Looking for some training help, a push in the right direction.

[GSIVKloake]

I am looking for help towards training. The end goal is to be able to pick my own level boxes. I plan on being TWC ambusher. Figuring fast short swords with flares will work well. Training points look alittle difficult to play with.

Thinking what would be necessary:
2x TWC, PF, Ambush, Dodge, Picking, Disarming, Perception, and Hiding.

1x CM, Armor, Survival, FA, Climb, Swim.

Dont believe the points will add up with all that but will appreciate all feedback. Thanks.

[Kitsun]

TWC is one of the most point intensive training paths and picking is a point sink as well. You'll probably need to cut back TWC to 1x to 1.5x, and PF to 1x, ditch most Survival and First Aid.

Someone can correct me but I don't think 2x pick/disarm is enough alone, you'll need 403/404 after a point.

[GSIVKloake]

I do have pocket wizard so not worried about that part early on. I always forget if TWC is enough for training or i need to train in edge/blunt as well.

[Kitsun]

I didn't even realize you left out the actual weapon but yes, you need to 2x in edge, blunt or brawling.

[Palcron]

I would try to 2x ambush, dodge, hiding, edge, perception, and PF. You should be fine with, at most, 1.5x TWC. CM equates to AS, so I would try to push closer to 1.5x, if you were able. As far as armor, if you decide to stick to brig, you would only ever need to drop 30 points into armor. First aid and survival are nice, but can absolutely be done away with. At 76, I've never trained in either. Climb and swim are only really necessary depending on where you hunt, and even then, you would likely be good to go with no more than 25 to 50 points in each. For the most part, 2x in picking and disarm with lore will open almost all of your boxes. Obviously, there comes a point when even that is not enough, but by then, you should have a lot more points to play with.

[GSIVKloake]

Thanks for the help guys. Good pushes in the right direction.

[jpatter123]

I do have pocket wizard so not worried about that part early on. I always forget if TWC is enough for training or i need to train in edge/blunt as well.

I'm not sure on how the formula works now, but it used to be a major hit if it wasn't self cast. I think it's going to be tough to be a TWC and a picking rogue. You can try for it, but I'd get all your necessary skills in first and throw in the picking ranks when you can. Picking isn't as linear as I think it should be in the game and you may find what was adequate before ie 1.5x picking is not even enough to get half your boxes at the next set of creatures.
I also wouldn't discount the fact that you may just have to fixskill at some point. I fought it hard with my rogue for years to the point I quit playing him. I finally bit the bullet and fixskilled him into a non-ambusher with full spells and was still able to pick, hunt better, and have fun with him again. The greatest thing simu ever did was allow annual fixskills so you don't get cornholed into a build you hate. I still think your going to have to make a concession at some point with the TWC build.

[Palcron]

Remember, too, that as long as you train disarm, you can work LM up to the point that you can wedge, and then drop picking entirely. Given, it's a pain to make that many wedges, but it saves a ton of TPs. And yeah, non-self-cast lore isn't nearly as effective as self-cast.

[Vorpodu]

i was actually wondering the most effective main hand/off hand combo for a twc rogue. obviously faster is better but i still kind of figured you would want some power behind your main hand, like a bigger than short sword power. am i wrong in this?

[dszabo]

I was rocking dual fist-scythes before I quit last time, pretty killer combo. 1x MCW and 7x perfect. Pretty quick for ambushing and mstriking.

[Jeril]

The weapon needed to kill something varies based on your level, your AS, your ambush training, and the armor of your target. And as a rogue, most of the time you should be killing with your main hand anyway.

[Rhovan]

Let me first say that I didn't plan on capping, so my stats were a bit easier in the younger years, but I've never seen the point of 2x picking until near cap if you are only considering your own boxes. I stuck with 1x picking to make Lock Mastery easier and added in 403/404 when boxes got a bit tougher. There were times it would take a fair number of attempts to open a box, but I rarely found one I had to pass on. Even after cap, I'm still only 1xpicking/2x disarm and I can pick up to Plane 3 of the Rift without breaking a sweat.
If you plan to hunt the undead a lot, I can see going 2x as the boxes are harder, but I recommend an ambusher sticks to the living.

[jpatter123]

. Even after cap, I'm still only 1xpicking/2x disarm and I can pick up to Plane 3 of the Rift without breaking a sweat.


1x picking and only knowing spells to 404 would give you a max box of about -600 correct or do does your rogue have a lot of ranks in the minor circle? My rogue w/ 2x picking at cap can get about 80-85% of OTF boxes w/ spell knowledge to 430(top lock pickable about -1000).

[Rhovan]

I use a few random enhancives to help with hard boxes, but I've never accumulated them just for picking. My personal best is -830 at this point and that was probably with only knowing up to 406.

[Velfi]

Let me first say that I didn't plan on capping, so my stats were a bit easier in the younger years, but I've never seen the point of 2x picking until near cap if you are only considering your own boxes. I stuck with 1x picking to make Lock Mastery easier and added in 403/404 when boxes got a bit tougher. There were times it would take a fair number of attempts to open a box, but I rarely found one I had to pass on. Even after cap, I'm still only 1xpicking/2x disarm and I can pick up to Plane 3 of the Rift without breaking a sweat.
If you plan to hunt the undead a lot, I can see going 2x as the boxes are harder, but I recommend an ambusher sticks to the living.

Lock Mastery is not easier at 1x picking. It's designed around a 2x trained picker, and also rewards those who have more training. Your max lock is larger, yes, but the percentage needed for your tough and audience reps is significantly decreased. At 1x picking, you are being punished for your training by the LM system as your tough locks and such needed is probably quite close to your max lock.

My rogue, who is 3x/3x, when training LM (and only level 65ish) could do around a -1000 lock or so, and his tough locks according to the LM system, were around -440.

It's somewhat counterintuitive, but that's the way it works.

[Rhovan]

Since around 95% of my boxes came from hunting myself, I just kept my skills where they needed to be to make picking my boxes difficult. So I agree that 3x picking is better if you are a smith, for someone who just wants to open their own boxes, 3x picking would quickly make self hunted boxes too easy to get reps off of. Even keeping my skills low, I was in the 60s and hunting in the Skull Temple before I finally began finding a ton of boxes that challenged my picking enough to get easy reps.

It's somewhat different from what is commonly said, but that's also the way it works.

[Rhovan]

I will add that the better trained in disarm you are, the better. Once you get to pulling traps, give yourself the highest success margin you can.

[Rhovan]

Like I said, I never tried the 3x route for LM, but -440 is much more lenient than Tsoran's guide says, which I found to be accurate most of the time. He listed 67% of max lock and 75% of max lock for audience and picking reps respectively. Has anyone put out another guide for aspiring rogues? It would be nice to have those percentages of 1x, 2x, and 3x picking as they go through it all.

[Velfi]

I forget the exact numbers as it's been several months now since I finished LM and have had to think about it, and for some of the time my max lock may have been in the upper -900s, but in my low to mid 60s, training LM, I was getting tough lock reps from stone troll/stone giant boxes, stone sentinel boxes, and things in that range. I recently spent some time in Illistim and opening boxes from Wyneb, they are much larger than what I needed at that time. I was picking up to most mino boxes at that time, which I'd say are comparable to a bit higher than Wyneb locks.

As I was saying, your max lock goes up, but the percentage needed is adjusted in such a way that your "tough" and "audience" lock difficulties are lower than they would be at 2x, and especially 1x, levels.

While doing my LM stuff, I was using Tsoran's LM page from Kyaloria.com, which has since disappeared and I've been trying to find a copy of it to show to other rogues I've talked to about it, as well as just being a good reference.

I'm curious, earlier you stated your toughest lock as being -860 or so.. what's the threshold on your locks needed for tough lock reps?

[Buckwheet]

http://cmnservicesgroup.com/tsoran/

[DaCapn]

I think TWC requires a very specific style to be more favorable. I moved my alt out of a TWC OHE build because it doesn't really suit my play style.

TWC is a more of a rogue-warrior hybrid. It provides more incentives to be out in the open or use unaimed strikes. You're more likely to mstrike and you'll basically want to be in plate. The area where TWC has more of an edge is with silent strike and attacking from hiding. With TWC it's less essential to aim because you have two shots. So you have more viable single-target attack options. HIDE/ATTACK isn't very viable for sword/board, but it is for TWC. This is a helpful post about how weighting from the ambush skill factors into various attacks:
http://forum.gsplayers.com/showthread.php?41735-Random-(official)-GM-posts&p=917471#post917471

The whole silent strike TWC vs sword/board advantage landscape sort of changed after the release of vanish but anyway, there's some things to ponder there. As a side note: I have no idea if you get your weighting when using mstrike from hiding. I'd like to assume that it does, but with this game assumptions based on logic seldom correlate with reality.

To the point of locksmithing:
As a 2x picker at cap, I'm definitely thinking of making 2.5x a more imminent post-cap goal. I see a large number of boxes that have a trap JUST outside my range (450ish).

[Rhovan]

It's been awhile since I have needed a LM rep, but I remember the difficulty at 1x as being just a little harder to get than what Tsoran's information on 2x said. I'd say that instead of 75% difficulty, I needed around 80%.

[Jeril]

If you read the chart on Tsoran's that 75% is for a 2x build, you said you were only 1x so needing a higher % falls in line with what is said. I am not sure where you get the idea that as a triple picker your own boxes wouldn't work for reps that you'd need to find something harder. At the lower levels it may take a few more boxes just because it seems like you run into a few more of the odd boxes that fall beneath the normal range but as you progress in levels this happens less often. Also, when you are a low level you won't be too far along in lock mastery and you can get by with using silver lockpicks for your reps. Of course as you progress the smallest pick you can use progresses toward the higher end picks but even if you do lock mastery from the start by the time you are near the end of it you should be able to hunt farm hands at the very least, which tend to have tough locks for their level. I still recall one particular box I found while hunting them that had a lock of -700.

[Riltus]

Approximately 66% for 3x .

I have a rogue getting tough reps with a -320 lock using Rolaren (1.9 mod) and no rep with -310 locks. He has 116 ranks w/35 Dex bonus. His max lock with rolaren is (216 skill + 35) * 1.9 = 476

320/476 = 67.2% (rep)
310/476 = 65.1% (no rep)

This is about 50% of his max lock with vaalin (627).

Just speculating here but tough locks could be something along the lines of 8/12 (3x), 9/12 (2x) and 10/12 (1x) of max lock.

Converted to percentages -

3x: 66.7
2x: 75
1x: 80

Mark

[jpatter123]

Since around 95% of my boxes came from hunting myself, I just kept my skills where they needed to be to make picking my boxes difficult. So I agree that 3x picking is better if you are a smith,.

The tower in Illistim which is a level 70's hunting area has boxes up to about -900 and up to low -300 traps. OTF goes up to around -1100 and -475 traps (majority are -930 to -1050 on locks and -350 to -400 on traps). That would require quite a few (as in a ton) of enhansives for a 1x picker. Again my rogue with spell knowledge to 430 and 200 ranks of lockpcking and 200 ranks of disarm even with enhansives can only pick about 75% of OTF boxes failing more on traps than locks.
I typically would argue that 2.5x in picking would cover it if you have 403/404. I'm not sure 3x is called for unless you want to hit capped level boxes in your 70's.