Sneak attack Scorching Ray

[Zloy_Arbuzik]

Multiple sneak attacks no longer work with scorching ray? I haven’t logged into the game for a long time, in what patch did they nerf this?

[pete3great]

It's been a while. One of those "never should have worked like that in the first place" bugs.

[mbradtke]

dont u need 3 seperate attack rolls to land all 3 rays on max?
and you only get 1 sneak attack for it or what?

[Dave]

Ya i can confirm i'm hitting a guy with shatter defense on, sneak attack ONLY APPLY TO THE FIRST RAY

This means all the time spent until now is gone cos i need to delete my arcane trickster

With this nerf Bolster is 100000 times better than Sneak Atttack since it is not conditional, apply to every single ray, does aoe (something an arcnae trickster lack) and saves you both 1 rogue level and 1 talent (accomplished sneak attack)

So basically Bolster killed Arcane Trickster class for good

Some math
Scorching ray

Sneak
4d6x3 + sneak attack

Bolster
4d6x3 + 24(8x3)AOE

So you do more damage with Sneak Attack only with 5+ SA dice, and only on good rolls

Hellfire ray is even worse

SA
15d6x3 + sneak attack

Bolster
15d6x3 + 90(30x3)

SA does more damage only with 16+ SA dice...too bad you can have 13 max by the end game, without using the spell sense vitals (class + feat + Trickster Mythc + Mythic Feat)

So.....If you do everything good you will always do LESS damage with a Sneak attack focused blaster than a normal 1

To make things worse, you can't even pick Sorcerer dip for Dragon bloodlines, cos you already dipped in rogue, and another dip would put you 2 caster level behind, so you lose even more damage in the form of

Scorching Ray
4x3 = 12 Draconic (24 with mythic second Bloodline)

Hellfire Ray
15x3 = 45 Draconic (90 with Mythic second Bloodline)

As it stands right now....Arcane Trickster in Patthfinder Wotr is only worth a 1 lvl dip after getting the free Sneak Attack from Mythic Rank 3, to get the chest, otherwise it is a huge waste of time.

UNLESS

You only want the lvl 10 (effective lvl 14) ability to apply SA to AOE spells (fireball, lightning etc.), but that is better kept for Azata Mythic path, focusing on Evocation CD, to avoid enemies getting half/0 dmg on reflex save. And still a Bolstered fireball does 20 dmg to each target, while sneak could do 13-78, a nice gain but u risk doing half/0 on refelx save (EDIT) but still with sorcerer bloodlines you'll be doing 30-40 dmg static, that covers more than 50% of the 13-78 rolls)



TLDR;
Arcane Trickster is a disaster, not worth more than 1 lvl dip on trickster Mythic path

[Janthis]

Always found spellcasting classes a bit "meh" in Wrath, what with every demon and his brother having high saves and spell resistance. You need to really specialize and hyperfocus to make them viable.

[revan1229]

Originally posted by Johnny_B_80:

Always found spellcasting classes a bit "meh" in Wrath, what with every demon and his brother having high saves and spell resistance. You need to really specialize and hyperfocus to make them viable.

They are extremely powerful. They can one-shot the final boss with a single spell. Spell resistance is only a problem in the early game, and casters are still powerful there because Conjuration spells bypass SR (and the new Corruptor Mythic ability works for spells). Specializing isn't exclusive to casters. A martial built with no planning or focus generally isn't going to be a star performer, either.

[revan1229]

Originally posted by Dave:

So basically Bolster killed Arcane Trickster class for good

Honestly, I thought Bolster had already made the AT irrelevant. Even on Trickster path, you'd want Bolster, because you're building for crit rays. Don't understand the logic. At this point, they should just let precision damage and Bolster damage stack.

[Dave]

Originally posted by revan1229:

Originally posted by Dave:

So basically Bolster killed Arcane Trickster class for good

Honestly, I thought Bolster had already made the AT irrelevant. Even on Trickster path, you'd want Bolster, because you're building for crit rays. Don't understand the logic. At this point, they should just let precision damage and Bolster damage stack.

Starting with the point that you're right :)

The thing is, when Sneak Attack worked for EACH RAY, the damage you could get going Arcane Trickster on Trickster Mythic path was vastly superior to Bolster

Since now you can add Sneak only once, and since you are aslo limited to the number of SA u can have, there is no point in picking more than 1 lvl in that class

[revan1229]

Originally posted by Dave:

Originally posted by revan1229:

Honestly, I thought Bolster had already made the AT irrelevant. Even on Trickster path, you'd want Bolster, because you're building for crit rays. Don't understand the logic. At this point, they should just let precision damage and Bolster damage stack.

Starting with the point that you're right :)

The thing is, when Sneak Attack worked for EACH RAY, the damage you could get going Arcane Trickster on Trickster Mythic path was vastly superior to Bolster

It seemed that way on paper, but I don't think that was the case. Bolster was giving 30 on each ray of Hellfire Ray, for example. Yes, that is generally less than an AT on the Trickster path. However, when you use Empower Metamagic, the Bolster damage gets the 1.5 multiplier, too. Then on top of that, as I mentioned, Bolster damage gets further multiplied on crits, whereas SA damage does not, and Trickster casters are all about expanding ray crit range.

The damage (outside of crits) was comparable. The issue was that Bolster accomplishes all of what AT did with a single feat while having faster progression and better performance against things immune to sneak attack damage. Now, it's even worse.

[FunkyMonkey]

Originally posted by revan1229:

Originally posted by Dave:

Starting with the point that you're right :)

The thing is, when Sneak Attack worked for EACH RAY, the damage you could get going Arcane Trickster on Trickster Mythic path was vastly superior to Bolster

It seemed that way on paper, but I don't think that was the case. Bolster was giving 30 on each ray of Hellfire Ray, for example. Yes, that is generally less than an AT on the Trickster path. However, when you use Empower Metamagic, the Bolster damage gets the 1.5 multiplier, too. Then on top of that, as I mentioned, Bolster damage gets further multiplied on crits, whereas SA damage does not, and Trickster casters are all about expanding ray crit range.

The damage (outside of crits) was comparable. The issue was that Bolster accomplishes all of what AT did with a single feat while having faster progression and better performance against things immune to sneak attack damage. Now, it's even worse.

Well, sneak attack does have still the advantage that it applies to every attack spell you do, not only the ones you use metamagic on.

[Dave]

Originally posted by FunkyMonkey:

Well, sneak attack does have still the advantage that it applies to every attack spell you do, not only the ones you use metamagic on.

When you get bolster, you get favorite Metamagic mythic with it, meaning every spell you have will be modified with a Bolster metamagic with +0 slot

So the only spells you can't modify with bolster are the cantrips, thats the only advantage of SNeak attack :) Your cantrips hit harder

[Elizabello]

Originally posted by Dave:

Ya i can confirm i'm hitting a guy with shatter defense on, sneak attack ONLY APPLY TO THE FIRST RAY

This means all the time spent until now is gone cos i need to delete my arcane trickster

With this nerf Bolster is 100000 times better than Sneak Atttack since it is not conditional, apply to every single ray, does aoe (something an arcnae trickster lack) and saves you both 1 rogue level and 1 talent (accomplished sneak attack)

So basically Bolster killed Arcane Trickster class for good

Some math
Scorching ray

Sneak
4d6x3 + sneak attack

Bolster
4d6x3 + 24(8x3)AOE

So you do more damage with Sneak Attack only with 5+ SA dice, and only on good rolls

Hellfire ray is even worse

SA
4d6x3 + sneak attack

Bolster
4d6x3 + 90(30x3)

SA does more damage only with 16+ SA dice...too bad you can have 13 max by the end game, without using the spell sense vitals (class + feat + Trickster Mythc + Mythic Feat)

So.....If you do everything good you will always do LESS damage with a Sneak attack focused blaster than a normal 1

To make things worse, you can't even pick Sorcerer dip for Dragon bloodlines, cos you already dipped in rogue, and another dip would put you 2 caster level behind, so you lose even more damage in the form of

Scorching Ray
4x3 = 12 Draconic (24 with mythic second Bloodline)

Hellfire Ray
15x3 = 45 Draconic (90 with Mythic second Bloodline)

As it stands right now....Arcane Trickster in Patthfinder Wotr is only worth a 1 lvl dip after getting the free Sneak Attack from Mythic Rank 3, to get the chest, otherwise it is a huge waste of time.

UNLESS

You only want the lvl 10 (effective lvl 14) ability to apply SA to AOE spells (fireball, lightning etc.), but that is better kept for Azata Mythic path, focusing on Evocation CD, to avoid enemies getting half/0 dmg on reflex save. And still a Bolstered fireball does 20 dmg to each target, while sneak could do 13-78, a nice gain but u risk doing half/0 on refelx save (EDIT) but still with sorcerer bloodlines you'll be doing 30-40 dmg static, that covers more than 50% of the 13-78 rolls)



TLDR;
Arcane Trickster is a disaster, not worth more than 1 lvl dip on trickster Mythic path

Summed it up really well

[FunkyMonkey]

Originally posted by Dave:

Originally posted by FunkyMonkey:

Well, sneak attack does have still the advantage that it applies to every attack spell you do, not only the ones you use metamagic on.

When you get bolster, you get favorite Metamagic mythic with it, meaning every spell you have will be modified with a Bolster metamagic with +0 slot

So the only spells you can't modify with bolster are the cantrips, thats the only advantage of SNeak attack :) Your cantrips hit harder

That's true, spell casters have a lot of competition for the mythic abilities and feats, though. I'm not disagreeing that bolster is better, but sneak attack does OK, if you want more damage and don't want to spend valuable mythic feats and abilities for it.