Tell me about Falconry and Harper Trees

[Chaosticket1]

Most of the posts are about the Inquisitor. What about the others?

I am most interested in the Falconry tree. My primary character is a Cleric and reading on the Falconry tree it seems to be a good fit. I dont have it yet so Im asking for the future.

#1 Killer Instinct 1 and 2 make Wisdom the dependent stat for Melee and Missile Weapons.
This makes it easy to maximize Wisdom for Spellcasting DC, Will Save, and now Accuracy and Damage.

#2 New attacks. There are 6 different attacks, and they are a big boon for the Cleric because the Cleric's Melee Enhancement tree is very limited to a single favored weapon.
Falconry attacks dont cost spells points and they are better than default. They seem to compliment the Cleric's spells pretty well, even having DC checks based off Wisdom, the Cleric's primary stat. They do have long cooldown times, so not perfect.

Thrill of the Hunt is the tier 5 exclusive tier. It self-heals you for 15% every 20 seconds and does 6 times weapon damage.
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Harper has Strategic Combat 1 and 2 to do the same with Intelligence. The tree isnt as impressive, but dipping enough to unlock those could work well with an Eldritch Knight Wizard.

[mikarddo]

The Harper tree is often used for Int to damage, int to hit and KtA (more damage from int). Apart from that I dont know of any important uses of that tree.

I have no real experience with the Falconry tree though so I will that to others to comment on.

[Melkazar]

I love using falconry with my ranger. Instant kills and crippling damage. Wisdom for attack and damage and increased damage to helpless opponents is great for any WIS based class. And the helpless damage stacks with an easily twisted Fury of the Wild trait increasing my damage to 60%. So knock 'em flat and then watch the damage double.

I had a slightly less good experience when trying it with a caster, specifically a druid. There were just so many spells already that the bird attacks were confusing. To me, at least. I have not worked falconry with a cleric but I can see it as a positive. You would need to break away from the traditional cleric playstyle mindset. My cleric used to be no good at actually dealing damage but you couldn't kill him with radiant aura's going all the time. One thing about the bird attacks though: even when set as a melee attack it launches a ranged bird. That seemed odd to me so I haven't explored it. So self healing battle cleric assassin. Sounds fun.

[droid327]

Falconry and Harper both give you all-in-one stats - you can use your casting stat for weapon combat too (unless its CHA), and you get a Trance to boost your weapon damage even more

Falconry also offers a few CC/debuff attacks and some utility like immunities

Harper, though, is much easier to unlock (Falconry requires a LOT of favor and you have to beat a low-level raid and everything else on Elite, including Epic-only quests, to get enough). Harper also only requires 12 AP to get INT to everything, while Falconry requires 23 to get the Trance.

[Chaosticket1]

Falconry looks like it can actually function as a full tree.

Many of the abilities are small but useful, so you had +2 to every ability score, +5% Hit Points, +12% Physical resistance/+6% magical resistance, +15% Healing Amplification, Blindness Immunity/True Seeing/Freedom of Movement, +30% damage to Helpless enemies(caused by various Cleric spells), an Action Boost to increase speed, a Pseudo-Action boost to make more Wisdom to damage/Tactical DCs that can be recharged by Bird Attacks, lower enemy Fortification by 50% when you use Falconry attacks, etc.

The worst part is the Cooldowns. all the Bird attacks have their cooldowns, but also a 4.5 Shared Cooldown to prevent rapid attacks. The most powerful attack, Death From Above is a Save-Or-Die power with a 1minute cooldown. The 40+ Capstone ability allows your other Bird attacks to shorten the cooldown.

It looks great for a dip because you have some good low tier abilities like Killer Instinct and Healing Amplification, but in the Raid Metagame its not as good. In general people want the Cleric to be a HealBot and this tree doesnt add much to that.

[Kutalp]

Falconry tree is awesome if you re a assasin rogue/monk/arcane archer (32 point build a must; you may add tomes later on)


or shall we say would be if dear developers added a twist for the tree (!)

[pSINNa]

I've recently changed out my old (pre-domain) Horc Cleric for this setup

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/454776-Axel-s-THF-Melee-Cleric-Build

Even if you don't use the full build - the pictured spread of enhancement points spent between radiant servant and falconry are a great spread.

This guy is a top quality healer, that doesn't have to sit back and watch everyone else have fun.

I've been playing this guy for a couple of weeks and have yet to find any complaint on the spread of abilities (the only change I made was the lvl 15 feat - heighten instead of the next THF feat - which I'll pick up later anyway ultimately sacrificing my TWF at end game., with the gear I have and past life spread I can still land all the fun Cleric CC spells and instakills whilst still packing a pretty good melee walllop.)

It might help you make your decision - and if you run with a rogue in the party - blinding everything in any big group fight will bring a tear of joy to his eye.... hehehe.

Have a good one.