Mod 9 "Porcupine" brainstorming thread

[Depravity]

Since the cat's out of the bag on grazing (http://compendium.ddo.com/wiki/Release_Notes_Lamannia_Update_9.0_Official#Combat_ Improvements) hits, I thought it would be interesting to get a thread going about potential graze exploitation builds.

I'm going to make a few assumptions about grazes:
1) They potentially trigger guard/on-getting-hit effects
2) DR is effective (damage doesn't just bypass normal mechanics)

So my question to the community is, what do you think would be good ways to build for this? Seems like we need high AC, some DR, and some way to gather up mobs. Also - doesn anyone know if guard effects generate hate? May not need intimidation so much if smacking the porcupine makes things want to smack it more.

Some of my thoughts so far are (little monk-centric, but I've been thinking about giving them another try):
Human earth stance monk - near-barbarian levels of constitution (w/ +6 item, 32 at top tier earth), DR #/- (up to 8), nice stacked healing amps, and the potential for good intim via dragonmark bonus/enhancements and splash of something else for intim at full rank. Clerics will love you, and you should be able to soak up ridiculous amounts of punishment, even if AC isn't at top tier.

WF air stance/QS monk - fast THF, WF THF enhancements (http://compendium.ddo.com/wiki/Release_Notes_Lamannia_Update_9.0_Official#Race_En hancements), brute fighting hate enhancements - no intim, but should be able to sweep up trash with the glancing blows from the QS, and WF DR feats/enhancement to get some DR

Paladin - the oddball of the bunch, but with defender of siberys and the existing pally hate enhancements, he should be able to attract attention. Mostly I was looking at this due to Bracers of the Demon Consort (http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s220/jgould2005/DDO/Items/Bracers/BracersoftheDemonsConsort.jpg) - 20% chance of a 30hp bump, but a small chance of getting a negative level (not listed in the ingame descriptions). So we've got really good hp regaining (damage below an average of 6/hit just plain doesn't count), but your character should be able to throw its own restorations, preferably without having to resort to a wand/scroll in the middle of combat. This could also lend itself to a battlecleric w/ monk splash, at the cost of never ever ever getting into another pug :D.

[Blind_Skwerl]

I have been thinking abut a build like this. A guy in my old guild had a dwarf pure fighter set up for this. He was an extremely well equiped character is all I know. Guy wouldn't say what his build was or what he wore. He would jump into a pvp arena and turtle up and the guild would line up to beat on him. 10-12 attackers would die before he would, and he never attacked or healed. Tons of fun to see... until I brought my sorc. :D

[Aranticus]

Since the cat's out of the bag on grazing (http://compendium.ddo.com/wiki/Release_Notes_Lamannia_Update_9.0_Official#Combat_ Improvements) hits, I thought it would be interesting to get a thread going about potential graze exploitation builds.

I'm going to make a few assumptions about grazes:
1) They potentially trigger guard/on-getting-hit effects
2) DR is effective (damage doesn't just bypass normal mechanics)

So my question to the community is, what do you think would be good ways to build for this? Seems like we need high AC, some DR, and some way to gather up mobs. Also - doesn anyone know if guard effects generate hate? May not need intimidation so much if smacking the porcupine makes things want to smack it more.

Some of my thoughts so far are (little monk-centric, but I've been thinking about giving them another try):
Human earth stance monk - near-barbarian levels of constitution (w/ +6 item, 32 at top tier earth), DR #/- (up to 8), nice stacked healing amps, and the potential for good intim via dragonmark bonus/enhancements and splash of something else for intim at full rank. Clerics will love you, and you should be able to soak up ridiculous amounts of punishment, even if AC isn't at top tier.

WF air stance/QS monk - fast THF, WF THF enhancements (http://compendium.ddo.com/wiki/Release_Notes_Lamannia_Update_9.0_Official#Race_En hancements), brute fighting hate enhancements - no intim, but should be able to sweep up trash with the glancing blows from the QS, and WF DR feats/enhancement to get some DR

Paladin - the oddball of the bunch, but with defender of siberys and the existing pally hate enhancements, he should be able to attract attention. Mostly I was looking at this due to Bracers of the Demon Consort (http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s220/jgould2005/DDO/Items/Bracers/BracersoftheDemonsConsort.jpg) - 20% chance of a 30hp bump, but a small chance of getting a negative level (not listed in the ingame descriptions). So we've got really good hp regaining (damage below an average of 6/hit just plain doesn't count), but your character should be able to throw its own restorations, preferably without having to resort to a wand/scroll in the middle of combat. This could also lend itself to a battlecleric w/ monk splash, at the cost of never ever ever getting into another pug :D.

high ac, high DR (non monks) and high hp comes at a cost of items which is going to limit the number of guard items you have on. this reduces the effectiveness of such a build

take a dex monk for example, highest ac is reached by:
1. raiment
2. armor bracers
3. dex item
4. chattering ring
5. con item (you will still need your hp)

looking at guard items, so far there is none that i know that is in the trinket slot. so out of 11 slots 5 are used. if your other requirement is hp, this can potentially go up by another 2 more slots. what happens to the dps gear (str, tharnes, etc)

without str and intimidate, how can you draw mobs to hit you? yeah you could probably lower the ac by a couple using DT robes to elevate the problem but again, there is a lot of fitting to do. this compares to a wf barb, its going to be less effective

[Taojeff]

high ac, high DR (non monks) and high hp comes at a cost of items which is going to limit the number of guard items you have on. this reduces the effectiveness of such a build

take a dex monk for example, highest ac is reached by:
1. raiment
2. armor bracers
3. dex item
4. chattering ring
5. con item (you will still need your hp)

looking at guard items, so far there is none that i know that is in the trinket slot. so out of 11 slots 5 are used. if your other requirement is hp, this can potentially go up by another 2 more slots. what happens to the dps gear (str, tharnes, etc)

without str and intimidate, how can you draw mobs to hit you? yeah you could probably lower the ac by a couple using DT robes to elevate the problem but again, there is a lot of fitting to do. this compares to a wf barb, its going to be less effective

not a problem since there will be craftable rings in the next mod, wait and see what all the raid loot is, I think you will see the possiblities open up

[Depravity]

high ac, high DR (non monks) and high hp comes at a cost of items which is going to limit the number of guard items you have on. this reduces the effectiveness of such a build

take a dex monk for example, highest ac is reached by:
1. raiment
2. armor bracers
3. dex item
4. chattering ring
5. con item (you will still need your hp)

looking at guard items, so far there is none that i know that is in the trinket slot. so out of 11 slots 5 are used. if your other requirement is hp, this can potentially go up by another 2 more slots. what happens to the dps gear (str, tharnes, etc)

without str and intimidate, how can you draw mobs to hit you? yeah you could probably lower the ac by a couple using DT robes to elevate the problem but again, there is a lot of fitting to do. this compares to a wf barb, its going to be less effective

One of the things I like about WF is the flexibility on a DT docent/chaosgarde - 1 less AC than the standard fleshy in cloth build, and the docent can have a guard as well as protection 5 on it.

Yeah, I'm quite aware that I'm going to have to make sacrifices somewhere to pull something like this off. I'm also not sure it's worth the shroud grindiness for the guard items, since sacrificing one slot could conceivably add 4 guard effects - 1 basic at each tier, plus a tier 3 bonus.

One thing for holding aggro is the *unconfirmed* observations that guard effects cause hate. On a siberys defender/wf build in full stance, that's something like 225% hate from guards, in addition to whatever I'm doing with weaponry. Really just spitballing at this point, until i see what mod 9 gear holds in store.

[Garth_of_Sarlona]

I see no reason why hate enhancements and/or items wouldn't apply to damage dealt from guards. In the last 'ask the devs' they said that hate management abilities applied to all attacks, and looking in my combat log it always shows guard effects as being 'mine' - i.e. 'You hit Flesh Render for 60 points of damage' (example of salt guard proc). Some of the builds based on high ac, high dr, grazing hits, lots of guards, lots of hate generation, sound quite interesting.

Garth

[RATRACE931]

I can say from ffirst hand experiance that Guards build aggro ALOT of it, Kept aggro from the named flesh render on the way to hound without ever swinging once on my barb, so this idea seems a sound on to me.

[Blind_Skwerl]

I have seen guard effects take aggro, too. Just how to build and equip for it... hmm. ;)

[Aranticus]

not a problem since there will be craftable rings in the next mod, wait and see what all the raid loot is, I think you will see the possiblities open up

many players will also reserve 2 slots for the prestige items which again imposes a limit on gear