Aranticus wrote on Feb 7
th, 2010 at 11:49pm:
actually, thats a wrong way to look at it. for most PrCs, they are more or less backloaded. ie assasin, tier 1 not much, tier 2 assassinate, tier 3 vorpal, ie kensai, tier 1 not much, tier 2 +8 str, tier 3 +1 crit range. in effect, most PrCs get more powerful when you MC less. for tempest, its very skewed, tier 1 give +10% melee alacrity +2 AC, tier 2 increases ac bonus to +3, tier 3 increases ac to +4 and gives and extra attack to the sequence. going by the dps view of ddo, this makes tier 1 and 3 much more valuable than tier 2
so how does this work, going tier 1 tempest allows you to load in tier 2 of another PrC. and thus you get 2 very powerful PrC abilities. if you got teir 3, it allows you to MC 2 levels of another class w/o suffering many penalties, ie 18 ftr -> 20 = loss of 10% melee alacrity capstone, 18 pal -> 20 = loss of weapons of good. 18 rgr -> 20 is the loss of 25% ranged alacrity. given how gimped range is, the inherent benefit is less compared to, ie +1 str, haste boost, 2 feats for 2 ftr, awesome saves, auras from 2 pal, trap skills, umd, haste boost from 2 rog, unarmored wis ac, 2 feats from 2 mnk
the only reason why anyone would got 11/12 rgr is possibly for evasion (which 12/6/2 builds get by taking 2 rog or 2 mnk), strong spells. if you are going 11/12 rgr, then might as well go 18 for more FE bonuses and the extra attack (that 1 attack is actually quite substantial in terms of %)
My rogue went 13 rogue (because I made him on headstart and never planned anything) then 6 ranger (ranger at 14 for wand usage, 15 to get 2wf and continued cause it seemed like a good idea) and 1 barbarian (because I like to run fast, +10% barb speed +10% Acrobat II speed plus ranger sprint boost
)
If I had actually planned him he would probably have been almost completely Rogue (for assassin 3 as you mentioned) but he is a hell of a lot of fun to play.
Also, I'm pretty sure Tempest I is how it is because of the sheer number of 6 ranger/whatever that are around now.