Kali's Dark Hunter Tempest TWF DEX Melee DPS build
- Thread starter Kalibano
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Sneakywink
Active member
Does Smoke Trap work now as I found that it didn't work well when with high Assassinate DC?
Kalibano
Build Designer. Having fun since 2006!
Sadly, it's not working as reliably as it could/should, and neither is 'Snap Trap', which uses a similar formula:
Fortitude Save (DC20 + Dex/Int/Wis Mod + Assassinate DCs + Bonus Trap DCs)
This seems to be down to a couple of main factors:
- Fortitude save (on both traps), which tends to be resisted by large number of mobs
- The 'Bonus Trap DCs' part of the formula seems to be based on enhancements such as 'Improved traps [T2]', which offer very low bonuses and are not very abundant
- Though nowadays the values of assassinate bonuses on gear are generally similar to tactical DCs, without benefiting from trances in the formula, it simply can't reach values that are as reliable/viable as tactical DCs
- perhaps making 'Lupine Instincts [T4]' additionally grant a primal bonus to 'Bonus Trap DCs' based on the number of wilderness lore feats (this can be easily adjustable in the formula up or down, like 1/3, 1/2, 2x, etc.)
- perhaps replacing the 'bonus trap DCs'in the formula for:
- the number of Sneak Attack Die? (again, easily adjustable in the formula in the same manner)
- the Disable Device skill? (again, easily adjustable in the formula in the same manner)
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Kalibano
Build Designer. Having fun since 2006!
Build update
In the recent Black Friday Sales, I got an excellent deal upgrading from Standard edition to the Vecna Ultimate Fan bundle ...
... so I now have a Universal tome (Morgrave) for all my characters. Well worth the wait for this price, and I got to enjoy the content/gear all long!
The following changes/additions
were made to this build:
The sections/effect values/images that were affected have been updated accordingly in the original post.
The DDOBuilder (v2) file has also been updated with these changes.
Enjoy!
.
In the recent Black Friday Sales, I got an excellent deal upgrading from Standard edition to the Vecna Ultimate Fan bundle ...
... so I now have a Universal tome (Morgrave) for all my characters. Well worth the wait for this price, and I got to enjoy the content/gear all long!
The following changes/additions
were made to this build:- +1 Dark Hunter (new total = 28 APs):
- [T4] Slayer in the Dark (rank 3): Morale bonus to Melee Power gained upon killing enemies now stacks 4 times
The sections/effect values/images that were affected have been updated accordingly in the original post.
The DDOBuilder (v2) file has also been updated with these changes.
Enjoy!
.
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Kalibano
Build Designer. Having fun since 2006!
30k+ views!
Together with my Paladin KoTC build, (and likely thanks to the U72 changes, now also my Monk Henshin build), this has always pretty consistently been the second build with the highest number of views out of all the builds in my repository:
Slowly working towards updating gear sets to include a few pieces of gear with S/M augments to existing set bonuses (similarly to the gear set I recently put together for my Bard swashbuckler hybrid).
The long-term plan is to revise all gear sets to achieve similar results, but highly likely I will:
Enjoy, and thanks for everyone who has taken the time to contribute with ideas, compliments and support
.
Together with my Paladin KoTC build, (and likely thanks to the U72 changes, now also my Monk Henshin build), this has always pretty consistently been the second build with the highest number of views out of all the builds in my repository:
Slowly working towards updating gear sets to include a few pieces of gear with S/M augments to existing set bonuses (similarly to the gear set I recently put together for my Bard swashbuckler hybrid).
The long-term plan is to revise all gear sets to achieve similar results, but highly likely I will:
- start from the hybrids, since I now have the Bard Swash sample to adjust from
- then move on to the casters, since their gear set was not updated at the same time as the pure melee gear sets
- and finally move on to the pure melee builds, which were the most recently updated to also include the gear planner spreadsheet
Enjoy, and thanks for everyone who has taken the time to contribute with ideas, compliments and support
.
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MarauderX
Active member
Thank you for providing this build along with the updates. I just completed this from 1 to 34, 100% following the feats, skills, enhancements, destinies, etc. Overall... it seems weak at most levels. Not until mid-epics did the damage numbers start to get beyond a steady stream of low digits, and even then, there were not regular critical hits with damage that could keep up with previous barb, bard, sorc, and paladin lives. Buying new equipment at every level or so marginally improved the AC, damage, and skill numbers. Tempest used to be able to rip things up fast, but it seems it is now more below average compared to most in a party, but it was good fun to soak up extra damage with the additional HP.
Thoughts on improvements...
MX
Thoughts on improvements...
- Skip any toughness feats. HP was already higher than many, and 22 reaper points helped push this up too.
- Take Spring Attack. It's great fun to dart ahead and using smoke bomb (or better, invisibility pots) could help with that initial sneak attack.
- Skip the Metamagic Quicken spell. It's a feat that could go to something else to improve damage, speed, survivability for only two suboptimal abilities. Smoke bomb can get by with just using at the initiation of a fight; snap trap doesn't land much on reaper and isn't worth the faster action in an actual fight with mobs.
- It was suggested to switch from rapiers to scimitars to improve the damage. Not sure if this is the solution but could help with skeletons and others that have resistance to pointy and sneak damage.
- The epic/legendary feats seemed to hinge on the sneak attack or helpless targets but seems way behind a vistani rogue or other assassin build.
MX
saekee
long live ROGUE
I know you are using Flow and Rapiers but Maw kukri is not too hard to get and add Salt for phenomenal CC. You can put it in the offhand and then swap an Undying for boss fights.
Kukris have their own tree so lots of flexibility; their main weakness is lack of favored weapon status.
Kukris have their own tree so lots of flexibility; their main weakness is lack of favored weapon status.
Kalibano
Build Designer. Having fun since 2006!
Hi MarauderX,
Thanks for taking the time to post your experience with the build and share thoughts on improvements, much appreciated
> I can see you compared damage output to previous lives/builds you ran: that certainly feels useful for those seeking the builds/classes with the most damage output, so thanks for sharing this
Some thoughts ref your suggestions, if I may:
- Ref toughness feats: generally speaking, I personally prefer to have the amount of hit points I have gone for than to have less in favor of more damage. I think a balanced approach like this is likely to favor characters with no/very few past lives in the long run: I do delve a bit more on this in this thread, as it is a personal playstyle choice. Being able to soak up a bit more dmg makes my gaming experience a lot more fun than being a glass canon.
- This build uses FoTW's 'Fast and Furious', so I already have one 'sprint' attack, which I personally consider superior to Spring Attack because it grants a crit multiplier bonus.
- I'm not fully convinced I would significantly benefit from a second sprint attack... I dunno. I used Spring Attack in my previous Ranger build (with the old Shadowdancer that had the T5 assassinate attack), so sneak damage was a focus even back then, and I found myself avoiding Spring Attack a lot of the time in order to reach the frontline a bit later, after agro was taken.
- I'd say decisions like this depend a lot on what's going on with the game: currently, my melee alts are frequently the only melee in the groups I join, where many are using the cheese ranged builds, so I dunno if I would care to get there any faster. They grab agro from far ahead, I get there and dish all the sneak damage tbh.
- I find quicken super useful, I would not drop it. I initially played without it and found Smoke Bomb (invisibility) and Smoke Trap (lose immunity to sneak attacks and -25% fort) were interrupted far too frequently, as I use them a lot during combat
- DCs for Smoke + Snap traps might not be where they need to be yet (I feel this is because assassinate does not benefit from trances, and therefore cannot beat saves that are balanced around what tactics with trances can reach). I am happy to stick with them until they hopefully get adjusted some day: I personally shared this feedback with the Devs, and suggested, amongst several things, that they could perhaps start benefitting from trances too, now that assassinate bonuses have similar values to stun, trip, etc in gear, trees, etc.
- hinging on sneak attacks and helpless damage is exactly where I personally want this build to be: it reaches 46 sneak die very often ('Opportune Moment' combined with Smoke bomb). Whether behind a vistani/assassin or not, I feel this is the focus that will mostly benefit the very large bonuses that Dark Hunter and Shadowdancer give.
- Admittedly, I do make a personal choice of investing in Assassinate DCs via filigrees, to the detriment of going full-on melee power. I am personally happy with this compromise, though. Others are free to do as they wish, of course.
If I may now delve on some points that are specific to my personal playstyle, and therefore, significantly shape how I play and the choices I tend to make (such as the ones I outlined just above):
> I play around 23 characters
> I like playing several classes and races, and not as 'past lives', but as real characters available permanently
> I don't TR each character often: I build with the endgame in mind, and that's where I spend the vast majority of my time with each character
> Each character kind of specialises on one weapon (sometimes a group of weapons): it's how I deal with my stable of alts
> I enjoy gear tetris, and strive to gear my characters up every 4 levels or so (kind of matching how bonuses on augments go) with 'optimal' gear, including set bonuses and augments. Not everyone bothers with that, but I do.
> I don't particularly compare the damage output between different classes, as I am not personally seeking a/the 'top'/'meta' build: I am fully disinterested in meta
> Vistani 41 might be considered by some as the only way to go, but such rigid 'meta' choices are just not interesting enough to me.
> I am still very hopeful someday all bonuses in the Vistani tree are fixed to apply only when holding daggers and kukris
So with those in mind,
> Ranger (specifically the Tempest variety) has been very fun to play for years. Even if not as powerful as other classes, I am happy to stick with it for this character
> My druid uses my collection of scimitars. This ranger has focused for years on piercing, rapiers mostly (crit profile) BUT, this is a TFW build: there's a bunch of off-hand swappable weapons I do use all the time, particularly from raids when/if I acquire them (especially if they have 'keen' on them when they are not piercing)
> the off-hand helps significantly when dealing with mobs with bludgeon and slash DRs
> I must confess my builds do not focus at all on the journey to the endgame: the choices I make are for the endgame. So some things could/should be tweaked as you go along (even if to be dropped completely later in favor of what I propose)> Filigrees play a very significant role for many builds, and take a significant amount of time to put together (i.e. level the sentient gem and artifact to full, find all the rare filigrees, un-slot from the previous life/build and slot as per my specific build). I feel this needs to be bared in mind when reaching endgame and assessing the potential of a build without the filigrees being the same.
> My general experience seems to differ from yours, and I suspect this is heavily affected by expectations, points of comparison, playstyle, etc.
- I solo all content R3 or so up to mid Epics and this character shreds things to pieces (particularly after it gets Dance of Death) even when sneak attack damage doesn't feature heavily
- I am mindful I don't have the same point of comparisons you had (i.e. your number of past lives and/or the specific builds you ran), which have likely generated expectations (e.g. speed for running content): only you can attest to these, and I am grateful you have shared them
- I mostly compare performance with the previous build I had with this alt (a major build/race/class change is typically the reason that forces me to TR, which I don't often do): in this sense, I feel this Dark Hunter build is superior to the non-archetype Ranger build I used to play
- the journey to endgame is not my focus: the endgame is. I can see that those doing the 'past life hamster wheel' would tend to focus far more heavily on this part of journey, with little/no focus to the endgame (at least not while simply seeking past lives)
Hope these make sense, and genuinely appreciative of your time and suggestions
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Kalibano
Build Designer. Having fun since 2006!
With the number of alts I have, I can't really count on the luxury of having fully upgraded alternatives for my mainhand. Also, it would mean losing the full Dread Isle set bonus, since it only kicks in with 5 pieces equipped (one of which is my main weapon).
While I do tend to stick with Rapiers, I have full flexibility with my off-hand, and in fact, do use a wide variety of weapons (likely you'll recognise many of the ones I carry with me by their icons in the inventory):
The newest toy I acquired is Kindling (shame it doesn't have Keen!): in fact, a key part of my fun at endgame is raiding and acquiring raid gear, so all in good time (especially since my attention is divided amongst a lot of alts).
I've been around since 2006, so sticking to one weapon (sometimes weapon group) for each alt involves more than simply feat choices: there's the important practicality of storage. He is the keeper of my rapier collection lol
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saekee
long live ROGUE
heh yeah, I know that problem! But on my two toons that will be using Maw, both have an Attuned weapon in the mainhand for the Dread set. Maw offhand or Undying, or if not an Undying weapon one like the Kindling you have could work great too.With the number of alts I have, I can't really count on the luxury of having fully upgraded alternatives for my mainhand. Also, it would mean losing the full Dread Isle set bonus, since it only kicks in with 5 pieces equipped (one of which is my main weapon).
While I do tend to stick with Rapiers, I have full flexibility with my off-hand, and in fact, do use a wide variety of weapons (likely you'll recognise many of the ones I carry with me by their icons in the inventory):
The newest toy I acquired is Kindling (shame it doesn't have Keen!): in fact, a key part of my fun at endgame is raiding and acquiring raid gear, so all in good time (especially since my attention is divided amongst a lot of alts).
I've been around since 2006, so sticking to one weapon (sometimes weapon group) for each alt involves more than simply feat choices: there's the important practicality of storage. He is the keeper of my rapier collection lol
williambraveheart
Active member
your ddo builder file returns error "life" missing StrTome
Kalibano
Build Designer. Having fun since 2006!
Hey there,
I just checked it again and all seem to be working on my end. I re-uploaded the file to Google Drive, just in case.
It might be worth checking if you have the newest version of the DDOBuilder (v2) software. Maetrim released a new build 2 days ago.
Hope this helps.
MarauderX
Active member
Thank you for the follow up - I saw where the end goal was going and thought the ride would be easier for this particular build. Having 67 characters across all of the servers (all getting to 20, with only a few going for past lives), I'm now getting a past-lifer going on Cormyr. It's good to note the approach you are taking on getting to an optimized end-state at 34 with all the gear maximized; I'm not doing the same but instead doing 'casual' leveling and 'fell across a good one' on gear (no farming). I think you are clear about that, but thought I'd share. Also, reincarned Wlk (AotS) and it felt like cheating for some quests... I realize it's not a fair comparison.