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[SpartanKiller13]

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.

I've reformatted this reply a bunch as I try to make it more coherent, but that's definitely left it a bit oddly laid out. Sorry!

For most of those raids the most important part for tanking is sustain; you don't need to aim for the stars, you just need defenses, sustain, and enough HP to not die in a few bad seconds. You'll generally be looking for some heal-over time style effects, as they're really efficient. Auras, AoE Heal effects, etc are also really good for raiding. Renewal will keep you healthy for most of the rest of it, but might as well heal your party too

Since you're in guild raids, I assume you'll have at least some off-heals going your way, but for KT you often want to be able to solo tank (which is sustain, MRR, & electric resist mostly for LN/LH) and for LTS you need to be able to survive Sor'jek's spike hits.

Honestly I'd skim over this thread (link) for some ideas. Since you're on Wayfinder I'll assume you don't always have the best raid party, so I'd be looking at a non-EDF tank so you can throw heals/rezzes at other people as needed (Renewal is really good for cheap, US gets SLA rez as well). This sorta sticks you with Paladin or Fighter 3, but does open up ES Warlock.

Paladin is really good for tanking; Sacred Defender tree gives a lot of stuff cheaply, has an awesome T5, and Paladins get Divine Grace which is a great saves bonus for any Cha build (which you'll have a bunch for Intimidate anyway). Breakpoints are level 3 (15 AP for 25 PRR/MRR, 1 Con, and +20% HP), level 4 (23 AP for that plus 7 Con), level 5 (36 AP and T5 for another 25 PRR/MRR, 100 HP, and 10% AC), and level 18 (Core 4 is another 10% HP and some PRR/MRR). You totally can just run a Sacred Defender tank, but once you've spent 41ish AP into that tree you have another 30ish to do very little with (12 AP into Falconry for 5% HP, 6 AP into VKF for Deflect Arrows and then what?). Ideally you'll want to multiclass a bit so you have multiple trees to spend AP into.

Here's some example builds:

• 20 Paladin - easy building, LoH for spike heals, SaD T5 and capstone is a lot of goodies. Lots of inbuilt PRR/MRR, saves are god-tier.
• 18/1/x Paladin/Warlock/x (Fighter gets you PDK = Silvanus = better DPS, or Warlock 2 gets +19 PRR) - like above but with more spell points, Feigned Health, and options.
• 17/3 FvS/Paladin gets you SaD stance, 20% HP, FvS wings, and burst heals as well as a lot of Beacon of Hope which is pretty nice. Tons of SP, you're a healbot that can tank as well.
• 15/4/1 FvS/Paladin/Warlock gets you 7 Con and Feigned Health at the cost of wings. Can drop Warlock or Pally to 3 for FvS 16 for Death Pact if you're worried.
• 15/5 FvS/Paladin gets you SaD T5 which is pretty great, costs you your heal-wall but you'll still have lots of heals to go around.
• 6/4/x Warlock/Paladin gets you Brilliance every 4s, SaD stance, Feigned Health, and Stanch. ES T5 is really nice - Displacement is crazy good, Shining Through is budget tanking in a nutshell, and you get ~17 PRR/MRR along the way which is pretty nice as well. You can also go Paladin T5 as desired (better tanking, worse sustain). Lots of leftover levels for this split (Cleric w/Animal or Protection, FvS with Stout of Heart, etc).
• 20 Wizard - easy to run, PM capstone means you're hilariously good at self-healing (like R6 good). Not as much PRR/MRR, you don't have party heals outside Renewal/Cocoon, and you have to swap between EDF (for HP) and no EDF (for ranged heals) which is a lil awkward. Extremely survivable though, especially with SLA Displacement.
• 20 Warlock - ES Capstone covers EDF loss, you get Brilliance + Shining Through and Displace SLA. Pretty solid, pretty standard. Not my favorite but very straightforward.

There's of course tons more depending on exactly what sort of goals you want to prioritize. Like I made a first-life raid tank for Ravenloft a few years back (moderately out-of-date now) that still works pretty well; I just updated it to Feywild gearing. My guild doesn't run many raids past LH though (mostly just LTS) so that's less of a concern to me. I'm currently building a Bard/Warlock/Alchemist that I could probably redo as a tank. There's a lot of design decisions and many work great, just different flavors.

Gimme a little more to go on XD

[Zbarb]

There's of course tons more depending on exactly what sort of goals you want to prioritize. Like I made a first-life raid tank for Ravenloft a few years back (moderately out-of-date now) that still works pretty well; I just updated it to Feywild gearing. My guild doesn't run many raids past LH though (mostly just LTS) so that's less of a concern to me. I'm currently building a Bard/Warlock/Alchemist that I could probably redo as a tank. There's a lot of design decisions and many work great, just different flavors.

Gimme a little more to go on XD

You have already given me a lot to chew on. That first life raid tank looks interesting and i think there is a minor artifact from lost gatekeepers to make it even better.

But i have to make some choices i dont yet know how to make. Can you give me an indication which of the builds you mentioned would allow me to tank KT or LTS or, when i get sharn, PN. And by focussing on those what options am i losing and can those be mitigated with gear or ED changes?

[SpartanKiller13]

You have already given me a lot to chew on. That first life raid tank looks interesting and i think there is a minor artifact from lost gatekeepers to make it even better.

But i have to make some choices i dont yet know how to make. Can you give me an indication which of the builds you mentioned would allow me to tank KT or LTS or, when i get sharn, PN. And by focusing on those what options am i losing and can those be mitigated with gear or ED changes?

For that build I'm actually running it with a Feywild gearset now, FWIW. Minor Artifact and the Winter set for 20% extra HP is a solid upgrade but yeah, the gear's from when RL was like the only option.

So KT usually has two tanks. I usually end up tanking dragon, so I can't speak well to inside tanking. For solo-tanking dragon on LH (that is, no healer to babysit), mostly you just need >2500 HP or so (pretty easy to do on a tank in 2020), a bit of Electric Resist (F2P Ring of Flickering Steel plus Energy Sheath T1 twist is more than enough), and sustain (remove curse pots or native casting as well). I don't think any one of those builds would struggle with it assuming you have a solid gearset. I haven't run it on LE either, so can't help there but you should be fine with a bit of help (LN I usually try to see how few SP I can do a raid with, my record's like 400 SP lol).

LTS tanking is basically just the final boss (everything else is pretty easy). On LE you're going to want decent PRR and decent HP (250+ and 2500 works with a bit of care), as well as some MRR and Electric Resist again (same as KT) to a lesser extent. Usually you grab him and hide behind the pillar until the puzzle is complete, and then you pop out to tank for the boss-kill. US's epic moment (Undying Vanguard) usually will cover most of that fight anyway if you're having a problem; just try to stack some Intimidates while pillaring (you might have to step out for it) so you don't lose aggro mid-fight. Stuff like Meld also works really well. Usually there's a bunch of AoE heals being thrown in that fight as it's pretty short and has lots of AoE damage anyway, so you mostly just need to not get blown up early.

PN is more of a puzzle raid than a stat-check, at least on LN/LH where it's usually run. Usually it's run with either two tanks or someone kiting Irk (who has a 20-stack -10 PRR/AC debuff) until you've killed the other bosses, so you don't generally have to tank it all at once. Mostly you need Feather Fall and 40ish Jump (any arcane caster gives +30, and you get 10 epic skill ranks so mostly you need to get past your Armor Check Penalty) so you can avoid Rudus' jump attack (jump when he jumps) and a fat stack of HP because the other two bosses have special attacks that hit pretty hard plus incoming heals. Try to get Deflect Arrows (VKF Core 2 has it if you don't have another source) as it'll help a lot against Gish.

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Starting to see a theme? HP/PRR/MRR, some other mitigation (Dodge/Incorporeality/Concealment/AC/temp HP/whatever), and sustain. And enough Intimidate to grab and hold aggro My point is that I'd expect every one of those builds to be able to tank all the things you've listed (aside from KT on LE or inside which I don't know about) without too much difficulty. They just all play differently, with sometimes fairly significant changes. If you have dependable outside healing you have a lot more options as well, like a Fighter 20 or Barbarian 20 can be pretty good and contribute some decent DPS etc as well; I just wouldn't recommend that especially if you run KT (if you can solo tank dragon that's one more person who gets to go inside).

For ED stuff you'll be in Unyielding Sentinel like 98% of the time. It's by far the best tank ED (stacking +20% HP, disgustingly nice epic moment, and solid stances for HP or knockdown immunity) and lets you self-cast Renewal which is basically the most efficient heal in DDO. The only time you might swap ED's is if you're so much stronger than a raid that you don't need it, at which point probably EA or DC for more party heals etc. Twists there can be some swapping; Consecration + Sacred Ground is nice for AoE party heals, Energy Sheath is nice when a raid is heavy in one direction (Electric for KT/LTS/VoD/LLoB/MA, Fire for FotP/THTH), Draconic Presence is nice for +6 Intimidate, Martial Hymn is PRR/MRR/AC/HP - and a few others. But like usually you'll find out fast which ones you need in general (C+SG is nice but a lotta twist points) and kinda just set the rest; Energy Sheath is pretty much always solid.

Gear-wise there's some modification, but the biggest issue is you currently only have access to RL gear and non-expansion stuff. Ever since Ravenloft came out, there's a sharp divide between gear older than that and gear newer. It also heavily pushed set bonuses, and that defines a lot of your gearing for all of those builds in similar fashion. Pale Master can run Dreadkeeper. The rest of that list will be using Knight of the Shadows set pretty much regardless of anything else. After that you'll usually be aiming for Adherent's as well because the set bonus is pretty nice and stacks. Throwing in a Minor Artifact and some gear from newer content can help out a bit, but I'd expect half your gear to be pretty much the same between every one of those builds. Once you get access to Sharn it gets a bit more interesting, and Feywild even more so; but until then your gear choices will be pretty forced.

[REMOVE_MEATBAG]

I just got the new expansion and I was wondering of there were any cool builds going around involving Shifters or Feydark Illusionist

[SpartanKiller13]

I just got the new expansion and I was wondering of there were any cool builds going around involving Shifters or Feydark Illusionist

Sorry been on hols, wasn't checking the thread.

Shifters are so far mostly only relevant for melee builds with spare AP or racial AP - Magic Fang is just +7 melee damage which is pretty great all around if you can spare the race choice and AP. There's also a Visage of Terror build using the rage regen from shifter (the DC is based on your Con score, not Con modifier like other DC's) - here's an approximate link to where it was when Strimtom was covering it.

Feydark Illusionist is currently good with everything. It's weaker on builds using EDF or EK's stance, but Greater Color Spray is really amazing so it's worth it. Otherwise any Cha melee build can take great advantage of Feydark, so Feydark Paladins are crazy strong and Sorcerer EK is better than ever with Feydark on top.

There are very few build going much deeper in Feydark though; in theory it's solid but the T5 just isn't great usually and the capstone - while good - is pretty expensive just for that. Most support builds will grab a better T5 from one of their classes and it's a hard sell to aim for Feydark capstone while using like Beacon of Hope's T5 vs grabbing more cheap stuff around.

The problem with Feydark as an Illusion tree is this: you could run a Deep Gnome Wizard focusing on PK's and run T5 Feydark; but 16 AP Deep Gnome and ~25 AP Archmage means you can either go Feydark and get +2 Int w/+4 Illusion DC's (and +3 spellpen, GCS, and free Displace) or go Pale Master and get +8 Int, +5 Spellpen, and stupid good self-healing. PM build has -2 Illusion, but +2 Spell Pen, +5 Enchantment, +6 Necromancy, and PM's Death Auras and Immunities. Pale Master is such a strong tree that you're only very slightly weaker at Illusion with huge bonuses in everything else.

[CrackedIce]

What is your opinion on Paladin 15/x dps builds?

Namely, Horc TA 4/ 1 EK?

[PurpleSerpent]

Great selection here!

Could I request something for a Tiefling character? Any free class.

[SpartanKiller13]

What is your opinion on Paladin 15/x dps builds?

Namely, Horc TA 4/ 1 EK?

Paladin 15 gets most of what a Paladin wants, so 15/x splits are usually pretty decent. Holy Sword, Zeal, and capped Righteous Command mean your buffs are nearly maxed, so all you're really missing out is KotC capstone and like SaD's core 5.

Now that GCS got fixed, I'd assume most Paladins are 41/31/7 or so. If you're multiclassing, that drops to like 38/24-26/7/x leaving 11 AP to spare; or dropping T4 SaD for like 38/13/7 with 22ish leftover. Or if you're not Feydark there's even more AP to burn

Horc is a very solid race if you have AP to throw at it. Do you have racial AP? You generally want 17+ AP into that tree, which is quite a handful. Did you pick it for the Helpless, or just the general melee awesomeness with Helpless as a bonus?

I'm not really sure what your split is going for? If it's just to max helpless damage, why TA over like Falconry; which gives Sprints, 5% HP, etc? TA is a quarterstaff tree, but that sticks you with Aureon and quarterstaffs vs like greatswords? TA actives are pretty good though, I'll agree.

EK 1 is for Magical Training and the cleave? You'll have Strikethrough and like 3 cleaves via KotC, so is this mostly for <12 content?

How's your AP split though? Even assuming 8 racial AP and ditching SaD entirely, you're at like:

• 38 KotC
• 25ish TA
• 17 HOrc
• 7 Feydark
• 1 EK

And you won't have all of that until epics.

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That's my immediate thoughts, at least. I'll have more once you explain a few things XD

[SpartanKiller13]

Great selection here!

Could I request something for a Tiefling character? Any free class.

Well, since your request is super open how about Tiefling fire Sorcerer? It's widely considered one of the strongest builds in DDO, although it's pretty squishy. Here's a build from Strimtom (Link) including 80 AP option (Link) and Carpone's take on optimal feat order for it (Link).

Otherwise THF Paladin is really strong, and Tiefling's Cha bonus works fine for that. You'll be a LOT tougher, and still have reasonable DPS but not quite the point of "push one button to wipe out a pile of mobs) lol. Here's a build from Tobril (Link) that looks great.

Or like run PM Wizard and have stupid good self-heals, but with literally no interaction to Tiefling. Another build from Strimtom (Link). Just swap the race (obvs) and call it a day.

[PurpleSerpent]

Well, since your request is super open how about Tiefling fire Sorcerer? It's widely considered one of the strongest builds in DDO, although it's pretty squishy. Here's a build from Strimtom (Link) including 80 AP option (Link) and Carpone's take on optimal feat order for it (Link).

Otherwise THF Paladin is really strong, and Tiefling's Cha bonus works fine for that. You'll be a LOT tougher, and still have reasonable DPS but not quite the point of "push one button to wipe out a pile of mobs) lol. Here's a build from Tobril (Link) that looks great.

Or like run PM Wizard and have stupid good self-heals, but with literally no interaction to Tiefling. Another build from Strimtom (Link). Just swap the race (obvs) and call it a day.

Great, thanks. I find the sorceror build a bit odd (makes a few strange choices with feat order) but I love PM so I'll look into that oone.

EDIT: Actually I might take the Sorceror with Carpone's feat order. I already have a Pale Master as my main character, don't want to repeat myself too much. Thanks eirher way!

[SpartanKiller13]

Great, thanks. I find the sorcerer build a bit odd (makes a few strange choices with feat order) but I love PM so I'll look into that one.

EDIT: Actually I might take the Sorcerer with Carpone's feat order. I already have a Pale Master as my main character, don't want to repeat myself too much. Thanks either way!

Sure, so look at some of the others proposed I just like Strimtom builds because he's detailed and usually includes a video etc, which is really helpful for new players.

If you want something else just ask, but your only requests were F2P and Tiefling which is pretty open-ended

[CrackedIce]

Paladin 15 gets most of what a Paladin wants, so 15/x splits are usually pretty decent. Holy Sword, Zeal, and capped Righteous Command mean your buffs are nearly maxed, so all you're really missing out is KotC capstone and like SaD's core 5.

Now that GCS got fixed, I'd assume most Paladins are 41/31/7 or so. If you're multiclassing, that drops to like 38/24-26/7/x leaving 11 AP to spare; or dropping T4 SaD for like 38/13/7 with 22ish leftover. Or if you're not Feydark there's even more AP to burn

Horc is a very solid race if you have AP to throw at it. Do you have racial AP? You generally want 17+ AP into that tree, which is quite a handful. Did you pick it for the Helpless, or just the general melee awesomeness with Helpless as a bonus?

I'm not really sure what your split is going for? If it's just to max helpless damage, why TA over like Falconry; which gives Sprints, 5% HP, etc? TA is a quarterstaff tree, but that sticks you with Aureon and quarterstaffs vs like greatswords? TA actives are pretty good though, I'll agree.

EK 1 is for Magical Training and the cleave? You'll have Strikethrough and like 3 cleaves via KotC, so is this mostly for <12 content?

How's your AP split though? Even assuming 8 racial AP and ditching SaD entirely, you're at like:

• 38 KotC
• 25ish TA
• 17 HOrc
• 7 Feydark
• 1 EK

And you won't have all of that until epics.

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That's my immediate thoughts, at least. I'll have more once you explain a few things XD

Ya, you kinda hit the nail on the head. I was looking at Horc due to awesome thf abilities with "capstone" of helpnesses stacking with TA. I wanted a good qstaff build and figured that despite having strike through, utilizing the AOEnattacks from all three classes should be purty fun.

The main idea though, was the alacrity bonus as well as doublestrike from quick strike and zeal together with the stacking base damage of Horc, TA and favored weapon makes for some excellent damage. Then add in the helplesses and things really come together.

[SpartanKiller13]

Ya, you kinda hit the nail on the head. I was looking at Horc due to awesome thf abilities with "capstone" of helpless stacking with TA. I wanted a good qstaff build and figured that despite having strike through, utilizing the AOE attacks from all three classes should be purty fun.

The main idea though, was the alacrity bonus as well as doublestrike from quick strike and zeal together with the stacking base damage of Horc, TA and favored weapon makes for some excellent damage. Then add in the helpless and things really come together.

How do you plan on making enemies helpless? If you can get that consistently I'd expect the build to be viable, and fairly reasonable for a qstaff build; but maxing helpless isn't great until 29 if you're banking on Dire Charge. GCS is no longer no-fail, so it's really hard to get epic DC's as a melee (although Heroics and Dailies you should be fine, so maybe just Daily > 29 > Dire Charge?). Going that route is even more AP though lol, and your AP are going to be pretty tight already. Should have some flexibility to swap your setup for different priorities though

Named Qstaffs also aren't amazing, but Felling the Oak is really nice and only gets better in FotW.

You're going to be pretty MAD though, lol. Hope you have at least some tomes to hit your feats (Str 17, Dex 13, Con/Cha max) and ofc racial AP for HOrc goodies. Weirdly enough Raging Crush might not be worth it, as it's a single crit at x3 per 30s? If you can stack it with other actives it'd be great, if not meh.

I think leveling might be interesting. You want Rogue early for the Qstaff stuff, but that delays Holy Sword & Zeal which is half the point of the build. Comes together @20, but that's a bit of a distance from where you start If you plan on grabbing a few EPL's that's perfect, but if you want a 1-20 build that's generally not so good (most people don't even take level 19 lol).

[CrackedIce]

How do you plan on making enemies helpless? If you can get that consistently I'd expect the build to be viable, and fairly reasonable for a qstaff build; but maxing helpless isn't great until 29 if you're banking on Dire Charge. GCS is no longer no-fail, so it's really hard to get epic DC's as a melee (although Heroics and Dailies you should be fine, so maybe just Daily > 29 > Dire Charge?). Going that route is even more AP though lol, and your AP are going to be pretty tight already. Should have some flexibility to swap your setup for different priorities though

Named Qstaffs also aren't amazing, but Felling the Oak is really nice and only gets better in FotW.

You're going to be pretty MAD though, lol. Hope you have at least some tomes to hit your feats (Str 17, Dex 13, Con/Cha max) and ofc racial AP for HOrc goodies. Weirdly enough Raging Crush might not be worth it, as it's a single crit at x3 per 30s? If you can stack it with other actives it'd be great, if not meh.

I think leveling might be interesting. You want Rogue early for the Qstaff stuff, but that delays Holy Sword & Zeal which is half the point of the build. Comes together @20, but that's a bit of a distance from where you start If you plan on grabbing a few EPL's that's perfect, but if you want a 1-20 build that's generally not so good (most people don't even take level 19 lol).

This was quite helpful. Ya problem I noticed is that you are better off leveling as non qstaff and end up missing all the nice staves in heroics. I figured this wouldn't be a solo build and would have to rely on party for helplesses damage.

Assuming bows get fixed this year, what do you think about tier 5 deepwood, tier 3 AA, tier 4 warpriest? I can't decide whether 12 Ranger or 14 cleric is better with this split. Or whether to go dex or zen archery. Really wants monk, though.

(I really like slayer arrows, but seems that enhancement split isn't as solid with deepwood core 3 and tier 4 warpriest)

[SpartanKiller13]

This was quite helpful. Ya problem I noticed is that you are better off leveling as non qstaff and end up missing all the nice staves in heroics. I figured this wouldn't be a solo build and would have to rely on party for helplesses damage.

Assuming bows get fixed this year, what do you think about tier 5 deepwood, tier 3 AA, tier 4 warpriest? I can't decide whether 12 Ranger or 14 cleric is better with this split. Or whether to go dex or zen archery. Really wants monk, though.

(I really like slayer arrows, but seems that enhancement split isn't as solid with deepwood core 3 and tier 4 warpriest)

Yeah, and if you're going to wait to use qstaffs why bother with a dip? It's probably a fine flavor build that's not actually that much weaker than the meta stuff, but it definitely isn't 100% optimal lol. Should be pretty good at like Heroic Sharn if you have helpless from your party; you often don't have nearly enough fort bypass so the weaker crit profile of staffs isn't nearly as relevant. Still, yeah...

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For the bow rework, they're adding Horizon Walker at that time right? Given the strength of newer trees I'd expect the meta to be ~T5 HW, T4 AA, and T3 Falconry lol. Wis-max Paralyzing + HW's inevitably good damage = win. Or FvS for free Wis-to-everything, wings, and elven AA for Paralyzing.

With regards to your proposal, Warpriest is for 10% Doubleshot? What Domain are you after? War Domain for Holy Sword vs just going Ranger 12 and getting DWS Core 4 for +threat range? If you're getting +1 either way, getting free Multishot/IPS via Ranger seems better, as it frees up your Dex from required 19. It feels like there's almost something via like FvS for Wis-max, but it's not quite there so I think you're stuck with Falconry?

AA imbue is a pretty fat stack of damage early on, so if you're trading that for base damage etc you need to be getting a bunch (also ideally Wis-max so you have the option of Paralyzing). I thought meta for AA builds was like T5 DWS with AA capstone? I'm not really a ranged DPS player though, sorry.

I'd really expect Horizon Walker to be better than the other options though, so it seems a bit pointless to speculate past like trying to get Wis-to-everything and Paralyzing Arrows or like Int/Wis/Cha-to-Everything plus Greater Color Spray.

[CrackedIce]

Yeah, and if you're going to wait to use qstaffs why bother with a dip? It's probably a fine flavor build that's not actually that much weaker than the meta stuff, but it definitely isn't 100% optimal lol. Should be pretty good at like Heroic Sharn if you have helpless from your party; you often don't have nearly enough fort bypass so the weaker crit profile of staffs isn't nearly as relevant. Still, yeah...

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For the bow rework, they're adding Horizon Walker at that time right? Given the strength of newer trees I'd expect the meta to be ~T5 HW, T4 AA, and T3 Falconry lol. Wis-max Paralyzing + HW's inevitably good damage = win. Or FvS for free Wis-to-everything, wings, and elven AA for Paralyzing.

With regards to your proposal, Warpriest is for 10% Doubleshot? What Domain are you after? War Domain for Holy Sword vs just going Ranger 12 and getting DWS Core 4 for +threat range? If you're getting +1 either way, getting free Multishot/IPS via Ranger seems better, as it frees up your Dex from required 19. It feels like there's almost something via like FvS for Wis-max, but it's not quite there so I think you're stuck with Falconry?

AA imbue is a pretty fat stack of damage early on, so if you're trading that for base damage etc you need to be getting a bunch (also ideally Wis-max so you have the option of Paralyzing). I thought meta for AA builds was like T5 DWS with AA capstone? I'm not really a ranged DPS player though, sorry.

I'd really expect Horizon Walker to be better than the other options though, so it seems a bit pointless to speculate past like trying to get Wis-to-everything and Paralyzing Arrows or like Int/Wis/Cha-to-Everything plus Greater Color Spray.

Yup. I assume HW will be the better tree, but I specifically do not want to run the meta builds.

Since AA capstone and tier 5 deepwood is best that now currently can get these days for a bow, I figured keeping with deepwood tier 5 and taking warpriest won't be so bad of a hit since there is some DS offset there. I was hoping that ameliorating strike is actually worth the investment, but see now that it doesn't go off per hit as it used to. Nothing else in that tree is interesting to me for the AP investment.

Cleric over Ranger for the party support spells.

If go Ranger 12, can go luck domain for displacement without the AP cost that a dragon marked elf brings. Or stay with terror arrows, wisdom based and go trickery domain for enchantment dc increase to offset not going tier 4 AA.

[SpartanKiller13]

Yup. I assume HW will be the better tree, but I specifically do not want to run the meta builds.

Since AA capstone and tier 5 deepwood is best that now currently can get these days for a bow, I figured keeping with deepwood tier 5 and taking warpriest won't be so bad of a hit since there is some DS offset there. I was hoping that ameliorating strike is actually worth the investment, but see now that it doesn't go off per hit as it used to. Nothing else in that tree is interesting to me for the AP investment.

Cleric over Ranger for the party support spells.

If go Ranger 12, can go luck domain for displacement without the AP cost that a dragon marked elf brings. Or stay with terror arrows, wisdom based and go trickery domain for enchantment dc increase to offset not going tier 4 AA.

I'd be fairly surprised if bows become meta even so lol. But fair

I don't think Ameliorating Strike was ever on-hit? There was a period on Lama when it was "when your smite crits" but that was changed when it went live in 2013 (link). It's still nice, and better now that Smite has a 12s CD, but it would possibly be the strongest enhancement in DDO if it was on-hit lol. If you're looking for party support it's also pretty handy as an AoE heal that doesn't slow your DPS down.

10% Doubleshot is nice from Warpriest T4, and Magical Backlash from T3 is surprisingly helpful when fighting casters (whenever there's >1 and they get to cast, it's knocking someone down with no effort on your part). Still, yeah, it's a harder sell spending >20 AP there vs like grabbing more AA stuff (more dice, more DC's, Paralyzing, etc).

If you're looking for party support I'd recommend against terror arrows. In certain niches they're good (soloing, all-ranged DPS party, probably something else too) but most of the time you're just chasing mobs away from your melees and out of range of your spellcasters, which is pretty frustrating for everyone involved. A lot of people will ask you to not use them, myself included. There are few things more annoying than having to chase and single-target literally every mob lol, especially now in the golden age of AoE. By all means roll up a test toon (vet 7 works great) and try it, but I think you'll agree.

If you're not just in for Terror Arrows, AA T4 gets a lot more desirable (+2 damage dice w/scaling, +2 DC's, Paralyzing option, etc). And then you're nearly back where we started, 39 DWS/24 AA = 17 leftover AP lol.

[C-Dog]

Paralyzing is vastly better than Terror (except for soloing, and even then it's ymmv). Confirmed.

[SpartanKiller13]

Paralyzing is vastly better than Terror (except for soloing, and even then it's ymmv). Confirmed.

Back in the day you could stack imbues, so Terror was alright as a backup option for enemies that saved against your Paralysis; but even then it wasn't great.

Since that got fixed (and AA got a lot of buffs) I haven't run into any time I'd want Terror to be used.

I'm all for getting people to do their own testing, but I don't want the requester to build around a mechanic that's generally considered undesirable if they're looking for party play

[aurus33]

R). You totally can just run a Sacred Defender tank, but once you've spent 41ish AP into that tree you have another 30ish to do very little with (12 AP into Falconry for 5% HP, 6 AP into VKF for Deflect Arrows and then what?). Ideally you'll want to multiclass a bit so you have multiple trees to spend AP into.

• 17/3 FvS/Paladin gets you SaD stance, 20% HP, FvS wings, and burst heals as well as a lot of Beacon of Hope which is pretty nice. Tons of SP, you're a healbot that can tank as well.

Gimme a little more to go on XD

Do you have a link where I can find the details of this build? seems interesting.

Thanks!