Insatiable Peanut Guide to Stabbing

A Mod 14 Guide for Trickster Rogues

Version 2.0

Written (with just an absurd amount of help) by:

Tennessee James (Lilia Drakon)

Foreword:
So, with the introduction of the new TR discord, and the sharing of excellent information there,
several of us decided it would be a good time to put out a definitive Executioner Build for pve. I
don't feel comfortable calling it a "Lilia Drakon" Build because so many others have had a hand
in shaping it, and to that end, thanks for it goes out to Tardli, RJC9000, Blur, Treme, Janne,
Michela, and, of course, Sharpedge.

Also, I’d like to thank the people who read through it, and gave valuable feedback, notably
Galactic, Ayasuke, Mafia, Christian, Shijima, and anyone else I might be forgetting. We have a
great Trickster Rogue community, folks, and I am proud to count myself among them.

As a group, Demoted to GWF (Blur), Tardli, and I decided to put the same basic build out three
different ways. For the TLDR write up that is geared for people who already know the class, is
nearing endgame content, and are less concerned with the details as to why this build works
and more interested in the meat of it, check out Blur's excellent write up here.

For the people who learn primarily visually, would also like to see a nice primer for mad 13, and
like to see the build and hear someone explain it as they go through it, check out Tardli's
YouTube video here. He streams, too!

This write up is geared for the folks who love detail, want to know why we made the choices we
made, and how the game mechanics work with our powers. For TRs that are getting started who
can't really jump into BIS right out of the gate, we are including options to use until you get
there, as well as explanations to help you understand how the game works with this particular
class. However, even if you are a very experienced player, there is probably something that you
can learn, here.

This Build has had a lot of community input, however, special credit is due to Tardli who has
helped all of us improve our TR ways, and the discord that brought us all together. Seriously,
check it out.


- Tennessee James (Lilia Drakon)

Mod 14 Updates:
Mod 14 focuses on a new area in Ravenloft called Bonjovia. You’ll be fighting vampires there in
an area where the real estate prices are literally living on a prayer because of all the bad
medicine there. In the wild areas there, and on the streets, you’ll have access to a number of
new items that will primarily only help you in those new areas. In that case, we’ll include the
equipment in the various equipment sections under a “best in bonjovia” section. In addition, for
this mod, we have some nice changes to Shadows of Demise and an increase to our Armor Pen
requirements. I highly recommend rereading these sections so you don’t give TRs a bad name.
We made changes throughout and we’re putting the changes in blue to make them easier to
scan for. New sections will be titled in blue. We weren’t born to follow, and the knowledge of
these changes will help you have a nice day when the new mod drops! As always, thank you to
all the people above for their help, again, and for all the rest of the TR community for keeping
the faith. Have a nice day!

Note: Please, please, if you have a question, check here first. I’m not talking about being
confused about how something works. I’ll be there for you for that. But, if I have to
answer again which artifact set is best, or if someone should gear their unsummoned
companions, or if they should put black ice Enchantments in their defense slots for
assassin’s covenant, or which legendary mount you should get first, you are gonna need
something for the pain, because I’m gonna lay hands on you till we ain’t strangers
anymore. It’s in there folks, and we have a table of contents.

A Note on Republishing:
If you intend to publish this on your free website or guild website, please feel free to copy this
link.

However, if you have a website where you are selling stuff or charge a fee to see material, ask
me on the TR Discord which can be found here, or email me directly at liliadrakon@gmail.com .
Please include the site you wish to upload it to as well. I’m not making any money here, and
even if I did, I’d have to be split 15 different ways, because, well, I had to make a lot of promises
for help writing this and $5 wasn’t going to cover it… So, if someone else is gonna make money
off of our work, I want to know.
 Table of Contents
Race

Ability Stats


Feats

Offensive Stats and Defensive Stat Guidelines

Companions

Mounts

Artifact Sets

Artifacts

Weapon Sets

Rings

Equipment

Reinforcement Kits

Consumables

Weapon Enchantments

Armor Enchantments

Regular Enchantments

Boons

Powers

Loadouts and Rotations

Helpful Links

Final Thoughts
Mechanics Primer:

We are gonna jump into a little math right away, but don't freak out (yet). We need to get a basic
understanding, in order to see how changing options, like strength, and power, and critical
severity affects our overall damage. You don't have to understand it all before moving on,
because we'll revisit this equation several times. As we go through the build, the numbers, and
the reasoning behind the choices we make, will start to make more sense.

If you love this, and want to delve more deeply into the mathematics, Janne’s site is truly
amazing. Everyone who has an interest in how this game works should check it out. What I am
putting here is a general overview. Her site is the real deal. Are you ready? I didn't think so.

The basic total damage equation is this:

Damage= {class base damage + weapon damage} * skill modifier * feat
buffs * ability modifier * power modifier * debuff modifier * (critical hit
modifier+combat advantage modifier) * companion modifier * weapon
enchant


Class base damage: This is a number assigned to each class that allows for a small amount of
damage, even if are drunk, naked, weaponless, and wildly optimistic. For TRs, that number is
86.6547857. This is a ridiculous number, but there you go.


Weapon Damage: This is self explanatory. Generally, for our purposes in this equation, we use
the average of the damage range. Most people are using either the Titansteel, shadewalker, or
aboleth set right now. Since they all have the same damage range, they have the same average
of 2056. In testing, this range of damage is why we like using the test weapons that only hit for
one value of damage, rather than a number within a range of values.


Skill Modifier: Each attack we make has a modifier. That’s how they make one attack more
powerful than another. There is a base modifier, and then a further modifier for what rank we
have in that power. A list of our powers and their modifier, compiled by Sharpedge (Thank You,
Sharp!), can be found here.

Feat Buffs: Um, this is the modifier from feats... the only tricky thing about this, is that the feat
Damage bonuses are all multiplied together to get this number. So, for example, if we have
Deathknell (+25%) and last moments (+25%) up at the same time, the Modifier is not
25+25=50%, it's 25*25 or 1.25*1.25= 1.5625 or 56.25%


Ability Modifier: For TRs, this is our strength Modifier. So, each point above 10 gives us 1%
here.

Power Modifier: This is the Damage we get from our power stat. I’m simplifying to a certain
extent, here, but basically, about every 400 points you have in power, you get 1% damage. This
mechanic is one of the most misunderstood. Yes, you do get 1% damage for every 400 points.
So, for example, if you have 4000 power, the Modifier here is 10%.

The confusion happens when you add an additional 2000 power. People tend to think that their
damage should go up 5%. Makes sense, right? 400:1 ratio, adding 2000 should equal 5%
more damage. But it doesn’t. How come? Well, the problem is they are looking for a relative
increase of 5% from their already increased power of 4000. And the 400:1 ratio doesn’t take
your relative starting power into account.

Let’s walk through it. Adding 2000 power to our already 4000 power takes our Modifier from
10% to 15%. So, let’s say everything else in our damage equation, besides the power Modifier,
equals 100 damage.

With 4000 power, the Modifier was 10%, and we did 100*1.10= 110 Damage.
With 6000 power, the Modifier is 15%, and we do 100*1.15= 115 Damage.
So the actual damage increase is 115/110= 1.0455 or 4.55% more damage.

Less than 5%. And, the higher your power is, the less of an effect adding that 2000 power will
have on your relative damage increase. At 30,000 power, adding 2000 more gives you 2.86%
more damage. At 100,000, it only gives you a 1.43% increase in damage.

If you have questions regarding how much additional damage adding x amount of power to your
character will give, go to this page on Janne’s site.

Debuff Modifier: This is the extra Damage we do based on the debuffs applied to the target of
our attack. Think of this as a way to increase the damage an enemy takes by weakening them
rather than increasing our damage through making us more powerful. How much more damage
an enemy takes from, say a 10% debuff, depends more on the other debuffs being applied to
the target at the same time.

For example, if the target has no debuffs at all, and you apply a 10% debuff, that will give you
nearly 10% more damage against that target. If the target has 100% in debuffs applied to it, that
same 10% will give you a 4% increase in damage. At 200%, a 10% debuff will only provide 2%
more damage. For more information and a list of all the debuffs, check out Janne’s and
Michela’s information here.

Critical Severity/Combat Advantage: Critical Severity is what determines how much bonus
damage you do when you score a critical hit in combat. Combat Advantage is what determines
how much extra damage you do when you have combat advantage. Combat advantage is
described as being granted to you under certain circumstances: being flanked, controlled in
some way, granted by a class power such as GF’s mark or our stealth, granted by a feat, or
given be a class feature such as our Infiltrators Action.

Combat Advantage and Crit Severity are both a part of the same Modifier to Damage. With this
build, we will maintain combat advantage nearly 100% of the time, so for all intents and
purposes, they equate to the same modifier.

Your Crit Severity includes all the bonuses you have from companions, boons, consumables,
racial bonuses and weapon enchantments.

Your combat advantage is found by adding 15%(base), the number of points you have in
Charisma over 10, your combat advantage stat, and any companion bonuses you might have.
If you took the “Drow Ambush Tactics” boon from the Underdark Campaign, you multiply all of
that by 1.1 (10% Bonus).

Then your total Crit Severity and Combat Advantage are added together to find the Modifier like
this:

Modifier= 1+Total Crit Severity + total Combat Advantage.

What does this mean? Well, it means that, similar to power, if you are starting with a lot of
combat advantage and Crit Severity and add an extra 5%, it isn’t going to give you 5% more
damage. This knowledge comes in handy if we are trying to figure out if, say, we are trying to
decide whether to stick with Vorpal, or switch to feytouched. Or when deciding between
consumables as to which will give us the highest damage buff. We’ll take a look at this again
later as we look at our options, but we can find the increase in damage by, say, increasing Crit
Severity 10% by doing this:

Damage increase=(1+(old Crit Sev+10%)+combat adv)/(1+old Crit Sev+combat adv)

Note: As of now, positioning behind a target to get combat advantage is not a practical way to
get it due to bugs. But, as TRs, we either have minions to give us CA, or can get CA from
Infiltrators Action or Stealth, so we don’t care.

You can get a much more in depth explanation here.

Companion Modifier: this is the Damage modifiers from all your active companions multiplied
together in a similar way to the feats. So, if you have a batiri runt (5%), a Earth archon (7%),
and a siege master (4%), it wouldn't be 5+7+4=16%, it'd be 5*7*4 or 1.05*1.07*1.04 = 1.16844
or 16.844% damage for this modifier.


Weapon enchant: This is focused on Unparalleled Feytouched, which gives a 20% modifier to
your damage.

Note: For our purposes here, I didn't add extra hits that happen after the hit. Things like the
Feytouched hits, or lightning chains, or hits from the sabo feat shadowy opportunity, are all
applied as a separate hit- sometimes subject to the same modifiers as the original hit, or some
of the modifiers but not others, or none at all.


In those cases, you would add those extra hits of damage to the ability’s damage.
Trickster Rogue Primer
The Trickster Rogue has two primary mechanics, stealth and dodge.

Stealth: The stealth mechanic does several things for us.

Firstly, it grants combat advantage, and adds 100% to your critical chance percentage. That
means any attacks made from stealth automatically Crit. Unfortunately, we can’t afford to rely
on that mechanic, alone, to give us all the Critical chance we need, because a significant portion
of our damage is dealt outside of stealth. So, we still gotta build up that Crit chance. Sorry y’all.

Secondly, it makes enemies not be able target you. This, however, is somewhat buggy.
Occasionally, enemies can target you anyway, and you can get hit by AOEs, so it isn’t as
reliable a defensive measure as we’d like. However, most of the time it can be used in this way.

Thirdly, it procs a number of damage increasing feats in several Feat trees. It also procs other
stat increasing feats, as well. Often, these feats stack, and this is primarily what we use stealth
for in PVE. You will find yourself popping in stealth and back out again almost immediately.

Stealth recharges at a rate of about 10% per second. If you take damage while it is charging, it
will knock chunks off your stealth bar, and give you a 2 second delay before it starts charging up
again. Using an encounter from stealth will use up the stealth (with a few exceptions), and
using an at-will from stealth will take 15% of the stealth away each hit. The Recovery stat
does not affect the stealth recharge rate unless you are running the twilight adept heroic
feat, which isn’t used in this build because, honestly, we have better feats to choose
from.

Dodge: Our dodge mechanic gives us about a 2 second immunity from damage. However, in
combat, it is generally not good for our DPS to dodge roll away from combat as we then have to
spend time running back to melee range. The better option is to dodge towards the enemy.
You retain your immunity regardless of positioning, so by dodging towards the enemy, you will
sort of roll in place, pop up, and can immediately continue stabbing.

Please note that the dodge mechanic can be a bit buggy with powers. If you pop a power, and
dodge immediately, it may work fine and you dodge out of the animation, or it may make the
power go on cool down without actually proccing the power.
What This Build Is
Before we get started on the specifics of this particular build, I think it is important to describe
exactly what this build is designed to do.

This is primarily a boss melter. It can, with the right rotation, also be effective against mobs.
But, what it excels at, is dealing a bunch of damage to single targets with or without adds. That
is where the strength of the executioner feat tree lies. The Executioners’ pinnacle feat is one
called Shadows of Demise which applies a damage over time, takes ALL the damage you deal
over 6 seconds, and 75% of that damage as an additional hit.

However, when hitting groups of enemies, this extra hit is only applied to one enemy. That
means we have to work a little harder, as an executioner, to be as efficient against mobs as
other classes. Personally, I like to run a Saboteur build against mobs and swap back to this
build against bosses. Others prefer to run executioner against mobs and bosses, and that is
just as effective if played correctly, and that is where our focus is with this guide.

Note: Scoundrel is also effective against mobs. Whisperknives, too, probably. Okay, mobs die
really fast. It’s not hard to kill mobs. Everyone can kill mobs. Even that one guy in your guild
who is awful kills mobs. It’s the bosses that set the true stabbers above the treecutters.
Race
Each different race has its own racial bonus that comes along with it. Although some do give a
small boost, mostly these bonuses are inconsequential. However, these are the three races
that give TRs the best racial bonuses: Metallic Dragonborn, Half-Orc, and Human.

Metallic Dragonborn/Dragonborn: +2 points to any two ability stats (pick Strength and
Charisma), +3% Critical Strike, +3% Power, and +3% Hit Points.

Though all of the bonuses work off of buffed stats, regular Dragonborn isn’t the best pick. Power
is something that we get in abundance at endgame and Crit is pretty easy to stack all we need.
It is also not the worst pick, either.

What makes Metallic Dragonborn actually nice, is the extra Hit Points, which have a nice
synergy with the Paladin power Aura of Courage. Most people don’t pick Metallic Dragonborn
because it’s just so darn expensive and they are just so darn ugly, but to each their own.

Note: If you start out as another race, and then change to dragonborn (Metallic or otherwise)
there is a bug where you do not get the bonus to critical strike. FYI.

Half-Orc: +2 points to Dexterity and +2 points to Strength or Constitution (pick Strength) and
+5% to Crit Severity.

Human: +2 points to any ability stat (pick Strength), +3% Defense, +3 additional Heroic Feat
points. The defense is useless, but this is what I pick, but, like I said, the difference isn’t much at
all.
Ability Stats

For TRs, our primary ability stat is strength and secondary Abilities are Dexterity, and Charisma.

Strength: for every point we have above 10, we get 1% added to the Modifier to our Damage
as outlined above.

Dexterity: for every point in Dexterity above 10, we get 1% added to our critical strike %, and
1% added to our deflect %.

Charisma: for every point in Charisma above 10, we get 1% added to deflect, and 1% added to
our Combat Advantage modifier.


Source

The best roll for us, as pointed out by my crude excellently drawn arrow, is 16 in Strength, 16 in
Dexterity, and 12 in Charisma. As you level up from 1-70, you will have 5 opportunities to put an
extra point into 2 abilities. If you are just starting out, pick Strength and Dexterity. Strength
gives a damage bonus and each point in Dexterity gives you another 1% to your critical strike.

As you gear up towards endgame, you will find that you don’t really need those 5 points in
dexterity to beef up your critical strike, anymore. At that point, you will want to swap the
Dexterity for Charisma to maximize the damage from Crit Severity. I would probably do this
once you get your critical strike to about 95% chance.
Paragon Path

Trickster Rogues’ two Paragon Paths are Whisperknife and Master Infiltrator. Unfortunately,
until the TRs get their promised rework *cough* never *cough*, the Whisperknife path simply
can’t compete with the damage Master Infiltrator powers and feats grant them. Accordingly, this
build follows the Master Infiltrator path.

Feats

Heroic Feats

(Human)

Action Advantage: (5 points): This feat increases your action point gain, and that is very
important for this build. Take 5 points here.
Weapon Mastery: (1 or 3 points): This feat increases your critical chance by 1% per point. We
need Crit, so this is a good choice. Take one point here if you are not human. If you are half
orc, you’ll get the Crit you don’t get here back with your increased dexterity. If you are
dragonborn, you can still get your Crit other ways. Not a huge loss.

Toughness: (3 points): This feat actually increases your maximum hit points by 9.89%, because
it includes itself when figuring out its bonus. All credit to @sharpedge for that information. This
really nice thing about this feat is that it takes your final HP amount, after everything has been
added, and multiplies it by 1.0989. That means it is a multiplicative buff for your hitpoints. This
is not only handy for increasing your actual hitpoints in low and mid game levels, but in
endgame content, the paladin power Aura of Courage gives us an extra hit for 1% of our hit
points for each hit we make. It amounts to at least 20% of our overall damage. Bottom line, it is
good for beginners and endgamers.

Swift Footwork: (0 points): This feat increases your stamina gain by a small amount, and is
pretty useless in PVE content. Furthermore, we have several boons that give us stats based on
how much stamina we have missing. This feat works against us there. Besides, we have better
places to put our points.

Battlewise: (0 points): This reduces your threat and is practically useless as we already
generate less threat than anything. The only time we tend to draw agro is if you are alone, and
your companion dies. But, at that point, being the only breathing thing around, you’ll draw agro
regardless of how little threat you have. Don’t put points here. Putting points here is an
automatic dismissal and demotion to GWF.

Cunning Ambusher: (3 points): This feat gives you 6% more damage for 6 seconds after you
leave stealth. This feat is great for a couple of reasons. First, it is a flat % damage increase.
That means it takes all your damage % increase feats and is applied multiplicatively with them
before being applied to your overall damage. Secondly, this feat stacks with itself. In other
words, if we go in and out of stealth in less than 6 seconds, it will apply an additional 6%
damage increase. This is a great feat to have.

Endless Assault: (3 points): This feat gives us 6% more damage to our encounter powers.
Most of our damage comes from encounters, so this is a must.

Twilight Adept: (0 points): This feat restores a small percentage of your stealth when you
dodge roll. It’s not the most useless feat we have, but, our limited points are probably better
placed elsewhere.

Lucky Skirmisher: (0 points): Deflect, as we will point out later, is the most efficient defensive
stat we have to put points into. But, we just don’t have the points to spare for this.
Scoundrel Training: (2 or 3 points): Your at-wills deal 6% (or 9%) more damage to foes not
targeting you. If you are human, put three points here. If not, put two points so you have three
points to put in the next feat.

Disciple of Strength: (3 points): This feat increases the percentage of damage buff the
strength ability stat gives you by multiplying the percentage by 6%. So, the devs originally
probably meant this feat to add to your ability stat (strength) modifier. In actuality, it multiplies it
by 6%. The importing thing about this, if you’ll think back to your algebra (sorry y’all), is that
when you are dealing with multiplication, it doesn’t matter the order of those things getting
multiplied, in an equation. So, in effect, disciple of strength gives a 6% flat damage buff.
Always take 3 points in this.

Improved Cunning Sneak: (0 points): With 5 points here, your stealth will last about 1 second
longer. Compared to the other top tier heroic feats, this one is not nearly as good-at least for
PVE.

Executioner Feats

(Most Common Configuration)

Arterial Cut: (0 or 5 points) This feat increases your Crit Severity by 15% while in stealth.
There is always a debate between this feat and Grim Pleasure. And, to be honest, both sides
are correct. Arterial Cut, at this point, is better for endgame content with buff groups and close
to BIS gear. Take this, if that is where you are in the game.

The reason for this is because the power provided by grim pleasure becomes less and less
effective at increasing your damage as your power gets buffed uber high with the various power
sharing abilities in a buff group, on top of the ways we buff our own power. Add to this, the fact
that the Feytouched Enchantment and not Vorpal is now the BIS Enchantment to have, reducing
our overall Crit Severity and thus increasing the effectiveness of the Crit Severity we get from
arterial cut significantly.
Grim Pleasure: (0 or 5 points) This feat increases you power by 5% of your BASE power for 4
seconds every time you make a critical hit. It procs after the first hit, so don’t lead with Lashing
Blade right out of the gate. It WILL proc, however, with Impossible to Catch, which is a real
head scratcher, but there you go.

The nice thing about this feat is, with this build, you’ll be critical striking all the time, so it
basically has a close to 100% up time except for that first hit. The bad thing about it, is that it is
power. At endgame content, your power is going to skyrocket to 200,000+, making this feat,
even if you have 40k base power, give 0.83% extra damage, which is a lot less effective than
arterial cut.

That being said, if you are not at endgame content or close to BIS, yet, the 100% uptime of
Grim Pleasure makes it a better choice. Often, TRs are running Vorpal until late in the game as
it is an effective, affordable option. If you are, then probably Grim Pleasure is your best option.
For more details on what circumstances make Grim Pleasure a good option, check out this post
that I wrote long long ago, before most of you were born, probably.

Vicious Pursuit: (0 or 5 points) This feat gives a 5% debuff to whatever you damage. This
stays up all the time, and as pointed out by Treme, it applies it’s debuff after the hit, but before
the damage is calculated.

Note: Since it is a debuff, as you start running with more powerful support groups, the
effectiveness goes down pretty severely. Once your debuffs get to ⅓ effectiveness, you are
probably better off dropping this and picking up Grim Pleasure, because GP has the advantage
of getting doubled by our power multiplying dailies. In very powerful groups, when your power
shoots upwards of 350k and higher consistently, swap back to Vicious Pursuit.

Another Note: I hate with these first three feats, there isn’t just one BIS option. It’s pretty
situational. But, to ease your tortured soul, we are talking about fractions of a percent difference
in damage, between them. So, don’t sweat it too much.

Devastating Shroud: (0 points) This feat increases critical strike % and Crit Severity when you
use shocking execution. In PVE, there aren’t many reasons to every run Shocking Execution.
We’ll get into that in the powers section. But, unless you are trying that very specific use for SE,
don’t take this feat.

Dying Breath: (0 or 5 points) This feat gives you +25% Crit Severity and movement speed,
whenever an enemy dies nearby, for 10 seconds. It will refresh whenever something else dies.
This feat is very useful for bosses with minion. The minions die, and give you a good boost for
the boss. However, this feat is not useful at all on bosses with no adds. So, it’s good to have,
except in that one situation. For that, it’s best to swap for another feat, probably Shadowborn.
Deathknell: (5 points) This feat gives you 25% more damage to foes below 30% health. While
it seems this feat has limited effectiveness, with the increased hit points of some of the new end
game bosses, This feat is actually useful for endgame content, and low and mid geared players,
as well.

Twisted Grin: (0 points) This feat procs similarly to Dying Breath. When a foe dies, your next
attack deals 12.5% more damage (twice that from stealth). This feat seems good at first glance,
but it will proc on the next hit of any kind that you deal, including bleed tics or smoke bomb tics.
This makes it nearly impossible to use effectively.

Last Moments: (5 points) This feat grants a 25% damage boost to enemies below 40% or 70%
if the attack comes from stealth. This is one of our best feats. Most of our big hits come from
stealth, and that extra 25% is just huge.

Exposed Weakness: (0 points) This feat gives us and additional 25% armor penetration on
attacks from stealth. While we deal our biggest hits from stealth, we deal a significant portion of
our damage outside of stealth. This means we have to keep our armor penetration above the
damage resistance of our enemies anyway, making this feat pretty useless for us, in PVE.

Shadowborn: (0 or 5 points) This feat deals an extra hit for 35% of the damage of each
encounter or daily power that hits from stealth. This sounds an awful lot better than it delivers.
First, our dailies are generally treated as buffers or debuffers- in other words, we aren’t using
them primarily for their damage dealing potential, because they generally don’t deal a lot of
damage. Second, we do a lot of our damage from encounters, but a lot of our encounter
powers are used outside of stealth. Also, if adds are present, dying breath is a much better
option for us. The only time to use this feat is in a loadout against bosses with no adds. In that
case, it will give a very modest buff. By modest, we mean, maybe 3% more damage. I wish it
were better, but, even with the increase in mod 14, it still (mostly) sucks. Personally, I don’t
know of a single TR that swaps loadouts for a boss without ads, to use this feat.

Shadows of Demise: (1 point). When you deal damage with an encounter power from stealth, it
procs this feat. Your stealth recovers 20% faster, you apply a damage over time (dot) that is
75% of the proccing hit- spread out over 5 tics, and all the damage you do for the next 6
seconds is added together and then 75% of that damage is applied as another hit. It is also
prevents your stealth regeneration from being interrupted if you take a hit.

Note: As of mod 14, SoD counts mitigated damage for determining its damage and the damage
is no longer piercing. It used to be unmitigated damage. It was also given a dot and the
percentage of damage over that 6 second period used to calculate it was increased by 25%
from 50% to 75%. That means that, for PVE, since we have to carry enough armor pen anyway,
we get a really nice buff. I’m not going to get into the math here, but trust me. You are going to
love it. For PvP, you all are going to have to come up with something else. The SoD dunk
builds are not going to be the same.
Note 1.5: Since the DoT is based on the strength of the proccing hit, make sure to proc it with
Lashing Blade and not that silly smokebomb and then stealth method.

Note 2: There is a lot of misconception about the stealth regeneration part of SoD. There are
three aspects to stealth mechanics: it’s regeneration, it’s depletion when taking damage, and its
regeneration after we take damage. Stealth regenerates at about 10% per second, normally. If
we take damage, it depletes our stealth, and the regeneration will be delayed by 2 seconds.
SoD eliminates the 2 second delay after we take a hit.

So, if we are at 50%, in one second we go to 60%. If we then take a hit that removes 40% of the
stealth bar, we will have 20%. Without SoD, at this point, the regeneration will freeze for about
2 seconds, and we will get our 10% only 3 seconds later. With SoD, the next second after the hit
we will regenerate 10% as usual and have 30%. So, 2 seconds later, with SoD we are 20% of
the stealth bar ahead as compared to without SoD anti-interruption part.

Scoundrel Feats:

Roll with the Punches/Bloody Brawler: (5 points) Whichever one of these feats you pick will
add 2.5% to deflect or lifesteal respectively. We’ll get into more details about what you should
aim for with your defensive stats, but for our purposes here, the lifesteal takes priority unless
you are doing well on lifesteal. In that case, take deflect.

Press the Advantage: (5 points) This feat increases your total power (including power buffs) by
10% whenever you use the power, Impossible to Catch. This buff lasts the duration of ITC. The
usefulness of this feat will be explained more when we get into how Impossible to Catch works,
but it is a very good feat to put points into.
Back Alley Tactics: (5 points) When your action points are empty, you gain 25% damage which
goes down as you regenerate your action points at a rate of 1% more damage done for each
4% of AP you are missing. This feat, also being a flat damage buff, is very effective.

Note: If you have a high AP gain, which this build does, it seems like this feat would be a bit of a
waste. However, because we almost always use our dailies the instant they are ready to go, it
doesn’t really lose much effectiveness, even with a high AP gain. It tends to average out over
time, so that, even if it takes you 5 minutes to refill the AP bar, or 5 seconds, over time, the
damage buff works out to be the same.
Offensive Stats and Defensive Stat Guidelines
Offensive Stats:

Armor Penetration: For roughly every 100 points put into arm pen, you get 1% resistance
ignored. This makes Arm Pen the most important offensive stat to build up first, because it is not
easily compensated for with other stuff, and is relatively cheap to stack at 100:1 ratio. In most of
the game, the highest defensive resistance we have to deal with in PVE, is 60%. Once you get
to Chult, you’ll need it to 80%. Once you are running Tomb of the Nine Gods, you’ll need 85%.
Once you get to Bonjovia in mod 14, you’ll need it to 100%. Most people tend to run 85% for
everything, once you get to TONG, because it’s easier to run a bit more than you need in other
content than to try to swap out loadouts all the time. However, in mod 14, there is enough mod
specific equipment to use there, that having an extra loadout is probably the way to go.

Critical Strike: For every 400 points put into Crit, you get 1% increased chance to Crit when
you attack. At endgame, you’ll want to be as close to 95% as you can get. We have several
boons available that will pop on and off in combat that can get you the rest of the way. Also,
since most of our big encounter hits will come from stealth, it probably isn’t really necessary to
be at 100% crit chance all the time.

For new and mid geared players, I prefer to recommend a ratio of Power to Crit of 2:1 with
bondings proc, until you start getting close. Then you’ll find the ratio of power to Crit getting to
be 3 to 1, or higher. That’s okay.

Power: For every 400 points in this stat, the power modifier for damage goes up 1%. For
exactly how that works, take a look at the mechanics primer section above and read about
power. As for what we should aim for, as previously stated, while gearing up, try to keep your
power to Crit ratio about 2:1.

Once you get to endgame, however, with everything proccing, there will be a somewhat larger
gap. That’s okay. But, it is important to keep in mind that power is not the end all be all of what
determines your damage. By the time you are running T3 dungeons, the amount of powershare
you will get from other buffers in your party, plus your power self buffs, will dwarf the amount of
power you put on your character. That makes this stat not nearly as important for Trickster
Rogues as it is for other (inferior) classes.

Recovery: One of the biggest disadvantages Trickster Rogues have is the length of our
cooldowns. Recovery helps that. For every 200 points in recovery, gives 1% recharge speed,
and every 400 points gives 1% Action Point gain.
Note: This does not increase stealth recharge rate. Well, unless you have taken the twilight
adept feat. That’s probably more of a PvP thing. Recovery doesn’t directly affect stealth
recharge rate.

So, the bottom line here is that the higher your recovery is, the quicker you can use your
encounter powers and the quicker you get your dailies back. So, why don’t we say to stack this
stat as high as you can get it? Well, the answer is you do want it high when you are gearing up.
At endgame, I’d aim for about 8k-10k recovery as a general ballpark figure. Also, with
Recovery, having more of it only really helps powers with long cooldowns. So, if you are
primarily running Dazing Strike, Blade Flurry, and Wicked Reminder, it isn’t helping as much as
if you are running Smoke Bomb, Impossible to Catch, and Lashing Blade.

Graph courtesy of Janne. To find out more information, visit her site here.

However, you actually have a lot of flexibility with this stat running in endgame content, because
the kind of party that is the most effective and has classes that give us cooldown bonuses. In
addition, with all the power share, there is a mount insignia power called Artificer’s Persuasion
that gives you recovery equal to 10% of your power. If you are running 200,000 power (which is
common at that level, you are getting 20,000 recovery. That makes that last 3000 recovery you
had to scrape for seem a lot more insignificant. And, it is, at those levels.

Defensive Stats:

Defense: For every 400 points you have in defense, you get 1% damage resistance. Don’t go
out of your way to stack this. Simply speaking, it is our least efficient defensive stat to try to
stack. There are a couple of reasons why this is the case.
Firstly, we have a harder time stacking it. Our armor pieces have less compared to other
classes, and they also have less of an armor class which adds to our defense. Why should
starting with less mean we shouldn’t try to make up for that with enchantments? I’m glad you
asked.

Here is a graph prepared by Janne that compares the defensive efficiency of all of our defensive
stats in terms of what they give us on average in effective HP:

Secondly, most of the enemies we fight have a 15% resistance ignored, themselves. That
means that 15% of our resistance, you can lop right off the top. Now, starting with less starts to
be a real disadvantage to us. Now, some of the bosses in T3 dungeons have as much as a
30% resistance ignored. If you stack your damage resistance as high as 50%, this means that it
will only block 20% of the damage a boss does to you. If you have 150,000 hitpoints, any hit for
more than 187,500 will squash you flat. As you can see from the graph, we need 20,000
defense before it to be better than HP and we don’t get Aura of Courage from it.

Thirdly, if the numbers alone aren’t enough to sway you, we are not one of those barbarians with
a shield, or a walking aura of courage tin can. We don’t need that for OUR courage. We are
Trickster Rogues, we break courage. It’s time for you to start acting like one. (Drops mic)
Lifesteal: For every 400 points in lifesteal, you get 1% chance that each hit you make will heal
you for that hit’s equivalent damage plus any Life Steal Severity and incoming healing bonus
you have. This is our most useful life replenishing thing we have. While you are gearing up,
you probably want this stat to be at least 20%. This should be the first goal for your defense
when gearing up.

However, once you are nearing BIS and are hitting very powerfully, you don’t need as much.
10% should be adequate. However, if you find you are not healing enough, feel free to adjust it
to your needs.

Hit Points: Hit points isn’t our most efficient defensive stat, but it isn’t the worst, either (cough*
defense). But, having more hit points does something for us that no other defense stat can:
actually increase our damage each hit. I’ve mentioned the paladin power Aura of Courage
several times. What it does is add a hit, each hit you make, that is equal to 1% of your hit
points. So, if you are sitting on 200,000 hitpoints, you get an extra 2,000 damage each hit you
make. This is significant. Like I said before, AoC amounts to 20% or even as much as 30% of
your total damage in endgame content (T3 dungeons). Dealing damage is our primary function.
I would stack as much in hit points as I could.

Note: Bondings do NOT transfer Hit Points from your companion to you. So, don’t try to stack
HP as a defensive stat on your companion.

Deflect: For every 400 points in deflect, you get 1% chance to deflect each hit against you.
Trickster Rogues have something other classes do not with deflect: a 75% deflect severity. That
makes this stat, from a purely defensive perspective, our most efficient defensive stat to stack,
point for point. And, if it weren’t for the offensive side effects for stacking hit points, I’d be
recommending this one. However, if you have a defensive slot you are looking to fill, and
already have enough life steal, and can’t put hit points there, go for deflect.

Note: The graph above is an average, so while Deflect is clearly our best defensive stat on
average, at lower Deflect %, HP is a more reliable defensive stat, because the Deflect is only a
chance. But, since HP isn’t transferred through bondings, a good way to go is HP on your
character, and lifesteal/Deflect on your companion.
Secondary Stats

These are stats that we gain from artifacts, insignias, and boons. They also have really severe
diminishing returns above 1400 points. For more information about those diminishing returns,
check out Janne’s site here.

Combat Advantage: This is a useful one to have. With 1200-1400 points, it will put you
somewhere in the 9-10% range, which what you want. This percentage is added to your overall
Combat Advantage bonus.

Action Point Gain (Not Recovery based): This is also a useful one to “max” out. This AP gain
is multiplied with the other sources of ap gain, so the more you have the better. But, like the
rest of these, beyond 1400 is probably not worth it.
Note: If you can find you can spam Artificer’s Persuasion very often, this is not worth stacking,
since Artificers will grant you way more than if you manually stacked AP Gain.

Companion Influence: Based on companion’s base stats. It works, but adds so little in stats
that this is not worth going out of your way to stack.

Control Bonus: Control Bonus, and all other control bonuses in the game multiply versus each
other to increase an ability’s CC effect. Control Bonus is actually rather powerful in terms of
increasing the length of your CC effects... too bad it doesn’t affect the best CC in the game:
death.

Note: Adding more control will not add more damage to powers like smoke bomb. In other
words, lengthening the control duration doesn’t add more damage tics. Unfortunately. Thanks
to Treme for this bit of information.

Information is credits to our friendly neighborhood Sharpedge; information taken from here.

Control Resist: This supposedly gives extra resistance against CC effects, but nobody has
ever tested this in PvE. Besides, Impossible to Catch exists, so there is little to no point in
stacking this.

AoE Resistance: This gives extra damage resistance for AoE attacks. Note that just because a
red splat appears does not auto-qualify an attack as an AoE. The DR gained from AoE Resist is
additive to the basic damage resistance stat and is not worth going out of your way to stack.

Damage over Time Resistance: Like AoE resist, DoT resist will grant extra damage resistance
versus enemy DoT attacks. Its DR boost is additive to the basic damage resistance stat, and
similar to AoE resist, DoT resist is not worth stacking because Cleanse exists.
Incoming Healing: This stat increases the amount of healing you get from every source-
including lifesteal. That makes this better than Life Steal Severity. So, if you are choosing
between the two, this one is better.

Gold Gain: Don’t go out of your way to stack this. Just stop it Scrooge McDuck, you look
ridiculous.

What you think it looks like:

How it really works:

Companions

Important things to know about companions:

1) Your summoned companion’s stats are the only stats that matter. The other 4 active
companions stats do nothing, statwise, for you.
2) Making your companions legendary is expensive, and you are probably not going to
level them up all at once. However, when you start, begin with your summoned
companion, because of number 1 above. Your companions get a modest boost to stats
when you up them to legendary, and you want those stats to go to you.
3) Each companion you have active (including summoned) that you level up to legendary
gives you a certain percentage of the summoned companion’s stats that are transferred
to you. With one legendary, you will get 16% of the summoned companion’s stats. With
two, you get 24%. Three gives you 28%. Four gives 30%. Five gives 31%. This means
the companions you want to upgrade to legendary next, after the summoned one, are
the ones that are likely to be a part of your lineup for a long time. It also means that it
isn’t vital to upgrade all of them.
4) The legendary bonus stat transfer includes hit points. That doesn’t really change
anything, but I thought you should know because bondings do not transfer hit points.
5) Bonding Runestones are a vital part of the build. At rank 13, assuming they are placed
in offensive slots, they will add 900 power to your summoned companion and transfer
60% of that companion’s stats (not including HP) to your character. With three, this
gives you 2700 power and 180% stats transferred. If you have 4 legendary companions,
your total will be 210% of your summoned companion’s stats (30% of its HP). So, when
you are upgrading your enchantments or you finally get one of the good chult rings, it is
best to put them on your companion before you upgrade the gear on your character,
because you will get over 200% of the stats.
6) Don’t pick a companion based on the damage IT does. Those days are past us, now.
Your companion should not be doing anywhere near what you do in damage once you
get to level 70.

Note: From here on out, you may see me write BIS. That means “Best in Slot” or the best
possible option available, be it companions, enchantments, equipment, etc.
Summoned Companion:
This is the companion that runs around with you valiantly fighting (and dying) thousands of
times by your side. No, I’m not talking about the DC in your party. Or the other DC.

The Best:
Chultan Tiger: It applies a 10% debuff with its attack, if it has combat advantage, (which
shouldn’t be a problem as it has another attack that grants it), and its active bonus is a 5%
damage and speed buff for the first 25 seconds of the fight. With three offensive slots, two ring
slots and a neck slot, a debuff that can stack with other companion debuffs from other players,
this sucker is BIS for summoned companions. If you don’t have one, you should be excited
about getting it.

The Next Best Thing:

Debuff “sword” companions: Until mod 13, the best summoned companion to run with was one
of the 10% debuff companions. These would be the Sellsword, the con artist, or the rebel
mercenary. Their active bonus was lousy, but their attack applied a 10% debuff to everything
they hit, and they could stack with other people’s debuff companions. This helped the whole
party. They are still viable, if you are running one.

The Acceptable:
Air Archon: It runs into combat, so it can take advantage of power sharing that the support
classes give you, and passes it onto to you (like the other recommended summoned
companions do), it has a great active bonus, and easy to equip with 3 offensive slots. It offers
no debuff with its attack, so outside of the things I mention, it is acceptable, but nothing special.

Summoned Companion Gear:

Bonding Runestones: You will need three of these for your summoned companion. These
should be among the very first things you upgrade to BIS level, because they will transfer,
together, almost 200% of your companion’s stats to your character, and give your companion a
nice boost to their power. Which will go to you. Times 180%. They are simply one of the most
important parts of your gear.

Neck, Belt, Sword Knot, Icon, Talisman, etc:

Best Options: Equipment from Illusionist’s Gambit. The +5/4 equipment there is what you want
and all offers double offensive slots. Unfortunately, there are not many substitutes for this
companion equipment. Until you are able to acquire +5/4 versions, you could opt to use the +3
Fierce/Bold/Heroic variants on the Auction House, which only have a single offensive slot.
Fierce variants have Critical Strike and Power.
Bold variants have Critical Strike and Armor Pen.
Heroic variants have Power and Armor Pen.

Rings:

Best Option:

Gravestriker Ring (+4/+5) Both +4 and +5 offer double offensive slots, Power and Critical
Strike stats, and the +5 ring gives +1000 power if your life is above 85%. This ring is obtained
from the treasure chest/patrol quests in Omu.

Note: @greyjay1 has confirmed that this Power bonus does transfer from your companion to
you through bonding runestones, giving you the equivalent of an extra Radiant enchantment.
However, this could change at any time. FYI

Next Best:

All of these give some combination of Power, Crit, Recovery, and/or Armor Pen, with double
offensive slots.

Illusionist Gambit Rings: +4 Fierce/Bold/Heroic

Chult Hunt Rings: +5 Dinosaur/Beast Slayer
Masterwork III Rings: Bronzewood Raid, Beaded Restoration, Beaded Raid
Storm King Thunder Rings: Greater Ostorian Ring of Dod/Krig/Hellig
Adorable Rings: Ring of Adorable Bites

Note: If you are on PC, you may have access to Loyal Avenger (includes Girdle of the striker)
companion equipment, which would fall under the “next best” section. Good stats, but only one
offensive slot, and you can’t get it anywhere anymore except what you can find on the auction
house which is prohibitively expensive. If you are a closet hoarder and somehow still have
some of this equipment unbound, sell it and buy your island. Also, buy me a margarita. Or two.

Active Companions:

These make up the remaining 4 spots in your active companion setup. Note: your summoned is
also considered “active” as far as it’s bonus goes. The title here is just to distinguish these from
the summoned companions above.
The Best:

Razorwood:

This sucker is our new BIS active companion. +2.5% Crit Severity and +25% CA. It adds
something around 10% to your damage, depending on your stats. That’s just really good.
Really damn good. So, you can only get it from the lockbox. Everyone give me a key.

One thing though, if you are still running an Erinyes or Cambion, this will make them even less
effective. But, this is actually better for us than both put together. So, yeah.
Air Archon: Grants a +5% damage bonus to enemies not at full health. So, the first time your
party SW runs up and kicks it in its shin (BIS SW attack), you get a 5% damage buff for the rest
of the fight. This buff goes up .5% for each archon you have active.

Earth Archon: Grants a 6% damage bonus to enemies while YOU are at full health. This buff
goes up .5% for each active archon you have.

Since we are TRs, and we run adequate life steal, and rarely draw agro (unless everything is
going wrong), this buff stays up nearly all the time. The only exception is if you are fighting
something with a dot. A good example is the Orcus fight in TONG. If you take (and you should)
the red curse, you will be taking Damage the whole time and this buff will be less effective.

Tamed Velociraptor: Gives 1% damage buff for each tamed velociraptor in the group. If all
party members have one equipped, it is a BIS active companion. If you run with the same
group of people frequently, this should be in your lineup all the time. And all your friends. And,
all your enemies. It’s affordable, and our best option for that 5th slot. Most players that run it
don’t bother even swapping it out in solo play. Blur actually dates his velociraptor. It’s weird, but
whatever.

Siege Master: At purple level, it gives a 4% damage buff (+8% in the stronghold map)

Fire Archon: At purple level, it gives a +7% damage buff against enemies that are under 50%
life. Each other active Archon adds .5% to this bonus.

Note: You’ll have to choose if you use the Siege or Fire Archon for that last spot. I’d probably
swap out the siege master for bosses, and the fire archon for mobs. My reasoning is that the
.5% Multiple Archon bonuses from the other two Archons reduce the amount of time the enemy
needs to be below 50% health in order to be as effective as the siege master. You probably get
there on the bosses, and probably not with mobs. However, there isn’t much of a difference
between the two.

The Best (Conditionally):

Batiri Runt: At purple level, it grants a 5% damage buff verses bosses. Since loadouts include
companions, now, this becomes a great option for this build.

War Boar: At purple level, it grants a 5% damage buff against marked targets.

Note: For purposes of what the game considers as “marked targets”, anything a GF or GWF
uses which places a red X on targets is “marked”. The OP’s Bane and the SW’s Curse do not
count as marking effects. The War Boar’s Rampage Ability counts as a mark, but does not grant
Combat Advantage.
Compy Leader: This one gives a 5% damage buff in chult, and a 3% damage buff everywhere
else at purple level.

Note: If you want to swap in the conditional companions, take out the siege master or fire
archon. Of course if you are dealing with dots, swap out the earth archon. In other words, use
your judgement based on the mechanics involved.

The Barely Acceptable or If You’ve Got Nothing Else:

Repentant Dragon Cultist: At purple, it gives you a 4% damage buff to enemies who are over
50% health.

Erinyes of Belial/Cambion Magus: Each of these, at purple, adds 10% to your Crit Severity.

Why do I not put the Crit Severity companions with the best companions? Because, adding Crit
Severity does less for your damage the more Crit Severity+combat Advantage you have. For
those of you who want to work through the numbers, I am here for you.

Let’s say we are running the siege master that gives us 4% more damage.

If you look back to our Crit Severity modifier back in the mechanics section, you can figure out
that the equation to figure out what your Crit Severity+Combat Advantage needs to be (or lower)
for your Erinyes to provide more damage than 4%:
(X+1+.1)/(x+1)=1.04
X=1.5

So, your Crit Severity + Combat Advantage has to be less than 150%, which is not very often, at
end game, if you are using Arterial Cut, Lashing Blade, Dying Breath, and are using
consumables. And, that is assuming a 100% crit rate. Also, the damage % companions will
buff aura of Courage, and Crit Severity companions do not.

Not a terrible choice for mid geared characters who have a good Crit rate, but aren’t quite up to
that cs+ca, and aren’t running constantly with Paladins in endgame content.

Wild Hunt Rider: This companion gives a 5% chance each hit to grant you +10% damage for 5
seconds with a 5 second internal cooldown. It used to stack the time with no cooldown and be
just great, but does not anymore. I occasionally get people who swear by this one.

Here is the thing: On bosses- even ones with adds- you are getting this buff, on average, once
every 20 hits, and for only 5 seconds, and then you have 5 seconds to wait, and another 20 hits
to go before it procs again. Even if you are really lucky and it procs when you are doing your
first hit, its maximum effectiveness is 5%, with no guarantee it’ll be up for your big hitting
rotations. On mobs, it should proc more quickly initially and after its cooldown, but at end game
after twenty hits, there isn’t a lot of mobs left, making it less and less effective the more powerful
you get. It can be effective,however, for lower and mid geared TRs against mobs as a filler
companion, until you can get your hands on something better.

Mounts

Insignia Powers:

You get to choose 5 mounts as “active” mounts that each come with possible combination of
insignias which grant certain powers. Each mount has two or three insignia slots, which can
grant anywhere from zero (what the heck Cryptic?), to a bunch of powers that are available to
legendary mounts which have greater combination possibilities due to having two “universal”
slots which can be any insignia. To find out which powers each mount can give, or find out
which mounts can provide which powers, check out this handy tool here.

Note: Having more than one of the same Insignia Power is a bad choice because each one,
after the first, only grants 1/4th of the bonus from the original. Most of these powers come with
a two Insignia, less powerful, version. These less power insignias give more of a bonus than
doubling up on the more powerful version. Don’t double up.

The Endgame Essentials (Boss Loadout):

Artificer’s Persuasion: (2 barbed, 1 illuminated) Whenever you use an Artifact power, your
Recovery, Movement, Action Point Gain, and Stamina Gain are increased by 10% of your
Power for 15 seconds.

This Insignia Power is probably the most important power to have. As TRs, we have several
ways to seriously buff our powers- not including all the power sharing that happens at endgame.
By ourselves, we can easily reach over 200,000 power. Timed correctly, that means that we
can get 20,000 added to our recovery and action point gain. Even if that is for only 25% of the
time, it is worth it. However, there is a way to extend that time that we will get into later.

Combatant’s Maneuver: (2 regal, 1 illuminated): Whenever you control an enemy, you gain 5%
more Combat Advantage damage for 10 seconds. One of our dailies, Courage Breaker, counts
as “control” for the purpose of this insignia power, so, although a 2% damage(or less) increase
isn’t huge, it is probably our best option for bosses at BIS levels.
Note: This insignia bonus does NOT proc for mobs. Only for Courage Breaker, so if you are in
a super burn group and aren't using CB, pick something else. It also procs with Shadow Strike
for some reason. Don’t use shadow strike. Ever.

Protector’s Camaraderie: (2 regal, 1 barbed) Whenever your summoned Companion attacks,

you gain 3% of your Power and Defense for 10 seconds. This effect can stack up to 4 times.

Once your summoned companion attacks and gets all of its stacks up, it pretty much stays up
for most of the rest of the fight. That gives us 12% more power. This is good because that
power is multiplied through our various other powers and feats such as Press the Advantage.
Then it synergies well with other powers like Artificers Persuasion above.

Artificer’s Influence: (1 barbed, 1 illuminated) Whenever you use an Artifact power, your
Recovery, Movement, Action Point Gain, and Stamina Gain are increased by 5% of your Power
for 15 seconds. It’s the weaker version of Artificer’s Persuasion, and grants half as much, but it
is so worth it.

Shepherd’s Devotion: (1 regal, 1 barbed, 1 illuminated) Whenever you use a Daily power, your
teammates Defense, Deflection, and Movement are increased by 5% of your Power for 10
seconds. This affects you as well. With this build, you’ll be using dailies at a fast rate and this
gives a really nice defensive buff for you and your minion buffers.

The Next Best Thing:

Protector’s Friendship: (1 regal, 1 barbed) Whenever your summoned Companion attacks,

you gain 1% of your Power and Defense for 10 seconds. This effect can stack up to 4 times.
This is the weaker version of Protector’s Camaraderie. It will give 4% more power.

Cavalry’s Warning: (1 crescent, 1 barbed, 1 enlightened) Whenever you activate a Mount

Combat Power (you will need a legendary mount for this), you gain an increase of 10% to your
Power, Recovery, Armor Penetration, Critical Strike, Defense, Deflection, Regeneration, and Life
Steal For 15 seconds. This is another way for us to build up our power, which is good for all of
the reasons listed under protectors camaraderie above. If you do not have a legendary mount,
you’ll have to pick something else.

Gladiator’s Guile: (1 regal, 1 illuminated, 1 enlightened) When your Stamina is above 75%,
you move 15% faster. When your Stamina is below 25%, gain 15% of your Power as Stamina
Gain. This is mainly a speed bonus that you don’t really need for boss fights, especially if you
are running Shepherd’s Devotion.

Wanderer’s Fortune: (1 crescent, 1 regal, 1 illuminated) You have a 4% chance after killing a
foe to find a Refining Stone at your feet. This is nice if you are still gearing up, and need more
ways to farm refinement.
Assassin’s Covenant: (1 regal, 2 enlightened) You lose 10% of your Defense, Deflection, and
Life Steal, and gain the combination of lost stats as Power. This is only for base stats. This is
one that everyone seems to love, but doesn’t really do much for you at endgame. It will grant
something in the neighborhood of 2000 more power, which is insignificant for endgame content.
We have better choices.

Furthermore, I see a ton of people recommending black ice enchantments for defense slots
because “it helps with assassin’s covenant”. This is pure nonsense. You are talking about a
power increase in the 100-200 power range to go from a two stat defensive enchantment to
black ice. You will never notice a difference. And, in the case of radiant for Aura of Courage,
you’ll get more from the 4 Radiants in Damage, than 4 black ice enchants adding 10% of them
to your power.

Don’t pick your defense slot enchantments based on what you think Assassin’s
Covenant will do for your damage. Ever. Blur.

Insignias
Regardless of which setups you can afford, you’re still going to need the actual insignias to
place into mounts.

If you notice, some insignias have different suffixes, such as “of Leeching” or “of Aggression”.
These actually confer different statistical bonuses, one main stat and one special stat, with
varying qualities (+50/+25, +100/+50, +200/+100). Here are the statistical combos:

The main ones to use:

Prosperity: +Hit Points & +Gold, Glory, XP
Fortitude: +Hit Points & + Defense
Skill: +Critical Strike & +Combat Advantage Bonus
Aggression: +Armor Penetration & +Action Point Gain.
Mastery: +Recovery & +Control Bonus

Note: The Enlightened Insignia of Skill gives Crit & AP Gain unlike the other insignias of skill

These are secondary options:

Leeching: +Lifesteal & +Lifesteal Severity
Evasion: +Deflect & + AoE Resist
Insignia of Vigor: + Movement & +Stamina Gain

Don’t bother with these:

Courage: +Defense & + Incoming Healing
Insignia of Refuge: +Regeneration & + Control Resist
The insignia types (barbed, enlightened, regal, etc) all come with different stats available to that
type. Here are the prefixes available for each type.

Barbed: Aggression, Dominance, Evasion, Leeching, Mastery, Skill

Crescent: Courage, Evasion, Leeching, Prosperity, Skill, Vigor
Enlightened: Courage, Mastery, Prosperity, Refuge, Skill, Vigor
Illuminated: Aggression, Dominance, Leeching, Mastery, Refuge, Vigor
Regal: Aggression, Courage, Dominance, Evasion, Prosperity, Refuge

*Note: The “of Brutality”, “of Fortitude”, and of “Initiative” insignias are available in all
Insignia types.

I would suggest being smart about which insignias you use. Use your insignias to help cover the
areas which have “soft caps”, as you are limited with the amount of stats you can gain from
insignias.

The amount of insignias that you can have at one time is a maximum of 15 (5 mount slots
available with a max of 3 insignias per mount slot). Even if you happen to have enough money
to purchase all purple insignias, the most amount of “main stats” you could get from Insignias is
3000 of a main stat and 1500 of a special stat.

You could acquire all Dominance insignias, sure, but that’s only 3000 extra Power at best, since
not all Insignias will have a Dominance variety. Similar to Assassin’s Covenant, 3000 Power is a
drop in the bucket when Whirlwind of Blades, Courage Breaker, and support classes will keep
your Power stat sky high. On top of that, acquiring that many purple Dominance insignias are
ludicrously expensive, and if you can afford them, you are either BiS to begin with, or could find
more efficient uses for the AD.

Now, compare that with running Aggression Insignias. You only need enough Resistance
Ignored to counter enemy damage resistance, and a theoretical max of 3000 ArmorPen saves
you a lot of ArmorPen in areas that would better make use of stacking Power, such as your
Bonding companion.

BiS Level
If you are fully best in slot with 100% Crit outside of Stealth, enough Resistance Ignored to
counter enemy DR, and found your pocket AC DC/Aura of Courage, then you will want to run as
many Fortitude and/or Prosperity insignias as you can get away with.

These particular insignia varieties are for increasing the damage dealt by Aura of Courage,
which is a significant part of our damage.
Mount Powers:

All mounts come with a passive power that you can select. Most of them are bonuses to your
stats. The rarer the mount, the better the bonus or power. While gearing up, this is a nice way
to boost your stats in areas you are deficient. But, at endgame content, you’ll want a legendary
mount, to maximize it. Here is a link that goes through the mounts and their various powers.
(Add link if one exists)

Best in Slot:

Coastal Flail Snail/Legacy Snail: Using a daily power grants 25% of your Action Points over
10 seconds. This Power is a wonderful buff for this build, in particular, because so much in this
build relies on action point gain. But, it is great for other builds as well. I would recommend
getting the legendary snail as your first legendary mount for this reason.

Best in Slot Substitute:

Gorgon/Embellished Apparatus of Gond/Flail Snail: Using a daily power grants 15% of your
Action Points over 10 seconds. Though this is the weaker version of the AP buff of the
Legacy/Legendary Flail Snail, this is not to be overlooked. This version is far less expensive and
keeps the daily attacks rolling.

Other Reasonable (Legendary) Options:

Tenser’s Floating Disk: +4000 Recovery. This isn’t a bad choice because recovery helps us
get our encounters back more quickly, and gives action point gain. This mount comes with a
decent combat power, though it is overshadowed by the Swarm combat power that comes in
Mod 14’s Undying Lockbox.

Warpainted/Commander Tyrannosaur: +2000 Power and +2000 Armor Penetration. Once

you get to Chult, this can be a nice option to get the extra armor pen you’ll need. Plus, its
combat power is one of the more useful in several of the T3 dungeons.

The One Everyone Recommends but You Shouldn’t Prioritize:

Black Ice Warhorse/Arcane Whirlwind: +4000 Power. Honestly, this one is not the greatest
because, at endgame, the amount of power you get from the rest of your party just makes this
irrelevant. If you are shelling out the AD to get a legendary, it ought to be either really good, or
good for more than one thing. That makes this one pretty far down the list of legendary mounts
to pick up.
Note: There are plenty of other options that aren’t legendary which can give you stats. If you
are gearing up, pick one that gives you the stats you need at the time.

Mount Combat Powers:

Bat Swarm: Coming in Module 14’s lockbox, this is easily our BiS option, as it confers a 5%
damage buff for several seconds. On top of that, it even places a 5% stackable damage
increasing debuff on target, helping the slackers in your party carry their weight (in addition to
also increasing your damage). What’s there not to love?

Tenser’s Floating Disk: For 12 seconds, you gain 10% power, 10% movement speed, and +2
points to your strength, dexterity, constitution, and armor class. The animation time on this can
be long, but you can cancel it and still get the bonus with an at-will attack. This isn’t nearly as
good as the new Bat Swarm, but still an okay choice.

Warpainted/Commander Tyrannosaur: This combat power will give a 10% debuff to bosses,
or if you target a minion, it will eat them in a really entertaining way. What really makes it nice is
that you can one-shot certain things while focusing your attention onto other targets, such as the
tentacles in Nostura’s Spellplague Caverns boss fight, the shadows during the first section of
Tomb of the 9 Gods, and the Soulmonger charges during the final boss fight of Tomb of the 9
Gods.

Artifact Sets
Artifact sets are the specific combination of a waist, neck, and artifact that gives an additional
power when you have all three equipped. The artifact does not need to be your main artifact.
You have slots for 3 additional artifact slots besides your main.

Best in Slot:

The Orcus Set

Baphomet’s Infernal Talisman: +846 Power, +530 Critical Strike, +530 Deflection, recharges
4% of total Action Points every 3 seconds while in combat.

Demogorgon’s Girdle of Might: +846 Power, +530 Critical Strike, +530 Deflection, +2
Strength, +2 Constitution

Shard of Orcus’ Wand: +1000 Power, +1000 movement

Set Bonus: Gives up to a 20% damage buff depending on the difference between your HP and
the target’s HP. So, how does this work?

It takes your current HP and divides that by your max HP to get the % of your health. Then it
does that for the target. Then it subtracts one from the other, and gets the absolute value (takes
away the negative), and divides that number by 5 to get your final damage boost Modifier. So,
let’s say you are at 100% health, and Orcus is at 40%.

1(100%)-0.4(40%)= 0.6
0.6/5= 0.12 or a 12% damage buff

Why is it BIS? Well, there are a couple of reasons for that. Firstly, we stay at 100% health most
of the time. We don’t typically draw agro, and the volume of hits we perform combined with
lifesteal means we don’t stay under 100% for very long. Secondly, if you have seen a common
theme, it’s that damage% modifiers are almost always superior to any other. The stats on this
set are not ideal for us, but that is honestly irrelevant compared to the damage buff. Thirdly,
while I will readily admit that the damage modifier will never make it to 20%, it doesn’t have to
get too high to start out performing our other options.

Next best Alternative:

Go for the Stats

Company Raider Cloak: +846 Power, +530 Recovery, +530 Armor Pen, +2 Strength, +2
Intelligence

Greater Girdle of Strength: +846 Power, +530 Armor Pen, +530 Deflection, +4 Strength

Artifact: Whatever artifact gives you the stats you need.

Stats aside, the big bonus from this is +6 Strength. That gets added to your strength modifier
and gives roughly +6% damage. This is another %damage modifier, and although it doesn’t
quite hit the damage % the Orcus Set does, it does give a good affordable option to TRs who
can’t afford the Orcus set. The only downside is you don’t get the AP gain from the necklace
that you do from the other sets. But, if I were just starting out, this is the “set” I would go for until
I could get my hands on the Orcus.
The “I already have this and don’t want to fool with another until I get
my Orcus” Option:

The Lostmauth Set

Lostmauth Hoard Necklace: +846 Power, +530 Critical Strike, +530 Armor Pen, recharges 4%
of total Action Points every 3 seconds while in combat.

Golden Belt of Puissance: +846 Power, +530 Critical Strike, +530 Armor Pen, +2 Strength, +2
Dexterity

Lostmauth Horn of Blasting: +1000 Power, +1000 Armor Pen

Set Bonus: Do an additional hit of Weapon Damage on a Critical Hit.

Okay, I totally get it. You saw a Hunter Ranger with this set who did really good damage. Or,
maybe, you took a look at MMOMinds and found a popular build from 2015 that said it was BIS,
and looked it up, and wow! It’s really affordable on the auction house! Wait a minute… here is
one in the ditch covered with, what looks like, tears….

“Those were the days…”

Well, this set used to be great, because those extra hits were subject to buffs and debuffs. It
was great! Those days are long gone. Now it just does an extra hit. Plus, our weapon damage
is smaller than almost every other class in the game. ACT tests show the lostmauth extra hit to
amount to about 2% of our total damage, now. And, that is with 100% crit rate. The Strength
modifier from the belt helps, but it just can’t keep up with the Orcus, and going for the stats
edges it out. Better than nothing, though, and all kidding aside, is a viable option until you can
get Orcus.
Artifacts
Since we have already tackled the artifact sets, so that is one artifact (unless you are going for
stats) down. I’m going to split the other (3) Artifacts into two sections here: Active Artifacts, and
Stat Artifacts.

Active Artifacts:
These are the Artifacts that we actually use while in combat. We have a number of good
options depending on the situation.

Note: If you have an active artifact on cooldown and it isn’t the same active artifact you have in
another loadout you want to switch to, you will have to wait for the artifact to finish cooling down
before you can swap loadouts.

Soul Sight Crystal: +1000 Power, +1000 Lifesteal, +600 Control Bonus, Grants a 50% damage
buff for 10 seconds. When you are BIS and in a good burn party, this is about the best thing to
slot against bosses. Especially if the bosses are dying really fast. Also, this is a good option of
the boss is jumping around a lot, or leaves the fight partway through.

Sigil of the Devoted: +1000 Power, +1000 Defense, +600 Incoming Healing Bonus Bonus,
Grants 100%of your action points over 15 seconds, and a heal that you will never ever notice.
This is a great artifact to use against mobs, or in longer fights with weaker parties. It helps to
keep your action points up, activates fast, you don’t have to aim it, and synergies with this Build
well. With this artifact going, you will find yourself doing or more dailies within its buff time.

Wheel of Elements: +4000 HP, +1000 Power, +600 Stamina Gain, and it drops a, um, wheel of
Elements, and you grab the fire which deals an extra hit for 30% of your damage for each hit, for
28 seconds. What makes this nice is the duration of the extra damage. What make it not nice
is if anyone else in your party is using it, and they pop theirs, you can inadvertently get one of
the other buffs and not be able to use yours until the 28 seconds is up. This one is tricky
because in a long fight, or by yourself, it can be the best thing. But, in fights where the boss
flies off, or short fights, it loses effectiveness. Probably best to use vs mobs, or in undergeared
parties vs bosses, or while soloing stuff.

Important Tip: The endgame BIS option is to have one of your support/buff minions run WoE
and give you the fire so you can get the benefit of it plus whatever other artifact you are running.
Yes, the Fire damage is counted towards the support minion’s damage, but every bit of extra
damage could be the difference between a one phase and missing it by 3% of boss HP.
Heart of the (whatever) Dragon: Stats vary and effects are unimportant. I like the Blue Dragon
because it gives Critical Strike and Recovery. Some people prefer the Black Dragon because it
gives a debuff if your actually use it, but any of them will work for our purposes here. The big
thing about these Artifacts is, *if you miss with them*, their cooldown is reduced to 15 seconds.
Now, look back up at you insignia powers list and look at Artificers Persuasion. It will give you
10% of your power as recovery, AP gain, movement, and stamina gain for 15 seconds-the same
as your cooldown for this artifact. In a good group, this will allow you to have 20,000 added to
all those stats most of your time in combat. IF you miss with it.

Note: Of the Dragon Hearts, Black Dragon is the most useful for being the only Dragon Heart
that is able to be animation canceled immediately. Every other Dragon Heart requires you to
finish the full animation, which can make life difficult when you’re racing against the clock to
burst down bosses.

Stat Artifacts:
These are Artifacts we use purely for the stats we get off them. They generally make up the last
two slots we have after the artifact set, and active artifact. However, there can be some overlap
if you go with the “stat set” or the heart of the dragon active Artifacts. Generally, you want to
pick whatever Artifacts give you stats you need. Your needs will change over time as you gear
up, and move into areas where, for example, you might need more armor penetration. When
you swap out to a different artifact, I would strongly urge you not to refine your old stat artifact
into whatever new one you pick. The reason is that your stats will constantly be changing as
the game continues on. Having these Artifacts on hand will allow you more flexibility with your
character’s stats down the road. What I list here are a few stat Artifacts that I have found useful
over time.

These first two give the most stats to us:

Horn of Valhalla: +4000 HP, +1000 Critical Strike, +600 Combat Advantage

Fragmented Key of Stars: +1000 Power, +1000 Armor Pen, +600 Critical Strike. This one is
particularly nice because it gives an extra 600 to a primary stat for us. BIS stat artifact.

Eye of the Giant: +2000 HP, +1000 Power, +500 Critical Strike, +500 Armor Pen, +500
Defense. This one gives good stats, a lot of them, and a boost to HP, too. BIS stat Artifact.

Note: Some people have been tempted to run this as an active because of the power buff, but
the power buff is up for a very short amount of time, and we have better options available.

Heart of the Blue Dragon: +1000 Critical Strike, +1000 Recovery, +600 Combat Advantage

Heart of the Black Dragon: +1000 Recovery, +1000 Armor Pen, +600 Action Point Gain
Thayan Book of the Dead: +1000 Critical Strike, +1000 Armor Pen, +600 Action Point Gain

Black Ice Beholder: +1000 Recovery, +1000 Armor Pen, +600 Combat Advantage

Lantern of Revelation: +1000 Critical Strike, +1000 Armor Pen, +600 Combat Advantage

Tiamat’s Orb of Majesty: +500 Power, +500 Recovery, +500 Critical Strike, +500 Armor Pen,
+600 Action Point Gain

Symbol of Air: +1000 Power, +1000 Recovery, +600 Movement

Sigil of the Controller: +1000 Power, +1000 Critical Strike, +600 Control Resist
Weapon Sets

For getting to Level 70:

Ensorcelled Mulhorand Dagger

Ensorcelled Mulhorand Parrying Blade

These weapons come from lock boxes. So you’ll have to buy them off the auction house.
Honestly, these are not absolutely necessary for the trip to 70. Once you reach 70, you can get
the Chultan Wootz weapons, which are better at green than these. But, if you need a
recommendation for 1-70, I guess these would be it.

Once you get to 70:

Cost Efficient Options:

Wootz Jambiya
Wootz Sakin

These were introduced with Chult, and have the same weapon damage as the pre-mod 13 BIS
weapons. The set bonus isn’t quite as good, but these are super cheap and will help you on
your way to getting a more powerful weapon set..

Vistani Dagger
Vistani Stiletto

Introduced in Ravenloft, these weapons are obtained by finishing the introduction questline to
Ravenloft.These weapons have weapon damage on par with the BiS Mod 13 weapons, though
the set bonus is pretty bad.

Moneybags Option:

Fleshtearer
Fleshskewer

This weapon set is similar in damage to the BiS Module 13 weapons, though the set bonus is
not as strong or as reliable as the Primal weapon set. Though once an expensive option derived
from Zen packs, Module 14 allows you to buy this weapon from the Tarmalune Trade Bar store.
Each dagger costs 80 Trade Bars each (without discount events), so a full set will cost 160
Trade bars.

Note: This set is often called the Pilgrim set. It can be confusing because so many pilgrim
things have “pilgrim” in the name. And, it’s kind of a vicious name for something associated with
pilgrims...

Best in Slot:

(Exalted) Primal Omihuictli

(Exalted) Primal Itecpayo

The biggest consideration when it comes to weapons is the weapon damage. Everything else is
secondary. Since all the mod 13 weapons have the same weapon damage, we next have to
look at the set bonuses.

This set gives you a 10% damage buff if you get healed or damaged for 10% or more of your
max HP. Lifesteal and healing boons do NOT activate this bonus (as confirmed by rjc9000-
thanks!). RJC also confirmed that this damage buff has no cooldown.

What makes the Primal bonus so special is that you can activate the damage buff from
someone healing you, regardless if the heal actually restores any HP. Yes, you can be at full
health, and a DC placing Divine Glow on you will proc the buff. So as long as your buff slaves
are doing their job and periodically buffing you with Divine Glow, you can practically count your
set bonus uptime to be 24/7.

These weapons can be bought for 750 seals of the Brave for each weapon (a total of 1500
Brave seals for a mainhand and offhand) from the Seals of the Brave vendor. Seeing as Module
14 changes Brave seals to drop from any dungeon, it should not take very long to acquire a full
set of Primal weapons.

Best in Bonjovia:
These are better weapons than the exalted Primal for us, in Bonjovia, only. 5% damage
increase everywhere, but +15% at night in Bonjovia. It also gives us +15% run speed. I like the
run speed.

Other Important Weapon Stuff:

1) When upgrading artifact weapons (any weapon you can upgrade is an artifact weapons),
always upgrade the main hand first. The offhand weapon has a power that is just great-
more on that in a sec, but it is available at green level. Your main hand power needs to
be unlocked, however, so do that one first.
2) The offhand artifact weapon has a special “artifact class feature” where you can pick an
enhancement to one of your class features. The one you want is the one for Infiltrators
Action. It gives +5% damage. We’ll talk about that more later. But, pick it. Now.
3) The offhand stat increase you should pick, if you aren’t at 1400 points (see the
secondary stats section above) is the Action Point Gain. If you are already there, go with
combat advantage or another useful stat.
4) The mainhand power you should pick is the 8% increase for Duelist Flurry, unless you
are really melting stuff and primarily running sly flourish. In that case, pick the sly
flourish.
5) In mod 13, we have the introduction of a new thing called “exalting” your artifact
weapons. This is similar to vivifying the equipment from the SKT campaign: you exalt
them and get a small bonus to stats and weapon damage. Exalt your offhand first. It
takes less Ampoules (3) and nets us an increase to our weapon damage. That should
help in the grind for the mainhand which requires 5 Ampoules.
Rings
Mod 13 shakes up our BiS bling, as the damage bonuses conferred from the new rings
outweighs any stats or slots the rings have.

BIS:

Ring of the Shadowstalker (+5/+4): +543 Power, +814 Armor Pen, Your powers do 2.5% more
damage when you are 25’ or closer to your target. This is pretty great because we always need
to be in stabbing range when stabbing. New Mod 13 Ring that can be obtained from the Fane
of the Night Serpent weekly quest. Sorry folks, you get one chance per week to get this ring.

Note: The damage bonus of Shadowstalker rings will stack, but only if they are different ranks.
Best In Bonjovia:

Either:

Vistani Ring of Dark: So, you get this ring for free in the intro quest to mod 14. It comes with
the enchants, BTW. It’s stats are bad and it has a defense slot… However, that 5% damage
increase is just great. Too great to pass up. And, did I mention free? Change the enchants,
though.

OR:
Ring of the Undead Slayer +5: +5% to undead damage. You’re gonna need all you can get.
Note: This ring as of 7-24 does NOT STACK with the vistani ring. It is, however, better
than the vistani ring if you have it. I suggest we write a strongly worded letter expressing our
disappointment.

AND:

Ring of the Undead Slayer +4: +4% to undead damage. This one will stack with either the
vistani ring or the undead slayer +5 ring. So, that makes this our BIS option in Bonjovia, until (or
unless) they get around to allowing the +5% undead damage rings stack.

Next Best Thing:

Ring of Offensive Action: +556 Power, +556 Recovery, when you use a daily power, your
damage in increased 3% for 5 seconds. You’ll be using dailies a LOT with this build, so this is a
great option. It may even be BIS in combination with the Shadowstalker. It’s a new mod 13 ring
purchasable from Makos in the Lost City of Omu for Makos’ favors which you get in exchange
for giving him lore.

Ring of Brutality +5: Every thirty seconds in combat, Grants you +4000 Power for 10 seconds.
An old ring, but a good one to use. It holds up better than most and is probably 3rd or 4th on
our list in endgame BIS groups. This drops from Underdark trials, dungeons and skirmishes.
Ring of the Gravestriker +5: +543 Power, +814 Critical Strike, When your life is above 85%,
gain 1000 Power. Power isn’t the best thing for us to stack at endgame because of all the
powershare, but this ring is a solid choice. This ring is obtainable from the Omu specific treasure
maps.

Note: As I stated in the companion section, as of right now, as confirmed by @greyjay1, this
bonus works on your companion and is transferred to your Character with bondings. It could
change at anytime FYI.

Ring of Rising Precision +5: +135 Crit for 4 seconds each time you hit up to 10 stacks. This
essentially gives you 1,350 Crit with double offense slots for enchants. Not a bad choice. This
drops from Underdark trials, dungeons and skirmishes.
The Next Next Best Thing:

Chult +5 Rings: These give you good stats, double offense slots and extra damage vs certain
types of enemies. They can be handy, especially the Yuan Ti Slayers and Undead Slayers, in
Tomb of the 9 Gods.

Note: If you do run them in TONG, the +4 rings give you the damage bonus, but lack the double
offense slots. Be prepared to switch them out though, which is kind of a headache.

Masterwork III Rings:

These are made by dedicated profession people or you can buy on the auction house. They
give the same stats as the mod 13 and chult rings (and there is a power recovery one, too), but
don’t have any special bonuses. Also, these are great for companions.
Better Than Nothing:

Greater Ostorian Rings of Dod/Krig/Hellig or Underdark Rings: These don’t have the
powers or stats of the later rings, but having 2 Offense slots and being decent rings makes them
a viable option. Best Greater Ostorian rings are Dod and Krig. Of the Underdark rings, the best
ones are the +5 Rising Power and +5 Rising Precision. Of course, if you are unable to get any
of these options, any double offense slot rings with good stats will do.
Equipment

“Thank God, I’ve got these gloves. If my delicate fingers were left uncovered, who knows what
could happen…”

For those of you just starting out, the equipment you have from 1-70 doesn’t make a lick of
difference. You’ll swap things out so fast, it’s ridiculous. Just put something on if it’s better than
what you have. After you get to 70, start looking around in vendors for armor pieces with Crit
and power on them. Or armor penetration, if you need it. Thing is, go for what you need.
There are a hundred head pieces that can give you the stats you need.

For this section, you’ll see a BIS, and a next best thing. You will notice a majority of our BiS
gear comes with a % damage bonus. Like the rings, the damage % given by this gear more
than outweighs any stats. Always go for the % damage increase, regardless of Item Level.
Head:
BIS:

Banditlord Hats: You can buy these hats with seals that drop when you beat Strahd in his
castle. Besides the increase to HP (for use with Aura of Courage), the large amount of stats
gained allows us a lot of flexibility to our build. Though the set bonus is on a conditional 50% or
higher HP, we are almost always above 50% health and thus we can consider the set bonus to
be up all the time.

Compared to the other Seals of the Crown armor, the good news is that since they are hats,
they don’t cost as many seals. The bad news is that some of the bosses in that dungeon are
really tough, which makes farming for Crown Seals problematic. Pick whichever you need for
the stats.

Next Best Option:

Rex Corona: +14,693 HP, +2149 Power, +1066 Defense, and for every 5 seconds you are in
combat, you gain 100 power- this bonus quits altogether after 2 minutes. This used to be the
best thing we could get. And, it still is, until you get enough marks to buy the new mod 14 gear.

Dinohide Raid Chinibili: +16,763 HP, +977 Power, +1,465 Crit, +559 Defense, gain 100
Recovery every 5 seconds in combat for two minutes then it quits. This gives good crit (which is
harder to come by with new BIS stuff, and recovery is nice. It is part of the new Masterworks III
stuff dedicated crafters can craft. Or, you can shell out of the AD on the auction house.
Guise of the Wolf Clan: 12,624 HP, 516 Power, 1490 Defense, Gain 2000 Power while in a
party. This costs 20,000 guild marks from the Mysterious Merchant in the stronghold. Your
stronghold (or an alliance member) has to build this as a temporary structure and it only has a
chance to have this piece.

Jarl’s Gaze: +5877 HP, +2149 Power, +829 Defense, you gain 20 power for every % of
everfrost resist you have in areas with everfrost. This drops in the Assault on Svardborg trial.
Also gives cool glowing eyes…
Primal Raid Chinibili: +16073 HP, +938 Power, +1407 Crit, +543 Defense, gives you 1%
health back each time you damage your opponent for more than 15% of your max HP. Bought
with seals of the brave from the seal trader in port Nyanzaru.
Chest:
BIS (Non Bonjovia Instances):

Fured Kiuno of the Bear: +29,387, +14AC, +2006 Power, +1337 Critical Strike, +1421
Defense, melee attacks do 3% more damage. Mod 13 Chest that drops from hunts in Omu.

Note: Of all the testing rjc has done with the Fured Kino on preview, Sly Flourish, Smoke Bomb,
Lashing Blade, Dazing Strike, and Whirlwind of Blades all are correctly buffed by the Fured Kino
bonus, as seen here..
Best in Bonjovia:

Vistani Vest: This comes for free with the ring in the intro quest in Bonjovia. Okay, so I’m
gonna level with you. This thing is ugly. But, +5% damage in Bonjovia?? Worth it. But, for the
love of the TR community, in keeping with our reputation as the best looking class around,
transmute that sucker.

Next Best Thing:

Executioner’s Black Attire: +25,248 HP, 14AC, +1155 Power, +867 Crit, +867 Armor Pen,
+703 Defense, +5% more damage to enemies not facing you. With careful positioning, it can
give as much as an extra 2% damage. That doesn’t sound like much, but for a chest piece,
that’s pretty good. It can be bought at the mysterious merchant for 30,000 guild marks.
Rex Amiculum: +29,387 HP, +14 AC, +2006 Power, +1337 Crit, +1421 Defense, at the start of
combat power is increased by 1500 for 10 seconds. This Armor is especially good with mobs,
because most of those fights don’t last longer than 10 second anyway. It drops from the King of
Spines Hunt in Soshenstar River.

Arms:
BIS:

Jawripper’s Gloves: +14,693 HP, +1,290 Power, +860 Critical Strike, +1066 Defense, your
encounter powers do 3% more damage. This set gives us good stats and a flat damage boost
for our encounters. They are great! New mod 13 arms from hunts in Omu.
Next Best Thing:

Fearbringers: +14,693 HP, +860 Power, +1902 Defense, your encounters and at-will powers do
3% more damage, but your dailies do 30% less. Here’s the thing, we use approximately zero of
our dailies for the damage they do. However, 30% is a pretty huge knock considering our dailies
amount to 10%-15% of our overall damage. For this reason, they are out of the top spot for me.
New mod 13 arms from hunts in Omu.

Primal Raid Amibari: +16,073 HP, +1,407 Power, +938 Crit, +543 Defense, when you Damage
your enemy for more that 15% of your HP, you get 1% more power for 10 seconds-stacks up to
5 times. It uses base power when determining how much extra power it gives you. Bought with
Seals of the Brave from the Seals of the Brave vendor.
Boots:
BIS In Bonjovia:

Heels of Fury: These new boots from Bonjovia are just great. Most of our powers are Melee,
so we basically get a 3% damage buff that isn’t dependent on stamina or anything. Plus some
great stats for us. The downside: They drop from hunts in Bonjovia, so, here we go again (on
our own).

NOTE: As of 7-25, these boots’ damage boost does NOT STACK with the Fured Kiuno damage
boost, due to a very odd bug. This feature makes the Heels BIS in Bonjovia only, because you
should be using the Vistani vest and can circumvent this bug. IF they fix this interaction, these
become BIS everywhere, but until then:

BIS:
Enduring Boots: +13,659, +601 Power, +1,402 Recovery, +906 Defense, When your stamina
is full, +3% Damage. This is pretty darn good. Mod 13.5 boots purchasable from Makos in the
Lost City of Omu for Makos’ favors which you get in exchange for giving him lore.

Next Best Thing:

Boots of the Willed: +14,693 HP, +860 Power, +1,290 Crit, +612 Defense, your at-will powers
do 3% more damage. New mod 13 boots that drop from hunts in Omu.
Primal Raid Butisi: 16,073 HP, +938 Power, +1407 Recovery, +543 Defense, +3% Action
Points when you kill an enemy. This is great in mobs or against bosses with mobs. You can
also go with the Power/Armor Pen version of these. Bought with Seals of the Brave from the
Seals of the Brave Vendor.
Shirt:

BIS:

Upper Primal Paints: +391 Crit, +500 Defense, Your daily powers do 3% more damage.
Having a flat damage boost, even if it is for dailies, is a good thing. Plus, Crit. New mod 13 item
that can be bought from the Omuan campaign store for Omuan treasures.

Shirt of the Chultan Merchant: +358 Crit, +462 Defense, For each ally in your party get +150
Recovery. This counts yourself as an ally, (which doesn’t make a lot of sense but whatever),
and basically gives you +750 more Recovery when you are in a party. That makes this shirt a
great option. Drops from Merchant Prince’s Folly skirmish.
Next Best Thing:

Gemmed Exquisite Elemental Shirt: +190 Power, +190 Crit, +190 Armor Pen, +112 Defense.
This is a great all around set, and has been for a long time. Good stats make it a viable option
for us. Crafted from the leatherworking profession or bought on the auction house.

Pants:
None of our pants stands out as a clear BIS choice as mostly we are picking for the stats.

BIS Choices:

Gemmed Exquisite Elemental Pants: +190 Power, +190 Crit, +190 Armor Pen, +112 Defense.
Same reasons for the shirt above. Crafted from leatherworking profession, or bought on the
auction house.
Pants of the Chultan Merchant: +1,146 HP, +430 Armor Pen, +104 Defense, Gain 15 lifesteal
for each 1% of your life that is missing. This gives armor pen and, basically, 1% more lifesteal
for each 25% of health you are missing, which can be nice in a pinch. Drops from Merchant
Prince’s Folly Skirmish.

Lower Primal Paints: +1,250 HP, +469 Armor Pen, +110 Defense, Gain 25 movement for each
percent of health missing. The hit point gain on these are nice. The movement thing is useless.
New mod 13 item that can be bought from the Omuan campaign store for Omuan treasures.
Reinforcement Kits
These kits are available to make through professions or you can buy them from other people
who make them on the auction house. Some can reinforce head, arms, feet, or armor- I call
these armor reinforcement kits. Others can reinforce rings, neck, or waist- I call these jewelry
reinforcement kits. And, finally, a few that reinforce your underwear, from the Storm King’s
Thunder campaign that will help, specifically, in that campaign.

The major kits add 30 to your item level, which is only important if you need that extra push so
you can get over the minimum IL requirement for a dungeon.

My best advice is to try to plan ahead, because at a bit over 100k AD each (except for the
underwear kits), they can get expensive if you have to re-reinforce every other day. You can’t
take them off once you put them on the armor piece, and they are destroyed if you replace them
with something else.

For your armor reinforcement kits, you can put whatever stats you need. Most people put either
critical strike, or armor pen, or power kits. At a BiS level, Hit points would probably be the best
option due to the synergy between Smoke Bomb and Aura of Courage. But, whatever you can
use the most of, is what you should pick.

For your jewelry kits, put the major action point kits on all of your “jewelry” pieces on your
character. On your companion, however, the only jewelry kit that will transfer its stats to you are
the regeneration kits. But, don’t spend AD on that until you really don’t have anything to spend
AD on. It really doesn’t help a lot, even though it adds to your item level score.

The underwear kits can be bought in the Storm King Thunder store or bought on the auction
house for cheap. The greater version offers you +5% everfrost resistance. So, whoopty whoop.
You can get two of these for your underwear if it suits your fancy. A little item level boost. It
does not, however, make your underwear any more attractive.
Consumables
Though not as powerful as the past, stacking multiple consumables can be the equivalent of
having multiple high ranking enchantments, and should be considered seriously.

We are allowed to have 7 consumables (one from each category) active at the same time: a
“regular” potion, an elixir, a stronghold food, an event food, an Invoking blessing, a reusable
item, and a non food item.

Potions:
These are your everyday potions, the ones you often find on the ground after you kill something
or craft in alchemy.

Superior Flask of Potency: This is our endgame BIS option. It gives +7.5% Crit Severity, +400
Power, +400 Recovery, +400 Critical Strike, lasts for a half hour, and persists through death.

Major Flask of Potency: This gives 7.5% Crit Severity, +225 to Power, Recover, and Crit, but
disappears upon death. This is probably our next best option for endgame BIS. But, not if you
are dying a lot!

Stat Potions: These are potions that increase either deflect, defense, power, Crit, or recovery.
They are our third option. The stats you’ll want to get are either Crit or recovery, if you have
enough Crit. The other stats are either ineffectual or are unimportant. The best available are
either the Luminescent Tidespan potion (+2500 Recovery) or the Luminescent Elixir of Accuracy
(+2500 Critical Strike). The lesser versions of this are fine with the “enhanced superior” potions
being the affordable option, but these only give 1000 stat points to their respective stats. All of
these-enhanced and above- last for an hour and persist through death.

Elixirs:
Elixirs are, essentially, really strong potions. The can be purchased from the vault of piety for
ardent coins or celestial coins. They all last for an hour and persist through death.

Wild Storm Elixir: +10% Critical Severity and +300 Critical Strike. In terms of the biggest boost
to your damage at endgame, this one is it. It far outstrips the other options available to us.

Foehammer’s Favor: +10% Deflection Severity and +300 deflect. Since we have a base 75%
deflect severity, and we have the power Impossible to Catch which grants us 100% deflect, this
elixir is a really great option for survivability if you need it. You can literally tank stuff with this
on.
Elixir of Fate: +1 to all ability stats. This is another option for people just gearing up and who
don’t have a good Critical Strike % yet. It still probably doesn’t match the bonus you get from a
wild storm elixir because of the big hits from stealth, but is your next best option- but probably a
distant second- that gets worse the better geared you get.

Stronghold Food:
These give a bonus to a stat plus some hit points. They are purchasable from the Stronghold
chef from guild marks. The quality depends on the rank of the marketplace in your stronghold.
At max rank, right now, the food will give you +1000 to the stat and +5000 hit points. The best
options for most would be the highest quality Critical Strike or Recovery increasing foods that
are available to you. If you have enough Critical Strike, the Recovery food is your next best
option. If you are running the dragon heart artifact and are keeping up artificer’s persuasion
most of the time, I’d probably go with plain old power, I suppose.

Event food:
This category covers the food obtained from events like the Summer Festival.

Squash Soup: +3% Critical Strike, +5% Crit Severity. This is our best, damage increasing
event food to have at endgame BIS content.

Watermelon Sorbet: +10% more base power and recovery. This is not a bad choice,
especially for lower geared character or if you are soloing. In those situations, the difference in
damage increase between this and squash soup is probably very small.

Invocation Blessings:
You receive one of these each time you pray (invoke). Using one will grant you one of four
unique blessings available: A Crit Strike/Deflect combo, an ArmorPen/Lifesteal combo, a
Power/Defense combo, and a Recovery/Regen combo. These are not very powerful, as they
only offer +427 stat gains. But, free gains are free gains, so pick the blessing that you feel would
help your build the most. Just don’t pick the Power/Defense one.

Reusable Item:
These are items that go into your potions belt, but unlike the other consumables, they can be
reused after they come off cooldown. However, please note that in order to swap between
loadouts while these are on cooldown, they need to be in the same potion slot for the
loadouts you are swapping between. If not, you’ll be that that guy sitting at a campfire while
everyone else waits for you. Don’t be that guy.
The Chain of the 9 Scales: This is obtained from treasure maps in Mod13, and looks like a
viable option. This can be upgraded all the way to mythic with Omu campaign materials, and at
that level, it has a small chance to give 6% to Crit Severity.

Adorable Pocket Pet: When you pet it, you have a 25% chance to get 5% Crit Severity. The
other bonuses are useless. It comes from the Day of the Dungeon Master.

Tymora’s Lucky Coin: This will give +371 to a random stat. It comes from the Tymora event.

Non-Event Food Item:

The only item that falls into this category are the Winter Festival’s Scrolls of Fate. Similar to
Invoke Blessings, these offer a tiny +490 statistical increase. Don’t count on these to shore up
any major deficiencies in your stats.
Potions of Power:
This is a consumable potion that can be crafted with the Alchemy Profession or bought on the
auction house. It gives you 25% of your action points, instantly, no questions asked. In combat,
if your encounters are back and you just need that little bit of AP you are waiting for to start a full
rotation, these potions can make a difference.
Weapon Enchantments
These are special enchantments that only go on your weapons.

Feytouched: (Unparalleled) This gives you an extra hit for 11% of your weapon damage, gives
a 20% damage reduction for your enemy, and gives you a flat 20% damage buff after your first
encounter hit.

At Transcendent and Unparalleled levels, this enchantment is BIS; any lower quality loses to a
Vorpal due to having a downtime on the Feytouched buff. The extra hit can amount to as much
as 4%of your total damage at near BIS endgame content, and the 20% damage buff actually
provides a bit more to your attacks as it is multiplicative with the other damage modifiers. In
addition, the pally power Aura of Courage, which amounts to 20%-30% of our damage in
endgame content, is buffed by the 20% as well. This gives us an overall DPS boost of at least
24%. For endgame content, this is the best for us.

Note: Its buff comes only AFTER your first encounter hit in combat. That is why you lead with
smoke bomb in the rotations section. If you run up to the boss and immediately stealth Lashing
Blade, you are missing this enchantment’s damage buff.

Vorpal: (Unparalleled) This enchantment gives 55% Critical Severity to you, places a 3%
damage increasing debuff to your enemy, and a 3% reduction in your enemy’s damage.

With this build, you will probably be running about 160% Crit Severity + combat advantage.
That means, all things being equal, the Vorpal should provide you with about a 21% damage
increase, not including the debuff:

(1+1.6(cs+ca)+.55(Vorpal))/(1+1.6(ca+cs) = 1.2115 or about 21%

However, we need to dig a little deeper here.

1) If we are getting 20% of our damage from Aura of Courage, which Vorpal doesn’t buff,
then it is only giving us a boost on 80% of our damage.
2) Against single targets, our Lashing Blade amounts to at least 15% of our damage. And,
you should always be using it from stealth which gives that power a +50% crit severity
further reducing the effectiveness of Vorpal to 17.7% more damage.
3) The debuff, in good groups, is going to be somewhere around a 1% increase in damage
if you are lucky.

All this taken together means that, at unparalleled, Vorpal’s effectiveness on single targets is:

(.65*.21)+(.2*0)+(.15*.177)= .163 or 16.3% damage increase.

With the debuff, 17.3% more damage vs single targets. That is pretty significantly less than
what Feytouched provides at that level. Even if your CS+CA is only 130%, and you aren’t
running with a pally at all, the Vorpal gives 23.9, which is just under the 24% Fey would give.
But, in that case, Vorpal would probably out perform fey at trans level.

Note: The difference between a perfect Vorpal and an unparalleled Vorpal is probably only
about 2-3% damage, making a perfect Vorpal a great choice for people just gearing up. If you
are just getting underway, or even at mid geared levels, a perfect Vorpal is a great choice.
However, I wouldn’t go out of my way to upgrade it past perfect and would instead start working
on a Feytouched when you are ready.

Honorable Mentions:

Dread: Without getting into too many specifics, Dread can do pretty decently against mobs, but
the fact that it doesn’t proc on AoC, and that we have so many feats that increase crit severity
vs mobs, and the fact that it doesn’t proc on at wills, means at unparalleled it is slightly better
than Vorpal on mobs only, but can’t keep up with Feytouched. It might be close (again on mobs
only) ONLY if you are running in a party without AoC. But, it is so expensive to upgrade, and
Feytouched is all around a better choice, that I’d recommend sticking with the Fey when
upgrading one to unparalleled.
Armor Enchantments
These are special enchantments that only go in your body piece armor.

Negation: (Unparalleled) Each hit you take, you gain 4% damage resistance, 1.5% increased
healing, and 1.5% increased Recovery for 10 seconds and it can stack up to 10 times. As a
defensive enchantment, its bonus is kinda meh for us. But, that increased recovery is pretty
darn good. Some things to keep in mind:
1) The Orcus curse in TONG does NOT proc it. The Survivors Wraps does not proc Negation
either (trust the tin can mafia here), and using the Survivors Wraps would nerf your DPS
anyways...
2) You only get a bonus to recovery at Transcendent (+1%) and Unparalleled. Below this, and it
isn’t worth it for us to have.
3) Getting hit a lot is generally not a great idea for us, so don’t go out of your way to try to stack
this in combat. Or you will die.
4) Shepherd’s Devotion exists and practically auto-caps our damage resistance.

If you are not concerned with survivability with your group, this enchantment is probably BIS.

Barkshield: (Unparalleled) This enchant gets a charge every 6 seconds up to 4 charges that
will go way as you get hit. When it has 4 charges, it will absorb 112,000 damage, 3- 84,000, 2-
56,000, 1- 28,000. At Transcendent it will absorb 96,000, 72,000, 48,000, and 24,000
respectively.

What this enchantment helps do is cut down on the number of times you get one shot killed in
battle. You can absorb an awful lot of damage with this enchantment in combination with
Impossible to Catch. But, even if you aren’t running that power, it can help with mobs in T3
dungeons, and really increases our survivability.

One Caveat: In places where you have dots (damage over time), such as the green dragon in
stronghold, or The Orcus in Tomb of the 9 Gods (you better be the one that takes the curse),
this enchantment will be nearly useless. For those situations, you need something else…

Soulforged: (Perfect) When you die, you are immediately zapped back to life with 6000 Hit
Points and recover an additional 1500 HP every second for 3 seconds. This can occur every 75
seconds.

It’s your get out of jail free card! You die, you come right back. Three things to keep in mind:
1) If you die in an AoE, you’ll pop back up, and then die immediately. Hilarious, but not
ideal.
2) I put “perfect” as the level to go with because upgrading it past that gets you very very
little. At Unparalleled you get an additional 1500 hp initially, and an additional 750 hp a
second for 3 seconds (over perfect), with a 3 second cc immunity, and a whopping 5000
damage to enemies around you. It doesn’t reduce the time at all. This makes it another
affordable option, and really a pretty useful defensive enchantment- especially for TRs
who are gearing up and learning the ropes.
3) When you die, it picks you back up, but any consumables or buffs you had that don’t
survive death, are gone. FYI
Regular Enchantments
These are the Enchantments that go on your armor, equipment, weapons, jewelry, and the
jewelry on your companion. They offer different stats if you put them in your offensive or
defensive enchantment slots.

Primer:

These are your “normal” stat increasing enchantments. They offer increases to your normal
stats, but balancing these can be challenging when we consider our stat guidelines (see earlier
section waaaay towards the top). That being said, we mostly go with the multi stat
enchantments because they simply offer the most amount of stat points. Compare:

Single Stat Rank 13: +850

Dual Stat Rank 13: +510, +510
Triple Stat Rank 13: +600, +300, +300

Stat Point Totals:

Single: 850
Dual: 1020
Triple: 1200

If you add up the stat totals, you can see that the multi stat enchants give a substantially larger
amount of stats points, when compared to the single stat enchants. In fact, the rank 13 three
stat enchantments give the same amount of stats as the rank 14 two stats. What stops people
from running all triple stat enchantments is which stats are given.

Remember that some stats have a “soft cap”, where, after a certain amount of investment in a
stat, any further investments do nothing for the build.

Compare a Demonic 13 to a Brutal Rank 13:

Brutal 13: +510 Power & +510 Crit

Demonic 13: +600 ArmorPen, +300 Power, and +300 Crit

From a Demonic, you get a ton of Armor Pen, with some nice additions of Power and Crit, all
useful offensive stats. But, Armor Pen has a soft cap of 100% Resistance Ignored at endgame
content. If you run Demonics everywhere, you will overcap on Armor Pen, which wastes a ton of
stats you could be investing in other, more useful stats, such as Crit or Recovery. So,
sometimes you have to ditch the 3 stat enchantments for 2 stats, in order to get the amount of
one particular stat you need.

But, it is most statistically efficient to prioritize in this way: Once your triple stat enchants have
satisfied any soft caps, move on to double stat enchants. If you happen to meet all the statistical
requirements for our build while having slots left, you could then use the single slot enchants,
specifically Radiant Enchantments, to give yourself more Power.

Enchantment Types:

Three Stat Enchantments: These have one stat that is twice as large as the other two stats.
I’ll put the big one first when listing the stats.

Black Ice: Offense: Power, Crit, Recovery

Defense: Defense, Deflection, Life Steal

(Yes, I know it is tempting to use these in your Defensive slots for Assassin’s Covenant. Get that
thought out of your head, right now, Blur.)

Demonic: Offense: Armor Pen, Power, Crit

Defense: Hit Points, Deflection, Life Steal

Draconic: Offense: Armor Pen, Power, Recovery

Defense: Hit Points, Defense, Life Steal

Gigantic: Offense: Crit, Armor Pen, Recovery

Defense: Deflection, Hit Points, Defense

Two Stat Enchantments:

Brutal: Offense: Power, Crit

Defense: Hit Points, Defense

Ruthless: Offense: Crit, Recovery

Defense: Defense, Life Steal

Cruel: Offense: Power, Recovery

Defense: Defense, Deflect

Savage: Offense: Crit, Armor Pen

Defense: Hit Points, Life Steal
Vicious: Offense: Armor Pen, Power
Defense: Life Steal, Deflection

Wicked: Offense: Armor Pen, Recovery

Defense: Hit Points, Deflection

Single Stat Enchantments: Since these only have one stat for offense and one stat for
defense, I just list one after the other.

Azure: Crit, Defense

Dark: Armor Pen, Life Steal
Radiant: Power, Hit Points
Silvery: Recovery, Deflect

Summoned Companion Slots:

Depending on which companion gear you equip, you will need to balance your stats,
accordingly, with the Enchantments you use. Don’t forget to account for consumables when
balancing your stats.

I recommend using as many three stat enchantments as you can on your companion to
maximize the stats generated. They are all good for offensive slots depending on what you
need. If you find that you have hit the arm pen cap, but need more Crit, put in Brutals to make
up the Crit you need.

If you have companion gear with defensive slots, pick any non HP increasing defensive
enchantment, as HP does not transfer through Bonding stones. The recommended choices
would be Vicious enchantments if you are low on lifesteal, or silvery Enchantments if nothing
else.

Note: When you are upgrading your Enchantments, always make sure to upgrade the
Enchantments on your companion first as they give you a higher return on each enchantment
than the ones on your character.

Character Offensive Slots:

While you are gearing up, there is no better offensive enchantment slot for your character than
Brutal Enchantments. As with keeping with our stat guidelines of wanting to stack Power to Crit
in a 2 to 1 ratio, these help balance out that ratio.
At endgame, close to BIS level, you will want the three stat enchantments, if you can afford to
make the adjustment without overstacking Armor Pen or losing too much Crit. Favorites
include, Black Ice and Gigantic, but if you don’t need Crit and are low on recovery, go with
cruels. Even though they are a two stat, they can be useful to boost recovery.

Character Defensive Slots:

If you are running endgame T3 dungeons, you should have a Paladin minion following you
around, aggroing the mobs and bosses, spamming Aura of Courage, rubbing your shoulders,
and packing Vienna sausages and crackers for a snack whenever you need it.

In that event, run all radiants in your character defense slots. All four of them. Aura of Courage
gives you an extra hit for 1%of your max Hit Points, for each hit you make. It accounts for
between 20%-30% of our damage in a Tong run.

Now, if your tin can minion isn’t aggroing well, or if you are gearing up, or if you are running with
a non-optimal party without a tin can, you may need a little more actual defensive stats.

If the groups you run with have shepherds devotion, you could opt for savage in your defense
slots. Shepherds devotion will cover your defense and deflect and savage gives HP and
Lifesteal.

But, if you need general defensive stats, the ones I recommend is vicious or straight silveries.
Deflect, as we have described already, is our most efficient defensive stat to invest in.

Note: Let me reiterate again, do not pick a defensive enchantment because of what you think
Assassin’s Covenant will do for you. If you are running with 3 defensive slots in your
companion, and 4 on your character, and all rank 13s, and go from all single stat enchantments
to triple stat enchantments, you will boost your power from assassin’s covenant by less than 400
Power. You will never ever notice this amount of power. I don’t want to ever read about
someone recommending Black Ice Enchantments because of Assassin’s Covenant
again.

If you do, and I see it, I will submit your name to the TR community for an immediate demotion
to GWF status. I will judge you so hard. I will judge you like I judge the lady with the tiny yippy
dog at the grocery store who is too lazy to return the shopping cart to the cart area, and doesn’t
use her blinker when she gets on the road. I mean it. Blur.
The last TR I caught doing this (Blur without his armor on).

Utility Slots:
Utility slots are generally used for gaining refinement points. If you don’t need to stack special
enchantments for RP, then put Darks in your utility slots. They will give you more movement
which is really nice to have. If you are leveling up, you can put Azure’s in utility slots for the
experience gain they give.
Refinement Point Options:

Quartermaster: These Enchantments give you a chance to get a bag whenever you kill an
enemy. They are our best source of refinement points from utility slots. Here is a excellent write
up by @archeob that explains how they work in great detail. Read it here. Make sure you read
that. You will need several quartermasters to make full use of these. But, you only need more
than one when you open your bags, which you should only do during double enchantment
events.

Dragon’s Hoard: These give you a percent chance to find a refinement stone when you kill an
enemy. These is a mechanic in place that limits the frequency and number of stones you can
fine per day. Increasing the numbers of Dragon Hoard Enchantments will only make you hit
those limits more quickly.

Fey Blessing: These come from Sharandar and give you a percentage chance to find an
enchantment when you kill an enemy. The quality of enchantment is determined by the level of
enemy you kill. This only nets you single stat enchantments.

Note: If you are trying to maximize your refinement, run one utility slot of each, and the
wanderers fortune insignia power.

Overloads:

These are enchantment slots in your head and arms armor pieces which have a special effect,
but work on a time limit. Once the time runs out, the overload disappears, and it’s gone forever.
Fortunately, it is very easy to aquire overloads.

The most pertinent overloads to our setup are the Slayer overloads from the Stronghold, as they
add to our damage output. These are tailored for usage against specific enemy types, so it is
important to use the correct Slayer overloads versus the correct targets.

A primary list of which overloads work on what enemies is linked here.

A list of which overloads are Working as Intended ™and which are broken can be found here.

Different ranks of the same slayer type do not stack with each other.
Boons
Boons are not going to make or break you. They can give a little boost here or there, but very
few boons will make a big difference. That being said, you’ll notice there are very few defensive
boons that are picked. That is because at endgame BIS levels, we don’t really need them.
And, we are trying to squeeze every little bit of damage we can out of this build. To that end,
here are our best options.

Stronghold:
Offense: Power, Armor Pen
Defense: Hit Points
Utility: Whatever you want!
PVP: What the heck is PVP?

Note: We pick the power boon because it counts as our base damage and 8000 more is pretty
good. Second choice would be Crit Severity, IF IT WORKS. Up until Module 12.5, this boon has
not worked and, consequently, guilds haven’t invested in the structure that gives it. The devs
claim it is fixed, but as far as I know, it has not been confirmed. Another option for gearing up
players, is the armor pen boon. Especially in the new sections introduced in mod 13 and 14, it
can be a challenge to find enough arm pen. It isn’t BIS, but if you need it, take it. Armor pen
trumps power if you don’t have enough. This is also a good option for guilds who don’t PvP and
don’t have a way to get those pesky conqueror shards.

We choose the HP boon for the Aura of Courage bonus damage. If, like me, your guild doesn’t
have that boon, or if you are gearing up and need some extra healing, pick lifesteal.

Sharandar:
Dark Fey Hunter: +400 Power
Fey Precision: +400 Critical Strike
Feywilds Fortitude: +1600 HP
Elven Ferocity: When striking a foe, you have a chance at dealing 20,000 damage.
Elvish Fury: + 135 Power for 45 Seconds each time you kill something. Stacks 30 times

Dread Ring:

Conjurer’s Gambit: +250 Crit, +250 Movement

Evoker’s Thirst: +400 Lifesteal
Forbidden Piercing: +3% Resistance Ignored
Shadowtouched: When dealing damage, you have a chance to deal 20,000 Necrotic damage
over a few seconds.
Rampaging Madness: Gain as stack each time you do damage. At 50 stacks get +4000 Power,
lifesteal, and regeneration for 10 seconds
Icewind Dale:

Encroaching Tactics: +400 Combat Advantage

Refreshing Chill: +400 Stamina gain
Sleet Skills: +2% Critical Severity
Cool Resolve: Gain up to 2000 power depending on how much Stamina you have left
Winter’s Bounty: Chance to get +10% Action Points when killing a target.

Underdark:

Primordial Might: +400 Power and +1600 HP

Primordial Focus: +400 Critical Strike and +1600 HP
Drow Ambush Tactics: +10% Combat Advantage damage bonus
Dwarven Stamina: +5% Stamina gain
Abyssal Strikes: +10% Damage versus demons

Note: The Drow Ambush Tactics are especially good for us. Make sure you have that, even if
you don’t believe me on the rest.

Tyranny of Dragons:

Dragon’s Claws: +400 Power

Dragon’s Gaze: +400 Critical Strike
Draconic Armorbreaker: +400 Armor Penetration
Dragon’s Greed: +400 Lifesteal
Dragon’s Fury (3): +8% Critical Severity
Dragon’s Thirst (?): +4% Lifesteal

Note: If you are gearing up and need extra lifesteal for survivability, put 1 of your final points into
Thirst. That extra 4% can come in handy, but at endgame your damage will be so great that one
proc of any hit is enough to heal you up, so you don’t really need it.
Maze Engine:

Abyssal Regeneration: +400 Incoming Healing Bonus

Demonic Influence: +400 Combat Advantage bonus
Demonic Swiftness: +3% action point gain
Baphomet’s Might: When striking a foe, you have a chance at gaining +2000 Critical Strike for 6
seconds

Elemental Evil:

Wave of Force: +300 Power, +2000 HP

Heart of Stone: +4% Life Steal Severity, +2000 HP
Searing Aggression: +400 Critical Strike, +2000 HP
Wall of Wind: When taking damage, a chance to heal 24,000HP and Recovery increased by
1000 for 10 seconds.

Note: I chose Wall of Wind over Gale of Retribution because I honestly don’t really need any
more Crit, and the Recovery is nice, even though it doesn’t really proc very often. You can
choose whichever for the final boon. None of them are really that great.

Storm King’s Thunder:

Cold Hearted: +2% Life steal severity and +1000 HP

Hardy Constitution: +400 Stamina gain, +2% Everfrost Resistance
Icy Wrath: Chance when taking damage to gain +2000 bonus damage on next attack
Glacial Strength: +3200 HP and +2% Everfrost Resistance
Chill of Winter (2): When striking a foe, a chance to gain a chill stack, at 50 you deal 12,000
damage. (woopty woo)
Frozen Reflection(1): When you Deflect an attack, deal 5000 damage to your attacker

Note: We use Impossible to Catch a lot, which gives an automatic deflect. That is why I
decided to put one point in frozen reflection.

Cloaked Ascendancy:
Demoralize: When you kill an enemy, gives a chance to stun up to 5 enemies in a 25’ radius for
4 seconds
Fiery Frenzy: +2% Crit Severity, +1000 HP
Soothing Zephyr: +500 Recovery, +2000 HP
Aberrant Power: When you are damaged 11 times, deals 10,000 damage to foes

Note: As confirmed by Michela, Aura of hope gives a chance at adding 500 to your AP Gain
Stat, making this choice practically useless. That’s why we pick Demoralize. Unless you are
seriously lacking in that stat, don’t bother with AoH.

Jungles of Chult and Lost City of Omu:

Tyrant’s Terror (3): +1000 Power, +1600 HP
Shamanic Grace (1): +500 Regen, +1200 HP
Fight Not Flight (1): +500 Deflect, +800 HP
Beast’s Burden: (1):+5% damage vs Dinos, +800 HP
Soul Syphon: This has a chance to stack counters on hits, and when you kill the enemy, it does
2000 damage to nearby enemies for 1 second for each stack. You also get 1% of your max HP
back per stack. Max 10 stacks.
Lingering Curse: Chance when hitting to apply curse and if you make it to 10, and kill the
whatever, it’ll explode doing some damage and applying more curse...oh wait...everything is
dead.

Note: When you are running things in the Soshenstar River, because of all the dinosaurs, it’s
probably worth it to swap out Tyrant’s Terror for Beast’s Burden for the 15% damage boost.

Also Note: I picked one slot in the lower boons for the HP mainly and the top one doesn’t really
matter, as they are all completely useless. Pick whatever you want! Use a dart to pick. I
promise you will never ever notice a difference in your actual damage no matter what words you
see pop up on the screen. I wish they’d replace the words “lingering curse” and “soul syphon”
with “Distraction Text” and “What a Waste” or “Don’t forget your laundry” and “Your beer is
getting warm”. Something funny or useful, you know?
Powers
I’m listing all of our powers for completeness sake. Also, it will outline some of the reasons why
we don’t use most of our powers. For the purposes here, I am assuming rank 4 in each power.

Now, I am told there is a part of the game called, I believe, PVP. Legend has it that this is a
strange area where up is down and down is up and people cry all the time. This sounds just
awful to me, so I have no intention of addressing it in this build. If there is a power that is useful
there, I have no idea. This only for PVE content.

The top handful of powers we use I list first, followed by the rest. Some of these powers are so
awful that if any TR sees you running it in PVE, you may be considered demoted to GWF with
just cause. I will list these as “Automatic Demotion” powers.

Class Features:

Invisible Infiltrator: This feature refills your stealth bar when you use a daily power, and gives
you a 20% damage buff. This is simply our best class feature. Not only do we get the damage
buff, but getting our stealth back gives us a bunch of other damage buffs from our feats, and is
applied multiplicatively with all of them. It is an irreplaceable power and should always be used.

Infiltrator’s Action: This feature gives us Combat Advantage for 20 seconds whenever we use
a daily power. That is nice, but not the best thing about this feature. Our artifact weapons all
have a selection of powers that enhance different features. The one for IA gives us a 5%
damage buff whenever we come under its effects. This lasts the full 20 seconds and stacks with
multiple dailies. We will be getting a bunch of dailies off with this Build in 20 seconds making
this feature just amazing for us in endgame content, and still really good for lower geared
characters.

Skillful Infiltrator: +20% run speed, +4% Deflect , +4% Crit. This feature can be handy as you
are gearing up to give you a bit more Crit, and a nice speed boost. At endgame content the
only time you should consider using this is if you are racing another dps class to get to the mobs
first so you can do more damage. And, that’s kinda of a meh reason to run it, in the first place.
It won’t do as much for you as IA in terms of damage once you get there.

Sneak Attack: This feature increases your run speed, while stealthed, by a whopping 40%. It is
completely useless in PVE play, unless you feel like playing around with being super speedy,
just for fun.

First Strike: +75% damage for your first hit in combat. The only time this might be useful, the
enemies are so weak it doesn’t matter what you are running. Let me be clear, there is not need
for this feature to be used ever in PVE content.

Tenacious Concealment: Mod 13 made some changes to this power that improved it,
somewhat. Not enough to be useful in PVE, but, well, that’s it.

Tactics: +20% Action Point Gain. On the surface, it would seem like this would work well with
this build, but as you’ll see, we have a lot of AP gain anyway, and the damage % modifiers we
get from the other features just completely outshine this one.

Talisman of Shadows: This feature dazed foes in a 25 foot radius when you enter stealth. For
1 second. AUTOMATIC DEMOTION POWER.

Oppressive Darkness: This feature gives you an extra hit that scales with your stats while you
have combat advantage. The problems with this are as follows:

1) In order for this one to make sense for us, we need to run it with Infiltrators Action.
2) we’d have to drop II, in that case.
3) It being a piercing hit won’t make a lick of difference to us because we have to carry an
appropriate amount of armor pen, anyway.
4) Even if it just gave us an extra hit for 25% of what we did, it still wouldn’t perform as well as II.

It needs further testing, and maybe we’ll do that one day.

At-Wills:
Sly Flourish: This is our most useful at-will. It should never leave your tray. For single targets,
on the 4th hit, this at-will applies a 10% debuff to your target for 15 seconds. For mobs, it deals
more damage per second than Duelist Flurry does, unless you have time to build up full bleeds
which takes three rounds of DF. So, the target has to last nearly 20 seconds to make DF worth
it on mobs. At end game, this hardly ever happens.

Duelist Flurry: This at-will starts with two larger hits, and finishes with a bunch of little ones.
Each little hit has a chance to give a stack of bleeds to your target. You can have up to 11
bleeds going at a time and each time you do another Duelist Flurry, it resets the timer, and
modifiers for the damage. That makes this a great option for boss fights, where while you are
gearing up, Duelist Flurry can make up as much as 50% of your damage. At endgame the
bosses die much faster, and you will find your damage is less and less from DF and more from
encounter powers. However, unless your party is melting the boss in less than 20-30 seconds
(in that case, use sly flourish), I’d use this against bosses.

Cloud of Steel: This attack is, basically, a throwing dagger. It can be handy in a more utilitarian
way, but generally it is not relied on for the damage it does. The two main ways it is used is to
get a fast attack on a boss so your companion attacks faster proccing bondings sooner, and to
hit different mobs, so you pull them all together for quicker kills.

Note: If you use this to proc your bondings sooner, make sure to wait for your DC to cast AA,
otherwise, you’ll miss out on your companion getting the power buff and passing that into you.

Gloaming Cut: This attack is powerful only for when enemy hit points are low and really really
slow. Because of that, there is no reason to ever slot this in pve play. AUTOMATIC DEMOTION
POWER

Encounters:

Smoke Bomb: This power drops a strong AoE attack that has no enemy cap and dazes
everything it hits while ticking away damage. Also, if dropped from stealth, it will slow
everything, too. It also generates a ton of AP making it our best encounter power. The other
thing that makes this Power special, is that it will alter its damage, after you have dropped it, to
take advantage of power and damage buffs you receive subsequent to using it. This helps
particularly because it is one of the few powers that we can use without too much worry about
the order in which it is used in our rotation.

Also, in mod 13, it has been given an extra tic that happens immediately when you pop it
instead of it taking a second to start. This is a very modest buff for us. As of mod 13, this power
will proc weapon enchantments on the first hit only. This encounter should always be in your
bar, unless you are fighting a boss that jumps around a bunch or that has some mechanic that
can be destroyed that you need- like the final boss in Fangbreaker Island, which is a good
example of both with her ice she drops.

Note- although it dazes, it does not give you combat advantage. Go figure.

Impossible to Catch: This encounter frees you from most control effects and gives you
automatic deflect for 5 seconds. Combined with the TR’s innate 75% Deflection Severity, and
you can actually become rather tanky with this Power. In addition, if you do it from stealth, it
grants +50% damage resistance. On top of that, it generates AP, and with the scoundrel feat
Press the Advantage, it gives 10% more power that includes power from buffs and other power
multipliers. It is a fantastic power that probably should never leave your lineup in serious play.

Lashing Blade: This encounter hits for one big hit for a ton of damage. If you use this attack
from stealth (which you should always do), it attacks with an additional 50% Crit Severity making
it even stronger. It is our strongest single attack and actually has one of the highest skill
modifiers in the game. It is also fast, so it helps with burst damage while maximizing our
damage in the 6 second Shadows of Demise window. Since we now have a DoT, and it is
calculated based on the damage of the hit that procs SoD, you should always try to proc
SoD with Lashing Blade. It also generates a nice amount of AP. You should always be
running this in boss fights.

Dazing Strike: This encounter hits with the same speed as Lashing Blade, although with less
damage. It’s cooldown time is half as long as LB or SB, and if you attack from stealth, it will hit
multiple enemies in a cone with no enemy cap. It doesn’t generate good AP unless you are
hitting a bunch of things, however, so it is best used against mobs and not bosses, unless the
boss jumps around a lot. Then it is more handy than smoke bomb.

Path of the Blade: This encounter is an AoE that follows you around. It has been upped in
mod 13 to proc weapon enchants (on the first hit), and to have a 5 enemy limit (up from 3).
Unfortunately, its damage is still really low- even if you get your recovery up to stack it on itself.
It is a good AP generator, and had a use in T1 and maybe even T2 dungeons. I would not,
however, slot this power in a Tong level dungeon.

Blade Flurry: This is an AoE that whips around you and hits up to 5 enemies at a time. It has
multiple charges, does not consume a charge to use it from stealth and it can be spammed
indefinitely while under the effects of Lurkers Assault. The bad thing about it is you have to
stand there like an idiot to spam it, and it has has about a 2 second cast time. It can be useful
in non optimal parties, or parties that are optimal, but not BIS. Otherwise, the enemies don’t last
long enough after you dazing strike and smoke bomb to make taking it worthwhile.

Deft Strike: This encounter teleports you to the target, does damage, and slows them. Apart
from limited parkouring applications, it doesn’t do enough damage to justify swapping it with
another power. Not a demotable Offense to use it, but close.
Bait and Switch: This one creates a decoy of you that, as it takes damage over time, it refills
your stealth. This decoy rarely gets any agro, and the decoy has so few HP that it is worthless.
Just the worst power to use. AUTOMATIC DEMOTION POWER

Blitz: This one rolls you backward and flings a fan of blades in front of you that will hit up to 7
enemies. From stealth it’ll slow them. It has a low cooldown but is just so meh. If you are
gearing up and need something to roll you away from mobs and do damage, maybe? It has no
place in endgame content. Or mid game content.

Impact Shot: This hits something and knocks it back, has multiple charges, and got a 20%
increase to damage in mod 13. Still not a practical power in PVE content. Maybe when you are
leveling up to give yourself time to, I don’t know, blitz? Generally you want the mobs close
together, and the knock back doesn’t work on bosses, so, yeah worthless.

Shadow Strike: This one hits for a negligible amount of damage and refills your stealth bar.
Outside of, maybe, trying to stealth by a bunch of mobs, it is useless in PVE play because we
lose more in dps than that extra stealth gives us. Or, if you are leveling up and need to get your
stealth back so you can blitz under stealth and knock them back with impact shot…. if I see any
TR doing that I will name and shame. That’s just awful.

Wicked Reminder: This ability places a 7% debuff on targets, which can stack up to a
maximum of 3 times, for a total damage increasing debuff of 21%. When used from Stealth, it
places the maximum stacks of Wicked Reminder on target and hits in a small cone that can hit
as many as 5 targets. This is a decent debuff, but in endgame content, so many of our support
underlings have more efficient ways to apply more effective debuffs, that we would give up more
damage to use it than we gain from the debuff. Not terrible for low and mid geared groups, if
you need it, but generally our encounter slots are better spent with better encounters.

Shadowy Disappearance: In PvE, we have little use for this ability, apart from parkouring
around for fun.

If the rest of your minions accidentally bugs the “rocks fall” trap in Tomb of the 9 Gods, this
ability will help you unbug the trap. In the pile of rocks, there are 2 cracks, one in the middle and
one on the right side. You have to use the right one to aim Shadowy Disappearance through it.
Position yourself all the way to the right to see it and fire away. Once you make it to the
campfire, your team needs to get as close to the door as possible, and then use the game
commands to kill themselves. If done correctly, everyone should respawn at the campfire you
went through.
Yes, this is technically using a bug, but there is no fix in the works, so I don’t think many will
have qualms against using the TR Parkour ServiceTM. Make sure you charge teams 1 Ultimate
Enchanting Stone per second spent!

Here is a wonderful chart, prepared by Sharpedge, that shows the

Base AP gain from each power:

Note: Sharp got the decimal wrong for Blade Flurry. It should be 0.72, NOT 7.2. So, yeah,
not our best power.

Dailies:

Lurker’s Assault: This daily gives us a 30% increase to damage and increased stealth
regeneration for about 10 seconds. If you target an enemy with it, it’ll teleport you to it. This
daily gives us a wonderful damage boost, but while the boost is nice, you can not generate
action points through dealing damage while under its effects. This is a significant disadvantage
in more prolonged fights. However, it should be noted that AP can still be generated using a DC
Sigil, artifact neck with AP gain, snail mount power, or potion of power.

Whirlwind of Blades: This daily shoots knives out all around you in a circle and for each enemy
it hits, you get a 20% power buff with 5 target cap (100% power max). This includes power you
have from all sources and lasts about 12 seconds. In short, with all our power boosts through
bondings, and power sharing, this daily is our best daily for anywhere with mobs or adds. You
can also still generate AP while under its effects. The only time it should ever leave your bar, is
if you are fighting a boss without adds. Also, you can use dodge to animation cancel this one to
give you a bit more speed (Shepherd’s devotion).

Courage Breaker: This daily is one of the few control powers that affect bosses. It slows your
target, significantly reduces their damage (54.55%), gives you 25% more power, and lasts for 10
seconds. This is a great daily because, like WWoB, the 25% power buff counts power buffs
from all sources, so it can stack with WWoB, and you can generate action points while under its
effects. It works really well in a variety of circumstances. You can also animation cancel this
power using dodge to save on valuable time you would lose under its buff otherwise.

Bloodbath: Ever wanted to be like Nightcrawler? With this attack, you BAMF enemies, hitting
all of them in rapid succession. There are two things that make this good. 1) While you are
jumping around, you are immune to damage, sort of like a longer lasting dodge roll. It also
removes most dots on you, which is handy. 2) It causes several of our passive damage buffs
from feats to double proc, such as Invisible Infiltrator, the offhand bonus from Infiltrator’s Action,
and probably more. They will give twice their damage buffs. The problem is, while you are
flashing around, you also are immune to all the buffs your party tries to give you, making this
power very problematic in good groups. This power is good to avoid call of winter, in
Fangbreaker Island, for example.

Shocking Execution: So,this does some good piercing damage to a single target. Piercing
damage is useless in PVE because we have to carry enough armor pen, anyway. The only
imaginative use I have seen for this daily, is one that Enyo put out on her build. The useful part
of this daily is that if you use it on an enemy with less than 20% health, it refills your Action
Points, and you can use it again. This double procs all our feats that procs on dailies, and refills
our stealth. I could see someone trying this out, but, vs mobs, it has to be tricky timing, and vs
bosses, once they are down to 20%, 90% of the fight is over. So, in the end, this is our least
effective daily. If you can prove me wrong, go for it. But, right now, if I catch you using this, it’s
an AUTOMATIC DEMOTION.

Power Looping:

This is a *cough* feature we have available to use, that TRs should be aware of. It comes from
using Whirlwind of Blades and Courage Breaker together. With this particular build, you will be
able to get multiple dailies off while the other is still in effect. It basically builds your power by
using the power buffs of one daily to buff the next power buff daily before the first one wears off.
It’s not as good as the old cheese (stacking WWoB) because it doesn’t hold onto the power of
the previous daily past its normal length. But, since the latest daily uses the power of the
previous one when determining it’s buff, you kinda get a gradually increasing damage buff over
time. Here is how it works:

Let’s say, after bondings and powershare, your power is at 100,000. Your use Whirlwind of
Blades, but only hit one thing. That’s 20% more, so your power goes to 120,000 power. You
then get a Courage Breaker off which gives you 25% more power, so 120,000*1.25= 150,000.
Then the original Whirlwind wears off, so your power goes down 20,000 (the original WW buff)
to 130,000. You manage to get another Whirlwind off against the one target a few seconds
later, so 130,000*1.20=156,000. Then the original Courage Breaker wears off, so we lose
30,000 power and go to 126,000. See where I’m going here? That would be against a single
boss with no adds. And it doesn’t include ITC with Press the Advantage.

If you are able to hit 5 things each time, and use ITC, it looks like this:
Starting= 100,000.
ITC#1= 110,000
WwoB#1 (5 Targets)=220,000
ITC#1 wears off= 210,000
CB#1=262,500
WWoB#1 wears off= 152,500
ITC#2= 167,750
WWoB#2 (5 Targets)=335,500
CB#1 wears off= 283,000
ITC#2 wears off= 267,750
CB#2= 334,687.5
WWoB#2 wears off=166,937.5
ITC#3=183,631.25
WWoB#3= 367,262.5

Note: It’s not like it used to be where you could stack Whirlwinds, but, it is our best option along
those lines. It should, however, be viewed as an extra thing we can pull off, conditionally, if the
fight is a long one.
Loadouts and Rotations
This section puts this build to work. We’ll start with the loadouts and then get into the rotations,
and how it all fits together. These rotations work, ideally, with a near BIS TR, and a great
support group. In other words, don’t expect to run out there with a fresh level 70, aboleth
weapons, and do a 1 Billion SoD. Like this:

Photo courtesy of Tardli and his support harem.

We’ll do three loadouts. One for boss fights with adds. One for Boss fights without adds. And,
finally, one for mobs.

Note: With mod 13, loadouts change mounts, insignia powers, and companions, too.

Boss Loadout (with adds):

Feats: Make sure you have Dying Breath.

Companions: Chultan Tiger, Air Archon, Earth Archon, Fire Archon, Batiri Runt. If you are
running Orcus in TONG, swap out the earth Elemental for alpha compy otherwise, swap for war
boar/siege master. If you are running with the same people you always run with, or a super
group, look into seeing if they are (or are willing) to run tamed velociraptors for that 5% damage
buff. Swap the fire archon for it.
Insignia Bonuses: Use the “Essential” bonuses listed in the Mounts section.
Mount Power: Snail
Mount Combat Power: Tenser’s Disk

Powers:
Class Features: Invisible Infiltrator, Infiltrators Action
At-Wills: Sly Flourish, Duelist Flurry
Dailies: Courage Breaker/Lurker’s Assault, Whirlwind of Blades
Encounters: Smoke Bomb, Impossible to Catch, Lashing Blade

Active Artifact: Soul Sight Crystal

Rotation: Wait a sec>Sly Flourish>Smoke Bomb>stealth>ITC>WWoB>Mount combat

power>artifact>stealth>LB>SB/CB/Duelist Flurry

Rotation Explained:

Pro Tip: Check the status of your consumables before heading in to make sure they are all still
up.

1)The first thing we want to do is wait a sec. We need all the buffs we can get, and if we run off
into combat before our support has a chance to give us and our companion the power buffs we
need to maximize damage, then we are leaving damage on the table. If we want to compete,
we can’t leave any damage on the table. Watch especially for the DC AA balls to appear and fly
around your character. Once you see those beautiful balls, it’s go time. Also, if your support is
really on their game, one of them will be running the wheel of Elements. Don’t run off if they
haven’t given you their fire.

Pro tip: If there is a cutscene, and it isn’t your first time through, always skip it. Because if you
are watching a cutscene, and your support minions skip it and start casting their support spells,
you will miss out. Instead of hitting like a truck, you will hit like a soon to be demoted TR, and
everyone will laugh at you.

2) Get to the boss and hit it 4 times with our sly flourish. That puts the debuff on our boss that
lasts 15 seconds. It also gets our companion in on the attack to proc its bondings, transferring
its stats (and the powershare) to you, as well as applying its own 10% debuff. Look around for
the mobs. You’ll need that information in a second.

Important tip: If there aren’t mobs around yet, you can start dropping piñatas, at this point.
They WILL count as targets for the purposes of WWoB. However, don’t drop them too close to
the boss, as they will also become targets for Shadows of Demise with your Smoke Bomb.
3) Smoke Bomb: This is where we begin to stack our buffs. Smoke bomb also will change its
damage based on the buffs we get, making it a great power to lead off with.

4)stealth>ITC: This will kill the stealth which is okay, because if we wait to stealth for WWoB,
Infiltrators Action will simply refill our stealth from stealth, meaning it will slowly drain away until
we use ITC later, and then we won’t have the stealth for our big Lashing Blade coming up. It
also procs our Cunning Ambusher feat (+6% damage) which will stack every time we stealth.
This also gives us, thanks to press the Advantage, an extra 10% power.

5) Whirlwind: As fast as you can, get to where you can hit a multiple of enemies for WWoB to
get the power buff. Even if it is just two enemies it is worth it, however we want it for 5 if
possible. This will give you the power bonus from WW which lasts about 12 seconds. It also
procs Infiltrators Action for 20 seconds, and the offhand power (+5% damage), Invisible
Infiltrator (+20% damage and refills our stealth bar), cunning Ambusher (+6%damage), and, if it
kills something, it will proc Dying Breath (+25% crit severity).

Pro Tip: When you use WWoB, dodge out of the animation towards the boss. That’ll get you
back to the boss and ready to go with the next part while saving precious seconds on your buffs.

6) Mount Combat Power: Pop this as you are getting back to the boss. You should have
tenser’s equipped unless it is one of the fights that the T-Rex can help by eating things. When
you pop it, you can cancel the longish animation by using an at will. Giving a swing of sly
flourish will do that for you nicely. Now you have another 10% power and 2 points added to your
strength.

7) Artifact: The Soul Sight Crystal gives us our best damage buff at 50% for 10 seconds. This
will proc Artificers Persuasion will all our buffed power and give us tens of thousands of
Recovery and AP gain. It’ll also make you run faster than 5 gallons of prune juice, so if you are
on a platform, take care that you don’t run off the edge.

8) Stealth>Lashing Blade: The stealth activates LB’s +50% Crit Severity. It also procs Cunning
Ambusher again, stacking +6% more damage, plus, with all the other bonuses, plus your snail
mount power, and support minion buffs, will just about fill up your Action Points. Also, Smoke
Bomb ought to be back with your increased recovery.

9) Smoke Bomb: pop this again. Incredible AP gain. If this isn’t back, yet, skip.

10) Courage Breaker: If your AP is full, pop your Courage Breaker. This will add an additional
25% power, plus proc Infiltrators Action and it’s offhand power, which will stack from when you
procced it before. It also procs Invisible Infiltrator for that 25% damage buff, and refill your
stealth. It will also re up your snail mount power assuring your AP will continue to refill at an
incredible rate.
11) This is where it gets more and more varied, depending on your stats and what you have
coming back up after cooldown. Save your stealth for your Lashing Blade, always. Pop smoke
bomb whenever it comes back. If it has been about 15 seconds, run another round of sly on
him. If nothing is up, star in on your Duelist Flurry. Always, always wait to pop your artifact until
after a Whirlwind to maximize your power.

Here is a link to a video of this rotation in super burn action courtesy of Tardli.

Variations:

Super Burn: If you are in a super burn party that will take down the boss in less than 20
seconds, instead of using Courage Breaker as your second daily, swap it with Lurker’s Assault.
This increases your damage by a larger amount in the short term. The fact that you can’t
generate AP while under its effects won’t matter, because the boss will be dead. In that case,
also forget about using Duelist Flurry and only go with sly flourish.

The Un-Burn: If your party is on the slower side, you can consider running the DC Sigil to up
your AP gain more. If you are doing that, you might also consider swapping out Courage
Breaker for Lurkers Assault as the DC Sigil and snail mount will refill your AP while under its
effects. Also, expect to use a lot more Duelist Flurry for that group. If they are dying a lot, drop
protectors friendship for shepherds devotion, as well.

Boss without Adds: swap Dying Breath for the Shadowborn feat. In the rotation above, keep
WWoB and CB, because of the power loop, for longer fights. Swap Lurkers for WWoB in super
burn group.

Mob Loadout:

Feats: make sure you have Dying Breath (same as boss with adds)

Companions: Chultan Tiger, Air Elemental, Earth Elemental, Fire Elemental, Siege Master. If
you are running in TONG, swap out the Siege Master for the alpha compy. If you are running in
a good group that can keep marks up, a war boar isn’t a bad choice. Tamed Velociraptor is an
option, too, if the others in your party are running it. If you swap out a second companion, pick
the fire archon next to swap out.

Insignia Bonus: Artificers Persuasion, Artificers Influence, Protectors Camaraderie, Shepherd’s

Devotion, Protector’s Friendship/Gladiator’s Guile/Assassin’s Covenant
Note: The last spot depends on what you want. Probably BIS is Protector’s Friendship, but
having the extra power from Assassin’s Covenant, if your party isn’t buffing your Power way up
is a valid option. Also, Gladiator’s Guile might be a nice pick if you find you are just to slow.

Mount Power: Legendary (or legacy)Snail

Mount Combat Power: Tyrannosaur

Active Artifact: DC Sigil

Powers:
Class Features: Invisible Infiltrator
At-Wills: Sly Flourish, Cloud of Steel
Dailies: Whirlwind of Blades, Courage Breaker
Encounters: Smoke Bomb, Dazing Strike, Impossible to Catch

Rotation: (Cloud of Steel)>Tyrannosaur>stealth>smokebomb>Whirlwind of Blades>ITC>DC

Sigil>stealth>dazing strike>sly flourish>Courage Breaker>smokebomb>stealth>dazing strike

Rotation Explained:

1) Cloud of Steel is if you need to drag a couple of groups together to kill everything in the
area as efficiently as possible. Generally, that is the best way to do it, and if you have
someone in the group using one of those annoying powers that throws enemies away,
you have permission from the TR consortium to eliminate them...permanently.
2) Tyrannosaur: Pick something good for it to gobble up!
3) Stealth>smokebomb: The stealth allows you to get to the group (generally speaking)
without them attacking you before you drop smokebomb. Since smokebomb procs
instantly now, this works better than it used to. Now the mob is controlled.
4) Whirlwind: This doubles our power (should hit 5 enemies), and gives our stealth back-
as well as procs all the wonderful things it procs above.
5) ITC: This buffs our (already buffed) Power by an additional 10% because of the feat
Press the Advantage. This also gives us more survivability, and maximizes our buff from
Artificers that comes next.
6) DC Sigil: This will proc our Artificers, and our snail power, and start refilling our Action
Points fast.
7) Stealth>Dazing Strike: Try to get as many enemies in the cone as possible for maximum
AP gain and damage.
8) Sly Flourish> This is just a filler, if you need it, until your AP is filled up- which won’t be
long.
9) Courage Breaker> This will stack your power on top of the WWoB, stack your offhand
power for Infiltrators Action, refill your stealth, reproach your snail, etc etc.
 10) Smokebomb/stealth>Dazing Strike> seriously, there probably isn’t anything still alive, but
if there is, one of these two should probably do it.

Note: Here is an excellent video by Blur that clearly shows a mob rotation for those who learn
more visually.

Variations:

Speedy McSpeedster: Swap out Combatants Maneuver for Gladiators Guile, and Infiltrators
Action for Skillful Infiltrator. Everything else the same, but run like the wind!

Daily Dungeon: I know, they are so easy, who cares? Well, it is kinda fun to run through with
Path of the Blade on. Kill everything with one of our weakest powers! Swap ITC out with it, and
maybe with the speedy stuff above. Weeee!
Helpful Links

Social Community:

Join the hugely popular TR discord!

Join the Facebook group here.

Game Tools:

If you want a terrific site that really goes into depth into mechanics and has a host of amazing
tools to use in planning and figuring out how changes you make affect the damage you do,
check out Janne’s site. It is simply the best asset we have for game mechanics. She’s also a
TR which just proves that TRs and brains just go together.

Have a question about mounts and insignias? To find out which powers each mount can give, or
find out which mounts can provide which powers, check out this handy tool here.

Here is a character building tool put out by j0shi that can be very useful, although, as of the time
of this writing, it isn’t updated for mod 14.

Dupeks’ super handy guide to keybinding (pc) can be found here.

Enyo, a great TR player, put out a wonderful guide to help newer players navigate the game.
It’s here.

Here is another great asset.

Players and Streamers:

For Tardli’s video on the build and his YouTube channel, check it out here. Tardli’s twitch.

Galactic is a great player who is always willing to help with advice and his videos and streams
are a great place to see TRs in action. Sometimes, you can see him kick my butt in his streams!
;) Here is his YouTube. Here is his twitch.
Final Thoughts
If you have made it this far, I applaud you. You have read the whole thing! This guide started
out as an updated TR build, and morphed into something I never would have tackled, had I
known how big it was going to become. If I wasn’t afraid you all would actually want it, I’d offer
you a peridot or something.

So many people have helped me with this as far as content and proofing. There are more than
a few details in here that I am a little fuzzy on, and truly, there are a number of TRs on the
discord who are more knowledgeable than I am regarding every aspect of this guide. If you
notice something incorrect, or unclear, feel free to post on the discord channel, which is,
honestly, the Trickster Rogue’s single greatest asset in terms of game knowledge. You will find
a community there, eager to help. If you’d rather, you can email me at liliadrakon@gmail.com.
Don’t get mad if I don’t respond right away. Sometimes, I like to actually play the game….

Lastly, I’d like to encourage every TR out there reading this to always push the boundary. Keep
testing things and trying new ideas, tactics, and builds out. There are a number of links
included in this guide to help you learn more.

Now, go out there and show those people what a TR can do!

Regards,
Tennessee James