A forest of class trees, which are the best and worst?

[Proton]

So we got around 50 trees now to choose from. Awesome work DDO!

So I am wondering about which ones are great and which ones are outdated or/and busted?

I find the most of the trees are working great, so its hard for me to say which is best, if they work, they seem to really work well. But there are few that struggle, and these are the one's I find to be either outdated/ or somehow busted.

- - -


Outdated/busted trees:
Bards... all 3 of their trees seem somehow outdated... this becomes most evident in epics.

Wizards... Archmage tree is very strong, there would be little to change there, but the other two aren't tempting at all. Eldritch's capstones are wasteful to take, and necro's are dull and uninteresting.

Barbarians... work great in heroics but become big dumbos in epics, with occult slayer performing the best there. They seem up to date, but busted and doomed to a backseat (no Conan the Barbarian in this game :( ... instead its just conan the 30th level wannabe warrior)

Harper... is a great utility tree, but its capstones are not tempting at all. I never see any dedicated harpers ever on any of the servers, only a few when it first came out. It lacks luster... that lvl 20 capstone would be a bit more tempting if its cooldown was 1 minute instead of 5, but even then its not enough... should toss in a buff effect that goes with it or so. And the top tier adds dribble, nothing new and nothing that you can't get far cheaper and easier somehow else.

Rogues... work great but the sneak is busted as we all know... as I understand, this is the next tree/class to get an overhaul. I look forward to seeing the new versions.

Sorcerors... while they are functional they seem outdated for some odd reason. I can't quite figure it out, but it always feels like something is missing there.

- - -


All other trees seem great, doing what they do. Are my observations accurate or am I failing to see the glory and might of these trees?

[J1NG]

So we got around 50 trees now to choose from. Awesome work DDO!

So I am wondering about which ones are great and which ones are outdated or/and busted?

I find the most of the trees are working great, so its hard for me to say which is best, if they work, they seem to really work well. But there are few that struggle, and these are the one's I find to be either outdated/ or somehow busted.

Outdated/busted trees:
Bards... all 3 of their trees seem somehow outdated... this becomes most evident in epics.

Overall, I'd agree. Although some of the individual abilities like Spinning Ice, Northwind, Frozen Fury (although maybe not Northwind), are still somewhat viable with investment.


Wizards... Archmage tree is very strong, there would be little to change there, but the other two aren't tempting at all. Eldritch's capstones are wasteful to take, and necro's are dull and uninteresting.

Agreed. Whilst technically the Palemaster Tree could in theory be worked viable right now, it's completely unwieldly. Although it is the only tree permitting non 'Forged toons to be able to self heal via negative energy.


Barbarians... work great in heroics but become big dumbos in epics, with occult slayer performing the best there. They seem up to date, but busted and doomed to a backseat (no Conan the Barbarian in this game :( ... instead its just conan the 30th level wannabe warrior)

I think it's a tiny bit too soon to make comments on this lot at the moment, as the new changes upcoming could alter how things are still.


Harper... is a great utility tree, but its capstones are not tempting at all. I never see any dedicated harpers ever on any of the servers, only a few when it first came out. It lacks luster... that lvl 20 capstone would be a bit more tempting if its cooldown was 1 minute instead of 5, but even then its not enough... should toss in a buff effect that goes with it or so. And the top tier adds dribble, nothing new and nothing that you can't get far cheaper and easier somehow else.

Agree. But I think the point of a Universal Tree is that it doesn't make it more powerful than a normal class tree. *cough*;)*cough*


Rogues... work great but the sneak is busted as we all know... as I understand, this is the next tree/class to get an overhaul. I look forward to seeing the new versions.

From what I can tell, the trees are not the issue regarding Stealth and aggro from Stealth, it's an entirely separate issue that needs to be dealt with. So for now, I'd say these won't need to be touched until Stealth is working again first. (You don't make simultaneous changes and hope for the best, but control as many variables as possible)


Sorcerors... while they are functional they seem outdated for some odd reason. I can't quite figure it out, but it always feels like something is missing there.

Haven't played a Sorc in AGES. Literally ages (like... Before MotU, so 2012). So can't really comment on these trees at this time. Although from hearsay (in other threads), Sorc is the preferred Caster at end game. So I dunno about this. Hopefully someone more experienced with these trees can make a more informed comment on them. Although I do remember the Fire Tree had a Flame damage that was supposedly good (back before 2012) but never really got to try it out so can't say more on that I'm afraid.


All other trees seem great, doing what they do. Are my observations accurate or am I failing to see the glory and might of these trees?

Henshin Mystic is a bit naff in my opinion. I tried it out very recently, and it was simply... Not going anywhere. I'd say there's more work that's needed here. What's there is more like the side order in a KFC, you pick some, but it's never the meat of the meal.

Favored Souls' Warsoul is also a bit aimless at the moment. And that was updated recently. In my opinion that likely needs further work to make it viable.

I'm sure there's more, but I'll the others for those more experienced with those other trees to comment on. :)

J1NG

[glmfw1]

All other trees seem great, doing what they do.
I take it you haven't looked at War Priest/Soul then. The recent pass made them better than they were, in theory, but still left them lower in power than many other trees that other classes have. Many classes have lots of synergy between trees because the trees are variations on the class archetype. Clerics on the other hand have trees that essentially cover separate, independent aspects of the potential of divine casters, with little synergy between them, meaning that underpowered trees don't benefit from synergistic splashes into other trees that other classes can achieve. The T5 options are underpowered relative to a lot of other class trees.
The "improvements" also pigeon-hole Clerics into Heavy Armour, despite there being Cleric sets using medium armour and various medium armours that are lightweight versions of heavy due to special materials that would be suitable for War Priests. War Soul suffers similar pigeon-holing. Instead of providing choice, the trees now contain more restrictions.


Bards... all 3 of their trees seem somehow outdated... this becomes most evident in epics.
Swashbuckler works very well for a single weapon fighter (allowing buckler for extra AC while still getting single weapon benefits), with evasion, dodge, criticals and instakills. It also has synergy with multi-class options, letting them gain additional combat abilities while still using orbs/runearms. A bit of single class multi-treeing and you can get more power for the same AP investment by selecting options from other trees, without losing any abilities from SB.

[lLockehart]

So we got around 50 trees now to choose from. Awesome work DDO!

So I am wondering about which ones are great and which ones are outdated or/and busted?

I like to tier them personally to get a visual sense of where things are ~ a lot of people have this idea that DDO is a super flexible building block game in contrast to every single other MMO that has ever been designed but in my opinion, I think it just holds well against modern designs and that's already an impressive feat considering its age. We do suffer a lot from highs and lows since we adopted a train like progression of class revamps coupled with low development manpower which leads to these bizarre 'FOTM(or year)' game states.

It's hard to also reflect on the actual class, for example, take Wizard, all their trees have become mediocre but you can easily build a Hold monster bot and do incredibly well, with a little effort you can spec for reasonably good all around DC, Healers also have very mediocre trees but you just need to couple one with a Tank to see some work done. Some classes work well despite how bad their trees are so take the list with a grain of salt.

This is thought with end game (LE and R) and mid Reapers in mind, if you're just enjoying the game on Normal and doing dallies, even a 5Barb/5Clr/10Sorc will serve you mightily.

Here's how I see things:

Tier 1 being what is most competitive and up to date, playstyles that are currently supported and will perform well because of the trees.

Tier 2 being what's able to help, contribute in several ways and bring support to a party but can sometimes be outshined by more focused trees.

Tier 3 being what's left unsupported by the game or proxy nerfed by having everything else being a better option. It can still be used for splashing or a niche effect but ultimately needs a revamp/patch in my opinion.
------------------------------------------------>

Tier 1:
- Tempest
- Assassin coupled with Vistani
- Mechanic
- Shintao
- Ninja when coupled with Shurikens (though I'd love some extra spiciness in the tree regarding melee and general Ninja flavour)
- Kensei which probably retains the best splashing value and it's just generally competitive.
- Battle Engineer (with Xbows, otherwise a neat Tier 2 when coupled with Mastermaker for melee.)

Tier 2:
- The neutral trees, Vistani, Falconry and Harper. The later 2 mostly for the splashing value, if we're judging them as actual trees to be deeply invested in, they're sadly lacking, especially Falconry which was recently made. Vistani while it works great as a supplement for Assassin and any build looking for some Dagger action... it greatly falls behind Shurikens which is a real shame because everyone knew it so and left it at that.
- Nature's Warrior.
- Nature's Protector.
- Frenzied Berserker, though I think it's still very weak.
- Occult Slayer, the worst of the three Barb trees in my opinion.
- Ravager, which really only ever shines because of the T5, everything else excluding some base goodies in tier 1 is filler which is really sad, you're practically forced to dump enough points just so you can have some measure of survivability and damage output.
- Sacred Defender and Stalwart Defender.
- Vanguard.
- Angel of Vengeance, the new Archon is neat, that's about it, I'd love if the class patch didn't end up being a slap of several Sla's.
- Deepwood.
- Arcane Archer, which does have a good tree at the mercy of requiring you to use Bows.
- All three Warlock trees, they synergize well with each other ~ An ES Tank isn't so popular nowadays but I still find it to be as serviceable as the mainstream ones.
- Renegade Mastermaker.


Tier 3:
- Swashbuckler, a shame since the tree is so flavourful and multi-class friendly.
- Knight of the chalice
- Warchanter
- Spellsinger
- Radiant Servant, infamous for its absurd Ap spending, 6 Ap for Divine Cleansing? Worship and devotion don't come easy I suppose.
- Divine disciple.
- Warpriest. It did get better but there's practically no available synergy to build one. If you fancy Dire charging with a Healer, go ahead.
- Warsoul, for the same reason as Priest even though it's better seeing as it has access to Divine X Ap. A real shame since the Meteor tier 5 is a beauty.
- Beacon of Hope, which saves you a ton of mana that you'll never need and offers buffs that will change practically nothing in quest. Hastily designed to meet a passive playstyle demand from the playerbase and left at that.
- Thief Acrobat.
- Henshin Mystic.
- All 4 Sorcerer elemental trees.
- Eldritch Knight.
- Archmage.
- Palemaster.
- Season's Herald.
- Arcanotechnician.

The Racial trees are okay, Horc was the only one seeing actual investment I think but with the 'recent' racial AP, a lot of options became available and there's really no wrong way of spending them ~ though... Aasimar and Scourge are probably the most up to date if you have the racial Ap to spend, along with Horc and Human. Early Dwarf is also neat for heavy Tanking.

I might be a little biased with some Tier 2 ones because I ended up really enjoying them but there's a still a lot of possibilities to be played with.

[fmalfeas]

Archmage is really multiple trees, however.

And if you look at some of them, you'll choke at how terrible they are.

Evoker? You like doing terrible damage and running out of SP on anything higher than hard, don't you?
Diviner? Um....
Abjurer...well, Abjurer at least can banish things like it was nothing, so long as they are on a Prime Material.
Transmuter really is limited to Disintegrate, Slow, and...um...maybe Mass Frog? Except that uses Wis instead of Int, doesn't it?
Illusion is passable, mainly for PK, and Deep Gnome SLAs.
Conjurer? There's a couple good tricks here. Glitterdust and Stinking Cloud and Web topping the lists.
Necromancer? Yeah, this is just about the only one that gets taken, particularly since you can mesh it with Pale Master in a kind of dire wizard synergy.

[Cantor]

Haven't played a Sorc in AGES. Literally ages (like... Before MotU, so 2012). So can't really comment on these trees at this time. Although from hearsay (in other threads), Sorc is the preferred Caster at end game. So I dunno about this. Hopefully someone more experienced with these trees can make a more informed comment on them. Although I do remember the Fire Tree had a Flame damage that was supposedly good (back before 2012) but never really got to try it out so can't say more on that I'm afraid.


This is purely due to EDs. Charisma gets better DC than int in EA.

I think the OP was talking about sorcs as nukers since that's what the trees support. For the most part, no issue with the trees... the issue is the general problem of DPS casting in epics.



Henshin Mystic is a bit naff in my opinion. I tried it out very recently, and it was simply... Not going anywhere. I'd say there's more work that's needed here. What's there is more like the side order in a KFC, you pick some, but it's never the meat of the meal.



Agreed. henshin could be something... but it's not. I'd like to see the staff speed moved out of the capstone!! and made more accessible (rog gets it at level 1) and the skills go back to scaling with spellpower with a good multiplier (like the current x2 or x3 multipliers but on sp instead of mp). It could be unique, but it's just a poor physical DPS tree.




Tier 1:

- Battle Engineer (with Xbows, otherwise a neat Tier 2 when coupled with Mastermaker for melee.)


I scratched my head at you ranking this as a t1 tree... do you feel fusilade carries it that far? it's a junk tree otherwise. I typically splash 4 in heroics for it, but in epics I would want that 18mech core at higher BABs the speed is getting good enough to lessen the impact of the burst.



Bards... all 3 of their trees seem somehow outdated... this becomes most evident in epics.


first revamp and it's fallen way behind. When it was new the SB was crazy OP, legendary to-hit issues have reigned in CDG a lot. It's still a really fun tree, but there's no mp and it has melee skills that take spellpoints. It just needs a few tweaks to be great, it doesn't need a redesign.

I never got into the frozen bard so can't say much on warchanter, but it had/has it's niche.

Spellsinger is just a support tree that isn't as good as other support classes.

[lLockehart]

I scratched my head at you ranking this as a t1 tree... do you feel fusilade carries it that far? it's a junk tree otherwise. I typically splash 4 in heroics for it, but in epics I would want that 18mech core at higher BABs the speed is getting good enough to lessen the impact of the burst.


Yeah, It's pretty much due to Fusilade since you can upkeep it with LD and have enough AB's to go from rest to rest with it online, and while I dooooo enjoy the Thunder-shock clickie in tier 5... yeah, it's solely Fusilade that carries it that far.


I like the core concept of the tree, It's pretty coherent, it just needs fine tuning which doesn't happen too often unfortunately (and when it does, it comes in very small patches like now with Barb) It's a shame because I feel there's soooo much lost potential in Rune arm interactions.

[Ausdoerrt]

I don't think there are "good" and "bad" class trees, I think the vast majority of them can fit this or that build relatively well. Sure there are "meta" builds that utilize certain balance issues with some of the trees, but otherwise most of them can be made to work to a certain extent.

Conversely, I don't think there's any single tree so good it'll automatically make a character / player good. Any tree / build needs planning and investment.

So I'd say it all comes down to personal preference and playstyle. For example, there are trees I don't like / understand because I couldn't / haven't made them work, but that doesn't make them bad as such.

As for my favorite trees so far:

Spellsinger bard
Vanguard fighter / paladin
Deepwood Stalker ranger
Mechanic rogue
Vistani general
Half-elf racial



Spellsinger is just a support tree that isn't as good as other support classes.
I don't know how it fares in epics these days, but it absolutely crushes heroics. I think it can be so much more than just a "support tree": AoE DPS, CC, healer...

[FlavoredSoul]

Some of the Worst trees are probably Warpriest/soul even after the rework it's just terrible, Eldritch knight which is just useless apart from a splash on some niche builds, Harper would be on the list if KTA wasn't so insanely good. Henshin mystic is pretty meh but is carried by the base strength of the monk class's other trees (seriously give some love for staff monks, revert the MP nerf if using a staff).

Best Trees are Kensai, Both Defender trees, Shintao, and all three Ranger trees.

[HuneyMunster]

This is purely due to EDs. Charisma gets better DC than int in EA.

I think the OP was talking about sorcs as nukers since that's what the trees support. For the most part, no issue with the trees... the issue is the general problem of DPS casting in epics.



There is a lot of trash enhancements in the Sorcerer trees and the only thing that is keeping their DC's completive is EA. The cores are all pretty solid though, but the SLA's do not scale particularly well and only the T5 SLA's are partially worth taking the feat for to boost max caster levels. You can still spend enough points on good stuff to get the capstone, but other than Wind Dance the main T5s Heat Death, Earth Grab and Icy Prison are not worth taking.

Cleric and Favored Soul are probably better options than Sorcerer due to Implosion and Mass Frog and top tier self/party healing, but they've recently had their pass so that is to be expected.