Since I left seven months ago, they fixed Swashbuckler and shurikens, and made blitz easy button.

gibbons did a good job rehashing an old idea I had, but after much thought and a lot of spreadsheeting, I believe the best thrower build now would be:

Spreadsheet: (Google Drive looks shit, download and open in Excel): https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByPzquwSBGvvSXhmaXRfSmJtWHc/view?usp=sharing

12 Arty/6 Bard/2 Rogue (Halfling)

See the link for detailed damage calcs versus what is probably the next best thrower build, which would be the most updated Shuricannon/Lvl 20 Monk thrower. With everything but Bard Song buffs included (but leaving out some item based procs and SA damage since it's virtually the same between builds and not that much), this build is a strong 9% total damage per throw ahead of a 20 Monk Shuricannon. With Bard songs this build pulls very slightly more ahead.

Additionally, I liberally gave the Shuricannon 40% Doubleshot, and only 50% for the Bard build. The bard build gains 12% static Doubleshot over the Monk however (Cores + Dashing Scoundrel), and 30% Doubleshot Action boosts (9 or so of them in LD) which should reasonably add about 10% averaged full time Doubleshot. So, I tried to be very fair in my estimates. Because I didn't do exact Dexterity accounting, (Monk gets 4 from Wind Stance, this build gets 4 from Tensers, enhancement Dex is roughly the same, etc), I just gave them both 60 Dex. Based on experience, this is a reasonable Dex assumption. It can go as high as the high 70's, but that takes Cookies, several pots, etc.

So not only does it do more damage (and arguably less resistible damage in the form of physical damage), but this build has a whole other aspect that makes it sort of amazing: instakills and CC. Fascinate and Coup De Grace add a certain "oh shit" option all my other thrower builds lacked. Not sure how important it is, but I'm excited to play with it and see.

The sheet has all of the info, but it's a lot and I don't want to repeat it all, so if you want to check my math or see for yourself, just donwload it.

Summary:

Feats:
(Heroic)
Extend
PBS
Shuriken Prof
Shuriken Exp
Quickdraw
IPS
IC Ranged

(Artificer)
Precision
Precise Shot
Rapid Shot

(Epic)
Empower Heal
OC
lvl 26: Lasting Constipation, Pos Spell Power, or Holy Strike
27: Dodge, Epic Reflex, or Combat Archery
28: Doubleshot

Enhancements:
(37) Swashbuckler all the way to Tier 5, take dex, action boost, Dashing Scoundrel, Blow by Blow, Exploit Weakness, etc. All the goodies.
(11) Halfling all the way to Skillful Thrower for Dex to Damage with shurikens
(27) Harper for Dex, Know the Angles, Adept I-III, whatever you see fit.
(5) To play with. Probably take Arbelester, and maybe more dodge in Halfling. Up to you.

Stats: Start 20 Dex, and split the rest of the points between Con and Int, but I would stress Int for KtA. Level up's in Dex.

Some rationale:
*Arty 12 is for self cast, extended Tensers. BaB has a large effect on throwing speed, and the 4 extra dex are a nice perk. This build would lose about 11% thrown speed without it. Also, Arty gives 3 Feats, SP, and extended longer Displacement casts from GS items. Having more bard and some ranger could be nice, but feats are tight, and scrolling Tensers sucks. So, 12 Arty it is.
*You could also trade Dashing Scoundrel for Canoneer if you want and use a Rune Arm. Kind of a toss up between 10% Doubleshot and 6 damage vs. the 20 Damage of Glass Cannon.
*Throwing Speed Tests were done this week. I started doing 3 short ones and averaging, but then I just went to 40 throws (counting the animation sound) and using that instead. Should be accurate to within a few basis points.

Have you considered the new ToEE set bonus offhand for more ranged power?

What about rogue mechanic tier 5 enhancements?

Yes to ToEE set. Already farming for the pieces. Not sure how to make it work though. No shurikens, orbs, rune arms, or bucklers to complete the set. Anything else will break swashbuckling.

I will caveat however, that right now the original Tinkerhell could use that set to be pretty close in DPS to this build.

Can't see T5 Mech being better than T5 Swash, but maybe Ill try to math it out. ExWeakness insane

Rubbinns wrote on Apr 18^th, 2015 at 7:54pm:


They are both Competence and do not stack. But I don't have them stacking anywhere either in the math...Halfling is for Dex to Damage.

Swash has dex to damage, when Single Weapon Fighting. Throwing a shuriken is not single weapon fighting. Or is there something about this I don't understand?

First, that repost of the Ranger based thrower wasn't my idea. Don't want anybody thinking I was taking credit. I did play it through, and it was fun.

Unless it's changed, Different Tack is even worse than useless since it requires SWF. SWF lowered throwing speed when it was added. I'm not sure how this was the case and I haven't checked it recently.

Another thing I haven't checked is Blow By Blow (named after a game Cordo plays in staff meetings) not working with ranged. I hope it's fixed because that's another source of sonic damage.

I like Arty base because after a couple of recent lives I detest scrolling Tensor's. One life had some ranger and could Manyshot so that got me thinking. I've been contemplating 12 Arty/5 Rogue/3 Bard taking T5 Mechanic for the love that gives Great Xbows and using Endless Fusillade for bursting. No CDG plays differently, -2 damage from Thread compared to Sharpshooter. No Exploit Weakness which feels tough to quantify exactly since it's shifty but is unarguably good and losing it means fewer crits and less Resonant Arms damage. +10 Doubleshot (which stacks with IDK what) +10 RP, +10 Ranged Alacrity (which again stacks with IDK what). I'm not sure it's worth the tradeoff to be able to Fusillade. It also fucking kills me not having enough to get Killer out of the Ass tree (that's the tree Cordo used to make his wooden teeth).

Your Spreadsheet-Fu is fucking amazeballs.

gibbon wrote on Apr 18^th, 2015 at 11:32pm:

Yes
gibbon wrote on Apr 18^th, 2015 at 11:32pm:

Excellent

Yes, you do get 8% from the quiver. However, you lose +6 damage from Dashing Scoundrel, as well. So it's 10% DS and +6 Damage (which gets benefit from crits and Ranged Power) vs. 8% DS and ~20'sih from Glass Cannon. 2% DS is equivilent to about 2% of 33% of this builds damage output, which is about .6%of 1550 DPS, which is ~10 Average damage a second. So you're really losing quite a bit by losing the static 6 base damage and 2% doubleshot in order to wear a Rune Arm for 10-20pts of proc damage.

I'm working on a masters thesis but I'll try to work out the exact calcs tonight or tomorrow.

You do know that archer focus scales sneak damage, do you?

Just asking

Lelouch wrote on Apr 19^th, 2015 at 4:19pm:


yes, but that's only relevant on red named DPS, which is the only time you might use Archers focus. But it's an important point for Rogue heavy builds.

DPS per point of dex is totally specific to the build being measured. FOr instance in this build, Doubleshot and Dex are roughly equal in contribution to overall DPS, since they both equally offer the chance of an extra missile per throw.

fr8o wrote on Apr 19^th, 2015 at 5:34pm:


+9 Base Damage or +9 Proc damage?

harharharhar wrote on Apr 18^th, 2015 at 7:36pm:


I mean the ToEE set for the monk based build, since you give up almost nothing for a big boost to ranged power.  You'd have to give up rune arm or DS on the arti/bard splits, so the set bonus would seem to heavily favor monk throwers. 

AtomicMew wrote on Apr 20^th, 2015 at 6:16am:


Yes!

For any monk based build using the ToEE set with a SS and Robe would be tits.Including original Meteor Showers and OG Tinkerhell. It just isn't attractive for the Bard builds.

I really need to update the Meteor 1/2.

People will think T5 Mech is ideal, but it's a trap. Getting to T4 for Fletching and keeping perm tensers is still probably the best DPS. Since they use 10K the doubleshot from Mech isn't all that important. The 10 Ranged power is nice, but prolly not worth 7% thrown speed and 4 Alchem dex.

harharharhar wrote on Apr 20^th, 2015 at 11:40am:


What about the 10% ranged alacrity in T5?  Doesn't work?