Mawai
07-24-2008, 11:58 AM
Hi All,
I just wanted to put some tips for newbies into the forums - since it took me a while to learn them and they worked well.
First, I started playing DDO in April. My primary requirement was the ability to play solo since my time is constrained by real life - grouping wasn't usually an option since I might have to stop on short notice and that would not be fair to those I grouped with. I play casually, I have only progressed as far as 7th level - 95% of that from solo play. I've accumulated about 450 favour and completed all the level 3 and most level 4 quests up to Elite. I've done a number of level 5 and 6 quests up to normal or hard. Maybe a couple of level 7 quests on normal.
Soloing - character selection requirements:
Here are some tips for choosing a solo character
---
- when I first started I asked on the forums for a good solo character - there were two different ideas expressed - one was a dwarven battle cleric. Clerics have built in healing abilities and with the right stats can have decent melee abilities. The second idea involved creating a character with maximized saving throws since one of the biggest issues with solo play is dealing with traps and casters. My very first character was a rogue/ranger. He only reached level 3 and died frequently because he failed a lot of saving throws - so my personal experience seemed to indicate that the second option might be the better one to try.
---
- Use Magic Device is a very useful skill - in combination with a high charisma it allows you to equip race required items which are better than equivalent items at the same level they become usable. This skill should be kept maximized.
- saving throws are CRITICAL. Caster mobs and traps deal a lot of damage. At the lowest levels casters use a lot of magic missile spells so the shield spell or a shield spell item are very important. At higher levels the spells shift to fire direct damage which needs some fire resistance, melf's acid arrow which needs some acid resistance or can be dodged and area effect spells like lightning bolt. There are also a lot of fear and hold spells cast. The DC for these spells on Elite can easily get up to 18 or more. If the will save modifier is a typical value of +6 or +8 - then these spells will be effective more than 50% of the time and your character will die. One solution to this is to splash 2 or 3 levels of paladin into the build and be sure to have a high charisma.
- In combination with good saves - Evasion is an amazing feat. This is available to rogue or monk at second level. If you save against an area effect spell or trap you take no damage. With evasion and good saves it is possible to complete some quests simply by repeatedly training the mobs through the traps in the dungeon. They die and you do not. So another useful option for a solo build is to splash 2 levels of rogue or monk. Rogue is good because of the broad range of skills and facility with Use Magic Device. Take Rogue at first level for the skills.
-Feats that are very useful. ** Weapon Finesse. ** By choosing weapon finesse you can focus on building dexterity for both combat and defense. Also, since light armor is required for evasion - dexterity is very important for AC. High dexterity also improves reflex saving throws and many rogue skills. ** Combat Expertise ** This feat will add 5 to the AC while taking 5 from attack. For most common mobs this can be very useful.
- Healing. If you want to save money it is very important that the character have some sort of self-healing available. The choices here are War forged arcane caster, cleric, or dragon-marked halfling.
- Other classes that can be mixed with the rogue or monk/paladin would be fighter for the extra combat feats and AC enhancements, sorceror or bard for spells and taking advantage of the high charisma, ranger for favoured enemies/bow strength/Two weapon fighting/stealth - in my case I chose fighter since I wanted the feats - that might be avoided by taking monk instead of rogue but then you trade off UMD as well.
--------------------------
Here is what I did (at level 7):
Halfling - 2 fighter/3 paladin/2 rogue
Starting stats (I think - I might choose differently now - dropping str to 10 and increasing dex/cha):
str 12
dex 17
con 10
int 14
wis 8
cha 16
Feats: Healing dragon marks, Force of Personality (use cha modifier for will saves), Weapon Finesse, Combat Expertise
With gear my saves at level 7 are about: fort +18, reflex +23, will +18. The AC is 36 without combat expertise (41 with it turned on).
Halfings have dragonmarks for healing - they get a +1 basic to hit bonus (which is the equivalent of either +2 str or dex in terms of to hit), they have enhancements which boost each saving throw, a level 3 paladin has enhancements to their aura giving +2 to saves as well as +2 to AC - on top of the charisma bonus to saves.
This character solos well so far. However, it may be that soloing at higher levels may not be so easy.
Finally, I try never to run quests more than once at each difficulty level - the game gets too boring otherwise.
---------
Money in DDO:
However, as was pointed out when I started, solo characters can be very costly to run. They need decent equipment to be as effective as possible and this equipment does NOT EVER drop from the quests you are running. In addition as a new player - I had no money. My first character (the ranger/rogue) very quickly went bankrupt buying healing potions and I couldn't even dream of buying a cure serious wand - it was over 5000gp!
Luckily for me - I stumbled across the one item that consistently makes money in DDO. The following comments apply to the Ghallanda server and may apply to the other servers.
Consider the following - in any MMO, a resource that can be collected by low level characters, which is useful to high level characters can be sold for substantially more money than can be made by a low level character doing anything else. In WOW there are the mining and skining professions. In DDO, there is no direct equivalent. However, there is one item which can not be purchased in a shop which is extremely useful when trying to quickly level a caster character. These are potions of Mnemonic Enhancment
Potion of Minor Mnemonic Enhancement - level 1 - base value 2000gp
Potion of Lesser Mnemonic Enhancement - level 3 - base value 4000gp
Potion of Mnemonic Enhancement - level 5 - base value 8000gp
Potion of Greater Mnemonic Enhancement - level 7 - base value 15000gp
Potion of Major Mnemonic Enhancement - level 9 - base value 30000gp
Never EVER sell these to a vendor - I vendored the first few minor ones I found on my first character - I didn't know what they were for and I could get 100gp for them from a vendor. (laugh) It turns out that these potions restored mana - much the same way that a healing potion restores health. With a good supply of these potions a caster can complete quests solo or in a small group and never needs to rest to regain mana. Using these potions make leveling a caster much faster - at least that is my guess - there might be another important use for them but I don't know what it is - I do know that all of these will sell for substantially more in the auction house than their base value.
Always post on the auction house with a buyout specified - if someone wants these they will want them immediately. Make sure that the minimum bid isn't too low.
Here are the usual minimum and buyout values I have used for these - 90% of the time they will sell for the buyout value I set - they also sell better when grouped so a batch of 5 sells easier than a single one though both will sell:
Minor Mnemonic Enhancement - staring 4000gp - buyout 6000gp to 7000gp
Lesser Mnemonic Enhancement - starting 10000gp - buyout 15000gp to 20000gp
Mnemonic Enhancement - starting 25000gp - buyout 40000gp to 50000gp
Greater Mnemonic Enhancement - starting 50000gp - buyout 70000gp to 80000gp
Major Mnemonic Enhancement - starting 60000gp - buyout 70000gp to 80000gp
Note that the profit margins on Major Mnemonic Enhancement are much lower - this is because it must drop on a regular basis from high level dungeons - everyone gets them. The lower level ones only drop in low level dungeons and are available to new players or those leveling alts. However, those leveling alts often do not loot all the chests since they make more than enough money on their main character and these potions are relatively rare.
Ok - so now you know how much this loot is worth. How do you make more money? After selling a couple you find you will have enough money to start buying on the auction house. Look for people posting these potions within 25% of their base value either as a starting bid or buyout. If it is buyout - buy it immediately - otherwise bid and keep an eye on it. Of course, if it is offered at less than the base value buy it immediately.
Minor - buy at 2000 to 3000gp
Lesser - buy at 4000 to 6000gp
Mnemonic - buy at 8000 to 10000gp
Greater - buy at 15000 to 20000gp
Major - buy at 30000 to 35000gp - I usually avoid these due to competition but they will sell
After winning these auctions - group the potions together and repost the auction using the buyout guidelines suggested. They won't always sell but usually they will. Trade usually picks up from Friday to Sunday.
Once you have collected some money, start looking for other items that can be bought and sold. I haven't found very much that is reliable. Collapsed Portable Holes are typically too expensive starting at 50k but sometimes one will be posted cheap - however, the market for these appears about saturated at the moment. There are almost always some Tomes that are being auctioned starting from their base value. Bid on these auctions since you will eventually win some - you can use them on your character, resell them or bank them for an alt. Get an idea of how much they sell for on your server. At the moment on Ghallanda the typical +1 tome buyout runs about 300k at the low end. There is a good profit possible if you can win one at 100k and resell with a starting bid of 200k and buyout of 300k.
Besides these there are usually bargains all over the auction house. You just need to discover what is in demand. For example, I was looking particularly for light armor - the best available are mithril breastplates and mithril chain shirts - +4 are usable from level 6 and +5 at level 8 unless you can find one with a race required - which will then be usable 2 levels lower. Occasionally, these items will be posted to the AH with a starting bid at the base value and no buyout. What does this mean? You can probably get good mithril armor for 20k to 50k if you pay attention. Typical buyouts for a +5 mithril chain shirt run 800k to 1.2mil gold. However, I put mine in the bank to use a level 8.
The money made is used to self-twink your solo toon. I have no higher level character to pass things down. Here are some suggestions on weapons to look for - I have all of these - I haven't paid more than 30k or so for any of them. As a paladin the "pure good" effect is a very useful way of dealing extra damage - I haven't found any enemies who are good - they are either evil or neutral. Even monsters requiring adamantine weapons are still vulnerable to pure good.
+1 ghost touch crossbow of pure good
+2 shock short sword of pure good
+4 adamantine rapier
+1 holy light mace of pure good (awesome against undead)
+1 ghost touch light mace of pure good
Muckbane (or an ooze bane weapon - for use against oozes)
+1 shock club of pure good (for use against rust monsters)
Ok - so how well has this strategy worked for me? I have 200,000pp in the bank, I have purchased 7 +1 tomes - used 3 (dex, cha and wis) with 4 in the bank - and my character is about as twinked as I can make him at level 7 - all so he can play the game solo when he needs to ...
Keep in mind that my suggestions may or may not continue to work when this becomes commonly known. However, there should always be a market for these potions as long as people want to power level caster alts. It is possible that the resale market will dry up - on the other hand there may be quite a few more people selling these potions for 25% over base value just to get a quick return. In any case, the extra money made by selling these potions will certainly help the true newbies while the L16s who are leveling alts seem well able to afford the costs.
Good luck and safe travels!
I just wanted to put some tips for newbies into the forums - since it took me a while to learn them and they worked well.
First, I started playing DDO in April. My primary requirement was the ability to play solo since my time is constrained by real life - grouping wasn't usually an option since I might have to stop on short notice and that would not be fair to those I grouped with. I play casually, I have only progressed as far as 7th level - 95% of that from solo play. I've accumulated about 450 favour and completed all the level 3 and most level 4 quests up to Elite. I've done a number of level 5 and 6 quests up to normal or hard. Maybe a couple of level 7 quests on normal.
Soloing - character selection requirements:
Here are some tips for choosing a solo character
---
- when I first started I asked on the forums for a good solo character - there were two different ideas expressed - one was a dwarven battle cleric. Clerics have built in healing abilities and with the right stats can have decent melee abilities. The second idea involved creating a character with maximized saving throws since one of the biggest issues with solo play is dealing with traps and casters. My very first character was a rogue/ranger. He only reached level 3 and died frequently because he failed a lot of saving throws - so my personal experience seemed to indicate that the second option might be the better one to try.
---
- Use Magic Device is a very useful skill - in combination with a high charisma it allows you to equip race required items which are better than equivalent items at the same level they become usable. This skill should be kept maximized.
- saving throws are CRITICAL. Caster mobs and traps deal a lot of damage. At the lowest levels casters use a lot of magic missile spells so the shield spell or a shield spell item are very important. At higher levels the spells shift to fire direct damage which needs some fire resistance, melf's acid arrow which needs some acid resistance or can be dodged and area effect spells like lightning bolt. There are also a lot of fear and hold spells cast. The DC for these spells on Elite can easily get up to 18 or more. If the will save modifier is a typical value of +6 or +8 - then these spells will be effective more than 50% of the time and your character will die. One solution to this is to splash 2 or 3 levels of paladin into the build and be sure to have a high charisma.
- In combination with good saves - Evasion is an amazing feat. This is available to rogue or monk at second level. If you save against an area effect spell or trap you take no damage. With evasion and good saves it is possible to complete some quests simply by repeatedly training the mobs through the traps in the dungeon. They die and you do not. So another useful option for a solo build is to splash 2 levels of rogue or monk. Rogue is good because of the broad range of skills and facility with Use Magic Device. Take Rogue at first level for the skills.
-Feats that are very useful. ** Weapon Finesse. ** By choosing weapon finesse you can focus on building dexterity for both combat and defense. Also, since light armor is required for evasion - dexterity is very important for AC. High dexterity also improves reflex saving throws and many rogue skills. ** Combat Expertise ** This feat will add 5 to the AC while taking 5 from attack. For most common mobs this can be very useful.
- Healing. If you want to save money it is very important that the character have some sort of self-healing available. The choices here are War forged arcane caster, cleric, or dragon-marked halfling.
- Other classes that can be mixed with the rogue or monk/paladin would be fighter for the extra combat feats and AC enhancements, sorceror or bard for spells and taking advantage of the high charisma, ranger for favoured enemies/bow strength/Two weapon fighting/stealth - in my case I chose fighter since I wanted the feats - that might be avoided by taking monk instead of rogue but then you trade off UMD as well.
--------------------------
Here is what I did (at level 7):
Halfling - 2 fighter/3 paladin/2 rogue
Starting stats (I think - I might choose differently now - dropping str to 10 and increasing dex/cha):
str 12
dex 17
con 10
int 14
wis 8
cha 16
Feats: Healing dragon marks, Force of Personality (use cha modifier for will saves), Weapon Finesse, Combat Expertise
With gear my saves at level 7 are about: fort +18, reflex +23, will +18. The AC is 36 without combat expertise (41 with it turned on).
Halfings have dragonmarks for healing - they get a +1 basic to hit bonus (which is the equivalent of either +2 str or dex in terms of to hit), they have enhancements which boost each saving throw, a level 3 paladin has enhancements to their aura giving +2 to saves as well as +2 to AC - on top of the charisma bonus to saves.
This character solos well so far. However, it may be that soloing at higher levels may not be so easy.
Finally, I try never to run quests more than once at each difficulty level - the game gets too boring otherwise.
---------
Money in DDO:
However, as was pointed out when I started, solo characters can be very costly to run. They need decent equipment to be as effective as possible and this equipment does NOT EVER drop from the quests you are running. In addition as a new player - I had no money. My first character (the ranger/rogue) very quickly went bankrupt buying healing potions and I couldn't even dream of buying a cure serious wand - it was over 5000gp!
Luckily for me - I stumbled across the one item that consistently makes money in DDO. The following comments apply to the Ghallanda server and may apply to the other servers.
Consider the following - in any MMO, a resource that can be collected by low level characters, which is useful to high level characters can be sold for substantially more money than can be made by a low level character doing anything else. In WOW there are the mining and skining professions. In DDO, there is no direct equivalent. However, there is one item which can not be purchased in a shop which is extremely useful when trying to quickly level a caster character. These are potions of Mnemonic Enhancment
Potion of Minor Mnemonic Enhancement - level 1 - base value 2000gp
Potion of Lesser Mnemonic Enhancement - level 3 - base value 4000gp
Potion of Mnemonic Enhancement - level 5 - base value 8000gp
Potion of Greater Mnemonic Enhancement - level 7 - base value 15000gp
Potion of Major Mnemonic Enhancement - level 9 - base value 30000gp
Never EVER sell these to a vendor - I vendored the first few minor ones I found on my first character - I didn't know what they were for and I could get 100gp for them from a vendor. (laugh) It turns out that these potions restored mana - much the same way that a healing potion restores health. With a good supply of these potions a caster can complete quests solo or in a small group and never needs to rest to regain mana. Using these potions make leveling a caster much faster - at least that is my guess - there might be another important use for them but I don't know what it is - I do know that all of these will sell for substantially more in the auction house than their base value.
Always post on the auction house with a buyout specified - if someone wants these they will want them immediately. Make sure that the minimum bid isn't too low.
Here are the usual minimum and buyout values I have used for these - 90% of the time they will sell for the buyout value I set - they also sell better when grouped so a batch of 5 sells easier than a single one though both will sell:
Minor Mnemonic Enhancement - staring 4000gp - buyout 6000gp to 7000gp
Lesser Mnemonic Enhancement - starting 10000gp - buyout 15000gp to 20000gp
Mnemonic Enhancement - starting 25000gp - buyout 40000gp to 50000gp
Greater Mnemonic Enhancement - starting 50000gp - buyout 70000gp to 80000gp
Major Mnemonic Enhancement - starting 60000gp - buyout 70000gp to 80000gp
Note that the profit margins on Major Mnemonic Enhancement are much lower - this is because it must drop on a regular basis from high level dungeons - everyone gets them. The lower level ones only drop in low level dungeons and are available to new players or those leveling alts. However, those leveling alts often do not loot all the chests since they make more than enough money on their main character and these potions are relatively rare.
Ok - so now you know how much this loot is worth. How do you make more money? After selling a couple you find you will have enough money to start buying on the auction house. Look for people posting these potions within 25% of their base value either as a starting bid or buyout. If it is buyout - buy it immediately - otherwise bid and keep an eye on it. Of course, if it is offered at less than the base value buy it immediately.
Minor - buy at 2000 to 3000gp
Lesser - buy at 4000 to 6000gp
Mnemonic - buy at 8000 to 10000gp
Greater - buy at 15000 to 20000gp
Major - buy at 30000 to 35000gp - I usually avoid these due to competition but they will sell
After winning these auctions - group the potions together and repost the auction using the buyout guidelines suggested. They won't always sell but usually they will. Trade usually picks up from Friday to Sunday.
Once you have collected some money, start looking for other items that can be bought and sold. I haven't found very much that is reliable. Collapsed Portable Holes are typically too expensive starting at 50k but sometimes one will be posted cheap - however, the market for these appears about saturated at the moment. There are almost always some Tomes that are being auctioned starting from their base value. Bid on these auctions since you will eventually win some - you can use them on your character, resell them or bank them for an alt. Get an idea of how much they sell for on your server. At the moment on Ghallanda the typical +1 tome buyout runs about 300k at the low end. There is a good profit possible if you can win one at 100k and resell with a starting bid of 200k and buyout of 300k.
Besides these there are usually bargains all over the auction house. You just need to discover what is in demand. For example, I was looking particularly for light armor - the best available are mithril breastplates and mithril chain shirts - +4 are usable from level 6 and +5 at level 8 unless you can find one with a race required - which will then be usable 2 levels lower. Occasionally, these items will be posted to the AH with a starting bid at the base value and no buyout. What does this mean? You can probably get good mithril armor for 20k to 50k if you pay attention. Typical buyouts for a +5 mithril chain shirt run 800k to 1.2mil gold. However, I put mine in the bank to use a level 8.
The money made is used to self-twink your solo toon. I have no higher level character to pass things down. Here are some suggestions on weapons to look for - I have all of these - I haven't paid more than 30k or so for any of them. As a paladin the "pure good" effect is a very useful way of dealing extra damage - I haven't found any enemies who are good - they are either evil or neutral. Even monsters requiring adamantine weapons are still vulnerable to pure good.
+1 ghost touch crossbow of pure good
+2 shock short sword of pure good
+4 adamantine rapier
+1 holy light mace of pure good (awesome against undead)
+1 ghost touch light mace of pure good
Muckbane (or an ooze bane weapon - for use against oozes)
+1 shock club of pure good (for use against rust monsters)
Ok - so how well has this strategy worked for me? I have 200,000pp in the bank, I have purchased 7 +1 tomes - used 3 (dex, cha and wis) with 4 in the bank - and my character is about as twinked as I can make him at level 7 - all so he can play the game solo when he needs to ...
Keep in mind that my suggestions may or may not continue to work when this becomes commonly known. However, there should always be a market for these potions as long as people want to power level caster alts. It is possible that the resale market will dry up - on the other hand there may be quite a few more people selling these potions for 25% over base value just to get a quick return. In any case, the extra money made by selling these potions will certainly help the true newbies while the L16s who are leveling alts seem well able to afford the costs.
Good luck and safe travels!