Light, Moderate, and Heavy DR?

[HumanJHawkins]

I am working on a DR build fighter... Looks like he will last until about 3rd level before he becomes a joke.

Hopefully I am just missing something... Are there feats or enhancements to boost DR as levels increase? I'm thinking that a DR of 5 (or even 15 for that matter) is going to be a silly choice over some of the other defensive or offensive options once he starts getting hammered and blasted at the higher levels.

If better DR (such as "Improved Hammerblock") don't exist, this would be a very low cost way to add another interesting facet to the game.

[llevenbaxx]

I didnt realize there were enough avenues to really make a "DR" spec'ed character. Ive heard of some builds getting there DR while blocking with a twr shd up to 26 or so but it sounds kinda like a situational character. If we could craft and make shields to have bursting/PG affects for shield bashing this build would prolly rock but I think the guy who made this character even said blocking/bashing was kinda weak. Im sure it will work out for you though.:D

[Allasar]

Why not just build a barb? Splash some fighter if you want to get Tower shield proficiency, and off you go.

Barb 10 gets you the DR 15 action boost, plus you've got the innate Barb DR.

[Mad_Bombardier]

14 Barb with 2 enhancements has DR7/-.
14 Warforged with 5 feats and 3 enhancements has DR9/Adamantine.

Consider for your Fighter using the Intimidate skill to get aggro then shield blocking with Tower Shield. You get DR of: Base active DR (with shield) = (BAB / 2) + Shield AC bonus + 2. Shield Mastery Feats add to this number.

[GlassCannon]

In DDO damage is scaled by level at an alarming rate. STR goes off into the Godly realm, DEX, INT, WIS, CHA and CON also get into the Godly realms... heck even a lvl 14 Troll in Jungle of Khyber on Elite seems to have about an 80 STR(more than a CR 75 Deity PnP).

DR has not yet been scaled to DDO. DR is still in the PnP stage where a Fighter 20 can finally get his base STR to 19. We see STR 20 Dwarven Fighters rolling out of the Wavecrest at level 1(+1 Tome, +1 Item) all the time.

Yes, we need not a delightfully inept DR to laugh and giggle at, but something similar to what our opponents(monsters) get on occasion... a %-based DR. DR33%/Electric on a ring... DR66%/Fire on the White Dragon's giant partner... I have seen a DR20 on some CR12 monsters... a DR40 on others... Why oh why can't we have obscene damage reduction like that as a feat?

[GlassCannon]

Consider for your Fighter using the Intimidate skill to get aggro then shield blocking with Tower Shield. You get DR of: Base active DR (with shield) = (BAB / 2) + Shield AC bonus + 2. Shield Mastery Feats add to this number.

While blocking you are effectively useless.

Care to block your way through Madstone Crater on Elite? I think not.

[Knightrose]

Just get some Bramble Casters from the Queen raid.

DR10/Slash, Bludge

You can easily make up for the Slash and Bludge by buying or farming some Golden Greaves.

Badda bing, badda boom.

[Mad_Bombardier]

While blocking you are effectively useless.

Care to block your way through Madstone Crater on Elite? I think not.The point of Intimidate and Shield blocking is to focus all the mobs in a single area so casters can light them up (or Rogues can freely backstab). Works just fine in Madstone or any other quest (assuming the infected can be Intimidated, I can't remember)

[STROBE]

I am working on a DR build fighter... Looks like he will last until about 3rd level before he becomes a joke.

Hopefully I am just missing something... Are there feats or enhancements to boost DR as levels increase? .

I had a 14th lvl paladin built for DR, intimidate and shield bashing. He had feats: tower shield, improved shield bashing, shield mastery(+DR3), improved shield mastery(+DR3). I had: +4 spearblock full plate, +4 hammerblock full plate, +5 tower shield of bashing, +5 large shield of bashing. Don't recall the exact numbers but while blocking it was approx DR25-27 against bludgeoning or DR15-16 against ranged piercing. When not blocking it reverted back to 5DR from the armors.

There's not any enhancements for DR for humans or paladins, but there may be for other races/classes, I just don't know.

I tested the DR/intimidate/shieldbash role extensively.

Here's my experience, how it 'played' out for me...

Solo: Performance was poor to fair while soloing. In most cases, I found that switching to the fastest damaging weapon I had was a better strategy, i.e. I would end the battle with more hitpoints. Using a lifestealing weapon was also better than bashing. I found that shieldbashing against three hard hitters like the ogres outside Whisperdoom, or 1 ogre in Gianthold, that I would die before they did.

Grouping: I would still be bashing my first mob to death, when the group had killed everyother mob in the area. Its that slow and low of damage. Someone would come over and finishoff what I was bashing because they wanted to get moving right along.

So I remade him and dropped tower shield feat, improved shield mastery feat, and Im probably going to drop the shield mastery feat after I decide what I want in its place.

Gonna keep improved shield bash, as there are a few situations where it is helpful like razor cats, or when I'm low on hitpoints and just need to finish one mob on me.

Still intimidating and that I find fairly useful. Lot of firewall being used these days by sorcerers and I can intimidate mobs into it, or off of the sorcerer. I've got the divine righteousness enhancement and use it after an intimidate to keep a boss mob focused on me. Can even lead them around.

I'm still using the spearblocking or hammerblocking fullplates depending on what's in the quest.

In one of the gone-forever threads, bashing and DR was addressed by a developer and to paraphrase he stated that it was their intention that DR that would stop all or almost all damage would never be attainable. They intended that if you specialized in DR you would be able to reach a point where you took small damage each hit, so that you were being whittled down. I'd say mission accomplished - and then some.

Don't believe I'll be traveling the DR road again barring dramatic changes in feats/enhancements/gear.

Just sharing my experience, and hope its helpful to you.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

I had a 14th lvl paladin built for DR, intimidate and shield bashing. He had feats: tower shield, improved shield bashing, shield mastery(+DR3), improved shield mastery(+DR3). I had: +4 spearblock full plate, +4 hammerblock full plate, +5 tower shield of bashing, +5 large shield of bashing. Don't recall the exact numbers but while blocking it was approx DR25-27 against bludgeoning or DR15-16 against ranged piercing. When not blocking it reverted back to 5DR from the armors.

There's not any enhancements for DR for humans or paladins, but there may be for other races/classes, I just don't know.

I tested the DR/intimidate/shieldbash role extensively.

Here's my experience, how it 'played' out for me...

Solo: Performance was poor to fair while soloing. In most cases, I found that switching to the fastest damaging weapon I had was a better strategy, i.e. I would end the battle with more hitpoints. Using a lifestealing weapon was also better than bashing. I found that shieldbashing against three hard hitters like the ogres outside Whisperdoom, or 1 ogre in Gianthold, that I would die before they did.

Grouping: I would still be bashing my first mob to death, when the group had killed everyother mob in the area. Its that slow and low of damage. Someone would come over and finishoff what I was bashing because they wanted to get moving right along.

So I remade him and dropped tower shield feat, improved shield mastery feat, and Im probably going to drop the shield mastery feat after I decide what I want in its place.

Gonna keep improved shield bash, as there are a few situations where it is helpful like razor cats, or when I'm low on hitpoints and just need to finish one mob on me.

Still intimidating and that I find fairly useful. Lot of firewall being used these days by sorcerers and I can intimidate mobs into it, or off of the sorcerer. I've got the divine righteousness enhancement and use it after an intimidate to keep a boss mob focused on me. Can even lead them around.

I'm still using the spearblocking or hammerblocking fullplates depending on what's in the quest.

In one of the gone-forever threads, bashing and DR was addressed by a developer and to paraphrase he stated that it was their intention that DR that would stop all or almost all damage would never be attainable. They intended that if you specialized in DR you would be able to reach a point where you took small damage each hit, so that you were being whittled down. I'd say mission accomplished - and then some.

Don't believe I'll be traveling the DR road again barring dramatic changes in feats/enhancements/gear.

Just sharing my experience, and hope its helpful to you.

I have a lvl8 Shield bashing specced Ftr.....
I can't say much about higher lvls and shield bashing, but at lower lvls it can actually work well (although slow)(and doesn't help with those casters)

Something I noticed was that Defensive fighting and Combat expertise work well with shield bashing. In lower quests where AC actually counts for a lot, I could stand up to a huge mob and take very little damage.....or take damage very slowly and bash and heal pot my way to victory.

But like you said, it is a extremely slow way to fight, and no one has the patience for it......plus almost useless on trolls or other fast healing creatures.
And I am noticing that as I move up in lvl it becomes less and less useful.....someday I expect to almost never be able to use it effectively.

But one of my favorite memories was doing Kobold's New Ringleader on elite......running past the kobold chief and blocking the Ogre's door......he couldn't do any significant damage to me and never laid a fist on anyone else in the group.......sure wish there was a way to use that tactic at higher lvls effectively. :(

[Sydril]

Take a look here:

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=85329&highlight=blocking