Thoughts/feedback about lvl 19 uac/2x picker?

[Leigo]

Seems to be a lot of activity in this folder, looking for any feedback from seasoned uac ambush rogues or anyone with thoughts on this build out:

Elf, almost 19

Skill Name | Current Current
| Bonus Ranks
Two Weapon Combat..................| 5 1
Combat Maneuvers...................| 140 40
Brawling...........................| 140 40
Ambush.............................| 140 40
Physical Fitness...................| 90 20
Dodging............................| 151 51
Disarming Traps....................| 140 40
Picking Locks......................| 140 40
Stalking and Hiding................| 151 51
Perception.........................| 90 20

*Edit:
Only took a couple times getting instagibbed from hiding in offensive to decide I'm ditching boxes for now and rolling shield:
At 19:
Skill Name | Current Current
| Bonus Ranks
Shield Use.........................| 142 42
Combat Maneuvers...................| 124 32
Brawling...........................| 142 42
Ambush.............................| 142 42
Physical Fitness...................| 93 21
Dodging............................| 153 53
Stalking and Hiding................| 163 63
Perception.........................| 93 21
Climbing...........................| 50 10

*Updated stats at 19
Strength (STR): 71 (10) ... 71 (10)
Constitution (CON): 85 (17) ... 85 (17)
Dexterity (DEX): 84 (22) ... 84 (22)
Agility (AGI): 83 (31) ... 83 (31)
Discipline (DIS): 85 (2) ... 85 (2)
Aura (AUR): 76 (18) ... 76 (18)
Logic (LOG): 79 (14) ... 79 (14)
Intuition (INT): 71 (10) ... 71 (10)
Wisdom (WIS): 63 (6) ... 63 (6)
Influence (INF): 37 (4) ... 37 (4)

Skill name Mnemonic Ranks
Evade Mastery emastery 1
Grapple Mastery gmastery 2
Striking Asp asp 2

Using robes and 5x swcw gloves/boots (F2P)

Having some decent luck with grapple neck from hiding then rehide and kick neck (for things I cant reach the head of when they are standing)

[Zarston]

You can get away with dropping stalking/hiding down to 2x. Anything over that is really only if you're ranged sniping in my experience. I would save up excess points so that you could eventually get 403/404. I would even drop down dodging to 2x until you hit that spell goal, actually. You'll need those around your 40s if you want to handle your own boxes with 2x picking/disarm. While we're on the subject of picking, you might want to pick up a few ranks of arcane symbols (like ~5 ranks) to make all of your scarab disarming easy and profitable. You can ignore this skill if you're willing to disarm scarabs 2-3 times to be safe, though.

Since your skills are going to be fixed once you hit 20, consider putting some points into like 5-10 ranks of climbing. They're cheap and will get you through most of the areas you'll be hunting in. You'll need to pick up some swimming later down the road, but you'll have more training points to work with then.

Cman wise, I preferred punching straight for the head (neck if needed) over grappling, but everyone has their own preferences. I'll admit your plan of attack sounds cooler. You can look into divert, shadow mastery, and eventually vanish.

[Xanlin]

It might just be late, but... Why don't I see armor use in your skills?

[Leigo]

On skills,
Ok great notes on dodge and stalking, I was trying to push those hard in order to hunt as safe as possible as I am trying not to rely on spellups. Ill play with free fixskills on seeing what that can do for getting me on course for those box spells and arcane symbols. Being F2P with lower loot generation im not sure that I should even bother with locks, but it will be my first locks/rogue so I figured I would give it a shot.

On armor use:
Yeah I passed on armor use and just ran robes because points are tight, not sure how bad that will hurt but right now I am stance def, hide, stance off, grap neck, stance deff hide rinse repeat and its going pretty well.

I chose grapple because you get stuns/status effects on lower end rolls from what I was told, and I really notice it. Which makes it even safer then punching I believe.

[Leigo]

As also curious what people think for society. I know uac voln is supposed to be a great choice. But being as the focus is going to be critting by ambushing from hiding, I don't really want to be fighting undead consistently.

[karnamm]

I am closing in on Sunfist. I do not know what others thoughts are, but I am really into doing the warcamps as they have been challenging at times. I have completed COL in the past (like 20 years ago) and have never completed Voln. I think over all if you can find basically 7 signs or sigils or whatever voln is that will impact you on a daily basis, this is the way you should go. I will tell you my Monk friend who is UAC has been tearing things up.

If you look in my other thread, there was another Rogue who was a picker and into UAC. Maybe you will find some more information key into what you do.

Personally, they convinced me to be a 2 weapon combat swinger and I am thrilled with this approach. No problem opening up boxes at my current hunt skills. I like to be spelled up just because it makes me pretty much un-hittable, but I could hunt just as easy with my sigils and the massies.

Finally, I believe someone told me arcane symbols are important to have at 10 as this will avoid any scarabs.

[Leigo]

Anyone know if the sigils such as major bane can push crit weighting on hated foes past the somewhat weighted F2P cap?

[Maerit]

I'm fairly certain that you can have HCW with sigil of major bane. Mostly due to having to buy a society pass to use the sigil (past a certain level you won't find society access passes). Also katanas and claidhmores are not subject to the restriction. For some reason, I believe sephwir doesn't work past somewhat as it's a material property and not a weapon base property.

[Zarston]

I would suggest against Voln as an ambushing rogue. For one thing, undead usually have very high perception and it is difficult to hide from them. For the other, a vast majority are immune to crit death. These two combine to neuter your hunting style.

GoS is okay, but soloing camps as an ambushing rogue is a roll of dice that are weighted against you. You basically have to run away any time a crowd forms, run away any time certain creatures stack in a room, and are in danger of mass dispels or or RT locking maneuvers any time you aren't hidden. If you're willing to hunt in groups, then this becomes a much more viable option. [If you're solo and you manage to get ahead of the creature spawns in a warcamp though, it is a magical time.]

CoL is my preference, but I'm a low hassle kind of guy who has no qualms with selling my character's soul for an easy power up.

[Leigo]

Hmm yeah, odd on the sephwir issue also. If anyone has first hand exp with sigil of major bane on F2P id be interested in hearing definitively. Otherwise I'm starting to lean hard on voln. I figure, this character is going to be able to hunt places I never did previously because of disarm, why not expand that population to include all undead as well.

As far as GOS warcamps, yeah for sure they can be really dodgy, I wouldn't be going GOS for the ability to do warcamps, but for the crit above swcw on the hated foes which there are a fair number of.

Also I dumpstatted a bit of wisdom in favor of higher starting dex for more stat based weighting.

[Maerit]

Undead aren't that bad if you 1x MOC. By level 30 you'll be able to take undead down fairly well, as long as you use some kind of RT disabler (i.e. feint, but if rogues have one that does more RT and works on undead - even better).

UAC + MoC is really a great combo. Hard to train as a stealth ambusher reliant on crits kills though, but really strong if you can manage it.

Also, you don't have to kick neck. Kick has low (tier 5) crit kills on chest and abs as well. Punch head / Kick chest would probably be stronger than grapple neck. Grapple neck is a bit harder to achieve than punching the head or kicking the chest. If you're going to go with a shield, you really need to have shielded brawler or it'll break your MM to a point where you will kill much less reliably.

UAF is not nearly as important as MM for a unarmed combatant.

[Leigo]

Cool beans thanks ill see about scooping some MOC along the way. I have shielded brawler that's my priority with shield points so far. I'll have to research disablers. I'll check out those other attack/location combos as well thanks.

I also just discovered quickstrike and now I am very excited, down the road I can pop 2 second hides with shadowmastery and can probably sustain with stamina and stam recovery enhansives at least 2 second grapples from hiding, that should speed things along.

[Zarston]

I'm not sure if you're aware, but you won't be able to use shielded brawler until you're in your 50s due to prerequisites and level limits. Also, MoC is really expensive for rogues compared to other squares (they even have higher costs than bards).

[karnamm]

I would suggest against Voln as an ambushing rogue. For one thing, undead usually have very high perception and it is difficult to hide from them. For the other, a vast majority are immune to crit death. These two combine to neuter your hunting style.

GoS is okay, but soloing camps as an ambushing rogue is a roll of dice that are weighted against you. You basically have to run away any time a crowd forms, run away any time certain creatures stack in a room, and are in danger of mass dispels or or RT locking maneuvers any time you aren't hidden. If you're willing to hunt in groups, then this becomes a much more viable option. [If you're solo and you manage to get ahead of the creature spawns in a warcamp though, it is a magical time.]

CoL is my preference, but I'm a low hassle kind of guy who has no qualms with selling my character's soul for an easy power up.

I cannot do warcamps by myself. Reason being is I need another person to distract some of the others. And if there are more than 7 creatures in a room, we generally retreat. I have no trouble ambushing everything at warcamps thought I and I pretty much crit just about everything.

I think another added benefit about warcamps is if you are having difficulty finding something to hunt, you can always go hunt these.

I did COL when I first played 20 years ago, but Sunfist wasn't an option. It is definitely 10x easier for sure. I really don't know which group benefits more than the other because I did have 2 rogues in COL, but I can tell you I am really appreciating and enjoying the benefit of working on Sunfist.

[karnamm]

A character my gf plays is a rangers and she is doing two weapon combat with mstrike. I think we will keep her at 5 ranks of multiopponent and it is pretty sweet. It seems like a pretty valuable skill as she will not be an ambusher.

[Leigo]

RE: shielded brawler being level 50 required

"our Shield Specialization training is as follows:

Skill name Mnemonic Ranks
Small Shield Focus sfocus 3
Shielded Brawler brawler 2"

What am I missing? I have level 2 so far, do you mean I won't be able to max out shielded brawler till 50? That's fine, so far I'm doing great without society abilities or buffs.

Any ambush rogues keeping 2 second hides (shadow mastery) and 1 second attacks from hiding using qstrike? Curious what the high end of stats/enhansives has in store for the late game on this type of build.