28 réponses à ce sujet

[Bayonet Hipshot]

Hi folks. I have an Archer Assassin build for my Elven Inquisitor that I want to try out and need your feedback on the build itself.

 

Build Link:- http://www.rpg-gamin...34544151761571b

 

Build Passives:-

• Assassin - 10 (Hidden Blades+, Throatcutter, I Was Never Here, Knockout Bomb+, Knife in the Shadows, Gaps in the Armor, Mark of Death+)
• Double Daggers - 3 (Twin Fangs, Dance of Death, Sneak Attack)
• Archery - 8 (Long Shot+, First Blood, Explosive Shot+, Pincushion, Full Draw+)
• Sabotage - 3 (Caltrops, Looked Like It Hurt, Cheap Shot)
• Subterfuge - 7 (Stealth+, Evasion, Easy to Miss, Evade+, Ambush)

 

Build Abilities: -

1. Stealth (either upgrade)
2. Evade (Shadow Step)
3. Mark of Death (Mark of Doom)
4. Knockout Bomb (Dream of Pain)
5. Hidden Blades (either upgrade, depending on the number of enemies present)
6. Explosive Shot (Chain Reaction)
7. Long Shot (Eagle Eye)
8. Full Draw (either upgrade, depending on enemy immunity)

 

I like this build. It has passives that cover crits, stamina recovery, damage, sundering, and armor penetration.  The only real downside to it is the lack of self healing abilities which can be solved with the proper enchantments and accessories. However, I am wondering if I am missing out by not taking Poisoned Weapons and say, replacing it with Knockout Bomb.

 

I chose not to do that since Poisoned Weapons need 4 skill points (Poisoned Weapons, its upgrade, Fighting Dirty and Explosive Toxin) to be fully effective, which would have not allowed me to dip into Double Daggers for the passives in that tree. Besides, Knockout Bomb now has a damage over time bleeding effect and there are enemies that are immune to poison but no enemy is immune to bleeding and the bleeding effect actually stacks ! Would using Tears of the Dead make up for the lack of poison in this build ?

 

Thanks & Cheers.

 

[JiaJM98]

Try poiaon cloud with elusives upgrade Also try leap shot with stealth upgrade.

You can use the new stealth upgrade and put all your stats on crit damage since you automatically crit when in stealth.

[jhood_shsu]

One thing I would add is upgraded throwing blades in sabotage.  The 25% damage boost is a permanent boost, not just to the throwing blades skill.

 

And the leaping shot with straight to stealth upgrade as mentioned before is always a nice touch.

[PapaCharlie9]

Is that website ever going to update to Patch 10/Trespasser builds? It doesn't have the revised, toggled upgrades. Unless you are running on PS3?
 

Build Abilities: -

• Stealth (either upgrade)
• Evade (Shadow Step)
• Mark of Death (Mark of Doom)
• Knockout Bomb (Dream of Pain)
• Hidden Blades (either upgrade, depending on the number of enemies present)
• Explosive Shot (Chain Reaction)
• Long Shot (Eagle Eye)
• Full Draw (either upgrade, depending on enemy immunity)

I like this build. It has passives that cover crits, stamina recovery, damage, sundering, and armor penetration.  The only real downside to it is the lack of self healing abilities which can be solved with the proper enchantments and accessories. However, I am wondering if I am missing out by not taking Poisoned Weapons and say, replacing it with Knockout Bomb.
 
I chose not to do that since Poisoned Weapons need 4 skill points (Poisoned Weapons, its upgrade, Fighting Dirty and Explosive Toxin) to be fully effective, which would have not allowed me to dip into Double Daggers for the passives in that tree. Besides, Knockout Bomb now has a damage over time bleeding effect and there are enemies that are immune to poison but no enemy is immune to bleeding and the bleeding effect actually stacks ! Would using Tears of the Dead make up for the lack of poison in this build ?
 
Thanks & Cheers.

As JiaJM98 posted, your biggest contributor to damage output is going to be high crit damage% + Stealth + biggest damage efficiency (not just largest bonus, which is why I rule out Full Draw). Your actives should be selected against that fundamental reality. Economizing active slots to get two-for-one deals is a good thing to do.

Leaping Shot/Shot from the Shadows hits all of those key points. I consider it a must-have for an Archer Assassin build.

An active-by-active critique:

Stealth: A DW Assassin in a level-capped build doesn't need this ability, since Flank Attack gives it for free. Similarly, and Archer Assassin shouldn't need this, since Leaping Shot gives it for free. The awkwardness of needing to use an attack to go into Stealth is made up for by the fact that you don't lose an active slot to an ability that can't do damage.

Evade: Again, Leaping Shot serves this purpose as well. So one ability now serves three purposes.

MoD: must have, obviously.

Knockout Bomb: As long as your party is set up to take advantage of this (lots of Flanking bonus damage), it's okay, but see below.

Hidden Blades: must have, obviously.

Explosive Shot: Useful for fire vulnerable enemies.

Long Shot: Useful for detonations, AND two Leaping Shots in a row put you in range for the Eagle Eye 900% bonus.

Full Draw: save these points for Leaping Shot.


In summary, a level-capped Archer Assassin build without Leaping Shot is kind of broken. It needs a really good reason not to have LS. I would argue the opposite is true here, you have several really compelling reasons to sacrifice a bunch of other actives for LS. These are the actives I'd shoot for.

1/ Leaping Shot
2/ Long Shot
3/ Explosive Shot
4/ Hidden Blades
5/ MoD
6/ Knockout Bomb (or Toxic Cloud for Elusive, or Stealth)
7/ Throwing Blades/Precision Targeting
8/ Mark of the Rift/Aegis of the Rift (or Poison Weapons if you go with Toxic Cloud, or Stealth)

Throwing Blades is important both for the synergy with Knife In The Shadows and because you get the Looked Like It Hurt passive on the way there. That said, it is a bit awkward to use LS to go into Stealth to set up Throwing Blades, because unless you turn around an aim away from your target, you'll be too far away for TB. So, I could see trading out KO bomb or the focus ability for Stealth.

If you find your party is getting taken out by one-shots, Toxic Cloud for Elusive is a good counter-tactic.

[arkngt]

One thing I would add is upgraded throwing blades in sabotage.  The 25% damage boost is a permanent boost, not just to the throwing blades skill.

 

So Precision Targeting ups all damage with 25% permanently? Sounds extremely useful if so.

[PawsPause]

Forgive for not understanding completely, but 25% permanently to all powers or just throwing blades?

[JiaJM98]

In my experience, throwing blades upgrade adds 25% extra damage PER HIT (this applies to all attacks not just throwing blades, so for example hidden blades or spinning blades), on top of all the sundering effects. The duration of this effect is relatively short, but refreshes after every single hit landed on the target.

And yes, the damage bonus applies to all attacks not just throwing blades.

As you can imagine, this would make all the boss fights and dragons extremely trivil..

[arkngt]

OK, so it's not "permanent", but the bonus gets added to all attacks during the 8 seconds Throwing Blades is active? That's rather nice as well. 

[jhood_shsu]

OK, so it's not "permanent", but the bonus gets added to all attacks during the 8 seconds Throwing Blades is active? That's rather nice as well. 

I think its always active, not just during the throwing blades duration.  havent tested it fully myself, but that seems to be the consensus I've seen from those that have tested it.

[arkngt]

I think its always active, not just during the throwing blades duration.  havent tested it fully myself, but that seems to be the consensus I've seen from those that have tested it.

 

Do you have a link to one of those tests? I checked the [GUIDE] Documentation for Combat Mechanics and couldn't find anything about it (and not with a forum search either).

[PapaCharlie9]

I think its always active, not just during the throwing blades duration.  havent tested it fully myself, but that seems to be the consensus I've seen from those that have tested it.

Sigh. Now I'm going to have to go test this myself. Because if it's true, it's a grossly OP bug. It's like giving everyone in the party an IV drip of Mighty Offense Tonic, including Mages, at double strength.

A conclusive test would have to use Tactician's amulets to remove and than assign the ability and have all party members do damage to a standard target under each condition. TB ability should not be used at all.

Seems incredibly unlikely on the face of it. Perhaps the testers misinterpreted the Sundered affect, after using the ability, as a permanent buff?

[jhood_shsu]

check the newer build videos on youtube.  pretty sure I've seen starflorge confirm it on one of his latest videos, and I've seen it on another video as well, maybe jumpinproductions

[jhood_shsu]

Sigh. Now I'm going to have to go test this myself. Because if it's true, it's a grossly OP bug. It's like giving everyone in the party an IV drip of Mighty Offense Tonic, including Mages, at double strength.

A conclusive test would have to use Tactician's amulets to remove and than assign the ability and have all party members do damage to a standard target under each condition. TB ability should not be used at all.

Seems incredibly unlikely on the face of it. Perhaps the testers misinterpreted the Sundered affect, after using the ability, as a permanent buff?

and now I dont have to do any work after I get off work.

[JiaJM98]

I think its always active, not just during the throwing blades duration.  havent tested it fully myself, but that seems to be the consensus I've seen from those that have tested it.

I just tested this again and what I see confirms with my past experience. The damage bonus stacks infinitely and duration is not permanent, but refreshes after any hit that lands on the target.

[JiaJM98]

Sigh. Now I'm going to have to go test this myself. Because if it's true, it's a grossly OP bug. It's like giving everyone in the party an IV drip of Mighty Offense Tonic, including Mages, at double strength.

A conclusive test would have to use Tactician's amulets to remove and than assign the ability and have all party members do damage to a standard target under each condition. TB ability should not be used at all.

Seems incredibly unlikely on the face of it. Perhaps the testers misinterpreted the Sundered affect, after using the ability, as a permanent buff?

I posted this before, but the most obvious way to test this glitch is to have an artificer / tempest inquisitor, Varric and Sera. In tactics disable all abilities but set throwing blades, fire flask, and any multi hit abilities (e.g. leap shot, spinning blades, hidden blades etc) to favourite. In behaviours set stamina reserve to 0%.

 

Go and kill a dragon and watch the monster damage scaling for yourself.

[PapaCharlie9]

Sorry, but my prelim findings are no change in damage with vs without Throwing Blades as an active ability. More details later, but I tried two parties, one from IQ that upgraded with Patch 10, one created after Patch 10. No difference in any damage, auto attacks or abilities.

 

BUT ... I also noticed that TB with Precision was NOT causing Sundered in the upgraded party! Other attacks that cause sundered worked fine on the same target, but TB did not.       

 

I need to review all the video I took to confirm what I was seeing. More details about test setup and such later.

[PapaCharlie9]

Okay, the details.

TL;DR - Throwing Blades does not apply Sundered if the target has Guard.
 
Test 1

Difficulty set to Normal, no Trials.

Character was created before Patch 10, upgraded to Patch 10/Trepasser. Level capped Rift Mage IQ, Blackwall, and Cole. All had Tactician's amulet applied to remove all abilities. Cole never had Throwing Blades (TB) since start of game. All give vanilla armor and weapons with no or minimal effects.

AI was disabled for all characters.
 
Target: Bronto in Emerald Graves, Armor 88. Brontos are pretty good test subjects, lots of hit points, straight-forward resistance/vulnerability, don't do too much damage (though Charging Bull attack is annoying), generate guard. The Emerald Graves, at the entrance to Chateau d'Onterre reliably spawns at least 2 at any given time. As long as a wandering Great Bear or Giant doesn't interrupt (both happened during this test), it's a good standard test site.

Cole was set up with Sabotage abilities Caltrops, Looked Like It Hurt, and Cheap Shot. NOT Throwing Blades. I also had to give him the Ambush passive, or else his 93 damage bow would only do single digit damage against Bronto's armor. Other abilities: Leaping Shot, Long Shot, Evade, and passives needed to get to those. Nothing was upgraded. Other characters were given one damage ability and one defense ability (for Charging Bull). Everything was checked to make sure no extra effects were applied

From a save, each character was controlled and did auto attacks and one damage ability: Energy Barrage for the mage, Long shot for the rogue, Combat Roll/Coming Through for the warrior. Save was reloaded before the next character was tried.

Several hits were made, to factor out criticals and other outliers, both auto attacks and abilities. Target was always facing front, to remove Flanking from the equation.

After doing each character, reloaded save and gave Cole Throwing Blades and Precision Targetting and a new save made. All of the above tests were then repeated from that new save. TB ability was NOT used.

Results: no noticeable difference in damage numbers. Numbers the same when Cole did not have the ability assigned as when he did have it assigned.

Test 2

Same setup as above, except a character that was created after Patch 10 was used. This time the party was Artificer Archer IQ, Blackwall, Dorian. Also, since this character already had Throwing Blades, that test case was done first. Then Tactician's amulet was used to remove it and tests redone.

Results: no noticeable difference in damage numbers. Numbers the same when IQ had TB assigned as when TB was removed.

Test 3

Using the Test 2 setup, I had the IQ do Throwing Blades and then had Blackwall do several auto attacks, to see if the stacking of damage happens while another character is auto attacking.

Nope. No change to Blackwall's damage numbers immediately after Throwing Blades that couldn't be accounted for by Sundered or criticals.

---------------------

As for TB not causing Sundered, I figured out why. It appears that if the target has Guard, the Sundered status is not applied by Throwing Blades. It IS applied by other weapon buffs or abilities, just not TB for some reason.

Once the Bronto was down to zero guard, TB applied Sundered as expected.

Just to be sure the same Guard vs. No Guard effect wasn't also responsible for the lack of difference in having the ability and not, I rechecked the warrior damage in all of the above cases. Didn't make any difference, damage numbers still the same when Bronto had no guard, Rogue with or without the ability assigned.

[PapaCharlie9]

I just tested this again and what I see confirms with my past experience. The damage bonus stacks infinitely and duration is not permanent, but refreshes after any hit that lands on the target.

I think we're talking about two different things.

jhood_shsu said the damage stacking is active even outside of the duration, like its a permanent affect of just having the ability assigned to some rogue. I couldn't find any evidence of that.

You are talking about actively using TB. I'm not clear whether you are saying the damage stacks for other characters attacks, in addition to the TB rogue's attacks, but in any case, I also couldn't find any evidence of that working for me. At least for normal auto-attacks. I didn't try multi-attacks, as you suggested.

Would Energy Barrage work? I'm set up for that, but I'm not set up for two rogues, I only had one in each test party.

[jhood_shsu]

I dont think it works for the team, just the rogue with TB assigned.

 

Any video I've seen is focused on the rogue alone.

[JiaJM98]

I think we're talking about two different things.

jhood_shsu said the damage stacking is active even outside of the duration, like its a permanent affect of just having the ability assigned to some rogue. I couldn't find any evidence of that.

You are talking about actively using TB. I'm not clear whether you are saying the damage stacks for other characters attacks, in addition to the TB rogue's attacks, but in any case, I also couldn't find any evidence of that working for me. At least for normal auto-attacks. I didn't try multi-attacks, as you suggested.

Would Energy Barrage work? I'm set up for that, but I'm not set up for two rogues, I only had one in each test party.

I'd try that with a multi rogue party, if not a full rogue party 

 

I initially found this glitch in MP with Silent Sister class when I was running with throwing blades, hidden blades and spinning blades. She has flow of battle passive too which is very sweet given I have over 90% crit chance with my cunning promotions. (Bloody bargain dagger helps quite a bit in terms of attack speed too.)

 

It turns out the damage bonus duration is applied (or refreshed) after any hit if the hit lands within the damage bonus duration, not just throwing blades hits. The duration is pretty short, which I assume was intended to only last for the duration of throwing blades animation. Then it turns out the damage bonus applies to all attacks and all hits give a +25% damage bonus towards the target on top of the existing bonus and refreshes the duration. Tested with friends and found this bonus can be used by other team members too and other characters' attacks will also refresh the duration. So if you have a party set up to have high attack frequency and lots of multi hits abilities you can build up the damage bonus insanely quick.

 

When I paired up with a friend who was also running Silent Sister, we can insta kill the NM high dragon before it takes off. My very first hit did less than 2000 damage (from the first throwing blades hit) but our killing blow did over 38k damage (can't tell if it was from throwing blades or hidden blades). No mighty offense tonic was used. Almost 2000% damage bonus here And this only took like 15, 20 seconds.

 

Then I ran some tests in SP and turns out you can exploit throwing blades in exactly the same way as MP. Although I needed to design my party specifically to take advantage of this (change tactics and add some hidden blades masterwork etc) but it's actually easier to do in SP as you have opportunity knocks from artificer tree (in MP archer don't get throwing blades) and you can make your whole party spamming throwing blades and watch tones of hidden blades proc.

[PapaCharlie9]

I dont think it works for the team, just the rogue with TB assigned.
 
Any video I've seen is focused on the rogue alone.

 

EDIT: My bad, I somehow read "all party" into "all" in arkngt's post.    I did test that case with Cole and with my Artificer IQ. I didn't see anything unexpected. Every buff to Cole's damage could be explained by something else: crit, Sundered, or both via Cheap Shot passive.

 

But no worries, because it led to the discovery that TB doesn't cause Sundered if the target has Guard.

 

Then I ran some tests in SP and turns out you can exploit throwing blades in exactly the same way as MP. Although I needed to design my party specifically to take advantage of this (change tactics and add some hidden blades masterwork etc) but it's actually easier to do in SP as you have opportunity knocks from artificer tree (in MP archer don't get throwing blades) and you can make your whole party spamming throwing blades and watch tones of hidden blades proc.

I understand that HB procs make lots of damage, but that's not really the point we're trying to prove/disprove, right? The claim is that doing some kind of rogue multi-hit attack simultaneously, or at least within the Sundered duration of TB, causes the Sundered duration to be extended by each additional non-TB hit. Which in turn looks like bonus damage. 

 

Is that a correct statement of the observation?
 

I have a suspicion about what might be going on. Enough that I don't think I need to test.

 

It's probably the Cheap Shot passive. That certainly explains the extended duration for the original rogue using TB. That rogue has to have Cheap Shot in order to have TB as an ability. So every Crit will extend the original TB duration.

 

I saw that happening in my testing. For example. Cole did one TB and I checked the target for Sundered. The duration of Sundered said 9 seconds. Huh? How could that be? It could be because one of the TB hits critted, which triggered Cheap Shot.

 

The only real mystery is why the hits, presumably crits, from other non-TB using rogues during the duration would extend the Sundered duration. Maybe they just had Sunder as an attribute of some gear? Maybe they had Cheap Shot also?

[JiaJM98]

I understand that HB procs make lots of damage, but that's not really the point we're trying to prove/disprove, right? The claim is that doing some kind of rogue multi-hit attack simultaneously, or at least within the Sundered duration of TB, causes the Sundered duration to be extended by each additional non-TB hit. Which in turn looks like bonus damage. 

 

Is that a correct statement of the observation?
 

I have a suspicion about what might be going on. Enough that I don't think I need to test.

 

It's probably the Cheap Shot passive. That certainly explains the extended duration for the original rogue using TB. That rogue has to have Cheap Shot in order to have TB as an ability. So every Crit will extend the original TB duration.

 

I saw that happening in my testing. For example. Cole did one TB and I checked the target for Sundered. The duration of Sundered said 9 seconds. Huh? How could that be? It could be because one of the TB hits critted, which triggered Cheap Shot.

 

The only real mystery is why the hits, presumably crits, from other non-TB using rogues during the duration would extend the Sundered duration. Maybe they just had Sunder as an attribute of some gear? Maybe they had Cheap Shot also?

Yes they had cheap shots, but that won't justify a 2000% damage bonus (soft capped due to enemy health) here. Unless you believe in negative armour ratings...

 

Edit: actually, no. In MP Silent sister don't have cheap shots (although she has shield breaker), but the glitch still works even when I don't take shield breaker passive. No sunder stats on my gear either. I can easily push my damage from about 2k per hit to 13 - 16k per hit on average NM mobs 

 

Do you really think this sort of damage scaling is intended? 

[PapaCharlie9]

I edited my reply above: turns out thinking it was applied to the whole party was totally a misread on my part. I only have myself to blame for wasting my own time. 

 

Well, maybe I'll do one more test, but I suspect that the 2000% can be unpacked by analyzing all of the various bonuses that rogues get. Just one rogue can have a 200% crit damage bonus, so that takes it down to just explaining where 1000% came from. And so on.

 

If you guys can find those videos, they would be great to add to the pile of evidence.

[JiaJM98]

I suspect that the 2000% can be unpacked by analyzing all of the various bonuses that rogues get. Just one rogue can have a 200% crit damage bonus, so that takes it down to just explaining where 1000% came from. And so on.

Sorry if I didn't make it clear. What I meant by that 2000% is:

 

With all the gears and promotions and passives, my initial hit on the NM dragon does just under 2000 damage (crit damage included) in MP with Silent Sister.

 

Then with every single hit this damage number goes up by some amount, so for example the damage number goes up to about 6000 by the end of my 1st round of throwing blades, then I follow up with Hidden blades and spinning blades at the same time, which makes the damage number goes up too. By the time I finished my spinning blades animation and started casting my 2nd round of throwing blades, which at the end of the second round of throwing blades I usually expect to see at least over 10k per hit. Then the damage raises even quicker in the next round or two, climbs straight to over 30k and ends at 38k because the dragon is already dead. 

 

There are two Silent Sisters doing this at the same time, so that explains partly how the damage scales up so quick. 

 

The dragon dropped dead from half health as a dozen 30k+ damage numbers floats up from his head.

 

So that 2000% damage bonus excludes all other gears and stats and passives beside anything that got activated during the combat. And the only possibilities are:

 

sunder effect from throwing blades

shield breaker

precision targeting upgrade on Throwing blades

 

Sunder and armour reduction will only take you so far (because you can't get negative armour rating), and yes this must be part of it.

But I think the damage bonus from throwing blades must have been the main cause of this monster damage inflation.

 

Edit: the dragon did not activate guard so this excludes any guard damage bonus.

[PapaCharlie9]

 

 

So that 2000% damage bonus excludes all other gears and stats and passives beside anything that got activated during the combat. And the only possibilities are:

 

sunder effect from throwing blades

shield breaker

precision targeting upgrade on Throwing blades

 

Sunder and armour reduction will only take you so far (because you can't get negative armour rating), and yes this must be part of it.

But I think the damage bonus from throwing blades must have been the main cause of this monster damage inflation.

 

Edit: the dragon did not activate guard so this excludes any guard damage bonus.

 

Okay, I get it. You don't mean a flat 2000%, you mean some kind of stacking. That does narrow down the possibilities. Like a bug in Throwing Blades.