Scoundrel / Aero build. Thoughts?

[The Kid]

Hey everyone,

I'd like to know what are your thoughts about this build. Basically the idea would be to have an hybrid physical /magical damage dealer that relies heavily on crowd control, with lots of mobility around the battlefield.
I am well aware that spreading my damage between physical and magical is far from ideal, but as I said the goal is mainly CC.
In a typical battle, I would identify the most dangerous target and unleash either my physical bruiser on it, or my burst mage, depending on the resistance of the enemy. My rogue would then sweep in and CC the living crap out of them.

I'm also tempted to favor intelligence and just be a general nuisance to the enemy by perm-casting rain and electrifying everything I come in contact with, leaving every melee character fend for itself. A kinda mayhem style of combat where both friends and foes alike would be in perpetual danger. I would, of course favor air resistance gear to mitigate the effects on my team.

Once again, I know this is suboptimal, but what I am looking for is fun. And not get my ass handed to my by random voidling #2 because this was a ♥♥♥♥ idea, let's not kid ourselves.

[Stabbey]

I did a Scoundrel/Aero rogue for my first playthrough, it worked well. No attribute spreading required, other than a few extra points into Memory.

If there's no one to backstab, Teleport someone to you or Netherswap yourself into position. Want to avoid some melee attacks, Uncanny Evasion. Archers a problem - Smoke Cloud. Even Favorable Wind can be helpful early on, although it drops off in utility as more skills become available. Many magic schools have skills which don't scale at all with Intelligence and so can be used by anyone.

Trying to deal both Physical and Aero damage is possible, if you put high-quality elemental damage runes into daggers with existing elemental damage and use Venom Coating or Sparking Swings, but What I do NOT recommend is splitting your points between FIN and INT, that just weakens both attacks.

Perma-casting Rain isn't going to work. First, the rain lasts for one turn (despite the visual effect lastibgn more than one turn) and has a 6 turn cooldown, so even if you have it on all four people, there will still be gaps. Second, electric surfaces are not as good as they were in DOS 1 because the magic armor will just absorb the damage and enemies will walk over it. Third, there are now two stages to the status - Shocked, the soft CC, and Stunned the Hard CC, which requires taking more electric damage after being Shocked.

There is no benefit at all from INT for Rain, nor does INT affect damage from surfaces.

There are better ways to build a CC-based Rogue than going aero.

[The Kid]

Interesting. To be honest, I feel like I haven't given Aero enough love in any of my playthrough, and thought it went well with a melee-oriented build.
My current party is a Warfare/Necro bruiser with a couple of points in Geo for the buffs; an Archer/Summoner; a pure Hydro burst mage and lastly that Scoundrel character. I'd be more interested in a magical build than a physical one if hybrid wouldn't work, given my party compo. What would you then recommend, while keeping Aero in mind?

[Stabbey]

I said it in my first two paragraphs:

I did a Scoundrel/Aero rogue for my first playthrough, it worked well. No attribute spreading required, other than a few extra points into Memory.

If there's no one to backstab, Teleport someone to you or Netherswap yourself into position. Want to avoid some melee attacks, Uncanny Evasion. Archers a problem - Smoke Cloud. Even Favorable Wind can be helpful early on, although it drops off in utility as more skills become available. Many magic schools have skills which don't scale at all with Intelligence and so can be used by anyone.

I did a Scoundrel/Aero build where I used the Aero skills for utility to reposition myself, teammates and enemies, and for avoiding attacks. I didn't need to spend points onto INT.

Oh, one thing I neglected was that if you're doing a Lone Wolf build, you do get enough points to split between two attributes.

[The Kid]

But that would be a physical build with an emphasis on Scoundrel, correct? I'm actually looking for the opposite

[Stabbey]

Are you looking for a Lone Wolf build, or part of a 4-person party? Lone Wolves will work just fine splitting points between INT and FIN because they get twice the value for investing. Otherwise, splitting points will halve your effective damage, because attacks typically deal either physical OR magical damage.


There are some ways that you could do both at once, as my paragraph 3 said:

Trying to deal both Physical and Aero damage is possible, if you put high-quality elemental damage runes into daggers with existing elemental damage and use Venom Coating or Sparking Swings

There is also nothing stopping you from being a magic-damage dealer who happens to carry a dagger, as long as you're not intending to actually use it for doing damage. There are two hybrid Scoundrel preset classes: Witches are a caster-class which uses daggers, Shadowblades are a more CC-focused class.

[The Kid]

There seems to be some misunderstanding, I'm willing to let the whole hybrid thing go, it was just a passing idea, and given your answers, a bad one. What I'm really interested in, is an Aero build, I just thought it would mix well with a melee build.
I haven't really played Aero, as in ever, and was quite tempted to give it a go. I already have a pure caster, and was wondering how I could make it fit in my team (Warfare/Necro; Ranger/Summoner; burst Hydro and missing link (so yes, a 4 characters party))
But I'm guessing the web is full to the brim with such guides, just have to find the one that'd suit me. Thanks for your answers though, they actually have been of good help!

[Stabbey]

If you want a close-range melee build which does magic damage, that's one of the two main battlemage variants.

Use a staff as the weapon, take Warfare 2-3 (a staff works for Warfare skills), Aero, (probably Pyro as well), lots of points into INT. All magic schools have some close-range INT-based magic attacks. Aero has Blinding Radiance, Shocking Touch, Vaccuum Touch, Superconductor, Closed Circuit.

[Chaoslink]

Nah. Nah. Nah.

There's a "build" that does this. Daggers would be your main damage still, but you'd be stripping both armors at once and be able to use your lightning spells for CC. You'd basically just need to go full weapon-augment where you find daggers with innate element damage AND a rune slot. Then poison (or eternal artifact) that weapon while using abilities like firebrand and venom coat to boost magic damage further. The way the backstab crits affect daggers, the magic damage and physical damage are about equal, allowing you to strip both equally effectively. Then you can open enemies up to lightning damage stuns and the like, utilizing those Aero skills. It would be a single-target character still, so you'd want another air mage to go with them to AoE other things so everything becomes vulnerable at the same time, but you'd at least have something like what you're after. Its the closest you'll get if you want daggers to be useful at anything.

[MrSoxs]

Mokey Mokey can't be meta

[atletikus]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S_Qdsbt9Fs&t=