Please Recommend a Rogue Scientist Build

Topic being that Rogue Scientist is a steam-roller once you get it going. That gas canister really cleans out the zoos.

 

Okay, a Rogue Scientist build! I'm not an expert, but I happen to be playing (dungeon level 11 in RotDG) a very successful rogue-type character who has Rogue Scientist. His build is:

Unarmed Combat
Artful Dodging
Perception
Burglary
Archaeology
Tinkering
Rogue Scientist

It doesn't maximize Rogue Scientist by any means (it's mainly about being unhittable and shooty) but I like the skill! The baromatic pulse skills are useful to GET CRITTERS AWAY, the rebreather skill is handy, and the two free levels of alchemy are the cherry on top. (Healing potions, woo hoo!)

If I wanted to emphasize Rogue Scientist, I'd want alchemy for sure, probably dropping perception. But one of the cool things about the skill is how it lets you dabble in skill trees you'd otherwise not have access to.

 

Try this version:

Rogue Scientist
Tinkering
Alchemy
Magical Law
Blood Mage
Archeology
Unarmed Combat

You can swap Archeology or Unarmed Combat for other stuff, such as Smithing, Archery, Wandcrafting, Shield Mastery etc, but Magical Law is absolutely essential. Why? Well, Wright's Irrefutable Argument basically allows you to routinely recharge your abilities for mana, making this character a huge nuke. You can spam Toxic Canisters with no effort at all, and there's also a nice bonus: Gag Order. It scales to savvy, not magical power. And because of the Tinkering this character naturally has savvy as the highest stat. This spell can easily kill most enemies that breathe and unbreathing enemies such as robots and undead can be easily converted into breathing ones via Polymorphic Injunction. This can be quite useful early on when your Rogue Scientist skill hasn't reached it's full potential yet. Writ of Counterspelling and Rune of Objection are also quite nice when it comes to assaulting zoos with lots of spellcasters and Confiscate Evidence makes aquiring Archeology material way easier.

Blood mage is not 100% needed but it saves a lot of time and makes you able to recharge skills with your lawyer powers without losing turns on constant booze consumption.

So what do we have here. Heavy armored character with damage output similar to a battle mage,neat counterspelling, fast xp (tinkering artifacts + archeology), effective healing (alchemy) and a free slot for a battle ability of your choice. Alchemy 8 makes toxic canisters your best attack ability and the fabled Aetheric Death Ray is actually quite negligible since it eats your precious recharge-mana and requires Wandcrafting (pretty useless skill in my opinion) to operate.

 

Yeah, wait just a little more. Work in progress.

 

Pure Crafting:

Rogue Scientist'
Clockwork Knight
Alchemy
Smithing
Tinkering
Wandcrafting
Perception

 

I'd actually replace Rogue Scientist with Paranormal Investigator. The extra recipes will be a lot more useful to you than a few more points of . IMHO/YMMV, natch.

 

Not really a rogue scientist build any more then, is it?

 

nevermind

 

Try swapping out Smithing instead. Tinkering can handle all your gear needs by itself, maybe with a little help from Alchemy. That nerfs Clockwork Knight a little, but levels 1 and 2 are all you need from that anyway.

 

Rogue Science
Tinkering
Alchemy
Degree in Dungeoneering
Paranormal Investigator
Burglary/Archaeology/Perception/Clockwork Knight/Wild Magic

This is the worst idea ever, but admit it, it's kind of funny.

 

Why Degree?

 

School is necessary to become a scientist. Lots of school.

 

Ultra-efficient crafting. A spammable push. If I'm going to be a complete idiot and take nothing at all that'll actually help me survive, Degree is a good choice.

Wait, why isn't Silver Tongue on there?

Silver Tongue! Because Iron Eyes might possibly help you not die, because it's crazily efficient crafting, because its level 0 might help you survive until you have some way of not being completely helpless.

Apart from giving you reagents, Wild Magic is an amusing choice because it gives you a method of dealing death, but one that you cannot rely on and in fact have no control over. In short, it fills the gap, but it does not give you a sensible way to play.

I'm not even sure if non-spell active skills can proc Wild Magic. I know that they can proc Genjutsu, which struck me as an oversight.

Also because SCIENCE!

 

Just tried another slightly different version:

Rogue Scientist
Tinkering
Alchemy
Wandcrafting
Magical Law
Blood Mage
Archeology

It seems to work quite smoothly even with zero fighter skills. It is possible to max wandcrafting to 11 with Bergstrom hat and two rings of sleeping secrets to get the highest damage from the ray. Still, not that impressive as I thought it could be. Toxic canisters are way better, although the ray looks fun and has a great potential for characters with huge sight range bonus. Maybe i should try a build with Perception next time?

 

Dump Blood Mage for it. Consider dumping something or other for Paranormal Investigator unless you're finding that your levels are all sucked up by other things (happens to me a lot)

 

Yeah, I've never understood the whole 'wtf actually causes triggeroncast to trigger' thing. Ive triggered LavaCarrot Stance's Infernal Torus when changing to another stance, but never, for example, with any of the active weapon attacks. Ive asked the devs but got no answer. I suspect they don't k ow either.

 

This build need mana replentishing badly. Why? Death ray is just munching mana away, and so does Wright's Irrefutable Argument for recharging rogue scientist cooldowns. So it's either blood mage, ley walker or magic training. Magic training also gives nice bonuses into savvy so i' ll probably try that some time to.

I' m also considering a build focused on Death ray with no Alchemy at all. Something like this, maybe:

Rogue Scientist
Tinkering
Perception
Wandcrafting
Magical Law
Magic Training
Archeology

Still not sure about Blood Mage, It seems to work just fine.

 

I did something possibly vaguely resembling testing on it once and [iirc] it was anything that wasn't attack=1 or something. I was fairly... brief... though.

 

If you want to focus purely on building around death ray, I would focus on

Archaeology
Rogue Scientist
Wandcrafting
Blood Magic

As your base skillset and add whatever else you think will help you the most.

 

I was thinking maybe something like this
Probably won't work though

Rouge Scientist
Perception
Alchemy
Tinkering
Daggers
Duel Wielding

Burglary