Stats:

• 14 strength
• 27 constition
• 12 dexterity
• 14 intelligence
• 12 wisdom
• 25 charisma

Feats:

• 4/5 energizing curse
• 3/3 weapon mastery
• 3/3 empower rituals
• 5/5 determined casting
• 2/5 blood pact of cania
• 3/3 devasting critical

• Fury path:

• • 5/5 daughters promise
  • 5/5 critical promise
  • 5/5 offering to the personal
  • 5/5 internal wrath
  • 5/5 killing curse
  • 5/5 executioners gift
  • 5/5 brutal curse
  • 5/5 murderous flames
  • 1/1 creeping death

• Templock Build:

• • 2/5 energizing curse
  • 3/3 weapon mastery
  • 3/3 toughness
  • 3/3 empower rituals
  • 5/5 determined casting
  • 1/5 blood pact of cania
  • 3/3 devastating critical

• Fury path:

• • 5/5 critical promise

• Temptation:

• • 5/5 hope stealer
  • 5/5 hellish condemnation
  • 5/5 dark revelry
  • 5/5 aura of despair
  • 5/5 aura of cruelty
  • 5/5 eldritch momentum
  • 5/5 darkness
  • 1/1 soul binding

Powers that I use:

Hellbringer:

• Dark spiral aura,
• killing flames,
• fiery bolt,
• pillar of power,
• hellish rebuke,
• tyrannical curse,
• no pity no mercy,
• gates of hell,
• all consuming curse.

Templock:

• Dark spiral aura,
• eldritch blast,
• killing flames,
• brood of hadar,
• shadow walk,
• dreadtheft,
• pillar of power,
• tyrannical curse,
• all consuming curse

Boons:

• Guild Stronghold: power bonus, defense bonus, mount speed bonus, enhance overload stamina drain
• PVP Campaign: living will is the only one I have done so far
• Sharandar: dark fey warder, fey precision, elven haste, elven ferocity, fey thistle
• Dread Ring: conjurer’s gambit, evoker’s thirst, forbidden piercing, enraged, regrowth, rampaging madness
• Icewind Dale: Encroaching tactics, appreciation of warmth, sleet skills, cool resolve, winter’s bounty
• underdark: primordial might, primordial focus, drow ambush tactics, dwarven stamina, abyssal tenacity
• Tyranny of Dragons: dragon’s claws, dragon’s gaze, draconic armorbreaker, dragon’s greed, dragon’s fury
• The Maze Engine: abyssal siphoning, demonic resilience, demonic swiftness, baphomet’s might
• Elemental Evil: wave of force, heart of stone, searing aggression, gale of retribution
• Storm King’s Thunder: cold hearted, survival instincts, icy wrath, glacial strength, chill of winter
• The Cloaked Ascendancy: aura of hope, fiery frenzy, fey briars, aberrant power
• Jungles of Chult: tyrants terror, overgrown, lingering curse

Artifacts:

• Hellbringer/templock build
• mythic soul sight crystal (IL 360)
• mythic wheel of elements (IL 360)
• Mythic shard of orcus wand (IL 360)
• Mythic lantern of revelations (IL 360)
• Mythic thayan book of the dead (IL 360)
• I switch the soul sight for wheel when i am on templock

Character gear and enchantments:

I use Brutals in Offense, Darks in defense, Utilities I have Dragon Hoards, Quartermaster, Fey Blessing just for extra refinement items.

• Head—-Primal raid barakoa (IL 500)
• Quartermaster rank 11   (IL 69)
• Armor—-primal assault kiuno (IL 500)
• Draconic rank 12  (IL 82)
• Perfect soulforged (IL 58)
• Arms—-primal assault shobas (IL 500)
• Fey blessing rank 12 (IL 82)
• Main hand—-deathbringer (IL 500)
• Brutal rank 13 (IL 97)
• Perfect feytouched (IL 58)
• Brutal rank 13 (IL 97)
• Grimoire—-deathreader (IL 500)
• Brutal rank 13 (IL 97)
• Dark rank 12 (IL 82)
• Feet—-primal raid viatus (IL 500)
• Dragons hoard rank 13 (IL 97)
• neck—-baphomets infernal talisman (IL 405)
• Quartermaster rank 11 (IL 69)
• Brutal rank 13 (IL 97)
• Right ring—-beaded assault ring (IL 510)
• Brutal rank 13 (IL 97)
• Brutal rank 13 (IL 97)
• Left ring—-beaded assault ring (IL 510)
• Brutal rank 13 (IL 97)
• Brutal rank 13 (IL 97)
• Waist—-demogorgons girdle of might (IL 405)
• Dragons hoard rank 13 (IL 97)
• Dark rank 13 (IL 97)
• Shirt—-upper primal paints (IL 500)
• Brutal rank 13 (IL 97)
• Trousers—-lower primal paints (IL 500)
• Dark rank 12 (IL 82)

Companions:

• Summond—-legendary chultan tiger (IL 200)

• Bonding rank 13 (IL 97)
• Bonding rank 13 (IL 97)
• Bonding rank 13 (IL 97)
• Ring of charging bull + 5 (IL 435)
• Azure rank 11 (IL 69)
• Azure rank 11 (IL 69)
• Neck—-orcish companions collar (IL 420)
• Dark rank 12 (IL 82)
• Ring of the hunter + 5 (IL 510)
• Azure rank 11 (IL 69)
• Azure rank 11 (IL 69)

Active companions:

• Legendary con artist (IL 200)
• Legendary air archon (IL 200)
• Legendary earth archon (IL 200)
• Legendary alphy compy (IL 200)

Mounts:

• Legendary t-rex
• Legendary war triceratops
• Legendary swift golden lion
• Spiked deinonychus
• Calvary tyrannosaur
• Have all purple item level 60 insignas for all spots on mounts

Race:

Your race choice is very important in Neverwinter.  Every race can play any class, but some races do certain classes much better than others!

Tieflings are the best choice right now.  The extra % damage buff when targets are below 50% synergies well with the rest of our kit and the ability scores line up perfectly.

Dragonborns are also a solid option because of their additional 3% power and critical strike.  This works really well for obvious reasons as a dps.

Humans aren’t bad still, and a better option than many if you can’t stand tails or scales.  The extra feats are a good bonus and the reduced damage helps keep us alive to siphon more souls!

Ability Scores:

For every Race you’ll want the same Ability Scores, 18 in Charisma with 13s in Con and Int.  Use your points on Con and Charisma, you want your Charisma as high as it can go.

When leveling, put all of your new score points into Constitution and Charisma.

Hellbringer, Fury (AoE DPS):

Hellbringer Fury is the most viable option for AoE DPS right now.  It boasts massive buffs for both you, and your party with Pillar of power, and with Hellish Rebuke combo’d with Tyrannical Curse you can Burn your enemies in the name of the Nine Hells.

Heroic:

Energizing Curse:  There’s four points here because it’s better than toughness.  The added AP gain is really nice, and helps us get off our dailies a lot since I don’t recommend using the DC Sigil.

Weapon Mastery:  Must have.  Pretty self explanatory to be honest, additional critical strike chance is always good.

Empowered Rituals:  As an SW lots of your damage will come from your encounter powers.  Additional damage added to those is a no-brainer.

Determined Casting:  Again, another feat that seems kind of self explanatory.  When most of your dps comes from encounter powers, being able to use them more would increase damage output.

Blood Pact of Cania:  There’s normally only two points here because we need to choose between this, and devastating critical.  If you are a human put your three points here!  

Devastating Critical:  IMPORTANT!  Critical severity is a coveted stat!  You want it as high as you can possibly get it.

Fury:

Critical Promise: Good bonus damage when you Crit

Offering to the Prisoner: In a dungeon or group scenario, trash dies constantly.  As long as you hit the trash you’re getting this buff.

Gatekeeper’s Empowerment: Gates of Hell does some crazy damage in large groups.  Increasing that further is awesome, plus adding more AP gain when it kills targets.  Unfortunately we don’t really get a lot of use out of the DoT increase to Hellish Rebuke, but the AP gain is worth it.

Infernal Wrath: Synergies well with All Consuming Curse, and with the change in armor pen helps make up for any missing Resistance Ignored.

Helltouched:  Works well with the Primal set.  Also, in high level dungeons you will be hit a lot.  Hopefully, if you have a good healer, you wont notice most of them, but the debuff will still be applied.

Executioner’s Gift:  This feat synergizes so well with Killing Flames and some other aspects of this build that I couldn’t recommend not taking it.

Killing Curse: Good additional damage to cursed targets, and with ACC everything you critically strike will be getting this bonus damage.

Brutal Curse: This is awesome.  Additional damage to curse targets by a flat percentage, and it’s on top of the damage buff from warlock’s curse.

Creeping Death: This is really the only choice for dps warlocks.  With the recent buffs it’s really our only choice.  The Damnation tree and it’s capstone, Soul Desecration is nerfed to hell and doesn’t do near as much damage as this.  The other option is Temptation and that’s for healing.

Powers and rotation!

Remember to use Warlock’s Curse as much as possible during combat!  Curse every target you can, but don’t miss out on using a skill that’s off cooldown to do so.  Warlock’s Curse increases the amount of damage enemies take, and can apply additional effects when you use encounters on targets affected by it.

Class Feats:

All Consuming Curse: This combined with many of our feats increases our damage output by a lot.  Also at rank 4 it increases lesser curses damage.

No Pity No Mercy:  This is a class feat I will always have slotted, no matter what.  Very high increase in damage output from Hellish Rebuke.

At-Wills:

Eldritch Blast: Weaker damage in single target situations but the third strike is an aoe.  Decent when used in combination with Hellish Rebuke.

Hellish Rebuke:  Main source of At-Will damage.  I’ll use this almost exclusively when all my encounters are on cooldown.

Encounters:

Arms of Hadar:  Insane AoE damage (because of the low, stacking cooldown) and it knocks enemies prone.  I spam this a lot in combat.

Pillar of Power:  Massive buff and decent damage to enemies inside.  Try to get as many enemies inside as possible, but be sure to stand in it yourself.  This is a bit of a risk vs reward, but it’s always better to be further from the combat, inside your circle and miss out on a bit of dps from PoP, than to die.

Fiery Bolt: Good AoE damage with a low cooldown.  Remember to Warlock’s Curse the target you use this on to increase the damage the AoE damage!

Dailies:

Tyrannical Curse: Your most important skill to doing AoE damage.  Use this skill on the target with the most health in a room with lots of other enemies and watch the entire room melt when you drop PoP under the one you cursed.

Gates of Hell: Really good, instant, AoE damage.  Good if trying to kill a large group really quick, rather than melting it with Tyrannical.
-or-
Brood of Hadar: Very high single target Dps and works very well with Tyrannical Curse.

Your basic AoE rotation should be as follows:

Tyrannical Curse the biggest enemy you can find and drop Pillar of Power under him.  Try to catch as many enemies as you can within that green circle.  The more standing in it, the more dps you’ll do.  Then, while inside the circle yourself, Warlock’s Curse the targets and drop Arms of Hadar on them.  Then, Fiery Bolt.  While your skills are on cooldown, use Hellish Rebuke on the enemy you used TC on.  You want to maximize the damage he takes.  Repeat as cooldowns come back up and watch all the pretty numbers fly from the enemies as they melt.

Alternatively you can now use Dreadtheft and Fiery Bolt, since Dreadtheft was buffed, however the damage difference is almost nothing.  This is purely preference.

AoE Weapon Enchantment:

For an AoE Loadout I would recommend the use of a Feytouched Weapon Enchantment.  Dread isn’t a very solid option here, since a significant portion of our AoE dps comes from Tyrannical Curse (not effected by dread), and Hellish Rebuke (also not effected).  Lightning and Vorpal have been nerfed, and are not as good.

Artifact Weapons:

Exalted Primal Weapons are still Best in Slot for everything that isn’t Castle Ravenloft.  For CR, use the new Sunset weapons.  These will provide a 15% bonus to damage and healing output, along with some other stats, during night time in Barovia.  Since CR is always at night, you’ll get the 15% at all times.  For literally everything else however, Primal will outperform.  Personally, I’d recommend having both sets, and using Sunset for only CR.

You’ll have to prioritize one weapon enchantment to have slotted, or swap between them (but gold doesn’t grow on trees).  I’d recommend Feytouched overall.

For Artifact Powers I recommend using Hellish Rebuke and All Consuming Curse.

Active Artifact:

For AoE if no one else in your group is using a Wheel of Elements you need to.  Fire buff does more damage than Soul Sight Crystal (30% x 30 seconds VS 50% x 10 seconds).  If someone in your party is using wheel, use DC Sigil.  DC Sigil helps us keep Tyrannical Curse Up at all times, and can also be used to stack Tyrannical on top of Brood.

Soulbinder Fury (Single Target DPS):

With Soulbinder you gain access to two of the highest Single Target DPS skills SW’s have, Soul Scorch, and Immolation Spirits.  When you take those, add Killing Flames and a Dread Enchantment you’ll have any boss shaking in his over-sized boots.

Heroic:

Energizing Curse:  There’s four points here because it’s better than toughness.  The added AP gain is really nice, and helps us get off our dailies a lot since I don’t recommend using the DC Sigil.

Weapon Mastery:  Must have.  Pretty self explanatory to be honest, additional critical strike chance is always good.

Empowered Rituals:  As an SW lots of your damage will come from your encounter powers.  Additional damage added to those is a no-brainer.

Determined Casting:  Again, another feat that seems kind of self explanatory.  When most of your dps comes from encounter powers, being able to use them more would increase damage output.

Blood Pact of Cania:  Increases bonus damage from Constitution.  Since Crit Severity has diminishing returns and with this loadout we use a Dread enchantment, I would recommend putting 5 here.   

Devastating Critical:  If you’re a human put your 3 points here.

Fury:

Critical Promise: Good bonus damage when you Crit

Burning Soul: Additional Damage from Soul Sparks.  Decent additional damage

Infernal Wrath: Synergies well with All Consuming Curse, and with the change in armor pen helps make up for any missing Resistance Ignored.

 Executioner’s Gift:  This feat synergizes so well with Killing Flames and some other aspects of this build that I couldn’t recommend not taking it. (Plus, the additional damage you get from Killing Curse is tiny).

Brutal Curse: This is awesome.  Additional damage to curse targets by a flat percentage, and it’s on top of the damage buff from warlock’s curse.

Murderous Flames: Huge buff to Killing Flames.

Creeping Death: This is really the only choice for dps warlocks.  With the recent buffs it’s really our only choice.  The Damnation tree and it’s capstone, Soul Desecration is nerfed to hell and doesn’t do near as much damage as this.  The other option is Temptation and that’s for healing.

Damnation:

Relentless Curse: When you remove your warlocks curse from an enemy they are always afflicted with Lesser Curse.  Lesser Curse deals some extra damage to targets.

Sparkbinder: Increases the duration of Immolation Spirits and gives them some extra HP.  Immolation Spirits does insane damage and generates Soul Sparks.

Powers and rotation!

Remember to use Warlock’s Curse as much as possible during combat!  Curse every target you can, but don’t miss out on using a skill that’s off cooldown to do so.  Warlock’s Curse increases the amount of damage enemies take, and can apply additional effects when you use encounters on targets affected by it.

Class Feats:

All Consuming Curse

Dust to Dust – Use if you need more AP (use this 90% of the time)
-or-
Borrowed Time – Good self healing

At-Wills:

Essence Defiler: Soulbinder’s bread and butter.  Generates Soul Sparks needed to cast our most damaging skill, Soul Scorch.  Use until you build up enough sparks to Cast SS, Cast SS, then build them up again.  When you have Immolation Spirits out you should build up enough sparks to just spam SS and rain pain on whatever baddie is in front of you.

Dark Spiral Aura: Honestly, you’ll almost never use any At-Will other than Essence Defiler. However, this at-will can be useful because you don’t have to actively do anything (other than kill stuff) to generate spirals.  Once you have three, it a quick cast time and can crit for decent damage.

Encounters:

Hadar’s Grasp: Excellent single target dps.  Crits hard, works well with Dread.

Soul Scorch: Awesome DPS, almost no Cooldown.  Remember to Curse your target before and after using this skill since it consumes Warlocks Curse.

Killing Flames: Very strong single target encounter with a short cooldown that increases in damage as the boss loses health.  Always have this slotted for boss fights!  The Soul Puppet it can spawn is a decent bonus, even if it dies almost instantly.

Dailies:

Immolation Spirits: One of the best single target skills we have.  Generates additional Soul Sparks, allowing us to spam Soul Scorch.  You always want to have these up.  Be Careful, if you recast this skill while still having the spirits alive, their duration will not increase, and it will take all of you AP, so be careful.

Tyrannical Curse: Solid damage buff and amazing add control during boss fights.

Your basic Single Target rotation should be as follows:

Use wheel and grab the Fire buff, then cast Immolation Spirits.  Warlock’s Curse your target, then use Hadar’s Grasp and Killing Flames in that order.  Use Essence Defiler until you have enough Soul Sparks to Cast Soul Scorch.  Warlock’s Curse your target again, then cast SS.  Alternate between SS and ED until other skills are off cooldown.  Remember, Always Warlock’s Curse your target before hitting them with Soul Scorch.  SS and Hadar’s Grasp both consume Warlock’s Curse, so you’ll need to re-curse after those skills to do the most DPS possible.

Single Target Weapon Enchantment:

For Single Target I would highly recommend a Dread Enchantment since most of our DPS is coming from Soul Scorch.  Dread also buffs our other Encounters, and reduces your target’s defense, which is helpful.

Artifact Weapons:

Exalted Primal Weapons are still Best in Slot for everything that isn’t Castle Ravenloft.  For CR, use the new Sunset weapons.  These will provide a 15% bonus to damage and healing output, along with some other stats, during night time in Barovia.  Since CR is always at night, you’ll get the 15% at all times.  For literally everything else however, Primal will outperform.  Personally, I’d recommend having both sets, and using Sunset for only CR.

You’ll have to prioritize one weapon enchantment to have slotted, or swap between them (but gold doesn’t grow on trees).  I’d recommend Feytouched overall.

For Artifact Powers I recommend using Essence Defiler and Dust to Dust.

Active Artifact:

For Single Target if no one else in your group is using a Wheel of Elements you need to.  Fire buff does more damage than Soul Sight Crystal (30% x 30 seconds VS 50% x 10 seconds).  If someone in your party is using wheel, use SSC or DC Sigil.  The choice is mostly preference, and both will do well.

If you think SSC is better than Wheel: let’s say you do 10 Damage a second.  That’s absurdly low of course, but it makes math easy.  So, Fire buff is 30% x 30 seconds.  With wheel you would be doing (10 x 30) + (3 x 30) = 390.  With SSC over the same 30 seconds you’d deal (10x 30) + (5 x 10) = 350.  Ideally, you’ll have both SSC and Fire, but if you have to choose, Fire is better.

Temptation (Sustain and End-Game Dungeons):

Heroic:

Since the heroics are largely the same I’ll simply cover any deviations and why they are made.

Toughness: I shifted three points from Energizing Curse here because when you are in Templock, your death usually means 1 or 2 other deaths.  Even if no one else dies, you tend to be a juicier target for enemies, and this helps compensate.

Soul Reaping: Life Steal for Templock is very important.  You heal group-mates for a % of your damage dealt, equal to your lifesteal chance.  As you can imagine, lifesteal is a crucial part of being an good Templock.

Temptation:

Hope Stealer: Increases Lifesteal chance, increases healing to your group.

Hellish Condemnation: We use Hellish Rebuke a lot.  This makes it so that targets you hit will deal less damage.  Great debuff.

Dark Revelry: One of the best buffs we give.  20% power for 5 seconds is huge, especially when we can stack that with some of our other buffs.

Aura of Despair: 5% damage dealt debuff and a 5% damage resist debuff on anything and everything close to you.

Eldritch Momentum: Gives your party ~100% combat advantage.  With our shift in companions, this is a massive damage buff for both you and your party.

Soul Bonding:  Makes it so you can heal with your lifesteal chance.  Take it.

Damnation:

Parting Blasphemy: This procs all the time.  Good damage bonus, but we are really only putting points in this tree for Power of the Nine Hells.

Power of the Nine Hells: Amazing bonus to Pillar of Power because nobody knows how to sit in a circle.  Very useful in almost every party environment.

Fury:

Critical Promise: Good bonus damage.

Powers and rotation!

We have a lot of choice when it comes to Templock.  We are mostly just here to buff allies with Pillar and Revelry when we can, and to heal if needed.  That being said, damage still counts some, so powers do matter.

With the buffs to Dreadtheft and since we want to output consistent damage for consistent healing, buffs, and debuffs, we want to run skills that dot, rather than burst. If you really wanted, you could run the Dps rotation from the DPS section, and trade more consistent healing and buffs for more damage.

AoE setup:

Use this rotation for Trash.  Basically anytime you aren’t at a boss fight, you’ll be using these skills.

Class Feats:

All Consuming Curse: This combined with many of our feats increases our damage output by a lot and helps us apply the DR debuff from Dreadtheft.  Also at rank 4 it increases lesser curses damage.

Prince of Hell: Increases Lifesteal chance and therefor healing.  We need this stat to be as high as it can get.

At-Wills:

Hand of Blight: Strong damage dealt debuff.  I’ve had runs where this has saved my tank.

Hellish Rebuke:  Main source of At-Will damage.  I’ll use this almost exclusively when all my encounters are on cooldown.

Encounters:

Dreadtheft: Solid damage over time to all enemies in a line.  Good when used in combo with Tyrannical Curse.  Also increases damage enemies take by a large amount, when used on cursed targets.  Important debuff!

Pillar of Power:  Massive buff and decent damage to enemies inside.  Try to get as many allies inside as possible, and be sure to stand in it yourself.  Remember to keep Pillar of Power on your main Dps, even if he’s running around the arena like a madman.

Blades of Vanquished Armies: Since we can’t cast spells During Dreadtheft our only other option is to increase out damage output while we are casting it.  However, just because BoVA is our only option, doesn’t mean it’s bad in any respect.  It has decent damage output and it also increases our deflect, making us harder to kill.

Dailies:

Tyrannical Curse: Your most important skill to doing AoE damage.  Use this skill on the target with the most health in a room with lots of other enemies and watch the entire room melt when you drop PoP under the one you cursed.

Brood of Hadar: Very high single target Dps and works very well with Tyrannical Curse.

Your basic AoE rotation should be as follows:

Tyrannical Curse the biggest enemy you can find and drop Pillar of Power under him and your main dps.  If you main dps is ranged, it’s his job to grab the PoP buff.  Cast BoVA and use Dreadtheft on the enemy you Tyrannical Cursed.  Now, simply line up Dreadtheft to hit as many targets as possible.  Remember to stay close so that you are hitting enemies with BoVA, and to stay inside your green circle!

Single Target (Use for boss fights):

Class Feats:  These will remain the same.

All Consuming Curse

Prince of Hell

Encounters:

Warlock’s Bargain: Applies an almost never ending DoT on your target.  Also deals a portion of damage you take to the target it’s applied to and heals you while it’s active. (Hadar’s Grasp is a decent alternative if you don’t like WB.  The damage output is basically the same)

-or-

Vampiric Embrace: Large heals to the entire group.  Okay damage.  Gives Temp HP when used on a cursed target.  I use this if I know the group will take a lot of damage.

Pillar of Power: Really hard to beat the damage and the buff that comes from this skill.  Use it at all times.  Remember to try and keep your Dps buffed!

Killing Flames: Very strong single target encounter with a short cooldown that increases in damage as the boss loses health.  Always have this slotted for boss fights!  The Soul Puppet it can spawn is a decent bonus, even if it dies quickly.

Dailies:

Brood of Hadar: Awesome single target damage ability.  The brood will swarm an enemy and do a bunch of damage plus slow, and best of all they’ll swap to another target if the target you casted it on dies.

Tyrannical Curse: Solid damage buff and amazing add control during boss fights.

Your basic Single Target rotation should be as follows:

If you’re using Vampiric Embrace instead of WB, your rotation is mostly the same.  Just use VE whenever your party takes a big hit, but don’t save it for too long.  When in doubt, use it.  Killing Flames also heals for a large amount, so you’ll always have something up, or soon to be up that will heal a large amount.

First, open with Warlock’s Bargain.  This skill should be used on cooldown, and the boss should have this DoT applied to them at all times.  Then drop Pillar of Power with the boss, and as many allies as you can, inside.  Stand in the circle for as much of the fight as possible.  Now, Warlock’s Curse your target and use Killing Flames.  If adds spawn, use Tyrannical on the boss.  If not, use Brood.  While your skills are on cooldown, use Hellish Rebuke and wait until they come back up.  Repeat.

Weapon Enchantment:

Same as the AoE setup, I’d recommend using a Feytouched Enchantment for Templock.  Your damage still matters as a Templock, since it directly relates to how much healing you can pump out,

Active Artifact:

For Templock you’ll want to be using a Wheel of Elements as your active.  Buffers, such as Templock and MoF should always have a Wheel on backup to give the Fire buff to the main DPS of the party.  Fire is an extremely high DPS bonus, and shouldn’t be taken lightly.

If someone is already using Wheel in your party:
Another option is the Sigil of the Devoted.  This helps us with AP generation and is good if we don’t need to use wheel on a main DPS.

Artifacts:

The non-active artifacts I use are the  Shard of Orcus’ Wand, Sigil of the Controller, and the Fragmented Key of Stars.  These wont change per loadout.  Your active artifact will, and you should check the tabs to see what active artifact you should be using, and when.

For Artifact sets I’m using the Orcus set because it does the highest damage out of all the Artifact neck/belt sets in the game, regardless of the useless strength bonus on it.

Enchantments:

Ideally you’ll want Brutal rank 14’s in all your offense slots, and Radiants once you hit about 75% crit (the rest comes from bondings), or Savage if you need Armor Pen.  You’ll want 75-80% crit, 90% armor pen.

You have a choice when it comes to defense slots. Radiants are BiS for dps, and increases your damage output significantly when used with an OP’s Aura of Courage, however, Darks are almost required to increase lifesteal and to be a good templock.  Personally Id recommend finding a balance between the two that works with your play style.

Gear:

Min/Max-ing stats is something that each player will have to do for themselves, since every individual’s stats vary on a case by case basis.  As long as you keep these general guide-lines in mind, you shouldn’t have any trouble.  Newer players shouldn’t worry too much about their stats until they have most if not all of the gear recommended in this guide.  Artifacts and artifact weapons included.

Armor Pen should be prioritized up to 90%.   After your Armor Pen is at 80-90%, you should go for Crit.  Your goal with Crit is 100% obviously, but try not to exceed that, since that would also be a waste.  After your Pen and Crit are where they should be, you next priority should be Power.  Power has very little diminishing returns, and only at very high levels, so in short, you want this as high as you can get it.  Remember bonding runestones are where you’ll get a sizable portion of your stats, so be sure to factor those in when min/max-ing.

Rex Corona and Rex Amiculum are still Very Good, but they are very hard to get.  The new Curselord’s set looks like a strong contender for Best in Slot.  Depending on where your stats fall, use Rex Corona and the Curselord’s set to fill the rest.  If you need more Crit, use the full Curselord’s set.

The Ring of Offensive Action from Makos in Omu are really strong for SWs, but they lose us a lot of ilvl.  They do not stack, so Ideally you’ll have one Offensive action ring, and a Gravestriker +5 ring or a Shadowstalker +5.  These are rare and a decent alternative is a Primal Ring.

Exalted Primal Weapons are still Best in Slot for everything that isn’t Castle Ravenloft.  For CR, use the new Sunset weapons.  These will provide a 15% bonus to damage and healing output, along with some other stats, during night time in Barovia.  Since CR is always at night, you’ll get the 15% at all times.  For literally everything else however, Primal will outperform.  Personally, I’d recommend having both sets, and using Sunset for only CR.

For shirt and pants the Primal set is still best.

Companions:

Now I’ll dive into what companions you should be using, and why.

We got a new companion in mod 14 that is really strong in the form of the Razorwood.  Since the Tiger still debuffs, and the active bonus is the only real reason to use the Razorwood, the Chultan Tiger will stay as our summoned.

Chultan Tiger: This is your summoned companion.  It’s active bonus isn’t all that impressive, but the Chultan Tiger has an ability it uses called, “Killer Instinct”.  Basically, the Tiger will debuff enemies, making them take 10% more damage from all sources, on top of the bonus it gives you at the start of combat.

-Fire Archon:  Very good damage.  Synergizes well with our build.  Buffs other archons.

-Air Archon:  Again, more synergy with the rest of our build.  Solid damage, and a must have. Buffs other archons.

-Razorwood: Additional Crit Severity, and a large amount of bonus Combat Advantage.  With No Pity No Mercy after you critically strike your next hit will gain the Combat Advantage bonus damage.  Since this is a high crit build, you’re getting this bonus almost non-stop.  Theoretically, swapping artifacts to ones that add more Combat Advantage, but from my testing, both Lantern of Revelation, and Kessell’s Spheres of Annihilation perform worse than a Sigil of the Controller.  There might be a way to do more DPS as a Combat Advantage focused build using Razorwood and No Pity No Mercy, but from my testing it just doesn’t perform as well as the math says it should.

-Earth Archon: We will usually be at 100% HP if we are playing well.  Warlocks shouldn’t be taking a lot of damage, so we will get a lot of use out of this little guy in groups.  He’s borderline useless in solo content, but he buffs the other two archons.

Honorable Mentions:

-Dancing Blade: Almost as good as Erinyes, but no reason to use him once you have it.

-Erinyes of Belial:  Critical Hit Severity is extremely strong for DPS and you want as much as you can get.

Wild Hunt Rider: Good damage bonus and procs a lot since we spam our skills.

Siege Master: The flat damage buff this gives is nice, but not quite as nice as the others I recommend.

Boons:

For Guild boons, as dps you want Power and HP, and for Templock, the Power and Lifesteal boons.  Utility doesn’t really matter, I like the Mount speed bonus, but it’s up to you!

Mount bonuses:

Thank you for reading!

Thanks to everyone for the constructive feedback and ideas.  Without all the helpful and creative input from members in the community this guide wouldn’t be anywhere near as complete.  Special thanks to:
Zanros@ryn32233#8859 – for helping me test all my stupid ideas
RW_Raijin@velahryn#7236 – for their help with the Single Target loadout
Demathius@lordistat – for their help with brainstorming ideas and new things to test

If this guide helped you, please rate it at the top of the page, it really helps me out

Thanks Again!

There are a few viable races for a HR I chose the Wood Elf for the 1% Crit Chance and an increase to DEX and WIS for higher damage and a higher Crit chance.

Wood Elf– DEX and WIS

• Elven Accuracy: Increases your chance to Critically Strike by 1%.

Drow – DEX and WIS/CHA

• Darkfire: You have 5% chance when attacking a foe to apply Darkfire for 4 seconds, reducing its Defense by 10%.

It’s a very viable choice, I went for wood Elf for the Crit and looks.

Dragonborn – DEX and WIS/CHA

• Dragonborn Fury: Your Power and Critical Strike are increased by 3%.

Sounds great on paper but its costly

Metallic Ancestry Dragonborn – DEX and WIS/CHA

• Metalllic Ancestry: You receive 3% more healing from all spells and abilities. Your Hit Points are increased by 3%.
• Dragonborn Fury: Your Power and Critical Strike are increased by 3%

BIS imo, added HP means more damage with Aura of Courage and the added power and crit to go with it is just a bonus. This though is one of the last things you should be getting.

Stat Rolls

When starting out I would advise rolling into Wisdom for the extra crit chance

Each 10 levels you will be able to increase these stats, and for max damage you want to increase DEX and CHA each time. You won’t have 34 DEX when you first reach level 70 but I will explain why later on.

Note: Race and stat roll doesnt change with loadouts, but for any Hunter Ranger these will be what you want anyway.

Towards end game you might consider going more into CHA for the extra combat advantage damage over the crit chance from WIS. If you are close to BIS (best in slot) this is one of the things you should consider, also using a race reroll to maximise the amount of DEX and CHA for the most amount of damage.

I use the same boons on each loadout just to make my life easier when balancing stats. some things might be slightly different but its nothing to make a note of.

I will explain the ones that might not be obvious, but you want to focus on Arm Pen (60% RI or 85% for Chult) >Crit > Power >  Lifesteal > HP > Defense/Deflect > Regen

CA > AP > AOE Resist > CC Resist > Incoming Healing > Stamina Gain > CC Bonus

Once you have 1200 CA and 85% Arm Pen you wont need them in your boons.

Sharandar

400 Power

400 Crit Gain

AP 3% faster

20k Damage when striking a foe (I use the healing boons for the added survivabilty but if you don’t need the heals then chose the damage boon)

135 Power when killing a foe. Stacks 30 times. Lasts 45 seconds

Dread Ring

250 Crit & Movement

400 LS

3% Deflect [I have way too much Arm Pen, I don’t need more]

20k HP over time, 4000 Defense when effect ends [This is a great boons as the 4000 defense is alot better than Shadowtouch’s second effect]

Deal damage gain stack of “Madness”, at 50 stacks gain 4000 Power, LS and Regen for 10 seconds (Works really well for a Trapper due to the DOT’s we have gaining this buff is really easy.)

Icewind Dale

400 CA

400 Incoming Healing

2% Crit Sev

2000 Power based on how much Stamina you are missing

Chance when healed to gain up to 3000 damage bonus on next attack [with LS this proc alot and the rest of the boons are not very good anyway]

Underdark

400 Power, 1600 HP

400 Crit, 1600 HP

CA increased by 10%

Control effects will not have a 5% shorter duration when applied to you. [I’ve reached a point where I don’t need as much stamina regen as I used to]

10% damage against demons

Tyranny of Dragons

400 Power

400 Crit

400 Defense [I have more than enough arm pen, but if you still haven’t reach 60% res ignored then keep this]

400 LS

5% Crit Sev [Still got 2 points to get, 1 will go in here and the other in LS]

Maze engine

5% LS Sev

400 CA

Stamina Regens 10% faster in Combat

When striking a foe, chance to gain 2000 Crit

Elemental Evil

300 Power & 2000 HP

4% LS Sev & 2000 HP

400 Crit 2000 HP

Storm Kings Thunder

Gain 2% Life steal sev and 1000 HP

400 Stamina Regen and 2% everfrost res

chance when taking dmg to gain up to 2000 dmg on next attack (does pretty much nothing but its better than recovery)

3200 HP and 2% everfrost res

when striking a foe gain a stack, at 10 stacks next attack releases a burst of 10k/12k/14k dmg to targets close (dmg over time effect wont trigger this)

The Cloaked Ascendancy

The boons in this Campaign are well.. Not very good.

When you kil an enemy you have a chance to emit an Aura of Despair that stuns up to 5 enemies within 25 feet for 4 seconds (when it procs it might save your life.)

2% Crit Sev and 1000 Max HP

500 Lifesteal and 2000 Max HP

When you land a Critical strike your stamina regenerates 10% faster for 10 seconds (Can help out when solo)

Jungles of Chult

These boons are strange one, stacking too much into one is less effective than using multiple different boons.

You gain 500/750/1000 Power and 800/1200/1600 Maximum Hit Points – 2/3

You gain 500/750/1000 Defence and 800/1200/1600 Maximum Hit Points – 1/3

Chance on hit to gain a stack of Soul Syphon. On killing a creature, you release all stack of Soul Syphon in a burst at all nearby enemies. Each enemy receives 2000 damage per second lasting 1 second per stack of Soul Syphon. You restore 1% of your max health for every stack released.

Stronghold

Ideally you want to have the 8000 Power and the 32000 Hit Points, but not every guild will have those. Until you do any of the boons will help in some way. Each boon gives 500 Item Level when maxed out so having boons is an easy way to increase Item level.

Each boon will be situational, if you lack in armour penetration heavily you will want to use the armour penetration boon, if you are running with a paladin using aura of courage you will want the HP boon as aura of courage is based off of each players own HP not the paladin like the tooltip says. If you are running content that requires a little more healing due to the amount of small damage you are taking then use the lifesteal boon to keep your HP at 100%

Currently I have the [Chultan Tiger] as my summoned companion for its bonus and being as it will be in close to all the buffs any power share buffs will affect its power and give me more power via the bondings, as a DPS you want to use Bonding Runestones as they will provide more stats than an augments. If you use the Fire Archon as your summoned companion then you will need to get a Talisman.

Your stat focus on your companion should be Arm Pen and Crit as they will give you the biggest boost and it makes it easier to reach those caps.

The rest of my companions I’m still working on, Currently I Have:

[Air Archon] – Increases your damage against targets not at full health by +5%. Each additional active Archon increases this bonus by .5%

[Earth Archon] –  Increase your damage against targets by +6% when you are at full health. Each additional active Archon increases this bonus by .5%

[Seige Master] – Deal +4% Increased Damage. This effect is increased to +8% damage while on the Stronghold map. (Raw dmg with no down time just what we need.)

[Fire Archon] -Increase your damage against targets with less than 50% Hit Points by +7.0%. . Each additional active Archon increases this bonus by .5%

When you can afford you will want to get all your Companions to Legendary due to mod 12 giving you more stats for each legendary companion up to 31% of summoned companions stats for having all 5 Legendary

Mounts

Insignia Bonuses

Doing some testing, I have found that these are the best bonuses for me, Protector’s Camaraderie will provide you with extra Power and Defense. They are quite self explanatory and should help you towards end game.

The insignia’s themselves you want what ever you are missing stats wise, need crit? get skill, need arm pen? get aggression, need neither? then got for dominance for added power.

If you no longer need a huge amount of RP, swap Wanderer’s Fortune for Combatants Maneuver for the extra combat advantage damage, ensure that you are using Disruptive shot to proc the bonus.

Combat Power

Currently I have Tensers Transformation for my combat power due to it being the only one I have, I would try go for the Trex Combat Power due to how effective it is in a group. Mod 14 you will want the Bat Swarm as it is a flat damage buff and a debuff at the same time.

Equip power

The equip power I have is 4k Recovery, Ideally you want a 4k Power mount such as the Arcane Whirlwind or Black Ice Warhorse. Since you are aiming for 100% Crit Chance already there is no need to go for a 4k Crit mount as you will most likely reach Crit cap before you get a Legendary Mount. If you lack heavily in recovery like I do then keeping the 4k Recovery isnt a bad thing.

Most stats in Neverwinter do not have Diminishing Returns (DR), meaning there is technically no “cap” and you should simply try to stack as much of a useful stat as you can, while meeting the caps on other useful stats. Secondary stats such as Combat Advantage, AP Gain (not as part of Recovery), Control Resist, AoE Resist, Stamina Gain, Companion Influence, Incoming Healing Bonus and Control Bonus all have slight DR after 1000-1200 points, so there is no need to go over this amount.

For every point in a stat, you gain a certain percentage. Most main stats are 400:1, meaning that for every 400 points you have of that stat, you gain 1%. These stats include Power, Crit (soft cap at 100%), Defense, Deflect Chance, Regeneration, Life Steal and Movement. For Recovery, every 400 points you have gets you 1% AP Gain and 2% faster reload speed of your Encounter Powers. Although these do not technically have DR, you should just mainly focus on whatever stat is most beneficial to your class/spec. Recharge speed has a smaller ratio of 200:1; for every 200 points you get 1%. Armor Penetration is the only stat that has a 100:1 stat to percentage ratio as well as a cap at 85% (8500) even though you technically will not get DR until over 10K; no monsters will need over 85%.

With arm pen you will want more roughly 9-10k as its not a direct 100:1 as you get higher up.

In summary:

Stats with DR at 1000-1200

• Combat Advantage
• AP Gain
• Control Resist
• AoE Resist
• Stamina Gain
• Companion Influence
• Incoming Healing Bonus
• Control Bonus

Stats with 400:1 stat to percentage ratio

• Power
• Crit (Hard cap at 100%)
• Defense
• Deflect Chance
• Regeneration
• Life Steal
• Movement
• Recovery (400 points = 1% AP gain and 2% faster recharge speed of Encounter Powers)

Stats with 200:1 ratio

• Recharge Speed

Stats with 100:1 ratio

• Armor Penetration (cap at 60%/85% with slight DR at 10K+)

This tab will include my top 10 picks for companions for the Hunter Ranger (not including ones for specific role ie Wild Hunt Rider for trapper)

1: Chultan Tiger – Active Bonus: On start of combat; your Run Speed and Damage are increased by 5% for 25 seconds.

Active bonus: Increases the drop of Omuan Treasures and Lost Idols in Chult by 10%.

2: Air Archon – Active Bonus: Increases your damage against targets not at full health by +2.0/3.0/5.0%. Each additional active Archon increases this bonus by .5%

3. Razorwood – Active Bonus: 25% Combat Advantage, +2.5% Critical Severity. this companion can be slightly misleading, the +25% combat advantage means combat advantage damage which means its adding a lot of damage no matter your stats, even at 200% combined combat advantage damage and crit sev the razorwood still provides over 9% damage, if it wasn’t for the need to crit and have combat advantage this companion would be at the top.

4: Siege Master – Active Bonus: Deal +3/4% increased damage. This effect is increased to +7/8% damage while on Stronghold map.

5: Earth Archon – Active Bonus: Increases your damage against targets by +3/4/6% when you are at full health. Each additional active Archon increases this by .5%

6. Alpha Compy – Deal +3% Increased damage.
This effect is increased to +5% damage while in all of Chult.

7: Erinyes of Belial – Active Bonus: +5/10% Critical Severity.

8: Tamed Velociraptor –  Active Bonus: You are Part of the Pack.You and any allies that are Part of the Pack are granted +1% Damage. This effect may stack up to 5 times.

9:Fire Archon – Active Bonus: Increases your damage against targets with less than 50% Hit Points by +4/5/7%

10: Shred companion
Con Artist – Active Bonuses: +25/100/190/300 Critical Strike

Sellsword – Active Bonuses: +25/100/190/300 Power

Note: Rebel Mercenary would be here also but it has the same gear as the sell sword but apparently doesn’t proc Protectors camaraderie. Until I test it, you can miss it out.

These companions are not used for their active bonus but for their powers Wicked Strike and Consumed by Battle (Has to be summoned)
Consumed by Battle: The final strike of Wicked Strike now shreds 10% of the target’s defenses.
Wicked Strike: Deals damage to many foes standing in the way of this attack.
Needs to be maxed out at blue to be useful

Budget comps

1: Repentant Dragon Cultist – Active Bonus: +2/3/4% Damage (additional 1% against dragons) against targets at greater then 50%.

2: Lightfoot Thief – Active Bonus: On Critical Hit, Foes nearby target will bleed for 3/5x Level based damage every 2 seconds for 10 seconds.
 

This companion isn’t a top tier companion but, its fairly cheap on the Auction House due to its high drop chance compared to other companions. It will help boosts IL and can be used as a bonding proccer and has a semi decent Active Bonus.
This companion can be swapped out for any other companion for IL purposes if you need the extra IL to get into dungeons and what not.

3: Young Yeti – Active Bonus: On Damage Taken: 10% chance, for you or your companion, to become blood thirsty, increasing damage dealt by 5/7/10%. (Has a Cooldown of 60 seconds)

*More to come*

Grasping roots are some of the strongest parts of the Hunter Ranger, especially in the Trapper path as with 5 points into ancient roots it makes our strong grasping roots last 7 seconds and weak grasping roots last 3.5 seconds. Just because they are so powerful does note mean they don’t have their flaws.

Grasping roots and thorned roots do not receive benefits from some things, as our roots do not actually root the target the are not being controlled. So any control bonus or root damage will not affect them such as 2 companions which are popular to unknowing Trapper, the Skyblade Kobald and the Paranoid delusion.

Another buff roots don’t benefit from is the Orcus Set, hence the reason you see me not using it.

This is the section we want to pay attention to, as you can see the tooltip states that you will deal up to 20% additional damage based upon the difference in hit point percentage between the player and the target. This does not work with our roots making the set a bad choice as alot of damage come from our roots.

This video explains how the set works really well. Thanks Sume

These are all of the powers and feats that can apply either weak grasping roots or strong grasping roots, baring in mind that with the Thorned Roots feat all strong grasping roots that are applied get upgraded to Thorned Roots.

I will start off by saying I wont be talking about every piece of gear as that would be a waste of my time and the time of anyone who reads this, I will mention mod 13 gear that you should try and obtain and at a later date I might add a couple of gears sets that might help you out till you can get them.

You will want to start off by unlocking OMU and its respective hunt tiers or have a friend that can craft the lures for you, but it might be best to do them yourself as you might need a lot.

The first piece and easiest to obtain is the Fured Kiuno of the Bear, This chest piece is BIS for both Combat and Trapper, and Archery if you use melee powers. Obtained from the Polaris Hunt and is very easy to get.

The Jawrippers Gloves are BIS for Trappers due to Trapper being encounter heavy, NOTE: Does not affect Root damage.

Obtained from the Tyrant Hunt, one of the last pieces you will obtain.

The Fearbringers are probably looked over due to its stats but for a combat HR having an extra 3% dmg on encounters and At-Wills is more than enough to be able to rebalance any stats.

Obtained from the Rasalas Hunt.

Ahhh the Boots of the Willed, in constant debate to being BIS if you tend to do alot of dodging then grab these.

Obtained from Tyrant Hunt

The other set of boots from Mod 13, this one doesn’t require hunts but its not going to be the easiest piece of gear to obtain. The Enduring boots are going to be a good choice until you can get the Boots of the willed or if you rather not dodge and get that 3% damage buff.

Obtained from Makos in OMU.

If there is any specific piece of gear you want me to talk about let me know and ill be quick to add it in.

Trapper doesn’t need much of an introduction, it was the most powerful path to play for the majority of the games lifespan. Consisting of the rapid use of all 6 encounters utilising the roots and each encounter to provide a fluid and fast rotation putting out mass DoT’s and huge AOE and single target damage. This is by far my favourite to play.

Paragon

There has always been a debate whether Stormwarden or Pathfinder is the better choice, before Mod 10 In would have said Stormwarden for the Blade Storm personal. But Mod 10 fixed the damage of Blade Storm and it is no longer affected by buffs, and with the changes to the Swiftness of the Fox feat I feel that going for Pathfinder is a better option for the At-Will Careful Attack/Hunters Teamwork as you will need to use At-Wills and Dailies to maintain a smooth rotation.

Feats

I will explain why I chose each feat and what feats could be chosen.

Heroic Feats

Predatory Action – 3/5 [As you are using 6 Encounter powers getting a daily is pretty fast so you will be firing off dailies quite often extra damage is an easy pick.]

Weapon Mastery – 3/3 [More Crit chance is always nice.]

Toughness – 3/3 [A HR can be squishy yes but doesn’t mean that you want it to be.]

Swift Footwork – 0/5 [This feat isnt worth having over any of the other feats.]

Battle Wise – 0/5 [As a DPS you will be generating threat by doing damage and with a good tank that can hold threat you will never need this.]

Agile Combatant – 3/3 [We are constantly switching stances, doing more damage for doing so is great.]

Endless Assault – 3/3 [We have 6 encounters to use, why wouldn’t you want more damage from them?]

Natures Enhancement – 0/3 [I don’t have enough deflect for it to make a difference.]

Lucky Skirmisher – 0/3 [Same as Natures Enhancement, the difference isn’t noticeable.]

Scoundrel Training – 2/3 [I took off 2 points from Predatory Action for the extra damage on Careful Attack, With the harder dungeons the more damage you can do on the bosses the better, if you are Stormwarden you wont need this 5/5 in Predatory Action is highly recommended.]

Disciple of Dexterity – 3/3 [6% extra damage from DEX is no doubt an obvious choice.]

Extra Action – 0/3 [We gain enough AP as it is, we won’t need extra from here.]

Trapper Feats

Fleet Stance – 5/5 [As I have said before movement is key.]

Readied Stance – 0/5 [We don’t need AP gain, with 6 encounters our daily comes pretty fast]

Deft Strikes – 5/5 [This is the first Feat that will enable you to deal high damage.]

Slasher’s Speed/Natures Fury – 0/5 [Pretty useless as you wont always have the daily equipped.]

Trappers Cunning – 5/5 [As you aim for 100% crit chance this will proc more and more increasing your damage even further.]

Forestbond – 5/5 [Using this will enable you to start cooling down your powers so they are ready to use when you switch stances.]

Ancient Roots – 5/5 [Having your roots last longer means you will be doing more damage.]

Swiftness of the Fox – 5/5 [The bread and butter of a Trapper, most of the time you can use 3 encounters switch stance use 3 encounters switch stance and they will be ready to use again, but if you have a power that takes longer to cool down you will either need to fire an appropriate At-Will or daily at the end or start of your encounters.] (e.g. When using Plant Growth after I have used all 3 of my ranged encounters if I have my daily up I will use it, if not I will fire 1 or 2 At-Wills to ensure that all my melee encounters are ready.)

Thorned Roots – 5/5 [Stronger Roots dealing more damage is great.]

Serpents Bite – 5/5 [As you will always have Aspect of the Serpent active, having this feat will increase your damage and Crit chance.]

Biting Snares – 1/1 [Topping off the feats for extra damage and extra AP]

Powers

As you are leveling put your points into all the powers you could end up using, once reaching 70 your first 4th point will go into Aspect of the Serpent, then it all depends on your preference Careful Attack would be a good second choice then your main 3 encounters (Constricting Arrow, Fox’s Cunning, Cordon of Arrows) then it will depend on what you feel you need most.

These are the power you want to get to 4 first.

Aspect of the Serpent

Careful Attack

Cordon of Arrows

Constricting Arrow

Hindering Shot

Longstrider Shot

Aspect of the pack

Forest Ghost/Seismic Shot

Disruptive shot

Solo:

At-Wills – Hunter’s Teamwork, Rapid Shot

Encounters – Constricting Arrow, Fox’s Cunning/Hindering Shot, Cordon of Arrows

Daily’s – Forest Ghost, Seismic Shot

Personal – Aspect of the Serpent, Aspect of the Pack/Aspect of the Lone Wolf

(Having a companion out will give you nearly 100% up time on Combat Advantage while using AOTP)

Trash:

At-Wills – Hunter’s Teamwork, Rapid Shot

Encounters – Constricting Arrow, Hindering Shot, Cordon of Arrows

Daily’s – Forest Ghost, Disruptive Shot

Personal – Aspect of the Serpent, Aspect of the Pack

Bosses:

At-Wills – Hunter’s Teamwork, Rapid Shot

Encounters – Constricting Arrow, Longstrider’s Shot/Hindering Shot, Cordon of Arrows

Daily’s – Slasher’s Mark/Seismic Shot, Forest Ghost/Distruptive Shot

Personal – Aspect of the Serpent, Aspect of the Pack

(If you have the movement speed use Longstrider’s Shot) You will have to figure out what rotation to use depending on your group composition, if you have a good tank then you can use Hindering shot, if your group is having a hard time staying alive then you can use Fox’s Cunning. Use slashers mark on bosses if you are running with a Guardian Fighter and they don’t have the stamina regen to keep up their shield.

Every few rotations in a boss fight you want to apply Careful attack to keep the damage rolling, when entering combat you want to hit the biggest target with Constricting arrow as it will apply the strongest root, if you are using longstrider lead with that as it will provide you with a damage buff and movement buff. After every range rotation you want to use an At-Will/Daily or both to ensure that Plant Growth is cooled down, when starting your melee rotation start with Plant Growth as it will gain the biggest benefit from Aspect of the Serpent. Keep moving as you will die very quickly at lower IL  The rotations I use are below:

Hindering Shot/Strike Rotation:

This is the main DPS rotation I run with at the moment, It keeps Thorned roots and Strong Grasping roots up to maintain high damage, use this for high DPS if you have a good group.

Rotation is as followed: Constricting arrow > hindering shot > cordon of arrows > hunters teamwork (atwill) [Switch Stance] > Plant Growth > Steel Breeze > hindering strike > (if boss apply careful attack) [Switch Stance] > Constricting arrow > hindering shot > cordon of arrows > hunters teamwork (atwill) > Any Daily >[Switch Stance] > Plant Growth > Steel Breeze > hindering strike…. repeat

Key note, while using this rotation the longer the fight the more you will have to pay attention to your ranged cooldowns, if you know they are not going to be ready use forest ghost (daily) before using all of your melee encounter that way when you switch to ranged and use constricting arrow you can switch back and melee will be up (you may need to fire a few rapid shots while in ranged to be sure).

Longstrider Shot Rotation:

I use this rotation in big groups such as Demo/EDemo/SVA/MSVA/Tiamat, as there are a lot of players to gain the buff its more effective to use than being a selfish DPS, I will also use this if there is another DPS significantly better than me as they will be doing more damage than to help speed things up.

Rotation is as followed: Constricting arrow > Longstrider Shot > Run towards Target > [Switch Stance] > Plant Growth > Gushing Wound > (if boss apply careful attack) > Move out and Steel Breeze at the same time >  [Switch Stance] >Longstrider Shot > Run towards Target > [Switch Stance] > Plant Growth > Gushing Wound > Move out and Steel Breeze at the same time…. repeat

Key note: if you want to maximize damage with Thorned Roots use Longstrider Shot before Constricting Arrow like in the video.

Fox’s Cunning/Shift:

I rarely ever use this rotation anymore, I mainly use this if I am running with a low level tank and DC to give the group better survivability, I will also use this rotation if I feel like trying to solo a dungeon to give me a free dodge.

Rotation is as followed: Constricting arrow > Fox’s Cunning > Cordon of arrows > hunters teamwork (atwill) [Switch Stance] > Plant Growth > Steel Breeze > Fox Shift > (if boss apply careful attack) [Switch Stance] > Constricting arrow > Fox’s Cunning > Cordon of arrows > hunters teamwork (atwill) > Any Daily >[Switch Stance] > Plant Growth > Steel Breeze > Fox Shift…. repeat

Archery Style Rotation:

This rotation is no longer needed as you can easily just have an archery Loadout but its still fun to use at times keeping almost 100% upime on Longstrider’s

Combat is the melee fighting style of the Hunter Ranger, using its close up attacks to deal out flurries of damage to either a large group of mobs or taking off large chunks of a bosses HP. This path was hardly used up until the big change in Module 10 and now slowly becoming the highest DPS path for the HR.

I will start off with a little bit about my experience with combat, firstly I was a little sceptical when building my combat loadout as I didnt want to waste any AD building something I wouldn’t like and regret it down the line. I can say this was quickly shut down as soon as I got a vorpal, combat surprised me when it comes to how efficiently it kills anything including bosses.

I run 2 different specs for combat as apposed to the one I run with trapper, with combat you need to use 2 specs if you want to be as effective as possible. The first spec is my Stormwarden Trash destroyer, with this I can kills trash super quick due to its high burst damage capabilities. Stormwarden Combat is by far a lot better at killing trash than Trapper is due to the insane high burst damage, which is the key to speed runs.

StormWarden – Trash Mobs

As you notice the heroic feats are no different from my PF Trapper feats, and you will see why.

Heroic Feats

Predatory Action – 3/5 [Due to using a Fey this feat is alot better on combat than it is on trapper, although you will notice that you wont use as many dailies but they will hit harder]

Weapon Mastery – 3/3 [More Crit chance is always nice.]

Toughness – 3/3 [More HP = More damage if you are with a Pally.]

Swift Footwork – 0/5 [This feat isnt worth having over any of the other feats.]

Battle Wise – 0/5 [As a DPS you will be generating threat by doing damage and with a good tank that can hold threat you will never need this.]

Agile Combatant – 3/3 [Easily missed as people assume to stay in melee stance, the feat is so easy to maintain is free damage just double tap your stance switch and there you go more damage.]

Endless Assault – 3/3 [Even though the main source of Combats damage is At-Will based doesn’t mean the encounters still don’t pack a punch]

Natures Enhancement – 0/3 [I don’t have enough deflect for it to make a difference.]

Lucky Skirmisher – 0/3 [Deflect is so easy to come by so there is no point wasting feats for it.]

Scoundrel Training – 2/3 [More At-Will damage? Combat says yes please, easy pick.]

Disciple of Dexterity – 3/3 [6% extra damage from DEX is no doubt an obvious choice.]

Extra Action – 0/3 [We gain enough AP as it is, we won’t need extra from here.]

Combat Feats

Blood Letting –  5/5 [More Lifesteal means that while using such high burst damage any damage inflicted you are healed straight back up]

Serpent Weave – 0/5 [The .5 Seconds isnt worth going for as you can get that just from being with a Palladin or DC]

Fluid Hunter – 5/5 [Having this makes the loss of Crit from Skirmishers Gambit easier to make up, plus more deflect means more tanky]

Warden’s Courage – 5/5 [When using Throw Caution you want to take as little damage as possible and do as much damage as possible, since its meant for trash this is the perfect feat]

Skirmisher’s Gambit – 5/5 [For a Trapper Hybrid this feat sucks but for combat its worth using, cant go wrong with more damage]

Lucky Blades – 5/5 [More damage from encounters means more sustained damage for those high HP trash mobs]

Piercing Blades – 5/5 [This doesn’t make your attacks have arm pen attached to them, its separate hit but scales with buffs so can hit pretty hard]

Wilds Medicine – 0/5 [Not worth using in PVE due to how potent lifesteal is with healing]

Scything Blades – 5/5 [More damage is more damage]

Battle Crazed – 5/5 [Even more damage and is super easy to keep at max stacks]

Blade Hurricane – 1/1 [The bread and butter of combat, if utilised correct this feat is insanely powerful and where the burst damage from Combat comes from]

Powers

The main factor in running combat is keeping flurry active as much as possible, you can do this just by utilising your powers correctly.

Trash

Encounters: Thorn Ward/ Thorn Strike, Split the Sky/ Throw Caution, Cordon of Arrows/Plant Growth

Passives: Aspect of the Pack, Blade Storm

Dailies: Forest Ghost, Seismic Shot

At-Wills: Split Strike, Clear the Ground

During your rotation you will want to switch stances every 5 seconds to keep Agile combatant active, this isn’t a problem for trapper as you are always switching stances, but on combat you tend to feel like you should stay in melee stance the whole time… DON’T. before you use and encounter, switch stances twice. If you have time to use Split the Sky before the combat starts, do so as this will give you more damage and also will proc lifesteal.

This is a very basic video of my rotation:

Pathfinder – Single Target

Heroic Feats

Predatory Action – 3/5 [Due to using a vorpal this feat is alot better on combat than it is on trapper, although you will notice that you wont use as many dailies but they will hit harder]

Weapon Mastery – 3/3 [More Crit chance is always nice.]

Toughness – 3/3 [More HP = More damage if you are with a Pally.]

Swift Footwork – 0/5 [This feat isnt worth having over any of the other feats.]

Battle Wise – 0/5 [As a DPS you will be generating threat by doing damage and with a good tank that can hold threat you will never need this.]

Agile Combatant – 3/3 [Easily missed as people assume to stay in melee stance, the feat is so easy to maintain is free damage just double tap your stance switch and there you go more damage.]

Endless Assault – 3/3 [Even though the main source of Combats damage is At-Will based doesn’t mean the encounters still don’t pack a punch]

Natures Enhancement – 0/3 [I don’t have enough deflect for it to make a difference.]

Lucky Skirmisher – 0/3 [Deflect is so easy to come by so there is no point wasting feats for it.]

Scoundrel Training – 2/3 [More At-Will damage? Combat says yes please, easy pick.]

Disciple of Dexterity – 3/3 [6% extra damage from DEX is no doubt an obvious choice.]

Extra Action – 0/3 [We gain enough AP as it is, we won’t need extra from here.]

Combat Feats

Blood Letting –  5/5 [More Lifesteal means that while using such high burst damage any damage inflicted you are healed straight back up]

Serpent Weave – 0/5 [The .5 Seconds isnt worth going for as you can get that just from being with a Palladin or DC]

Fluid Hunter – 5/5 [Having this makes the loss of Crit from Skirmishers Gambit easier to make up, plus more deflect means more tanky]

Advanced Stalking – 0/5 [We wont be using Ambush or bear Trap so this feat is useless]

Skirmisher’s Gambit – 5/5 [For a Trapper Hybrid this feat sucks but for combat its worth using, cant go wrong with more damage]

Lucky Blades – 5/5 [More damage from encounters means more sustained damage for those high HP trash mobs]

Piercing Blades – 5/5 [This doesn’t make your attacks have arm pen attached to them, its separate hit but scales with buffs so can hit pretty hard]

Wilds Medicine – 0/5 [Not worth using in PVE due to how potent lifesteal is with healing]

Scything Blades – 5/5 [More damage is more damage]

Battle Crazed – 5/5 [Even more damage and is super easy to keep at max stacks]

Blade Hurricane – 1/1 [The bread and butter of combat, if utilised correct this feat is insanely powerful and where the burst damage from Combat comes from]

Trapper Feats

Fleet Stance – 5/5 [This feat helps us get closer to the boss faster after using LSS, also any bosses that move around we can keep up as we need to be right at the feet to be able to do the dmg we need]

Powers

Encounters: Thorn Ward/ Thorn Strike, LongStrider Shot/Gushing Wound, Cordon of Arrows/Plant Growth

Passives: Aspect of the Pack, Seekers Vengence/Aspect of the Pack (This will depend on the boss you are fighting, like the Dragon Turtle in FBI you can’t physically get behind him so doing extra damage with thorn ward is always nice)

Dailies: Forest Ghost, Seismic Shot

At-Wills: Split Strike, Careful Attack

Gear

Gear doesnt change much from combat to trapper other than stacking more crit which I do by moving my Hellig off my companion and putting on my Beast Slayer +5. As a combat you will need to swap out the dread for something more useful such as vorpal or fey, i’ve calculated both to be similar damage based on my crit severity and combat advantage dmg, you can do the same or just pick which one you prefer.

The Main hand power I use Split Strike and my Off Hand I still use Aspect of the Pack

Combat is more recovery focused than trapper is, so crit recovery rings are ideal. Stat focus is still the same, arm pen and crit to their respective caps just make sure you grab some recovery on the side, i’m running with 8-9k and I get my powers back with reasonable speed I would advise getting roughly this amount before stacking into power as it will help you keep flurry active as much as possible.

Mounts

My mounts dont change between Combat and Trapper, See mounts Section for more info.

One thing I do change is the equip power, due to being short on recovery I use +4k recovery for my equip power on combat to help cooldowns.

Original post: https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/1241067/solving-the-archery-dilemma-pve-close-range-archery-combat-hybrid-build

Get Copy of Yarrow’s Archery-Combat Hybrid Build (PDF document via Google Drive)

Introducing Yarrow’s Ridiculously Idiotic But Kind of Amazing Archery Build

July 2018 Edition for Mod 13b by Extraneous Typo (Xbox GT)

The Dilemma

Archers do not really get a lot of respect. Sure archery has its fans, but other players, even many who play Combat or Trapper HRs, will frequently say that Archers are a problem because they shoot from a distance and miss out on party buffs. In fact, archers can be so far away that their companions may not even engage in the fight, which can mean bonding stones won’t proc. Even with an archer’s powerful ranged-based damage, that is just not enough to overcome these kinds of deficits.

My Perspective

I am Extraneous Typo (Xbox GT) and I have been playing a Hunter Ranger (named Yarrow) since 2015. I have played all paths for both paragons. My current top loadout for “serious business” is a Combat. But with the release of loadouts in 2017, I started playing around on the side with Archery and have become quite fond of this path. I do recognize there are some fundamental issues that can only be truly fixed by the developers, but I also believe there is a work-around solution to this archery problem.

The Solution

I think a good work-around is a hybrid archery-combat build, mostly as a secondary DPS and support role. In general, most of the feats will still be in the archery tree, including the capstone feat, but key is not selecting Stillness of the Forest and instead putting points into Skirmisher’s Gambit from the Combat tree, which will apply +50% Critical Severity to all attacks. The requirement to be at range is removed and you can now dish out heavy damage from anywhere.

But the differences go even further. You will now have to stack Crit and Recovery and I’m also advocating for an alternating rotation (kind of like a Trapper) of ranged and melee attacks, focusing mostly on encounters and dailies to leverage the scaling physical damage from the Longshot feat. At-wills still come into the picture, but more for adding stacks to your Rising Power feat and not as the main source of damage.

But by focusing on encounters and dailies, you are also buffing and debuffing your party. A very efficient dual-function use of powers! Everything is explained in the full build document.

Note: If you are perfectly happy as a pure archer, I’m certainly not telling anyone what to do here. But if you would like to become more viable for participating in end-game parties, then this hybrid build may be of interest to you.

Isn’t this just a Ridiculous Idea?

Well I’m not saying this build makes Archery better or the equal to Combat or Trapper, but I am hoping it can close the gap a little. Here are a few short video examples of me demonstrating this build, so that you can see the possibilities.

Solo Archer Beating Up a Band of Gorillas in Omu

Solo Archer Taking Down a T-Rex by Soshenstar River

Archer Blacking Out Four Stronghold Target Dummies at Once

Everyone is always asking “whats the best enchants to use?” well, look no further as I’m going to break down each enchant for you so you can decide which enchantments are best suited for you are your build. there are only a few multi-stat enchants thats will be useful, I will list them all and explain the ones worth using.

Lets start off with all of the single stat enchants as these will be your main source of stats when you first start buildings your Hunter Ranger.

Azure Enchantment:

+25/50/75/100/150/200/250/300/400/500/600/700/850/1000 Critical Strike

+25/50/75/100/150/200/250/300/400/500/600/700/850/1000 Defense

This will be you main source of Crit when you first start off you might even still use a few of them towards End Game just to keep yourself at the cap. As it is a single stat enchantment is not ideal to be min maxing with it as you will get more total stats from multi-stat enchants.

The defence is a good option if you lack the suvivability for doing things such as dailies but for dungeon you will want to consider something else.

Dark Enchantment:

+25/50/75/100/150/200/250/300/400/500/600/700/850/1000 Armour Penetration

+25/50/75/100/150/200/250/300/400/500/600/700/850/1000 Life Steal

Dungeons require a set amount of armour penetration for you to be able to do the most amount of damage possible when you lack the armour penetration from gear/companion/mounts using enchant to get to the well needed caps is always a very easy thing to do. Once you acquire sufficient armour pen from other sources you can move away from enchants.

As a HR you have many ways to keep yourself alive very easily, as a trapper you have the constant DoTs and combat you have very fast burst damage, both of which are great at proccing lifesteal and keeping your HP up. I would suggest around 15% lifesteal to be able to keep yourself at full HP without having to be healed from other sources.

Radiant Enchantment:

[Image]

+25/50/75/100/150/200/250/300/400/500/600/700/850/1000 Power

+150/300/450/600/750/1000/1250/1500/1750/2000/2500/3000/3500/4000 Hit Points

While you level up power is going to be the easiest way to output damage so stack it alot. Once you reach level 70 however you swill want to swap and Radiants out for more useful stats such as arm pen and crit. what if you have hit those cap? Personally I wouldn’t use Radiants in offence slots because I know I can get more stats by using duel or triple stat enchants.

Using HP in defence slots is very situational as there is only one real use for it and thats for added damage with Aura of Courage from the Oathbound Paladin, if you are regularly running with a Pally then HP is 100% the best defence stat but only if you alqays run with a pally.

Silvery Enchantment: 

[Image]

+25/50/75/100/150/200/250/300/400/500/600/700/850/1000 Recovery

+25/50/75/100/150/200/250/300/400/500/600/700/850/1000 Deflection

Honestly there isn’t much to say about this one as its not thats great, the recovery is nice for a combat but you need to prioritise crit over recovery to start with and when you do try stack recovery through enchantments its best to go for multi-stats.

If you PVP deflection is going to be something you want a lot of but in terms of PVE there isn’t really much use for it on a HR, its not going to help keep you alive.

Now for the double stat Enchants,

Brutal Enchantment:

[Image]

+15/30/45/60/90/120/150/180/240/300/360/420/510/600 Power and Critical Strike

+90/180/270/360/450/600/750/900/1050/1200/1500/1800/2100/2400 Hit Points and +15/30/45/60/90/120/150/180/240/300/360/420/510/600 Defense

With power and crit being most wanted for DPS classes this enchant will be especially useful once you start to reach that crit cap as the added power will increase your damage output even more. I would reccomend if you are going to use this enchantment to use it on your character offence slots first so you don’t have a too big of a decrease in crit chance.

For a defensive option its not the best option as there are other enchants with more HP and more overall usefulness, I would try avoid using them as going full radiants will net in higher damage output and the defence will be less sought after towards endgame.

Cruel Enchantment:

+15/30/45/60/90/120/150/180/240/300/360/420/510/600 Power and Recovery

+15/30/45/60/90/120/150/180/240/300/360/420/510/600 Defense and Deflection

As an overall enchantment this is a pretty poor choice when it comes to PVE as neither offence or defence will be truly beneficial, I’d skip this at all costs.

Ruthless Enchantment:

[Image]

+125/150/200/260/330/420/500/600 Critical Strike and Recovery

+125/150/200/260/330/420/500/600 Defense and Life Steal

A nice new enchantment that got added recently, for offense its a good option for combat HRs who are just lacking that little bit of recovery. Its not end game enchant but since its new it is fairly cheap and easy to get a hold of and will help out with the need for recovery.

Defence wise this enchant will replace and darks you might have slotted but its not anything for end game so id recommend  trying not to stack too many.

Savage Enchantment:

[Image]

+15/30/45/60/90/120/150/180/240/300/360/420/510/600 Critical Strike and Armor Penetration

+90/180/270/360/450/600/750/900/1050/1200/1500/1800/2100/2400 Hit Points and +15/30/45/60/90/120/150/180/240/300/360/420/510/600 Life Steal

In my opinion an excellent enchantment for offence and defence if you lack a little bit of lifesteal, the crit and armp pen can help you reach your two most important caps which is great for slotting on your companion if you so need to.

In defence the HP and lifesteal combo will help keep you doing extra damage and keeping your lifesteal up to a point where you don’t need outside healing.

Vicious Enchantment:

[Image]

+15/30/45/60/90/120/150/180/240/300/360/420/510/600 Armor Penetration and Power

+15/30/45/60/90/120/150/180/240/300/360/420/510/600 Deflection and Life Steal

Not much to write here, pretty poor stats overall. Skip.

Wicked Enchantment:

[Image]

+150/180/240/300/360/420/510/600 Armor Penetration and Recovery

+15/30/45/60/90/120/150/180/240/300/360/420/510/600 Deflection and Life Steal

Same with this one, really not worth using.

And now for the Triple Stat Enchants.

Black Ice Enchantment:

[image]

+75/105/140/175/215/275/350/425/500/600/700 Power, +38/63/70/88/108/138/175/212/250/300/350 Critical Strike, +38/63/70/88/108/138/175/212/250/300/350 Recovery

+75/105/140/175/215/275/350/425/500/600/700 Defense, +38/63/70/88/108/138/175/212/250/300/350 Deflection, +38/63/70/88/108/138/175/212/250/300/350 Life Steal

Offence slot wise, this is by far the best option for a Combat hr as all 3 stats are useful and it will provide the most overall useful stats of any enchantment.

Defence slot though, not worth it as it has no HP and it mainly for powershare classes for the addition assassins covenant power.

Demonic Enchantment: 

[Image]

+105/140/175/215/275/350/425/500/600/700 Armor Penetration, +63/70/88/108/138/175/212/250/300/350 Power, +63/70/88/108/138/175/212/250/300/350 Critical Strike

+525/700/875/1050/1225/1400/1750/2100/2450/2800 Maximum Hit Points, +63/70/88/108/138/175/212/250/300/350 Deflection, +63/70/88/108/138/175/212/250/300/350 Life Steal

If you lack a little in arm pen this enchantment can help you maintain your high power and crit while giving you that boost of arm pen you might need.

While this has higher HP than say a brutal or a savage I wouldn’t recommend using it, try stick to using Radiants the HP boost is more than enough to warrent not having any other defensive stats since you’ll be able to gain both defence and deflect from shepherds devotion.

Draconic Enchantment:

[Image]

+50/75/105/140/175/215/275/350/425/500/600/700 Armor Penetration, +25/38/63/70/88/108/138/175/212/250/300/350 Power, +25/38/63/70/88/108/138/175/212/250/300/350 Recovery

+315/420/525/700/875/1050/1225/1400/1750/2100/2450/2800 Maximum Hit Points, +25/38/63/70/88/108/138/175/212/250/300/350 Defense, +25/38/63/70/88/108/138/175/212/250/300/350 Life Steal

For offence stats this enchantment is pretty poor, for defence it can help give you a boost of defence if you feel you need it. Other than that there isn’t much to talk about.

Gigantic Enchantment: 

[Image]

+105/140/175/215/275/350/425/500/600/700 Critical Strike, +63/70/88/108/138/175/212/250/300/350 Recovery, +63/70/88/108/138/175/212/250/300/350 Armor Penetration

+263/350/438/525/613/700/875/1050/1225/1400 Maximum Hit Points, +63/70/88/108/138/175/212/250/300/350 Defense, +105/140/175/215/275/350/425/500/600/700Deflection

Now this one is going to be used if you are lacking arm pen and crit as it is almost as good as a black ice but the stat distribution goes more heavily into crit.

I wouldn’t bother with this for a defense slot, using this over any other HP enchant is silly as it has the lowest HP count.

Any questions about any Enchant be sure to make a comment and ill update if needed.

This is a solo Shores of Tuern I did, it was a very tough fight and I had to switch up a lot of things. But in the end I pulled it off, granted with a lot of deaths but it was worth it.

I attempted a solo Lair of Lostmauth and it was a success, the only part I struggled with was the first boss over 50% HP. Once he was no longer on the drake, the drake didn’t hit as hard and as he moves slow I could just bounce around both of them and avoid his attacks.

Final Notes

One thing I cant stress enough to people is how important Bonding Runestones are, they provide a huge stat increase and are the best thing you could invest in. max out your Bonding Runestones as soon as possible.

Thank you for putting the time into looking at my guide, if you notice anything wrong with the guide or things don’t sound right let me know and ill fix it asap. Had a lot of good feedback from my build, feel free to post a comment about your experience using my build and if you find things that could be improved.

Thank you to everyone throughout the years of me playing Neverwinter, it has been a fun journey and I hope even though I no longer play my build still gets recommended down the line as a place to read about my thoughts on the HR. Most of this wouldn’t have been possible without the support of everyone wanting me to keep the build upto date and keep my opinion on things coming.

Special thanks the to the Members of the Hunter Ranger page on facebook, great set of admins and members, another special thanks to Eric for allowing me to archive his build into a section on this build.

Change Log

All major updates to this guide will be posted here and small tweaks will be notes but wont be explained unless they need to be.

• {24/07/17} Added tabs to make the build cleaner and easier to navigate
• {24/07/17} Updated mount section to include Mount Combat Power and Equip Power
• {18/11/17} Added New Tabs and updated introduction
• {20/01/18} Added Combat Build
• {05/04/18} Updated any outstanding changes to match current build (might have missed something so please let me know}
• {05/04/18} Added Stat distribution info into its respective section.
• {21/07/18} Updated to mod 13
• {21/07/18} Added Enchant breakdown
• {21/07/18} Added Archery build
• {21/07/18] Added % dmg equipment to all things gear tab.

There will be no more changes coming to this build any time soon.

The best choice is either Ancestry Dragonborn or metallic Ancestry Dragonborn because the 3% more Power from Dragonborn Fury Racial Bonus counts towards power-sharing. As an alternative Human is a good choice.

What we want from our Attributes are recharge speed for our Encounter Powers and Action Point Gain. So the main stats are INT and CHA. KO and WIS are nice to have.

The most important Feats are:

Feats that i currently use:

Some other examples of Feats that i used recently:

The most important Encounter Power is BANE:

Bane should always be applied to the damage classes first and then on the boss. So in a “normal” group you use Bane on the main damage dealer and the damage Guardian Fighter first and when they have their 3 stacks you start using Bane on the boss too. It is very important that once you have applied the 3 stacks to not let them fall off again. Every time you reapply Bane on your target, you refresh the duration of your current stacks. If you fail to manage your time correctly you lose all 3 stacks on your target. Currently the description of Bane is bugged and always shows 12s charge refill but it actually gets reduced by recovery etc..

At-Wills are always Oath Strike and Radiant Strike.

Class feats are always Aura of Courage and Aura of Wisdom.

The daily you use 99% of the time is Shield of Faith.

For Cradle of the Death God and Tomb of the nine Gods i am using Vow of Enmity, Bane, Templar’s Wrath (Templar’s enables me to proc the feat Flash of Light more often. The extra heal from Bond of Virtue is wasted in most groups). If there is a Guardian Fighter in the group that is dealing damage i use Absolution instead of Vow of Enmity because they have a feat that gives them 15% more damage while they have temporary hitpoints.

Powers for Cradle of the death god and Tomb of the nine Gods:

For Castle Ravenloft i use Vow of Enmity, Bane, Bond of Virtue. Again i switch out Vow of Enmity for Absolution if there is a Guardian Fighter in the group that deals damage.

Powers for Castle Ravenloft:

Here are some bindings for PC players that make it easier to apply Bane onto the right target:

With these bindings Bane has to be on the second slot and can be used with mouse wheel up, mouse wheel down and mouse 5. Absolution has to be on the first slot and can be used with ALT.

/bind wheelplus “tar $$ hardtargetlock 1 $$ +PowerTrayExec 3 $$ hardtargetlock 0”
/bind wheelminus “tar1 $$ hardtargetlock 1 $$ +PowerTrayExec 3 $$ hardtargetlock 0”
/bind 0xf2 “tar2 $$ hardtargetlock 1 $$ +PowerTrayExec 3 $$ hardtargetlock 0”
/bind alt “tar3 $$ hardtargetlock 1 $$ +PowerTrayExec 2 $$ hardtargetlock 0”

Press Numpad 7,8,9 to bind your Bane targets. Numpad 4 is for your Absolution target.

/bind numpad7 startchatwith “/alias tar target “
/bind numpad8 startchatwith “/alias tar1 target “
/bind numpad9 startchatwith “/alias tar2 target “
/bind numpad4 startchatwith “/alias tar3 target “

Also very useful for lazy people that run Castle Ravenloft a lot:

/bind numpad1 startchatwith “/alias tar2 target Sister of Spite”
/bind numpad2 startchatwith “/alias tar2 target Sister of Rage”
/bind numpad3 startchatwith “/alias tar2 target Sister of Venegance”
/bind numpad5 startchatwith “/alias tar2 target The Arcolith”
/bind numpad6 startchatwith “/alias tar2 target Strahd von Zarovich”

For Boons we mainly focus on everything that benefits Power-Share. The Stronghold Boons should be Power and Defense or Lifesteal.

Gear and stats (without bonding proc or potions):

Gear and stats (with bonding procs and no potions):

Overall we are looking for more Power. Always keep in mind that we are using 3 x Assassin’s Covenant. So Deflection, Lifeleech and Defense are good secondary stats. Recovery is nice to have if it doesn’t lower potential Power.

Summoned Companion: [Con Artist] with Bondings and three [Beaded Restoration Rings]. The offense slots are all filled with Silver Enchantments for more Recovery.

:

Active Companions: As active Companions i use those that give more Power and increase the damage of the group. Tamed Velociraptor (1% Damage for everyone in the Pack), Ghost (400 Power), Skeleton (660 Power and Lifesteal) and Archmage’s Apprentice (660 Power and Lifesteal)

Equip Power: Any Mount with 2000 (4000) Power is good.

Combat Power: Tyrannosaur (Summons the Tyrannosaur, causing your enemies fear, rooting them for 5 seconds, and lowering their defense by 10% for 10 seconds.)

List of Mount Powers:

• Artificer’s Persuasion: 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.
• Shepherd’s Devotion: Whenever you use a Daily power, your teammates Defense, Deflection, and Movement are increased by 5% of your Power for 10 seconds.
• 3 x Assassin’s Covenant: You lose 10%(15% if you stack it 3 times) of your Defense, Deflection, and Life Steal, and gain the combination of lost stats as Power. This power counts as base power. Best for maximum Power share.
• Gladiator’s Guile: 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 only recommended for Speedruns)

Insignias: Most Insignia should be Dominance (Power).

External Sources: If you want to learn more about the game and want to understand things better you should read/ check out those Links.

Jelly Group Synergy Guide (This is very very good. Read it and learn young Padawan)

Basic Ability Information

Reference for Power Sharing

Mod 14 Artifact Sets 

Reference for the best Headgear for Power-Share Classes

Mod 12 Protection Guide with a lot of useful information about the Paladin class.

Quality of life:

NWEC – Neverwinter Enchantment Calculator 1.7

Mount Insignia Bonus Helper

Usefull Keybinds

Nyv’s Workshop for Masterwork items

Choosing Your Race

Choosing your race is honestly a very optional thing. I support the idea of choosing your Race based off the cosmetics as opposed to the actual buffs each Race will offer. The extra “buffs” you receive amount to basically nothing, so I wouldn’t stress it. That is of course my personal preference.

For those of you who don’t really care for cosmetics, as long as you know you’re grabbing every tiny bit of extra damage you can possibly obtain, I will list a few viable options for races based off the Racial Abilities they give.

Human

• What makes this a desirable choice is the unique Racial Ability, Heroic Effort. In addition to this, the Human Race offers Ability Scores allowing a healthy amount of versatility in both your Ability Rolls and Feats later on.
• Humans also grant Versatile Defense – however, this is pretty useless as a Trickster Rogue. Why?

Sun Elf

• Sun Elf is the Race I chose when I started my character well over 4 years ago. Inner Calm works well with the idea of our class using Daily Powers to really boost our overall damage. Our Ability Scores are not as useful or even nearly as versatile as it is on the Human Race; it’s not bad though. Both Dexterity and Charisma are decent Ability Rolls for a Trickster Rogue.
• Lastly is Sun Elf Grace which hands down is useless. Later on we’ll talk about an Encounter Power called Impossible To Catch, which makes you immune to Control Effects.

Dragonborn

• Dragonborn is a unique race, as you do have to pay to unlock it. You can either purchase the Dragonborn Legend Pack or the Dragonborn Race Reroll Pack. In my opinion the Dragonborn Race Reroll Pack is the better deal, since the other pack is more expensive, and it’s contents are outdated.
• What makes this race desirable is the Dragonborn Fury Racal Ability. Since these are your 2 most important stats, it does make this race  particularly desirable. As well, like with the Human Race, the Ability Scores is exactly the same.
• Draconic Heritage isn’t bad, but it isn’t great either. Doesn’t really help you much as a DPS class.

Ability Scores

Ability Rolls luckily are pretty straight forward. You want either STR (Strength) and DEX (Dexterity) or STR (Strength) and CHA (Charisma). I would recommend STR/DEX for newer players who are lacking Critical Chance. When you can maintain a healthy Critical Chance without the use of DEX, I would then recommend STR/CHA

• STR is great for building up a nice Damage Bonus as it grants a direct Damage % Increase
• DEX is great for building up high Critical Strike.
• CHA is particularly useful due to bonus Combat Advantage Damage, which you will learn more about as we work through the guide.

Stats

Stats for a Trickster Rogue are all about finding a balance. You want enough of a stat, but not too much. Below I’ll list different stats, what your goals should generally be for that stat, and why you should aim for that amount and not any higher than recommended. As well, I’d recommend reading over this since it’ll help break down actual combat itself and how your stats apply to it.

Armor Penetration – In common quest areas, foes generally have 60% Damage Resistance – so you want 60% Resistance Ignored. If you are starting or have already started The Jungles of Chult – you’ll want to increase your Damage Resistance to 80-85% in these areas (Soshenstar River & Omu). Once you begin Ravenloft Campaign (Barovia), you will need 100% Resistance Ignored.

• Why is this necessary?
• 100 Armor Penetration grants 1% Resistance Ignored.
• Please note that Resistance Ignored (RI) is now referred to as Defences Ignored as of Module 13.

Power – I think this stat is pretty self explanatory – Power = Damage. Don’t need to provide a tooltip for this one!

• 400 Power grants 1% Damage Increase.

Critical Strike – Critical Strike is vital, since you want to be dealing consistent Critical Hits. Generally it differs from player to play what % chance they prefer to have, but generally I say anywhere between 85%-100% is totally viable / acceptable. The more Crits, the more damage.

• Critical Severity – This is good to stack too from Boons.
• 400 Critical Strike grants 1% Critical Chance. Note, you gain Critical Chance from other stats such as Dexterity, as mentioned earlier.

Recovery – Recovery is going to help you cast your Encounters more often, and your Dailies more frequent. Same thing – I know. Personally, I wouldn’t focus entirely on this until you have your other stats balanced out where they should be.

• 200 Recovery grants 1% Recharge Speed Increase.
• 400 Recovery grants Action Point Gain.

Life Steal – Your main Defensive Stat, heals you consistently through combat. Best to have roughly 20-25% Life Steal Chance, you don’t need too much. The standard Life Steal Severity is perfect too – never worry about increasing that. 

• 400 Lifesteal grants 1% Lifesteal Chance.

Combat Advantage Bonus – This is not a stat you increase with Enchantments or Armor and is frequently overlooked for this reason. Combat Advantage is similar to Critical Strike in the sense that it’s a Combat Modifier more so than a Stat. Later on (under Powers), we’ll talk more about utilizing it to compliment your damage output.

• If you want to read a bit more about how it works, click here.

About Heroic Feats & Paragon Paths

When creating any class in the game, not just Trickster Rogues, there are many ways to mix and match your feats, powers and abilities. This creates for a near endless amount of combinations, however, because of this, it’s often difficult to choose and decide what are the right or “better” ones to select.

Firstly, you have your Paragon Path – in which case we’re selecting Master Infiltrator. Master Infiltrator has much better Paragon-Specific Class Features, making it the better pick for a high-damage build as oppose to the Whisperknife Paragon Path.

Secondly, you have your Feats. Looking at your Feats, one of the first things you’ll notice is that Feats are divided into 2 sections; Heroic Feats and Paragon Feats. 

Heroic Feats for a Trickster Rogue stay the same regardless of what Feat Path you choose to take. What should change from Build to Build is the Paragon Feats. For Trickster Rogues we have Executioner, Scoundrel, and Saboteur. All 3 pathways are pretty good; though they all serve different purposes / roles in the game.

• Executioner focuses on maximizing your Damage against a Single Target
• Scoundrel focuses on controlling/dazing targets, buffing and debuffing, and as well deals decent damage against multiple foes.
• Saboteur focuses on maximizing your Damage against multiple targets, and smaller targets.

Heroic Feats

Weapon Mastery 3/3 – This helps increase our Critical Strike which is a vital Stat for Trickster Rogues.

Action Advantage 3/5 – This falls back on that Combat Advantage we talked about earlier in the Stats Tab. This is only the beginning of why it’s actually extremely useful to know and understand how Combat Advantage benefits our damage.

Toughness 3/3 – While this is more a filler, it still works nicely when tied with Aura of Courage – this is oriented towards endgame content though, but it’s still a good feat to use early on.

Cunning Ambusher 3/3 – You’re using Stealth a lot during combat, particularly in ties with the Invisible Infiltrator Class Feature we’ll talk about later on in the Powers section. Getting an extra 6% damage for 6 seconds that stacks on top of itself every time you Stealth, is a very good buff.

Endless Assault 3/3 – Self explanatory, you use Encounter Powers to deal damage – so this is a free 6% damage increase for your character.

Disciple of Strength 2/3 – This plays on those Ability Scores we talked about earlier. STR (Strength) gives a Damage Output bonus – and this feat increases that bonus by an additional 6%.

Scoundrel Training 3/3 – This Feat in particular is fairly useful, since Trickster Rogues are one of the less common classes that actually depend on their At-Wills to deal a heavy portion of their total damage, especially with the At-Will Duelist’s Flurry which we’ll learn more about later on.

About the Executioner

For this particular part of the guide, we’re going to look into the Executioner Build, which is the #1 Build for dealing massive amounts of damage versus a single target. Every Character comes with 2 Loadouts, making the general Trickster Rogue play to be switching from Single Target (Executioner) to Multiple Target (Saboteur or Scoundrel) during dungeons and raids. Executioner will be your build for Single Target. Let’s get more into detail below. 

Executioner Feats

Grim Pleasure – You should be dealing a considerable amount of Critical Strikes during combat, so this should be a permanent 5% increase to your Power.

Vicious Persuit – Similar to Grim Pleasure, you should always be dealing damage in combat, thus making this a permanent 5% damage buff. 

Deathknell – Generally it’s this Feat and the Feat below (Last Moments) that make this build so power against Single Targets. 

Last Moments – Same comment as with Deathknell, though this Feat does modify a little bit during combat. Please note Last Moments and Deathknell do stack with each other – granting a 50% Damage Buff together for enemies below 30% HP.

Shadowborn – It’s a decent buff, since you’re consistently using Encounter Powers and Daily Powers. This Feat does not have a cooldown.

Shadow of Demise (Mod 13) / Shadow of Demise (Mod 14) – It takes practice to fully understand and recognize *how* this feat works. It’s difficult to explain and when I first picked up Executioner after 2+ years of playing Saboteur, no single explanation could break it down for me until I actually practiced. Just remember to stealth before using an Encounter Power to proc this, watch the buffs that pop up on Red Text on your screen, and I promise you will pick this up. It amounts to a very heavy portion of your damage; so its very important for you to fully understand and recognize how this Feat works. Shadow of Demise was buffed with the release of Module 14, so this Feat currently works differently on PC than on Xbox and PS4.

Scoundrel Feats

Bloody Brawler – Great for increasing your Lifesteal but all in all, speaking truthfully, this is just a filler so you can invest points into the following 2 feats.

Press The Advantage – Generally, Impossible To Catch is a very strong, but explicitly defensive Encounter Power on its own. Tied in with this feat, it now also increases your Power by 10%, which is a very nice buff.

Back Alley Tactics – You’re always throwing down Daily Powers, so your Action Point Gauge should never be full, making this a pretty good, straight, damage buff.

About The Saboteur Build

For this particular part of the guide, we’re going to look into the Saboteur Build, which mainly revolves around damaging and melting multiple targets at once. Every Character comes with 2 Loadouts, making the general Trickster Rogue play to be switching from Single Target (Executioner) to Multiple Target (Saboteur or Scoundrel) during dungeons and raids. Saboteur will be your build for Multiple Targets. Let’s get more into detail below.

Saboteur Feats

Shady Preparations – Saboteur works around stealth a lot, so these are some major cooldowns you receive through out combat – they help your damage a ton.

Flashing Blades – Majority of the time I would expect your stealth meter to be empty, since you should be using it the moment it’s full. Should be an easy 5% damage buff to your At-Wills.

Knife’s Edge – Similar effect to Shady Preparations, however, the cooldowns are activated via Daily Powers instead of Stealth.

Gutterborn’s Touch – Finding how and where to place your character does generally help you. Being behind your target not only activates / procs this Feat, but you’re always out of the way of the tank and lower the risk of your character taking a heavy blow.

Ambusher’s Haste – It’s basically when you deal damage from stealth, you have a 25% damage bonus. As said, you use stealth a lot as a Saboteur, so this should be pretty self explanatory.

One with the Shadows – This actually refills your stealth a lot, which allows you to reduce your cooldowns even more (using stealth more frequent), and allows you to turn Encounter Powers such as Dazing Strike into a more powerful attack – Dazing Strike (Stealthed).

Scoundrel Feats

Bloody Brawler – Great for increasing your Lifesteal but all in all, speaking truthfully, this is just a filler so you can invest points into the following 2 feats.

Press The Advantage – Generally, Impossible To Catch is a very strong, but explicitly defensive Encounter Power on its own. Tied in with this feat, it now also increases your Power by 10%, which is a very nice buff.

Back Alley Tactics – You’re always throwing down Daily Powers, so your Action Point Gauge should never be full, making this a pretty good, straight, damage buff.

Powers

Several classes in Neverwinter are very basic in the sense that you have these powers, cast them in this order, and you’ll get this result. Then it’s just rinse and repeat the rest of the combat. Trickster Rogues are a little different because even though we have that “recommended” rotation, it’s not ABC-123. Things change through combat, and you just fight accordingly. Trickster Rogues are very fast-paced too, so you can’t sit there contemplating what to use next. You’re constantly switching between  Dailies, Encounters and At-Wills working to compliment them with each other to get that maximum damage effect.

I should also mention, work towards Power Points at your own pace. You do not need to have 100+, or a full 124 Power Points to make this guide work. The more you play, the more you’ll earn. You can earn additional Power Points by:

• Levelling (1-70, 1 Power Point each level)
• Purchasing them either from the Sharandar Campaign, Zen Market or Auction House
• Overflow Experience

What is the difference in gameplay between a Saboteur and Executioner?

• Saboteur – Saboteur focuses around dealing lots of damage consistently through combat through small, but multiple numbers / hits, Saboteur focuses lots around cooldowns as well – making it the faster paced build of the Trickster Rogue.
• Executioner – Executioner focuses largely around dealing that one massive blow with Shadow of Demise. Learning how to execute this perfectly is extremely necessary in order to make Executioner work.

Main Powers

At-Will Powers

• Sly Flourish – One of your main at-wills, mostly for the fact that it casts very fast and is a great 1-2 second filler while waiting for cooldowns.
• Duelist’s Flurry – Duelists Flurry makes up for a large amount of your total damage; in particular from it’s bleed effect (deals extra Damage Over Time (DoT)). It’s a must have At-Will.

Encounter Powers

• Impossible To Catch – Tying this in with Press The Advantage makes it a very powerful offensive/defensive self-buff encounter. Most useful at endgame, but still serves well at early stages.
• Dazing Strike – This is super ideal to use in combat, decent damage and very short cooldown. As well, using Dazing Strike (Stealthed) makes it an Area of Effect (AoE) attack, which is very powerful particularly against mobs / multiple foes.
• Smoke Bomb – Both a powerful Area of Effect (AoE) and Damage Over Time (DoT) – really nice to just drop it, and let those numbers tick in the background while you use some of your other powers. Makes for a deadly total of damage.

Daily Powers

• Whirlwind of Blades – Using this to tally up quick, easy, power is very effective. The key idea is to stack this with Courage Breaker to continuously stack your power higher when opposing a single target.
• Courage Breaker – Again, stacking this with Whirlwind of Blades is the way to go. The idea is to alternative between the 2 dailies to create an… infinite loop of power buffing per say.
• Lurker’s Assault – Very powerful particularly against trash mobs, or meltdown bosses. The general consensus for me; if it dies in less than 15-20 seconds, use Lurker’s Assault. The reason for this being is that for 12 seconds while you have the Lurker’s Assault effects, you do not gain action points, period. That’s a major setback on your damage when opposing larger foes.

Class Feats

• Infiltrator’s Action – Every Off-hand Artifact Weapon has an Artifact Class Feature – meaning you receive an extra “buff” to a Class Feat of your choice.
  • The Artifact Class Feature: Infiltrator’s Action is likely the strongest of all the Artifact Class Feats available.
  • It also plays on the Combat Advantage we discussed earlier on the Stats page. At Rank 4, you’re getting CA (Combat Advantage) for 20 seconds whenever you use a Daily Power. You should be using a Daily Power at least once every 15 seconds, if not more (unless you’re just starting your Trickster Rogue) – so this feat will give you an easy perma-combat advantage damage bonus.
• Invisible Infiltrator – Increases your Stealth and your Damage – works really great, especially since you’re using Daily Powers all the time. You absolutely should be running this feat.

Optional Powers

At-Will Powers

• Cloud of Steel – Master Infiltrator’s only ranged At-Will power, many prefer to run this instead of Sly Flourish, solely for the freedom of the extra range.

Encounter Powers

• Lashing Blade – Extremely high damage, often pairs great with an Executioner Build. I personally don’t use this as one of my Main Powers, but many do prefer to use this instead of Dazing Strike – making this a very preference-oriented choice, as both generally are very good powers.
• Wicked Reminder – Great for debuffing your opponent if your party is lacking and/or requires more debuffs in order to effectively run. That’s the only scenario in which I should slot Wicked Reminder. As well, I would only replace this with Dazing Strike; possibly Impossible to Catch if you wished.
• Blade Flurry – Great for Area of Effect (AoE), some players swear by this power paired with a Saboteur build – other’s don’t. I personally don’t like it, but it’s still an option if you wished to replace Impossible To Catch with something else on mobs.

Daily Powers

• Bloodbath – Bloodbath is only good or useful when you’re struggling to survive combat. It helps keep you alive by moving your character around the battlefield to quickly, you’re impossible to target / damage. Damage-wise though, this power sucks.

Class Feats

• Skillfull Infiltrator – Fun for run speed, semi-useful if you’re trying to build your Critical Chance. I don’t really recommend it, but it’s not the worst one you could choose from as oppose to Infiltrator’s Action.
• Tactics – Again, not highly recommended, doesn’t really help too much due to Diminishing Returns. Can be used alternatively if you really feel your Action Point Gain is far too low to be useful.

Rotations

Often, in order to maximize your damage or buffs, there’s a standard rotation to every class and every build. Now obviously, by standard, I mean that it’s solely an outline or an idea of how you want to mix and match your Powers together in combat. Rotations will never be one solid cast 1-2-3, rinse and repeat. Factors of combat change your cooldowns, your buffs, your power, and several other components. There are basics to be aware of; but it’s impossible to give a solid single rotation.

Executioner Specific Rotations

Shadow of Demise is the key to the damage output of this build. So obviously, your rotations should consist of firstly, buffing Shadow of Demise – and of course secondly, actually triggering Shadow of Demise.

Before you trigger Shadow of Demise, you want to buff yourself a little. Remember, the damage you want to deal in those 6 seconds, needs to be the highest amount of damage possible. Whirlwind of Blades is a great way to start stacking power right away. Casting then Impossible To Catch will also buff your power, thanks to the Press The Advantage feat. It’s a perfect way to start off combat.

To trigger or ‘proc’ Shadow of Demise, you must cast an Encounter Power that deals damage to your opponent from Stealth. So your rotation for this would be Stealth > Dazing Strike or Lashing Blade depending which you prefer to use – both are viable and good for damage, both will proc Shadow of Demise.

From there, you want to deal as damage as you can over the course of the following 6 seconds. Casting down a Smoke Bomb just prior to triggering Shadow of Demise or directly after is perfect, good, high DoT while Shadow of Demise is ticking. Using Courage Breaker will stack power directly on top of Whirlwind of Blades – alternatively you can use Lurker’s Assault as well instead of Courage Breaker. Really depends how quick that boss is going to die – if it’s only going to be a minute, use Lurkers. If it’s going to be several minutes, use Courage.

For filler, during the Shadow of Demise effect or in-between cooldowns, I recommend Duelist’s Flurry if you have a few seconds on your hands, since the casting time for it’s full rotation does take a few seconds. If you literally have like, a second of downtime because of cooldowns then Sly Flourish. Rule of thumb – if you don’t have time for Duelist’s Flurry in your rotation, use Sly Flourish.

Mount Combat Powers and Artifact Powers… use just prior to triggering Shadow of Demise. Using them during the Shadow of Demise effect is going to take up precious seconds you could be using to stack up damage. So – use ’em wisely, just before you proc Shadow of Demise.

My key suggestion is don’t be eager to rush triggering Shadow of Demise. It’s much more useful and beneficial to wait out on casting Shadow of Demise until you’re decently buffed as opposed to triggering it solely because you can, but all your Encounters are on cooldown and your Action Points are not full enough, therefore, you can’t do anything but a couple Duelist At-Wills. You’ll miss out on so much damage by rushing it. Wait until your Encounters are ready for use, Action Points are full, and you are set to go. Trust me, that’s my #1 Advice.

Saboteur Specific Rotations

Saboteur can be tricky to pick up at first, because it’s a build that never stops, never pauses, never takes breaks. There really isn’t a ground set of rotations to follow, yet there is, if that makes sense. To say the least, Saboteur is a little more rinse and repeat than Executioner, but takes some muscle memory and in-depth understanding, as lot’s of powers and effects trigger off different Paragon Feats & Class Feats.

Basically, once every minute or so, you want to stack all your buffs in 1 go, but in a certain order to minimize your cooldowns and maximize the number of times you use your encounters both from stealth and out of stealth. It’s basically a burst of damage that occurs once every minute or so, maybe less, maybe more. So for example, if I see I have all my buffs ready to use and I’m combatting strong enemies, I would likely use a rotation similar to this;

1. By using the Artifact & Mount Combat Power first, you buff up your following rush of attacks. So in my case, Wheel of Elements (Fire) and Bat Swarm.
2. Using Impossible To Catch increases your Power by 10% because of the Press The Advantage Feat, which creates another buff to your Power. This also increases your defences. There is nothing worse than dying right after you’ve cast your 2 major buffs (Artifact & Mount Combat Power) – the cool downs will not reset just because you died.
3. Stealth! Using Stealth frequently not only increases the damage your Powers deal, but it also reduces your cooldowns by 10% every time you enter stealth due to the Shady Preparations Feat.
4. Casting down Smoke Bomb from Stealth early on in your rotations is a good idea. This Encounter automatically modifies it’s DoT output accordingly to your buffs. Buffing after casting will increase it’s damage mid-attack.
5. By using Smoke Bomb, you would have proc’d your One with the Shadows Feat, meaning you have a full Stealth Meter again. By this point, you’re basically fully buffed; it’s good to use Dazing Strike to take full advantage of that full stealth meter. Using Dazing Strike from Stealth also changes it’s cast affect into an AoE attack instead of a single-target attack.
6. After all this would come your Daily Powers, Whirlwind of Blades or Lurker’s Assault. Using your Daily Power triggers the Knife’s Edge Feat, which reduces your cooldowns yet again. 
7. Additionally, your Daily Powers trigger the Invisible Infiltrator Class Feat, meaning your Stealth Meter is refilled, again!
8. If your Impossible To Catch‘s cooldown is done, recast it, but not from stealth.
9. Depending on how close or far your foes are from being killed, you’ll want to lastly Stealth again and either cast Smoke Bomb or Dazing Strike. Smoke Bomb is best for if your enemies aren’t going to be killed within the next few seconds; if they are going to be killed within the next few seconds, Dazing Strike is better.

That of course is just an example, an outline; your timing and cooldowns won’t work out to be exactly that way every single time, but it’s a general rotation you should be repeating through out combat as soon as your Action Point’s are full and your Artifact / Mount Combat Power are done their cooldowns. Hence the idea of “burst” damage.

Outside of this 12 or so second time frame every minute, the goal is to use at least Dazing Strike and Smoke Bomb from Stealth as often as possible. Don’t forget to use Impossible to Catch prior to attacks as well, that Power Buff is important. For slightly tougher enemies, I also really prefer to start the first 2 swings of Duelist’s Flurry, then Stealth just as I’m starting the flurry of attacks – it brings out some seriously nice damage.

Aside from that, it’s basically cast what you can when you can. Your goal is to hit as many enemies as you can with your Encounters, since both your damage attacks are actually AoE attacks. Sometimes, it helps to quickly readjust your Rogue’s position in combat too, to ensure you hit the most enemies you can – once you practice this, it becomes a natural practice.

Boons

For boons, focus once again on prioritising Power, Critical Strike, Life Steal (And Severity), and Recovery. As mentioned earlier in the guide, these are the main stats you should being investing in and working towards.. Below is a list and preview of all the Boons I personally suggest using.

PvP – Display Picture

Pvp Campaign

via Enyo

• Legion’s Valer

Sharandar – Display Picture

Sharandar

via Enyo

• Dark Fey Hunter
• Fey Precision
• Elven Haste
• Elven Ferocity – Take Elven Tranquility if you find you’re dying a lot in solo combat, or struggling to stay alive.
• Elvish Fury

Dread Ring – Display Picture

Dread Ring

via Enyo

• Conjurer’s Gambit – Take Reliquary Keeper’s Strength if you think you need Power more than you need Critical Strike.
• Evoker’s Thirst
• Forbidden Piercing
• Shadowtouch – Take Enraged Regrowth if you find you’re dying a lot in solo combat, or struggling to stay alive.
• Rampaging Madness

Icewind Dale – Display Picture

Icewind Dale

via Enyo

• Encroaching Tactics
• Refreshing Chill
• Rapid Thaw
• Cool Resolve
• Winter’s Bounty

Underdark – Display Picture

Underdark

via Enyo

• Primordial Might
• Primordial Focus
• Drow Ambush Tactics
• Dwarven Stamina
• Abyssal Strikes

Tyranny of Dragons – Display Picture

Tyranny of Dragons

via Enyo

• Dragon’s Claws
• Dragon’s Gaze
• Draconic Armorbreaker
• Dragon’s Greed
• Dragon’s Fury 3/3

The Maze Engine – Display Picture

The Maze Engine

via Enyo

• Abyssal Siphoning
• Demonic Influence
• Demonic Swiftness
• Baphomet’s Might

Elemental Evil – Display Picture

Elemental Evil

via Enyo

• Wave of Force
• Heart of Stone
• Searing Aggression
• Gale Retribution

Storm Kings Thunder – Display Picture

Storm Kings Thunder

via Enyo

• Cold Hearted
• Hardy Constitution
• Chill Determination
• Glacial Strength
• Chill of Winter 3/3

The Cloaked Ascendancy – Display Picture

The Cloaked Ascendacy

via Enyo

• Aura of Hope
• Fiery Frenzy
• Soothing Zephyr
• Vision of Beyond

Jungles of Chult – Display Picture

Jungles of Chult

via Enyo

• Tyrant’s Terror
• Overgrown
• Lingering Curse

Ravenloft – Display Picture

Ravenloft

via Enyo

• Hardened Bones
• Blood Lust

Guild Stronghold Boons – Display Picture

Guild Stronghold Boons

via Enyo

• Offense
  • Power – Recommended.
  • Armor Penetration – Only use if you’re new to the game and have no Armor Penetration built yet.
• Defence
  • Lifesteal – Great for Solo Content.
  • Hit Points Bonus – Great for Party Content.

Gear

There is a lot of gear to choose from in the game, which is a really cool feature. It can be confusing though trying to decide what’s the best thing to work towards. Mainly, focus on the stats you personally need – Power, Critical Strike, Recovery and / or Armor Penetration – these are the main 4 you should be looking at. Most gear will also grant Defence – that’s normal, that’s fine, don’t stress trying to find a useful Defensive Stat on your armor – only the Offensive Stats matter.

Below, I’m going to list various Gear you can alternatively use as a New Player, an “Mid” Player, and then lastly as an Endgame Player. This way, no matter who you are that’s looking at my guide; I’ll have something listed there for you to viably work towards, access and use for your Trickster Rogue. It’s a question I’m commonly asked, like, “Hey, I can’t afford that, what should I use instead?”, so I hope this will help clear up those questions! All Gear, Enchantment, Companion, Artifact & Mount sections in this guide will work the same way as well.

Also please note; For Midgame / New Player suggestions, I’m going to list based partly off the consideration of how realistically obtainable it is, not necessarily the best option as far as stats all in itself goes. The gear suggested would be what I consider the quickest, best route to work forwards on.

Head 

Endgame – Crown of the Undead

Midgame – Primal Assault Chinibili

New Player – Coming soon.

Armor

Endgame – Fured Kiuno of the Bear

Midgame – Primal Assault Mederebiya

New Player – Coming soon.

Arms

Endgame – Jawripper's Gloves

Mid Player – Primal Assault Amibari

New Player – Coming soon.

Feet

Endgame – Boots of the Willed

Mid Player – Primal Assault Butisi

New Player – Coming soon.

Weapons

Endgame – Primal Weapons

Mid Player – Pilgrim Weapons

New Player – Coming soon.

Rings

Endgame – Masterwork III Rings

Mid Player – Hunts of Soshenstar Rings

New Player – Coming soon.

Neck

Endgame – Baphomet's Infernal Talisman

Mid Player – Lostmauth's Hoard Necklace

New Player – Coming soon.

Belt

Endgame – Demogorgon's Girdle of Might

Mid Player – Golden Belt of Puissance

New Player – Coming soon.

Shirt

Endgame – Upper Primal Paints

Mid Player – Shirt of the Chultan Merchant

New Player – Coming soon.

Pants

Endgame – Lower Primal Paints

Mid Player – Pants of the Chultan Merchant

New Player – Coming soon.

Enchantments

Enchantments are a magic stone you use to “enchant” your gear – or in other words, grant additional stats and effects to your gear. Standard gear and equipment come with either an Offensive, Defensive, Armor or Weapon type Enchantment Slot. Basically I’m going to break down here what Enchantments I recommend working for and with. If you want to read into it with more detail, click here – this will take you to the Neverwinter Gamepedia site, which is full of very useful information for both newbie and veteran alike.

One thing in this guide that will vary from many other guides; is I’m not going to tell you, “use this one, and only this one!” when it comes to Enchantments. The way I view Enchantments, is that they are there to help you find a balance in your stats. I might not need Enchantments to boost my Recovery and Armor Penetration – but maybe you do. Maybe you need Critical Strike and Recovery, but maybe I need Power and Armor Penetration. It’s going to vary from player to player based on what you currently have in the game, what you currently have access to in the game, and what it is you’re working towards. This is going to work the same with various other stepping stones in the game, like Artifacts, Runestones and Insignias for example. It all comes down to finding how you personally want or need to balance your stats out.

With that said, I’ll answer some commonly asked questions below, and then get to it!

• What is the benefit to using 2-3 Stat Enchantments instead of Single Stat Enchantments?
• What do you personally use for your Trickster Rogue, and why?
• Is it better to upgrade Enchantments yourself, or to buy them already upgraded?
• How easy it is to trade Enchantments down the road, if I find I need a different type of Enchantment?

Offense Slots

Offence-stats are the most important stat you’re going to take from any Enchantment you use in the game, as they add to your Offensive skills, stats and power, which is very important as a DPS-oriented class. You can select various Enchantments to help balance your stats – though generally the most popular amongst Trickster Rogues are Brutal Enchantments and Black Ice Enchantments, which are what I mainly recommend to players. Regardless, everything listed below is totally viable to use.

• Brutal Enchantment
• Black Ice Enchantment
• Cruel Enchantment
• Viscious Enchantment
• Savage Enchantment

Defence Slots

Defense-stats will help you stay alive. Mainly I recommend Lifesteal – however, once again, it’s all about an equal balance. If your guild has a boon that gives you 7000-8000 Lifesteal, you can opt for a different Enchantment Stat (I recommend Hit Points!). While Defence isn’t nearly as important as Offence, it’s still important to be mindful of what will benefit you most.

• Dark Enchantment
• Radiant Enchantment
• Savage Enchantment

Armor Enchantment

Armor Enchantments generally only pop up on Armor-type gear (chest piece) after Level 60 in some cases, but generally at Level 70. You can only ever have 1 equipped; as well, they don’t really contribute to your base stats like other Enchantments; instead they give more of a… equip power per say. I’ll list below a few suggestions, I personally use the Negation Enchantment, but it’s not the only viable option out there.

• Soulforged Enchantment – Best to use if you find yourself dying frequently in either regular solo content, or in dungeons. Generally used by newer players who have lower defences.
• Negation Enchantment – My personal favourite, many people will argue that the principle of “get hit to build defences” isn’t for a Trickster Rogue but once its up, its up, which I prefer.
• Barkshield Enchantment – Absorbs a solid amount of damage, many players swear by it. My problem with Barkshield is once your charges are consumed… you have no benefit from the Enchantment for 6-8 seconds, depending on the rank of the Enchantment. Both Negation and Barkshield are good options; both commonly used at endgame, there’s no right or wrong between the 2, they’re equally as good.

Weapon Enchantment

Weapon Enchantments are the only Enchantment I’d say are very black and white, without much freedom to pick and choose from. They’ve been tested by multiple Trickster Rogues, not just myself, and they will all tell you the same thing.

• Vorpal Enchantment – Best to use between the ranks Lesser (Rank 7) and Pure (Rank 11). It becomes less effective at Transcendent (Rank 12) due to Diminishing Returns.
• Feytouched Enchantment – Feytouched is best at Transcendent (Rank 12) and Unparalleled (Rank 13) mostly due to the fact that there is no real cooldown at Transcendent and Unparalleled ranks – whereas, earlier ranks do have downtime (which is just no good). As well, the debuff it gives stacks with other vital combat modifiers. You will without doubt, receive more of a damage buff from the Feytouched than any other enchantment at this rank.

Artifacts

When it comes to Artifacts, by level 70 you can equip a max of 4 of them – x1 Primary Artifact, and x3 Secondary Artifacts. Generally it’s important, and relatively easy, to choose the right Artifacts straight from the get-go, as 60% of Refinement Points invested into Artifacts is lost, meaning also a loss in AD / Refinement that could have been used elsewhere.

As well, establishing your Artifacts early on in the game, also helps to establish what Enchantments and Insignias you’re going to be working towards long term, because as I’ve been saying through this guide – it’s all about finding a balance in your stats. Artifacts is one of the biggest influencers and factors in your stats, as at Mythic they each grant +1000 of two stats.

Primary Artifacts

– Soul Sight Crystal

– Wheel of the Elements

– Sigil of the Devoted

Secondary Artifacts

– Lostmauth's Horn of Blasting

– Shard of Orcus' Wand

– Fragmented Key of Stars

– Symbol of Air

– Heart of the Blue Dragon

– Heart of the Black Dragon

– Kessell's Spheres of Annihilation

– Thayan Book of the Dead

– Sigil of the Hunter

– Sigil of the Great Weapon

– Lantern of Revelation

Companions

Companions play a huge role in a character’s damage output, you cannot argue that. Companions also tend to be very expensive – the ones worth getting anyway. Often, especially for new players, companions are tricky to both select and afford. What I’m hoping to accomplish in this section of the guide, is to outline stepping stones for companion choices, starting from Newbie, to Midgame, to Endgame – similar to what I did in the Gear Section. As well, I’m going to try and break down all aspects of Companions individually, in this order;

• What’s recommended as a Summoned Companion
• What’s recommended as an Active Companion
• Understanding what Runestones to use
• Gear suggestions 
• Legendary Bonuses – How they work

Summoned Companions

Your summoned companion is potentially your most important companion. They are the only companion you need to pay attention to in regards to gearing up, and placing Enchantments / Runestones on. They are the companion that, in a sense, should be better geared than your character. The stats you grant your companion get multiplied based on the Runestone type and rank you’re using – and anything totalling over 100%, is more than what that item or enchantment would grant you if it was on your character

Endgame – Chultan Tiger

Midgame – Air Archon

Midgame / New Player – Lillend

Midgame / New Player (Augment) – Infant Gorilla

Active Companions

Active Companions exist for the sole purpose of their Active Bonus’s. You do not need to place gear on them; you do not need to place Runestones or Enchantments on them. There is actually no other gain from Active Companions aside from the Active Bonus – thus allowing you be particular or picky in your choices.

Mainly for the Trickster Rogue, you want to look at companions that increase your damage output steadily with no cool downs – companions that give hard stats are often far inferior and by far not worth the investment.

Below, I’ll break down what I consider the best choices for Sabo / Exec set ups at endgame. As well, I’ve included a recommended set up for a New or Midgame player – I took into consideration affordability and item level of the companions, so it should work decently until of course you can afford the endgame companions!

On a side note, all the companions listed below I recommend buying off the Auction House. I do recommend buying them all are Epic if possible – certain ones, such as the Siege Master & the Lightfoot Thief can be purchased at a max rank of Rare

• Endgame (Saboteur / Mobs):
  • Air Archon
  • Earth Archon
  • Razorwood
  • Siege Master – Why for Saboteur only?
  • Chultan Tiger (Summoned)

• Endgame (Executioner / Single Target):
  • Air Archon
  • Earth Archon
  • Fire Archon – Why for Executioner only?
  • Razorwood
  • Chultan Tiger (Summoned)

• Midgame / New Player (Saboteur / Executioner)
  • Tamed Velociraptor
  • Energon – How does this increase my Damage?
  • Slyblade Kobold
  • Lightfoot Thief
  • Lillend (Summoned)

Understanding Runestones

Runestones are the equivalent to Enchantments, but instead of equipping them to your Character, you equip them to your Companion, and they empower your Companion with either extra abilities, or extra stats. Generally, the Runestones that grant only extra base stats are less preferable, as there are 2 Runestones that are inarguably the best available in the game.

Edlritch Runestone – (Ranks 1 – 9)

• Best to use at Rank of 9 and under. Why?
• Best to use on an Augment type Companion. Why?

Bonding Runestone – (Ranks 10 – 14)

• Best to use at Rank 10 and up. Why?
• Cannot be used on an Augment type Companion. Why?
• Best to use on a Companion with x3 Offence Slots. Why?

Gear Recommendations & Know How

Special thanks to my guild Chronic Legion for helping me out on this one.

Earning decent, endgame companion gear used to be very affordable and very easy. Sadly, as of mid-September of 2016, the Gateway System was shut down, and has since been kept removed from the game – thus, making it very difficult to find / earn companion gear.

However, it’s not as bad as you think. The main ways to earn companion gear are through earning the Gold Reward in the Illusionist’s Gambit skirmish, and by completing Epic (T3) Heroic Encounters. The main downfall to both of these is that your rewards really boil down to your RNG – if you have bad RNG, you might be in for extra work.

Additionally as of Module 14 (currently PC only) you can now earn unbound +4, +5 & Adorables Companion Gear from Lockboxes. Many of these are posted on the Auction House now, and are purchasable, however, the majority of the desired gear sells currently for 2-3 Million AD.

Below, I’ll more or less list very general suggestions for various equipment, and/or the type of gear you want to aim at obtaining. Remember, just like everything else – you want to focus largely on your vital stats, so finding and using gear with these vital stats should be a given. As well, you want to aim at having at least x1 Offence Slot in each piece of gear.

Illusionists Gambit

The Illusionists Gambit is a skirmish commonly ran for companion gear. The idea is that if you achieve Gold, you have better chances to earn better gear. Every “type” of gear can be obtained from IG – Belts, Grimoires, Icons, Necklaces, Rings, Sword Knots, and Talismans.

In addition, there are different titles for various gears to accentuate which stats they provide. Below, I’ll list off the important 3 to work towards. All gear found in IG (Illusionists Gambit) varies in ranks from +1 to +5. +1 to +3 is exchangeable and can be traded with fellow players, or bought/sold off the Auction House. +4 gear is the goal, as it offers x2 Offence (or Defence) slots, as well as good stats. +4 gear is Account Bound though. +5 gear you would expect to be better, but it’s not. It offers x1 Enchantment Slot, and x1 Overload Slot. It’s not bad, but it’s not great either. +5 gear is also Account Bound.

• Bold (x) of the Companion
• Fierce (x) of the Companion
• Heroic (x) of the Companion

Undying Lockboxes (Currently PC Only)

The undying Lockboxes feature unbound Epic Companion Gear, the same gear you earn via the Illusionist’s Gambit. This lockbox also features Adorable Companion Gear, which is also unbound. Both sets of gear are available on the Auction House.

• (x) of Adorable Chomps
• (x) of Adorable Licks
• (x) of Adorable Rolls
• (x) of Adorable Bites

Epic Heroic Encounters (Stronghold)

Ideally, the companion gear obtained from the Stronghold T3 (Epic) Heroic Encounters isn’t fantastic. It’s hands down more of a filler if you currently have nothing better to turn to – they also require some luck to earning them. The good thing is that if you’re joining your Guild / Alliance for Influence Runs, you don’t really have to farm for these separately. Note though, they Bind to Character, not Account.

• Barbarian Companion’s (x)
• Mercenary Companion’s (x)
• Undead Companion’s (x)
• Thayan Companion’s (x)

Using Regular Gear

For certain types of gear – well actually, all types of gear, you can alternatively use regular character-type gear. You cannot use any Artifact Gear; but normal gear like necklaces, rings, icons, etc. – you can by all means use on your companion.

• Mulhorand Weapons – While slightly on the pricey side, it’s often a quick fix for several players when it comes to Sword Knots, Icons, Grimoires and Talismans.
• Cruel (x) of Smiting – If you’re looking for a super quick fix, random blue gear off the auction house is a very cheap fix – just try and get something that starts with the word Cruel (Power Stat) and ends with Smiting (Critical Strike Stat).
• There are so many options for Rings, it’s unbelievable. For beginner, I would start with the League Rings, and then work towards any of the +4 or +5 Rings from the Chultan Collection – Soshenstar & Omu alike. Additionally, the Masterwork III Rings are currently best in set for basically any class, not just Trickster Rogues due to their Item Level, stats and x2 Offence Slots.

Loyal Gear – Gateway System

This gear for the most part is still considering a ‘best in slot’ item, however, it is no longer obtainable in the game aside from the overpriced items for sale on the Auction House. They used to be earned from the Gateway System which was shut down in September of 2009, meaning ultimately there is no further way to obtain them in-game anymore.

• (x) of the Loyal Avenger
• (x) of the Loyal Commander
• (x) of the Loyal Master

Mounts

Currently, mounts are used for several different things in the game – cosmetics, increased movement speed, extra stats, combat powers and insignias. It can be a bit to take in, so I’m hoping to break down not just what the best options are for Trickster Rogues but how they work in general. Similarly to the companions tab, I’ll be breaking everything down into sections.

• Equip Powers
• Mount Combat Powers – What are they & how do they work?
• Insignias (& Insignia Bonuses)

Equip Powers

Mounts that are of Epic or Legendary Quality offer an Equip Power – sometimes, it’s a boost to a hard stat such as Dominant Force, Ruthless Efficiency, Armor Breaker and every hard stat under the sun. In less common cases it can also be just as it’s called; a power, instead of a stat. The main ones I know of are Ferocity, Quick Action, Rejuvenation – there are lots more, these are just to give you an example of what I mean.

So, which ones should you use? It’s as I’ve been saying through the entire guide; use what you personally need to balance your stats out. If you need Power, get power. If you need Critical Strike – then get it! I personally used Recovery for a long time because it was all I had, I then switched to Critical Strike because I needed Critical Strike more than anything; once my Critical Strike built up, I switched to Power. If you want direct suggestions, anything listed here is a great choice, you cannot go wrong with any of them.

Mount Combat Powers

Mount Combat Powers are much different than Equip Powers, so try not to confuse them! I do all the time. Combat Powers are obtained only from Legendary Mounts, and have to activated during combat, much like an Artifact Power. Each power has a 1 minute cool down as well, so timing is somewhat crucial – again, much like an Artifact Power.

Here is my rule of thumb; any combat power is better than no combat power. If you got a Legendary Mount, but maybe it’s not the one everyone recommends, don’t stress it. One of the Insignia Bonuses, Cavalry’s Warning, is reason enough to still use your Combat Power actively throughout combat.

Now, despite that, there are Combat Powers that are far superior than others, I won’t deny that. Obviously, you want powers that increase your damage – buff you. So here’s my suggestions – though there’s really only 2 that I would consider to be the best currently;

• (Best Option) Swarm – Bat Swarm
• Warpainted Tyrannosaur – Warpainted Tyrannosaurus Rex’em
• Tenser’s Floating Disk – Tenser’s Transformation

Insignia’s & Insignia Bonuses

Insignia’s more or less are like applying Runestones to your Companion, or Enchantments to your Gear – just instead it’s applying Insignia’s to your mounts, and if you match them right, you can get a type of “set bonus” known as an Insignia Bonus. There are 5 different types of Insignia’s;

• Crescent
• Barbed
• Enlightened
• Regal
• Illuminated

Note that mounts, like gear and companions, come with pre-set slots. Depending on the quality of the Mount, you may or may not have “free for all” slots called Universal Slots. Aside from that, Barbed Insignia’s can only go in Barbed Slots – and the same goes for any Insignia Type. Therefore, if you’re looking for a specific Insignia Bonus, you need to look for the specific mounts that offer it, because not every Mount under the sun will.

I’m going to be honest and say I don’t have a specific 5 I consider to be the “must have” bonuses of all time. I do however have recommendations – so choose based on what you need for yourself. I cannot tell you that specifically. I will highlight key bonuses though.

If you want to see what mounts offer a specific Insignia Bonus, follow this link here – it’s super useful, and can potentially save you lots of Astral Diamonds.

• Cavalry’s Warning – Only use this if you have a Legendary Mount.
• Assassin’s Covenant – Doesn’t make a huge difference but it’s not a worst choice.
• Artificer’s Persuasion – This is a must have for a Trickster Rogue, you can really utilize the extra Recovery and Action Point Gain.
• Protector’s Camaraderie – Another must have, 3% Power (x4) is an easy 12% Power Increase.
• Gladiator’s Guile – It’s fun and can let you reach mobs before others, but it does not directly increase your damage.
• Wanderer’s Fortune – Perfect if you’re newer to the game and still refining things like Gear, Enchantments and Artifacts.
• Combatant’s Maneuver – It’s an okay power, I don’t believe it’s working as intended though, as it doesn’t appear to proc with Encounter Powers, only Daily Powers – for Trickster Rogues anyway. It’s still good to use though, particularly on bosses.
• For the record, I personally use Artificer’s Persuasion, Protector’s Camaraderie, Combatant’s Maneuver, Gladiator’s Guile, and Cavalry’s Warning.

This is more or less a page of links I think you might find extremely useful and helpful (I know I find them good for myself!) Here’s the list:

Neverwinter:Unblogged – Great Neverwinter Blogging site to help keep you up to date with future updates and content; also features recruiting guilds, builds, guides, and other great information!

Defending The Sword Coast (Map Locations) – We all have trouble with this, lets just face it!By The People (YouTube Channel) – Really awesome channel that regularly covers all the “Back to the Basics” stuff new players are trying to learn.

Neverwinter Forums – A link to the official Neverwinter Forums. Really great place to ask questions, make suggestions, find guilds or alliances, or just make friends man!

Neverwinter News – Stay in the know-how by regularly checking up on the Neverwinter News!

Neverwinter Wiki – Basically the Neverwinter version of Wikipedia – you can find just about every item, npc, map, quest – everything, on this site.

Neverwinter Character Transfer (Test Server) – I’ve always had difficulty navigating my way to this page, and a lot of people don’t even realise you can transfer your character from the Main Server to the Test Server – but hey, you can! This link’ll take you straight to where you need to go!

Insignia Bonus Guide – Trying to figure out what mounts give what bonuses and vice versa? This link will explain everything to you, and I’m not kidding.

Artifact Refinement Chart – This is actually something a friend of mine in-game put together for my guild, but this gets straight into the exact numbers Artifact Refinment’s and also the specifics of using an Artifact as a feeder. **Note this becomes ineffective with the release of Mod12b**

Neverwinter Calculator – Great way to quickly share your feat and power set-ups for your class with others – its simple and easy to use.

Sea of Moving Ice Treasure Maps – If you’ve been to the Sea of Moving Ice, you’ll definitely understand the value of this guide for Treasure Hunting – if you don’t get it, don’t stress it. Preserve your innocence while you can.

Sea of Moving Ice Fishing Maps – Same idea as the last link but with Fishing Areas emphasised instead of Treasure Maps.

River District Treasure Maps – Really useful if you’re working towards farming the River District for your Relic Weapons from there.

You’ve probably played TR and even Neverwinter enough to know there’s various short-terms for several things in game. Figured I can break down the TR-related / popular ones here briefly.

• Basics
  • NW – Neverwinter
  • TR – Trickster Rogue
  • Exec – Executioner Feat Build
  • Sabo – Saboteur  Feat Build
  • MI – Master Infiltrator Paragon Path
  • WK – Whisperknife Paragon Path

• Powers
  • DS – Dazing Strike
  • LB – Lashing Blade
  • LA – Lurker’s Assault
  • WWoB  – Whirlwind of Blades
  • DF – Duelists Flurry
  • ITC = Impossible to Catch
  • IA – Infiltrator’s Action
  • PotB – Path of the Blade
  • CB – Courage Breaker
  • SI – Skillful Infiltrator
  • WR – Wicked Reminder
  • SB – Smoke Bomb
  • SS – Shadow Strike
  • II – Invisible Infiltrator
  • SE – Shocking Execution
  • BF – Blade Flurry

• Gameplay / Stat
  • AP – Action Points
  • ArPen – Armor Penetration
  • CA – Combat Advantage
  • LS – Lifesteal
  • CC – Crowd Control
  • RI – Resistance Ignored
  • DR – Damage Resistance
  • IL – Item Level

• Maps / Quest Areas
  • PE – Protector’s Enclave
  • RD – River District
  • WoD – Well of the Dragons
  • DR – Dread Ring
  • Shar – Sharandar
  • SH – Stronghold
  • IWD – Icewind Dale
    • AB – Arcane Brotherhood
    • TT – Ten Towns
  • DV – Dwarven Valley
  • SOMI – Sea of Moving Ice

• Dungeons
  • KR – Kessell’s Retreat
  • ESOT – Epic Shores of Tuern
  • MC – Malabog’s Castle
  • VT – Valindra’s Tower
  • ELOL – (Epic) Lair of Lostmauth
  • ETOS – Epic Temple of the Spider
  • ECC – Epic Cragmire Crypts
  • EGWD – Epic Grey Wolf Den
  • CN – Castle Never
  • FBI – Fangbreaker Island
  • MSP – (Master) Spellplague Caverns
  • ToNG – Tomb of the Nine Gods
  • ToDG – Throne of the Dwarven God
  • MotH – Master of the Hunt
  • IG – Illusionists Gambit
  • PoM – Prophecy of Madness
  • MPF – (The) Merchant Princes Folly
  • Demo – Demogorgon
    • EDEMO – Epic Demogorgon
  • SVA – Assault on Svardborg
    • MSVA – (Master) Assault on Svardborg
• Raids
  • DF – Dragonflight
  • BHE – Big Heroic Encounter
    • HE – Heroic Encounter
  • BID – Black Ice Domination
  • STC – Storm the Castle

So the main change on this build is the use of all points on WISDOM and CHARISMA.

Most builds use all points on either CON and WIS or CON and CHA and that works fine however as you go into optimizing your tank you will notice that you can tank and dps without the use of  half your points into CONSTITUTION , and why is that a good thing, well If you are able to use those points on either WIS or CHA you are incrementing several stats that otherwise you where unable to use.

If you are able to put them in WIS you will be able to get more 1. Outgoing healing 2. Critical chance 3. Control Bonus 4. Control Resist.

If you put them in CHA then you get more 1. Stamina regeneration 2. Action point gain 3.Companion Stat Bonus 4.Combat advantage damage.

Granted some of those are useless stats however we will explain each one and go into detail into the ones that matter.

WIS:

1. Outgoing healing: You will be able to heal your teammates a lot, in most cases either the same or more than a DC, while still being an OP.
2. Critical Chance: One of the most important stats on your Tank, usually Tanks have a hard time obtaining that 100% crit chance however due to the feats and stats from WIS you can easily get to a 100% , and why is that good? well the less stats you need from Critical strike on either you or your companion the more room for stacking other stats like for example Armor penetration , since you will need 100% for MOD 14 it will be wise to get your critical chance from the least critical strike needed.
3. Control bonus: Not super helpful but a stun build it helps.
4. Control Resist: Not super helpful but a stun build it helps.

CHA:

1. Stamina regeneration: Not so useful but it helps for when you want to pop Sanctuary , this also activates the rousing warmth from the Icewind Dale Campaign Boon.
2. Action Point Gain: This will allow you to pop you daily faster and more often which will trigger the feat Beacon of Hope and Prism that in turn will activate Burning Guidance, Healing Warmth and Rousing Warmth, this will help you heal your allies while also adding some passive DPS.
3. Companion Stat bonus: It only affects the base stats from your companion so it was little effect for you.
4. Combat advantage Damage: This is also a huge DPS bonus , usually from running from GWF and Hunters they will activate the combat advantage , you want to have this stat close to 10% and not more than that.

By using this setup then you can maximize the critical chance you get from WIS and the one you get from the FEAT Force of Will, which adds 1% by each point of CHA you have.

But what happens to my CON stats? Hit points and damage taken?

As I mention by the time you are able to Tank without CON is because you have high enough HP from either your Defense Radiant Enchantments and Boons.

The way this build works like other DPS Tanks is by hitting hard enough to create a Temporary Hit Point shield from Templar’s Wrath and for that you do not need CON.

Oh but wait doesn’t CON helps to powershare using the Oath of protection mechanic? Sure, but you can keep around the same amount of HP by balancing the re-roll stats while increasing your POWER using my Build.

Multi-DPS Loadout

Single-DPS Loadout

Multi-DPS

My main goal with the Multi Load out is to do the most power-share possible while healing, all this while having enough speed to outspeed the DPS from getting to the enemy first.

Single-DPS

Since we dont need speed while on bosses i focus on hitting the boss hard while healing some, while at the same time protecting my team.

AT-WILL

Radiant Strike: Because that way you can stack 5% less of your Armor penetration while also getting 5% more damage for the next 15 seconds, make sure to use it every 15 seconds.

Shielding Strike: Because is the one that hits the hardest , however you can also use Oath Strike and have the artifact power on your main weapon on Oath Strike which increases the damage by 8%.

ENCOUNTERS

Multi-DPS

Burning Light: Make sure to hold it as long as possible depending on the enemy, make sure you release it before the enemy hits you to stun them.

Templar’s Wrath: Our main encounter to tank, the hardest we hit with it the more Temporary HP we have.

Circle of Power: Protects your team and increases your damage.

Single-DPS 

Bane: Debuff the enemy by 30% and Buffs you and your team by 30%.

Templar’s Wrath: Our main encounter to tank, the hardest we hit with it the more Temporary HP we have.

Circle of Power: Protects your team and increases your damage.

If a Guardian Fighter is on your team change Circle of Power to:

Vow of Enmity: Increases your Damage by 20% but is useful to retain or regain the aggro from when GF does its rotation.

AURAS

Multi-DPS

Aura of Courage

Aura of Wrath

Single-DPS 

Aura of Courage

Aura of Wisdom

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On my stats I mainly follow the Powershare build with some modifications:

OFFENSE: ALL RADIANTS ENCHANTMENTS. 

DEFENSE: ALL RADIANTS ENCHANTMENTS and occasionally some BRUTALS. 

UTILITY: DARK ENCHANTMENTS for speed. 

ARMOR ENCHANTMENT: SOULFORGED ,just in case you know, you can actually use anything. 

WEAPON ENCHANTMENT: TERROR , Hits pretty hard and debuff and buffs the teammates by 8%. You can also use Lighting for the Multi DPS build , I had one on my multi build but it was too expensive to run two weapon enchantments and two weapons, it however increased my DPS on table.

Multi-DPS

Base Stats

With Bonding Proc

Single-DPS

Base Stats

With Bonding Proc

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I will be providing what I use, you can just follow the main formula of POWER > DAMAGE BONUS > Stat you need.

Multi-DPS

Single-DPS

Multi-DPS

MC3 set: This set enable me to share more power and also give me a speed advantage. Since it doesn’t take much to kill small enemies probably the demogorgon set will be a waste to use here.

Single-DPS

Demogorgon Set: This set as it is well-known works great for Bosses since it helps to increase the damage output the less HP the enemy has.

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Multi-DPS

Single-DPS

OFFENSE: RADIANT  

DEFENSE: RADIANT OR BRUTAL 

ARMOR: SOULFORGE, don’t waste the money on anything expensive , tanks can use anything here. 

WEAPON: TERROR, it hits hard and debuff and buff the team by 8%. Hey try it wont disappoint. If you want to DPS you can try… no dont think about dps , you are a tank think about support , whats best for me to hit but also to help my team… then TERROR it is.

UTILITY: DARK , you want to make sure you get to the mobs and enemies before any DPS. 

Hard to get support group that are all using MC3 so I just use Primal Set.

As a Tank they are constantly active. Im guessing you get the damage and healing bonus from it, have not really test it.

I use: Shielding Strike, Aura of Courage and Combat Advantage on them.

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Multi-DPS

Here I focus on balancing out my HP with the damage output.

Since here I use the DEFENSE boon to help me stay alive I rather get HP from boons,companion and enchantments.

My main companion:

Other companions:

Earth Archon, Siege Master , Air Archon and Energon.

Single-DPS

Here i focus fully on damage output since on this build I stack a lot of HP from my Guild BOON.

My main Companion:

My other companions:

Earth Archon, Siege Master, Air Archon and Fire Archon.

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Multi-DPS

My main Legendary Mount is the Black ICE Horse to get that 4K power.

Assassins Covenant is used on this load-out because I can convert the defense into Power that is shareable.

Artificers Persuasion helps me increase my stats for a more effective and faster Daily Rotation.

Magistrates Patience allows to dps a bit while also healing, this will also activate the rousing warmth , healing warmth and burning guidance boons.

 Gladiators Guile: to make sure I make it to the enemy before the DPS, or at least at the same time.

Shepherds Devotion: This allow me to protect my teammates by increasing their defense and movement.

Single-DPS

My main Legendary Mount is the Black ICE Horse to get that 4K power.

Combatants Maneuver: This allows me to hit harder when combat advantage is active on the enemy.

Artificers Persuasion helps me increase my stats for a more effective and faster Daily Rotation.

Magistrates Patience allows to dps a bit while also healing, this will also activate the rousing warmth , healing warmth and burning guidance boons.

Protectors Camaraderie allows me to get more power and defense , this only helps me to dps more while standing my ground.

Calvarys Warning: I use this one on my single loadout to increase my Power even more and be able to hit harder.

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Multi-DPS

Guild Boons:

Sharandar:

Dread Ring:

Icewind Dale:

Underdark:

Tyranny of the Dragons:

The Maze Engine:

Elemental Evil:

Storm Kings Thunder:

The Cloaked Ascendancy:

Jungles of Chult:

Single-DPS

Guild Boon:

Sharandar:

Dread Ring:

Icewind Dale:

Underdark:

Tyranny of Dragon:

The Maze Engine:

Elemental Evil:

Storm Kings Thunder:

The Cloaked Ascendancy:

Jungles of Chult:

Multi-DPS

Makes sure before entering the fight that you can proc 1 Divine call, this will increase your damage by 35% , then proceed to Radiant Strike the enemy to add 5% to your damage and armor penetration , this will allow you to follow with a Templar’s Wrath that should sustain you for several rotations.

Once I hit that Templar’s Wrath I like to stun and burn the mobs , I do this by using burning light and Templar’s wrath constantly to make sure the DPS is not control and can kill them faster.

Within those two encounters I place Circle of Power to protect and increase my damage by 30%.

Then Shield of Faith to protect and Heal which will activate Healing Warmth , Rousing Warmth and Burning Guidance.

So to refresh:

Divine Call Before approaching the Mob:

 35% more damage.

And at the same time activate Shield of faith to heal, protect and dps.

Radiant Strike to add 5% armor pen and damage.

Templars Wrath to bring your temporary HP up.

 This also stuns the enemy for a short time.

Burning light to continue to stun and also burn the mob.

 Make sure to hold it as long as possible but release a enemy will stun or control you.

Then place the Circle of power to protect your team and to increase your damage.

 Increases your damage by 30%. Its the encounter that fills the action point the fastest.

And finally you should have your action points full again , so you can use Divine Judgement or Shield of Faith again.

Single-DPS

Obviously this load-out is for Bosses only therefore the rotation changes depending on the DPS you are playing.

Mainly it will be:

Before approaching the boss activate Divine Call.

BANE stacked 3 times from a far follow by Templar’s Wrath to get your temporary HP up and then Circle of Power to protect and increase damage, if a GF is on the team change the Circle of Power to Vow of Enmity to keep some damage while holding or regaining aggro.

After this I personally use Divine Protector to protect the DPS in case they hold aggro or for a GF, which they usually use a rotation that uses Knights Challenge encounter that will take the aggro away ,when you see that Line that connects the enemy to the GF pop the divine protector to protect him and heal them at the same time.

So to refresh:

Divine Call Before approaching the Boss.

 35% more damage.

Bane 3 times to give 30% debuff and buff on damage.

 x3.

Then hit your temporary HP with Templar’s Wrath.

Then you can place either Circle of Power if you are not having aggro problems or Vow of Enmity if you got a GF or a Aggro Stealing DPS.

Make sure you time the boss rotation with your Daily to protect your group, for this loadout I use: Divine Protector. (You can also choose Shield of Faith if the group can hold its own.)

Here are some screenshots of Tomb of the Nine Gods with random players and some with friends of the guild to provide data of what is the build able to do.

This one is a random queue with some commentary explaining the build and how to use it.

This video is just a random queue with some players.

So thank you for taking the time to read through my approach on the OP, the main goal is to provide another unconventional option that actually works really good for the tanking scene and that allows you to maximize the dps and healing while still tanking. You dont wanna be that DPS tank that takes up space for a REAL dps nor a tank that is unable to help its team because the DC is tool low or has no healing on his build.

The build is looking to close that gap between running with low level characters while also keeping up with those beloved elites

Make sure you take the information that works for your build rather than trying to copy the build , it will also help you to know what you want to achieve and also your play-style.

If you are unable to use two load-outs then just use the Multi-DPS loadout, it has the most healing, and protection and that is what is needed. The single load-out is mainly to tank while making some DPS.

For me its all about Tanking FIRST, then healing and lastly making some DPS, that is the way the build is made, dont sacrifice your role for trying to outdps a real DPS nor by trying to outheal a DC, you are just there to boost both of those options while buffing your team with lots of power-share, healing and shortening rotations time.

Also remember it is important the way you play , builds will allow you to do certain things but ultimately is about your play-style.

Thank you and remember to share the build if you happen to test it and like it.