Synopsis: Constant combat advantage, multiple ranged attacks per round in addition to stacked modifiers, and resulting in very good DPR, rivaling that of melee focused builds, while providing limited/no exposure to enemy attacks.
Note: This thread has undergone numerous changes. For up to date debate,please go to the last page! Note: Old users of the thread will want to see posts 228 to 236 to find out why we moved back to using superior crossbows
~Heroic~ 1) Weapon Proficiency: Superior Crossbow 2) Distant Advantage (retrain to Weapon Focus at 16th once you receive hide in plain sight) 4) Weapon Expertise : Superior Crossbow 6) MC Feat: Warrior of the Wild 8) Backstaber 10) Novice Power (Scattering Volley)
~Paragon~ 11) Danger Sense(steady shooter if optimized for paragon, push rest back, kill bleeding backstab). 12) Merciless Killer 14) Physic Lock 16) Adept Power (Attacks on the Run) 18) Slaying Action 20) Bleeding Backstab
Level 30: Main Hand 1: +6 Mind Iron Superior Crossbow Armor: +6 Displacers Leather (If it looks like the dm will try to push you out of invisibility, pop this!) Arm: +6 Bracers of Archery Head: +1 Headband Of Intellect Neck: + 6 Cloak of Displacement (this should further make it impossible to move you from invisibility). Ring: Shadow Band or Nullyfing Ring (if your DM is out to get you out of invisibility, choose the later). Hand: Level 26 Caustic Gauntlets (6 extra acid damage per ranged attack, not shabby) Feet: Zephir Boots (Light Step Slippers at lower levels) Waist: Baldric of Valor (item bonus to attack wont stack with our headband, but theres not much in belts we want). Misc: Violet Solitaire (gain AP on crit, spend this turn)
Consumables: Potion of Clarity +1 (pop this early in a fight, use it to reroll your higher W attacks) Caustic Whetstones + 2 (cheap) Black Dragon Bile (cheap!)
Skills, At Will, Encounter, Daily and Utility Powers Detailed. WARNING-LONGShow
Heroic
At Will: Deft Strike, Disheartening Strike(second choice can be anything really.
Level 1--Encounter: Unbalancing Shot (1E)
Level 1--Daily: Blinding Barrage (1D)
Level 2--Utility: Fleeting Ghost. This will let us be a scout and sneak around at more or less full speed without taking penalties.
Level 5--Daily: Walking Wound (2D) (Current: Blinding Barrage, Walking Wound) Level 6--Utility: Chameleon. Chameleon is nicer that the later version, as it lets you stealth in the open without cover until 'the end of your next turn'.This is going to be useful if you use party members 'as cover' to remain in hiding. This will allow them to move and you to stay in hiding until the end of your next turn.
Level 7--Encounter: Cloud of Steel or Snap Shot (if your ST is more into BBEGS than mass minions, Snap Shot, otherwise stick with cloud of steel. Later with whirl wind sneak attack, combining it with cloud of darkness can mean alot of sneak attacks) (3E) (Current: Unbalancing Shot, Enforced Threat, Cloud of Steel)
Level 9--Daily: Burst Fire (nice burst, hits enemies only, misses for half. Targets Reflex). Alternate: Vexing Sting. Being reliable is nice. Also targets reflex. (3D) (Current: Blinding Barrage, Walking Wound, Burst Fire)
Level 10--Utility: Executioner's Mien--Yes your not ruthless, but making every attack give a -2 to attacks is nice and will make your party love you. At this level you should be getting into the swing of not being attacked very often, so combat tumble set doesn't look at desirable. Alternate: Gap in the Armor.
At this level we use our Acolyte power to swap out Enforced Threat for Scattering Volley (two attacks for 1W+Dex + Slides the target 1 Square).
(3E) (Current: Unbalancing Shot, Scattering Volley, Cloud of Steel)
Paragon
Level 11--Encounter: Stab and Shoot (PP). Melee attack that then triggers a ranged attack. This is used on the first round of combat (dash in, use it, then next round move out, and cloud of darkness per normal).
(4E) (Current: Unbalancing Shot, Scattering Volley, Cloud of Steel, Stab and Shoot(PP))
Level 12--Utility: Perfect Aim(PP). A +1 to hit and damage before using a daily. Not bad.
Level 13--Encounter: Tornado Strike. Beats out skip shot because its two attack rolls for 2W+dex vs Skips vs ref for 2W + Dex and flat Dex vs another target. Being brutal vs artful provides no benefit (shift 2 vs shift 1+1, same deal). (4E---Unbalancing Shot) (Current: Scattering Volley, Tornado Strike, Cloud of Steel, Stab and Shoot(PP))
Level 15--Daily: Slaying Strike. A strength attack that works with ranged! Wait till their bloodies and youll wallop them from cloud of shadows. 5W+Dex+2x STr with combat advantage! and half on a miss built in. Not bad! (3D--Replace Walking Wound) (Current: Blinding Barrage, Slaying Strike, Burst Fire)
Level 16--Utility: Hide in Plain Sight; This will make your DM cry. Its best to still get things like rings of invisibility and the like to back this up. Eventually your DM will try to break you out of hiding if you use this every fight (which you will be doing!).
At this level we receive the Adept Power Feat and promptly exchange Slaying Strike (5w+dex+str 18-20 crit, half miss) for Shot on the Run (two attacks, 3W+dex, half on miss, and no range restrictions. We want to keep burst fire because, as long as it hits 2 targets, its going to be very competitive with damage vs slaying strikes output. Of course we wont use the 'one the run' option unless you want to open with this attack.
We swap Cloud of Steel for Snap Shot. Once we have hide in plain sight, we want to keep our distance from the fight as much as possible, so close blasts stop being ideal.
(Current: Scattering Volley, Tornado Strike, Snap Shot, Stab and Shoot(PP))
(3D--slaying Strike) (Current: Attacks on the Run, Blinding Barrage, Burst Fire)
Level 17--Encounter: Triple Shot! Three 1W+Dex attacks is a no brainier here. Pounding Barrage passives are not nice enough to negate the inability to attack multiple foes. Because we can only have one ranger encounter at a time from multi classing, we replace Scattering Volley. Remember the key here is keeping CA, and we will be going into Hide in Plain Sight fast, so close blasts arnt that great o (4E---Scattering Volley) (Current: Triple Shot, Tornado Strike, Snap Shot, Stab and Shooter(PP))
Level 19---Daily: Marked Beating. Hits for half, dazes and penalties until save is not bad! Hits hard as well. Great for a BBEG fight and partly makes up for missing feinting flurry from being artful. You may pick uncanny ricochet instead. Primary attack vs ref, backup vs ref which results in half even if that misses means your going to hit something. (3D--Blinding Barrage) (Current: Marked Beating, Attacks on the Run, Burst Fire)
Level 20-- Daily: Escalating Barrage(PP). Another triple hitting attack! First hit is basically a ranged basic but after that, you keep gaining accuracy and damage on every other attack. The only downside is each attack as to be on a new target, however unlike some other powers, you dont need to hit to enjoy the cummulative bonuses on attacks. Sexy!
(4D)(Current: Marked Beating, Burst Fire, Attacks on the Run, Escalating Barrage (PP))
Epic
Level 22--Utility: Raise the Stakes. For two rounds a day you can increase your crit change to 17-20. Use this along with your multi attack powers and action points.
Level 23--Encounter: While Manticores Volley, its not that much better than Triple Shot (another 5 or 10 damage if all attacks hit), and we would need to replace triple shot if we did that, and that best option there is Geurilla blitz (2W + dex+strength, not that great). The decision is Crack Shot vs Blindside. Blind Side: It hits fairly hard, but because we will be in hiding, its another method of dazing a foe and helping our party. Snap Shot loses its luster at this level. Crack Shot is a better overall but the limit of 10 squares can make it limiting. For a pure 'sniper', keep blind side. However the limit of 10 squares is not that bad; use it early in the encounter, preferably on round two after you already used stab and shoot and enter your cloud of darkness. Later we will apply whirling sneak attack to this.
Level 25--Daily. Magnetic Shot. Not much choice here. Hits harder than slaying, targets ref, still half misses, does not crit as much though. (4D--Replaces Burst Fire)(Current: Magnetic Shot, Attacks On the Run, Marked Beating, Escalating Barrage(PP))
Level 27--Encounter: Safe Bet. Safe Bet is 4W +Dex and another attack for 2W+Dex (basics at this level)). You could take hail of arrows (and be the official minion killer of at this level) but if you have any other characters with bursts/blasts, i think you should stay with Safe Bet. (4E--Replaces Tornado Strike) (Current: Triple Shot, Safe Bet, Crack Shot, Stab and Shoot(PP))
Level 29-- Daily: Five Missile Dance. Yes....no Assassins Point. 5 attacks at 2W a peice + modifiers. So thats a total of 10W + 5x your modifiers vs 7W + 1x your modifiers + 2x sneak attack. Since we have brutal advantage, after your first sneak attack, each next hit (remember your invisible) is going to deal additional damage equal to your strength. On top of that you get some control on the creature via pushes and knock prones, but this is really just garnish to the HUGE damage. We ditch Attacks on the Run. It deals better damage than Marked Beating, however the penalty from a successful Marked Beating will up the party damage until save. If you are purely concerned with your immediate damage, keep attacks on the run, drop marked beating.
(4D--Replaces Attacks on the Run (GASP))(Current: Five-Missile Dance, Magnetic, Marked Beating, Escalating Barrage(PP)).
Review:
U]Encounters: [/u]Triple Shot(3 attacks), Safe Bet(2 attacks), Crack Shot(At least one extra attack with any amount of aiming), Stab and Shoot(PP)(1 extra attack))
Early game 1-10 Start with unbalancing shot on something you beat in initiative. After that going into cloud of darkness. Some melee might need to be done beyond round 3 but hopefully deft strike keeps you ranged. Ask your DM if there are bushes, as you can probably claim them as superior concealment and hide behind them, overwise look for other places of total concealment (this generally is not an issue in a dungeon, plenty of doorways and the like).
Mid Game In this level range you come into your own. You will start combats landing stab and shoot (unless you plan to use blinding barrage, then use stab and shoot on round 2 and delay everything else to round 3) and then moving back, entering your cloud of darkness and continuing. Once you hit 16th youll step into hide in plain sight. Positioning on round 2 for your cloud of darkness is critical and will be something you need to practice. Position yourself close enough to ensure you can land all your attacks can be used, but far enough behind your tanks so that reaching you is not easy for any bull rush attempts. Be careful of creatures with tremorsense. These guys can see through invisibility...if your close enough. Most creatures with tremorsense only have a range of 5 or 10 on this ability, so just stay outside range and you'll be ok.
End Game Many sources of added attacks. You are dealing very good DPR, and brutal advantage is ensuring that those extra attacks are each dealing + STR mod damage. Triple Shot, Safe Bet, Crack Shot and Stab and Shoot are great sources of damage. Dailies are used on big bad guys, with Five-Missile Dance being utterly insane. Escalating Barrage seems ideal when fighting groups of elites (save your last shot for the biggest bad in the group!). Use your swift shot crossbow on round one. Quick Draw out your mind iron and go from there. The +1 to attacks and being able to make your daily attacks focus on Will is a huge benefit to your offense. The load 'minor' is nothing really; once in invisibility we will never really use our minors. If it becomes an issue, quick draw back to swift shot.
Defense is never really an issue unless your DM targets you. In these cases remember this. The only way to end Hide In Plain Sight is to be MOVED. This reduces what creatures are even able to get you out of this effect. Your cloak will give you a +2 to ac/ref. At the end of every turn, make a stealth check; monsters need to guess what square your in. Boots give you a +6 bonus. If the DM is hell bent on getting you, pop your armors (Displacement) daily ability; they will need to roll twice to hit you and use the lower of the two! This on top of the -5 penalty for not seeing you and +2 provided by your cloak, as well as any penalties from being marked/etc should be enough to ensure that only a crit (5%) is going to get you out of invisibility. If that happens, use your shadow bands daily power to gain full concealment for the encounter, and use your move actions to hide in the open.
Unless your DM is gunning for you, you should not face a situation like this that often, and with the built in defenses with this build, you should be fine
To Hit: With a superior attack bonus (+3 prof) vs a great bow, in addition the another +1 from mind iron/head band of intelligence and getting CA every round means in general, you will be much more accurate than a ranger (depending on if the ranger is also using mindiron/head band of intelligence, you will be between a +4 to +5 on attacks vs then). Rangers tend to edge out rogues in DPR due to additional attacks, but this is nullified with multi classed powers. A melee ranger using crossbows and drow fighting style will still be 2-3 behind you in terms of accuracy (they will be able to lower it to 1-2 points behind in epic tier with improved prime shot). Called Shot is nice, however it lags behind Brutal Advantage.
Extra Attacks Per Encounter: Triple Shot: 2 Safe Bet: 1 Stab and Shoot: 1 Swift Shot Weapon: 1 Crack Shot : 2+ Action Point generated free attack: 1 (when AP is used)
Deadly Trickster Benefits and Synergies Epic Destiny:
Deadly Trickster: --We use our 3 rerolls on Marked Beating, Safe Bet, etc or other attacks which hit for 4W or harder and trigger other effects. --15% of our encounter or dailies wont be expended. When teamed up with epic trick and a long fight, this can mean an extra daily or encounter power. Teamed up with the rerolls above, the chances increase. --Our level 30 power isnt going to effect us much, so its being ignored. --Epic Trick is well...epic. We wont take much damage with this build, however recovering all of our powers is utterly amazing, and lets us keep up the offense.
That is still 8-9 (potentially more with a lucky crack shot) additional attacks that can be done every encounter (no Dailies). With 15% of our encounter powers not being expended, we should expect an extra encounter power once every two encounters. A rogue will remain competitive with the ranger for attacks per round until they are 100% exhausted of encounter powers. Sneak attack damage here is nearly double that of a ranger in the late game (3d8 quarry damage(13.5) vs 5d8 (22.5). Great Bow is 1d12 damage, superior crossbow is does 1d10 and has a +1 bonus to hit (which actually ends up being worth a lot more damage!). Rogue is consistently adding STR(secondary stat) to damage; something a Ranger(Wisdom) is not doing without going Pit Fighter or via a daily stance.
Rogue will offer better debuffing to the Solos, will require less healing from the party, etc. In addition you will be applying a -2 penalty to attack rolls with psychic lock, and another -2 twice a day with executioners mein. That means when it comes to a big bad, you can effectively be the hero of your party
Curious as to why you chose Brutal Scoundrel over Artful Dodger. Seems as a sniper, the bonus to AC when tumbling out of harms way would prove useful. Also, it plays more to the drow's stat bonuses.
Curious as to why you chose Brutal Scoundrel over Artful Dodger. Seems as a sniper, the bonus to AC when tumbling out of harms way would prove useful. Also, it plays more to the drow's stat bonuses.
My guess is that it's for the +Str to sneak attack damage. At Epic Brutal Advantage makes that +Str damage against everybody not being sneak-attacked.
I was wondering how competitive the crossbow rogue is after Martial Power. It'd be interesting to run this alongside an archer ranger to see how they compare.
I'd be surprised if you ever actually needed the Far Shot feat. As an alternative, why not take Slaying Action for those action point attacks? Another option would be Warrior of the Wild/Courageous Shooter (ranger multiclass) to enable you to pick up some of the nicer Ranger archer powers with those feats you're not sure about.
Artful primary benefits are vs Attacks of Opprtunity (which we will never incur in this build), Shifting outself (which we never need to do after 16th) or sliding targets (meh) and some other side effects.
Brutal will let us add our secondary stat to damage every time. This is especially important because 'footpads friend' can only be applied to light blades, so our crossbow 'artful' dodger would rarely get to use their charisma to up their damage.
I also think martial power dramatically increased the ranged rogue. We now have a ranged power at every level and the dedicated ranged only powers are amazing (crack shot, magnetic shot, etc).
Per far shot, that could be swapped for MC ranger if you want. Per slaying action; by the time we can spend a feat to get this, our PP (cloaked sniper) already gives us that benefit.
Although, if the powers for the rogue's throwing based PP weren't so good, I'd just take Avalance Thrower instead for a throwing rogue. The Rogue PP makes all thrown weapons high crit, but there's a paragon feat that makes daggers and shuriken high crit, and Avalance Hurler increases the die size.
+3, 1d8, high crit shuriken? +4, 1d6, high crit daggers? Yes please!
Challenge: When ~ comes into play, all opponents may put a Legendary creature card with the same or smaller converted mana cost as ~ into play without paying its mana cost.
Without being able to increase crit range, high crit is not that great. 5% of your attacks will deal extra damage. Until you get a 19-20 crit range, thats kinda meh. With thrown daggers this is not that bad other than light blade mastery requires 17 STR, making it kinda exclusive vs artful dodgers.
Challenge: When ~ comes into play, all opponents may put a Legendary creature card with the same or smaller converted mana cost as ~ into play without paying its mana cost.
As far as 'bow/xbow' ranged pp, the only other ones (ranger) arnt really to die for. Most go off wisdom, effect quarry, etc...nothing great.
If you MC this build (and you have enough free feats, so why dont you already!) I would pick ranger (for extra damage 1/encounter) or cleric (free healing is free healing!) depending on your party build.
Another thing to note is that until you hit your paragon path, that superior crossbow is going to require a minor action to reload. So you might reconsider powers like blinding barrage that require more than a single reload to work on a group of foes. You can always retrain to use them once you hit the paragon tier.
Another thing to note is that until you hit your paragon path, that superior crossbow is going to require a minor action to reload. So you might reconsider powers like blinding barrage that require more than a single reload to work on a group of foes. You can always retrain to use them once you hit the paragon tier.
Nah, powers that attack multiple times include the reloading in the action. More convenient, no?
Challenge: When ~ comes into play, all opponents may put a Legendary creature card with the same or smaller converted mana cost as ~ into play without paying its mana cost.
