Completely confused about items

[Justice2]

I have just started playing this game recently, and am currently at lv4. One thing that I am really a bit unsure about is pretty much the whole item system on this game. For example, how do you really judge if one item is better or more useful than another? The only things I have really been looking for are higher damage numbers/AC or for the prefix things that say they add extra damage. As for all of the other prefix/suffix/option stuff, I am really lost. However when I was looking on the auction house earlier for a better weapon, I noticed that things that looked much worse (to me) than what I was using were selling for 100k+ (ex. +1 Silver Greatsword), while items that seemed much better were only going for like 300 platinum (Ex. +3 Greatsword) *note that this is all for lv3 weapons. Also I noticed that alot of weapons appear to be completely useless compared to other ones to me (for example, why use a short sword that has 2-7 damage when a long sword has 2-9? or why use a great axe with 2-12 damage when the same greatsword has 3-13?) This makes me feel like I'm probably pretty clueless when it comes to how all of this stuff works so if anyone can explain it a bit it would be a big help!

Also on a completely unrelated note I had another question. I have been making my character using the guide at http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=329702, since I was told it is great for soloing and very noob-friendly. However it says that I should be able to self-heal myself, and I cannot yet (heck I don't even have any spell points yet lol)...I was wondering at what level that skill will be unlocked? Thanks!

[Arianrhod]

Unfortunately, to a large extent it's just going to take experience/familiarity with the game to get a feel for what's useful and what's not.

At low levels, for weapons and armor, the highest plus is what matters most - If you get lucky enough to get a +1 longsword of pure good, that will be better than a +2 longsword, but most of the special attributes (tendon slice, for instance) aren't worth giving up a plus for.

It's likely that the +1 item with the high price tag in the Auction House had a guild augment slot that made it valuable to crafters. Not an issue for a starting player since (as in most games) crafting is a pretty significant investment that you'll probably not get heavily involved in till later. Note that while such items may not be worth buying, they may well be worth selling - if you should happen to loot a minimum level 1 cloak with a large guild augment slot, you could likely make quite a bit of money putting it up for auction.

Beyond weapons and armor, useful item attributes to look out for include Fortification (protects you from sneak attacks and critical hits), Protection (adds to your armor class, only the highest counts, doesn't stack with Shield of Faith), Resistance (adds to your saving throws, only the highest counts), Proof Against Poison, Feather Falling (constant effect, as opposed to Feather Fall, a short-duration "clickie"), Underwater Action, and Deathblock. Also "Clickies" (items with a limited number of uses per rest) of Detect Secret Doors, Death Ward, Shield (protects against Magic Missile), and a variety of other handy spell effects. Just beware of filling up your inventory with too many of these, since you do want to save some space for consumables and loot ;)

[brian14]

I noticed that things that looked much worse (to me) than what I was using were selling for 100k+ (ex. +1 Silver Greatsword), while items that seemed much better were only going for like 300 platinum (Ex. +3 Greatsword) *note that this is all for lv3 weapons.
Almost certainly that Silver greatsword had a Large (or at least Medium) Guild Augmentation slot. If anyone bought it for 100K plat, they deconstructed it into blank Silver greatsword, then put Holy or Holy Burst, and either Lawful or Evil Outsider Bane functions onto it. Then they put some combat-enahncing Guild Crystal into the slot. Silver breaks devils' damage reduction, and at high levels you mostly fight devils, so silver weapons are highly sought for deconstruction.

I suggest visiting Crafting Hall in House Kundarak, and learning about crafting system. There is a warforged in the foyer with a chalice above his head; he will give you a mini-quest which is learning how to craft. (Of the rewards he offers I think you would be best to take pendant with 20 charges that allows you to run faster outside quests.) Do not try to craft anything yet -- you will quickly go broke. But this will give you idea why some people pay what they pay -- and you will know when you got something valuable even if it is not valuable to you.

[Shishizaru]

Also on a completely unrelated note I had another question. I have been making my character using the guide at http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=329702, since I was told it is great for soloing and very noob-friendly. However it says that I should be able to self-heal myself, and I cannot yet (heck I don't even have any spell points yet lol)...I was wondering at what level that skill will be unlocked? Thanks!

You can cast spells once you get your fourth level of Ranger (so level 7).

[FrozenNova]

Different weapon types affect:
Damage type (bludgeon, piercing, slashing) (which excludes or includes some weapon prefixes or suffixes), Critical profile, base damage.

Silver weapons: Significant, as silver weapons used in the crafting system can be given very powerful effects while retaining their silver quality. Weapons need to deal silver damage type to bypass the damage reduction of devil bosses. The rest of the effects besides silver mean nothing as they will be replaced during crafting.

Shortsword: does piercing damage - enhanced by drow enhancements and FvS line - can be used by ninja spies.
You're right, some weapons are definitively better than others at given fortification values (khopesh being head and shoulders above all else at 0% fort).

Critical profile is far more important than a weapon's base damage. 1d8 is only 1*crit profile average damage above 1d6 - while a keen khopesh's 17-20/x3 is far superior to a mace's 19-20/x2.

Yes, you should just be looking for weapons that deal the most damage throughout your career. Specialized weapons are nice but shouldn't make up the backbone of your arsenal.

Ranger healing: Rangers use spells to heal. They have three cure spells. Look at ddowiki's ranger page to look at the ranger spell slot progression. You will not have enough spellpoints to make use of spell-based healing for a long time.
However, because the spells are in the ranger spell list, you can use wands of said spells with no issue. Cure light wounds wands are fairly cheap and will last a fairly long time.

If you want to learn the basics of combat, I recommend my guides in my sig.

[jaegarnel]

I have just started playing this game recently, and am currently at lv4. One thing that I am really a bit unsure about is pretty much the whole item system on this game. For example, how do you really judge if one item is better or more useful than another? The only things I have really been looking for are higher damage numbers/AC or for the prefix things that say they add extra damage. As for all of the other prefix/suffix/option stuff, I am really lost. However when I was looking on the auction house earlier for a better weapon, I noticed that things that looked much worse (to me) than what I was using were selling for 100k+ (ex. +1 Silver Greatsword), while items that seemed much better were only going for like 300 platinum (Ex. +3 Greatsword) *note that this is all for lv3 weapons. Also I noticed that alot of weapons appear to be completely useless compared to other ones to me (for example, why use a short sword that has 2-7 damage when a long sword has 2-9? or why use a great axe with 2-12 damage when the same greatsword has 3-13?) This makes me feel like I'm probably pretty clueless when it comes to how all of this stuff works so if anyone can explain it a bit it would be a big help!

Also on a completely unrelated note I had another question. I have been making my character using the guide at http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=329702, since I was told it is great for soloing and very noob-friendly. However it says that I should be able to self-heal myself, and I cannot yet (heck I don't even have any spell points yet lol)...I was wondering at what level that skill will be unlocked? Thanks!

In your example, the silver greatsword was priced much higher because its silver material means fit can break the damage resistance (DR) of many high level monsters, and therefore it's very useful as a base for crafting. 100k for it is still overpriced though.

At low levels you don't need to worry about that, if you get a weapon made a a special material (adamantine, silver, cold iron or byeshk) just sell it on the AH for a lot, the money will be more helpful at low levels.

As for different weapon types, they're used for two reasons:
the first is if you don't have proficiency with the better one, for instance rogues get short sword proficiency but not longsword. They can still use longswords, but they take a -4 to-hit penalty with it, so it's not worth it.

the second reason is that some weapons (shortswords, daggers, light hammers, sickles, and maybe a few others) are considered "light" and give less to-hit penalty if they're used in the off-hand. So unless you have great to-hit or bonuses with a particular weapon type, you should always use a light weapon in your off-hand if you're dual-wielding, especially at low levels.

About weapons, the base damage die is actually not that important (a greatsword is 2d6 too, so 2-12, not very different from the 1-12 of the greataxe), the critical range and multiplier is much more important.
A greatsword has 19-20 x2 (it will crit on a 19 or a 20 for twice damage), a greataxe is 20 x3 (it will crit on a 20 for 3 times damage). Some people prefer GA because they can get huge crit numbers.

It doesn't matter much for you, just pick the weapon with the highest + and best magic properties you can find.


As a ranger, your character can use cure wands and eventually get enough UMD to use heal scroll and sp to use cure spells. That's what the build maker meant when he talked about self-healing.
You should try to go to the divine wand vendor in the market and buy a cure light or moderate wounds. That's actually cheaper than using pots, and also much faster.

[Club'in]

As a ranger, your character can use cure wands and eventually get enough UMD to use heal scroll and sp to use cure spells. That's what the build maker meant when he talked about self-healing.
You should try to go to the divine wand vendor in the market and buy a cure light or moderate wounds. That's actually cheaper than using pots, and also much faster.

This was what I was going to say. Glad I read the whole thread.

You're level 4, so you can use Cure Moderate wands, available from a vendor in the center of the Marketplace. At level 5, you'll be able to step up to Cure Serious wands, which are available in House P (the vendor's on the left side of the map).

Wands are cheaper than pots, but I usually carry both. If you're seriously damaged, you can alternate popping yourself with a wand and drinking a pot (while running and jumping for your life, Ranger Sprint Boost is awesome for that). Get's you back into fighting form that much quicker.

[dkyle]

Unlike a lot of MMOs, DDO is not really a game of ever increasing numbers. It isn't a game of clear gear "quality" measurements, either. Some gear has been in the game for 4 years, is ML9, and is still among the very best options for the slot. Most of the best weapons people have in the game came from a 3 year old Raid.

So there's no easy way to say "this item's numbers are better than this item's numbers". You really have to know the game to be able to judge gear, especially named gear that tends to have unusual bonuses on it.

But, in general, for random gear:

Acessories (e.g., helms, necklaces, belts, rings, etc.) are there for extra ability score bonuses (+1 through +6), extra HP (False Life items), and Fortification (Light, Medium, then Heavy). In general, you want the biggest bonus you can for each of those things, at as low ML as possible. Which means, seeking out items that have just the one bonus you want, and not any other thing to raise the ML. So a Strength +3 item is generally better than a Strength +3 and Jump +5 item.

Weapons are for damage. You want the most damaging enchantments you can find. Shock, Flaming, Frost, Acid, Holy, and the corresponding Burst versions, and Pure Good are the best ones available, in general. You can also get banes which apply to specific enemies, but they can be a pain to use until end-game where the main enemy types are rather limited. Enchantments like "Tendon Slice", "Vertigo" and "Deception" are generally not desirable, outside of rather niche uses.

Special metals on Weapons (Silver, Cold Iron, Adamantine) are for breaking DR, which matters more at high level. Thanks to crafting, even otherwise lousy weapon with special metals are worth something, since those worthless enchantments are stripped off and replaced during crafting.

Weapon type also varies the price greatly. Light Hammers are generally worthless, compared to Khopeshes and Greataxes. But weapons are more than just their base damage and crit-profile. Short sword is potentially useful, compared to Longsword, 1) because Rogues and Bards are proficient with them and not longswords 2) Short swords are "light", so when used off-handwith Two-weapon-fighting, give only a -2 penalty to attack rolls, instead of -4 a non-light off-hand weapon (like Rapier or Longsword). This consideration is more important at low level. At high level, the usual assumption is that you'll make sure your attack bonus is so high that the penalty doesn't matter.

[BruceTheHoon]

Weapons and armor in D&D have many properties that sometimes make one weapon just slightly different from another. I'll explain on the examples you've provided.

+1 silver greatsword vs +3 greatsword
The main difference here is the silver (http://ddowiki.com/page/Silver) property of the former. If you've read the description, this weapon can break damage rduction (http://ddowiki.com/page/Damage_Reduction) of devils and vampires. Because a good deal of end game content is fighting devils, such weapons are naturally desired by players who have higher level characters. Aditionally, sinc the introduction of cannith crafting (http://ddowiki.com/page/Cannith_Crafting), every such weapon can be transformed into specialized 'devil beater (http://compendium.ddo.com/wiki/Cookbook:Lightbringer)'. So auction house value is really the value of what this silver weapon can be instead of what it is.

Greatsword vs Greataxe
One important thing to consider with weapons is also their critical profile (http://ddowiki.com/page/Critical_hit_multiplier).
Full damage characteristics are:
1-12 damage, 20 / x3 critical profile for the Greataxe and
2-12 damage, 19-20 / x2 critical profile for the Greatsword
This means, that while the Greatsword might do slightly more damage on average, Greataxe deals more damage on critical hits (http://ddowiki.com/page/Critical_hit). On the other hand, Greatsword has twice the chance of scoring a critical hit. But, when various burst effects (http://ddowiki.com/page/Elemental_Burst) and fortification (http://ddowiki.com/page/Fortification) come into play, the picture might be completely different. By a rule of tumb, if the weapons' damage characteristics look similar, the damage output will probably be similar too. Differences are often in range of 5%. If you're interested in numbers, ask on the forums. people have been playing this game for more than 5 years and have all the numbers crunched to death.

Shortsword vs Longsword
The one advantage that a shortsword has over longsword is, that shortswords are light weapons (http://ddowiki.com/page/Light_weapon). This is important, when one is fighting with two weapons. When figting with two weapons, you suffer a to-hit penalty. This penalty is smaller, if the weapon in the off-hand (http://ddowiki.com/page/Off-hand) is a light weapon. So, if using a shortsword makes you hit 10% more, it might be a good tradeoff for that one point of damage advantage (on average), that a longsword has over a shortsword.


Most of what's better and what not comes down to mathematics.

[dunklezhan]

You may find the links in my sig useful though I'm not sure how well maintained the first two are (so they may be missing stuff now). Final link is still very useful for the question at the top of your thread.

[dkyle]

1-12 damage, 20 / x3 critical profile for the Greataxe and
2-13 damage, 19-20 / x2 critical profile for the Greatsword

Greatsword is actually 2d6, or 2-12 damage per hit. That's .5 expected damage over the Greataxe.


If you're interested in numbers, ask on the forums. people have been playing this game for more than 5 years and have all the numbers crunched to death.

Greatsword vs. Greataxe is pretty complicated, and yes, as you say, they're very close.

On paper, Greatsword is actually strictly better than Greataxe, vs all enemies, assuming the same weapon enchantments on both, in terms of expected damage per swing. DPS is complicated, though, as their animations differ, and which one swings faster, and by how much, varies with a lot of things.

For a new player, though, they're pretty much the same. One of the best twinking weapon is a named Greataxe, though: Carnifex, from the Delara's chain.

[morticianjohn]

Keep in mind that stat increasing items don't stack with each other. So if you have a bull's strength +1 ring and a bull's strength +1 belt you will still only be getting +1 strength.

[EllisDee37]

When evaluating weapon damage, the base damage is usually the least important part because the damage bonuses grow so high so quickly. Once you factor in damage bonus, the crit profile becomes all important.

The two assumptions most people make when comparing damage is that you hit on a 2 (1 is always a miss) and all criticals are confirmed to simplify the math.

Rolls 2-20 are a hit, which is 19 total hits. The crit multiplier means that on that hit damage is rolled "multiplier" times. So for both the falchion (x2) and greatsword (x2) the damage on a crit is rolled twice instead of once.

Greatsword: 19 hits + 19-20x2, so on two of the rolls you crit and therefore roll damage a second time.
19 basic rolls plus two extra for crits = 21 rolls.
Base damage = 7 (2d6) * 21 = 147
Then add in the damage bonus * 21

Falchion: 19 hits + three extra for crits (18-20x2) = 22 rolls
Base damage = 5 (2d4) * 22 = 110
Then add in the damage bonus * 22

We can see that the greatsword does 37 more base damage (147 - 110) then the falchion, but the falchion gets one extra (22 vs 21) extra rolls from the better crit signature. So if the damage bonus is higher than 37, the falchion will do more damage than the greatsword.

At level 9, most any melee will take Improved Critical: Slashing to double the crit range. That changes the numbers:

Greatsword: 19 hits + four extra for crits (17-20x2) = 23 rolls
Base damage = 7 (2d6) * 23 = 161
Then add in the damage bonus * 23

Falchion: 19 hits + six extra for crits (15-20x2) = 25 rolls
Base damage = 5 (2d4) * 25 = 125
Then add in the damage bonus * 25

The falchion now gets two extra damage rolls (25 vs 23) and is only 36 back. (161-125=36) So once it can make up that 36 damage in two rolls, it becomes the better weapon.

At level 9, with a strength of 20 (16 starting, +4 strength item or bull's strength clickie), a +5 weapon and power attack your damage bonus is +20 per swing. (5 from the strength modifier, 5 from the +5 weapon, 10 from power attack.) There are numerous other ways to improve your damage bonus -- 16 starting strength is the low end for a melee -- but even just these few basics has already made the falchion a better weapon:

Greatsword: 161 + (20*23) = 161 + 460 = 621
Falchion: 125 + (20*25) = 125 + 500 = 625

The reason critical hits loom so large in the game is because the damage bonus very quickly dwarfs the weapon base damage. A simple rule of thumb is to go with the better base damage until you get improved critical (or a keen weapon), and then switch to a weapon with a better crit profile.