Dungeons and Dragons Online: The Shadowfell Conspiracy

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > The MMO HMO > Dungeons and Dragons Online: The Shadowfell Conspiracy

Cpl Clegg: May 18, 2008

I have an idea of TRing into a 4 arti/4 kensei/12 rogue mechanic build aimed at maximizing repeater damage. Artificer 4 gives two lvl2 spell slots for insightful strikes and elemental weapons, kensei gives lots of to-hit and to-damage enhancements and mechanic gives Int for damage at level 3. It's mostly an idea of how to get a rogue past life feat without going full rogue but I guess it could be nice with Shiradi, and not bad in heroic levels either.

What do you think ? Any hidden traps about it I didn't notice ?

Mind you, it's just a general idea and I didn't plan it in the chargen yet, I'm not sure if it's going to be viable. Artificer with repeaters is overpowered in low-middle heroic levels but it hits the wall from level 15 so I just don't know if it's worth the try.

# ¿ Oct 4, 2013 08:56

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 13, 2024 20:22

Cpl Clegg: May 18, 2008

Time for some planning then. Rogue mechanic has some interesting AoE options as well, so I guess it'll help a bit. I'm still undecided about race though, can't find anything adding to the playstyle.

By the way, did DDO developers ever explain why they made mobs harder in that level range ? All my playthroughs make me burn out for months when I hit level 15 or so, because it suddenly changes from "very fun" to "boring slog" every loving time.

# ¿ Oct 4, 2013 10:01

Cpl Clegg: May 18, 2008

Returned to the game after a long hiatus. Artificer still sucks

I hope to TR him this time but it's really hard to play a class that was shining so brightly on first 10 levels and dropped so hard in efficiency afterwards.

Not a bad past life though.

Speaking of TR. DemonMage, thanks for your Warlock videos, now I know what I want to try as soon as I hit 20th !

# ¿ Jul 20, 2015 23:01

Cpl Clegg: May 18, 2008

Funny thing is, I've got most the fun out of playing the first life as 2 rogue/18 barbarian, with frenzy+supreme cleave+healbot+lots of mobs around. Next life was Air Sorcerer, which in retrospect was a bad choice because Lightning Bolt was dull compared to Fireball blasting.
I hope I'll have enough patience for 3 more Arti levels so I can do stupid AoE damage to mobs again instead of plinking at them one by one. Arti has some AoE SLA's but they feel inadequate.

Speaking of your videos, I still remember your earlier ones fondly, back when I just started playing. Loved all of them

You guys are great. Although more banter wouldn't hurt of course !

[Edit] Artificer might become more interesting but it's a class designed for all the clickies, and I don't have a huge stash of them yet. Also gear, I'm running around in what you'd probably consider rags.

Cpl Clegg fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Jul 20, 2015

# ¿ Jul 20, 2015 23:46

Cpl Clegg: May 18, 2008

How do you build a warlock ? I'm looking at it and not sure where to start. What should I take ? Do maximize/empower affect their blasts ? Anything essential I should know ?

Is it viable without lots of accumulated equipment or should I try and farm something for this life before starting it ?

# ¿ Jul 26, 2015 17:10

Cpl Clegg: May 18, 2008

Kawaii Kiwi posted:

You want Maximize and Empower as well as quicken. These don't affect your blasts, but do affect all your SLA abilities and tentacles. Other than that, I took Force of Will since you will be maxing out your Charisma and that way your Will saves will be very high.

It's viable without much in the way of equipment at all just because Warlocks are so powerful. I'd personally recommend going with the Fiend pact also since the spells they get like Fire Shield and Hurl Through Hell especially are great. Hurl is a very high save spell that instantly kills anything short of a red named boss monster, including orange named monsters in Epic levels, which normally cannot be insta-killed by any means. The fact that it's totally free to cast doesn't hurt either.

So there's a starting point and if you have any further questions, feel free to ask!

Interesting. When I was looking at warlock options, I thought of blasts as 95% of damage then lots of CC. So basically Fey pact and Tainted Scholar, sonic damage, reflex saves, CC and no need of Empower/Maximize if they don't apply to blasts (maybe Heighten/Extend later for CC SLA's).

After your post I looked at damaging SLA's in Tainted Scholar tree and they probably are quite good.

As for Fiend pact, is Hurl Through Hell as useful in heroic levels ? I dislike Fire damage because of monster resists and Reflex saves look more useful because of traps.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2015 20:14

Cpl Clegg: May 18, 2008

I've created a test character to see how it plays, first one was Fey/Tainted Scholar (so Chain blast), then a new one Fiend/Soul Eater (Cone).

I think Chain is more flexible than Cone, especially in large rooms with ranged enemies, so picking it up first is useful. But when enemies are close they do melt under Cone incredibly fast. Fiend blast also looks way cooler than Fey blast. Lots of fun.

Thanks for advice !

[Edit] 300+ damage from Stricken at first levels. I understand that it won't scale fast enough but right now it feels like cheating.

Cpl Clegg fucked around with this message at 22:16 on Jul 26, 2015

# ¿ Jul 26, 2015 22:12

Cpl Clegg: May 18, 2008

Kawaii Kiwi posted:

Being a dastardly swashbuckler is pretty easy actually. Full 20 bard works just fine, though personally, I'd probably go for a 4 rogue/16 bard mix just so you can get some of the neat tricks (especially Killer) that the Assassin tree offers. I'd put most of my points into dexterity, some into int so you can get disable devices, open lock, search, use magic device, perform and maybe heal at a minimum. I'd also ignore strength entirely and have an okay amount of charisma and constitution.

Finally, in the Swashbuckler tree, I took Dashing Scoundrel, which gives you flat +damage and 10% doublestrike when wielding nothing in your offhand, Slap in the Face, which lets you almost guarantee a stun on enemies, which you then follow up with Coup de Grace, which instantly kills stunned enemies. The DC on Coup de Grace and Slap in the Face will be so high that basically nothing will ever reliably be able to resist them, meaning that every single time Coup de Grace comes off of cool down, you can reliably instantly kill a guy around you. Also if you get really overwhelmed, you can Fascinate a group of enemies, then pick them all off with Coup de Grace as well.

Also, take Precision instead of Power Attack (which you won't qualify for anyway since you're ignoring strength), since Thread the Needle is just +5 damage anyway while in Precision stance, so there's no reason to ever use Power Attack while swashbuckling.

I did this on my last life and it was pretty absurd. I was able to do tons of damage and crowd control entire rooms at once both with Fascinate and with the Sound Burst SLA you can get from one of the Epic Destiny trees. Caisha went with a strength-based build, while I stuck with dexterity and I feel that it probably made me a little stronger overall. I feel the same might hold true with intelligence, but it's a little more of a tradeoff, since dexterity gets you armor class (sort of useless on Elite difficulty, but you might not do those) and reflex save, which is really handy. Intelligence would let you take the Harper enhancement which gives you a bonus to damage based on the amount of intelligence you have, which would be sort of cool and might end up giving you a non-trivial amount of added damage at the endgame. That said, you can still take that enhancement and come out with a fair amount of added damage even if you don't focus on intelligence as your core stat.

Finally, I'd ignore Weapon Precision entirely. When I made this character, I realized with some dawning horror that I didn't have any means of using dexterity to hit while swashbuckling and figured I might miss a lot. Was not even noticeable at all, so I'm pretty sure that when they overhauled the hit chance/AC system, they made it a lot easier to achieve a good hit rate without maxing your chance to hit chance out hugely.

Found this older post because my friend decided to try out DDO and I've made a SWF bard just to play with him when he's online. Yes, I thought about making a Warlock but didn't want to overshadow his Paladin, also needed a Rogue splash for traps.

Do I understand correctly that you were playing with no strength, no to hit from Finesse but still didn't have any problems with hitting monsters even on higher difficulties ?

Should I pick up something from Harper if I have access to it ? Does Harper +Int to damage stack with Swashbuckling ? If yes then I might just reroll while it's still Korthos, +Int to hit and twice +Int to damage can be an incredible combination, also skills and Insightful Reflexes.

Any build gotchas I should look out for ?

# ¿ Jul 28, 2015 23:33

Cpl Clegg: May 18, 2008

I wish it worked, heh. Well, I'll stick to Dex roguebard then. As we'll be playing mostly on Normal and Hard, it will probably be the most effortless way of building it.

As for hitting stuff, in your case it can be equipment from previous lives, and one or more fighter's past life. Your casters probably have higher to-hit than most first life melees even before you get to the TR stash

At least my 10 Str character was missing quite a bit, including glancing blows. I know I can somewhat mitigate it with items but it'll require lots of work for a first life character which will be picked up from the dusty closet from time to time.

Also duoing DDO quests is fun.

[Edit] Generic build question. Should I pick any main stat enhancement I can get my hands on or it's too costly ? I can't gauge +1 stat per 2AP effectiveness compared to other enhancements.

Cpl Clegg fucked around with this message at 07:20 on Jul 29, 2015

# ¿ Jul 29, 2015 07:13

Cpl Clegg: May 18, 2008

Do augments still drop in random chests ? I remember finding them quite a lot when they were introduced but now I didn't see a single one in 5 levels or so.

# ¿ Aug 9, 2015 17:58

Cpl Clegg: May 18, 2008

Then either temporary Turbine fuckup or my bad luck.

[EDIT] It was bad luck, just looted an augment.

PS: I want to reiterate that warlocks are incredible. The only thing they lack is trapfinding. But then again, it would only slow them down

Right now it's fun, fast and fun. Also fun. Did I say it's fun ?

Those of you who think about returning should really give warlocks a try.

Cpl Clegg fucked around with this message at 22:22 on Aug 10, 2015

# ¿ Aug 9, 2015 22:45

Cpl Clegg: May 18, 2008

Astral shards are on sale, so I dropped some to the guild kobold on the first deck. Hopefully they will be useful for something.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2015 10:56

Cpl Clegg: May 18, 2008

What do you all think about Temple of Elemental Evil ?

I tried it recently and I'm somewhat confused. It's definitely dull and annoying solo, for me at least. I didn't even finish the first part. It might be interesting to explore in a goon group though, or maybe a speed run with someone who knows it well.

Speaking of guild buffs, are there any plans to delete old ones ? They're shorter and annoying to keep up but still very nice, especially resists.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2015 21:02

Cpl Clegg: May 18, 2008

Haha, I thought old buffs stacked with the new ones because you kept them all in the cargo hold and I didn't bother to check.

As for ToEE, I had an idea that it's just a botched attempt to convert the tabletop module. Turbine had to make it hard to recreate the original, killing players left and right for no reason, and so huge that babies will born, grow and die of old age before it's completed. But they also realized that it's 2015 and players won't play it at all if conversion is close enough so they pre-nerfed it and now it's just dull and annoying.

Will is great though, can't argue about that. And I'm pretty sure it can be incredibly fun and hilarious if played by several clueless 7th level newbies. I wish it was here back when I started, it would've been great.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2015 21:43

Cpl Clegg: May 18, 2008

What about little reality show ? We find 4 newbies, give them lots of potions and drop them into ToEE with M key disabled, so we can watch the stream of them bumbling through it ? Bonus points for webcam of their faces and additional one focused on a hand-written map of the place. Not sure if we should allow betting though, it'd be just mean.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2015 21:53

Cpl Clegg: May 18, 2008

I've noticed a strange thing I don't undestand. Why XP shown in quest summary is higher when you enter but then drops a bit ? And then bumps up when you complete the quest ?

It was showing 8k+ exp at the start of a quest but dropped to 7400 in a minute or so (no mischief or aggression yet), then it became 8500 at the end (with ransack and conquest) but I've got 9k+ (not counting exp bonus, 10k+ with it).

Cpl Clegg fucked around with this message at 15:47 on Aug 23, 2015

# ¿ Aug 23, 2015 12:52

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 13, 2024 20:22

Cpl Clegg: May 18, 2008

DemonMage posted:

Because the experience report sheet is really bad at taking all bonuses into account and likes to randomly drop some of them (especially streak, first time, server side or other "temporary" ones). I've never had it effect the actual experience earned, but the report is usually hosed up by at least a little.

Yeah just figured it out, it was the daily bonus. It returned in the end but was randomly disappearing or getting back all the time I was doing the quest. And of course I was only looking at the last number so I didn't notice it for some time.

In other news, beholder pet is great.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2015 18:39

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > The MMO HMO > Dungeons and Dragons Online: The Shadowfell Conspiracy