What raids do you run after Shroud?

[AZgreentea]

Now that I have actually reached some of the end game stuff on my first capped character, I realized I dont know where to go next. I figured I should run a few raids and get better geared before I attempt Epics. I still have some work to do in the Shroud and I still need a few pieces of +stat gear, but what raids should I be getting myself ready for? Is there a sort of order of increasing difficulty for raids?

The only Raids I have run are Chrono, Temptest, VoN, and the Shroud. I have not run those more than a handful of times total, and Chrono is the only one I have run more than once successfully (over level). My capped is a lvl 20, 32 point STR based pure assassin rogue. I dont have any other characters past lvl 8, so I have nothing very special in the way of gear (working on green steel) and I could probably use some twink gear for my alts.

[dynahawk]

Vision of Destruction has some rogue gear. When I capped my first character I progressed from Shroud into Amarath and did the flagging quests for Tower of Despair, then eventually ran ToD.

I found out a lot about my character flagging for ToD.

[Shamurai]

I enjoy Reaver's Fate and Hound as well. I really don't like Abbot mostly cuz no matter what PuG I join it fail (probably cuz of the word PuG).

[redspecter23]

While it's not really a raid, you could get some great gear from challenges before moving on. As a rogue you could benefit greatly from an upgraded ring of the stalker, frozen tunic and possibly bracers of wind. The shortswords and rapiers also have some good uses if you're looking for non-greensteel weapons. I'd say that's a great stepping stone to get you ready for other raids or epics and the gear is better and more easily acquired than many of the other epic/raid gear you'll be looking for.

For your next raids, I'd look at VoD, Hound and Tod. After that you could look to get in some of the harder ones like LoB, EV6 or EDQ and Echrono, but your HP could be a limiting factor there. Building up to over 500 hp if possible will help you get into epic groups easier.

[wax_on_wax_off]

While it's not really a raid, you could get some great gear from challenges before moving on. As a rogue you could benefit greatly from an upgraded ring of the stalker, frozen tunic and possibly bracers of wind. The shortswords and rapiers also have some good uses if you're looking for non-greensteel weapons. I'd say that's a great stepping stone to get you ready for other raids or epics and the gear is better and more easily acquired than many of the other epic/raid gear you'll be looking for.

For your next raids, I'd look at VoD, Hound and Tod. After that you could look to get in some of the harder ones like LoB, EV6 or EDQ and Echrono, but your HP could be a limiting factor there. Building up to over 500 hp if possible will help you get into epic groups easier.

500 HP isn't practical on a rogue; when I've finished my gear with multiple epic items per slot I'll scrape into 500 for when I want to run epic LoB. For the hardest epic content 450 is fine on a rogue. For most stuff 400+ is fine.

Challenges are rough on a rogue, either look out for pug groups and tag along or level up an alt with challenges in mind (self healing fleshy sorcerer worked well for me).

I'd suggest to flag for every raid and try them once, at the very least you'll have fun and learn about the game.

[Bunker]

.....another Shroud

[redspecter23]

500 HP isn't practical on a rogue; when I've finished my gear with multiple epic items per slot I'll scrape into 500 for when I want to run epic LoB. For the hardest epic content 450 is fine on a rogue. For most stuff 400+ is fine.

Challenges are rough on a rogue, either look out for pug groups and tag along or level up an alt with challenges in mind (self healing fleshy sorcerer worked well for me).

I'd suggest to flag for every raid and try them once, at the very least you'll have fun and learn about the game.

I should have added into my post that 500 hp is more of a top tier goal for a rogue. It's certainly not easy, but the closer you get to it, the better off you are. I don't personally expect rogues in my parties to have 500 hp. 450 is a much more reasonable goal.

As for the challenges, Lava Caves has great solo potential once you know it. You can run the whole 5 minute quest and kill maybe 4 or 5 mobs at most. Rushmore is also a great solo quest, though the ingredient return is absolute crud.

I'll echo the suggestion to try each raid at least once. Then make yourself a gear checklist and run the raids that give you a shot at the gear you want. I think you'll find yourself in VoD for a while until you get those goggles. ;)

[Thebeest]

for a rogue, house c quests and challenges can produce some nice gear. The tinkerer's gloves/goggles from house c quests and spare hand from challenges.

[AZgreentea]

.....another Shroud
lol, My rogue has a lot of those in her future. With no green steel crafted at all, and a raid group worth of alts, she will probably be running one every time she is off flag (when I have time). At least until my cleric/FvS gets into Shroud range, and I can start practicing my raid healing.

Thank you for all the advice. Even though she is capped, I have run very little content past the Shroud. She got capped while running for FvS favor. I might spend more time in the lvl 16-19 content while I wait for my Shroud flag and maybe run some subter/amrath, and other raids as the PUG's pop up. Probably work on unlocking Artificer while I am at it. I dont think I am ready for the Cannith Raids, however. I do want the Tinkers goggles for my +6 INT item, but I have trash +5 ones that are good enough for now. I managed to grab the gloves on my first run on Casual, so I am pretty sure my loot luck in those quests is permanently shot. :D

With my green steel HP item I will be looking at about 345 HP. That is with some +2 tomes, and all the HP gear I can easily find (like Minos). It will go a little higher when I upgrade from a +2 to +6 con item and from lesser to greater FL. I think when she is all done and ready to TR the first time I will be just clearing 400 HP.

[jydog100]

shroud, hound, vod...then more of the same. get geared up then move on to tod then epics

less then 300 hp at level 20 with heavy fort is doable but will be difficult to contribute much in tod/epic raids

look me up on one of my bards listed in my sig. i should have a gfl belt and a +6 con item in can give to you

[Cyr]

VoD (for tharne's goggles), challenges (lots of nice stuff in those), Epic quests (there are plenty that you will probably do just fine in...heck most of them), and epic chrono. Those are my top suggestions.

Specifics on epic quests...

Sentinals, Fens, and House P all are fairly forgiving. Sentinals have Midinights greetings which adds to your assassinate DC's making it a great piece of gear for your build. House P has Garos's Malic and Kronzek's Cruelty. I would recommend the second as it is a good dps weapon with improved destruction which helps everyone and you in particular as a rogue.

Chrono is tougher, but one that I highly recommend for it's gear cloak, gloves, and probably helm for a build like yours (maybe bracers for helm /shrug).

Challenges have epic manstalker ring which is uber for a rogue, particular one who is going to be running sentinal epics. Frozen Tunic is awesome CC armor. Blasting Chime makes your rogue no longer a gimp versus constructs. Lots of cool stuff in there for a rogue beyond that also...

ToD would be up there too so you can get +2 exceptional con on a ring and extra dps from a set like ravager or shintao.

Oh and make sure you get your madstone boots (from reaver) and yugo pots (yugoloth favor vendor reward).

The GLF and +6 con are must for a rogue doing endgame content. Just get them ASAP.

The hp based items should be the priority. Those allow you to run the higher end stuff. That tiny bit extra dc you might sneak out on an assassinate or the tiny bit more dps you squeeze out is great, but the hp are the key to running stuff reliably. So ToD (exceptional con upgrade), GFL, +6 con (or +7 from echrono cloak), yugo pots, madstone boots, and large guild slot hp augment (would require crafting high enough to put whatever you need in that slot) all can add upto respectable HP totals.

[ThePrincipal]

300hp is the new 500hp. If you need 500hp to play end game youre doing it wrong.

[Shamurai]

...

Challenges have epic manstalker



I think I dated her... ooooh you said RING!! my bad

[countfitz]

Now that I have actually reached some of the end game stuff on my first capped character, I realized I dont know where to go next. I figured I should run a few raids and get better geared before I attempt Epics. I still have some work to do in the Shroud and I still need a few pieces of +stat gear, but what raids should I be getting myself ready for? Is there a sort of order of increasing difficulty for raids?

The only Raids I have run are Chrono, Temptest, VoN, and the Shroud. I have not run those more than a handful of times total, and Chrono is the only one I have run more than once successfully (over level). My capped is a lvl 20, 32 point STR based pure assassin rogue. I dont have any other characters past lvl 8, so I have nothing very special in the way of gear (working on green steel) and I could probably use some twink gear for my alts.

Honestly, IMO, I would rather see you do a few epics and get epic gear before you join any of the end game raids.

Specifically, House D and House P epics. More specifically, eBargain of Blood, eThe Tide Turns, ePartycrashers, and eBig Top. Even more specifically, for these items: epic Phiarlan spy dagger and/or epic Midnight Greetings, and whatever else happens to fall into place for you.

The reason? Because these quests are FAR easier than the high level raids, especially since most are currently being run on hard or elite as of late.

EDIT: Also, ESPECIALLY the epic midnight greetings, is FAR easier to obtain. In a raid you're gonna be lucky to get anything you need/want in your 20th list. That means 2 months.

Epics have 1 day timers. That means you can run both chains each day. That's about 5 hours of gameplay a day, then repeat. You SHOULD have all your stuff in less than a month PLUS a few cool items on top of that just for fun, and enough epic tokens to fill up your red slots.

Even further, with raids, you're gonna want 1, maybe two items, that will probably be fought over in raids (everyone will roll on them) and the extra stuff is mostly junk. House D epics have EIGHT epic items, with about a 1/3rd drop rate in shards and seals, and the scrolls, if you don't get lucky, cost about 500k on the AH tops (unlike some other scrolls that can go for 2million). If you are smart, group with 6 players all looking for different things, and most people will pass what you want (as long as you do the same for them) and you'll have your items in a week in a decent daily guild run. Of course, that requires a cool guild, don't know your situation.

Second Edit: A couple posts above it was mentioned House P has 2 other items you might want (personally, eh, but I'd already made my radiant II green steel, so if you don't have radiant II on green steel, it might be easier to get Garo's Malice from House P). The point is, these quest have LOTS of good stuff that, while maybe not optimal (Midnight Greetings is optimal) is still GREAT, and far easier to get than raid loot and IMO better too.

[redspecter23]

300hp is the new 500hp. If you need 500hp to play end game youre doing it wrong.

Epic Lord of Blades munches on 300 hp for breakfast, then takes a 2 minute break before he does it again. In all fairness, 300 hp will get you very far in this game. There is plenty of endgame content where you can get by with 300, but when it gets to the point where you can be one shotted, then you have to get a bit higher. It all depends what any particular player has in mind for endgame I suppose.

[sirgog]

I'd definitely go for the House P and Sentinels epics. There's a bunch of solid but unspectacular items (many of which will be upgrades for you), and these are considerably easier than the name 'Epic' might make you expect.

Most of the tougher raids are still pretty accessible on Normal, with the notable exception of Lord of Blades and Tower of Despair.

The epics to avoid at first (as these are pretty tough):

- All of the Desert ones
- VON3, VON4, VON6 (VON6 isn't hard but is extremely unforgiving of low hitpoints, and rouges are in a bad place there)
- Spies in the House
- Into the Deep
- Chronoscope, Devil Assault
- Lord of Blades, Master Artificer
- (U13 content) Servants of the Overlord, Spinner of Shadows.

Servants of the Overlord is the only 6-person Epic that I'd expect to absolutely crush you if you are new to Epics.

[Uma-Quixote]

Hse P epic utility vest might be of use to you too.
The one you REALLY want though, is the return of the crystal cove...epic spyglass is fabulous..particulary for an assasin build (+2 excep int, +20 spot and search). These 2 items used together, with maybe a midnight greetings, makes the basis for a very happy end-game assassin.
I had a capped toon for over 6 months before I dared to try epics...Now I run them everyday, and nothing has changed really apart from my mindset.
The secret is knowing which ones to run and with whom.
Check out these - they are excellent.
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=345592

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=332010&highlight=epic+newbie

[grayham]

Just adding to the other voices- run epics! They're good fun, they can improve your overall trading position thanks to scroll drops, and the gear for rogues is nice as mentioned.

[tasslehofff]

500 hp on a rogue is not that hard mine has 561 walking around

[AZgreentea]

I'm not going anywhere near epics until I have my GS HP item. I feel as I currently stand I am just too under geared for them. After two Shrouds I seem to be moving along nicely, and I am learning more about where and when certain ingredients drop. For example, I just realized last night that the blank ingredients only drop in the flagging quests and as end rewards for the raid.

I might try running some things like the Reign of Madness, Reavers Refuge for Dragon Touched armor, Cannith Challenges, and maybe stick my head into the inspired quarter while I work on my HP item. Then while I work on my RAD II rapier I can try out some epics, raids on normal, and maybe Amrath.

[sirgog]

I'm not going anywhere near epics until I have my GS HP item. I feel as I currently stand I am just too under geared for them. After two Shrouds I seem to be moving along nicely, and I am learning more about where and when certain ingredients drop. For example, I just realized last night that the blank ingredients only drop in the flagging quests and as end rewards for the raid.

I might try running some things like the Reign of Madness, Reavers Refuge for Dragon Touched armor, Cannith Challenges, and maybe stick my head into the inspired quarter while I work on my HP item. Then while I work on my RAD II rapier I can try out some epics, raids on normal, and maybe Amrath.

You overstate how tough Epics are.

The Reaver's Refuge on Elite is significantly harder than a good 75% of 6-person Epic content.

Give Epic Snitch a go (or in the spirit of U13, Epic Lords of Dust) - look for a PUG for it, and send a /tell that you are new to Epics. Most people will have no problem with that and both quests are pretty forgiving of low to medium HP toons.

If you die a few times - no big deal.

[karnokvolrath]

All the raids can provide valuable items, just go to ddd.wiki.com and find the items that help your character the most and set out for them.

[Schwarzie]

You overstate how tough Epics are.

The Reaver's Refuge on Elite is significantly harder than a good 75% of 6-person Epic content.I can only sign this statement. Most epics are easyer and more forgiving then Endgame Raids. Especially Abott is currently brutal compared to any epics in the game.
If you already run Shroud you also can run VoDs and Hounds to get some more or less Basic Equipment.

[Perspicacity]

Easiest way to get end game worthy stuff is from Chrystal Cove. It's an event that comes around once or twice a year (should be commin back real soon). It has allot of really nice rogue gear. If you can't wait there's some decent rogue stuff in Vault of night and they will surly have use of a rogue in part 5. Farming Tor for black scales to make dragon scale leather armor isn't a bad idea; Also, check the new quest chain, its got a few tasty rogue items. TOD is tough but it has a ring set for every PrE of every class accept for artificer, Most of which are pretty nice (The bard stuff needs work). I wouldn't suggest going in there unprepared though, make sure to have good fire and ice resistance when you do and FOLLOW DIRECTIONS. Regardless of what you might hear TOD really stands for Totaly Obliterates Dumbasses. Wipes are common unless the group works together.

[bhgiant]

I might try running some things like the Reign of Madness, Reavers Refuge for Dragon Touched armor, Cannith Challenges, and maybe stick my head into the inspired quarter while I work on my HP item. Then while I work on my RAD II rapier I can try out some epics, raids on normal, and maybe Amrath.
You might consider getting the Tinker set from House C Manufactury instead of running VoD. MUCH easier to get than Tharnes Goggles. Ran Vod for two months to get Tharnes Goggles. Took 2 weeks to get the Tinker set (darn goggles...). I equip Tinker full time to improve my Assassinate DC.

[AZgreentea]

You overstate how tough Epics are.

The Reaver's Refuge on Elite is significantly harder than a good 75% of 6-person Epic content.

Give Epic Snitch a go (or in the spirit of U13, Epic Lords of Dust) - look for a PUG for it, and send a /tell that you are new to Epics. Most people will have no problem with that and both quests are pretty forgiving of low to medium HP toons.

If you die a few times - no big deal.
Very well, I accept you challenge. I ran the new quests with a hireling last night, so I feel confident I know what to expect from the quest itself. I havent been obliterated in a PUG in a few months, so maybe its time for some humble pie. :p

[ThePrincipal]

Skip shroud, spend more time on the rest of the game