Gondor vs Mordor 2 logo
Home Forum Wiki Map Downloads
Become part of the community!
 
 
User Info
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?
28 March 2024, 21:07

Login with username, password and session length

Search:     Advanced search
News Box
Welcome to (Gondor vs Mordor)².

Key Stats
13122 Posts in 1336 Topics by 1240 Members
Latest Member: azihohaloyen
Home Help Search Calendar Login Register
Gondor vs Mordor  |  Gondor vs Mordor 1  |  GvM1 Character Builds  |  Rogue builds  |  Ranger 10 / Assassin 29 / Shadowdancer 1
Pages: [1] Print
Author Topic: Ranger 10 / Assassin 29 / Shadowdancer 1  (Read 6683 times)
Abimael
Poster
**
Offline Offline

Posts: 324


What can change the nature of a man?


View Profile
« on: 05 November 2012, 16:56 »

Tested some new ideas for a sneaker, this is one I found out to me most promising.

Started out with 10 str / 18 dex  / 14 con / 12 wis / 14 int  / 8 , Halfling race for the hefty sneak bonuses. Considering bumping more int for skills. 12 wis is for the ability to cast camouflage & one with the land

Level progression:
9 ranger / 1 Shadowdancer / 28 Assassin / 1 Ranger / 1 Assassin.

Pre-Epic Feats:
Dodge / Mobility for Shadowdancer
Weapon Focus (weapon) , I choose Shortswords.
Weapon Finesse
Blind Fight
Improved Initiative

Last one is your call.


Epic Feats:
5 x Improved Sneak Attack
Epic Skill Focus Hide & Move Silently
Epic Weapon Focus (Weapon)
Epic Prowess
Superior Initiative.
Blinding Speed AT RANGER 10

Some feats might be missing. I'll update later.

Skills:
Obviously Hide and Move Silently are mandatory. The rest is up to you. I personally decided to make something a lil bit different, investing points into dd & set traps and 0 discipline.

Considerations:

Ghostly Visage at assassin 29 is 80% concelment, meaning any attack will have around 36% chance to even have a chance to land on you, and it adds 6 ab.  The poisons are promising, but I can only check if they work when I do this build.

I took the initiatives because a long time ago I remember I read an article explaining how many sneak attacks you'd get by doing a surprise attack, and that involved winning initiative and having enough attack per rounds.

Basically, this build has 7 attack/ rounds, which will have then 3 attacks on the first flurry of attacks if you win initiative, all doing sneak attack damage, which will be around 300. Tests confirmed theory. These attacks will also trigger the Death Attack proc, which is... sexy, to say the least, although easily avoidable.

« Last Edit: 06 November 2012, 12:25 by Abimael » Logged
-firecracker-
Administrator
Poster
*****
Offline Offline

Posts: 793


View Profile
« Reply #1 on: 05 November 2012, 18:50 »

I also sometimes wonder if taking discipline is worth it in rogue builds (except my ToD rogue). Problem is you really need 80 minimum disc to avoid kd from mobs/pvp - bosses with kd need more, but trying to get 80 with a rogue is near impossible without wasting skill focus feats and using non-sneak gear, usually end up in th 60s or maybe 70s, which just isn't enough.
Logged
NLawson
Poster
**
Offline Offline

Posts: 503


View Profile
« Reply #2 on: 06 November 2012, 14:05 »

Been a while since I've said anything, but I know a bit about sneaks (Sest kinda forced me to learn it) so I'll give my input here. Plus, I've already made this build so I know how it works (really well, actually) ^_^

Firstly, you won't need the initiatives for two reasons:
1) You're dex based - you're already going to win basically any check except against more dex-based toons, and,
2) it counts for basically nothing anyway, thanks to the real-time aspect of the game. If you attack from shadows (ie, hips or just plain Assassin Darkness) you go first REGARDLESS of the initiative checks.
If this was P&P then yes, you would need initiative to get more sneak attacks. In this game, all attacks in a flurry either are or are not sneak attacks, so it's more important to try and get more attacks per round (7 is the goal here, for 3 sneaks as soon as you start combat, as you said). If they spot you before you can attack from hips and attack you instead, you won't get a sneak attack even if you win the initiative check.
I would take KD and maybe IKD instead, since getting KD on a dex toon/monster is REALLY helpful, especially since you'll still have pretty high ab (for a sneak, anyway). This is also why most people still take disc on their sneaks - it stops players constantly kding them.

Next point - the assassin poisons.
They're awesome. Some are better than others but they're all fun to use. The only thing I will say is make sure to WAIT a couple of rounds before rezzing somebody killed by them, because they take about 10 seconds to wear off after death.
So basically, if you hit someone with the con-drain poison, and kill them, as soon as you rez them they're going to die again.

Final point - Halfling.
While it does have some small sneak bonuses, it also suffers a couple of nasty penalties. Not least that you could get an extra feat and an extra skill going Human, and it's much easier for a human/orc/etc to kd you if they get a lucky hit. You've kinda negated that last one what with having no disc or anything, but if you went human you could have the disc anyway by taking your 10th ranger level at level 39/40.

Other final point - bosses.
This will be mostly, if not entirely, useless for boss fights. It'll be great for pvp (I love mine), and not bad at clearing mobs, but bosses are almost universally either sneak/crit immune, have TS, or have insane spot/listen skills. Landing a sneak on most of them is just not going to happen, and you will have TERRIBLE damage outside of sneaks because you're dex based. The only chance you have then is to land a poison (which works through poison immunity) and you'd do more damage by bringing a proper hitter toon for something like that.

Some of what I say above may be wrong if things have changed since last time I was on, but most of it should be correct. I can't check any of it because I haven't installed NWN on my new computer, so I can't check my actual toon.
Logged

I know I write long posts, but you would think if something was important there would be a lot to say about it, no?
Abimael
Poster
**
Offline Offline

Posts: 324


What can change the nature of a man?


View Profile
« Reply #3 on: 06 November 2012, 20:38 »

TBH, i never really played sneakers much before because I have grown hatred for them  Cheesy But since Terror's changes looked so promising, I decided to give it a try.

I really was undecided on the initiative because I thought it had a role on the initial flurry attack - if I was correct, +14+8 would sum >20 which really then would be 100% initiative against melee and mages. So yeah, you probably have a point in there,  I'll make a lil test later.

I'm trying to go for something a lil different, making it also a trapper. As firecracker said, I find it limiting to invest points into it when you have so little strength and so much to max (hide/ms mainly) and the visage is a tremendous defense system.  Also I went halfling more for the flavor than anything else - my first drafts were human as well. Tongue

On the bosses, it's true: a sneaker is almost useless against them. There are still some situations where one is useful, but then again they're limited.
Logged
NLawson
Poster
**
Offline Offline

Posts: 503


View Profile
« Reply #4 on: 08 November 2012, 00:49 »

The only downside to using traps is that you can't hide AND plant them - laying them takes you out of hips. Oh, and they can hit friendly characters who aren't in your party at the moment you set them (including NPCs) which makes them basically useless for defending ANYWHERE since friendly NPCs just run straight into them before the players can touch them.

That said....traps are so much FUN to use. If you can find an area where there aren't constantly NPCs spawning at every bottleneck (tough to do until a raid has passed by) then you can set up for awesome jumps and such. I distinctly remember interfering with a couple of MT raids on my first good Gondor sneak by waiting until they went to go kill Radagast and then trapping the shit out of the transitions and pathways to Aragorn. The first guy to walk through the transition (I can't remember what type of tank it was) got hit for about 800 in pretty much unavoidable sonic damage, and couldn't be rezzed because it was a player kill. Traps are also one of the few times a sneak will be useful against a boss, with the slight downside that they take ages to set up in bulk and so stacking them is a pain.

Pro-tip: The best way to stack traps (since you can't plant them once there's an active trap-trigger on that location) is to remove str-boosting gear and encumber yourself while hiding, and then stand as far away from your trap-spot as possible. When you start telling your toon to lay traps you'll walk forward really slowly, giving you plenty of time to stack up half a dozen or more traps on the exact same spot, meaning people just charge straight into them and take craploads of damage before they get stunned and left vulnerable.
Also, sonic traps tend to be the best since you can buy all the ingredients (thunderstones) in the city and the damage can't be completely negated except, I think, for when you're in a zone of silence (and even that I'm not sure about).
Logged

I know I write long posts, but you would think if something was important there would be a lot to say about it, no?
Chaozrulez
Poster
**
Offline Offline

Posts: 141



View Profile
« Reply #5 on: 15 November 2012, 09:45 »

I almost have the same build but started with elven DEX 19 /WIS 11 (rest comes from Nazgul Veil = 14), and replaced the Imp Sneaks with Gr Dex so I got Dex 48, I could have reached 50 but I took Imp KD as well. Nice combo with all the good shorts swords (Backstabber/Throwing/Juggling Knife) and Death Attack with Poison use  Smiley Best team combo would be with a shadow tank so you can use the sneaks/backstabs.
Logged

Keep'em rollin'
Arn2148
Poster
**
Offline Offline

Posts: 17


View Profile
« Reply #6 on: 25 November 2012, 15:09 »

Well I myself decided to check this build out for myself and it seems to hold up pretty well up until now....

I actually went by your level progressions Ranger 9/ SD 1/ Assassin 28/ Ranger 1/ Assassin 1

Ranger Levels 1- 9
Shadow Dancer at level 10
Assassin Levels 11 - 38
Ranger again at Level 39
Assassin to finish at Level 40

Now here is my problem I am currently level 11 (Ranger 9/ SD 1/ Assassin 1 level so far) And I am at exp. to level to level 12 and take my 2nd level of Assassin but when I try to take the level up I keep getting this message " [server] your character does not have prerequisite feats for feat" and it will not let me take my level 12 - 2nd level of assassin. I have even tried to choose every other feat available and it still will not let me take my level I mean I already have 9 levels of Ranger, 1 level of SD, and 1 level of Assassin already so I don't know what prerequisite feat(s) it is talking about.

Again this is a good fun build and I would love to see what else it can do but just stuck not able to level it due to this issue. So any help anyone can give would be great.

Thanks again
Logged
Arn2148
Poster
**
Offline Offline

Posts: 17


View Profile
« Reply #7 on: 06 December 2012, 16:13 »

***BUMP***

Logged in today and still having the same problem unable to take my 2nd level in assassin although I have all the prerequisites to take the 2nd level for some reason the game or server won't let me.

Just wondering if anyone might know why this is.


Thanks again.
Logged
Noruas
GvM1 Admin
Poster
****
Offline Offline

Posts: 381



View Profile
« Reply #8 on: 06 December 2012, 17:54 »

are you sure to meet alignement requirement ?
Logged

ash nazg durbatuluk,
ash nazg gimbatul,
ash nasg thrakatuluk,
agh burzum ishi krimpatul
Abimael
Poster
**
Offline Offline

Posts: 324


What can change the nature of a man?


View Profile
« Reply #9 on: 07 December 2012, 05:47 »

I can only think of requirements problem. See what you might be missing here:

http://nwn.wikia.com/wiki/Assassin
Logged
Arn2148
Poster
**
Offline Offline

Posts: 17


View Profile
« Reply #10 on: 07 December 2012, 15:11 »

Yeah I have looked at all the requirements and that i can tell I easily meet them all to include the alignment requirements..

Alignment: ANY EVIL....I assume this should include Law-Evil aswell?!

unless there is something added or modded with the server that prevents Law-Evil from going assassin. But if that were the case...I shouldn't have been able to take my 1st. level of Assassin then correct?!

I have even tried creating another character a "Test" character on another account and still the same problem.


It is either a glick with the assassin class or something FUBAR with assassin class in regards to this build. Has anyone else tried this typed build and if so what results do you get going into your assassin levels?



anyway, thanks for your help all. If anyone has any other ideas or suggestions I am all ears.
                      Thanks again
« Last Edit: 07 December 2012, 17:37 by Arn2148 » Logged
Pages: [1] Print 
Jump to:  

Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2015, Simple Machines
Theme by Nesianstyles | Buttons by Andrea