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[Maidenstalker]

Half-elf with Cleric or Favored Soul Dilettante. Wand and Scroll Mastery would be called for.

[SpartanKiller13]

Half-elf with Cleric or Favored Soul Dilettante. Wand and Scroll Mastery would be called for.

Uhhh, are there any build requirements/goals? Almost literally any build can run as a Half-Elf with Cleric/FvS Dilettante. Your title says "self-sufficiency" but that's an extremely vague goal lol.

Half-Elf Paladin 20? Go THF and call it a day? Far more self-sufficient than anything else I'll list today lol.

For Wand & Scroll Mastery, it's available to seven classes, universally via Inquisitive, and three non-Half-Elf races. If you want to only heal via Wand and Scroll Mastery, you're pretty much down to a Fighter, Rogue, or non-WF Sorc build. You can dip some other classes, but that also devalues the Dilettante depending on which.

Since Mechanic has W&S Mastery, how about a Rogue Mechanic/Inquisitive build? Or a VKF Rogue Assassin?

Although if you want to get value out of W&S Mastery and your Dilettante you need a class that's bad at UMD as well, so you're pretty much left with Fighter (not Cha-based, non-class skill, few skill points). THF Fighter 20 seems solid? 8 AP into Inquisitive for W&S III (and +4 to-hit) leaves you with enough for a 41/31 Kensei/Stalwart split which seems pretty solid. Could also pretty reasonably cut some points and get some HElf Healamp for your wand/scroll heals.

[Xgya]

Feydark got released and I said from the first go it was probably going to be best used as a cha-based melee's secondary tree.

I'm notoriously bad at making melee builds, but I'd want to know what a THF build using the concept would look like.

Ideally Paladin. Not dependent on race (I'm still working on racial PLs, and next one is probably a Shifter)

The character has all relevant tomes and 12 racial APs.

[SpartanKiller13]

Feydark got released and I said from the first go it was probably going to be best used as a cha-based melee's secondary tree.

I'm notoriously bad at making melee builds, but I'd want to know what a THF build using the concept would look like.

Ideally Paladin. Not dependent on race (I'm still working on racial PLs, and next one is probably a Shifter)

The character has all relevant tomes and 12 racial APs.

If you're doing racial PL's, you don't care about levels past 18 or capstones, so dipping is just fine and you want to be frontloaded instead of optimized for lategame. I'd go for a Paladin that dips /1 Wizard around level 6 - this gets you Magical Training + Quicken, as well as 1AP Eldritch Strike for a cleave. You'll be Str-based for 5 levels but that works just fine lol (14 Str vs 18 isn't a big deal).

Starting stats (pre-tomes, post-racial):

• 14 Str (so you can grab THF feats ASAP)
• 8 Wis (for Paladin spells, only matters if you have racial penalty),
• Int for whatever skill points you want
• Max Cha + level-ups
• Leftovers into Con (should be 14+ generally)

Feats:
(1) THF
(3) Power Attack
(6) ITHF
(6W) Quicken
(9) ICrit: Slashing
(12) GTHF
(15) Spell Focus:Illusion
(18) Greater Spell Focus:Illusion

Enhancements:

• First into SaD for extra LoH, then KotC until you have Cleave+, then SaD for 25 PRR/MRR stance (should be ~7 KotC, 6 SaD).
• Spend points wherever until you hit 6 and get Magical Training, then respec to the above.
• Go into Feydark, get Cha-to-hit-and-damage, Bend Light, YGMB, and Greater Color Spray
• 1 AP into EK for Eldritch Strike (for another cleave).
• Spend SaD to 13 for +20% HP whenever you feel squishy (do this later if stronk).
• Max KotC a lot more (T5, Divine Might, etc etc).
• Lategame points into SaD also nice.

Obvs spend your racial AP on whatever you can that's good (note that SaD stance blocks rage, so Shifter gets like Magic Fang and Howl as the useful things).

Gear: melee stuff (Deadly, Seeker, Accuracy), Cha stuff (this is your everything stat), Illusion Focus stuff, Con/HP stuff, Resistances/saves, Devotion/Healamp, etc. Feywild has some nice stuff for earlygame, RL for mid-heroics, Sharn for late heroics. I'd look for DPS sets, and 1-2 Illusion Focus items (Crown of Snow/Amber Pendant + Deadringers, Reflective Bloodstone, Shattered Onyx/Black Satin Waist etc).

Gameplay: use your excellent Pally buffs, use Wizzy Shield (for YGMB), and then charge! Greater Color Spray is a fantastic opener, then cleave away and smash whatever's left You're hilariously survivable as a Pally, have great spot heals via LoH and passable sustain via Cures, and you have mostly no-fail saves thanks to Divine Grace. DPS is very solid as a one-stat THF build.

[Xgya]

Great writeup for sure!

What would need to change if I were interested in gaining an Epic life along the road?
I guess the build looks like a powerhouse already and should be sufficient come epics, but I'm fairly certain it could do a tad better.

[Xgya]

Great writeup for sure!

What would need to change if I were interested in gaining an Epic life along the road?
I guess the build looks like a powerhouse already and should be sufficient come epics, but I'm fairly certain it could do a tad better.

Small mistake here, THF requires 15 str, so I'd have to switch THF and Power Attack around. No big issue here, lower levels are basically free. Still, something to consider.

[SpartanKiller13]

Small mistake here, THF requires 15 str, so I'd have to switch THF and Power Attack around. No big issue here, lower levels are basically free. Still, something to consider.

Ah, right; while +2 of your tomes apply at level 1 not on the character building screen lol.

What would need to change if I were interested in gaining an Epic life along the road?
I guess the build looks like a powerhouse already and should be sufficient come epics, but I'm fairly certain it could do a tad better.

Well, it's an entirely different game if you're after an epic life, especially if you plan to sit at cap and farm 400k RXP or something; suddenly you care less about front-loaded power and more about the lategame. Also, your Greater Color Spray will fall off in Legendary Content so stuff like Greater Illusion Focus shifts from pretty solid to pretty meh. You also don't want to skip your capstone, unless you can go Iconic and get Silvanus (which is more DPS than you give up). Oh, and PA falls off whereas Precision scales immensely well - so you'll want Dex 13 for that (tomes make that a lot easier). Once you have 13 Dex you open up the option to grab Spring Attack as well, which is really helpful for pushing skulls.

Lategame you'd be much more about Divine Might-boosted tactics DC's powering Dire Charge, and like a billion uses of Confront Any Foe. Also hilariously good saves, and your LoH will be sorta decent even in Reaper (and you get more because you can do a 41/31/8 split thanks to not needing Greater Color Spray).

[Xgya]

Well, it's an entirely different game if you're after an epic life, especially if you plan to sit at cap and farm 400k RXP or something; suddenly you care less about front-loaded power and more about the lategame. Also, your Greater Color Spray will fall off in Legendary Content so stuff like Greater Illusion Focus shifts from pretty solid to pretty meh. You also don't want to skip your capstone, unless you can go Iconic and get Silvanus (which is more DPS than you give up). Oh, and PA falls off whereas Precision scales immensely well - so you'll want Dex 13 for that (tomes make that a lot easier). Once you have 13 Dex you open up the option to grab Spring Attack as well, which is really helpful for pushing skulls.

Lategame you'd be much more about Divine Might-boosted tactics DC's powering Dire Charge, and like a billion uses of Confront Any Foe. Also hilariously good saves, and your LoH will be sorta decent even in Reaper (and you get more because you can do a 41/31/8 split thanks to not needing Greater Color Spray).

Fair point about Precision, I should think about that one further.
I don't plan to farm at cap, or do any kind of high-reaper raiding of some form, so I don't need to be overly efficient in the end.
I think I'll just follow the Heroic build for now, it seems like it should work out, and, if all else fails, I can always bail epics and go back to yet another Heroic build :P
I'm not entirely sure about the overall worth of Paladin capstones, but that could be my lack of experience using them talking.

[SpartanKiller13]

Fair point about Precision, I should think about that one further.
I don't plan to farm at cap, or do any kind of high-reaper raiding of some form, so I don't need to be overly efficient in the end.
I think I'll just follow the Heroic build for now, it seems like it should work out, and, if all else fails, I can always bail epics and go back to yet another Heroic build :P
I'm not entirely sure about the overall worth of Paladin capstones, but that could be my lack of experience using them talking.

For Heroics, Power Attack is a pretty sizeable boost. +10 damage adds up fast lol; but even in later Heroics Precision starts to scale really nicely. Sure, you won't have enough Fort Bypass to crit undead etc reliably, but there's a lot of rednames etc with 20 or 30 Fortification that you're neatly ignoring with one feat also the to-hit scales super-well especially in Reaper.

For the weak epic lives there's always EN Dailies and Slayers although I don't think there's any way a THF Paladin will be that badly off.

KotC Capstone is pretty good. 10 MP and 4 Cha is nice, 3% flat damage boost is actually pretty decent - think of it as a 6-10 Melee Power party buff, and another 2d6 that scales with 200% MP isn't nothing. Also free Good bypass which is surprisingly helpful It's not that you can't give it up, but you need to be getting something for it. Wizard 1 dip is great for Heroics as you're a little short on feats and Cleaves are really nice when you have less Strikethrough, but it's less valuable later on. Paladin 20 is probably 7-15% more DPS in epics, but personally 20-30 is the easy/fast part of a run to me so I'd take the early boost of a Wiz-dip since you don't plan on staying at cap for too long (if you did, you kinda want to optimize for lategame).

[RodopianYeti]

So I really wanna make a dragonborn paly, but all I find is old builds- I dont have much content unlocked but got the race from the sale. Is it even possible to reach 20+ or 20 should be my goal and then reincarnate.
Sorry for the silly question I started playing few days ago. Thanks in advance!

[SpartanKiller13]

So I really wanna make a dragonborn paly, but all I find is old builds- I dont have much content unlocked but got the race from the sale. Is it even possible to reach 20+ or 20 should be my goal and then reincarnate.
Sorry for the silly question I started playing few days ago. Thanks in advance!

Welcome!

Well, DDO has a pretty decent amount of F2P content but it does slow down in later heroics (15+ mostly). You can definitely go the whole way F2P, but you'll probably end up repeating a bit of stuff as you get towards 20. Generally if you plan on reincarnating a lot most players will recommend you pick up a few packs for later Heroics, but if you farm favor a bit you can do it with DDO points you earned along the way (you get 25 points for every 100 favor you earn; after your first life you can open Hard, and after your 2nd Elite which makes favor farming much easier). There's also December Deals going on currently if you're interested in spending a lil cash.

As far as going 20+ vs reincarnating at 20, I'd definitely say try it! 20 to ~28 is mostly run on low difficulties even by vets b/c it's way faster to hit high-XP quests ("Dailies") so you'll be able to contribute quite solidly in many leveling groups If you make it to 30 you can Epic Reincarnate back to 20 and then True Reincarnate from 20-1, and get an Epic Past Life as well as a Heroic Past Life in one go

As far as a Paladin 20 build, there aren't so many recent ones b/c it's pretty straightforward to vets - most of the choices are pretty clear-cut once you've been around a bit. You really want to go THF and Dragonborn already has Str and Cha bonuses which are exactly what you want, so it rolls from there.

Stats (after racial modifiers):
16 (18) Str (all level-up points here)
8 (6) Dex
14 Con
8 Int
10 Wis
16 (18) Cha

Strength is your hitting stat, so you generally want as much as possible. Cha makes your Lay on Hands (burst heals) much better, improves your saves (via Divine Grace) and boosts your DPS/tactics a bit via Divine Might. Starting 10 Wis is just QoL to allow you to spellcast more easily past level 4.

Feats:
(1) Two-Handed Fighting - grab a two-handed stick (Falchion > Greatsword > Greataxe > Maul) and go ham
(3) Power Attack - this is a toggle stance, sort your feats tab by "active" and I think it's under "Martial Feats" then drag it to a hotbar and toggle it on. Leave it somewhere you'll notice when logging in, next to stuff like Defender stances.
(6) Improved THF - more betterer melee
(9) Improved Critical: Slashing (by now just Greatswords except for like skeleton beaters)
(12) Greater THF - by now your melee is pretty solid
(15) flexible
(18) flexible
(21) Overwhelming Critical - more DPS
(24) flexible or Great Ability:Strength
(26D) Perfect THF - big DPS boost, requires a capped Primal Epic Destiny
(27) Blinding Speed - DPS and move speed
(28D) Perfect Two-Weapon Fighting - gives 5% Doublestrike which is like 3-4% DPS boost
29D) Dire Charge - very nice active AoE stun, requires 3 capped Martial Destinies; take whatever if you can't hit that
(30) Epic Damage Reduction - survivability
(30L) Scion of Arborea - solid DPS boost

For the Flexible feat options, if you're failing Will saves get Force of Personality. Grab Toughness if you feel squishy (can grab twice). Weapon Focus & Power Critical are a slight DPS boost, but they're pretty minor. Magical Training prevents you from running out of spell points (good for long quests when solo, not very impactful otherwise). Extra Turning is nice if you're going into epics, but useless otherwise.

Enhancements:
Grab first Knight of the Chalice Core
Put 4 AP into Sacred Defender for extra Lay on Hands
Get KotC Strikethrough
Get SaD's Durable Defense III, and Sacred Defense ASAP - hotbar this next to Power Attack and leave it on
Spend in KotC for a while; get Exalted Attack Cleave, Cores whenever possible, Holy Combatant to T3 (swap to Greatswords only from here on)
Back to SaD for T3 Tenacious Defense (+20% HP is very nice)
Afterwards keep spending in KotC; grab +2 Str, the T5 whenever you can, always Cores, Melee Power Boost, Healamp, etc.
Then back into SaD for cores, and T4 for +6 Str and +10% Movespeed (as well as Cha)

Endgame you want 41 AP into KotC (T5, capstone), 31 into SaD (core 5, stance, etc) and 8 leftovers for cool stuff or racial. Swap the SaD stance from +20% HP to +6 Con when you hit level 21 and get access to Epic Defensive Fighting (toggle that on as well).

[RodopianYeti]

Welcome!

Well, DDO has a pretty decent amount of F2P content but it does slow down in later heroics (15+ mostly). You can definitely go the whole way F2P, but you'll probably end up repeating a bit of stuff as you get towards 20. Generally if you plan on reincarnating a lot most players will recommend you pick up a few packs for later Heroics, but if you farm favor a bit you can do it with DDO points you earned along the way (you get 25 points for every 100 favor you earn; after your first life you can open Hard, and after your 2nd Elite which makes favor farming much easier). There's also December Deals going on currently if you're interested in spending a lil cash.

As far as going 20+ vs reincarnating at 20, I'd definitely say try it! 20 to ~28 is mostly run on low difficulties even by vets b/c it's way faster to hit high-XP quests ("Dailies") so you'll be able to contribute quite solidly in many leveling groups If you make it to 30 you can Epic Reincarnate back to 20 and then True Reincarnate from 20-1, and get an Epic Past Life as well as a Heroic Past Life in one go

As far as a Paladin 20 build, there aren't so many recent ones b/c it's pretty straightforward to vets - most of the choices are pretty clear-cut once you've been around a bit. You really want to go THF and Dragonborn already has Str and Cha bonuses which are exactly what you want, so it rolls from there.

Stats (after racial modifiers):
16 (18) Str (all level-up points here)
8 (6) Dex
14 Con
8 Int
10 Wis
16 (18) Cha

Strength is your hitting stat, so you generally want as much as possible. Cha makes your Lay on Hands (burst heals) much better, improves your saves (via Divine Grace) and boosts your DPS/tactics a bit via Divine Might. Starting 10 Wis is just QoL to allow you to spellcast more easily past level 4.

Feats:
(1) Two-Handed Fighting - grab a two-handed stick (Falchion > Greatsword > Greataxe > Maul) and go ham
(3) Power Attack - this is a toggle stance, sort your feats tab by "active" and I think it's under "Martial Feats" then drag it to a hotbar and toggle it on. Leave it somewhere you'll notice when logging in, next to stuff like Defender stances.
(6) Improved THF - more betterer melee
(9) Improved Critical: Slashing (by now just Greatswords except for like skeleton beaters)
(12) Greater THF - by now your melee is pretty solid
(15) flexible
(18) flexible
(21) Overwhelming Critical - more DPS
(24) flexible or Great Ability:Strength
(26D) Perfect THF - big DPS boost, requires a capped Primal Epic Destiny
(27) Blinding Speed - DPS and move speed
(28D) Perfect Two-Weapon Fighting - gives 5% Doublestrike which is like 3-4% DPS boost
29D) Dire Charge - very nice active AoE stun, requires 3 capped Martial Destinies; take whatever if you can't hit that
(30) Epic Damage Reduction - survivability
(30L) Scion of Arborea - solid DPS boost

For the Flexible feat options, if you're failing Will saves get Force of Personality. Grab Toughness if you feel squishy (can grab twice). Weapon Focus & Power Critical are a slight DPS boost, but they're pretty minor. Magical Training prevents you from running out of spell points (good for long quests when solo, not very impactful otherwise). Extra Turning is nice if you're going into epics, but useless otherwise.

Enhancements:
Grab first Knight of the Chalice Core
Put 4 AP into Sacred Defender for extra Lay on Hands
Get KotC Strikethrough
Get SaD's Durable Defense III, and Sacred Defense ASAP - hotbar this next to Power Attack and leave it on
Spend in KotC for a while; get Exalted Attack Cleave, Cores whenever possible, Holy Combatant to T3 (swap to Greatswords only from here on)
Back to SaD for T3 Tenacious Defense (+20% HP is very nice)
Afterwards keep spending in KotC; grab +2 Str, the T5 whenever you can, always Cores, Melee Power Boost, Healamp, etc.
Then back into SaD for cores, and T4 for +6 Str and +10% Movespeed (as well as Cha)

Endgame you want 41 AP into KotC (T5, capstone), 31 into SaD (core 5, stance, etc) and 8 leftovers for cool stuff or racial. Swap the SaD stance from +20% HP to +6 Con when you hit level 21 and get access to Epic Defensive Fighting (toggle that on as well).

Thanks a lot, I already started my pally it is almost the same start but I started with reduced wisdom and pumped it up with item, so I can follow this build from now, I have played the game back in 2009 or 2010 but never a above lvl 4-5 ( back then Butcher's path was hardcore dungeon for me) Any advice which gear I should focus and where I can farm some decend gear (I got the White mountain pack and got the sword from there it is amazing but not many other packs)

[SpartanKiller13]

Thanks a lot, I already started my pally it is almost the same start but I started with reduced wisdom and pumped it up with item, so I can follow this build from now, I have played the game back in 2009 or 2010 but never a above lvl 4-5 ( back then Butcher's path was hardcore dungeon for me) Any advice which gear I should focus and where I can farm some decend gear (I got the White mountain pack and got the sword from there it is amazing but not many other packs)

Yeah starting lower Wis is just fine, just requires you to itemize it or have a stack of Owl's Wisdom pots. I generally recommend new people to save themselves the hassle lol, but there's no problem if you started with 8 Wis.

The best gear is basically always the newer stuff, with raid items > newer named items > randomgen > old named stuff. If all you have is WPM, look at the stuff that drops in that pack and farm some out? I'd be looking at - in about this order:

• Precison Lenses from WPM - for Ins Str, Action Boosts, Manslayer, and Melee Alacrity. Very good.
• Platinum Prayer Beads from Another Man's Treasure - for all your healing needs and a lil Dodge.
• Sapphire-Studded Buckles from Kind of a Big Deal - as a Shield clicky, which provides Immunity to Magic Missiles for 5 minutes 3x/rest.
• Either Coldharbor Cladding or Confiscated Heavy Mail from Price of Freedom - armor, has Dusk and +4 Con.
• Memories of the Mighty from Memory Lapse - as a Str item; they're kinda meh unless you don't have a Str item already (or if you took Stunning Blow somewhere).

But really, if you want an optimal gearset you're kinda stuck getting an expansion; Feywild, Ravenloft, and Sharn can all do a gearset fairly well by themselves (at 5, 10, and 15 respectively for Heroic gear - all are 29 for Epic gear). Otherwise, just look for good items and try to get the useful stats for yourself and don't worry too much about doubling up if the other parts of an item are good (like a Str/Con item and a Str/Deadly item).

Keep an eye on the Auction House for gear with stats you want. Otherwise, if you have an empty slot have a look at the Wiki and sort by level; aim for an item within ~3 levels of where you are (so level 9 look for ~6-10's). Like if you want a cloak, go looking at the Wiki page for back items; at ML9 there's a bunch but many are from P2P quests; however, Cloak of Invisibility is from Tempest Spine which is F2P and IIRC the chest is fairly farmable - the cloak itself gives Ghostly which is pretty great, and it's an Invisibility clicky. Neat! You'll eventually want one, even if you don't use it all the time

[Disco_Violante]

Hi and thanks in advance! I recently came back to the game after a 2 year break and decided to start playing on a new server...

I was thinking I'd like to try to start this toon off by getting the Scoundrel +30% move speed stance and Barbarian +30 hp in the first three lives...
I've already unlocked 32 point builds and have access to all the universal trees. I'll probably use a +8 supreme tome on this one, since I'm already grinding out the +5 tomes from favor on my first toon on that server.

I really appreciate any help with the build and gear suggestions that are easy to farm... don't have much on hand but a Carnifex.

Thanks!

[SpartanKiller13]

I was thinking I'd like to try to start this toon off by getting the Scoundrel +30% move speed stance and Barbarian +30 hp in the first three lives...
I've already unlocked 32 point builds and have access to all the universal trees. I'll probably use a +8 supreme tome on this one, since I'm already grinding out the +5 tomes from favor on my first toon on that server.

I really appreciate any help with the build and gear suggestions that are easy to farm... don't have much on hand but a Carnifex.

Welcome back!

Alright, so your build priorities are Barbarian PL and Scoundrel PL. How interesting of a build do you want?

The obvious is just 18/1/1 Barbarian/Bard/Fighter and basically just pretend you're a Barbarian. THF is by far the way to go, and you get a bonus feat and cheap access to Haste Action Boost from Fighter's Kensei tree. Run Frenzied Berserker with a Falchion and you'll be in a great spot (FB is one of the best trees in DDO currently). Could also 18/2 Barbarian/Bard and use En Pointe in epics if you throw on a spellpower item/augment. It's a double-cleave and now should get Doublestrike as well so it should be pretty good lategame.

You could also do the above, but dip Cleric 6 and play a Silvanus Maul build; your best T5 then is Ravager, which will make you a lot more sustainable with Blood Strength, but you can still go pretty heavily into FB for Strikethrough etc.

If you want a more Bardy build, you could even run Bard 4+ and throw Sustaining Song on top of your existing regen; mostly matters for N/H/E but still helps in R1 (I wouldn't bother past that, but if you're just after fast lives you probs won't be pushing skulls). Costs 22 AP into an enhancement tree that's flaming hot garbage for a Barbarian (Spellsinger Wiki) and you'll want to gear Devotion, but you can pretty easily be getting 40+ healing per tick every 2s (I'll get better numbers when I get home later) by level 20. Run with FB T5 and get the regen there and you're unstopppppable lol. Not sure it beats Ravager for trash-clearing but it's a lot nicer in parties (as you don't need to land finishing blow to get heals, and party benefits from your healing too ). Since you have Scoundrel I'd highly encourage you make a test toon before trying out my shenanigans though (and make sure you put some skill points into Perform lol).

Strength-based THF builds are really straightforward though. THF x3, Improved Critical (Slashing for most, Bludgeoning if Silvanus), Power Attack, and then you're good for whatever. Cleave & Great Cleave are pretty nice for some AoE especially earlier on, or with Dex 13 (including tomes) Dodge > Mobility > Spring Attack is pretty nice for some extra mobility.

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For gear, do you have access to Sharn? It's pretty much the optimal place to farm gear for Iconics, being ML15 and having strong sets. Many vets will load up a Sharn item set at level 15 and just use it until level 29 when they swap to their Legendary stuff. Usually the default melee set is Part of the Family, here's a Wiki link for that.

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LMK what sounds interesting or awful or what further details you want! I'll be happy to go a bit further into any of these or whatever else seems good.

[Disco_Violante]

Cool, thanks! I do have Sharn, so I'll spend some time there. It all sounds good and I do have 3 lives to run. I think I can figure out the first two fairly easy for two of them, it would be great to see the cleric-y build or bard-y build and would be nice to have a build that could run R1/2 without apologizing for eating up raise scrolls, whichever seems better for that
Thanks again!

Welcome back!

Alright, so your build priorities are Barbarian PL and Scoundrel PL. How interesting of a build do you want?

The obvious is just 18/1/1 Barbarian/Bard/Fighter and basically just pretend you're a Barbarian. THF is by far the way to go, and you get a bonus feat and cheap access to Haste Action Boost from Fighter's Kensei tree. Run Frenzied Berserker with a Falchion and you'll be in a great spot (FB is one of the best trees in DDO currently). Could also 18/2 Barbarian/Bard and use En Pointe in epics if you throw on a spellpower item/augment. It's a double-cleave and now should get Doublestrike as well so it should be pretty good lategame.

You could also do the above, but dip Cleric 6 and play a Silvanus Maul build; your best T5 then is Ravager, which will make you a lot more sustainable with Blood Strength, but you can still go pretty heavily into FB for Strikethrough etc.

If you want a more Bardy build, you could even run Bard 4+ and throw Sustaining Song on top of your existing regen; mostly matters for N/H/E but still helps in R1 (I wouldn't bother past that, but if you're just after fast lives you probs won't be pushing skulls). Costs 22 AP into an enhancement tree that's flaming hot garbage for a Barbarian (Spellsinger Wiki) and you'll want to gear Devotion, but you can pretty easily be getting 40+ healing per tick every 2s (I'll get better numbers when I get home later) by level 20. Run with FB T5 and get the regen there and you're unstopppppable lol. Not sure it beats Ravager for trash-clearing but it's a lot nicer in parties (as you don't need to land finishing blow to get heals, and party benefits from your healing too ). Since you have Scoundrel I'd highly encourage you make a test toon before trying out my shenanigans though (and make sure you put some skill points into Perform lol).

Strength-based THF builds are really straightforward though. THF x3, Improved Critical (Slashing for most, Bludgeoning if Silvanus), Power Attack, and then you're good for whatever. Cleave & Great Cleave are pretty nice for some AoE especially earlier on, or with Dex 13 (including tomes) Dodge > Mobility > Spring Attack is pretty nice for some extra mobility.

------

For gear, do you have access to Sharn? It's pretty much the optimal place to farm gear for Iconics, being ML15 and having strong sets. Many vets will load up a Sharn item set at level 15 and just use it until level 29 when they swap to their Legendary stuff. Usually the default melee set is Part of the Family, here's a Wiki link for that.

------

LMK what sounds interesting or awful or what further details you want! I'll be happy to go a bit further into any of these or whatever else seems good.

[SpartanKiller13]

Cool, thanks! I do have Sharn, so I'll spend some time there. It all sounds good and I do have 3 lives to run. I think I can figure out the first two fairly easy for two of them, it would be great to see the cleric-y build or bard-y build and would be nice to have a build that could run R1/2 without apologizing for eating up raise scrolls, whichever seems better for that
Thanks again!

Well, the Barbarian secret to not eating rez scrolls is in FB's T2; just mash the Blood Tribute button whenever there's a problem. Also, Improved Uncanny Dodge active from Barbarian 8+ is a ton of survivability (+50% Dodge ignoring Dodge cap) and you can usually rotate that with Meld T3 twist from Shadowdancer pretty effectively.

Aside from that, try to keep your defensive gear up-to-date and you'll be doing pretty well Barbarian gets a lot of Healing Amp and some reasonable HP bonuses to get you going.

Be aware that Heroic Elite is pretty comparable to Epic Hard difficulty-wise, and Epic Elite is a big step up from there. Especially if you don't have your Destinies filled out, it's pretty common to run a lot of EN/EH in early epics and then move up to Reaper at level 29+ where the gear spike is huge (from like Legendary Sharn/Ravenloft/Feywild gear and raid gear etc).

As an Iconic, you start at level 15. As a Str-based THF toon, you don't really have feat pre-requisites to worry about unless you want Spring Attack or don't plan on raging (and thus want Precision > Power Attack). With +5 Dex tome you can either start 10 Dex and grab Dex feats early (they have Dex 13 pre-requisite) or start Dex 8 and pick them up later (like 15/18/24).

General Feats:
1: Two-Handed Fighting
3: Power Attack
6: Improved THF
9: Improved Critical: Slashing
12: Greater THF
21: Overwhelming Critical
26D: Perfect THF
27: Blinding Speed
28D: Perfect TWF (for Doublestrike
29D: Dire Charge
30: Epic Damage Reduction
30L: Scion of Arborea

Leaves you with 15/18/24 as free feats, +1 if /1 Fighter. If you multiclass and have lower Base Attack Bonus, just push feats back as needed. For general feat options honestly the Toughness line isn't bad (two heroic, and with 16+ starting Con you can take Epic Toughness) for like 140 HP by cap. For more trash-clearing, Cleave & Great Cleave are pretty nice as well, but starting with GTHF you won't need them as much as a toon starting at level 1.

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Well, upon further inspection Scoundrel is apparently an Eberron race, so they can't run Silvanus. Pretty big letdown to me, sorry to get your hopes up. Still worth considering Cleric for a defensive option - via Luck Domain's Displacement, but I guess you won't get sick DPS as well.

For a Cleric build, take ~8 levels starting after you're Bard 1 Barbarian 8 (so level 10 is first Cleric level). You'll have Improved Uncanny Dodge plus Displacement at 15 when you start playing, and take Extend Spell as your level 12 feat pushing GTHF back to 15. You can't cast spells while raging, but your Displacement SLA (which you can Extend for free via right-click) lasts over a minute and you can freely dismiss Rage > cast Lesser Restoration > Displace > Rage to get that sweet sweet 50% concealment (miss chance, but separate roll compared to like Dodge). Cleric 8 (vs just 6) gives access to Deathward, Freedom of Movement, and Restoration or Divine Power as well as longer Displace, where Barbarian 12-13 is pretty meh.

A Cleric split would cost you some DPS (since no Silvanus and no higher Barbarian cores) but increase your survivability by a pretty decent margin. Displacement isn't foolproof, but it's pretty easily 40% mitigation as an average and DWard+FoM as well as self-healing between rages is pretty great. Just make sure you grab +6 rages from T1 FB so you can afford to waste a bunch lol.

Depending on your AP split later on you can also go into Warpriest and grab Ameliorating Strike and 10% Doublestrike which are pretty great. I'd pick up Magical Backlash along the way as well Ameliorating Strike is a fairly respectable AoE heal for when you're mid-fight - especially if you gear some Positive Spellpower

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For a Bard split you need 4+ Bard so you get 16 or less Barbarian; enhancement cores are 12/18 and Barbarian class features only matter at 11/20 or so. Bard breakpoints are 7/9, but 9 is just 20 temps/10s so the Barbarian cores giving like 60 max HP are almost certainly better. So 12/4/x and see where that goes? /4 Warlock for Brilliance makes me laugh, but while an aura Barbarian would be pretty funny and have a lot of AoE sustain it locks you out of EDF so it's probably just bad. /4 Fighter for feats is also pretty respectable, or just more Bard for access to Displacement (the expensive version).

I'd probably do 12/7/1 Barbarian/Bard/Fighter; the Fighter bonus feat is nice, and if you pick up Extend Spell you can have Displacement up at least a lot of the time using similar tactics to the Cleric split. You'll have to be more careful with spell points, but you'll need less healing and you can get some bonus SP from Spellsinger. Make sure you put skill points into Perform, or you can't use your Bard stuff.

Enhancements - 24 AP Spellsinger - Core 3, Studies: Magical Studies, Lingering Song, Sharp Note, Flicker, Raucous Refrain, Spell Song Trance, Sustaining Song, Frolic - this one's pretty limited in what you want lol.

Afterwards, T5/Core 4 into a Barbarian tree (FB is probably best for parties, Ravager for soloing, Occult Slayer is tankiest) and then leftovers into another Barbarian tree (if FB isn't your main tree, leftovers go there). 4 AP into Kensei will get you Haste Action Boost which is pretty awesome as a DPS booster.

Feat and leveling order is basically the same as above (start Bard 1, then take 8 Barbarian, then level Bard to 7); throw on Extend Spell and call it a day. Tomes and airship buffs will get you enough Cha to cast, and you don't need more than that.

Questing: hop in, throw some Bard songs, and use Fascinate (for Sharp Note) and Displacement whenever you're between rages or coming up on a bigger fight. Displacement + Improved Uncanny Dodge/Meld and heal over time via Sustaining Song should keep you pretty healthy (and you get a Barbarian T5 healing source as well, and Blood Tribute as a panic button).

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Honestly, after realizing you can't go Silvanus and considering the options I'd do the Bard split or just go mainline Barbarian. You get Displacement, enough SP to throw it enough, Freedom of Movement, and a heal-over-time effect so why bother with Cleric?

If you're going to do a deep split, I'd highly recommend making a test iconic. I'd test like 8/7 Barbarian/Bard to see how you like Sustaining Song and how much Displacement's short duration annoys you. Make sure you have a Devotion item or two on and ideally a Healamp item as well. If you have access to Ravenloft I'd definitely recommend farming a Silverthread Belt as well, as it's stacking positive spellpower which is exactly what you want lol.

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Questions/comments/concerns/complaints? XD

[Zbarb]

IF a first lifer tank build is even viable for end game (not reaper) i would like to request one.
Classes available: all but monk, alchemist (iconic only shadar-kai, pdk and morninglord)
Races available: base plus drow, gnome, warforged
For gear no feywild or sharn (hopefully this will change soon)

[SpartanKiller13]

IF a first lifer tank build is even viable for end game (not reaper) i would like to request one.
Classes available: all but monk, alchemist (iconic only shadar-kai, pdk and morninglord)
Races available: base plus drow, gnome, warforged
For gear no feywild or sharn (hopefully this will change soon)

What content do you want to be tanking? No-Reaper generally means EE, or do you mean like EE raids? There's different directions I'd recommend for each of those lol.

Ravenloft gear gets you most of the way, but be aware that Feywild is a pretty significant upgrade for the 4-piece Winter set (assuming you don't have like a billion Codex runes lol).

For first life EE questing as a tank with solid RL gear you can run like a SaD Paladin, or PM Wizard, or ES Warlock, or RMM Artificer, or Protection/Luck Domain Cleric, or BoH Favored Soul, or NP Bear Druid - without even worrying about multiclassing or shenanigans. Ravenloft gear + a bit of class-based PRR/MRR/mitigation + self-heals will get you through EE questing just fine. Run in Unyielding Sentinel, gear Sheltering/Saves and then add Devotion, Healamp, and throw Renewals lol.

Pure Fighter or Barbarian works with outside heals, and pure Sorc works with Warforged if you're careful.

All of these are fairly similar to standard builds, you're just trading most of your DPS for survivability stuff and that's enough for EE. Ravenloft tank set + Adherent set = much of what you're after.

What are you looking to achieve? Are there secondary goals like not being in EDF, or having self-heals or? Is there a specific strategy you're looking for?

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As far as raids, is there a certain set you run frequently or are there some you avoid etc? Like I don't think there's a first life tank out there who can tank THTH on EE lol (although without Sharn that's not an issue).

[Zbarb]

What content do you want to be tanking?

I should have included that Goal is to be able to bring a tank to my guild's raid in case no other is available. Does not have to be EE/LE some we run lower. Most common are Lhox, Ltempest, Lvod, Thunderpeak, KT.

Edit: and baba's

I'm on wayfinder i dont think there are any THTH completions on the server but once i get sharn PN is on the table.