Shadowblade Planning

[LooksLikeDaniel]

I'm doing a Human Female Shadowblade for my first playthrough, but I'm having a little trouble planning it out.

I took Outlaw and Mystic as my initial tags because, well, magical assassin.

There are a few things in the Shadowblade's default Polymorph skill that I think I want, but most of it doesn't interest me. I want to give her another skillset for her magic. Geomancer or Aerotheurge probably make the most sense in combination with the Scoundrel skills. Leaning toward Aerotheurge since Geomancer is already covered by Ifan and Fane. Summoning could also be cool as well, but I don't know if it would work as well with Scoundrel.

In terms of attributes, wit, finesse, and intelligence go without saying, but I'm not sure which or how much to put into the other things like social skills and one-handed/dual wielding.

Speaking of one-handed and dual wielding, dual wielding seems to inflict significantly more damage than one-handed, but the knockdown ability you get with one-handed is wonderful! I'm tempted to go one-handed and take the ambidextrous talent. Not sure, though.

What do you all think?

[LukanGamer]

your over thinking it just have fun and let your character be your character you can always respec act2 or get mod to respec whenever.

you can also grab some cool class mods if want of course.

[Nosfenas]

No dual stats,you want assassin go with finesse or mage int.Aerotheurge 2 you need teleport and uncanny evasion.Wait build line wolf or 4???

[Nosfenas]

Knockdown with one handed??You can knockdown with 2hand or dual wield

[LooksLikeDaniel]

Originally posted by Nosfenas:

Knockdown with one handed??You can knockdown with 2hand or dual wield

Sucker punch only comes with 1-handed.

[Patch]

usually warfare +scoundrel is how people go because if you do rogue/scoundrel + mage youre eventually gonna be lacking in damage overall from that character since you have to split finesse and intelligence but if you are only doing magic for the utility skills and like the effects they have rather than magic damage then you can do whatever you feel works really

[Player 2]

Go dual wield for max damage. and you know removing weapon don't need action point in combat. so you can still unlock sucker punch anytime. you can also use it multiple time in one turn with equip and unquip again to remove cooldown. i prefer to use it to every single target, saving battlestomp for multiple target if needed.

and its ok to unlock 1 skill point only to unlock 1-2 ability from that class. in my MP character i even unlock atleast 1 level of each class

[Nosfenas]

Originally posted by LooksLikeDaniel:

Originally posted by Nosfenas:

Knockdown with one handed??You can knockdown with 2hand or dual wield

Sucker punch only comes with 1-handed.

Oh sorry i dont use sucker punch,just use bull rush + battering ram.

[LooksLikeDaniel]

Originally posted by lostgreencats:

You can make any build work, provided you find the appropriate difficulty setting.

That said, since you're asking, I would reiterate Nosfenas' advice: don't split yourself between INT and FIN.

To maximize damage, you'd want as much FIN as possible for your shadowblade, with only as much MEM as you need. Don't bother with CON, unless you decide to use a shield, in which case put in only enough to equip that.
WITS has less value on a rogue than on other builds because you are automatically critting anyway, but you can still take a bit to control turn order if you want your rogue going first for some reason. Peace of Mind (Pyro 1) will also help with this

And yes you can take Geo and Aero, but you won't be doing any meaningful damage with them so better not to go more than a couple of points deep. Just pick up the utility spells. Aero has Teleport (Aero 2), Netherswap (Aero 2; not until Act 2), and Uncanny Evasion (Aero 2). Geo has Fortify (Geo 1) and Venom Coating (Geo 1, Scound 1).

If you want your shadowblade to be doing a bit of elemental damage, that's what Venom Coating is for, to add poison damage to your attacks. You can also coat your weapon in poison using a poison barrel (but watch out for undead), and later on you can use an elemental rune.

Regarding your concerns about dual vs. single wielding---Either way, warfare will give you access to two great knockdowns early on. The punch you're talking about can still be accessed in a pinch, even with dual daggers or a dagger and shield, as it costs 0AP to drop a weapon (though I believe 1AP to re-equip). So if that's all that attracted you to having a free offhand, I'd say forget it.

I'm not sure about Ambidextrous---I've never tried it.

What I've been thinking since the OP is that I might focus Lohse on Hydrosophist and Summoning instead of Aero and have my main take care of Scoundrel and Aero and possibly switch to Polymorph if the situation calls for it since she's already got a couple of points in that. Ifan already does Geo, so he can handle that.

As for teleport, doesn't cloak and dagger do the same thing only quietly?

[BenSt88]

Teleport is an offensive spell in this game, and a damn good one. You can teleport things as well, but you were perhaps thinking of mobility spells that transport the user somewhere else (can't target yourself w/ teleport).