NM psiblade rogue win

[helminthauge]

This is my first win without consulting any existing guide (because there's no up-to-date rogue guide at all lol), and I personally really like this build so I'm going to share it. Here's the winner https://te4.org/characters/235359/tome/ ... 5a73a71129

The death was due to I tried to disarm a bulwark rare in an orc ambush while Lunge is not on my hotbar (I really hope I can make those icons smaller so that I can have more on screen ) and I tried to use it from the M menu but pressed Feint instead. Then I went in sight of his friends behind him and they one shoted me lol,

NOTE: THE FOLLOWING PART IS NOT A GUIDE, just my thoughts about spending class and generic points. I'm still too inexperienced to write a guide (never won insane so far). But since I won with it on nightmare without too much difficulty, I guess you can use this as a guide if you're playing on nightmare or normal. Recommends and critiques are welcome.

Class points:
Dual Techniques 3/2/3/2
I actually regretted to invest so many points in Dual Strike because I never stunned anyone lategame with it lol. 3 points is full uptime, but I guess before you invest beyond 1 point you should first check whether it works.
The second point of flurry is 70% to 83% (a 20% increase) I think it's worth it.
Heartseeker is like the old rush, and 3 points give you a range of 5 which should be enough for most time.
Whirwind is another mobility skill and also a small AOE. 2 points upgrade its range to 3.

Throwing Knives 4/1/1/5
Well, the whole tree is optional because it's not that powerful. But I like it and I always want some range option so I picked it. Quickdraw is also a small burst damage boost.

Duelist 1/1/1/1
The first skill is useless for me because I use mindstars, but it's probably worth more points if you're using daggers.
Tempo with 1 point is enough because I have such a large stamina pool.
Feint is a mobility skill.
Lunge is a disarm but the only time I tried to use it I got killed lol (see above). More points is more duration which may be good.

Stealth 1/1/1/1
Do not really expect that the mobs won't notice you when you're under stealth, but the good thing is that you're still under stealth even they notice you lol, and that comes handy with the passive bonus from Shadow Strike and Soothing Darkness. I've heard that Shadow Dance is a good defense skill but I've never used it myself.

Trapping 4/0/0/0
At low levels trap is probably your best damage skill. It's also a good thing to use when the enemy is just one tile away (P.S. if the enemy is at a position where he can approach you by either moving diagonally or non-diagnally, they usually move non-diagnally) and a small AOE. 4 points for 3 traps and the bigbang trap. I don't know whether the tier 5 traps are worth an additionaly points. I ended up with Flash Bang Trap, Springrazor Trap and Poison Gas Trap (buy this from the merchant you've saved with 1500 gold and this may cost you an additional randart). Advanced Trap Deployment and Trap Priming may be good if you want invest more (and they're surely fun).

Poisons 5/1/4/1/1?
I think this tree is necesarry for rogues. At end game when I was using 2 mind mindstars, I still had like 8% of my total damages from nature, and Crippling Poison(20% talent failure chance) and Numbing Poison(20% damage output reduction) is just so good.
More points into Apply Poison is more chance, more damage and more duration so I maxed it out.
Toxic Death is a small AOE but it's not ally-friendly so I didn't invest more.
3 points in Vile Poisons are necessary for Crippling Poison, and a 4th point if you want a heal with Leeching Poison and Venomous Strike.
I had no place for Venomous Strike on my hotbar so I never used it. May worth more points.
I really have no idea where the last point in Stoning Poison came from...

Lethality 2/4/5/2
2 points into Lethality is a 5.3% crit chance and 14.7 crit mult. More points don't pay well (8.8% crit chance at 5 points).
4 points into Expose Weakness for max duration.
Blade Fury 5 is a 36% attack speed bonus! (plus some crowd control) 6 staminal drain per turn is nothing to my large staminal pool (and I can generate staminal with Tempo and Ressolve).
Snap is a cooldown reset and should be good but I never used it.

Assasination 1/1/1/2
Coup de Grace seems good but can be resisted (and for me they almost always did so). Still not bad just for the damage bonus.
Terrorize is good but you cannot rely on it.
Garrot is another reason for stealth. Though again most rare/boss/unique resisted mine but it's free and still can help you kill those who didn't resist faster.
Marked for Death is the real reason I chose this tree, though most stuff just died before it came into effect lol (but that's still partially because Marked for Death reduced their resistance). It's also useful to achieve the 6000 damage achievemet on training dummies (I got one for 14k damage).
If you don't like this tree then Combat Techniques or Dirty Fighting are also good ones. But you should find a better explanation for them in other guides.

Artifice 4/1/1/3
4 in Rogue Brew and 3 in Rogue Brew Mastery so that it is a great heal, stamina replenish, 3 phyiscal stat cleanse plus die at -494 for 8 turns. (Rogue Brew Mastery can have worth more points because it scales linearly.)
For the other 2 tools I choose Hidden Blades and Grappling Hook. Hidden Blades is a damage bonus since I have a high crit chance and a good glove. Grappling Hook is a gap closer (but sorrily it moves your self toward the target and cannot be used when pinned). Grappling Hook may be worth more points for more range.

Generic Points
Halfling 1/1/1/3
Indomitable is worth more points if you don't go antimagic.

Combat Training 5/1/3/3/0/4
I wonder whether 2 more points into Combat Accuracy (which will give 5-6 effective accuracy) will make my stun/CDG/Garrote apply more often.
Dagger Mastery serves you before you swith to mindstars, and even then still benefits your throwing knife.

Mobility 2/1/2/4
2 points into Disengage and Tumble for range.
The fifth point for Trained Reaction doesn't look great for me so I left it at four. (it's any damage more than 14% of your total life will be reduced by 30% at lv4, while 15% and 31% respectively at lv5.)

Survival 1/1/1/1
More into Device Mastery if you don't go Antimagic.

Antimagic 5/1/3/1
Well I guess it's really a bit weird for a rogue going for Antimagic especially when he didn't also get the Fungus Tree. OK, I didn't plan going for Antimagic when I created this rogue. But at lvl30+, I just realized that I would have a lot of generic points spared and that I was not wearing any equips powered by arcane, so I could go Antimagic actually. And by lvl42, I still hadn't found any good arcane equips and was deciding my second prodigy, and I finally decided to take this and Windtouched Speed.
Aura of Silence is definitely worth more points since my final battle with Elanda was a bit painful lol (but there were also other reasons).

MindStar mastery 5/1/1/1
Well, I was longing for playing a melee class with 2 mindstars but sadly mindslayer and wyrmic go too well with PES which I don't have and cursed just suck in my opinion, so I finally tried a mindstar rogue, which is pretty nice at last.
I ignored Leaves Tide's avoidance chance so didn't invested more but it's surely worthy.

Scoundreal looks pretty good but I don't have the cat point for it.

Prodigy:
at lvl 30 I was only doing a bit less than 500 DPT with bump attacks and that upsetted me much so I decided to take a passive offensive prodigy. I save-scummed and tried some. Superpower only gives like 10% more DPT and the additional mindpower is neither great nor useful for me. Lucky Day gives more but I know it will become less and less as I get more crit chance, but at least it also comes with a defense. And then I finally tried the Flexible Combat and it was surely amazing. It was like a 50% more DPT! and after I got an amazing glove from the merdant it turned into double. So that's it.
at lv42 I still hadn't any problem with survivability so I decide to take another offensive prodigy. Windblade and GiantLeap are both good but my hotbar is so crowded so I would prefer a passive one. Superpower gave a bit more than it had did while Lucky Day was not that good anymore because my own crit chance was already close to 90%. Then finally I looked at Windtouched Speed and thought a 20% global speed bonus would be 25% more attacks so 25% more DPT so I picked up Antimagic and got it. The DPT increase was actually not that much but still no worse than Superpower and the rounding down CD reduction is really nice.

Flaw:
Yeah, this build has a lot of flaws during the run.
First, its passive defense was really poor in midgame. Though it has 71/77% armor, 69% physical resistance and Antimagic at last, but during midgame it had almost no armor and few resistance. The only passive defense it had was Trained Reaction, which may actually be worse than a good massive armor and some unreliable stuff. Thankfully I had a lot of mobility stuff and active heals (Nature's Equilibrium, Healing infusion, Nature's Touch, Conversion, Regeneration infusion and a heal charm, plus a Leeching Poison + Venomous Strike which I never remembered to use). These active heals really saved me once in darkcrypt where I was surrounded by like half a dozen casters and pinned to ground because of strenghth penalty from disease. And those mobility skills served well by allowing me to pick on those archers behind in the orc ambush out of DreadFell first and that helped a lot.
Second, it had no immunity against disarm. I think at least 1/10 of lategame enemies were punched to death... But again my mobility and healings allowed me to survive long enough for that debuff running out.
Last, dreaming horrors and nightmare horrors are really horrors. I actually save-scummed once when facing a dreaming horror AND a nightmare horror. The situation got better when I found out that my ring has a mind shield on it... (yeah, I am this careless.) And after all, you can skip those high peak vaults if you want but I was really hoping to find a second T5 artifact mindstar (but didn't anyway). (BTW take that you yeeks, a halfling is calling your mindslayers out of the way lol)
Oh, and the final battle mentioned above... Well, that's not a flaw of this build, but I just played it too carelessly. I went for the fighter first and luckily the lady got Elanda's attention. My guardian totem had no effect on Elanda at all on this run but the lady still lasted long enough for me to kill the fighter. Afterwards Elanda actually possesses no threat to me at all but he just kept blinking around and my gap-close talents weren't enough because I forgot half of them. I had four gap-close talents (Heartseeker, Movement infusion, Grappling Hook and Tumble) but the later 2 weren't on my hotbar so that was it... And I finally got him after he ran out of mana.

Finally, the bumping DPT after winning is about 2800, or 3200 with Blade Fury on. (3500 for my berserker, 2700 for my skeleton TW just shooting, 1400 for my alchemist by running 1 bomb + 3 channel stuff plus golem bumping.)
10-turn max DPT was about 7700 before going to high-peak (only tested once).