The Totally NEW Team Corwin Thread

Thanks. Found the other thread too, but it seems to be pretty inactive.

Also forget to mention, I am thank god not totally unfamiliar with D&D. Neverwinter Nights 1/2 and the Baldur's Gate saga has kept me busy for many many many hours. :D

Currently I'm a first lifer level 7 Human Paladin splashed with a rogue level. Took Hunter of the Dead for the healing amp according to this guide. I assume he knows what he is talking about.

I've seen this build. My own old Paladin was a little similar, sacrificing heavy armor for evasion. But mine was a 32 point 18/2 Monk splash, and used two Khopeshes and, for what at the time was a viable PrE, KotC.

Very survivable, but not near the tops for dps, even for a Paladin. I'd recommend Junts' guide as well, for Paladins. http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=218542&highlight=junts. A bit out of date, but still valuable.

DPS

How does one raise dps? All the weapons I find in chests seem to be carbon copies of eachother. +1/2 enchantment and/or some form of elemental damage.

At level 7 I am running Delera's Tomb over and over for experience and the unique loot. Mostly I want the axe since people seem to swear by it. Already have the voice trinket.

I swear my dps hasn't changed one bit from when I was level 2 and smacking kobolts about. I even raised my STR to 20 through gear and the 1 bonus point. Still hitting around the 20~30 range.

Power Attack/Cleave of course.

I'm going to have a pretty bad time if this keeps up.

One of the problems is that Paladins, by design, are not a particularly strong DPS class. They use smite evil/exalted smite to compensate somewhat, but they will never come close to a Raging, Frenzied Barbarian. All in all, I'd put my old Half-Elf Favored Soul melee build above a THF Paladin, equally geared. The melee FvS may be slightly under the Paladin in raw dps, but they have Divine Punishment and a weak but useful Blade Barrier, and the second best healing abilities in the game.

They're also very stat-tight, as they need STR, CON, and CHA at a minimum, whereas most full BaB classes really just need STR and CON for THF, maybe a minor investment into DEX

That said, you'll get better gear as you go along, and you're dps will likewise increase.

Until you can pull Carnifex, which took me 30+ runs originally, try to find a decent Falchion. Paladin smites LOVE criticals. And Falchions get more than any other 2 hander.

Evasion Paladin pointless?

Second question is about the survival build that I am running. I did part 1 of Delera's solo at level 6 without hireling. Won't say it was easy, but I managed. Though it send me running and swearing off that place until I had Ghost Touch from my Hunter line. I was pretty proud of my paladin for being able to solo that.

At level 7 I came back for more with my Mace +2 (for the skeleton archers). Took such a beating that I ran back to entrance and summoned my emergency mistress to heal me. Then I blasted through the place, which made my paladin feel useless since I choose to sacrifice dps for survival/self healing when I can get a cheap level 3 hireling and destroy the place with pure dps.

Another point is the beating I took from huge mobs. Already I take such a beating that I need to have a hireling to heal me since selfhealing gets me nowhere, but it will only get worse at level 8 when I switch out my heavy armor for light to activate Evasion. I really don't see the point to survive a fireball to the face only to be cut down by the 5 melee buddies.

One thing you've got to remember, is that your character lacks the same level of gear that the poster who made the build, Junts, or even myself have. You also lack the same level of experience that we do. So things will be tougher. DDO is a 'solo-friendly' game, yes, but that doesn't mean anyone and their pet goat can roll in and start soloing elites first time out!

For example, do you have a Fortification item? This makes a huge difference in incoming damage, as fortification reduces the chance, or eliminates it, of being critted, as well as cutting down on Rogue-type mobs SA damage.

That build you found lists no less than 3 Paladin past lives (15% healing amp), a Torc (I've done 60+ runs of that raid and never seen it drop once), a Con-opp Greensteel (doable, but would take awhile with only one or two characters, and requires being able to flag for and run the Shroud raid), 20% healing amp bracers and 30% gloves (20+ gear most likely), a relatively high crafting level or access to someone who can craft unbound shards. Even at your low level, he's assuming Red Fens gear, from level 9 quests, already farmed out! It's not a newbie-friendly build in the least.

Paladins do not get sustainable self-healing until much later. They get Cure Light Wounds at 8, Cure Moderate at 12, Cure Serious at 14. Coupled with their lower spell point pool, it doesn't truly become sustainable until you are well geared. Rangers have much the same problem. While Paladins do have LoH, it's only a couple of uses. Not until Epics can you get regenerating LoH, which sucks.

That said, I once ran a raid in which the Cleric went down, and my Ranger swapped from DPS to healing and kept the tank alive until someone else was able to raise her. I also kept a hallway healed while I was fighting in that same raid. So don't discount Paladin and Ranger healing just yet. You have to build for it, but it's powerful nonetheless. Once I even solo healed a pug on a Halfling dragonmarked Monk, and made it through several quests before finally getting to a long one that I ran out of healing.

To be honest, Paladin is the last class I'd recommend to a new player. And I would never assume a self-healing build outside of Cleric or Favored Soul for a new player.

When I am soloing, I don't charge the mobs quite as much as I do in groups. I use Bluff to pull them to me one at a time, find some traps to run them through, and use crowd control abilities like Trip or Stunning Blow.

Several times I was tempted to just roll a pure monk and go everywhere with a hireling. Only thing currently holding me back are all the nice things Hunter of the Dead gives me. (And Lay on Hands if I am completely honest) Perma Ghost Touch? Immune to fear? Immune to level drain?

I will most likely want to kill myself as monk when I start running into things that drain me. Or the changing of wraps whenever I meet a wraith.

Monks are actually one of the easiest classes to play once you learn it, though they really demand a lot from the player. They have a reasonably high AC naturally, a decent Dodge %, and coupled with Improved Evasion and the highest attack speed in the game, can bring down mobs quickly. IMO they shine about level 12 and up.

They're actually easier to gear, as they don't gain much dps from weapons (they actually lose dps by using anything but unarmed fighting), but from leveling. Their unarmed damage die increases as they level. Once you get Stonedust handwraps, you can use them for trash basically until you get to epic levels, and get the Grave Wrappings. Mine has an array of mob-specific wraps as well, for different raid bosses.

They're also the melee crowd control kings and queens, with Stunning Fist, Quivering Palm, Stunning Blow, the Shintao stun if you go that path, Touch of Death for Dark Monks, etc… Keep the best STR, CON, DEX, and WIS gear you can on them, and pick a stance or two to build around. I like Earth for the added hp.

I'd advise going Light Monk at first. Shintao gives DR bypasses at each tier, so for most bosses with DR, you only need a Holy wraps to break it.

If you are willing to drop cash into the game, consider Half-Elves as well. They're hideous, but Monks can make use of the Cleric dilettante for easy scroll/wand usage. Alternately, they can use the Rogue dilettante for added dps.

Thanks for your offer azraelck, but I will decline for now. Though I will probably love the social aspect of a friendly guild, I am playing from europe. The time difference would keep any social interaction to a minimum.

I admit I only registered to ask you these questions. I try not be one of 'those' who only come running when there is something that benefits me and joining you guys on Khyber will make me feel like a douche. :D

BBQ

Peter is from Norway, Alrik from Germany. And Corwin lives in Australia. So don't worry about the play times.

No worries, not taken that way. I fear that the gap in power between veterans and first lifers are too wide to bridge and I end up running after everyone doing nothing and in the end, ruining the experience of an adventure.

It's not insurmountable unless you're thinking to go full retard, top-of-the-line dps mode. Then you're looking at many many lives through many many classes, and gathering gear until your eyes bleed.

It's more a gap in experience. DDO is a game where player skill comes into effect. The Barbarian tactic of charge and hope the healer can keep up can work, but solo often not.

Try to find a guild if you're not going to move servers, that will take a new player under their wings. Most people aren't elitist jerks, and will gladly help others out. I still see contests and giveaways in the harbor on occasion when I wander through, vets helping out newbies. I've given out so many tapestry pieces that I actually managed to run out.

There are also Euro-zone guilds available. There's a lot of European players out there, so just keep an eye out. I'm not sure on Thelanis, since I've never been on that server, but on Khyber it's rare I start a group and not end up with someone from over the pond.

One final thing is that, ultimately, you may not have the playing style and preferences for a pure melee. I'm actually one who prefers hybrids myself. But I'm more of a do-all player, as evidenced by my use of the old Exploiter Ranger (18/1Rogue/1Fighter build, traps, locks, dps, and self-healing), a THF melee Favored Soul, and a TWF melee Bard. Even my 'one trick ponies' tend to have more than one trick, like my Sorceress and her heal scrolls and highly effective Enchantment spells, or my two Fighters with their cleric dilettantes. Truly focused builds, that only do one thing at all, are, IMO, weaker than more versatile builds, due to the nature of the game.
 
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You don't have to be playing with the guildies to be a member. Sherwin is a member and he's mainly soloing.

One good thing about being a guild member is that you get access to the guild airship. On the airship you get a lot of useful buffs. Our ship has many buffs like resist 30 acid, fire and electricity, +2 for all stats. You have a barkeeper and banker there so you can make repairs, sells and item storage on the airship.

Also good is the guild chest. Everybody in the guild can grab items from the chest and use them. We find a lot of useful items and can put them in the chest for others.

So you will be able to solo and PUG quest more easily by being a guild member and we can help you get better gear.
 
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I'd like to point out that in the DDO forums there's every now and then a great debate over the Cleric class - seen by many who came from other MMOs merely as a "healer class", but failing to see that they also have "turn undead" and can do pretty good damage angeans undead ones anyway (although I can't say about Raids).

There is a number of Clerics and Favoured Souls out there who just hate merely being seen as "pure healers", and on the other hand there are also players out there who zerg off - far, far ahead of the group - get killed, and then angrily ask why they weren't healed (and that although they should have realized that they had been far too fast for any Healer to catch up !) - and then just ragequit.

The "Triade" Haler-Tank-DPS does exist, but not as a Kaste, not as something etched into stone, so to say. Almost all of the classes are able to do much more that what they are supposed to do (from he view of other classes), the onl real exceptions are -

- Fighters & Barbarians not having any self-heal options, unless you take an Halfling or a "splash" of another class
- Rogues & Artificers being the only ones who can disarm traps (Clerics & Barbarians can at least detect them s well, due to skills/spells)

But I must say that I really don't know much about Bards and Druids.

Rangers are imho the most versitile class - like a kind of Swiss Army Knife - but they have imho their disadvantages (spelling ?), too.
 
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So I've been doing these Winter Festival and Ice Skating games.

It has already begun ??? O_O

Edit : Yes, it has : http://www.ddo.com/risia

I recommend the Ice Skates, by the way. It's sooo much more fun jumping in the Harbour with them ! :)

By the way, doing "Taming The Flames" is an relatively easy way to farm Risia Coins. ;)
At least it's been so last year.
 
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Thanks everyone.

Going to play around with the character builder and see what rolls out. Chances are you'll be seeing my mug appear one of these days!

PS:

How important is threat (hate) or the lack of it? Looking at the different stances of the monk and the only penalty I am willing to take is either DEX through earth stance or WIS through sun stance. Dex I honestly don't care about (except for hitting 17 for a feat), but the 70% increased threat might become an issue if tanks are needed in an adventure.

Opinions on the official forums are divided. Some say threat isn't an issue, the tank should 'l2p'. Others say any stance other than air is a mistake.
 
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99% of content does not require any actual tanking at all. So, for that 99%, ignore it.

When you are in that kind of content, you'll have most likely a DoS or SD build, which gets much higher bonuses to threat from their PrE than Monk's Earth stance does, as well as gear which boosts it further.

If you still grab aggro, chances are you're a better tank anyway, so keep at it. True tanks are especially difficult to pull aggro from for all but the most min-maxed full out retard DPS, who usually also have threat gear on because they're trolls.

My Monk stays in Earth stance, and has no problems.
 
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The monk I've been messing with has bounced between earth and fire stances, depending on whether I need to build ki during the fight. Primarily, Shadohe's been running in earth.

Well, except when I want to irritate jm with a Speedy Gonzales moment by taking advantage of the air stance bonus to movement speed... ;)
 
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Welcome to the Watch first off. You were warned, they will advise you to death if you let them. :) This bunch is pretty smart about the game. If you decide you want to run up a new character, take that opportunity to jump servers to Khyber and join the guild. You don't have to join our sessions. We just like to help if needed. The ship buffs and stuff you can take from the guild chest will come in handy. We all have tons of stuff and can spare items if you need say a fort item or other such.

As to the lack of life in the MMO thread, yes we are all quilty. Old habits die hard. We always chatted about our game stuff in this thread and when we tried to move some of it to the MMO forums we did real good for about a week. lol

Anyway, ask anything here and someone who knows will answer you. (And yes, I can hear Corwin saying now..........."It won't be CM!")
 
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Hahaha, true!! I also use earth stance exclusively (so far) on my monk. Mind you, at my age I'd forget to change it if I should anyway!! :)
 
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As long as Risia lasts, I plan to go into Stormreach a little bit more often - especially since I'm now F2P in SWTOR and I don't really like EA's Approach to the term "F2P".
Maybe I'm just spoiled by DDO. ;)

SWTOR managed to "lock out" all characters (as F2P one can only play 2 of any characters one has) except those I didn't really want to play. I'm especially angry that the game chose to let me NOT play my main characters - but instead a close combat character (which I don't really like to play, because I *always* prefer long-range characters !) and a fresh, unplayed level 1 character I had experimentally created a few weeks ago. Stupid system.
 
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I think I better repost this here. :D

Name: Qiuy
Race: Human
Class: Monk
Build: I wave my arms and stuff fall down... ish.
Preferred weapon: Fists

I'll be in your care.
 
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You could add : "I wave my arms and treasure chests open ... after a while and dozens of adversaries standing between it and me, at least" ;)
 
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Medium-sized update on the game.
 
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FRom the "servive news" forum area :

No release notes for this hotfix, this is to address the server stability issue, but we are also correcting a problem with the Epic Altar stripping effects off of certain chain items unintentionally. As a result, some Epic Altar recipes now use Siberys Dragonshards rather than Epic Tokens to avoid recipe overlap (which was causing the problem).

Answering the question "which recipes ?"

The Epic Cleansing ritual's. Performing the Cleansing Ritual at the Altar of Epic Rituals now requires 50 Siberys Dragonshard Fragments instead of 3 Epic Dungeon Tokens.
 
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I think I better repost this here. :D

Name: Qiuy
Race: Human
Class: Monk
Build: I wave my arms and stuff fall down… ish.
Preferred weapon: Fists

I'll be in your care.

So you're Qiuy, I was wondering who created this new character...Welcome! Also thanks for putting the essences in the Guild Chest...I snatched some up. I am practicing crafting right now.

Thanks for the advice on purchasing the ice skates. I've gotten a ton of motes from not having to constantly go to the ice skating vendor with 10 white coins. I also must say that rather then getting the polar bear cub I've decided to sell my motes and I am finally not poor anymore, lol. Now if only someone would purchase my 5000 motes for greater then 1million plat from the AH!

Also last question...my level 18 fire savant who loves to throw out delayed fireballs is constantly getting evade, evade, evade all over the place from monsters. What must I do to hit them!? Am I missing something from my build?
 
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You could try spells which have no save throw. These are usually only minor spells - but at least they hit !
 
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Also last question…my level 18 fire savant who loves to throw out delayed fireballs is constantly getting evade, evade, evade all over the place from monsters. What must I do to hit them!? Am I missing something from my build?
Look for spells that don't use a reflex save. Unfortunately, I think the only decent fire spell that meets that is firewall, which isn't what you're really looking for. Perhaps prismatic spray would be an alternative? There's a reflex save on some of that, but not all of it.
 
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scorching ray, frost lance, magic missile, melf's acid arrow, force missile, chain missile, disintegrate…
basically ray spells (except Niacs cold ray) have no reflex save. DoTs don't either. Lots of spells, unfortunately there aren't many fire ray spells or DoTs. burning blood I think qualifies as a DoT, but undead are immune for some reason.
 
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They are not immune to Melf's acid spell, though.

I remember at Mabar, how the Wraiths always tried to get behind me and then fire their acid Melf's spell from there !

@jm : What is that on your forum avatar picture ?
 
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a kitten waving at everyone, lol
 
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