EE Quests & a Tripping Iron Defender

[Fuitentooty]

I was talking about it with a guild member and she's trying to max out the trip DC for her dog with druid past lives and all of that good stuff. I plan to do some number crunching to see how high it can get and if it would be any good in EE.

Has anyone attempted to make the "ultimate" trip dog, and if this trip dog would be any good in low level EE content and high level EE content?

[Singular]

I've been curious if you could make the ultimate dog companion, and tripping is clearly the way to go. The only problem you're going to have is that the dog tends to go after only one target at a time, and it's dps won't be enough to kill most EE mobs. But, if you could make it heavily survivable (massive hp, healing, all the past lives possible, the artie and harper buffs to it), then I think it could be a very good distraction in EE, but at the expense of your own survivability and damage output.

Anyways, let us know how it goes!

[Thalone]

My tactics fighter is currently TRing, so I don't have the exact historical DCs. But I believe an Improved Trip DC of approximately 70 was working OK (say, 60-70% of two-legged enemies) in EE Gianthold.

So I guess the question is how high you can pump the puppy's STR. Bladesmark's Docent would be a given in the armour slot. For collars, I'm not so sure. You can also help prep the dog's trip by scrolling Waves of Exhaustion (spell pen check, but no resistance), which debuffs both STR and DEX by 6, therefore increasing the effective DC by 3.

[Fuitentooty]

So, I did some number crunching for the Iron Defender's Trip DC. It assumes a pure artificer, access to all the guild buffs, harper tree, and a collar that has at least two augments:

DC...Source...(Strength Modifier)
1.....Tactical Training Room
15....Epic Bladesmark Docent
6.....Homonculus Takedown
1.....Sellsword Tavern (2)
1.....Floating Rock Garden (2)
1.....Wild Grove (2)
12....Dog Base Strength at Level 20 (34) (calculated by (Str - 10)/2)
3.....3x Druid Past Lives (6)
2.....Augment Summoning (4)
2.....Homonculus Str I + II (4)
4.....Diamond of Strength (8)
2.....Magister Grand Summoner (4)
1.....Insightful Strength (2)
2.....Harper Leadership (4)

Total Trip DC (10 + modifiers) = 63

I don't know what the dog's base strength will be at lvl 28. Last time I played artificer there were no epic destinies.

I didn't look at temporary buffs, like rage spells. It doesn't seem practical to keep buffing the dog every 2-3 mins. Plus, I'm not really sure what's out there. I'd be willing to make a separate cruncher for temporary buffs.

So, from the looks of it, a lvl 20 artificer could have a trip dog with a DC of ~57 (downgrade the diamond of str +8 to +6, and remove insightful str +2, augment summoning, Magister Grand Summoner). That's roughly the DC of my fail barbarian and I can reliably trip EE drow wizards, clerics, and I think the fighters and archers. In EE Gianthold it ain't happening.

Thalone, thanks for the trip DC reference. Based off of that it seems the dog will have a hard time tripping mobs in the mid-high level EEs.

If anyone has any additions or modifications to my number crunching, please post! I'll edit this as I get new info.