The Totally NEW Team Corwin Thread

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It's quite a bit of work planning your character. You need to learn about the enhancements, feats, gear etc. to have a solid plan for the build. If you don't do it then you end up with a mediocre character. So I've studied the cleric and paladin classes and know pretty well what to do there. I just didn't have the energy to learn the same about a completely new class.

My new paladin is very different from the old one. My old paladin is a tank type with focus upon maximizing the AC and be a secondary healer. So he has decent wisdom, but not a lot of strength. My new paladin is a two-weapon character who does a lot of damage, but can't cast spells yet. He needs good wisdom gear to get to wis 14 so he can cast level 4 spells. That will happen maybe at level 10-12. The good thing about this is that I now have 2 paladins I can choose from. If we need a damage dealer then I select my new paladin. If we need a tank who can hold the monsters while the spellcasters, archers and fighters kill them then my first paladin is great. I don't see many cleric builds so I think having one cleric is best. I can make a battle cleric, but then I prefer a paladin. So I'm playing a healing bot. I think a healing cleric is the most popular character type to invite to groups. Many people won't play one, but they love to be with one. :)
 
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Actually, in a level you can get a +2 Tome. By then you should be able to pull a +2 WIS item at least; I pulled one in WW actually. So that'll get you to level 2 spells (which you won't get until level 8 anyway). An item of Wizardry or Power will help with SP if you don't have enough to be effective at casting.

My Paladin's problem stem from the fact that DDO is different enough from 3.5 to mean that you have to build with a different mindset. The enhancements, the focus on HP for survivability (when you could play a 6 CON Wizard in PnP without trouble), and some rule changes made all combine to alter how builds are made.

Thus I started with 11 Wisdom, when I could have safely ignored it, and boosted my CHA. Divine Might is an enhancement that I wasn't aware I'd need, so my CHA was a bit low.

The same thing happened with my original Cleric. I rerolled into a Favored Soul, and then made another Cleric. Experience in DDO has made them far more effective, at least when I don't try zerging into a room full of casters.
 
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My biggest problem is that I don't know what kind of monsters we will face in mid or high level quests. So building now for end game quests (raids etc.) doesn't feel right. So I might respec my paladins and cleric when I get to those higher level quests. Now I focus upon building characters that work well for the quests I play now.

My tank paladin is almost never hit in melee, but he doesn't kill monsters very fast, especially on elite. So he's good if he can draw aggro from the fighters. His weakness is that high AC won't help against enemy spellcasters. So he is in trouble if he's the target of spells. He has 3 lay on hands and up to second level spells. That means he can be a support healer and get incapacitated characters back in action again.

My two-weapon paladin is a monster when it comes to dealing damage. He isn't hit much either and that surprised me a bit. This is probably because the fighters get most aggro. This means the paladin is an excellent companion for the front line fighter to get the toughest monsters down, He's equally vulnerable to spellcasters. With no spellcasting at the moment and only 2 lay on hands it means he will mainly do self healing in emergencies.

My cleric is a heal bot and can fight quite well with high AC. But in heavy battles he does better by buffing and healing than fighting. A cleric in the middle of fights won't have time to monitor the situation and quick heal PC's in trouble. The major weakness of this cleric is that despite having lots of mana he loses a lot to buffing and constant healing. So if the rest shrines are far apart he can't be as helpful as people expect.

I enjoy playing all 3 characters and I believe the builds for each of them are workable for low level and at least mid level. I have no experience with high level raiding so I don't how my PC's will perform in them.

I have som PuG experience and I feel that the quality of player style is more important than difference in builds. E. g. I played today the Depths of Discord, Doom, Despair and Darkness. One character Valhella died 2-3 times in each of the dungeons and we played normal, hard and elite (12 times in total). He was a ranger. The rest of us rarely died, except on elite when we had occasional deaths. This character didn't realize that his ranger had to stay behind to shoot at monsters. Instead he tried to get to the chests first and was surrounded by monsters alone until the rest of us caught up. Eventually we didn't bother to look after him. He would choose his own path anyway. Such a player would lower the efficicency of the entire group because we then have 5 players instead of 6 working together to take out the monsters. When we have experienced players in the group I notice how much more effective we are. Traps are rarely a problem because they know how they work and how to get by them. They know when to pull monsters and when to overrun them. So I think a decent character should work well in end game quests if you play in a good group. If you play in a chaos group then even the best character build will fail. You can't solve a quest almost alone on elite. You are dependent upon good companions.
 
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I've Puged with far too many bad players to really enjoy it. I refuse to play healer in one, actually. Clerics and Favored Souls are known as the two classes most capable of soloing any content on normal. So for them, I solo. I'm more willing to take the front line role though, with a Paladin or Monk. Never play any of the other melee roles.

Though I have ran my Paladin through a lot of content on Elite. Some people are so hardcore that they solo everything on elite and epic. It's not something that is easy in the most remote sense of the word; and if you can solo anything elite at your level then you're doing pretty darn good.

Rangers are actually very good for damage. They're not just for ranged combat; the core of the class is one who "ranges or wanders", much like Aragorn. They get the entire TWF feat tree for free, giving you room for extra feats like Khopesh and Oversized TWF (which eliminates penalties for using medium weapons in the off hand). They get one of the best AC buff spells Barkskin, as it stacks with everything else. Natural AC, rather than Shield, Deflection, or regular Armor bonuses that everything else gets.

Read up on the Exploiter build. Monk/Rogue/Ranger, can use heal scrolls, top in DPS, and solid AC with the right equipment. Plus they get Evasion, which is so nice to have that Monk and Rogue splashes are very common.

I think the build takes 12 levels of Ranger, to get Tempest II and the last TWF feat, and max Barkskin out, 1 Level of Rogue for skills (UMD), the rest in Monk for Unarmored AC, Disease Immunity (at 6 IIRC), WIS to AC, etc... And can just use a good pair of handwraps, which also take advantage of TWF, but give access to the Monk Stances as well.

Aggro is drawn BY damage per second. The more damage you do, the more likely you'll get attacked. Intimidate can draw aggro to you as well. That's why S&B isn't particularly great for tanking; you don't have the damage to keep them swinging at you! I think that's why TWF Khopesh is so popular; the Khopesh hits for a critical more often, and a pair of them with burst effects can churn out some good damage potential.

I've found that a good Command or Sound Burst will be more effective "healing" than any amount of Cure x Wounds. The examples being the two Large Earth Elementals we took out, and being able to negate all damage with a single 10sp spell. I can nail even casters fairly regularly with Command, though usually I'll hit them with Soundburst if there's a group around them instead. Potentially lnocking out 3 or 4 foes cuts back on damage taken. Once, I knocked out three Giants in Redwillow's Ruins, and I was level 5 when I went in there.

Of course, there were 4 more chasing me, but still. My dog had long since be stomped flat so I had nothing to draw aggro away from me with.
 
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Hey gang,

I'm back to work and I've been scheduled until 6pm on Fridays so I won't be joining you for a bit. I came home and logged on Friday and everyone had already left 35 minutes prior to my arrival.

I've also got my rogue levelled to 2! LOL. It's an accomplishment considering she's kinna a pain to play. :)

Hope everyone is doing well! Will see ya at the odd times in game or here. :)
 
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T, I have found my rogue easy and fun to play. Perhaps we need to discuss your build; Jo set me on the best road- 2 hand fighting with weapon finesse and very high dex and intelligence with solid wisdom on the side. Enhance the lock and traps stuff plus the sneak attack possibilities.
 
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I'll assume he meant Two Weapon Fighting, since he mentioned Weapon Finesse as well. No two handed finesse weapons around.

Rogues are a pain to play at first. You don't get sneak attacks unless you've got someone else taking the aggro. You don't have the UMD to use even a CLW wand or scroll. No other healing besides potions until UMD is 20.

Later, Rogues can be one of the best damage dealers around, and can wand/scroll heal well enough to be self sufficient. Solo you lose out on a lot of damage from sneak attack, and early on you don't have healing.
 
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Update: My new paladin turned level 7 after I did Assault on Splinterskull in Tangleroot Gorge twice. I almost did it solo on hard, but was killed by second last end boss (witch doctor). He cast hold person and I failed the save. :( So I did it with a PuG on hard. It was really easy. Finally I got my +2 tome of supremacy so now I have wis 11 (with +1 wis item). I got an item from Splinterskull end loot which gives me +50 spell points. So my paladin now has 107 spell points and can cast level 1 spells. Now I need to get better wis items. Do you have an idea of which quests will give +2 wis or better items? Is it possible to buy wis items? If yes, then where?

I got Power attack as feat on level 6 and now my paladin is doing great damage except against heavily armed mobs. Then I need to turn off power attack. So a TWF paladin build is really interesting.
 
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I actually pulled a +2 Wis helm from Water Works when running it with Corwin and I think Phurry. Sharn from what I understand will also drop stuff that's pretty good for level.

I had actually decided to wait on level 7 with my Cleric, and let the majority of people hit 5 before pushing to 7. To that end, I've been playing with a Bard. I guess I can go ahead and push my Cleric on up then.

Auction House will have stuff you might want, but not necessarily at prices remotely affordable. You might also run to the brokers in House D, though you have to get lucky there.
 
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Peter, you're playing this Paladin out of our groups level. You need to keep at least ONE char AT our level. I managed to get my Wizzy to level 6 in Tangles, but I can't solo the final section with any of my chars; it's a level 7 quest and just too hard for my semi-squishy toons.
 
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I actually just finished Misery's Peak with her. Wasn't too bad since there were so many shrines. She's on a particular path. master somethingorother mebbe? In any case it wasn't too bad. I almost cried when my connection went down at the last shrine. ALL that progress! But I was able to sign back on and I was still in the mission thank goodness!

She's 2 bubbles into level 2 so she's still a baby yet. Her name is Anastasiia The Sneak in case anyone is on to join guild.

Ok, amma go to bed now. See ya soon!
 
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Lucky. First time I ran Misery's Peak, I had a lost connection, and ended up having to redo the entire thing.

Kinda amusing to me that Peter made note of how fast I was leveling my Cleric... and over the weekend he's pushed his Paladin from 5 to 7. Then again, I refuse to play healer to a pug, and that isn't a issue with a Pally.

I ran my Bard through Korthos, even though she was a vet build, so I could get some of the stuff there that might have been useful. Not quite to level 5 yet, but I'll get there shortly. I can self-buff my to-hit to about +15 right now, and damage is 1d6 + 3 + 3 + 2 +1 = 10-16 points a hit. Not bad for a Bard. Still effective at CC as well, and can self-heal. Going THF, as I really don't have the feats to spare for an effective TWF Bard, but I do have the DEX bonus to at least take the first feat if I want that option later (when my to-hit is high enough to take the hit). Going to go Warchanter when I can.
 
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My Bard isn't too bad a two weapon fighter. The self heal is great, especially the cure moderate. Plus she can summon which helps as well. Good support char, but a fair soloist. Just got an extra bag for the rest of my chars by redoing a couple of Korthos level 1 quests on elite for the favor. That should last me at least a week!! :)

T, be good to run your rogue through WW ASAP with one or more of us to get some fast XP and good stuff. Try to do the few solo quests in the Harbor first to get a head start on level 3 and we'll work on getting you up to level 4 quickly.
 
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I think most of our characters are level 5 now and that means we won't have problems with a level 7 character. I just have to be careful not to hit level 8. But with 70k XP to the next level it will take awhile. I used +25% XP potions for my play up. That is a significant speed up. Carefully selecting high reward quests is another reason. I also did Delara's tomb twice (normal and hard). I think if we do Delara's Tomb and Assault on Splinterskull we can get lots of XP and get our level 5 characters to level 6 very quickly. I bought a sixpack of XP boost potions so I can give you some. But they only last for 6 hours each so it's best to drink it and be actiive and and not spend lots of time selling stuff. :) The good thing about the potion is that the time is not running when you're logged off. What this proves is that you can play a character from level 4 to 7 in a weekend without playing too much each day. You just have to use XP boosting gear and select which quests you play.

When we've completed Shan-To-Kor I propose we try Delara's Tomb. I'm sure all of you will hit level 6 after that quest series. We can do it first on normal to learn the layout of the areas. It's a 4 part quest (one called Return to Delara's Tomb). I can get you visitor passes to Delara's if you don't have the quest series. I think it's a level 5 series (at least the beginning). We can also do the Depth of … 4 part series in House Phiarlan. It's rather tough too with large earth elementals etc. Normal is easy and hard quite possible. Elite is maybe too hard for us though. There are several wraiths there where you need ghost touch weapons to hit regularly. Ghostly skeletons are there too and then you need good or holy weapons. You get a bad one from the quest giver so you can at least hit them. Arcane skeletons are there too and rather nasty. I have both ghost touch and the bad holy weapon. I can borrow my good holy weapon from my other paladin. I even had holy handwraps I can lend to anyone needing it.

So I propose I get some XP boosting potions for you and then we play. Do you know how to split a stack of items?
 
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We still haven't run most of our Chars through Tangles yet, and many have also not finished Sharn Synd. We have 3 barrel to do which we all bought, plus a lot of freebies for the houses before we need to consider getting Delera, though it might be worth buying while it's cheap. Best value mid level series I saw is Gianthold. Looks HUGE, so I got it on special.

Peter, I just checked and we still have one level 3 char and several level 4 chars in the Guild. We need to get them built up on some of the stuff we know before tackling new higher level quests. Most of us don't PUG like you do, so we're way behind your levels in terms of XP. We might have to consider forming 2 groups; those who want to bring a couple of chars through the quests we already have and those who want to rush on ahead with new stuff. What do others think?
 
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The level 3 one hasn't been active for nearly 2 months (Joe's monk). Some are level 4, but those are extra characters for some of you. Many of them haven't been used for weeks. I guess it's easier to solo the level 4 characters to higher levels or play them with guild members on other dates than the Friday night session.

If people should spread their game time on all their characters then they won't have much progress level wise. I think it's good to have 2 main characters we use for guild play and select one of them dependent upon which others who show up.

All characters who have played the last few sessions have been level 5 or 6. I agree that we might have to split in several groups if we get more than 6 players at the same time showing up. Then we can have 3 players for level 6-7 quests and the others for the low level quests.

I did Sharn Syndicate solo with my new paladin. We've done it before in the group. In Tangleroot you only have Assault on Splinterskull as the main quest. The others are exploration quests. I don't mind doing this one again on hard or elite with the group. It has excellent loot. So that's fine with me.

I was in 3 Barrel Cove with my first paladin some months ago and didn't feel this area was very enjoyable. Maybe because I was too low level for doing anything useful except attacking wandering monsters.

If you look at the guild members you see we have many characters there, but most of them haven't been active for quite awhile. So I think we need to look at the active characters and then the lowest are level 5 and the others level 6, 7, and 8. When we have level 5 characters I don't think we need to play level 3 quests forever. It's time to move on to level 5 quests. I think that if that you need to bring up level 4 extra characters to level 5 or 6 it's easy to play the level 3 quests solo.

I think we need to define a purpose with our guild play. Do we want to create as many characters as possible and split between them quite often, thus replaying the same kind of quests many times? Or do we want to have 1-2 characters we use regularly, thus advancing faster so we can try new quests? I'm in favour of the latter because it's not that fun to repeat the low level quests all the time.

I think that the average guild level is now 5. So we can easily support level 5-7 characters in quests without losing XP. I guess we will get to level 6 soon if we stick with the same characters. Which quests do you want to do after Shan-To-Kor? Do you want to repeat Assault on Splinterskull and Tangleroot Gorge? Or do you wan to do Sharn Syndicate? Or Three Barrel Cove? One good thing about Sharn is that we get favor to get the extra inventory page. Since I've played it on normal we can play it on hard next time. That gives us double favor per quest
 
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I've already got the extra inventory for each of my chars as I said above. After buying 3 barrels, I'd like to at least play it once. :) I can solo all but the last section of Tangles, (the final battle where you have to get the 2 keys) with all my chars and I've solo'd most of Catacombs as well. I find Bookbinder in Sharn too tough with my chars as they get overpowered too quickly by the 'heavy hitters' you meet on the first floor. I think that one needs a group to survive if you're not running a Paladin type. T only has low level chars as does DTE, so they need time to get their levels up too. I have one level 6 char only. The others are nowhere near levelling.
 
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