Infiltrator - critiques please :)

[Takeda]

Concept was to stack silly amounts of Pierce resis reduction:

https://www.grimtools.com/calc/q2mrGb5V

So, from what I can work out, if I face something with 100% Pierce resistance ....

-12% (Mythical Eternal Band) : 88%

-34% (Night's Chill) : 54%

-34% (Death Sentence) : 20%

-32% (Assassin's Mark) : -12% assuming I crit

-10% (Mark of the Rimetongue) : -22% 15% chance on attack

-25 (Tip the Scales) : -47 assuming I get hit

I confess I'm not very GD spreadsheety so I may have some of this wrong.

Listed DPS is 60k (I know it doesn't show in the link).

So am I getting a return on my RR investment and is there more I can do to enhance survival?

[gNuff!~©~gNom3™]

first things that jump to mind is, please, oh please get a 2nd Slicer if you don't have Reavers Claw or Belgothian Slicer ready.... you want 100% armor piercing, or any other damage is just wasted
the RR looks legit, almost similar to what i've tried/aimed for, think i even tried Necrosis relic for -10% extra pierce reduct(100% not worth it lol)
Note, Eternal band is not flat RR thus doesn't give -12% like you think, and it comes after all the other but before scales/the 2nd resit part doesn't stack with scales
so
-34% (Night's Chill) : 64%

-34% (Death Sentence) : 30%

-32% (Assassin's Mark) : -2% assuming I crit

-10% (Mark of the Rimetongue) : -12% 15% chance on attack

12%reduct (Eternal band) (12% of 12=1.44) -14% rounding up(i think)

-25 (Tip the Scales) : -39% assuming I get hit

please oh please 1pt Ring of Steel and Circle of slaughter, it's gonna be a very handy Aoe, likewise a single point in shadow strike can save your butt by moving you out of danger(if you have an enemy to target) when things get rough
Max shadow dance, it's not an option, it's a must to get more points in that one
This might be counterintuitive or "controversial" in some opinions, but consider ditching Blade Barrier, yes it makes you immortal for 3secs, but unlike Mirror it immobilizes you, which can kill you in some situations where the monsters gang up on your or spray some unfortunate ground ji*z
Ditch Merciless Repertoire, you are pierce dealer, 5pts on cold and acid is wasted for you
if you are going AQC, and you don't have the extra points to boost it beyond, then don't go above 6 points(20%) for now, spend them elsewhere. The animation speed is still not the greatest so it's not a massive dps gain to dump further points in it when you don't have a ton extra to spare, you'd even be better off maxim Execution or Belgo Shears if you want to boost your wps.
Bit more points in Word of Renewal to increase your DA, likewise Steel Resolve gives "free" Racial dmg and free resists
Veil of shadows decreases monster OA(their chance to hit+crit you) and speed, this can be helpful, consider getting it to +10
Not sure why you are taking Lizard devotion when doggo, or even eel are right there
If you find yourself dying, Ghoul can be a pretty standard lifesaver
Aside from gear changes when you find upgrades it looks pretty decent, point reajustment can vary depending on +skills and needs/dps or defense increases but overall looks fine. Consider that overcapping some skills, while it does give dps gain, could be beneficial in more defensive areas (Veil, Word of R, Shadow Dance etc etc etc) -dead characters don't deal dmg anyway

[Takeda]

Originally posted by gNuff!~©~gNom3™:

first things that jump to mind is, please, oh please get a 2nd Slicer if you don't have Reavers Claw or Belgothian Slicer ready.... you want 100% armor piercing, or any other damage is just wasted
the RR looks legit, almost similar to what i've tried/aimed for, think i even tried Necrosis relic for -10% extra pierce reduct(100% not worth it lol)
Note, Eternal band is not flat RR thus doesn't give -12% like you think, and it comes after all the other but before scales
please oh please 1pt Ring of Steel and Circle of slaughter, it's gonna be a very handy Aoe, likewise a single point in shadow strike can save your butt by moving you out of danger(if you have an enemy to target) when things get rough
Max shadow dance, it's not an option, it's a must to get more points in that one
This might be counterintuitive or "controversial" in some opinions, but consider ditching Blade Barrier, yes it makes you immortal for 3secs, but unlike Mirror it immobilizes you, which can kill you in some situations where the monsters gang up on your or spray some unfortunate ground ji*z
Ditch Merciless Repertoire, you are pierce dealer, 5pts on cold and acid is wasted for you
if you are going AQC, and you don't have the extra points to boost it beyond, then don't go above 5 points(20%) for now, spend them elsewhere. The animation speed is still not the greatest so it's not a massive dps gain to dump further points in it when you don't have a ton extra to spare, you'd even be better off maxim Execution or Belgo Shears if you want to boost your wps.
Bit more points in Word of Renewal to increase your DA, likewise Steel Resolve gives "free" Racial dmg and free resists
Veil of shadows decreases monster OA(their chance to hit+crit you) and speed, this can be helpful, consider getting it to +10
Not sure why you are taking Lizard devotion when doggo, or even eel are right there :wombatthink:
If you find yourself dying, Ghoul can be a pretty standard lifesaver
Aside from gear changes when you find upgrades it looks pretty decent, point reajustment can vary depending on +skills and needs/dps or defense increases but overall looks fine. Consider that overcapping some skills, while it does give dps gain, could be beneficial in more defensive areas (Veil, Word of R, Shadow Dance etc etc etc) -dead characters don't deal dmg anyway :ccthumbsup:

I'll take a work through the list but there are a couple of points you raised which I'll address (and you can correct) immediately:

First the Eternal Band .. it has two elements of RR .. the first is reduction to the overall % of resistance - and given it's stats are 12/12 then that is a flat 12% reduction of the overall resistance. At 100% that is a flat 12% reduc .. if it were 50% then it would reduce by 6% in real terms. I ignored the second reduction of 12 as Tip the Scales is much higher and will overwrite it when it triggers.

So, in terms of you correcting me if needed - resistance is reduced by the % reduced .. then the % removed (which is stackable) and then finally by the flat value - as seen in Tip the Scales. Shout if I have that heroically wrong, but that's why I listed RR as I did.

So next - the dodge chance.

I don't take Eel as the dodge chance is just rubbish. Same story with Shadow Dance - even at about 14 pts it's more or less 1 in 5 attacks miss. That's 1 in 5 melee attacks just to be specific.

Again correct me if I'm wrong, but that 1 attack which gets dodged is not likely to be the 30k humdinger that Reaper slaps me for, it's be a 1k hit from some crappy mob. I'll out life leech the crappy hit damage, and would rather invest in reliable damage mitigation and reduce Reaper's nuke to something I can walk away from.

I've got a pure Nightblade on the go whose gimmick is dodge which is currently 42% but could be something approaching 70% once he's good and levelled. I suspect that my issue with this will be how my handsome smiling visage is preserved for most of the fight until something decent lands, whereapon I will simply die horrible and curse my stupidity for speccing into dodge.

So .. er .. yeah .. why do people think dodge is decent if A - it doesn't affect ranged and spells, and B - the bulk of attacks dodged are the kind you don't care about receiving? You just out heal them with decent DPS and a spot of ADCtH.

[gNuff!~©~gNom3™]

1,
you are mistaking the order of resist reduct,
i see by your reference of 12% from 50 would be 6, that you know how much/which way it reduces, but not "when". https://forums.crateentertainment.com/t/actual-resist-reduction-formula/47174
the order is -%, then % then "n"th, so your flat -% will always be stripped first, then eternal band (first) reduct takes effect, "12% of the remaining" in this case -12% which means Eternal adds another 1.44% reduct. and ofc we are selecing Tip the scales since it's "top"/doesn't stack with Eternal(second)

2
first off I'm not asking you to pick shadow dance "just" for the dodge, but for the flat DA, which you sorely lack, 120+ DA is nothing to just dismiss like that, it's pretty big
2nd, the dodge is a great bonus to add value to it, and 3rd it DOES let you avoid projectiles, read it again. Shadow dance is a double dodge if you will. it covers both
Reason why the dodge might be more handy than you think is, it is your first order of defense. Meaning it doesn't even bother to roll against your DA, it's kinda like a "straight up"(not actual straight up) removal of x% of incoming attacks. And it doesn't care which attack it is, so yes it can save your butt by completely negating heavy hitting attacks, in a row, it doesn't care if it's a lvl 1 skeleton or level 107 Reaper, it can/will strip their attacks, equally, from landing on you before all your other defenses get rolled,
this can be pretty big, and partially what helps Nightblade get slightly less squishy by removing "minimum" 1/5 of all attacks.
When you lack overall mitigation, avoidance is your "only" backup source. Should you pick dodge over resist, armor, block etc? no, too little(usually), but, A you lack some of the other mitigation, B you get 2types here for 1pt, DA+avoidance
^but again mainly for the DA which is invaluable as you lack defense with so low (and don't have armor to soak phys attacks either like a blademaster would)
Likewise i'm suggesting Veil because it lowers their OA, which is essentially the same as raising your own DA, and it lowers their total speed which means move and attack speed, which again means less attacks from Reaper coming your way ;)

hope i'm making just a little sense

[Takeda]

Originally posted by gNuff!~©~gNom3™:

1,
you are mistaking the order of resist reduct,
i see by your reference of 12% from 50 would be 6, that you know how much/which way it reduces, but not "when". https://forums.crateentertainment.com/t/actual-resist-reduction-formula/47174
the order is -%, then % then "n"th, so your flat -% will always be stripped first, then eternal band (first) reduct takes effect, "12% of the remaining" in this case -12% which means Eternal adds another 1.44% reduct. and ofc we are selecing Tip the scales since it's "top"/doesn't stack with Eternal(second)

2
first off I'm not asking you to pick shadow dance "just" for the dodge, but for the flat DA, which you sorely lack, 120+ DA is nothing to just dismiss like that, it's pretty big
2nd, the dodge is a great bonus to add value to it, and 3rd it DOES let you avoid projectiles, read it again. Shadow dance is a double dodge if you will. it covers both
Reason why the dodge might be more handy than you think is, it is your first order of defense. Meaning it doesn't even bother to roll against your DA, it's kinda like a "straight up"(not actual straight up) removal of x% of incoming attacks. And it doesn't care which attack it is, so yes it can save your butt by completely negating heavy hitting attacks, in a row, it doesn't care if it's a lvl 1 skeleton or level 107 Reaper, it can/will strip their attacks, equally, from landing on you before all your other defenses get rolled,
this can be pretty big, and partially what helps Nightblade get slightly less squishy by removing "minimum" 1/5 of all attacks.
When you lack overall mitigation, avoidance is your "only" backup source. Should you pick dodge over resist, armor, block etc? no, too little(usually), but, A you lack some of the other mitigation, B you get 2types here for 1pt, DA+avoidance
^but again mainly for the DA which is invaluable as you lack defense with so low (and don't have armor to soak phys attacks either like a blademaster would)
Likewise i'm suggesting Veil because it lowers their OA, which is essentially the same as raising your own DA, and it lowers their total speed which means move and attack speed, which again means less attacks from Reaper coming your way ;)

hope i'm making just a little sense

Makes perfect sense thanks - I take your point about the flat DA too but I don't know how you assess it's value. From what I've read you need something a bit in excess of 3k DA to avoid DA stripping, but it's nigh on impossible to gauge where a valuable tipping point lies to make it worth the DA vs it being a pointless investment chasing a target you can't reach.

To be fair, that's what underpinned my thought on maxing Seal, because the absorption is just valuable, lying at the opposite end of the defence spectrum to dodge.

I think like your previous comment on an earlier post of mine about target dummies, my best bet is to do it and see how it affects the character. I still think Eel is simply too little a modifier, and I take your point about Shadow Dance being better than I intimated, but the lack of spell damage coverage is irksome. With kit I avoid asymmetric elemental resistances where I can, and this is similar to that.

I should probably point out I'm not dismissing what you're saying - I invited comments - but I have to prod at the responses so I understand why they are upgrades or I'll simply be forever posting "please make this alt better" topics - and with 37 alts and counting, no one needs that.

So yeah ... I can make some of the changes now and some as I level of course. How big a deal is it to drop Reaper's OA for example? I just assume bosses like that have it in abundance and any dents i make in it are laughable.

Finally - I'll read the link, but presumably my takeaway from it will be that 12% is just trash. Great if it's all I have but utterly useless for me. That being the case, I'm sure I have another crazy green ring somewhere which will fix some issues.

Oooops not finally .. you made mention of my Pierce output. Derp claw 50%, 25% on Malkadarr's, Rimetongue's amulet adjusts by a further 37% and then the Blades of Nadaan conversion works its magic - am I not covered then?

[gNuff!~©~gNom3™]

you are again mistaking what dodge does, Shadow dance dodges projectiles, as well as melee attacks, this = all attacks, as "projectiles" = "anything ranged", not just bullets. that's what helps make shadow dance valuable as you get free avoidance on top of the all important DA; of which (depending on what you are after, crucible/sr) should be aiming at something like 2400 for Campaign, 26-2800 for endgame stuff, -plenty of builds does crucible and sr with 2800DA, and anything past 3k is a bit wasted nowadays it seems. but 2200 is just way too little, so 120+(can overcap) is just pt for pt worth it, specially since you get "all attack" avoidance on top. Keep reminding yourself it's double dodge, not just melee attacks like it seems you keep thinking
Reason Da is so damn valuable is because until you hit that "magical" nr(nr varies) you can still be crit. and crit's from bosses, nemesis or specials are what will be likely to ruin you. you want to be crit immune. Doesn't even matter if you aren't/can't be crit immune after a temp DA shred if you have 26-2800DA, you want to make sure, as a squishy, low armor, melee, that you don't get crit "all the time". with a 1.5attack speed, even 5% chance to be crit can be absolute murder when you are surrounded by mobs, or worse, bosses and nemesis
^if you could get armor, or somehow raise all your resist, like Blast Shield or resilience, yea that would have been more valuable than shadow dance, But it gives DA+avoidance, that's a bonus, that's worth, and most importantly, as a Infiltrator, "it's all you have" (specially now you've, ofc, already maxed Seal)

Lizard is just overall pointless, it doesn't add anything, at all, that's why i mentioned doggo and eel, at least eel gives a bit of DA and resist, and doggo gives physique + a little armor, so at least you get "something" useful for your 3 points, lizard is, in my humble opinion, a 310% waste if you are not doing some crazy health regen based build. Since the other two would provide more mitigation than the hp and heal from lizard. Just my thought ofc

and you are right about the ring, since it only adds 1.44/ it's not "flat" reduct like you thought, unless the other stats, resist, makes it mandatory, then it's not worth it alone for reduct hell i think bladetwister actually has reduct too https://www.grimtools.com/db/items/7923, it just has another problem of lacking other stats (resist, OA/DA flat pierce etc) but not necessarily bad if can make up for the lack of resist for instance

regarding pierce, it doesn't work like that, Pierce rating is individual, per weapon
so with Slicer you are covered just by Nadaan 50 +100%(100% of 50=50)=100% armor pierce.
Malkardar: 25%, +100%from Nadaan = 50%, +37% from Rime (37% of 25 is 9.25, i think we round up in GD)=+10%, 50%+10%= 60%, it's why you are still dealing a bunch of phys dmg on your weapon attack, worse so, a bigger ton of cold dmg, that is completely wasted on your spec and reducts. You want 100% armor piercing, all around. Slicer would be an easy way of that (they always have minimum 50), Belgo slicer has 40% i think, but rimetongue will almost cover it(still not fully 95%), but belgo set would ofc easily cover it as that also boost it. Mythical Reaver's Claw has 45% and that would then be covered fully by nadaan and Rime. But malkadar is sadly a giant waste, despite nice +skill and modifiers, it just sacrifices so much pierce dmg

lastly, i'm also not thinking you're dismissing anything, no worries, and even if you were i would not be offended, i'm far from anything remotely near a "pro" builder. I just point out stuff where "i" see it, and might even have had some experience. But even experiences can differ, nothing wrong with that if it came to it. Hell took me ages to get over my fear of "tanky blademaster" where i kept a Malmouth sword over a Slicer lol. Ups and downs for everything, but at minimum i wouldn't "rob" you from bouncing off some input, even if you didn't like mine/didn't end up using, at elast it was available for consideration, and that's all that really matters; throw out enough (bad) suggestions/ideas, and maybe someone can make a good idea of it

[Takeda]

Originally posted by gNuff!~©~gNom3™:

you are again mistaking what dodge does, Shadow dance dodges projectiles, as well as melee attacks, this = all attacks, as "projectiles" = "anything ranged", not just bullets. that's what helps make shadow dance valuable as you get free avoidance on top of the all important DA; of which (depending on what you are after, crucible/sr) should be aiming at something like 2400 for Campaign, 26-2800 for endgame stuff, -plenty of builds does crucible and sr with 2800DA, and anything past 3k is a bit wasted nowadays it seems. but 2200 is just way too little, so 120+(can overcap) is just pt for pt worth it, specially since you get "all attack" avoidance on top. Keep reminding yourself it's double dodge, not just melee attacks like it seems you keep thinking
Reason Da is so damn valuable is because until you hit that "magical" nr(nr varies) you can still be crit. and crit's from bosses, nemesis or specials are what will be likely to ruin you. you want to be crit immune. Doesn't even matter if you aren't/can't be crit immune after a temp DA shred if you have 26-2800DA, you want to make sure, as a squishy, low armor, melee, that you don't get crit "all the time". with a 1.5attack speed, even 5% chance to be crit can be absolute murder when you are surrounded by mobs, or worse, bosses and nemesis
^if you could get armor, or somehow raise all your resist, like Blast Shield or resilience, yea that would have been more valuable than shadow dance, But it gives DA+avoidance, that's a bonus, that's worth, and most importantly, as a Infiltrator, "it's all you have" (specially now you've, ofc, already maxed Seal)

Lizard is just overall pointless, it doesn't add anything, at all, that's why i mentioned doggo and eel, at least eel gives a bit of DA and resist, and doggo gives physique + a little armor, so at least you get "something" useful for your 3 points, lizard is, in my humble opinion, a 310% waste if you are not doing some crazy health regen based build. Since the other two would provide more mitigation than the hp and heal from lizard. Just my thought ofc

and you are right about the ring, since it only adds 1.44/ it's not "flat" reduct like you thought, unless the other stats, resist, makes it mandatory, then it's not worth it alone for reduct hell i think bladetwister actually has reduct too https://www.grimtools.com/db/items/7923, it just has another problem of lacking other stats (resist, OA/DA flat pierce etc) but not necessarily bad if can make up for the lack of resist for instance

regarding pierce, it doesn't work like that, Pierce rating is individual, per weapon
so with Slicer you are covered just by Nadaan :Ccthumbsup: 50 +100%(100% of 50=50)=100% armor pierce.
Malkardar: 25%, +100%from Nadaan = 50%, +37% from Rime (37% of 25 is 9.25, i think we round up in GD)=+10%, 50%+10%= 60%, it's why you are still dealing a bunch of phys dmg on your weapon attack, worse so, a bigger ton of cold dmg, that is completely wasted on your spec and reducts. You want 100% armor piercing, all around. Slicer would be an easy way of that (they always have minimum 50), Belgo slicer has 40% i think, but rimetongue will almost cover it(still not fully 95%), but belgo set would ofc easily cover it as that also boost it. Mythical Reaver's Claw has 45% and that would then be covered fully by nadaan and Rime. But malkadar is sadly a giant waste, despite nice +skill and modifiers, it just sacrifices so much pierce dmg

lastly, i'm also not thinking you're dismissing anything, no worries, and even if you were i would not be offended, i'm far from anything remotely near a "pro" builder. I just point out stuff where "i" see it, and might even have had some experience. But even experiences can differ, nothing wrong with that if it came to it. Hell took me ages to get over my fear of "tanky blademaster" where i kept a Malmouth sword over a Slicer lol. Ups and downs for everything, but at minimum i wouldn't "rob" you from bouncing off some input, even if you didn't like mine/didn't end up using, at elast it was available for consideration, and that's all that really matters; throw out enough (bad) suggestions/ideas, and maybe someone can make a good idea of it

Ah ok - GD is replete with not quite properly worded .. or maybe "tooltipped" skills - I wasn't mistaking Shadow Dance for melee, but I had assumed Ranged = gun not spell, so yeah that's useful to know.

Weird isn't it that Lizard is poor? I assumed the global benefits of % healing made Word of Renewal or Pneumatic Burst, or even a humble heal potion, much better - but in fact it's just .. nothing. Back to seeing genuine tangible results like the Dog adding actual armour.

So Rimetongue is overcapping the slicer but not capping the other sword - got it. I did expect to lose some damage efficiency to the fact that I have cold in the mix too so I'm not heartbroken over it. Everything is compromise - acid/cold .. chaos/vita .. I won't drone on but you take the point. I don't want every Nightblade I own to dress up in Belgo's tho I accept it's a vast improvement on the Beronath Shard attack replacer.

I'll wrap this topic up for now and enact some changes - I'll make a new post if i still have questions, but I don't want you staying up all night answering my queries :)

Cheers for the help :D