New two player team

[wax_on_wax_off]

So I've just started playing ddo and my girlfriend is going to play with me when she is over in London so I have a couple of q.'s

Can she access the f2p USA ddo servers from London and what ping might she get?

Does anyone have suggestions for what classes the two of us could play to get past most of the quests with full favour with just the two of us and sometimes normal hirelings?

constraints:
f2p accounts, I may have drow/32 point builds unlocked by then but 1 of the characters will probably be 28 point so can't be a build with a high stat spread.

Don't consider inexperience a constraint but make notes as to relevant difficulty for a first time player

[Guildmaster_Kadish]

I would suggest: Warforged arcane (Wizard or Sorceror, that is) + Warforged melee (Whatever type). You get healing, nuking, and melee dps. Neither is a complicated character to build.

[wax_on_wax_off]

I would suggest: Warforged arcane (Wizard or Sorceror, that is) + Warforged melee (Whatever type). You get healing, nuking, and melee dps. Neither is a complicated character to build.


thanks for the reply but you seemed to miss the f2p prereq. I'd love to play a WF down the track if i get into the game enough to want to spend a little dough or earn enough TP through playing, same goes for the girlfriend but am looking for a race/class combo that will be easily accessible on a f2p account.

As far as classes go ive sort of thought the same thing regards melee + spell but what about healing and trap skills?

I'd sort of thought possible combo might be a rogue and a wizard and then use cleric and fighter hirelings if need be but a dragonmarked halfling rogue/fighter might be able to tank a bit as well until higher levels? Other option is a wizard with a splash in rogue to keep open lock/disable/search/spot maxed - i think spot will be important because i don't know the quests being a first timer haha. Same could work with a cleric splashed with fighter or some such.

[wax_on_wax_off]

should i move this to a build thread?

[Shishizaru]

thanks for the reply but you seemed to miss the f2p prereq. I'd love to play a WF down the track if i get into the game enough to want to spend a little dough or earn enough TP through playing, same goes for the girlfriend but am looking for a race/class combo that will be easily accessible on a f2p account.

As far as classes go ive sort of thought the same thing regards melee + spell but what about healing and trap skills?

I'd sort of thought possible combo might be a rogue and a wizard and then use cleric and fighter hirelings if need be but a dragonmarked halfling rogue/fighter might be able to tank a bit as well until higher levels? Other option is a wizard with a splash in rogue to keep open lock/disable/search/spot maxed - i think spot will be important because i don't know the quests being a first timer haha. Same could work with a cleric splashed with fighter or some such.

Ranger/Rogue and Bard/Rogue (both rogue splashes) can keep up the trap skills well. Ranger/Rogue can also dish out nice DPS and has access to limited self-healing. Bard's are also able to heal decently, although it'll be a little rougher then trying to heal with something like a cleric.

Apart from that, I'm not really familiar with any of the cleric and fighter multi-classes, as I've never really partaken in those myself. I believe it is wholly possible to make a melee-oriented cleric, but I don't know specifics and what not.

As far as connectivity, your GF shouldn't have a problem accessing the US servers unless her connection is utterly terrible. I can't speak for her ping though (and that would also depend partially on her connection).

[Psyker]

Go with a Fighter or Barbarian, and a Wiz/Rogue multi class, warforged would have been great but any class will work fine, just use a hireling for healing until the Wiz/Rogue gets a high enough UMD to heal with scrolls, even then you can still use a hireling. I would use a Dwarf for the Barbarian (lots of STR lots of CON, remember A/C will not help for very long) and a Human or Drow for the Wiz/Rogue.

A couple guidelines for your Wiz/Rogue. First it should end up 18/2 level split Wizard/Rogue, take first rogue at level 1, do not take your 2nd level of Rogue until you get firewall. When leveling up as a wizard it will cost 2 skill points per level to max search, disable device, UMD and 1 for concentrate, those are all must haves extra skill points can be used for spot or balance, or whatever else you may want.

Have fun!

Edit-if you don't have spot high enough you arent going to know where the traps are unless you have ran that adventure before or if you trap goes off, on normal the trap will not be deadly so just run new places on normal and you should be ok, also no need to get open lock higher than maxing on first level of rogue you can still open most everything just takes a few times to try.

[Jasimine]

The answer to this question lies greatly with how much time you will see playing these two together. Also, will you ever pick up outsiders into your duo?

Lets assume you are going to play all the way to cap as a duo. It's rough I am sure, but I am equally sure it can be done.

Lets also assume you will be keeping it strictly a duo and never taking outsiders into your group.

So lets look at the list of things you will need to beable to do between the two of you.

1. Handle Traps
2. Healing
3. Buffing
4. Crowd Control
5. DPS

Well, only rogues can handle traps, so atleast one of you is going to be a rogue splash atleast.

Healing is mainly the purvue of clerics, but bards can do well as well (not counting FvS since your F2P). So one of you one of these two classes.

Crowd Control can be handled in several ways. Bards, wizards, sorcerers, and cleric can do it via magic. Fighters via trip, stunning blow. DPS is generally considered melee damage, but can be spell as well, tho spell based DPS is limited on your spell point pool.

My personal suggestion, since you are both going to be together is either...

2 rogues with a 2 level splash of any of the four classes that have full BAB (Fighter, Barb, Paladin, Ranger). You would use hirelings until you can both do healing via scrolls and would work in tandem in combat. Attack the same creature and one of you is going to get sneak attack.

Wiz 18/Rog 2 with a Cleric 18/Fighter 2. Cleric acts as melee DPS and healer, Wizard as Spell DPS and trapper. higher levels would see the cleric doing more casting than melee so make sure you pump wisdom and not strength.

Bard 15/Fighter3/Rog2 (Suggest drow unless 32 point build) and Tempest Ranger. Both have self healing, tho the bard has a bit more of it, can hang in combat, have evasion, and one can do traps.

Personally I would go with the 2 rogues option. Reason being, you won't be doing raids 2 manning it anytime soon. So that means you won't be making raise dead clickies. So scroll raising, unless you are both clerics or one is a paladin the other a cleric or both pallies, is the most obvious thing to beable to do. Rogues natual UMD will allow for this sooner rather than later so if something does go pear shaped you won't have to scrub the quest because one person is down and the other cannot raise.

If you go with something else having both of you have atleast 1 rogue level for UMD at 1st level and keeping it maxed, unless one of you is a cleric, is a very good idea simply for raising.

[Baloran]

I'm living in Germany and play on the US Servers as well, up to now, I didn't have much problems (sometimes the game is laggy, but then usually for everyone in the party, not just for the european players).

I duo a lot with RL friends of mine, the combinations which worked nicely for us so far where:

pure Paladin or Fighter (dwarf or human) (I would prefer Paladin, but it Fighter is easier to build and play)

&

Rogue/Cleric (has to be human)


another combo which is working good for us is

Rogue/Ranger (dwarf or human)

&

wizard (any race which doesn't get -2 con is fine)

with a cleric hireling


But there are tons of working combos out there, important is that each of you play a character you want to play. In my experience, both characters should be able to melee, so a minimum str of 14 and a con of 14 (just 12 build points together) is recommended for every build. Throw in bull strength (+4 str) and even the wizard can do some nice fighting.

But in the end, I just would recommend: Play what you want to play. If its not the best combination ever, who cares? Just stick with normal difficulty and get a hireling if needed.

Have fun together!

[gregUK]

I can say that the game runs fine from the UK on US servers, having just joined.

I have less issues playing DDO on US servers than i do playing LOTRO on euro ones!!!