Ranger/Rogue Paragon Advice

[vigormortis]

Currently I'm building a new character for an upcoming campaign. The idea is an elf melee ranger/rogue and I'm having trouble deciding between the shadow assassin (SA) and dagger master (DM) paragon path. SA has the riposte which meshes well with the high dex he will have (22 at lvl 11) and the SA special action means a higher hit chance with blade cascade. The extra damage from sneak attack at level 16 is also pretty sweet and the utility will mean a nearly guaranteed miss along with fair damage.

However, looking over at the dagger master and the increased crit threshold of 18-20, and the fact that a dagger will be my ranger's primary range weapon, I'm curious what you guys think. The extra action of rerolling attack helps cascade along with elven accuracy, though i'm not sure if it beats out the +4 attack of an SA. Meditation of Blade will mean daggers will be doing more damage as well to help offset the fact that he will be dual wielding daggers as opposed to larger weapons.

If I go down the SA path then he will most likely use a scimitar as a main or off hander, which is twice the damage and has high crit but only 2 prof as opposed to 3. I would take scimitar dance, which with his dex means 6 damage on a miss and 6 damage when an opponent misses him from riposte. He will lose the higher crit but will make for more steady damage then if he went down dagger. But DM also allows for a chance to reroll an important attack twice from elven accuracy and the DM action which seems useful for when the rolls just won't go my way.

Your thoughts?

 

[Revinor]

If I go down the SA path then he will most likely use a scimitar as a main or off hander, which is twice the damage and has high crit but only 2 prof as opposed to 3.

Are you aware that you won't be able to sneak attack, nor use SA attacks with scimitars?

If you want to have high-dex 2 weapon ranger, I would suggest taking a look at stormwarden. At 16 lvl, you will automatically deal 3xDex (1xDex at 11th) damage each round in addition to any attacks - beats SA riposte by a large margin.

 

[yu gnomi]

While 4ed Rules certainly endorse scimitar wielding rangers, they do not require it. However, Revinor is right that sneak attacks cannot be done with heavy blades, axes, or any other weapon not specifically mentioned in sneak attack description.

I think either a twin short sword wielding ranger/paragon rogue or a twin dagger wielding ranger/daggermaster could work. If you decide against Daggermaster, I would look at master infiltrator. The Impossible to Catch power seems incredibly useful to me, since it does not say you turn visible if you attack.

 

[vigormortis]

Revinor - Yes, I am aware that you can't sneak attack with a scimitar. It's one of the advantage in going that dagger master, with two attacks that have a crit range of 18-20. I'm mainly using scimitars as a starting weapon and using daggers to sneak attack with and act as my range weapon.

I've mulled over storm warden a bit more this morning and though I agree dexmod damage to 3 targets is nice and better then the SA riposte in general, getting the extra d6 or d8 on a sneak attack and the ability to get a +4 attack bonus by expending an action point seems more appealing as a single target killer. Storm Warden seem excellent as a controller type paragon, especially against minion, but I'd argue that minions attacking a SA ranger is just in as much danger from missing and dying. SA aolso has the great utility of practically guarenteeing a miss and 2x dexmod damage as an immediate interrupt. I also think that a +4 bonus costing an action point is better then a +2 bonus costing -2 defense.

Yu Gnomi - I haven't considered the infiltrator too much to be honest so thanks for raising it up . While I like it in that he gets to move around so easily on the field, especially invisible infiltrator, it seems to be a paragon path that fits better with a rogue for getting CA and sneak attacking. Impossible to Catch is an excellent utility I agree though. Against it I'd say dagger master and SA are more efficient at dropping BBEG and solo monsters, which I think is key for strikers. The ability to reroll an attack or get a +4 on things like blade cascade and dailies seems to outstrip the benefits of other such paths.