Neverwinter Trickster Rogue Infiltrator Skills and Builds Guide

Neverwinter Trickster Rogue Infiltrator Skills and Builds Guide by tgnalfen

Hey everyone, after playing through BW3-4 and OB, clearing everything the game has to offer in PvE and trying every skill build imaginable, i figured i could give out some info on the skills/builds and my personal take on them.

Current state of the Rogue has us as top damage on single target situations and average damage in AoE situations. Overall damage contribution in groups has us on top at the same level as Control Wizards or Great Weapon fighters: They can pull ahead if there is a ton of AoE otherwise we do if it’s a lot of single target. Other classes are further behind and do not compare in damage.

Overall the class works but our skill tree is one of the worst around because of the many useless/redundant skills and pitfalls in it. This is probably what prompted me to write this guide.

Everything listed here is from a Trickster Rogue – Infiltrator Paragon perspective.

The Infiltrator is centered around Stealth and remaining in stealth as much as possible, most of the abilities given help you regain and under the right circumstances you can remain in Stealth indefinitely.

Are we really overpowered?

I see that one a lot and the answer is simple: Depends on your definition of “OP”.

If OP means being able to 1 shot opposing players in PvP then yes, we are OP but so are GWF and CW. All 3 damage classes in Neverwinter can 1 shot players from full health to nothing in a single move.

Does this make us overpowered? Not really, it just serves to illustrate that PvP using PvE mechanics does not work and that damages in neverwinter scales better than hit points.

In PvE, we are balanced and have our role clearly defined.

Races and Stats

When selecting a race your stat priority should be as follow:

The 3 Rogue stats
Dexterity, we care because it gives us critical chances and deflection; a lot of our feats work off critting a lot.
Strength, gives us raw damage making it a better offensive rogue stat than charisma.
Charisma, gives us combat advantage damage, pet stat bonus and deflection, jack of all trades stat.
NOTE: Combat Advantage is 10% base extra damage plus your charisma bonus.

The 4 compatible races

Human: start with 18 STR, add 2 points to it and try to get 16 DEX as well. Humans are good mostly because you get 3 more heroic Feats points allowing some interesting builds.

Mezoberanzan Renegade: Possibly the best PvE rogue; go 18 dex, 16 cha and 13 str. The main advantage is the +2 DEX and CHA and 6% more damage debuff, great when solo but useless if in a party with more than 1 dark elf as it does not stack.

Hafling: Works like the dark elf but does not gain the 6% damage debuff so as far as races choices this is the worst of the 4.

Half Orc: For the STR rogue, max STR and get good dex no other race provides as much. With crit severity and the possibility for a max of 27 STR and 25 dex this is the best race for stats.

Other races?: Other races can work but their stat distributions are really not as good.

Stealth Mechanics

You get Stealth at lvl 10.
The first thing to understand is how Stealth works:

Fighters have their armor, Wizards their control, clerics their healing; stealth, for us, is our defense and a Rogue that ignores stealth will end up dead quickly. Learn to use it effectively or you will end up dead rather quickly.

When active, Stealth will make you invisible to enemies and hard to see for enemy players (they can still spot you if you are close to them). Enemies will not attack someone in stealth but AoE’s and Skills targeted at other players/companions can still hit you if you are in the way.

Your stealth bar slowly regenerates on its own but dealing damage replenishes it faster. Taking any kind of damage lowers your stealth bar unless it is already full; when full your stealth bar stays full until activation.

You can activate Stealth at any time and the bar will drain until you are out and reappear. Taking damage while in stealth does not break stealth but will cause your stealth meter to lose a portion proportional to the damage taken (this can break stealth if it is enough to empty your bar).

Gear

In gear you will look for Power > Critical > Recovery > Armour Penetration > Hit Points > Life Steal = Deflection > Defense

Power: Gives us the raw damage we need to function, at lvl 60 this came out to ~1 damage for every 25 power. You want to hit hard and power is what you should focus on.

Critical: It raises our chance to crit and with Executioner feats relying on crits so much its really a no brainer that we need to get a good amount.

Recovery: This helps our cooldown and Action point gain, we can’t stack it primarily like a CW but every little bit will help you compensate the fact that our AP gain is the slowest of all classes (GWF are also slow).

Armour Penetration: It’s a basic strait up damage increase as it lets you ignore a percentage of the target’s defenses. The value per point is a little low so it make this my 4th stat.

Hit Points: This one is a no brainer, bigger HP pool means more survival. Sadly you really cannot gain enough +HP to really mitigate the incoming damage.

Life Steal: Life steal will never be enough to keep you alive on it’s own but once you start getting 5-8% total lifesteal this will pad your HP nicelly when using things like Duelist’s Flurry.

Deflection: Deflected hits do 25% of their normal damage and we get base Deflection from DEX and CHA, this makes it leagues above Defense for a mitigation stat. Just remember that you cannot rely on it to keep you alive.

Defense: I list this as our worst item stat; the reason behind this is that our base percentage is already low because of our poor AC making deflection better most of the time. You would have to invest a lot into defense to start seeing returns on it and still be nowhere near plate wearers.

Enchantments:

For offensive slots go mostly Radiant for the power and some azure for crits
For defensive slots use deflection or lifesteal depending on your preferences
For utility use experience while leveling and movement at lvl 60

Armor enhancement:
Soulforged – There is plenty of other options but none better than being invulnerable for 2,3 or 4 secs when falling under 25% HP.

Weapon enhancements:
We have 2 options here

Plaguefire: Dot damage and 15, 30 and 45% less mitigation from enemies
For the Rogue on a budget or the one that prefer group utility over raw damage this is a great enchantment to have. The damage is not bad and the debuff is fantastic. It also compensates for a lack of Armour Penetration.
Pros – Cheap; greater can be bought for ~1m AD, helps you and your group, replaces Armor pen.
Cons – Needs to be stacked before its useful so for quick fights its not as good, PvP performance is bad.

Vorpal: 12, 25 or 38% more Critical Damage.
For PvP there are not better rogue enchants out there as for PvE an entire group running Plaguefire can support one Rogue with Vorpal but don’t overdo it with everyone Rocking Vorpals otherwise it will just plain sucks.
Pros – Scales extremely well. Helps with PvP burst damage and it’s Always on.
Cons – Expensive, no group synergies require a good deal of crit to take good advantage of.

Companions

The best companions for us are the following 3:

Active Companions
Cleric – While he will die a lot and his healing is not that great he will help mitigate some of the damage you take reducing your potion consumption considerably and he attacks from range so he does not get in the way when you stealth.

Rock Golem – If you want something to tank for you this is the best option; he automatically taunts and can be somewhat tough to take down. He is however in melee so you will have to be careful with AoE’s and wide arc attacks as he will trigger them.

Passive Companions
The Cat or Ioun Stone – In the end game there isn’t many other option than those; combat pets die too quickly and do next to nothing and those 2 non combat pets cannot be targetted so they are always active and you gain the stats you put on them making them a great self buff to have around.

Rogue and Infiltrator skills

We get a total of 61 points to spend on abilities and class features
(Note: the first 5 are assigned automatically)

Grades: (Every Skill is graded form PvE and PvP)
0 – Garbage, no use whatsoever
1 – Situational, might work but there are better options available
2 – Good, nothing wrong here and if you like the skill then by all means use it.
3 – Amazing, skill that i cannot find anything wrong with fall into that category

Description: My personal oppinion on the skill
Good – some of the good things you can expect out of the skill/feature
Bad – some of the things that prevent this skill from shining or things to watch out for.

At Wills

Sly Flourish – PvE 3 PvP 3
Your bread and butter attack, you will use this skill more than anything else.
Good – You start with it and throughout the game this will remain on your bar at all times.
Bad – Nothing really, damage is average but its an at will with 0 drawback.

Cloud of Steel – PvE 1 PvP 3
This will probably be everyone’s secondary at will at least until duelist flurry and even then it is sometimes better when you need some range.
Good – Ranged attack with a quick execution, can be used without breaking stealth.
Bad – Limited charges (12), adding points does not increase charges only a bit of damage.

Duelist’s Flurry – PvE 3, PvP 0
This skill cannot work as your main At Will due to the long animation but it makes good for secondary skill especially vs high HP targets.
Good – Highest DPS ability we have; amazing damage when the bleed is at 10/10 stacks.
Bad – Takes 2 sec to wind up and another 2 to execute, so you need a stationary target and usually a distraction like a tank etc.

Gloaming Cut – PvE 0, PvP 0
Slow attack with a little bit of forward momentum that deals average damage and gives a little stealth IF you get the killing blow with it.
Good – I can’t say anything good about this skill, it fails to work in every possible way.
Bad – Long windup, bad damage, low stealth bar refill on killing blow makes this a pass for anyone.

Encounter Powers

Dazing Strike – PvE 2, PvP 3
Decent damage and daze is an amazing status effect, i would mark it as a 3 points for PvE but we eventually get better skills and have limited slots. TIP: ask your CW to use Arcane Singularity and you can hit 4-5 enemies with it every time
Good – Decent damage, Daze is good CC and has a tiny AoE if you land it right
Bad – 1 sec animation outside of stealth makes avoiding this easy

Deft Strike – PvE 1, PvP 3
This really has a few uses in PvE to get back into position instantly but with a limited encounter bar its hard to justify it. In PvP this lets you catch up to anyone and provides excellent mobility.
Good – Instant teleport to your targets back, the range while stealth-ed is HUGE. Great to catch runners.
Bad – Long cool down and short duration slow.

Lashing Blade – PvE 2, PvP 3
A good low level skill that sadly got nerfed hard due to its burst potential (used to do 50% extra dmg from stealth). This skill is our highest burst damage ability.
Good – Instant burst damage.
Bad – Long Cooldown means rather low DPS

Bait and Switch – PvE 3, PvP 1
Anytime you are soloing this skill is great, providing you with a tank that takes hits for you and giving you a full stealth bar refill if used in stealth. This skill is almost mandatory for solo play.
Good – Free dodge or a full stealth refill from stealth and bonus AP when it gets hit.
Bad – Long cooldown and at high level the decoy has very little HP and will not hold some enemies attention.

Blitz – PvE 2, PvP 0
It’s an AoE, something we lack badly. On any other class i would overlook this skill completely but since we have so very little AoE potential this one is a good buy and will serve its purpose.
Good – It has AoE something we totally lack, the jump back can also serve as a ghetto dodge. Daggers pierces so it hits everything in a strait line.
Bad – Average damage; if it wasn’t for our lack of AoE’s this would never be used.

Impossible to Catch – PvE 1, PvP 3
Great PvP skill that is otherwise useless for PvE.
Good – Only way to break CC and used from stealth it becomes amazing.
Bad – Long cool down limits its PvE usage but would otherwise make it OP for PvP. Takes a while getting used to it.

Path of Blades – PvE 3, PvP 1
While it doesn’t look like it this is our highest DPS encounter. It also helps our AP generation by a ton.
Good – Decent AoE damage, Fire and forget skill that lets you do other things while it does damage.
Bad – Damage is not counted as an attack so it cannot crit or benefit from weapon enchants. Limited number of targets it can hit at the same time.

Impact Shot – PvE 0, PvP 2
For PvE this is a teribble skill but in PvP you can use it to make a fully ranged Rogue (Shadow Strike + Cloud Of Steel and this).
Good – The stun from stealth is nice and it has range.
Bad – Average damage, limited charges not increased by adding mastery points.

Shadow Strike – PvE 2, PvP 2
The redeeming skill for the infiltrator Paragon Path; this is what makes everything work and should be included in almost every build.
Good – Full stealth refill every ~12 secs from range if needed.
Bad – Meaningless damage and adding mastery points is a waste for 10% dmg.

Wicked Reminder – PvE 2, PvP 0
An armour debuff armor on a sub 4 sec cool down. The duration makes it situational against anything but bosses but it remains a good skill to use in a group environment.
Good – Short cool down, decent damage, ~25% debuff and a decent from stealth effect.
Bad – Short duration means you have to keep applying this very often or it falls off.

Smoke Bomb – PvE 3, PvP 3
Our best skill; this rocks for ANY situation, can be used in a ton of ways and is possibly one of the best CC in the game.
Good – 3 sec AoE daze! It’s a large AoE and even has a Slow effect from stealth on top of that is awesome for PvP
Bad – Requires 3 points to be useful and takes 0.5 sec to kick in.

Daily Powers

Bloodbath – PvE 0, PvP 3
This skill is the first daily power you will have access to, it looks cool, sounds cool and falls short in potential for PvE. In PvP this lets you deal some damage while being completely immune to damage.
Good – Looks cool and you are invulnerable during this power.
Bad – AoE damage is low as you have no way of controlling what it will hit and this may also move you to places you don’t want to go to.

Lurker’s Assault – PvE 3, PvP 3
This lets you keep stealth for a long time and gives you 60% damage bonus to boot, need i say more?
Good – Great damage boost, good utility 10 secs of stealth.
Bad – World turns black and white making AoE areas very hard to see; use with caution.

Whirlwind of Blades – PvE 2, PvP 1
This skill is a little bland at first because we have bad AP generation early on and it doesn’t do that much damage but in the later levels it will clear an entire room of minions for you.
Good – Large AoE centered on you with decent damage potential
Bad – Daggers do not pierce so limited to a few hits and the power bonus doesn’t last long at all.

Courage Breaker – PvE 1, PvP 0
While a 90% damage reduction sounds appealing we cannot maintain something like that to really make a difference.
Good – Gains a ton of potential from putting points into it.
Bad – Doesn’t last long enough to make use of a Daily Power.

Shocking Execution – PvE 0, PvP 3
Lets you 1 shot most classes and put a serious dent in many others, fron RANGE!!!
Good – 1 shots most things
Bad – Damage is low if you do not get 3 points, creates a lot of QQ on forums :P

Class Features

Remember: You can only have 2 of those active at any time, so no use buying them all.

Sneak Attack PvE 0, PvP 2
Dunno what they were thinking when they changed this; now even the name doesn’t seem to work…
Good – Will make you walk at half mount speed when in stealth great to catch someone, limited to solo play at best.
Bad – Name doesn’t feel right and wtf just give us back the old version!

First Strike – PvE 0, PvP 2
15% damage for only the first hit in a fight doesn’t make for a useful feature.
Good – For PvP this lets you 1 shot people with Lashing Blade.
Bad – Very situational and completly useless in PvE.

Tenacious Concealment – PvE 3, PvP 3
This is something that you should pick up along the way, it helps when dealing with situations with a ton of AoE damage flying around.
Good – 90% reduction almost removes the penalty we get from taking damage.
Bad – Unless you are taking damage this does nothing for you

Tactics – PvE 2, PvP 1
We have painfully slow AP generation, 15% from this helps a little and makes for a useful class feature.
Good – Helps AP, we really need more AP
Bad – 15% is a little low considering that we already have a slow AP gen.

Infiltrator’s Action – PvE 0, PvP 0
This might be useful if we had a hard time gaining combat advantage but we do not; this goes to the useless pile.
Good – at least adding points into it actually does something useful.
Bad – We have stealth, making this redundant.

Skillful Infiltrator – PvE 2, PvP 2
Passive 15% speed 3% crit and 3% deflect, this prety good as a general purpose passive.
Good – Always useful no matter what you do
Bad – The movement speed is barely noticeable and 3% crit and 3% deflect is marginally good at best.

Invisible Infiltrator – PvE 3, PvP 1
This has amazing synergies with the Lurker’s Assault. It also gives you a 3rd way to refill the stealth bar (4th if you count Gloaming Cut) as well as some extra damage
Good – Another way to regain stealth, the bonus damage with Lurkers Assault is AMAZING
Bad – Slow daily power regeneration means limited uses.

FEATS

Starting at lvl 10 you get 1 feat point per level to spend on abilities.
You get a total of 20 (23 human) Heroic feat points and 31 Paragon points

HEROIC TIER

Tier 1 – This is the basic stuff everyone gets, some ok choices and some that are no more than point dumps.
Action Advantage: Get 2,4,6,8 or 10% more AP gain, a good investment since it helps compensate our biggest problem: Action

points gains.
Weapon Mastery: 1,2 or 3% more critical chance; critting is what we do best and this is a strait up crit chance bonus.
Toughness: This comes down to 600, 1200 or 1800 more hp at lvl 60, not a huge difference but not a bad way to spend points.

Tier 2 – Some pretty bad choices in here but you can fallback to tier 1 if needed.
Swift Footwork: Faster stamina gains are not bad but at 5 points for 10% more it doesn’t make sense.
Battlewise: We have stealth, this makes threat irrelevant.
Cunning Ambusher: 2, 4 or 6% more damage coming out of stealth is not bad, not great but not bad at all.

Tier 3 – Once again, nothing spectacular but endless assault is ok.
Endless Assault: 2, 4 or 6% more encounter damage, can’t go wrong with this.
Twilight Adept: 5 points for 10% stealth recovery on dodge does not even to begin to compensate for the time it takes to run back to the target.
Lucky Skirmisher: 3 points for 3% more chance to deflect will not make any difference in your chances to survive.

Tier 4 – This is the best tier and all those skills would be a good purchase, sadly you will only have 5 points (8 if human) to spend in here.
Scoundrel Training: 3, 6 and 9% more at will damage, we do most of our damage using at will so this is an excellent purchase.
Disciple of Strength: 2, 4 and 6% more strength bonus translates literally to 2, 4 and 6% more damage on EVERYTHING.
Improved Cunning Sneak: at 5 points this adds 1 sec of stealth (for a total of 6 sec) not bad but we have better options at that tier.

PARAGON TIER

Saboteur:

The Saboteur paragon tree lends itself to PvP far better than PvE. It adds many mobility upgrades, a lot of damage from stealth and some Synergy with common PvP skills. It is more oriented towards solo PvP than group and because it adds very little for PvE it tends to get overlooked when compared to the Executionner tree.

Tier 1
Speed Swindle: 10% more speed and 10% less for them means better chasing potential, too bad its almost not perceptible.
Cunning Stalker: 20% faster AP gain in stealth helps our biggest issue, slow AP gains so not a bad skill.

Tier 2
Nimble Dodge: If you already use other dodge feats you can always add this one but the return on investment is not that great.
Sneaky Stabber: If you are that one rogue that use Gloaming Cut then go for it, otherwise its worthless.

Tier 3
Baited Action: Not bad for solo PvE but otherwise useless
Expert Sneak: 10% more run speed and them doing 5% less damage is not bad at all.

Tier 4
Sneak of Shadows: 10% more damage in stealth is excellent, especially when combined with Lurker’s Assault.
Unerring Ambush: The only good thing out of this is for Deft Strike, 20% from stealth makes that ability hit decently hard.

Tier 5
Ruthless Efficiency: 30% armour penetration for 6 secs after a kill can add some serious damage to your attacks but the killing something beforehand requirement limits this to solo PvP almost exclusively.

Scoundrel

The scoundrel tree it a little confused at first, it adds some damage, some group utility through debuffs and a lot of
Action Point gains but it falls short when it comes to its Tier 5 ultimate Feat. Making it hard to justify using it over Executioner.

Tier 1
Berserk Vitality: If the internal cooldown was better i may like it but right now gaining a 500 HP buffer once per 20 sec is worthless.
Underhanded Tactics: 20% more combat advantage effectiveness means 20% more combat advantage damage and 20% more AP gains, great feat.

Tier 2
Press the advantage: 10% more power after using your CC breaker is meh, for me that translates to 550 power so ~22 dmg more for me.
Nimble Blade: If you do the math this is actually quite bad, at 50% crit this adds 3.5% more damage overall

Tier 3
Mocking Knave: not a bad thing to buy and even better for PvP for the cloud of steel bonus.
Catspaw Style: More of a PvE thing this makes trash easier to clear adding 10% damage to everyone if you use Blitz.

Tier 4
Action Rush: This helps a lot when trying to refill your AP bar and whenever i am not Scoundrel spec i kinda miss it.
Brutal Wound: Sounds good on paper until you realize its weapon damage not total damage – Worthless

Tier 5
Whirlwind Sneak Attack: If this was 15% more damage for 10 sec coming out of stealth it would be a good ultimate but it being

1 encounter, once makes it really terrible.

Executioner:

The executionner Tree focuses almost exclusively on Critical hits and making those more effective. Because those work the same for PvP and PvE it makes this tree the best choice for the rogue that wantsthe best of both worlds.

Tier 1
Dazzling Blades: 1 sec 5% of the time is not a bad way to spend points as it will go off quite often when using Duelist’s

Flurry.
Thrill of the kill: 1% ap per kill at 5 points ?!?!? Just horrible

Tier 2
Cruelty’s Reward: Once again with stealth, threat reduction is obsolete.
Devastating Shroud: Quite useless in PvE but actually not bad in PvP

Tier 3
Brutal Backstab: 25% more crit damage in stealth, YES please!
Critical Teamwork: 5% more crit to you and your team is a great way to spend 5 points.

Tier 4
Deadly Momentum: For bosses and PvE this is a must at 15% critical severity will pretty much stay on you the entire fight. For PvP skip this.
Sharpened Steel: For a tier 4 skill this is just not worth it.

Tier 5
Overrun Critical: This is the reason you go down this tree in the first place, this goes off every time you crit helping your damage a lot.

Common Rogue Builds

The infinite Stealth method

This is what i use to basically stick to stealth 90% of the time. This is great for solo play with Tough enemies or boss fighting

At Wills:
Sly Flourish – Trusty reliable damage you use 90% of the time
Duelist’s Flurry – Used from stealth with lurkers assault to make bosses dead
(Sometimes Cloud of Steel instead of Duelist’s Flurry if there is too many casters that love to stand in their AoE forever)

Encounter:
Smoke Bomb : AoE 3 sec Daze, will let you bridge the gap between your abilities.
Bait and Switch: decoy that gives AP and refills stealth plays right into that build’s strength
Shadow Strike: full stealth refill when i need it, lets me use wicked reminder then back to stealth

Daily:
Whirlwind of Blades – Our only AoE damage daily power, if there is a lot of minions and basic enemies this clears them nicelly
Lurker’s Assault – When only the boss remains use this along with Duelist’s Flurry to make it dead

Class Features:
Tenacious Concealment – Ignoring 90% of the stealth loss from damage helps a ton while regaining your stealth bar.
Invisible Infiltrator – Free full stealth bar and 15% damage after daily means more stealth goodness and things like smoke bomb from stealth, daily and stealth again.

It goes a little bit like this, run up to an enemy, stealth, beat on it, when stealth is low use Bait and Switch, re position away from the decoy (to not get hit) keep hitting your target, when stealth is low again use smoke bomb, exit stealth, use Shadow strike or daily to refill bar and go back to stealth /repeat

Basically you only exit stealth when Shadow strike/Daily is up to use Smoke bomb. If you screw up, kite a little and repeat.

PvE Instance build

While clearing trash in instances this is what i normally run. I swap to my infinite stealth build for bosses.

At Wills:
Sly Flourish – Trusty reliable damage, use on things that are not Elite
Duelist’s Flurry – Elite mob only (if they move too much use Sly Flourish)

Encounter:
Smoke Bomb : AoE 3 sec Daze, this will help your party out a TON, pop it on the CW or Cleric as they tend to be in the middle of things.
Blitz: Helps with the AoE damage a little and can be used as a quick dodge
Path of Blades: Helps with the AoE and will also help you regain your action points faster.

Daily:
Whirlwind of Blades: Some AoE damage and a small power boost after, helps in clearing large packs of minions.
Lurker’s Assault: 10 sec of stealth and 60% more damage, what’s not to like

Class Features:
Tenacious Concealment – Ignoring 90% of the stealth loss from damage helps a ton while regaining your stealth bar.
Or
Tactics – If the instance is light on AoE damage i run this over Tenacious Concealment
Invisible Infiltrator – Free full stealth bar and 15% damage after daily means more stealth goodness and things like smoke bomb from stealth, daily and stealth again.

PvP Solo Build

If i am in a PuG and will be soloing most of my PvP kills i run the following.

At Wills:
Sly Flourish – Trusty reliable damage
Cloud of Steel – Ranged goodness

Encounter:
Lashing Blade: Good Burst damage and with first strike it can 1 shot from stealth
or Path of Blades when fighting teams with many other rogues
Impossible to catch: This one takes some getting used to but once mastered it will really screw with people.
Deft Strike: Mobility, mobility and more mobility, i prefer using it to escape than using it offensively but it serves both purposes.

Daily:
Shocking Execution: 1 shots people!
Lurker’s Assault: 10 sec of stealth and 60% more damage, what’s not to like