unraveling enchantments?

[sk3l3t0r]

Ok, so being new to the game and still keeping up with the learning curve I managed to buy something on the AH, and then did the quests to get the rest of the ingredients to do my first upgrade.

I bought a "Tarnished Deneith Heavy Chain" for 5k then did the Sentinenls of Stormreach story arc. Got my 3 sigils and then updated my armor to Deneith Heavy Chain. Took a few hours, I had to repeat The Tide Turns 3 times, but I completed the other quests rather easy (all on Nornal of course, Im a solo / casual player).

SO now I am trying to find out what I need to do to upgrade this to epic version and what to expect in terms of time to complete? I imagine I need to unlock epic for this story arc and collect some more items?

I have a feeling I got really lucky getting my three sigils in about 3-4 hours of on and off play time. I would imagine upgrading to epic might take a bit longer.

All help / info is appreciated. Sorry for the silly questions, but I haven't been playing very long.

[Infant]

Ok, so being new to the game and still keeping up with the learning curve I managed to buy something on the AH, and then did the quests to get the rest of the ingredients to do my first upgrade.

I bought a "Tarnished Deneith Heavy Chain" for 5k then did the Sentinenls of Stormreach story arc. Got my 3 sigils and then updated my armor to Deneith Heavy Chain. Took a few hours, I had to repeat The Tide Turns 3 times, but I completed the other quests rather easy (all on Nornal of course, Im a solo / casual player).

SO now I am trying to find out what I need to do to upgrade this to epic version and what to expect in terms of time to complete? I imagine I need to unlock epic for this story arc and collect some more items?

I have a feeling I got really lucky getting my three sigils in about 3-4 hours of on and off play time. I would imagine upgrading to epic might take a bit longer.

All help / info is appreciated. Sorry for the silly questions, but I haven't been playing very long.

To upgrade any item to epic, you have to play corresponding quest(s) on epic difficulty, which requires you to be lvl 20. You have to farm the epic version of the quest for the Scroll of the Item (unbound, drops randomly from killing mobs), the Seal of the item and the Shard of the item (both BtA, drop in chests).

Most probably, this will take you longer than 3-4 hours of on and off gaming. Not to discourage you, but for some items it might take you 3-4 months (years?) of casual gameplay:

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=359760

Fortunately, this is not something one have to worry about to do raids and epics. You can participate in all content on (almost) all difficulties without having a single piece of epic gear.

Infant

[Zarquine]

Yes, it will take a little bit longer to make the armor Epic...

First you have to level your character up to level 20.

Then you have to run the quest or the questline (not sure, see below) at Epic difficulty level.

You need the right Epic Shard, Seal and Scroll for the armor and then you can epicify the armor.

I am not sure in which quests of the questline the needed ingrediants drop, though.

[sk3l3t0r]

ah ok so unlocking epic content requires you to be lvl 20...I'm not worried about the time it takes, I get a few hours in every now and again on weekends. I have lots of content to get through before I am even close to level 20 lol, no worries I will just park this think in my bank and dust it off sometime down the road.

[Sarisa]

I am not sure in which quests of the questline the needed ingrediants drop, though.

Shard drops in Tide Turns, at poor drop rates.
Seal drops in Bargain of Blood at moderate drop rates, Black Loch at poor drop rates (or if it's still bugged, not at all), and Spies in the House at moderate drop rates. Spies in the House is quite difficult. Storm the Beaches does not have epic capability.
Scrolls drop from any epic mob kill at low rates, but are unbound so you can trade or buy them.

Tide Turns and Bargain of Blood are good "starter" epics, and not too difficult to run in a decent group. They are PUG'ed fairly often on most servers, so you can eventually get your parts. You will not be able to solo these until you have a great deal of experience with the game.

If you're a Fighter or Barbarian, the Epic Deneith Heavy Chain is quite a good item, especially if you use Improved Trip.

[sk3l3t0r]

I got the chain because I am curently a level 8 cleric thinking it might come in handy, I am sitting on my xp for 9, I have a ton of lower level quests I haven't done yet....an btw is it normal that your level goes up faster than the quests you are doing? I have dozens of level 6-7 quests I havent' done yet and I am already level 9 (well level 8 with xp for 9, just haven't leveled yet)

I did go back and do most of my quests from 1-4 on Epic solo (with a hireling) mind you, but would that impact my xp so much as to level me faster then the progression of the quests lines?

[somenewnoob]

Here's a link that will help understand the 8675 different crafting systems they have:

http://ddowiki.com/page/Crafting

Some pretty good stuff in there. I use it a lot because we have so many different types I'm not sure that ANYBODY can remember all of them!

[Sarisa]

I got the chain because I am curently a level 8 cleric thinking it might come in handy, I am sitting on my xp for 9, I have a ton of lower level quests I haven't done yet....an btw is it normal that your level goes up faster than the quests you are doing? I have dozens of level 6-7 quests I havent' done yet and I am already level 9 (well level 8 with xp for 9, just haven't leveled yet)

I did go back and do most of my quests from 1-4 on Epic solo (with a hireling) mind you, but would that impact my xp so much as to level me faster then the progression of the quests lines?

Experience will slow down a little as you get higher. There are a huge number of quests in the 2-9 level range. On a first life, you will have more to do than experience needed. Note that you don't have to level immediately upon reaching a level. You are able to "bank" experience for a little bit.

The number of quests available diminishes as you get higher, but the experience required per level jumps up a good bit. On a first life, if you have a large number of packs available (or are VIP), you're not going to have to do much repeating of quests until level 18 or 19.

[BladeTricks]

It is normal to level up faster. Turbine has been adding so many adventure packs over time that in order to get 1.9M XP, there are many quests you won't even do.

If you like the leveling process and want to try every quest in the game, you may then decide to roll additional characters or True Reincarnate (TR) your first character.

[sk3l3t0r]

Here's a link that will help understand the 8675 different crafting systems they have:

http://ddowiki.com/page/Crafting

Some pretty good stuff in there. I use it a lot because we have so many different types I'm not sure that ANYBODY can remember all of them!

Been through the wiki, crafting shards and stuff is pretty straight forward, i'm something like 17-14-16 in my levels right now...its' the other types of crafting that are not that straightforward. Lots of information, just not organised in a new learner friendly way. It's a great resource if you just need it as a reference, but not so good if you are looking for precises instructions on how to do things. I find even some of the quest walkthroughs to be written in a way that are not very helpful to a first time quester, but would be fine if you are just going through it as a refresher / reminder. Most of the time I just do the quest on my own, then read the quest guide on the wiki and then possibly re-do the quest on elite now that I did it at least once....sorry i got distracted there...back on topic...

This was my starting point and then tried to find information following links, but it's just not written in a very intuitive way. I guess I am use to much more detailed guides that I find for other MMOs, that my expctation was that I would find more detailed step by step intructions and not just a collection of information with no real linear explanation.

http://ddowiki.com/page/Visbane%27s_Folly

Thanks for the post, appreciate the help.

[sk3l3t0r]

It is normal to level up faster. Turbine has been adding so many adventure packs over time that in order to get 1.9M XP, there are many quests you won't even do.

If you like the leveling process and want to try every quest in the game, you may then decide to roll additional characters or True Reincarnate (TR) your first character.

I will eventually TR, i'm not one for accumulating gear or anything like that, and I am not a big group player. I'm a casual solo player that can get by just fine without joining a guild or anything like that..I will probably hit my level 20, buy that thing i need from the store, heart of wood or whatever it's called, and start over as a different class with a higher point build, ...I am still reading up on TR'ing...from what I understand you get past live feats and stuff. Seems very interesting and more the type of stuff I would be into instead of griding for gear with random players.

[Aeolwind]

I will eventually TR, i'm not one for accumulating gear or anything like that, and I am not a big group player. I'm a casual solo player that can get by just fine without joining a guild or anything like that..I will probably hit my level 20, buy that thing i need from the store, heart of wood or whatever it's called, and start over as a different class with a higher point build, ...I am still reading up on TR'ing...from what I understand you get past live feats and stuff. Seems very interesting and more the type of stuff I would be into instead of grinding for gear with random players.

Some stuff is definitely worth farming for it on a first life: The Shroud for Greensteel (Thirteenth Eclipse), Hound of Xoriat, Vision of Destruction & to a lesser extent Vault of Night. Greensteel is usable at a fairly low level and can make TR'ing really far more fun. Those raids are ran fairly frequently, complete quite often, and are good ways to meet some decent people and serious dirt bags. Most folks are happy to have new players along in most cases as it gives them a chance to show the right (or in some cases wrong lol) way to do stuff. Just make sure you let the group leader know and don't be offended if they turn you down.