Introduction:

This build is for PVE MI Executioner rogues.  I’ve been playing for a while, now, and this is what works for me and my style of playing.  It is so much fun to play Rogues in this game and I see so many people say “Gosh, I love to play my Rogue, but don’t expect to be on the damage chart in PVE”.  Or, “Rogues have terrible burst damage”.  Or, “They just can’t perform as well as every other DPS class in PVE”.  This is nonsense.  It’s not as easy as some classes, but PVE Rogues are undervalued and underestimated.  Admittedly, I have worked hard and am almost BIS, (at least until the next mod T_T), but I probably top the DPS chart (for whatever that’s worth) 90% of the time or more.  I can’t think of the last time I wasn’t at least in the top 2, and my guild is not a high ranking guild with tons of boons, either.  However, I have been dropped from groups before the run because they want “HDPS” and simply don’t believe me when I say I can do it.  Fellow PVE rogues, we need to pull ourselves up and take some pride in our class’ potential.  Take a look and feel free to offer me suggestions or criticism.  I can take it, and you could very easily know more than me!

Race:

The race I picked was human because I like the extra feats.  That’s not to say you’d be wrong to go with dragonborn or half Orc. I’m sure any of those would work and there is more than one path up the TR mountain.  Pick whichever you like, but put your stats into Strength and Dexterity.  The Combat Advantage damage from Charisma is nice, but the by moving the points from Strength into Charisma, you end up losing about 10% damage because the strength bonus is applied before the other bonuses and the CA bonus is applied only to the CA bonus.  Combat Advantage is important to this build, but you will get greater DPS mileage out of putting those points into Strength.

Stats:

The offensive stats you want to build up is armor pen (to resistance ignored is 60%) > critical chance (80% minimum to around 90% endgame) > Power.  I’m gonna get into some numbers here to help explain why.  First, armor pen is important to 60% because 60% is the highest resistance any monster has in PVE.  After that, it’s as useless as an ejection seat on a helicopter.

(Visual representation)

Next we come to the power/crit optimization.  Since mod 6, the optimal ratio is represented by this equation:

c – p = 40000 * (1 – b – 1/s)

c: points in your ‘Critical Strike’ stat
p: points in your ‘Power’ stat
b: your base critical chance (how high your chance to hit critically is if you have 0 points in the ‘Critical Strike’ stat)
s: your ‘Critical Severity’

(Much thanks to the people at neverwinter uncensored for this information which I have shamelessly copied and pasted from here.  You should totally read it.)

For me, it states (I think I did it correctly) that I should have 640 extra points in my crit over my power.  This is a good place to start, but, with rogues, you have the added advantage of critical striking automatically every attack you deal from stealth.  This makes optimization a bit more complicated.  For the rotation I use, most of my encounter powers are delt from stealth and crit automatically.  However, most of the damage I do comes from duellist flurry which takes longer to perform than stealth lasts.  Duellist flurry also hits a bunch of times for smaller damage (as compared to at wills of other classes).  You definately want to maximize your crit chances, but I’ve found that if you can maintain a crit chance of around 90%, where 9 out of 10 DF hits crit, you aren’t losing much in the way of damage.  Also, in that last stretch to get from 90% to 100% in crit, you end up sacrificing a lot of resources better spent in power where you can get a lot more bang for your buck.  Remember, for every 400 points you put into power, you do 1% more base damage.

The defensive stats you want to work on is life steal (to about 20%)> hit points > defense> deflect

Life steal is our main defensive stat.  Many of our attacks hit multiple times which give us a better chance to proc life steal.  It won’t help you if you are killed in one shot, but when your soul forged enchantment pops you back up, you’ll heal back up fast.

Hit points are the best way to head off death in PVE.  Our defense isn’t really easy to stack and, although deflect is good with 75% of the damage blocked, you have to sacrifice a lot to get that high enough to make a big difference especially considering I use impossible to catch (more on this later).  There is also a lot of research out there (mostly by thefabricant, thank you!) that shows in PVE defense is better to stack for TRs than deflect.  In any case, hit points are better than both.  When you think about it, it makes sense when a lot of the armor looks like a nightgown with a big crotch flap, or a skirt and a bikini top.

“Damn you frost goblins!!!”

As TRs have super long cool downs, trying to stack recovery is great as well.  It’s doubly important for executioners because it takes a bit for us to recover from our burst damage before we can do it again.  And, you really really want to do it again as fast as possible.

Whisper knife or master infiltrator?  Although there might be a version of this build that works well for whisper knife builds, I use Impossible to Catch far far to often to give it up.  Automatically deflect 75% of damage and resist control effects?  Yes please.  +10% power when I use it (feat)?  Don’t mind if I do!  Plus, it gives me an enormous amount of satisfaction to watch a dragon scatter everyone with a wing blast except me chopping away at his soft underbelly.  Did you see how far that Great Weapon Fighter flew?  Yes.  Yes I did.

Before you say it GWFs, I know you can avoid being knocked away.  I just didn’t have as good a picture for a pissed off Scourge Warlock.  Incidentally, this is how I picture every angry GWF.  Even the girl ones.

The other thing to keep in mind is that Bonding Runestones allow you to really stack stats up higher than you normally could before.  They are the single biggest boost to your stats that you can have.  Here are my stats before bondings and after bondings (and other buffs) are procing (note I forgot I was in stronghold so I got the campfire stat bonus):

Feats:

I’m human so I get an extra 3 heroic feats.  This build focuses on flat % damage increase and power increase.  Here ya go!

Heroic Feats:

Action Advantage:  This build really capitalizes on Combat advantage so having the extra 10% Action point gain while dealing CA damage should help.

Weapon Mastery:  +3% Critical Strike

Toughness:  +9% Hit Points

Cunning Ambusher:  +6% more damage for 6 seconds after leaving stealth

Endless Assault: Encounter Powers deal 6% more damage

Scoundrel Training:  At Wills do 9% more damage

Disciple of Strength:  Increases the amount of bonus damage Strength gives you by 6%

Note: If you aren’t human I’d suggest putting only 3 points in Action Advantage and 2 in Scoundrel Training

Paragon Feats:

I chose three feats in the Scoundrel tree:

Bloody Brawler: +2.5% Lifesteal

Press the Advantage: +10% Power whenever you use Impossible to Catch

Back Alley Tactics: +25% damage immediately after a daily power.

In the Executioner tree:

Grim Pleasure:  dealing a Critical Strike increases your power by 5% for 4 seconds.

Vicious Pursuit: +5% more damage for 6 seconds when you deal damage to that target

Deathknell:  +25% more damage to foes below 30% health

Last moments: +25% more damage to foes below 40% health (70% when stealthed)

Shadowborn: +100% Power when entering stealth

Shadow of Demise: target takes piercing damage equal to 50% of the damage dealt over 6 seconds

A lot of people want to take Arterial Cut over Grim Pleasure and I prefer the (nearly) constant power boost from Grim Pleasure.  Well, today I do, anyway.  I go back and forth on this, and I’ll probably change my mind tomorrow.

Powers:

For single target enemies:  The powers I chose are all about maximizing damage over the 6 second window before Shadow of Demise procs.  To that end, I usually dazing strike and lashing blade.  More on that later.  Impossible to catch is also something I always use.  The at wills I use are sly flourish (4th hit applies broken armor which increases all damage taken by 5%), and duelist flurry.  Duelist Flurry (and the bleed ticks it gives) deals more damage than any other power we have, but once you have the bleed ticks maxed out (or even in between duelist flurries), 4 hits from sly flourish will really increase the damage taken.  For passive powers, I use Skillful Infiltrator (for the extra crit) and Infiltrator’s Action (more on this later).  For dailies, the number one that you will use most of the time is Lurkers Assault.  Shocking Execution may be nice in pvp, but if you are using it in pve, you are giving up a bunch of dps.

For mobs: the encounter powers I use are ITC (again), smoke bomb, and dazing strike.  The daily I use is Whirlwind of Blades for the power boost (doubled) you get when you find yourself surrounded by trash mobs.  For my at wills I like to use duellist flurry once and finish off with sly flourish.  Most mobs will die, but if they’d are tough, that is a little faster than using either At Will by itself, I think.

Passive Powers:  I always use Invisible Infiltrator, and Infiltrator’s Action.  More on these later.

Gear:

So, I’ve spent some time working on my gear, enchantments, artifacts, weapons, mounts, and companions.  If you are starting out, you won’t have all of this.  It’s okay, because you can still do a lot of damage with this build.  Don’t think you have to be BIS to make it work.

You need a vorpal weapon enchantment because that extra 50% crit severity is HUGE.  You don’t really need to upgrade it past perfect because you get the 50% at that level.  But, if you do upgrade it, go all the way to transcendent.  The bonus you get from pure isn’t nearly as consistent as it is from transcendent.  The armor enchantment I use is a soul forged enchantment.  That keeps you alive if you make a mistake and get one shot killed, or if your tank loses agro and you suddenly become the target.  With high Lifesteal and high damage, you often find yourself near the top of the healing and damage chart and this leads to drawing agro, even if you are a TR.  This happens regularly, but not often, so just be prepared.

Until they release a better weapon set, the twisted weapons seem to be the best for this build.  You will be hitting way more than getting hit (you hope).

The Artifact Weapon powers you want are the duelist flurry one for your main hand (+8% DF damage), and the Infiltrator’s Action one for your offhand (+5% more damage while Infiltrator’s Action is in effect).  The bonus for the offhand I usually chose is the action points, but you can choose whatever floats your boat.

The artifact set bonus that is the best for TRs right now is the Orcus set.  It fits nicely with this build as an overall % damage boost, but coupled with life steal as you take down bosses, you really notice an increase in damage.  If you are starting out, I probably wouldn’t go with lostmauth at this point.  I’d get a greater dexterity belt and grab the necklace and belt that helped out my stats that I need the most.  Before I got the Orcus set, after the Lostmauth nerf, I switched to a dexterity belt and saw an increase in my overall DPS.

The artifacts I chose are Sigil of the Controller (power and crit), Orcus Wand Shard (for the set bonus), Heart of the Blue Dragon (Crit, Recovery, and Combat Advantage) and Wheel of Elements (my active set for the 30% damage bonus).  If you need more Armor Penetration, swap out the Heart of the Blue Dragon for the Lantern of Revelation (Crit, Arm Pen, and Combat Advantage).

Companions

Let’s talk about bonding runestones.  I’m gonna be really honest here, bonding runestones are very very powerful.  They also take a lot of effort to upgrade 3 of them to rank 12. However, with three rank 12 bonding runestones, and one of your companions being legendary, you get an almost constant uptime (unless your companion dies), of 300% of your companion’s stats.  If you put, as I have done, a +5 Brutal ring on it, you’ll get +12000 power for 10 seconds every 30 seconds.  That’s +30% base damage for everyone counting at home.  It’s not constant, but when we are looking to maximize our damage over 6 second intervals, it works out pretty well.  Always always upgrade the enchantments on your companion with the bonding runestones first because you will be reaping over 100% of the stats from them with the bondings.

I use a Fire Archon for my bondings because it has a relatively fast attack (helps with protector’s camaraderie and protector’s friendship- more on that in mounts) and doesn’t die as quickly because it is a ranged attacker.  It also has 3 offensive runestone slots (bondings give power in offensive slots) and two ring slots and a nice active power (increases damage to enemies below 50% health by 7%).  As my 4 other active companions, I take an Earth Archon (+7% damage when you are at full health (works well with life steal), an Air Archon (+6% damage against enemies not at full health, a Wild Hunt Rider (chance when using encounter to get +10% damage), and an Erinyes of Belial (+10% crit severity)  The Wild Hunt Rider procs quite often with encounters that hit a bunch of enemies, like a stealthed dazing strike or smoke bomb.  It procs more than you’d think against single targets, as well, but if I’m in a stronghold running Dragon Flights, I’ll swap out my Wild Hunt Rider for a Siege Master (+4% damage or +7% in stronghold) .  The archons also beef up each other’s % increase by a small amount which is nice.

Mounts:

Okay, so here are the mount powers I recommend, that I use.  I don’t have a legendary mount as the price of the one or two I want jumps 10 million the minute I start catching up.  I’ll probably have it in a decade or so…

Artificer’s Persuasion:  When you use an artifact, your recovery, movement, action point gain, and stamina gain are increased by 10% of your power for 15 seconds

Assassin’s Covenant: You lose 10% of your defense, deflection, and lifesteal, and gain that amount in power.

Protectors Friendship/Camaraderie:  These together increase your power and Defense 4% each time your companion attacks and it can stack up to 4 times

Gladiator’s Guile: When your stamina is above 75%, move 15% faster.  When below 25%, gain 15% of your strength as stamina gain.

Pick the mount insignias that boost whichever stats you need.  If you don’t need anything, go power power power.

Boons:

Some of these boons depend on what your build needs.  I have an axebeak, for example, so I don’t need to stack armor pen.  Take what is appropriate for your character.

Sharandar:

• Dark Fey Hunter: +400 Power
• Fey Precision: +400 Critical Strike
• Elven Haste: +3% Action Point Gain
• Elven Tranquility: When struck, you have a chance at healing 20,000 HP
• Elvish Fury: + 135 Power for 45 Seconds each time you kill something.  Stacks 30 times

The only two that need explanation here are the last two.  Elven Tranquility is so much better because dealing 20,000 extra damage is nothing, but getting 20,000 HP back can really make a difference.  Elvish fury is not going to help much at boss fights, but the only other one I would consider is Fey Thistle because we will be using ITC a lot.  However, after testing, the damage is so ridiculously miniscule that you are better off with Elvish Fury.

Dread Ring:

• Reliquary Keeper’s Strength: +250 Power, +250 Movement
• Evoker’s Thirst: +400 Lifesteal
• Illusion Shimmer:  +3% Deflect
• Enraged Regrowth: When Struck, you have a chance as healing 20,000HP and +4000 Defense
• Rampaging Madness: Gain as stack each time you do damage.  At 50 stacks get +4000 Power, lifesteal, and regeneration for 10 seconds

If you need the armor penetration, take Forbidden Piercing instead of Illusion Shimmer.  Pick Enraged Regrowth for the same reason you picked Elven Tranquility.  Some people like to pick Endless Consumption for the final boon instead of Rampaging madness, but I tried this and honestly didn’t notice a difference.  If someone out there disagrees, feel free to comment and let me know why.  But, until then, I’ll always pick Rampaging Madness.

Icewind Dale

• Encroaching Tactics:  +400 Combat Advantage
• Appreciation of Warmth: +400 incoming healing
• Sleet Skills: +2% Critical Severity
• Cool Resolve: Gain up to 2000 power depending on how much Stamina you have left
• Winter’s Bounty:  Chance to get +10% Action Points when killing a target

Cool Resolve is better than Cold Shoulder because reducing the damage of a hit by 2000 is so tiny compared to most of the hits you are going to take and, since I dodge a lot, I get more use out of the extra power.  Winter’s bounty procs fairly frequently for me and, although I do get a bonus if my action points aren’t at full because of the Back Alley Tactics feat (+25% extra damage), I’m even happier to pop that daily and get a much higher buff to my damage from everything else.

Tyranny of Dragons

• Dragon’s Claws: +400 Power
• Dragon’s Gaze: +400 Critical Strike
• Draconic Armorbreaker: +400 Armor Penetration
• Dragon’s Greed:  +400 Lifesteal
• Dragon’s Fury (1): +5% Critical Severity
• Dragon’s Thirst (2): +4% Lifesteal

I picked Draconic Armorbreaker because I needed it more than the defense.  If you have plenty of armor pen, grab the defense.  For the final boon(s), The Crit Severity is great for this build, but put one point in Lifesteal first because the bonus from the lifesteal will help you more initially than the extra 5% Crit Severity.  You’ll get more Crit Severity than that from a potion.

Underdark

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

A lot of people like the sound of the Demon Slayer final boon, but what the “lesser demons” actually are I haven’t been able to confirm other than the really teeny ones that you kill in a hit or two anyway and I’d rather just have a flat 10% damage increase that I can use on the really big ones.

Maze Engine

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

Not much to say about this one, except generally, it seems to me that the incoming healing bonuses seem to be a lot better than the life steal severity.  If you are hitting for 50,000 and get an extra 10%, meh.  But, the incoming healing bonus affects all sources of healing, so it just seems a lot better to me.

Storm King’s Thunder

• Cold Hearted:  +2% Life steal severity and +1000 HP
•  Survival Instincts: +400 incoming healing bonus, +2% Everfrost Resistance
•  Chill Determination: + up to 2000 recovery depending on how much stamina you have missing
•  Glacial Strength: +3200 HP and +2% Everfrost Resistance
•  Chill of Winter:  When striking a foe, a chance to gain a chill stack, at 50 you deal 10,000 damage.  (woopty woo)

Really, most of these are meh.  If you have something that you like more than what I put up, knock yourself out.  I don’t pick the stamina gain stuff, for the most part, because several boons give me bonuses based on missing stamina, but I don’t feel especially strong about it either way.  The last boon here is particularly useless, so pick whichever you like.  I might change it to Frozen Reflection, but whatever.

Now for the play:

We are going to play a game called “let’s count the damage bonus!”

For this example, I’m going to assume a starting power of 30,000 and a critical strike of 90%.

So you just landed at Lostmauth and he’s especially hungry today (he’s always talking about meals), and no one has the guts to tell him that his triglycerides are dangerously high and that his diet may explain his murderous heartburn, but that’s beside the point.  You have my build and equipment and you are there for a euthanasia.  You first throw a dagger at him to get your companion to start attacking and stacking up Protector’s Friendship and Camaraderie, as well as procing the bonding runestones.  Your companion has a power of 5500 not including the +5 brutal ring he’s sporting.  You also have a +5 Brutal on your TR, so, instantly your power shoots up by 32,500 making it 62,500.  You pop your wheel of elements first and take the fire element (+30% damage), and when you do this, your Recovery, Movement, Action Point Gain, and Stamina Gain go up by 6,250.  You stealth and then Dazing Strike Lostmauth which procs Shadow of Demise.  In addition you hit with double your power (Shadowborn feat), a damage bonus of +6% (cunning Ambusher), +6%(endless assault), +7%(earth archon), +6% (air Archon), +4% (Siege Master) +30% (wheel of fire) = +69% damage, and you crit because of stealth.  Then you pop Lurker’s Assault, which gives you automatic Combat Advantage (infiltrator’s Action) and get your stealth back instantly (Invisible Infiltrator), so you stealth again and hit him with your Lashing Blade.  Now, this is gonna get a little complicated, but stay with me here.

Primer on Combat Advantage:  You can find the discussion on this since the changes here.  Thanks again @thefabricant, where ever you are, I will toast you whenever playing this game.  Anyway, damage from combat advantage used to be out of site with the various companions that gave you combat advantage bonuses because they multiplied and it was crazy.  But, even though it’s been brought more in line, you still get quite a big bonus from it.

Damage now is calculated by the equation:  Total Damage = Base Damage*(1+0.15+Crit Severity+Attribute Bonus+Companions+Stat Bonus+0.1(0.15+Attribute Bonus+Stat Bonuses+Companions)).  Now, with potions, boons, vorpal enchantment, and companion, my crit severity runs about 150%.  For this exercise, let’s assume lashing blade’s base damage is 20,000, we have a charisma of 15, and a combat advantage bonus of 9%.

Total Damage (critical strike) with Combat Advantage= 20,000 *(1+.15+1.5+.05+0+.09 +.01(0.15+.05+.09+0)) = 20,000 (2.79 + .1(.29)) = 20,000 * 2.82 = 56,400 + 5% from offhand weapon artifact power = 59,220

Total Damage (Critical Strike) without Combat advantage = 20,000 * (1+ 1.5) = 50,000.

That’s about 20% more damage on every hit, and, by the time your Infiltrator’s Action wears off, you are ready to pop another daily, so it stays up pretty much all the time.

Now back to Lostmauth:  Lurker’s Assault gives you +30% damage and invisible infiltrator gives you another 20% damage.  That’s +50%.  Then you can immediately add +7%(earth archon) and +6% (air archon) +4% (siege master), +5% (offhand weapon power) and +6% (endless assault).  So we are up to +78%.  You now add 25% for Back Alley Tactics and +5% for vicious pursuit which brings you to 108% more damage.  Yup, the wheel of elements is still going, so that’s another 30% which brings you to +138%.  This is flat damage increase, not just when you crit.  Add to that +100% power rating from Shadowborn (110% if you pop ITC).  You also automatically crit from stealth and with 150% crit severity on top of all of that, we are dealing in some major pain with lashing blade.  Then you start in with your duelist flurry.  Your life steal insures that you still are getting the damage boost from your Earth Elemental.  Six seconds after the first Dazing Strike, your Shadows of Demise procs.  That’s 50% of all the damage you just did as piercing damage.  Your stealth will come back after one run with duelist flurry, and you can pop stealth again for another increase in damage like lashing blade, and hit him with another Dazing Strike. This time, although you haven’t had time to get your Lashing Blade back, you are getting bleed ticks from your Duellist Flurry.

By myself, hitting on all cylinders (without super party buffs), Shadow of Demise will proc for 1.5 million damage.  That means I’m dealing over 3 million damage in six seconds before SoD.  That’s 4.5 million in 6 seconds.  Take that people who don’t believe TRs have burst damage!

Don’t forget about Impossible to Catch!  Once you commit with your lashing blade, you don’t want any interruptions until Shadow of Demise procs.   Once Lostmauth’s health gets below 70%, we add another 25% damage from last moments and another +25% when he gets down to 30%.  Also, by the time he is down to 50% health we are getting another +10% from the Orcus set which will just get more powerful as Lostmauth’s health dwindle.  So, after he comes back from throwing rocks at you, you can repeat the whole cycle for even more damage.  This also adds damage to all of your bleed ticks you are getting from duelist flurry.  By the end of the battle, my bleed ticks are hitting for over 400,000 a tick.  We’re talking over 200% damage bonus once he’s below 30%.  If you are lucky enough to run with some buffing characters, get ready to proc Shadows of Demise for a lot more, but he’ll probably die before you can proc it if he’s down to 30% health.  “Ouch ouch ouch”, says Lostmauth.

Now, he doesn’t have to worry about triglycerides!  You’re welcome.

Rotations

The thing with rotations is that everyone has a little different way of doing things.  I can give you what I do in certain situations, but you may find a better rotation for you.  Certain situations require changing things up.  Don’t be afraid to do that.  That being said, here are two very broad basic rotations I use frequently.  I’ll put some of the main procs in () for what I am trying to do, but don’t forget a lot of other damage boosters proc as well.

Against Bosses without Adds:  I run in and make a quick hit with sly flourish to get my companion going with his attacks, dodge out and use my Wheel of Elements (procs Artificer’s Persuasion) and take the fire.  I run back, pop Impossible to Catch (for the power bonus), Stealth (procs Shadowborn), and Dazing Strike (procs Shadows of Demise).  Then, I use Lurker’s Assault (Procs Invisible Infiltrator, Infiltrator’s Action), stealth (Procs Shadowborn), Lashing Blade, Duelist Flurry, and by the time you are done with that, stealth again and dazing strike again.  Then start with Duelist Flurry and alternate with Sly Flourish (applies debuff).  If you are facing a boss with an undergeared party or FBI, I would swap out Lurker’s Assault with Courage Breaker and Dazing Strike with Wicked Reminder.  That helps your party with some debuffs that can really make a difference.

Against Mobs:  Run in and hit something to start your companion, stealth (Shadowborn), Whirlwind of Blades (hit 5 things get +100% power, which often puts me at close to 200K power at this point in the rotation), Pop my Wheel of Elements for fire(Procs Artificer’s Persuasion), Stealth (back from Invisible Infiltrator), Dazing Strike (Very powerful hit), smoke bomb, then sly flourish (regular mobs) or Duelist Flurry (powerful mobs).

Note: a lot of people like Blade Flurry, and it can be pretty good.  I personally don’t like it because I don’t like the time it takes, and I despise the “shashink” sound.  I like Dazing Strike and Smoke Bomb better and ITC is what lets me run into a powerful group and not get killed immediately.  But, use whatever fits your play style.  Others do quite well with a totally different rotation.

Here is the ACT from a random Lostmauth:

That’s it!  Please share and feel free to comment with suggestions or improvements!