Why the choice of shadowdancer vs LD or FoTW? Is it really comparable dps or more about the utility it also brings?

5 Foot Step wrote on Aug 1^st, 2017 at 10:59am:

You are correct on everything except FotW I think.  I have to agree with Jakee/Harhar/Sobsob/whateverhenamechonedtonow on this.

Even if I ran a SA focused shuri, I'd run in FotW destiny.  I say this even after having ran a SA focused shuri build that was doing 600+ SA damage + all the base damage and procs per shuriken.  I'd take the drop down to 300-400 SA dmg per star for the burst DPS of FotW.

The thing about shuricannons is, no matter what destiny you run in, it will kill trash easily.  You could run it in Magister, US, etc. and it will still kill trash just fine assuming it's a halfway decent build with proper weapons and gear.

Running in SD, LD, DC or even Shiradi will increase your DPS on trash for sure but what those destinies lack is burst DPS.   FotW has that in spades.  Even post imbue nerf, no other destiny matches the burst DPS of Unbridled + 10ks + Sniper Shot.  Imbues didn't scale with adrenalines and crits anyway, so the loss of those had minimal impact on burst DPS with FotW.  The only thing that had any real impact is losing Slaying Arrow.   

Sniper Shot or maybe the active Kensai attacks are decent enough substitutes though.  As a bonus, it makes swapping to a bow and using manyshot less mandatory.  Shurikens may hit for less than a bow per shot, but you get more stars per throw than you do arrows per shot with a bow, even during manyshot, so my in-game, eyeballing-it testing makes me think that you're just as well off using 10ks with unbridled now.

So if most shuri builds can kill trash well by default, why not opt for the ability to quickly drop a truckload of damage onto a red-named?  Additionally, since shuris regen regular adrenalines at a high rate, it's hard to match their ability to 1-shot champs and reapers at will with an adrenalined Sniper Shot.   The ability to quickly remove the biggest threats to a party while clearing trash is big perk.

*** Adding a disclaimer that I realize the OP topic of this thread is a pure monk shuri build which makes all my points about activated attacks + adrenalines/unbridled irrelevant.  That is also why I feel that pure is a second tier shuri compared to the ranger, fighter, or rogue splash versions.  On a pure monk, SD or LD with a focus on SA probably is the best option since you have no activated attacks to synergize with FotW. 

Just wanted to put this info out there for anyone that might be reading up on shuricannon builds in general and trying to decide which type of build to go with.

5 Foot Step wrote on Aug 1^st, 2017 at 1:09pm:

Anyone has this on live ? Without epeening nonsense, I would be genuinely interested to see this burst in action on video perhaps.
In comparison to "terrible" bow Furyshot which I'd happy provide footage of on chosen target. Still can pop 90k+ vorpal arrow on helpless.

Wipe wrote on Aug 1^st, 2017 at 5:12pm:

still the highest burst dps in game. by far. not even close. retains the title even in r10.

As much as I like the idea of a pure monk my problem is I'd get bored of just chucking stars with no active attacks. Yes you can pick up a few in epics, but I have to survive heroics first... My strongest and favorite builds so far have been throwers, but since the recent nerfs I haven't attempted to make another one yet. Seems all hope is not lost.

What did you take for skills ? Hide, Concentration and Balance ?  There aren't many points available.

phil wrote on Oct 24^th, 2017 at 8:33pm:


With a +4 Int tome and 8 Int, you can almost max out 4 skills. In game, I actually went:

Concentration 23
Hide 23
Spot 20
Tumble 1
UMD 11

Balance is pretty worthless at end game. The DC to get back up after a knockdown is only 15 and is covered on pretty much any build by epic skill ranks + skill tome or GH. Even in heavy armor. Platemail of the Celestial Avenger is armor check -0 believe it or not, as is Legendary Executioner's Plate. Legendary Breaker of Bodies is only -1.

The only other balance roll I know of is DC 35 vs warforged titans, easily (more than) covered covered by this build's dex bonus.

I wouldn't bother crafting shuri since the named ones are quite good. The new Nicked Kama is a very good low level offhand. I also have an old CC max tendon slice one and an old rangom gen deception + seeker one that is good once you switch to Snowstar. At higher heroic levels I am a big fan of Treason.

As for enhancements I mostly just wing it, I don't mind resetting them every few levels. Your first priority needs to always be 6 points in NS for dex to damage. After that it depends what difficulty you are running. If you run reaper with skeletons or other blunt DR, you'll probably want to grab Deft Strikes and 1-3 Henshin cores for melee damage since the shuri are going to do zero damage in some situations. 8 points in Henshin are wanted anyway when you can afford them for passive ki regen for 10k stars. After that it's mostly NS and racial for as much damage as you can get. Harper comes last.

The Ninjutsu enhancements passively add +1 to hit and damage now. I never use the toggle/proc part.

Do Spell Saves stack with Resistance?  I thought it was just another specialized resistance type that didn't stack.

It's so lame we have to use a 6 year old piece of gear because devs refuse to put Improved Deception on new items.  With Ghostly slotted on gear, do you change your level 26 ED feat to Adamantine?  I realize Holy Strike has a minor DPS component (I assume it doesn't scale with ranged power). I'd assume you'd want to slot Dawnbringer with Ruby of Night for the non-undead, and a second one with Ruby of Vampire Slayer for undead.

Rubbinns wrote on Nov 9^th, 2017 at 1:27am:


Dawnbringer? Because of VOrpal and orange slot for level drain?

What am I missing here?

Rubbinns wrote on Nov 9^th, 2017 at 5:25pm:


Why not Crippling Flames and a level drain Aug on TF T3? That's what I always used.

Also, I made but never tested an enervation shuriken to try and figure out the actual proc rate. Does anyone know for sure? I think it's 33% on crit but I don't actually know for certain

there's some junk in here about it, with Xyfiel claiming a dev told him the formula and Firewall arguing with him. Not sure who is wrong and who is right.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/453877-Best-level-drain-epic-melee-bui...