This is a showcase for my Acid Flask Dragonsong Marksman which I pushed to 1000 corruption. Kinda fitting for being my first Rogue at 1000 corruption since it was also my first character.
This build really showcases the strength of endurance since it can facetank Aberroth slams as well as 1000 corruption boss DoTs and attacks thanks to the damage reduction from Endurance(with upto 3.5k endurance threshold) and insane recovery from the marksman passives. Planner in comments.
Build planner: https://www.lastepochtools.com/planner/o3nR0P0B
Rings have bad prefixes mainly because they are hand me downs from an electify paladin.
Initially I was planning a much more glass cannon spec but after missing Crit multi/attack speed for the third time on my Arrowguard quiver (and with these weird rings) I decided to instead make a build that could facetank Aberroth’s slam as well as go on to facetank 1000 corruption boss DoTs and hits.
Build Pros:
- Facetank bosses
- Pretty good damage with autotargeting from the triggered traps/flasks/arrows
- Very good clear with good movespeed
Build cons:
- Max defense require standing still
- RNG/stack based defenses (while this build does have a strong 3.5k Endurance threshold and capped glancing blow, it depends on the stacks and buffs you have and may not be active all the time)
- 0 recovery when not attacking (makes on death effects/ DoTs that persist after enemy death extremely dangerous)
Gameplay Showcase: Aberroth, Orobyss, Boss+Harbinger kills, Echo clear and T4 Julra:
Marksman is considered a squishy class since it has no defense in its passive tree. However, Marksman has the strongest recovery tool in the game with health gain on crit/bow hit. Combined with the 60% DR from endurance, 20% from Null Portent, capped glancing blow, a decent 2K armor (further boosted by throne) and Frailty on a 3K+ Life pool makes for a fairly tanky build. Although this is highly contingent on your maintenance of Oil Coating, Dusk Shroud and Mountain’s embrace stacks and requires standing still.
Acid Flask:
Definitely not optimal for damage but I decided to focus on Acid Flask mainly for damage since scaling throwing damage is a lot easier than bow/spell damage. While dragonfire and Detonating arrow do also add decent damage, acid flask is the one pulling the biggest numbers. I had considered using Knowledge of immunity for the fire pen but it is just too much of point investment for too little benefit. Acid flask area on the helmet is definitely not necessary though.
Cinder Strike:
I’m surprised more acid flask/explosive trap setups don’t use it. In this setup it grants a lot of dodge(endurance threshold) %increased damage, and flat throwing damage as well as a lot of mana and health. It is admittedly a pain to maintain oil coating stacks as there’s no way to improve their 4 sec duration (This is even worse for melee Cinder Strike, I think it would be a reasonable buff if EHG buffs the duration of Oil coating stacks for melee Cinder strike). I decided to go for Fire eater since it helps to spam more Explosive traps.
I was initially using the Mana Warp passive but I found the cost increase was not worth the additional mana gained.
Foot of the Mountain:
The main perk is obviously the conversion of dodge to ET but the -mana cost also helps a bunch bringing Dragonfire to 1 mana cost and helping with Explosive trap although as you can see in the video its still insane. T7 Movespeed is MANDATORY if you want to use it for clearing (Honestly at lower corruption just use a different pair of boots and swap these in for bosses).
Its a fairly strong item but I’ll be honest I don’t think its overpowered. While you do see a lot of rather obscene facetanking in the video it makes for more of an overgearing build than an outplaying build as even a slight movement loses the buff and leaves you VERY prone. I have a different Endurance Threshold stacking build as well (non Foot of the mountain) that also does pretty well and I think Endurance is a rather unexplored defensive avenue.
Null Portent:
I think Null portent is the best play for this kind of build. Stacking more life means you will also need to stack much more dodge as well to keep your endurance threshold up. Instead going for a solid DR source with Null portent is much better since you still have a reasonable 3k+ health pool and the DR from Null portent is always up unlike the Endurance threshold from Foot of the Mountain. I was using a regular Glancing blow chest till like 700 corruption and that’s when I felt clear got sketchy and Null portent became more of a requirement.