UAC Rogue

[grapedog]

Back to the game after a long while away, and I was thinking about switching from sword/board to UAC.... i'd appreciate if anyone could tell me if there is anything seriously wrong with this build. Obviously I also really like the disarming/picking side of rogue life, so i'll be sticking with that. I'm not trying to crazy uphunt, I'd like to be able to hunt like level. Some of this is based on what I have right now for skills.

I appreciate any tips, criticisms or ideas.

level 44

Armor Use - 30
Brawling - 92
TWC -1
CM -46
Ambush -88
PF -66
Dodge -108
AS -10
HP -10
Minor Elem -6
Climbing -40
Swimming -35
Disarm -109
Pick -109
S/H -88
Percep -88



With 10 ranks in AS and HP, I'm not planning on touching them again. I'll be getting swimming to 40 ranks, and leaving it and climbing alone for a long long time. Also not planning on any more Minor E spells.

[TheBastardOfStark]

You may be able to lower your armor to 8 ranks for doubles, and pump up cman. Dodging a hit is better than taking a hit wearing brig. Also s/h for uac isn't really smart, you can 1-2-3 kill most things with uac and the hiding just makes it take longer.

[Velfi]

Looks fairly solid to me. What armor are you wanting to wear? If you want to be out of reinforced leather you'll need to keep boosting your Armor Use. Also, I would recommend dropping dodge to just 2x, or letting it catch up to that as you continue to level, and use those points elsewhere, like getting your CM to 2x. You can probably drop your pick+disarm to 2x as well for a while, unless you're working up to 3x or something.

Here's my 3x/3x UAC rogue at 88 for comparison, if you're interested:


Velfi's Rogue (at level 88), your current skill bonuses and ranks (including all modifiers) are:
Skill Name | Current Current
| Bonus Ranks
Armor Use..........................| 190 90
Combat Maneuvers...................| 190 90
Brawling...........................| 280 180
Ambush.............................| 280 180
Multi Opponent Combat..............| 50 10
Physical Fitness...................| 238 138
Dodging............................| 280 180
Arcane Symbols.....................| 66 14
Harness Power......................| 78 17
Elemental Mana Control.............| 102 24
Disarming Traps....................| 370 270
Picking Locks......................| 370 270
Stalking and Hiding................| 280 180
Perception.........................| 280 180
Climbing...........................| 160 60
Swimming...........................| 160 60

Spell Lists
Minor Elemental....................| 4

[Jeril]

Velfi, why not 1 rank of TWC for the easy DS from it?

Grapedog, at your level you probably get more DS from being .5 in TWC then going above 2x dodge. Although at some point it is cheaper DS for a rogue or monk to 3x dodge vs .5 in TWC.

[Velfi]

Velfi, why not 1 rank of TWC for the easy DS from it?

I never think about it/remember. Or play my rogue much.

edit: I just did it. Whee.

[Donquix]

You may be able to lower your armor to 8 ranks for doubles, and pump up cman. Dodging a hit is better than taking a hit wearing brig. Also s/h for uac isn't really smart, you can 1-2-3 kill most things with uac and the hiding just makes it take longer.

...lol wut? Is this a joke?

[Alashir]

...lol wut? Is this a joke?

I wasn't sure what they meant by that either. And I main a monk.

[Orthin]

Velfi, why not 1 rank of TWC for the easy DS from it?

Grapedog, at your level you probably get more DS from being .5 in TWC then going above 2x dodge. Although at some point it is cheaper DS for a rogue or monk to 3x dodge vs .5 in TWC.

I want to say the 1 rank also opens up the ability to parry. I felt like I read that somewhere but I could be off

[Orthin]

You may be able to lower your armor to 8 ranks for doubles, and pump up cman. Dodging a hit is better than taking a hit wearing brig. Also s/h for uac isn't really smart, you can 1-2-3 kill most things with uac and the hiding just makes it take longer.

S/H removes being warded in the open and other detriments. You get an auto tier up and with good ambush lower the UDF. Easy leg or chest crits for kicking. Especially in doubles, while you can dodge a ton, lord help you if you do get hit.

[grapedog]

i haven't made the switch yet, I think the time frame for letting the game move my skills might be a bit much to handle.

I've read recently they have a fixstat coming up soon, like a yearly thing? Do they do an annual fixskills too?

I was looking at a potion on the simucoins store, and while I'm usually completely against any sort of micro-transactions, I might be open to it this one time so I can make the switch. Is that the most reasonable answer, or should I seek out and in game option.

I only have like 2.5 mill in the bank on him, and no other characters of note/cash value.

[Velfi]

i haven't made the switch yet, I think the time frame for letting the game move my skills might be a bit much to handle.

I've read recently they have a fixstat coming up soon, like a yearly thing? Do they do an annual fixskills too?

I was looking at a potion on the simucoins store, and while I'm usually completely against any sort of micro-transactions, I might be open to it this one time so I can make the switch. Is that the most reasonable answer, or should I seek out and in game option.

I only have like 2.5 mill in the bank on him, and no other characters of note/cash value.

You get 5 free fixstats in a character's first 30 days, after that you need a potion for it. Everyone gets a free fixskill annually. You can buy fixskill and fixstat potions with bounty points from the Adventurer's Guild.

[cwolff]

Fixskills in May. Don't think there will ever be a fixstats offered for free.

What race is your rogue?

[grapedog]

dark elf...

i was just looking at the store for fixstats, that's just a dumb price.

i'm not worried about stats anyhow, it's the fixskills is way more useful, for me.

perhaps I'll just wait for may to roll around to fixskill him.

[Velfi]

dark elf...

i was just looking at the store for fixstats, that's just a dumb price.

i'm not worried about stats anyhow, it's the fixskills is way more useful, for me.

perhaps I'll just wait for may to roll around to fixskill him.

It's 1m bounty points for a fixstat potion, which you will easily gain by the time you cap if you are always hunting your bounties.

[Ososis]

It's 1m bounty points for a fixstat potion, which you will easily gain by the time you cap if you are always hunting your bounties.

I hit bounties super hard and got 2 fixstats by cap. Sold one, used one. DO YOUR BOUNTIES! The badge, the silver, the xp, the instant absorption, PLUS whatever you spend your BP on is literally a game changer. I use my login boosts to maximize bounties as well.

If you do want to purchase one, do it from a player in game. Average price is 16M. Even buying silver this will be much cheaper than the simu coin store. $128 vs $225 IIRC.

[cwolff]

A character's DS with an open off hand is calculated slightly differently:

[(TWC Ranks + trunc(STR/4) + trunc(DEX/4) + enchant bonus/2) * Stance modifier] + (5 or 15, depending on training)
Stance modifiers for empty off hand are 0.10 (in OFF), 0.15 (ADV), 0.20 (FOR), 0.25 (NEU), 0.30 (GUA), 0.35 (DEF). The +5/+15 at the end of the formula depends on your TWC training; a character with at least 0.5x TWC per level receives the +15 modifier.


A little late to post this but here's what the twc will do for you. 1 rank = +5 and .5x twc is good for the +15

[grapedog]

as an additional question, how does the armor penalty effect UAC? Can you train off the MM loss, or reduce it, or the is the loss a loss regardless, but overtraining your armor continues to help with other things, like CM and whatnot?

It's a question of if I should stay in brig with 30 armor use, or drop to doubles and train up armor more.

[cwolff]

I'm not sure it's worth it to go with the lower armor. The ranks are cheap for rogues and the benefits are great. I'd 1x armor for life. Some day you may want that MBP.


Wearing heavy armor penalizes UCS attacks. The penalty, which is equal to 1/4 the armor's Action Penalty (AP), is applied as a reduction to the attacker's Multiplier Modifier(MM).

AP for Brig is -12 and AP for Doubles is -6. Please correct me if I'm wrong; but it seems that we're talking about -3 or -1 applied to MM which isn't really much to worry about at all. My UAC ranger is 30 armor ranks in brig and runs 90-110+ for MM depending on tier in stance offensive.

Does anyone know the actual MM formula?

[rolfard]

MM equals fuzzy feelings + mastery - armor - uac weapon - shield - busted muscles - injuries - encumbrance

[khorpulent]

You get 5 free fixstats in a character's first 30 days, after that you need a potion for it. Everyone gets a free fixskill annually. You can buy fixskill and fixstat potions with bounty points from the Adventurer's Guild.

This is no longer true, by the way. They changed it from the first 30 days to the first 20 levels not too long ago.

If you type FIXSKILLS, it'll tell you the actual date, which I can't remember off the top of my head right now.


And also, another really important difference between light and heavy armor is CvA. If you're having issues getting warded by spells (which you probably do if you're a rogue), then you might consider heavier armor for the extra magical defense.

[grapedog]

I'm playing around on the test server, with this build, and my missing shield is hurting a lot. My DS dropped quite a bit by getting rid of the shield. What's the best way to offset that so I'm not hoping for a lucky hit and back into hiding. I was hunting darkstone, dreavened, no problem. While still dreavened on the test server, my DS dropped a good... 30 or 40 points ditching the shield. I was 1.5x in shield use prior. I'm getting pegged quite often. How is the best way to address this, or do i just need to stance dance a lot more often than i used to?

lvl 46, DE, rogue, wearing brig.


Two Weapon Combat..................| 5 1
Armor Use..........................| 122 31
Combat Maneuvers...................| 149 49
Brawling...........................| 198 98
Ambush.............................| 198 98
Multi Opponent Combat..............| 90 20
Physical Fitness...................| 168 68
Dodging............................| 198 98
Arcane Symbols.....................| 50 10
Harness Power......................| 50 10
Disarming Traps....................| 215 115
Picking Locks......................| 215 115
Stalking and Hiding................| 198 98
Perception.........................| 198 98
Climbing...........................| 140 40
Swimming...........................| 140 40

Spell Lists
Minor Elemental....................| 6

[cwolff]

.5x TWC (maybe even .5x -1) will give you +10 DS and you could get 1 rank of shield just to be able to receive the enchant bonus to DS from a shield but not burn a ton of points on it. You also have room to drop climb/swim to 20 each, save a bunch of points and you'll still be able to go anywhere you need to go.

[grapedog]

Is it common for rogues to use a shield when doing UAC? or just stance dancing more often? being more patient with attacks?

[cwolff]

I couldn't say how common it is but I bet that some people who really have their macros in their scripting down probably do it really well. By the way I wanted to point out that that +10 DS from being half drained and two weapon combat is in addition to the plus five you get for one rank of 2 weapon combat

[Velfi]

Is it common for rogues to use a shield when doing UAC? or just stance dancing more often? being more patient with attacks?

Mine doesn't. I generally go for a hide->punch leg->hide->punch head approach, and it works well enough.


This is no longer true, by the way. They changed it from the first 30 days to the first 20 levels not too long ago.

If you type FIXSKILLS, it'll tell you the actual date, which I can't remember off the top of my head right now.

I didn't know this had changed, thanks.

[Androidpk]

I didn't know this had changed, thanks.

One of the best changes to GS in years IMO. Extremely helpful for people that are slow at leveling.

[grapedog]

So, i made the switch finally, but my question now is about CMAN's. I have CMAN's held over from my previous build, and I didn't change em. I've got about 35 or 40 free CMAN points to spend. I've already picked up/had the CMAN's for mobility, surge and cunning defense. I guess now I'm think one of the attack masteries, or stealth mastery. I'm a huge fan of passive CMAN's, since I'll be actively using rogue skills.

Issue I am running into is my DS took a pretty stiff hit, so I'm doing more in stance adv or for now, for the time being. I'm guess it would be UNWISE to spend CMAN points on the CMAN defense skill. Seems like a lot of CMAN points for only 10 DS.

[Silvanostar]

this is what my rogue looks like at 53:


Skill Name | Current Current
| Bonus Ranks
Two Weapon Combat..................| 114 28
Armor Use..........................| 196 96
Combat Maneuvers...................| 154 54
Brawling...........................| 210 110
Ambush.............................| 187 87
Multi Opponent Combat..............| 108 26
Physical Fitness...................| 187 87
Dodging............................| 210 110
Arcane Symbols.....................| 74 16
Magic Item Use.....................| 58 12
Harness Power......................| 54 11
Disarming Traps....................| 180 80
Picking Locks......................| 177 77
Stalking and Hiding................| 210 110
Perception.........................| 210 110
Climbing...........................| 114 28
Swimming...........................| 102 24

Spell Lists
Minor Elemental....................| 4


Skill name Mnemonic Ranks
Combat Focus focus 2
Combat Mobility mobility 2
Cunning Defense cdefense 1
Punch Mastery punchmastery 3

Available Combat Maneuver Training Points: 7

i kept ambush and pf to ~1.5x to fit armor and picking/disarming. with the cmans i get i'll probably start picking up stealth and i'm putting my armor pts into stealth. i'm trying to get into plate asap and then start picking up shield ranks for shielded brawler.