Is Shadow Piercer good for PvE?

[Ayush Garg]

Hello rogues.

I just started a rogue and I currently have maxed out AS and have 2 points in piercer, 2 in nox and 2 in Shield. Should I max Piercer? Also, is this a good build in general? (I am using duel daggers as Im poor).

Also a side question, what good cheap pets are there for rogues? Thank you.

[wiggy]

As long as you enjoy your daggers and being in the front line. Plus its fun to dash around maps. IMHO, I think the most effective combo for a front line rogue is SP + RS + SV, your tank would also thank you for it.

SP (3/5) - without the multiple low damage hits and 15% armor reduction. A good SP attack is when you get 2x of heal per SP combo. (I have never experienced being healed 3x)

Some caution in spamming SP:

1.) Be careful when dashing around HUGE mobs, like in the tombs and its narrow passages. Sometimes you dash INTO the middle of the huge mob and become an instant target of every single enemy. Worst is you get surrounded and you can't escape.

2.) When shooting (Nox or AS) on a chasing mob that is too close to you and you use SP hoping you dash away from the mob, but instead you dash towards the chasing mob.

I am currently shooting down mobs from afar, but I do miss dashing and being in the front line with a tank on my side.

[Azepeiete]

If you use daggers, pierce sucks. Pierce has a 1s invisible cd after use where you can't do ANYTHING. This nullifies the point of daggers, which is to hit multiple mobs. Never charge shadow pierce even with bow. This is because it will ruin your aimed stack.

[Ayush Garg]

If you use daggers, pierce sucks. Pierce has a 1s invisible cd after use where you can't do ANYTHING. This nullifies the point of daggers, which is to hit multiple mobs. Never charge shadow pierce even with bow. This is because it will ruin your aimed stack.

Would you say taking either Veil or Trap is better then?

[Roberto077]

I, personally, despise using trap as a skill. Shadow Piercer is just so much more fun.

[faychen]

S/p is the final skill in my combo, because that 1 second idle.

[Alfai]

Sp for pure dash.the damage and other upgrades arent that useful honestly when dealing with mobs.

Better to invest in veil nox and trap.u can skip meds since you can pots.

[Zuzeq]

I use SP simply for the HP regain in leet settings. Can't do damage and smash pots at the same time so why not heal and strike at once? After a bit of testing Fluff and I did SP is one of the best single strike skills (next to a AS crit shot) *Gear depending* it can do 856-1013 uncharged...

[Peanutbritle]

Shadow piercer (in my opinion) is a PvP skill primarily. My skill layout is the bomb almost maxed out to give the tank a safe haven of increased armor and damage. Trap with the net and bleeding damage boosts to pull enemies in one place where I will use blade shield and get awesome damage on the whole mob. And aimed shot to use before a mob so I can get a little agro off the tank.

So in conclusion, I have TRAP to consolidate. BLADE SHIELD to use after the trap works. AIMED SHOT for before a mob or beginning of a boss fight. And THE BOMB SKILL ( don't know the name lol) to buff me and the rest of the party :) BTW I use daggers too and I have 2000 kills and 7 deaths so this is a great build for daggers!!!

(My order of using them: Aimed shot(charged), bomb near back of party(tank usually falls back. Charge this skill), trap in front of where the mob is going(usually straight at u!!), and then blade shield or veil or whatever(charge!) :P. By then the mob is almost if not dead.

Hope this helps!!

Peanut

[dannyw]

Coming to end game SP is very useless, especially when you run elite map.

[ryantat]

It's still useful when it helps you no stress when you're died.
It's still useful when starting with group of mobs, if you run you are shot and lost 50% hp before drop your bomb or do anything after. :).

[CrazyTank]

Horton is cheap and good pet for rogue

[Alrisaia]

Shadow piercer (in my opinion) is a PvP skill primarily. My skill layout is the bomb almost maxed out to give the tank a safe haven of increased armor and damage. Trap with the net and bleeding damage boosts to pull enemies in one place where I will use blade shield and get awesome damage on the whole mob. And aimed shot to use before a mob so I can get a little agro off the tank.

So in conclusion, I have TRAP to consolidate. BLADE SHIELD to use after the trap works. AIMED SHOT for before a mob or beginning of a boss fight. And THE BOMB SKILL ( don't know the name lol) to buff me and the rest of the party :) BTW I use daggers too and I have 2000 kills and 7 deaths so this is a great build for daggers!!!

(My order of using them: Aimed shot(charged), bomb near back of party(tank usually falls back. Charge this skill), trap in front of where the mob is going(usually straight at u!!), and then blade shield or veil or whatever(charge!) :P. By then the mob is almost if not dead.

Hope this helps!!

Peanut

I explain this and have named it The Blender (http://www.spacetimestudios.com/showthread.php?110087-Alrisaia-s-Guide-The-Razor-Shield-Blender) in a guide I recently wrote.

As for SP being a PVE skill I'm with Peanut in that it's more of a PVP or Bow build skill...

[Zanpakuto]

I use it mainly for movement and dailies. If I didn't do stories, or had money for Plat revive, definitely get nox

[nyxaire]

The Pros About Your Build:

.Reduces Your Target's Armor
.Damage Over Time
.Helps You Complete The Dungeons Faster
.Helps You Move Faster
.Gets You A Lot Of Kills

The Cons About Your Build:

.No Heal
.Shoot Out And Get The Arggo

That is my opinion. It is entirely up to you.

[Alrisaia]

"Gouging Rush: Each hit of the Shadow Piercer has a 15% chance of reducing your target's armor by 15%." 15% is a chance, but a low one. However, when you do get a successful reduction, Aimed Shot's -15% reduction added in, you can reduce the target's armor by 45% (+ pet's arcane and/or passive armor reduction)! 45%+ armor deduction is fair amount (especially when fighting warriors).


So I broke up your post and plan only to address the bit about armor reduction:

While I don't know the actual calculation - I don't believe that's how those % modifiers stack...

My assumption is that it would take either the least or greatest buff / debuff first and work that direction.

For instance:

Assume someone has 1000 armor.
A 15% reduction in that armor would mean it now has an 850 armor.
Another 15% reduction would bring it down to: 722.5
Another 15% reduction would bring it down to: 614.125

Whereas – stacking those debuffs as you indicate above would yield a total reduction (45%) of 450 points. Reducing the example above to 550 armor.

While it may seem trite to have these discussions – it’s important because this is often a misconceived subject. Think about the store that has 50% off their sale item and then marks the item down another 50% that does not mean it’s 100% off (Free)… People in the real world have trouble with this all the time – bottom line - % buff / debuff skills don’t stack like that…

[Zuzeq]

I use SP simply for the HP regain in leet settings. Can't do damage and smash pots at the same time so why not heal and strike at once? After a bit of testing Fluff and I did SP is one of the best single strike skills (next to a AS crit shot) *Gear depending* it can do 856-1013 uncharged...


Maybe you guys didn't hear me. Second only to AS, SP does the most single target damage. Explain how doing massive damage in any setting is useless in PvE....I'll wait....

[Alrisaia]

Maybe you guys didn't hear me. Second only to AS, SP does the most single target damage. Explain how doing massive damage in any setting is useless in PvE....I'll wait....

I will be speccing SP this coming season - one point only - untested, however I plan to replace RS with it at bosses... thus at a boss I would be using the following skills:

AS, SV, SP, Nox

For trash mobs - I'm sticking with my RS Blender, I'm comfortable with it and unless something drastically changes in the AI of the MOBs and how they crowd up, I'll continue to do so.

I'll let you all know how it goes - it will be my lv 36 skill point probably.

[Azepeiete]

Maybe you guys didn't hear me. Second only to AS, SP does the most single target damage. Explain how doing massive damage in any setting is useless in PvE....I'll wait....

First, piercer does less damage to each target when you charge it.
Next, you have absolutely 0 aimed shot stack. This means you have 20% less crit than anyone else.
Third, nox bolt has dot. It does more over time especially when you stack it TAPPED.
Also, shadow pierce has a 1s cd after use where you can't do anything. This means NO bow attacks(in your case). NO dagger attacks. Shadow pierce is only useful when tapped, the whole "charge it and hit 3" sucks. Pierce is only useful when TAPPED at the end of your sequence.