Best Way to TR / ER and Epic Past Lives

[RistoffDervish]

Two questions:

1. I have been grinding lives toward completionist and got to thinking, am I doing it wrong? Would it be better to stop TRing at 20 and go from 1-28 and get an epic past life each time? I started thinking about it when someone mentioned in another post about Epics not resetting bb or first time bonus after ER. Does anyone have any advice on this?

2. I already have Colours of the Queen and Doublestrike Epic past life feats which I got a long time ago and are fun in heroic where I'm already insanely overpowered. I normally play dual khopesh melee or swashbuckler splash types although I am currently having fun with a mechanic arti mix. What other past life feats are recommended?

Thank You

[RistoffDervish]

On question 2 I meant to ask what other EPIC past life feats are recommended.

Thanks

[Krelar]

The non resetting bonuses can make doing more than a couple ERs in a row a bit slower, not undoable but it will depend on your tolerance. It would certainly be faster and probably break up the monotony a bit to do a couple ER's between each TR rather than trying to finish all of one then finish all of the other.


For other past lives.
Enchant weapon from the arcane sphere adds +1 to your weapon per stack (up to +3)

Get all of the divine ones just so you can have the extra 27PRR (3 per life stacks 9 times) Brace or power over life and death are probably the most useful depending on if you want more saves or a bit more positive energy for self healing.

[EllisDee37]

36PRR (3 per life stacks 9 times)9 * 3 = 27?

[Krelar]

9 * 3 = 27?

I don't know what you're talking about. :p

(Yeah I was adding in my PDK past lives without thinking about it or something

[Wulverine]

9 * 3 = 27?

I think he meant including the Iconic pastlives, which make it 36.


To OP: I'd recommend doing at least 1-2 ER's after each Heroic Life. It'll be easier and generally more fun (IMO)

[RistoffDervish]

Thank so much for the advice.

Is it worth it to pick up any more stacks of Colours of the Queen or Doublestrike or were those just poor choices on my part?

[Qezuzu]

Thank so much for the advice.

Is it worth it to pick up any more stacks of Colours of the Queen or Doublestrike or were those just poor choices on my part?

They're both the best things to take from their respective spheres (sans Doubleshot for ranged).

[Kylstrem]

More doublestrike is always better.

Eventually you will be heroic completionist and epic completionist and then have nothing to do except go for Triple completionist in everything.
Having +9% doublestrike, +3 to all weapons, and +3 to all saving throws at level 1 is pretty nice (and the three stacks of Colors means it goes off more often).

[RistoffDervish]

The non resetting bonuses can make doing more than a couple ERs in a row a bit slower, not undoable but it will depend on your tolerance. It would certainly be faster and probably break up the monotony a bit to do a couple ER's between each TR rather than trying to finish all of one then finish all of the other.


Thanks for this - this is exactly what I needed to know. My plan was to get heroic completionist and then move to epics but this was only based on my TR cache, lol. I have so much awesome gear at each level I almost have no place for it and I figured if I went too far into epics, I would accumulate more than I could keep. It will be fun to actually use the epic gear that I do have saved again though.

How much of a grind are heart seeds in today's game?

If I recall correctly, my first two epic past lives came from one free epic heart of wood and then I sent all the heart seed from any of my other ten toons that were epic to my main, Ristoff, to get his 2nd EHoW.

Also, would it be advisable to max out doublestrike / colors before grabbing other epic past life feats or mix it up and max out later?

[Krelar]

Thanks for this - this is exactly what I needed to know. My plan was to get heroic completionist and then move to epics but this was only based on my TR cache, lol. I have so much awesome gear at each level I almost have no place for it and I figured if I went too far into epics, I would accumulate more than I could keep. It will be fun to actually use the epic gear that I do have saved again though.

How much of a grind are heart seeds in today's game?

If I recall correctly, my first two epic past lives came from one free epic heart of wood and then I sent all the heart seed from any of my other ten toons that were epic to my main, Ristoff, to get his 2nd EHoW.

Also, would it be advisable to max out doublestrike / colors before grabbing other epic past life feats or mix it up and max out later?

I actually ground out epic completionist before going for heroic completionist. The epic past lives made heroic even easier. Alternating is probably better overall though it was quite a grind after the first few lives.

Once you are at cap you get 2 hearts seeds when you complete an epic quest that's not on ransack. (So you can run a quest once per day, unless it was your first time on that difficulty then you can do an additional run) Difficulty doesn't matter so you just need to zerg through 21 normal quests to get the heart seeds you need. I usually earned most of mine by the time I'd finished prepping my sagas for an ER. (In case you didn't know sagas persist through epic reincarnation so you can finish them in the previous life then turn them all in at the begining of the next life for a nice xp boost at the start.)

While you'll want them eventually I don't think it really matters that much what order you get the past lives in. If you enjoy running in those destinies then go for it, if you really don't like those destinies then you may want to alternate with an epic life from a destiny you enjoy more.

[EllisDee37]

How much of a grind are heart seeds in today's game?Trivially easy.

[hp1055cm]

Running in Epic levels helps break the monotony of heroics, plus it lets you run most explorer areas and quests with first time run bonus so you can level faster (as opposed to running back2back epic lives). You also gather tokens/fragments from any Eberon quests making farming them less tedious for heroic TR. Depending on the TR class you are running you can keep going through epics if you have a strong build, or just TR at 20 if it is a weak build or a class you probably won't enjoy in epics.
All 4 epic spheres have worthy PLFs so you will want to run ETR at least 3 times in each eventually. You only need to max them out for EE; heroics and EH you can get by pretty well with just a few TRs.

Storage can/does become a problem especially if you farm BTC gear in epics. You will probably have to add bank/inventory storage if you haven't done so already, and keep a few side toons as bank mules.

You can earn some commendations as you level in epics, but once you reach cap (currently 28) there will always be 2 seeds as an end reward for any epic quest run on normal or above (once per day). Yeah, no problem farming those.

[mikarddo]

Two questions:

1. I have been grinding lives toward completionist and got to thinking, am I doing it wrong? Would it be better to stop TRing at 20 and go from 1-28 and get an epic past life each time? I started thinking about it when someone mentioned in another post about Epics not resetting bb or first time bonus after ER. Does anyone have any advice on this?

2. I already have Colours of the Queen and Doublestrike Epic past life feats which I got a long time ago and are fun in heroic where I'm already insanely overpowered. I normally play dual khopesh melee or swashbuckler splash types although I am currently having fun with a mechanic arti mix. What other past life feats are recommended?

Thank You

For efficiency you should be mixing things up. TRing at level 20 would be very inefficient unless you simply hate the build.

For any life you want to consider running it as an iconic even its not completely optimal - and then do 1-2 epic past lives on the builds you like before you TR to the next build. That way you will "finish" heroic past lives, iconic past lives and epic past lives roughly at the same time and get the most out of bravery bonus, first time bonus, slayer xp and eveningstar challenge xp doing so.

Thats if you want efficiency. If you just want to have fun you should do whatever you feel like at the moment :)

[Fuitentooty]

Ever consider doing iconic reincarnations? You'd get the class past life + iconic past life, vs. just getting the class past life going from lvl 1-20.

I find it's easier going from 1-20, but it's faster going from 15-28. Also, if you wanted to, you can pick an iconic and go 15-28, then do an epic reincarnation with banked saga experience to boost you to lvl 22 or 23, and it won't be that long to hit 28 again. Then you iconic reincarnate.

Downsides though is that you might get sick of doing epic levels and you won't be getting as much favor/TP as if you started from lvl 1.

[Ghlitch]

The way my buddy and I completed our ETRs was in sets of three. We'd both pick classes that would benefit from the destiny spheres we wanted to complete, then we'd run through the same sphere three times without changing class.

First run we'd play through on EE, avoiding kills in wilderness areas and completing as many sagas as we could but not actually collecting them. Then we'd ETR once.

Second run through we'd first collect all those saga rewards, then complete quests on EH, again avoiding wilderness areas. We'd also save up the EH saga rewards. ETR the second time.

Third run, we'd collect the EH saga rewards and complete quests on whatever difficulty we wanted and we'd hit all those epic slayer areas we'd been saving. Once we hit 28, we would figure out which classes we wanted to play for the next sphere and ETR, then TR into the new classes. Got back up to 20, and started the cycle again.

Didn't take too long to knock them out this way, we got some variety, the destinies we were leveling worked with our classes, and it sure beats the XP train quests.

[nibel]

How much of a grind are heart seeds in today's game?

Very easy. Once you're at level cap (currently 28, soon 30) every epic quest you run in any difficulty other than casual for the first time each day will have 2 seeds on the reward list. If you had picked zero commendations of valor during your epic leveling, you then need 21 any quests to get a heart.

Also, seeds are BtA, so if you have an alt at level cap you can transfer the seeds around via Shared Bank.


1. I have been grinding lives toward completionist and got to thinking, am I doing it wrong? Would it be better to stop TRing at 20 and go from 1-28 and get an epic past life each time? I started thinking about it when someone mentioned in another post about Epics not resetting bb or first time bonus after ER. Does anyone have any advice on this?

My advice is to get one or two epic past lifes per TR. It helps you to break the monotony of running a string of pure ER (since you DO NOT vary your quests once you are at epic range). But be aware that I'm a player that have very little tolerance for repetition (eg, I split Tangleroot in two points during my leveling to avoid burnout), and thus, value more quest variance than the usual daily XP run of Von 3, Wiz-king, Two-toed, spies.


2. I already have Colours of the Queen and Doublestrike Epic past life feats which I got a long time ago and are fun in heroic where I'm already insanely overpowered. I normally play dual khopesh melee or swashbuckler splash types although I am currently having fun with a mechanic arti mix. What other past life feats are recommended?

My setup (in progress) is planned to be: Brace, Doublestrike/Skill, Enchant Weapon, and Fast Healing/Doubleshot. My final build is intended to be a crossbow wielder (probably rogue or artificer), but that is on the far future.

I'm not a big fan of Colors because on heroic I think they are overkill on heroics, and on epic they are too random to be reliable. Also, most procs scale with spellpower, and only hit really big numbers if you are playing a caster, and on that case, twisting double rainbow (or going full shiradi) is more constant procs.

Fast Healing is underrated a lot. I would vastly prefer them to reduce time between procs over improving the healing on each proc (http://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/456883), but the current implementation is still very useful for heroics, since if you add some decent damage mitigation (PRR, MRR, AC, Dodge, THP, etc) it is enough for you to stay healthy all the time without caring too much about it. On high epics the benefit is minimal, but if you are still farming heroic lives, it is a great EPL.

Doublestrike/Doubleshot are great, but are build-specific. If your current build don't benefit from them, literally anything else would be more beneficial. Have a backup EPL for when you are not building a melee/ranged character.

[RistoffDervish]

Thanks again for all the great advice. This is very helpful.

[Dragavon]

Thank so much for the advice.

Is it worth it to pick up any more stacks of Colours of the Queen or Doublestrike or were those just poor choices on my part?

You absolutly want epic completionist for the 4th twist slot. 3 X Brace from divine, 3 X Doublestrike from Martial, 3 X Colours from primal and 3 X enchant weapons from Arcane are all very much worth it.

[RistoffDervish]

You absolutly want epic completionist for the 4th twist slot. 3 X Brace from divine, 3 X Doublestrike from Martial, 3 X Colours from primal and 3 X enchant weapons from Arcane are all very much worth it.

Good to know. I just about have my arti/rogue mechanic to 20. In heroic, he is slaying - is it still viable in epics? 8 rogue - 12 arti is what I'm going for. Is there any reason to take 12 arti or should I get one more rogue level for sneak attack?

[slarden]

I find it quicker to do an iconic life from 15 - 28 than it is to do a heroic TR due to sagas, but if taking sags you will be short of coms. So if you have a decent inventory of seeds from raids and gear runs and if you find the iconic past lifes useful - I would suggest trying an iconic life for comparison purposes. It's basically 1 heroic + 1 iconic past life feat for roughly the same time investment as a heroic TR. The PDK past life is useful for any build (3 PRR per stack). The shadar-kai past life is useful as that 3% dodge from 3 stacks and the stance which gives 25% incorporeal when below a certain health point could potentially be useful for many builds. The morninglord past lifes are great for any class wanting to boost light spellpower and the bladeforged past lifes are great for anyone using reconstruct that doesn't need the other 2 iconic stances.

[RistoffDervish]

I find it quicker to do an iconic life from 15 - 28 than it is to do a heroic TR due to sagas, but if taking sags you will be short of coms. So if you have a decent inventory of seeds from raids and gear runs and if you find the iconic past lifes useful - I would suggest trying an iconic life for comparison purposes. It's basically 1 heroic + 1 iconic past life feat for roughly the same time investment as a heroic TR. The PDK past life is useful for any build (3 PRR per stack). The shadar-kai past life is useful as that 3% dodge from 3 stacks and the stance which gives 25% incorporeal when below a certain health point could potentially be useful for many builds. The morninglord past lifes are great for any class wanting to boost light spellpower and the bladeforged past lifes are great for anyone using reconstruct that doesn't need the other 2 iconic stances.

Can I Iconic reincarnate from lvl 20?

[Jeromio]

Can I Iconic reincarnate from lvl 20?

No, they can only TR at 28.

[RistoffDervish]

No, they can only TR at 28.

Okay, Thanks! So If I go to 28, IR to Cleric and go back to lvl 28, how do the past lives work? I will get a heroic cleric past life and Iconic Past Life if I ER to 20 and then TR? I'm kind of confused, sorry.

[EllisDee37]

If an iconic...
...goes to 28 and TRs back to heroics, you get an iconic past life and an epic past life
...goes to 28 and ERs back to 20, you get an epic past life

If a non-iconic...
...goes to 20 and TRs back to heroics, you get a heroic past life
...goes to 28 and ERs back to 20, you get an epic past life
...goes to 28, ERs back to 20 then immediately TRs back to heroics, you get an epic past life and a heroic past life

The only thing that matters is what kind of life you are when you start reincarnation. In other words, what you're reincarnating out of.

You can TR/IR into any kind of life you please. (Iconic into non-iconic, non-iconic into iconic, etc...)

[Dragavon]

Can I Iconic reincarnate from lvl 20?

You can TR a normal character into an iconic character from lvl 20.

But an iconic character can only TR at lvl cap, currently 28.

[Jeromio]

Okay, Thanks! So If I go to 28, IR to Cleric and go back to lvl 28, how do the past lives work? I will get a heroic cleric past life and Iconic Past Life if I ER to 20 and then TR? I'm kind of confused, sorry.

First, if you are an iconic, you cannot ER to 20 and then TR immediately (only non-iconic races can do this); you must first go back to lvl 28 once more before the TR.

If you are a Cleric and iconic, then lvl up to 28 and TR, you will get one Cleric life and an iconic life.

I suggest reading more on the ddowiki:
http://ddowiki.com/page/Reincarnation

[slarden]

Okay, Thanks! So If I go to 28, IR to Cleric and go back to lvl 28, how do the past lives work? I will get a heroic cleric past life and Iconic Past Life if I ER to 20 and then TR? I'm kind of confused, sorry.

You have to level an iconic up to 28 and then you have 2 tr choices:

1) stay in current life and epic TR back to 28
2) iconic tr back to level 1 (as a regular race or an iconic). This is basically just like a heroic TR at this point, but requires an iconic heart rather than a heroic heart which costs a combination of 42 heart seeds (100 coms = 1 seed). This gives you a heroic past life + an iconic past life feat. (cleric + purple dragon knight for example).

If you etr back to 20 you can't heroic tr at that point, your only option is to go back to 28. You can only start a new life (heroic tr equivalent) at 28 as an iconic.

[RistoffDervish]

Thanks All! It is making sense to me now.

[kemetka]

Two questions:

1. I have been grinding lives toward completionist and got to thinking, am I doing it wrong? Would it be better to stop TRing at 20 and go from 1-28 and get an epic past life each time? I started thinking about it when someone mentioned in another post about Epics not resetting bb or first time bonus after ER. Does anyone have any advice on this?

2. I already have Colours of the Queen and Doublestrike Epic past life feats which I got a long time ago and are fun in heroic where I'm already insanely overpowered. I normally play dual khopesh melee or swashbuckler splash types although I am currently having fun with a mechanic arti mix. What other past life feats are recommended?

Thank You

1. Going into epics are a great way to kill 2 birds with 1 stone so to speak, and theres plenty of xp in there to make the venture to 28 easy if you have access to the content. Going Iconic is certainly one way to go about doing this, however it should be noted that you would need to go to 28 first to get the epic past life, and then go back to 28 again to get the 2nd epic past life. Listed below is a quick way you can do this :

non iconic :
------------
skip lords of dust chain in heroics.
at level 20, run EE spies in the house, then run Lords of Dust chain, Estar chain 1 - 3 on epic elite, this should normally fill very quickly.
by the end of this run you should be around level 23 / 24ish depending on if you have an epic tome of learning or not. after that do dont drink the water and belly of the beast. Then follow that up with EE high road chain, this will complete 3 sagas, and only takes a couple of hours. once done with that, you would be somewhere between 23 - 25. Once done with that, you can complete the Estar sagas if you want, doing wheloon, storm horns and the druids chain, this would push you upwards of somewhere between 25 - 27 and could possibly be done over the course of about 8 hours worth of play ( depending on party ).

iconic :
-------
at level 20, run EE spies in the house, EE wiz king, EE OoB, EE chains, EE DQ1. Then run EE von 1 - 4 ( and 5 if you can get a group for it )
then Lords of Dust chain, Estar 1 - 3 EE, and the rest of the Estar sagas and that should land you close to cap if not all the way there

question 2 )
this GREATLY depends on what you like to do in general play, personally I like casters, but I like utility most of all, that being said while I do have colors of the queen and double strike EPL's i almost never use them. IMO the most important EPL's are Enchant Weapon ( Arcane ), Brace ( Divine ), Skill Mastery ( Martial ), Fast Healing ( Primal )
Why? they are the most useful for all builds, in all classes, regardless of what you do.
enchant weapon > melee / ranged / caster more damage.
brace > saves are useful for everyone
Skill mastery > rogue ( no brainer ) caster ( more damage ) every other class ( umd + other various boosts )
fast healing > alot better than people tend to give it credit for, though its mostly only noticed on a melee class with no self healing, and only actually useful with 3 stacks of the past life feat.

[AngryDude]

Two questions:

1. I have been grinding lives toward completionist and got to thinking, am I doing it wrong? Would it be better to stop TRing at 20 and go from 1-28 and get an epic past life each time? I started thinking about it when someone mentioned in another post about Epics not resetting bb or first time bonus after ER. Does anyone have any advice on this?

Yes it is better to do some epics while you work on heroics for reset of first time bonuses and bravery bonus. You could iconic 12 lives and get 12 epls by etr at 28 and run back to 28 and itr. Advantage of more than one pass is prepping your wilderness zones for 1 kill big xp at 20 and saga xp collection at 20. On an iconic you may need to account for bank space and run the red fens before you tr. 2 passes is ok in epics. If you are not geared or past lifed enough to want ee, doing eh with bb and first time bonus is good xp. Then reset bb in korthos later.
It will get harder to do soon. Also too many runs from 20-28 without switching class's makes you not want to play. (Few alt level 28 seed farmers could help you with itr and etr)

[unbongwah]

BTW, what are the best / shortest epic quests for farming for Heart Seeds? Trying to polish off an ITR or two before the level cap goes up...

[RistoffDervish]

BTW, what are the best / shortest epic quests for farming for Heart Seeds? Trying to polish off an ITR or two before the level cap goes up...

I just hit 28 and was wondering this myself. I'll ask it in a separate post.