Meat-Head wrote on Jul 10
th, 2015 at 6:34pm:
BTW, Why is 5' going human or elf/drow on the shuri build? Weren't halflings cool or something?
The most compelling reason to go halfling was the critical range boost. Since that is superseded by the ninja capstone, that means that all you get is dex, sneak attack, and being short.
In theory, shorter is better, but TBH height only really causes issues in the warforged/half-orc range. On an elf or human you will occasionally shoot over the head of a wolf if it is close to you, but in general you won't even notice. So height didn't play a factor in my decision.
Halfling and ShadarKai add Dex and sneak attack, but require heavy AP investment. Meaning taking points out of Harper. Which opportunity-costs 2 dex and several ranged power.
Meanwhile, human has enough feats to take Weapon Focus, gets a survivability boost in the double dip healing amp of improved recovery still gets 1 dex, and adds burst damage from the action boost. All for just 5 AP. Everyone agrees that the biggest issue with Shuri builds is squishiness and (relatively) low boss DPS, so I changed the version of the build to human to address those. I haven't actually TR'd into it yet, though. I still have the elf version at cap while I regain completionist on other characters.
Summary:
Halfling gets 4 dex, sneak attack dice, and is shortest, but costs 16 AP
Shadarkai gets 3 dex, sneak attacks dice, but costs 16 AP
Elf gets 4 dex, bonus sneak attack range and only costs 6 AP
Human gets 1 dex, 20% damage action boost, Weapon Focus: Thrown (+2 RP), and double-dip healing amp and only costs 5 AP.