Checking back after a multi month hiatus

[Swimms]

It has been some time since I have played the game and I have jumped on a few times to play with a long time DDO buddy. Seems that running low reaper difficulty is substantially harder now? I have all past lives and about 70 RP and about 6 months ago was comfortably soloing R3-6 and did not really have SP issues. We ran R1 Stormhorns and I was constantly running out of SP, seems like the lost souls were fewer and further between (if at all). I am running a dragonborn alch and it just "feels" much more difficult, but maybe its just rust? Is this the result of a recent patch and is my experience typical, or is it just me :)?

If I decide to TR is it better to go with a melee, full barb or bear druid? Some other meta build? Just trying to get a sense of the changes because my old nuking build seems to be lacking with the few quests I have run. Thanks in advance for your time.

N

[Strider1963]

Well if you're using level 29 gear its been nerfed ,check the stats on it. Supposedy the monsters in level 29+ quests have been nerfed down to be equal to the gear nerf. Read about the update on WIKKI

[Swimms]

Well if you're using level 29 gear its been nerfed ,check the stats on it. Supposedy the monsters in level 29+ quests have been nerfed down to be equal to the gear nerf. Read about the update on WIKKI

I am using 29 gear and yes it certainly feels nerfed....the monsters, less so.

[Steeme]

Melee is in a good spot.

I have played BF Paladin on my alt account (around 30 RPs, no Racials, handful of Epic lives, no raid gear), and he's been able to clear all sagas on R3 solo with a bard buff bot. He was never able to do that before the squish, since Sharn+ was overscaled.

Second main was a fire sorc but TR'ed him into Gnome EK after the squish for racials. Can handle R4 with a bit of effort but is susceptible to spike damage. He's now a Shifter Barb and can handle R4 much more easily due to higher HP and decent DPS, where his only weakness is lack of on-demand heal.

As a caveat, I have not played any type of nuker since the squish - so speaking from the melee side I can tell you that this U50 squish has been a godsend. All Legendary content feels consistent (ie. I can run RL on the same difficulty as Sharn, Fey, Saltmarsh), including underwater combat.

Second caveat, I only play Legendary content. Once I hit 20 on one of my mains, I swap to my alt account and pull him up on LR3. So I can't speak to any of the 20-28 content.

Gearing is easier now because you can slot augments for missing effects like Deadly and Accuracy.

[Aelonwy]

I am using 29 gear and yes it certainly feels nerfed....the monsters, less so.

On my melees it feels even like the stat squish was what it was represented to be "a wash" maybe even a slight buff? I'm not sure I usually play my casters to support hubby and son playing melee. On my casters... not even, my casters feel nerfed versus the content and difficulties they were doing before. Squishier and less successful against the mobs.

My ranged seem okay after the squish.

[Oliphant]

I think they improved epic leveling and so far seems that population is down and endgame was siphoned a bit. Endgame still has a pulse for now.

[SoVeryBelgian]

As a player who was always gimp to begin with...

I'll juss stick to playing Heroic Elite or Piking with some probros for XP while I eat a sandwich. Don't bother with much of Epic anymore really lolol.



But yeah, the idea was that Reaper 1 got a little spicier, and then R10 got a little less ridiculous. That said, people who were already cruisin' on R10 are now in withdrawal from lack of difficulty. I predict another HC season... soon... yesss

[devashta]

It has been some time since I have played the game and I have jumped on a few times to play with a long time DDO buddy. Seems that running low reaper difficulty is substantially harder now? I have all past lives and about 70 RP and about 6 months ago was comfortably soloing R3-6 and did not really have SP issues. We ran R1 Stormhorns and I was constantly running out of SP, seems like the lost souls were fewer and further between (if at all). I am running a dragonborn alch and it just "feels" much more difficult, but maybe its just rust? Is this the result of a recent patch and is my experience typical, or is it just me :)?

If I decide to TR is it better to go with a melee, full barb or bear druid? Some other meta build? Just trying to get a sense of the changes because my old nuking build seems to be lacking with the few quests I have run. Thanks in advance for your time.

N

Mobs in reaper mode have not been nerfed that much, so you will find reaper mode harder than it used to be. This is due to some players whining reaper was easy in discord and here. Anyways, TR into full barb, take OS tree and have a great axe - you will have around 4000 - 5000 HP in reaper mode (or maybe more depending on PLs and gear) so you can survive in reaper mode better.

[Swimms]

Thanks for the replies folks, ended up TRing and rolling a wisdom based arcane Archer. So far it feels pretty solid, will have to see how it performs in mid to late heroics.

[droid327]

Just for the record, Alch did get a nerf a little while after it was released, a few things including multi vial were kinda OP...so if that's your point of comparison, that could also account for why you feel less powerful now

[slarden]

The stat squish was worse for casters for two reasons

1) Crits were impacted much more since casters get a larger amount of crit damage from equipment - crit chance wasn't really impated by the stat squish for martial builds
2) Spike damage didn't go down as much as our hp and casters in general have lower defenses making it more difficult to mitigate the relatively bigger spike damage without reaper points and past lifes

The stat squish was also worse for people without significant power from reaper points and past lifes as those #s are unchanged so people without those saw a larger decrease in #s.

Casting dps is terrible - seems to be an intentional change by the devs. Hopefully with U51 casters can use the hybrid trees for decent martial dps while maintaining solid dcs.

With gear changes I was able to improve dps on my caster, but it's still behind where it should be relative to martial builds. I haven't seen any indication the devs plan to address it. If anything more casting nerfs are likely.