Rogue PvE Bible - Updated for 1.3

[Seyon]

Thanks. And just to confirm, final charge of the sab stack has to have a deadly "charge" for the tick to contain the DD bonus?

when you apply a charge while you have the first DD buff, you get a second DD buff (and expend one of the first DD buffs). if you have the 2nd DD buff on when you detonate, all of the applied charges get the bonus.

spike x3, puncture, DS (gain 3 stacks of "first" DD buff. 0 of 2nd)
spike x2 (losing 2 stacks of "first" DD buff, gaining 2nd buff) det (benifits all 5 spike charges)
shrap x1 (losing last stack of "first" DD buff, gaining 1 of second) shrap x4, det (benifits all 5 shrap charges)

[Flaymar]

why only 2 specs offered for each subtype? i'd have like to have seen one of the more Sin heavy melee builds included in it for people that dont want to run a sabo based build or a pet. The 32sin/20bd/14nb is atleast competitive with those other 2 builds although it does come up a bit shy of them on pure numbers and has a much less forgiving rotation when it comes to movement.

As in the first post (contents) there are alot of variants, trying to keep to the top two builds. Dont want to have an over abundance of information.

Thank you VERY much for pulling all of this information together and putting it into one place.
And yes this needs a sticky.

No Problems at all, However i was advised by Trion that they do not Sticky Guides in this forum. Unsure why but anyhow =)

Even though it was kind of clunky to use, wasn't the assassin/ranger combo one of the best dps if not the best for melée? Why is that not in the guide? Is it not good anymore?

It is as Satiar pointed out, it is the Hoko Spec - refined from the original idea, i dont remember who orginally thought of it.

Does sabdancer beat melée ranger?

Sabdancer/melée ranger/melée bd pet spec the order on highest to lowest dps?

Ease of use would be:

melée bd pet spec/sabdancer spec/melee ranger spec?

Depends on the situation, form my tests in a ideal fight, such as Plutonus Sab/Dancer will come out on top. However for more intence fights where target switching and alot of mechanics are involved that require your attention, the Melee/Ranger with its ease of rotation will net more dps. Also sab/Dancer kinda "cheats" on dps as it has awesome AOE in its normal rotation.

Thanks. And just to confirm, final charge of the sab stack has to have a deadly "charge" for the tick to contain the DD bonus?

Seyon answered this better than i could of lol.

[Mav986]

i tweaked the melee sab build a bit, same rotation but without having blade tempo and parsed a bit more than 100 dps on dummy:

http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0M...0VRcx0b.VV0A0c

You parsed higher because you have 3 points in combat efficiency, which would do half the job Fervor would have done.

Get a bard/chloro to stand near you in your group with Anthem of Fervor/Living Energy, and compare the two specs again.

[Hawklaser]

I'm curious as to why sabotuer is not listed as a good leveling build.

Been running sab for a while and I can say it does level really well. The biggest key to it is silent setup, which lets you cripple the enemy before they are even aware you exist, and due to this, along with the AoE and escape/kite capabilities sabotuer has allows it to do things other characters can not. And not to mention if the situation changes before you detonate the first time, you can swap enemies without having the first one to deal with.

From playing it, I have taken down most of the fire rift in rock ridge around the same level as the mobs solo, and each phase of that rift has an elite tuned more for a larger group. And have done the same to other elites elsewhere along the way.

Most of the times I die are when I am being overly aggressive and get an add. And what I mean by aggressive is starting a fight with an enemy with ~20% HP because I know I can kill it before it kills me.

Though I have to say the biggest downside to a sabotuer is when in a group and the enemies die fast, its hard to do a whole lot as they do need time to set up their charges/detonate. The next is people freeing enemies from your entangling trap, before you get the trapper talent.

This is what I currently have as build for my sab while leveling. Built up Sabotuer first, and used the extra point from the double point levels to get the assassin points first, then riftstalker. As while both have usefull branch talents, I felt the assassin had better early root abilities for while leveling.
http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=1M...VRcEz0kzoz.Vcz

[Flaymar]

i dont see how sab can be competitve with current leveling builds. Any build works, as for sab, i perfer Sab/Bard - can solo any mob in the game so long as it can be mezzed.

5x Blast Charges, Det, Mez, repeat

But sab as a pure leveling build simply in my view is not effective, and cant deal with large amount of adds, slow at killing, and required Prep Time which most levelers hate.

[Flaymar]

03/07/11
Did a few updates.

• Added another Melee Raiding Spec
• Altered layout for Raiding specs to give a quick summary of strengths of certain specs
• Did some General Formatting Changes

Also is there anything not covered you want to see
i was going to add a Raid Guide Section basically linking the best PvE Raiding guides for each encounter - probally just youtube videos

[Tumi]

Its called melee not melle

[Shara]

Why does the ranged sab spec include 2 points in improved blast charge? I've been trying this spec out in order to put out some higher dps, but unless I'm missing something there appears to be no reason to have those 2 points there. Your listed rotations don't include blast charge anywhere.

All I can think of is that the spec includes things you would pick as you leveled up, whereas I assumed they are "respec at level 50" specs. Or else you should use blast charge near the end of a mob's life just because the DoTs from the other two wouldn't tick enough, but that's honestly squeezing blood from a stone, imo, to spend 2 points on a hugely minimal end-of-themobs-life dps gain. I personally moved those 2 points into combat survival, unless someone has some convincing reason why they should remain there

[Seyon]

single target shrap does less DPS than blast charge if it isnt allowed to tick 2 times (residual shrapnal) so if the target is -just- about to die then blast charge is best used. on single target trash pulls that dont live long it is also useful. looking at a 9% increase in dps of blast charge.

[Hawklaser]

For leveling as sab, I know I have dealt with up to 4 adds at a time. To do so you just start using shrapnel charges instead of blast, and more liberal bomb use. Or if its planned to grab multiple mobs you can set up charges on a couple of them, detonate the first one, with the right talents can annihilation bomb the 2nd, then get a quick combo point on any other's with preset charges to detonate those. And if deep enough in, booby trap. Though if you mean more than 4 add's, I am more than glad to try dealing with more and see how it goes, would need to find a spot for that. It may not do as well as the bladedancer against mass add's, but it does handle them better than a ranger.

As to the slow at killing, it may seem that way since a majority of a sab's damage is spike/burst damage, you don't see it until you detonate. And because of this, if you have the time to set-up on a non-elite mob you can usually have them dead either before they reach you or shortly after. And a plus side to sab's killing style is it does allow you to easily, and safely kill mobs a few levels above you if needed.

The set-up time replaces downtime for the sab. As unless my health is pretty low and worried about add's I have virtually no down-time between killing one mob and starting prep on the next. And the set-up time feels nothing like down-time, which I think is what more levelers dislike.

As to kiting using sab/bard, sab alone already has alot of tools to kite, caltrop charge, entangling trap, concussion charge. And while can't kite with adhesive bomb and landmines alone they do help. The problem is finding which work on what elites.

Sab may not do as well as the bladedancer, but I think it can do as well if not better than a ranger for leveling. I'm willing to do some level appropriate testing on sab, and along the rest of the way to 50 if you would like.

[Mayi]

Great Guide.

I'd like to make another submission. If you want to play a bard as a healer and dps, then this is the best build.

http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0M...z.0VRcxob.Ab0G

Rotations

For dps: Cadence - Combo Builder to 5 - Deadly strike
For healing: Cadence - Cadence - Cadence - Deadly strike

Combo builder macro:

#show backstab
cast puncture
cast backstab
cast quick strike
cast keen strike
cast weapon barrage (optional)

Advantages - largest cadence amount, since cadence is a channel is benefits the most from crit and deadly strike (ap scales poorly). Cruel vengence increases cadence by the full 10% and magnify pain makes your crits larger. Dummy dps for me is 600 whlie maintaining motifs. I've parsed upwards of 1200 hps, outhealing chloros and clerics on aoe healing encounters.

Disadvantages - Requires melee. No verse of joy - which can be huge with the cleric wis mana reduction. Requires a second bard spec to give casters the wis/int buff (shouldn't be an issue if you're a dedicated raiding bard).

[Silverghost01]

What is the crit formula?
ie. how is critical damage determined?

I do know that weapon speed is a factor. Faster speed = higher ability crits.

[Mayi]

You're also missing a rogue tanking spec for hps.

http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0M...EItIuqdRkkR.xh

This is the best build for mainly magic damage mobs, for example 2nd boss in GP. Avoidance does nothing for you against magic damage.

[Mayi]

Raiding Gear[/B]

This is covered more in BiS gear Lists, however as a general Rule
Crit over AP
Dex over AP
Highest Melle DPS Daggers
Saga of Endless Bow for stats

Sidenote- You can remove the +hit from talents and put into Quick Reflexes if over hit cap, but may not be worth it.

Your stat weightings are incorrect.

For stats it should be: Dex > crit = ap.

Maybe spike charge scales slightly worse with ap, but shrapnel scales beautifully. Overall the build scales well with crit and ap.

You are also best off with a legendary weapon, but out of 33.6 or 34 dps weapons there's no difference on the base damage of abilities. You should use whichever gives the most dex.

I've been using the Sab-bd since before 1.2 came out, discovered it on test and I've been checking all the permutations. I didn't post it on the official forums though.. so I'm not saying I deserve credit, but I have checked all the permutations and scalings. I know the build well so trust me on this one

[Mayi]

Great Guide.

I'd like to make another submission. If you want to play a bard as a healer and dps, then this is the best build.

http://rift.zam.com/en/stc.html?t=0M...z.0VRcxob.Ab0G

Rotations

For dps: Cadence - Combo Builder to 5 - Deadly strike
For healing: Cadence - Cadence - Cadence - Deadly strike

Combo builder macro:

#show backstab
cast puncture
cast backstab
cast quick strike
cast keen strike
cast weapon barrage (optional)

Advantages - largest cadence amount, since cadence is a channel is benefits the most from crit and deadly strike (ap scales poorly). Cruel vengence increases cadence by the full 10% and magnify pain makes your crits larger. Dummy dps for me is 600 whlie maintaining motifs. I've parsed upwards of 1200 hps, outhealing chloros and clerics on aoe healing encounters.

Disadvantages - Requires melee. No verse of joy - which can be huge with the cleric wis mana reduction. Requires a second bard spec to give casters the wis/int buff (shouldn't be an issue if you're a dedicated raiding bard).

Sorry, a correction:

Healing rotations:

Cadence - Cadence - Cadence - Deadly strike or
Cadence - Cadence - Cadence - Virtuoso - Coda of Restoration spam for extended healing times, hitting deadly strike right before coda of restoration wears off.

You can also use this build as a straight aoe healer if you're short clerics, with a 51 bard using verse of joy and motifs and someone using this spec focused on straight healing/dps. You will heal more/same as a healer whlie maintaining pretty solid dps. It's also useful in situations where run speed is good, with one bard maintaining fervor and another runspeed.