Let's just go right for the middle with 825%

 

Post-50% = Thats where Deathblow starts hitting TWICE per use. So thats somewhere between 700% and 1000% weapon damage without crits. 3 uses = 2100% - 3000% or 2550% to make it simple.

 

Now let me ask you this: If you want to add Poisoned Weapon and waste like 4 points to get it and its passives, which one of those skills would you take out in order to add PW? Not a single skill deals less damage (except for evade which might deal slightly less if the enemy has armor...but it's evade. it's not meant for dps) even if PW ignores armor and to top it all off the build can keep up 95% armor penetration roughly 3/4 of the fight (100% of the time if you actually weave stealth in just to get another ambush-source), so the armor-penetrating capabilities of PW aren't even needed.

 

TL;DR: Poisoned Weapons is incredibly good.......at looking useful while it isn't. Go ahead and use it during lower levels when you don#t have enough skills for a real rotation but after that get PW as far away from any Rogue as you can xD

 

PS: It might look like I have forgotten Thousand Cuts but I left it out on purpose. Not a big fan of skills that can be used once every blue moon while wasting 1 precious skill slot the rest of the time (unless you exploit Flask of Fire which I feel isn#t needed, since Tempest Rogues are beasts without having to rely on exploits).

[Kxero]

Build looks extremely awesome, but I have one issue.

 

You don't seem to have 'Flaskmaster' from the tempest tree, but you do have 'Ride the Storm', it doesn't let me get Ride the Storm from the 'Lightning Flask' skill.

 

Am I doing something wrong here?

[Dank Rafft]

Build looks extremely awesome, but I have one issue.

 

You don't seem to have 'Flaskmaster' from the tempest tree, but you do have 'Ride the Storm', it doesn't let me get Ride the Storm from the 'Lightning Flask' skill.

 

Am I doing something wrong here?

No, the guide is wrong. You can't get Ride the Storm without Flaskmaster.

[Phaze50]

Thats true, you'll need 26 skill points instead of the 25 the build suggests. So you're fine as long as you get one of the 4 or 5 Amulets of Power for the Inquisitor.

 

Just out of curiosity, is there a realiable way to get the Superb Skill Rings (like Superb Ring of Twin Fangs) or is that another "farm tier 3 chests for hours"-deal?