The Totally NEW Team Corwin Thread

I think Peter's "lowbie" pally is level 16 now. Wouldii's barely level 17. Yeah, he needs some exercise real soon... ;)

I'll be a little time-limited Friday. I've got to drive 600 miles Saturday to pick up the Wild Dogs (followed by 600 miles Sunday to get everyone home) so I will need to wrap up after 4-5 hours and get my sorry butt to bed.
 
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Sounds like a majority of us want to stretch the legs of our high ones. I guess I better log her in and get her a shower and clean clothes then. ;)
 
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Nah, we like em stanky! :p
 
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lets say (in theory) that I installed DDO. Which class(es) are you guys/girls short of ?
And more importantly, how long would it take me to get it up the ranks ?
 
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Hi, we probably have several chars which cover all of the classes and can usually put together a good mixed party. To get to a level where you could play with most of us is trickier. We have toons at various levels, though currently most are in the range of 12-20. What does happen though, is that we TR some at level 20 and begin again at level 1. So, at various times we have toons ranging through the entire spectrum. How long it takes to level up one char depends on several factors, including how much you play and HOW you play. There are ways to do it more quickly if you don't mind grinding. I know of people who can do it in a couple of weeks while for others it can take months. We have various people who will be happy to outline all the possibilities. I'm a SLOW player!! :)
 
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Actually I have the game already installed. Will start playing soon, I like highly specialized classes (I created a pure ranger atm). but it will probably take a very long time until I hit the required level. So don't wait for me :)

I'm a slow player too, it took me >3 years to get my one (and only) WoW character to level 80 :p Some people do it in 10 days...
 
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Talk to Az about Ranger builds; he has a very good one.

If you play on the Khyber server, let me know the name/s of your toon/s and I'll send them a Guild invite.
 
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Dte has a good build as well; remember he soloed to 17 before crafting came out and he started doing that instead. Of course, now he needs to run the raids in order to craft, as you need raid loot to craft with... At any rate, I think Fairythief is of a similar build as well. Though the guild doesn't have many Rangers; there's Fireflash, Wouldii, Fairythief, and Murianni.

My Ranger, Fireflash, is based on the Exploiter build on the DDO forums. Rogue 1, then Ranger 12, then Fighter 1, then rest as a Ranger. I'm using Half-Elf for a racial feat, which gives me 40 more hp over a human, or about 70 more than an Elf or Drow. The "Classic" Exploiter is human, and used Monk instead of Fighter (both get an extra feat at level 1). I made the mistake of going True Neutral instead of Lawful Neutral, otherwise mine would be the same.

The classic combines AC, fair dps, and Rogue skills making for a versatile build. Mine is more focused on melee dps, ignoring AC entirely. I still keep up disable device, though I dumped Open Lock. Mine is a little bit sturdier than the classic, though again between the unarmored AC bonus and WIS to AC the monk level grants, and Combat Expertise the classic can reach 60-80 AC with effort.

Murianni is an Arcane Archer build. I'm not familiar with them near as much, so I can't comment on how to build one. In the right hands, they are highly effective. In the wrong hands they give nothing but aggravation. :p

I suggest trying a little of everything before settling in on a class. Find what YOU like to play. DDO is quite a bit more versatile and open in how you build a character; there are melee-build Sorcerers and Clerics doing quite well for themselves, and at least one Barbarian who was able to raise the dead from a scroll. Some classes are of course focused onto certain things, like Clerics and their powerful divine offensive casting, crowd control, and unmatched healing abilities.
 
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I'd do a couple things different with Wouldii if I was starting over, but he did fairly well for me. He's a pure ranger, focusing on two weapon melee. Can do OK with bows when necessary, can self-heal to some extent, and has enough skill points to max both spot and search. The weaknesses of the build are primarily HP related—armor is somewhat weak and there's no offsetting ability (monk and rogue evasion, for example) to mitigate it so you take a fair bit of damage; hit dice are smaller than fighters and there aren't as many opportunities to pick up toughness/CON boosts. Wouldii is also hindered by his gear, or lack thereof, but that's more my fault and the fact that he was already over-level by the time I got access to some of the good loot quests (Red Fens, Lordsmarch 1&2, all the raids).

If you're really interested in a pure ranger, I'd definitely think about the arcane archer build. At the lower levels they don't impress much, but Murianni can bring some serious whoopass these days. We could give jmurdock a poke to describe the build if you're interested—she doesn't always visit the forums regularly.

Fairythief is my daughter's toon, and we just put her name on Wouldii's build plan so those characters are basically identical.

Like Az says, I wouldn't be too quick to lock in on a class. I'm a dedicated Disciple of the Pointy Stick, but I'm currently spending the most time with a healbot cleric and a melee rogue. Wouldn't have believed I'd enjoy those at all when I put together my first toon (great axe barbarian) many moons ago. A couple guild members keep hassling me to build a hocus-pocus type, and I've gotten to the point where I no longer puke at the thought. ;)
 
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Rangers get evasion at 9, actually. So long as you can keep their reflex saves up there, they can actually do fairly well. Fireflash will be working on adding the +10 Reflex save to the Harbringer armor I have fairly soon. I just need to slot Heavy Fort somewhere.

HP is an issue, which is party why I went Half-Elf. I got +2 CON from enhancements (meaning 20hp at level 20) and two additional Toughness enhancements for another 20hp. 330 at level 14, and I'm missing a Toughness item(20hp) and the Argonessan favor (10hp). The build figures to around 500hp with a Greensteel hp item (45hp) at level 20. 500hp + evasion + self-buffing to some extent = very survivable build. Human would be down 30hp, but still 470 is not a squishy by any means. Especially with Evasion.

Of course, I could have went for 3d6 SA damage as well, losing 30hp (the fighter level gives me 1 toughness enhancement that doesn't stack with the dil feat) but gaining a rather significant boost to damage.

AC in DDO requires a huge grind to build to usable levels, unless you're a Monk and have AC bonuses coming out the ying-yang. Monk splashes seem to be the common AC build method these days, whether Clonks (Cleric/Monk) or Exploiters or Monk-splashed Paladins. I've not had any issues just ignoring AC entirely; takes a lot more damage, but I'm also not having to sacrifice elsewhere to get AC to the 80-90 or so you need outside of epics. Epic, forget it. I've spoken to people with 100+ AC who get hit constantly there.
 
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I've not had any issues just ignoring AC entirely; takes a lot more damage, but I'm also not having to sacrifice elsewhere to get AC to the 80-90 or so you need outside of epics.
Pretty much the same conclusion I came to, but even with DDO store healing pots to fill in the gaps you tend to be a resource hog. Not the end of the world by any stretch, but something to consider. Although the game isn't perfectly balanced, they did do a pretty good job of giving each class legit plusses and minuses.
 
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So then, what be we running this week? Lowbies in GH? I saw several of the group running Crucible the other day, but Bot's done nearly nothing in there and I'd bet Corwin's toon is in the same boat. I'd like the Argo favor, if nothing else.
 
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We need to pull 150 favor out of Gianthold before quitting it. Meaning we need to do everything on at least hard, with Tor on normal. An alternative is Necro IV quests; I've done Ghosts of Perdition a few times, but that's it; the others I'm not near as familiar with. Besides which, I don't think Fleshmakers can be soloed, if I remember right.
 
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I think it's a good idea to focus on Gianthold for awhile before we swap to Necro 4 quests and then the Vale.

Both my toons still need to get Argonesses favor and most of you need to get flagged for Gianthold Tor. So doing the quests on hard and maybe side quests on elite should give all our toons 150 argonessen favor and +10 hp as a bonus.

We may even do quests in Necro 4 to have some variety. Vale is maybe too tough for some of us at the moment. I propose we look at the Vale when we get to level 16 (shouldn't be too long for several toons).
 
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To avoid getting bored with our "lowbies" we can some weekends play our high levels for loot runs like the one we did last week. It never hurts to get unique loot for our toons so they have a chance to do the tougher quests (like raids).

I think Azraelck is the one who knows best what kind of loot we can get where. So maybe we can have a plan for specific loot and start farming for it, similar to what we did for the Sora Kell set, Red Fens sets and the Minos Legens. It's hard to farm for something you don't even know exists so why not listen to our DDO loremaster, i. e. Azraelck :)
 
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Hey, are there auction house scripts? It's happened to me numerous times, but last night was just ridiculous. I bid on an item with 9 hours left on the timer and zero bids. That means that the item had been on for a minimum of 15 hours prior to my bid with no activity. Literally 2 minutes after my bid, somebody bid against me. 15 hours of nothing (there were 3 identical items available, BTW, and I was working on the only one that didn't have a buyout). I placed one more bid, which was countered within 3 minutes. At that point, I walked away.

I'm willing to believe in coincidence, but I've had similar experiences way too many times. A week ago, I put in a bid on a Muckbane. There were 8 copies for sale, 3 of which had no buyout. I bid on the cheapest, although all 3 were within a hundred pp or so (~1300pp). Within 30 minutes, all 3 had identical bids of 3750pp (which wouldn't be possible with normal "step" bids").

I have a hard time believing there are people running DDO "Ebay stores", which leads me to scripts. Any knowledge, folks?
 
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I've never attempted to bid on anything in the AH. I just hit the buyouts, and then only if the price is acceptable to me. I don't think you can set up any macros like that in DDO, so it would have to be a third-party hack.

I'm mainly concerned for the XP in the late game. Reign of Madness isn't all that great on xp, and at the 18-19 range that only leaves Shavarath and IQ. IQ is easy enough, but I kinda doubt it will have enough xp to carry us entirely to 20.

So to be honest, I'd rather wait until at least 17 before hitting Vale. Then farming Vale until 19.

As far as loot, most of the really good stuff is in the raids. The step down good stuff is out of the new packs, Harbringer and Reign and Lordsmarch.
 
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Stuff I want, I stick to buyout as well. Stuff that might be useful (with Muckbane, RhoGu earned one but I wanted to dual-wield) I'll throw in a bid and see what happens. I've done that with tomes more than a few times and picked up a couple +1 tomes for something like 15k plat each. Sometimes it works out fine, but most of the time it seems like there are "planted" bidders sitting on the auctions to run up the price.

So, sounds like Gianthold for tonight. Works for me!
 
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I did read somewhere, maybe in game chat, that there were grievers who made sure they put in active bids for each other when the last few hours hit to run up the price if someone has bid recently. Not sure but that was what was in the rumor mill one day.

GH works for me as well. See you all later.
 
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