1.6.6 Insane Stealth/Throwing Knives Rogue Guide

[Fela]

Am I overlooking something? I can't seem to select poison trap in preparation (just starting out as a rogue).

[berenbelagund]

Am I overlooking something? I can't seem to select poison trap in preparation (just starting out as a rogue).

Are you talking about "Trap Mastery" in the "Cunning/Trapping" talent tree? I believe it's not enough to click on 'Poison Trap' when the dialogue box comes up. In addition, you have to confirm your choice by clicking the option at the top of that box, after you select 'Poison Trap'. Does that help?

[Fela]

Am I overlooking something? I can't seem to select poison trap in preparation (just starting out as a rogue).

Are you talking about "Trap Mastery" in the "Cunning/Trapping" talent tree? I believe it's not enough to click on 'Poison Trap' when the dialogue box comes up. In addition, you have to confirm your choice by clicking the option at the top of that box, after you select 'Poison Trap'. Does that help?

I'm talking about the prepare traps dialogue that comes with trap mastery.

It offers:
Bear
Disarming
Springrazor
Pitfall
Flash bang
Bladestorm

No Poison Trap.

[Fela]

Stat distribution priority
Max CUN every time, points into DEX when CUN is full, then CON, then WILL.

You should include for the unenlightened of us that Mystical Cunning requires magic 50
I only noticed that by chance, as it's kind of unintuitive. I was expecting cunning 50 as requirement, especially as cunning is the shadow blade's spellpower stat (skilled).

[berenbelagund]

I'm talking about the prepare traps dialogue that comes with trap mastery.

It offers:
Bear
Disarming
Springrazor
Pitfall
Flash bang
Bladestorm

No Poison Trap.

Ah, right. Sorry. If you look at the page for Trap Mastery, it will tell you that "More designs may be discovered or learned from special instructors in the world. note: It is to be noted that discovery usually involves disarming traps you find in the world." That's why "Poison Gas Trap" appears on the second list on the page, but not on the first list. So if you go to the Poison Gas Trap page, it will tell you the Requirements: "Find the perfect killing device lore note in The Maze." So as a rogue you have to go to The Maze and find the lore note, and you will finally be able to make Poison Gas Trap. It even says as much on the page for The Maze: "Rogues will discover a special scroll of lore which will teach them how to make a poison gas trap."

So that's your answer: find the relevant lore in The Maze.

[Fela]

So that was the missing puzzle piece.

Unfortunately I'm playing a whitehoof rogue right now, so no Maze for me

[Pyros]

So played this last week and I figured I should share some of my experience with the run.

The first thing was, if you're a new player looking for a rogue guide, I'd highly recommend NOT playing this, as it's both tedious(takes a ton of actions to kill stuff, and most of them are just throwing knives too so it's not very fun) and requires a fair bit of knowledge of the game to work successfully. Granted it might be easier on normal but on insane at least, it was fairly challenging.

The build oscillates a lot between broken(stuff can't see you and just kinda run around doing nothing as you kill them) and weak(stuff does see you and use non weapon based talents to do damage, so you take full damage all the time with no real recourse). Especially against randbosses, until you have armor of shadows so your stealth is really high it can get really tricky and it gets bad if they have perfect strike or are casters. Stealth gear can help early if you're lucky though(I wasn't on this run).

Damage wise there's also issues, with the obvious one being poison immune mobs, even after mystical cunning, they'll just take a lot less damage than other mobs. A large amount of your damage in this build is poison stacking once you get past midgame, as throwing knives pretty much stop scaling fairly early so enemies resisting half the poisons is a pretty big annoyance. You also want to gear for nature res pen/nature damage as a result, although phys isn't bad either. I would highly recommend getting fan of knives up early with shadow dance(and getting that to rank 2 for the lower cooldown), as it's a solid way to apply a lot of poisons quickly and just does high damage overall compared to throwing a single knife. I also often made use of the shadow dance time to use expose weakness for the res pen bonus and rarely dual strike for the stun, using melee attacks isn't bad on this build because you'll still proc a knife attack most of the time with quickdraw on dual wield attacks.

A movement infusion also felt like a must, since you will absolutely run out of knives on anything remotely challenging before they die, and there's no better way to recharge knives than running around at high speed, since you still get 1 knife per movement, and can get your 10knives back in ~1.5turn(can also use it to reposition at the same time obviously, and since you're stealthed if you just run really far, enemies have a hard time tracking you down so you can generally just rest if needed too).

[Just a dood]

A movement infusion also felt like a must, since you will absolutely run out of knives on anything remotely challenging before they die, and there's no better way to recharge knives than running around at high speed, since you still get 1 knife per movement, and can get your 10knives back in ~1.5turn(can also use it to reposition at the same time obviously, and since you're stealthed if you just run really far, enemies have a hard time tracking you down so you can generally just rest if needed too).

While it is true you can do this, you can also just wait in place to recover 2 knives per turn if you don't have the infusion off cooldown or want to save it for later.

[sinso]

I just won insane with a Ghoul based at attack speed (186% endgame), and I was suffering a lot at vaults until I decided pick stealth and armor of shadows like this guide. I did not use throwing knives or traps, but two daggers and maxed phys penetration phys damage and tried to raised nature dmg and pen

Game was totally easy since then, even with 8x stealh power. High peak was a joke and final fight on of the easiest I saw ever. Just rush and hit hit hit hit hit, Elandar obliterated in 6-7 turns and Argoniel like 10.

Stealh was totally crap, but today is very strong.

[Pyros]

A movement infusion also felt like a must, since you will absolutely run out of knives on anything remotely challenging before they die, and there's no better way to recharge knives than running around at high speed, since you still get 1 knife per movement, and can get your 10knives back in ~1.5turn(can also use it to reposition at the same time obviously, and since you're stealthed if you just run really far, enemies have a hard time tracking you down so you can generally just rest if needed too).

While it is true you can do this, you can also just wait in place to recover 2 knives per turn if you don't have the infusion off cooldown or want to save it for later.

If you're already out of range/not detected sure and I did it a bunch when it was good, but if you're actively fighting a randboss or something else, you don't really want to spend a turn doing nothing and let them possibly hit you(less likely with armor of shadows but very likely early on) when you can just run away, plus you can recharge a lot more knives running around, since you get as I said all 10 in around 1round and a half, while you only get 2 if you wait a turn, 4 if you wait 2. But yeah if you're not being actively attacked there's no reason to run around.

Any of the tougher randbosses required a full reload, even using 2 fan of knives(Shalore) in the process so I used it a lot for that, wasn't going to pass 5turns in front of them instead in case they got lucky and hit me.

[berenbelagund]

If you're already out of range/not detected sure and I did it a bunch when it was good, but if you're actively fighting a randboss or something else, you don't really want to spend a turn doing nothing and let them possibly hit you(less likely with armor of shadows but very likely early on) when you can just run away, plus you can recharge a lot more knives running around, since you get as I said all 10 in around 1round and a half, while you only get 2 if you wait a turn, 4 if you wait 2. But yeah if you're not being actively attacked there's no reason to run around.

Any of the tougher randbosses required a full reload, even using 2 fan of knives(Shalore) in the process so I used it a lot for that, wasn't going to pass 5turns in front of them instead in case they got lucky and hit me.

FWIW, with build I haven't had to do that too often, because once I run out of knives, I just throw out a Poison Gas Trap (which immediately explodes), followed by a Smokescreen, then a Dart Launcher, then set up a Springrazor Trap (none of which break stealth), and if I still need more time to pass, I light up Shadow Dance and then do Dissipation Rune or Fan of Knives or Expose Weakness or Mummified Egg-sac of Ungolë. By that time, I got Throwing Knives back.

I agree, however, that occasionally one might sit there for a single turn, though they never seem to do much against me with this build, and if they do I have Rogue's Brew prepared

[Just a dood]

FWIW, with build I haven't had to do that too often, because once I run out of knives, I just throw out a Poison Gas Trap (which immediately explodes), followed by a Smokescreen, then a Dart Launcher, then set up a Springrazor Trap (none of which break stealth), and if I still need more time to pass, I light up Shadow Dance and then do Dissipation Rune or Fan of Knives or Expose Weakness or Mummified Egg-sac of Ungolë. By that time, I got Throwing Knives back.

I agree, however, that occasionally one might sit there for a single turn, though they never seem to do much against me with this build, and if they do I have Rogue's Brew prepared

I kind of prefer to have poison gas trap as a regular trap rather than primed. It's a bit more finicky to get enemies to walk on it, but the damage is better. Plus, if there are multiple enemies around, you can have a trash mob land on the trap to make sure it doesn't get disarmed.

[berenbelagund]

I kind of prefer to have poison gas trap as a regular trap rather than primed. It's a bit more finicky to get enemies to walk on it, but the damage is better. Plus, if there are multiple enemies around, you can have a trash mob land on the trap to make sure it doesn't get disarmed.

Good point. I guess I gave up on that too early, because I was having problems getting monsters to step on the trap, and after the fifth time I said, "Forget this. I'm priming this!" But I'll have to experiment a bit more.

[berenbelagund]

Im new player and I need some advices. Can you tell me whats location order for that build (last game i died 2x on poison resisted boss in Sandworm Lair), and whats order in getting skills. I focus mostly on Stealth (survi), Apply Poison, Vile Poison (to get Volatile Poison asap) and Trained Reactions (survi), after this I will get Precise Aim, Quickdraw and unlock Scoundrel on lvl 20. I dont use traps at all, maybe I will take it after lvl 30. My last game was ok but i died becouse of water and sand (newbie ). Now I'm lvl 14 and I will try to win 1st time the game (nightmare).
Should I seek some kind of items early? How should I spend my cash?

I just beat the game with this build, though not on Nightmare (character here). I followed the location order found here and here. It all worked fine.

On getting skills, I believed I maxed out these ASAP:
Technique/Throwing Knives: 5/5/5/5
Cunning/Stealth: 5/4/1/2
Cunning/Poisons: 5/2/5/5

The order of the rest didn't seem to matter, but I think I did these next:
Technique/Mobility: 1/1/2/5
Race/Halfling: 1/1/1/3
Technique/Combat training: 5/1/3/2/0/5

...and then the rest. I think the guide we're commenting on here gives you some advice on order, doesn't it?

I spent cash on best tier items when they refreshed at various character levels, with a focus on the best inscriptions for this build (typically the 'sneak' versions, that is, Dexterity-based), and some water-breathing gear I could swap in when needed.

My most important items:

• Bloodcaller (ring)
  Limmir's Amulet of the Moon (good physical crit chance, damage increase, and stun/freeze immunity)
  Mandible of Ungolmor (dagger that gave +5 to Toxic Death skill)
  Mummified Egg-sac of Ungolë (summons two strong spiders to help you; don't have to equip this!)
  Light of Revelation (helped with horrors; just swap in when needed)
  Rod of Spydric Poison (great for freezing teleporting foes in place; don't have to equip this!)
  Spider-Silk Robe of Spydrë (all around good cloth armor)

Maybe that helps?

[bishop083]

Alright, can someone help me figure out how to qualify for Mystical Cunning? I am stumped on how to get up to 50 magic. Do I just start dumping stat points into it and hold on the prodigy selection until I qualify, or do I just need to keep an eye out and pray I stumble on random items with huge buffs to Magic? The guide makes exactly ZERO mention on how to qualify for MC, and I'm not sure how I'm going to ever take it.