Mother of Shadow >>Stealthblade<< b38 Feedback needed

[Tagedieb]

I like to present my newest Shadowblade Stealthbuild and discuss a few points with Shadowblade dedicated or interested Players. The Mother of Shadow totally skips the typical speed buffs (like essence of speed) of the shadowblade and relies purely on Stealth and the Ambushtree. It aims to show that a true Stealth and Shadowbuild is a viable option for Shadowblades!

Addons:
In conradiction to my first winner setup in b37 (http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=33203)
i dont use the Shadowstrikeaddon this time to show that a Stealthbuild does just fine without it.
Nevertheless i do like testing addons and used the fixed Town addon and the escort addon.
http://te4.org/games/addons/tome/escorts-101
http://te4.org/games/addons/tome/non-leveling-towns
The first helped me to assure that i get Premonition, otherwise i would have spent a categorypoint to get it.
I took the second because i hate to wait till midgame to spend my money. It is not updated for b38 but works fine. it gives a nice boost in the first levels as u can buy better weapons in the beginning.

So without further delay here is my current Stealthblade project, the phantomlike and ghostly murderer Mother of Shadow
http://te4.org/characters/5446/tome/f7b ... 83ceed1374
As u can see she is currently at lvl 47 so she made it quite far and cant be that gimp but has all orc prides and the High peak before her.

Improvement to last build
As i dont play with he Shadowstrike addon (and for that dont need lethality) and decided to skip essence of Speed i have 12 classpoints to spent otherwise. The bigest improvement to the last build is Snap This has a great synergy with your Shadow, allowing it to use 2flurrys, whirlwind, 2 shadowsteps and even 2 disarms, silence or Shadowveil and do the same by yourself right afterwards. this theoretical means 4 flurrys in short time for example which means great burstdamage and more versatility. iam not sure how to spent the other points yet.

I was very lucky to find the Ring of warmaster at lvl 31, unfortunately i got my first point in Premonition through an escort not till lvl 34 in spite of the escort addon, making these lvls more tricky and so i lost a few lives through uncaring gameplay, in fact the asassin lord killed me twice with strong poisons and an orc assassin boss killed me with one perfect strike dual strike double crit after evading my opening Shadowstep So it seems like an assassin is bestly killed by another assassin.

Feedback wanted
I will not have the time to play this week and as iam unsure about it, I ask for your feedback on how to spend my last categorypoint (secondboss in the Sandwormlair) and my last 7 class skill points:
My thoughts to it:
As i want to skip speed and havnt enough classpoints left to totally skill essence of speed the temporaltree is no option.
- I like the idea of spending the categorypoint for my sneak's heroism infusion (+17 for 10 turns), you can use that on your Shadow and afterwards on yourself before going in for a kill giving a noticeable boost to your damage and overall skills. I really like to use active boost like Wilful combat or Sacrifice dagger before me or my shadow going in for a bigger fight.
-The other option i really tend to is to improve the dualweapon tree. in addition to the Ring of warmaster it will reach a mastery lvl of 1.70. It will make the offhand weapon deal 177% weapon dmg and in this way will increase the dmg of all my skills including the Shadow, it also will improve my defense and give the opportunity to skill Precision for more armour penetration.
- Finally i can magine to boost the Ambushtree or the dualtechniquestree or open that combat tree with improved stamina regeneration as stamina is a problem sometimes, but i think the impact of it would not be that big.
Generaly i dont know how to spend my last 7 classpoints and like suggestions. i tend to skill whirlwind to 5 for dmgboost in connection with ambuscade and Snap. Perhaps blur sight is an defensive option or even perfect strikes or precision for this high armoured or high defense or high invisiblity bosses.
Anyway iam quite curious what u guys will suggest and will carefully consider your feedback (if i get some )
I will post again with some final words if the mother of Shadow either died trying to win the game or did so.

Finally I might post some experiences about the attitude and strategic aproach u need to play a stealthbuild, it is definatly no straight forward Seek and destroy build. You need careful planning of the more difficult assaults and need to recognize early when things are going bad for a tactical withdraw. in fact the heavy reliance on Ambuscade makes it mixture of a caster and an assassin gameplaywise.
At last i hail to the darklord! Thx for this great game!
Tagedieb

[eliotn]

Ideas:
-Deadly strikes should give you enough armor penetration if you need it (although it costs an attack). Precision costs more stamina, and doesn't raise your armor penetration nearly as much.
-Shadow veil and momentum would combo well if you have enough stamina, and you want to raise momentum to 5/5
-Alternatively skilling up perfect strikes would also be a good option, to ensure that your really damaging attacks hit. It will also ensure a hit from Deadly strikes if you need armor penetration.

Looking forward to trying your build.

[lukep]

- Deadly strikes does not cost any time. It is an instant ability that should always be used when you want to do more damage.
- Dual Weapon Training's description does not show the cap in Combat.lua; the maximum multiplier is reached at talent level 8 (150% multiplier), so improving the category past that may not be worthwhile.
- What are your weapon swaps? Depending on how it is handled/what you currently have, I would strongly consider having a pair of manaburning daggers to swap/flurry/swap against enemy random boss spellcasters to break all of their sustains with minimal risk.
- I would get the last level in Dark Gifts; more luck gives you a better chance of remaining in stealth when attacking, as well as extra DEF, saves, and accuracy.

[Tagedieb]

Thx for the great feedback so far:)
Your thoughts on deadly strike convinced me to use it for armourbraking and bossfights! Iam even considering to put some skillpoints in it...
The information of the cap at 150% offhand dmg multiplyer was really helpfull too i decided to not put the category point in dual techniques then.
@Lukep
are you sure, that luck helps with staying in stealth? and if how big is the influence? Because that makes luck really useful for this build and i would value it on equipment more. So far i believed that luck has a small overall bonus on defense, crit chance, accuracy and resistance.
Normaly i have a sacrifice weapon and high dmg offhand in the swap to use it with the shadow or before bossfights. have 2 good manaburning daggers, even one with sacrifice but i didnt use it so far, the problem is they are antimagic infused and kill my own sustains means prohability travel and Premonition which i almost use the whole time. In fact iam so used to prohabilty travel that i automatically move through the walls being astonished if the walls dont let me pass;) Nevertheless i will consider manaburning for casters. Especially as i can send my shadow to rip their mana and doesnt have to risk to get in troubles without premonition and prohability.

[lukep]

From Actor.lua:

Code: Select all

function _M:breakStealth()
	if self:isTalentActive(self.T_STEALTH) then
		local chance = 0
		if self:knowTalent(self.T_UNSEEN_ACTIONS) then
			chance = 10 + self:getTalentLevel(self.T_UNSEEN_ACTIONS) * 9 + (self:getLck() - 50) * 0.2
		end

Note that the player has 50 luck by default. It's a small bonus, but with more luck, you will stay in stealth noticeably longer with a high investment in unseen actions like you have.

At 40 luck: 20% chance to break = once every 5 actions
At 50 luck: 18% chance to break = once every 5-6 actions
At 60 luck: 16% chance to break = once every ~6 actions
At 70 luck: 14% chance to break = once every ~7 actions

[Tagedieb]

Great info ! I might try a halfling rogue sometime for maximum luck, although i convinced myself after the death of lots of Stealth rogues that the shadowblade makes the far better stealthbuild.... I remember there were some changes to the poisongastrap in last update. Does anyone know, if traps do considerable dmg in late game now??
By the way thx for your cool addons! just noticed that it was you who gave birth to the shadowstrike and fixed Town addon i used

[Tagedieb]

Unfortunately i have to admit that i lost my live through stupidity, feeling unvincible and leaving my cautiosness and tactical playstyle i think is necessary for this build most foolishy behind:(
I killed all the backguardians going up to lvl 50 then i did the tannen quest line and entered the farportal a few times. And when i was just before entering the portal to the east, i remembered that darn Golem, and thought to kill him to get teh 50 gold i was missing to 3000 to build another item. I was so used to just stomp everything that i attacked the golem myself instead of sending shadows until hes dead and he just killed me with one attack...
All in all iam sure the stealthbuild is a good option, i might try to finish another one sometime but at the moment iam too sad to do it all over again. As my pity death shows you got to play smart and send your sahdows to test oponents and soften them up. Last time i hd so much fear that i killed the Golem only by using shadows)

I skilled whirlwind and perfect strike which helped me kill two stealth bosses in the farportal a lot) and spent the categorypoint on the heroism infusion.
Here is the final build: http://te4.org/characters/5446/tome/f7b ... 83ceed1374

Iam a bit sad for this unglorious end
Anyway have Fun
Tagedieb

[jenx]

Can you elaborate more on the order you build this character, both of talents and stats? thanks

[Tagedieb]

Equipment:
You need to collect all equipment with +mag for prohability travel
You need to collect all equipment with +con for thick skin
you need some mana regeneration item as soon as possible to get rid of the mana regeneration rune, you can also decide to dont use shadow combat if your dmg is fine. normally you wont need mana for other things than emergency teleport, sustains until lvl 30 when you open the ambushtree
You need some stamina regeneratio to, very helpful are gloves of regeneration

Category points:
I used the following build:
Stealth
Stealth
Movement infusion
Ambush
secondary boss sandworm lair: heroism

But u have a few possibilities here:
You can shuffle the first 4 if u prefer otherwise
And u have a lot of possibilities to put the last point in as discussed in the thread, if u dont get dualweapon boosted otherwise, it might well be the bes option to put the point in dual weapon fighting for more offhand dmg and defense

Stats:
First 3 points in con as in the beginning the life realy matters, after that i concentrate on dex till about lvl 6, to get enough dex for dual weapon and flurry. At lvl 6: You have to decide if u want dirty fighting and backstab for a better starting position, in the end game u may find yourself dont using it. if so cunning to 20. at lvl 12 your cunning should reach 36 for shadowstep. i normaly afterwards focus on cunning with some points in con for thickskin (use equip to skill it as soon as possible) and some points in dex for knife mastery and whirlwind. i max cun first for higher stealth, then dex, but i think it might be better to even dex and cun more or less for more defense. Later on points that dont go in con go to str or will (for more mana to be able to have your sustains on and mana left for the ambushskills)

Skills:
first max dual weapon fighting, get flurry and dual defense and optional dirty fighting and backstab.
till lvl 10 u should have 2 points in stealth and 1 in shadowstrikes. from 10-12 work on getting shadowstep.
Afterwards i concentrate on Stealth, and whirlwind and dual defense. I also suggest to get deadly strikes early, as its a free attack that dont use time its and boosts dmg its just great. Get prohability travel as soon as u have the +mag equipment and constanly work on thick skin, apart from that max knife mastery. If u have at least 5 point in unseen action boost shadow step. If stealth is finished u can put points in flurry or dual defense (if not done before). After lvl 30 all points in ambuscade and afterwards shadow veil. You will have enough generic skill points to skill the cursed aura tree, if u dont like i suggest to put them in combat accuray and weapon mastery for more physical power and the mostly dmgwise bad option to use a non daggerwepon.

I had another lvl 50 shadowblade died, so i assume it might be a difficult character build.
Lately i consider a skeleton shadowblade, obviously without the movement infusion, which is a major drawback, but skeletons seem so powerful (if not overpowered), that it might be easier and a more robust Stealthblade.

Have Fun and feel free to post your own successess or thoughts here. Tagedieb