Stoner81
Well-known member
The Ultimate Inquisitive Past Life Getter
Greetings and welcome to the last build you will ever use for past life grinding!
Before getting in to the nitty gritty, I would like the thank the community at large since many people have helped indirectly with this build. It has taken me many lives and countless hours to put together. Parts are taken from the old forums where others have offered various pieces of information which I have pieced together over the course of time... and this is the result.
About the Build
I love Inquisitive! Yes even despite all the nerfs, I still love it! I is my favourite playstyle by a country mile and a half!
The build utilises the Inquisitive tree for primary damage coupled with Harper Agent to give Intelligence to to-hit and damage. Mix in Ranger levels for the easy goodies from Deep Wood Stalker and you begin to pack a good punch. For the most part the build is almost the same regardless of which life you are doing though they do vary slightly. Its primary purpose is to aid you to not have to worry about gearing from 1 life to the next (which I loathe and detest with a passion). Back in the days of me grinding out my class lives I used a similar type of build that could be used repeatedly for everything (that's where I got this idea from).
What this build isn't though... is the meta (whatever that may or may not be at this moment in time). It doesn't have the highest DPS in the game but you have good survivability, buffs, utility and decent damage which only gets better over time (past lives stacking up). But it is sure a whole heck of a lot of fun running around murder hobo'ing like Van Helsing on steroids!
It isn't exactly new player friendly since you need expansion packs for gear and ideally at least a +5 Dexterity tome in order to qualify for feats and requires 36 point build for stat allocation.
Now with all of that said on to the build itself!
Basic Template and Build Point Allocation
Alignment - Chaotic Neutral (where possible, see note below).
Note on Alignment - Be very careful with this since this could lock you out of taking the class that you want to take. If you have to be Lawful then change your level 28 feat to Embodiment of Law instead of Harbinger of Chaos. Fortunately Ranger and Artificer have no restrictions on what alignment they can use so it will only be for your past life that it will matter so just be careful when planning your next life around this.
STR - 12.
DEX - 14 (no lower if you have a +5 tome, if you don't then adjust this for what tome you have).
CON - 16.
INT - 18 (all level ups).
WIS - 8.
CHA - 8.
Your main stat is Intelligence followed by Constitution for hit points. Next is Dexterity for the ranged feats and we pick up some Strength for the early game for carrying capacity. All other stats are to be ignored. Note that the above stats do not include racial bonuses or penalties, the above is just what is needed for the build to work as it should do. This does add some flexibility depending on the race so you can just adjust how you see fit.
Enhancements
You want to rush the Harper Agent tree and pick up INT to to-hit and damage as soon as you can, by doing this you will also gain Know the Angles. Once you have done this max your Inquisitive tree to get No Holds Barred. During levelling you can swap the +3 to hit from Eye for Accuracy and pick up Wand and Scroll Mastery until you reach epics, at that point then respec in to the above layout for Inquisitive.
When doing Artificer lives you can drop Strategic Combat II and use the Artificer spell to give INT to damage instead and use those points to pick something else you would like such as extra Ranged Power from the Harper Agent tree.
These enhancements don't really change from one version of the build to the next apart from Artificer.
Skills
Spot.
Search.
Disable Device.
Open Lock.
Use Magic Device (UMD).
Jump (5 full ranks, by level 10 or 11 you can cast the spell granting +30 to Jump so anymore is pointless).
Heal (affects Cocoon and other healing abilities once in to the epic levels).
Balance.
Haggle.
Diplomacy.
Concentration.
Tumble (1 full rank only, so 2 points total for cross class skill).
You may struggle for skill points for everything. If that is the case then focus on UMD, trapping, Heal, Jump and Balance. If you have spare points then you can add in to Bluff and/or Swim (I love being able to swim rapidly).
Spells
For the most part these don't change much. What is below is what is "required";
Ranger - Jump and Merfolk's Blessing.
Artificer - Conjure Bolts, Enchant Weapon, Enchant Armour/Curative Admixture: Cure Light Wounds, Elemental Weapons and Lucky Cape.
The admixture is for early levels if you are grouping with others, otherwise use regular Cure Serious Wounds Potions. By the time you get to around level 9 or so (depending on your tomes and other bonuses) you should be able to use Heal Scrolls.
Depending on which build you are using you won't get access to everything listed above so focus on Jump and Conjure Bolts and pick whatever you feel like for the others.
Epic Destinies and Epic Feats
At level 20 you want to grab Cocoon and the permanent Nightshield from Shadowdancer, after that focus on Shiradi Champion and then fill out Shadowdancer when waiting for the epic levels to unlock the next tier up. An argument could be made for Legendary Dreadnought picking up extra Action Boosts etc from there but I usually roll with Shadowdancer.
Epic Feats
These feats, unlike the heroic feats, do not change regardless of the build.
Level 21 - Combat Archery.
Level 22 - Holy Strike.
Level 24 - Overwhelming Critical.
Level 25 - Doubleshot.
Level 27 - Epic Reflexes.
Level 28 - Harbinger of Chaos / Embodiment of Law (see note about alignment above).
Level 30 - Epic Damage Reduction and Scion of Arborea.
Level 31 - Enhanced Elemental Die (though you could argue for Legendary Aim so pick whichever you feel like).
Weapons and Gear
Note that there is no weapon listed for the levels 1 and 2. I use XP gems to reach level 3 every time I TR. If you don't then just use whatever you can find or make.
Levels 3-4 - use a level 3 Cannith Crafted Heavy Repeating Crossbow with Force of Bludgeon and a red slot (fire damage).
Levels 5-7 - switch to Dual Shooting and use Diplomancer if you have it or use another Cannith Crafted one with updated effects.
Levels 8-19 - use Ratcatcher from Threnal! It is the best heroic crossbow in the game.
Levels 20-28 - use Epic Storm if you have it, if not then use Ratcatcher. Other options would be the ones from Borderlands since you can make them sentient if you have filligree's to spare then do that since it will beat Ratcatcher in terms of raw DPS.
Levels 29-cap - use Hallowed Splinters if you have it or use the Morninglord Heavy Crossbow as a placeholder until you get it. You could make an argument for a Dino Bone Heavy Crossbow which could probably beat Hallowed Splinters but I haven't tried it.
If you have 2 levels of Artificer then that opens up runearms in which case I recommend the following:
Level 5 - Strinati's Hand Cannon.
Level 7 - Ol' Ironsides.
Level 10 - Suppressive Fire (this is crazy good with the Silver bypass and all the Undead around this level).
Level 20 - Animus.
Level 29 - Legendary Suppressive Fire.
Level 31 - Legendary Ol' Ironsides.
It's a toss up between them at level cap so go with whichever is your preference for how you play. These have all been picked specifically for box/barrel breaking since it's painful doing it manually by shooting each one.
Gear wise it is fairly straight forward, early on I use basic named items from Saltmarsh, Feywild and Isle of Dread along with the Troubleshooter Set from Korthos (if you need better then craft your own trapping gear. I recommend levels 3, 5, 10, 15 and 20). Once at level 10 then I start really using Cannith Crafted gear due to the Insightful stats on offer but you can use whatever you have available to you.
At level 15 grab the Wallwatch set and rock this all the way to 29 and switch to the epic version. Level 30 and above is a mess right now so you can make your own mind up on what to build for that. Also at 15 you can grab the Ring of the Stalker from the Cannith Challenges which is very very good.
As you begin to stack up your past lives you will find that the build comes in to its own so to speak, you can make do with less and less. Just cover the basic things like Intelligence, Constitution etc and the innate power of Inquisitive along with Ratcatcher should take care of the rest more or less.
Overall though you want the standard sort of things most ranged builds need (in no particular order):
Intelligence.
Constitution.
Trapping and Open Locks.
Dodge.
Deadly.
Seeker.
Deception.
PRR and MRR.
Armour Piercing.
Accuracy.
Deception.
Improved Deception.
Level Splits
Level | Class | Iconic | Archetype | Racial |
Level 01 | Artificer | Base Class Level | Artificer | Artificer |
Level 02 | Ranger | Artificer | Ranger | Artificer |
Level 03 | Ranger | Ranger | Ranger | Ranger |
Level 04 | Ranger | Ranger | Ranger | Ranger |
Level 05 | Ranger | Ranger | Ranger | Ranger |
Level 06 | Ranger | Ranger | Ranger | Ranger |
Level 07 | Ranger | Ranger | Ranger | Ranger |
Level 08 | Ranger | Ranger | Ranger | Ranger |
Level 09 | Ranger | Ranger | Ranger | Ranger |
Level 10 | Ranger | Ranger | Ranger | Ranger |
Level 11 | Pastlife | Ranger/Pastlife | Pastlife | Ranger |
Level 12 | Pastlife | Pastlife | Pastlife | Artificer |
Level 13 | Pastlife | Pastlife | Pastlife | Artificer |
Level 14 | Pastlife | Pastlife | Pastlife | Rogue |
Level 15 | Pastlife | Pastlife | Pastlife | Rogue |
Level 16 | Pastlife | Pastlife | Pastlife | Rogue |
Level 17 | Pastlife | Pastlife | Pastlife | Rogue |
Level 18 | Pastlife | Pastlife | Pastlife | Rogue |
Level 19 | Pastlife | Pastlife | Pastlife | Rogue |
Level 20 | Pastlife | Pastlife | Pastlife | Rogue |
As you can see from the table above Class and Archetype lives run exactly the same.
Iconic lives however can get a little more fiddly... "Base Class Level" refers to the class you must take at level 1 as an Iconic. Now in the case of Aasimar you start off with Ranger so you would follow the progression as laid out above but note that at level 11 you would begin your Pastlife selection since the first 2 levels are swapped round (compared to Class and Iconic). Conversely, say you started out with Shader-Kai (which is Rogue) then you would take Ranger at level 11 and then the rest as Shader-Kai (Rogue) from level 12 onwards.
Now if for some reason you are not "double dipping" on the Iconic lives then you could simply take your Iconic class at level 1 and then basically ignore it after that which adds a lot of flexibility for adding in more Artificer levels for example for extra buffs, more Ranger for the same reason or even take more of your base class if they offer anything really good. With all that being said though I do HIGHLY recommend "double dipping" because it is by far the most effective and efficient use of time to gain past lives.
Racial lives as you can see are completely different and is the build I started with (one I shamelessly pinched of Swimms and modified xD). As a happy side note you can use the Racial build for doing your Ranger lives since the Ranger levels are the highest in number but just remember you can only do either a Racial TR or a Class TR but you can't do both (which I am still annoyed about but here we are... *sigh*).
When running Archetype lives I can recommend using Gnome for these (especially if you have racial action points available to you), Colour Spray from the Gnome racial tree is crazy good for crowd control and should work pretty decently through most of the heroic levels depending on what lives you have already done. In addition to this they also get Wand and Scroll Mastery in their racial tree so this means you can just take Eye for Accuracy from Inquisitive and won't have to reset your trees later on. If that wasn't enough they also get extra damage with Light Crossbow and Ratcatcher is... a Light Crossbow
Below are the feats for each variation of the build however, you may note I haven't listed what Favoured Enemies to take. The time these are taken varies depending on which version of the build you are doing however, I recommend taking the following: Undead and Plant. Beyond that pick whatever works with the type of content you run.
Feats for Class, Iconic and Archetype
Level 01 - Point Blank Shot.
Level 03 - Precision.
Level 06 - Insightful Reflexes.
Level 09 - Improved Critical: Ranged Weapons.
Level 12 - Improved Precise Shot / Empower Healing Spell.
Level 15 - Empower Healing Spell / Improved Precise Shot.
Level 18 - Weapon Focus: Ranged Weapons.
This feat order may vary slightly depending on the specific life you are doing but it should give you a good guideline on what to take and when.
Feat at 12 and 15 may need to be swapped round depending on how much BAB (Base Attack Bonus) you have. So just switch them as needed.
Feats for Racial
Here I have listed the Favoured Enemies since this build doesn't change for Racial lives at all.
Level 01 - Point Blank Shot.
Level 03 - Precision and Favoured Enemy: Undead.
Level 06 - Insightful Reflexes.
Level 07 - Favoured Enemy: Plant.
Level 09 - Improved Critical Ranged.
Level 12 - Improved Precise Shot.
Level 13 - Weapon Focus: Ranged.
Level 15 - Power Critical.
Level 18 - Empower Healing Spell.
That's it!
Again thank you to everybody who has given information over the years, I have just collected as much as possible and here is the result.
I hope you enjoy using this as much as I have!
See you in game!
Stoner81.
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