The Arcane Knight

[Aspenor]

Changed some target gear and spells. Took mass repair light for second level 5, and took tumble. Changed Levik's to Inferno Bracers, tumbleweed to Encrusted Ring and Belt of the Defenders of Syberis to Knost's Belt.

[Aspenor]

Finally capped out, and now it's to the raid grinding wheel. I must say, it's hard to log in my other characters and level them up. I love playing this character.

[brlftz]

according to another thread that just started, despite how much fun you're having, and despite how effective you are, no one should ever take you in those raids you plan to grind.

i think those of us playing arcane melees (i have an evasion wiz build that rocks his minII great axe) should form our own guild.

[brlftz]

Oh, and for the people that try to tell me the build is gimp: I was the sole tank remaining on a Shroud 4 that the solo cleric suffered a bad lag spike and the rest of the party except the sorcs died. I solo tanked Harry, he died on the 4th round (the 3rd round I was solo).

haven't gone solo on harry, but my first melee wiz, without evasion, was one of three folks left after a near wipe in pt4. we took him out, with only two of us left standing at the end (including me). my latest guy *has* gone solo in kobold's last room... rest of the party wiped, and by the time they had rezzed and come back, i was done. guarantee no one re-evaluated their position on this topic, though. sigh

[moorewr]

according to another thread that just started, despite how much fun you're having, and despite how effective you are, no one should ever take you in those raids you plan to grind..

Why? What thread?

[brlftz]

this thread: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=201005

[Aspenor]

according to another thread that just started, despite how much fun you're having, and despite how effective you are, no one should ever take you in those raids you plan to grind.

Some people cannot think outside the box. The same people usually are the type that cannot do anything without the "perfect" party.

[moorewr]

this thread: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=201005

bah. if you can keep up with DPS, ignore the haters. It's up to you to show your build belongs with the melees, is all.

[moorewr]

Let's talk arcane melee DPS:

To get in the door your char needs to be a STR-build, and have Improved Critical and GTHF or GTWF in the plan.

You might have tempest, but not the full FE bonuses.
You might have rage, but not the full rage or tireless rage..
You may have trouble hitting with PA if you don't use Tensors or DP
You wont have the full fighter or rogue haste boost.

We can ignore your self,friend arcane buffs since everyone else will have them too

On the other hand, you can cast tensors (or DP with a clickie or if you are a divine, as well as DF), for full BAB.

TO me that looks like less than, but still in the same damage output range as the pure melees.

[maddmatt70]

Some people cannot think outside the box. The same people usually are the type that cannot do anything without the "perfect" party.

Shrug, most certainly I can and often do run things without the perfect party. Dps is important in the new content whether you are on part 2 trying to kill the named quickly, part 1 trying to kill the lieutenants quickly or part 3 trying to kill the named quickly when nobody has the boots. I blame turbine for their treatment of battle arcanes, battle bards, and battle clerics in mod 9. The failure is Turbines to not release those pres for those classes respectively.

[Aspenor]

Shrug, most certainly I can and often do run things without the perfect party. Dps is important in the new content whether you are on part 2 trying to kill the named quickly, part 1 trying to kill the lieutenants quickly or part 3 trying to kill the named quickly when nobody has the boots. I blame turbine for their treatment of battle arcanes, battle bards, and battle clerics in mod 9. The failure is Turbines to not release those pres for those classes respectively.

Fair enough. Apologies for the negative tone.

The catch is that you need not have the highest tier of top-notch DPS to do these things. As long as you can meaningfully contribute, that's what really matters.

[brlftz]

bah. if you can keep up with DPS, ignore the haters. It's up to you to show your build belongs with the melees, is all.

agree completely, don't blame folks for being skeptical if they don't know you. but really, not many new or bad players attempt this kind of a build. has anyone run with many bad melee wizards?

sure there's that dip in the 7-9 range where you miss the BAB but can't yet make it up with DP, and have to rely more on your admittedly slightly inferior casting. those levels can be more difficult than when you hit 11 or 12, and you really start to rock. when i hear people talking about bad experiences with melee arcanes, i suspect that they ran into some of them while leveling up, and never revised their opinion.

but for me, if i see a wiz with a level of fighter and two levels of rogue, for example, odds are they're a strong player who enjoys using a wide variety of tools. if you take advantage of all the spells, items, clickies, etc, that a typical battle wiz carries, you can get a pretty awesome package.

[moorewr]

sure there's that dip in the 7-9 range where you miss the BAB but can't yet make it up with DP, and have to rely more on your admittedly slightly inferior casting. those levels can be more difficult than when you hit 11 or 12, and you really start to rock. when i hear people talking about bad experiences with melee arcanes, i suspect that they ran into some of them while leveling up, and never revised their opinion..

Agreed.. there I think the answer is to take your melee levels first.. get to 6 Ranger right at the start and then fill in the caster levels.

[miceelf88]

Asp, I like your builds as a rule and this looks like fun. One question. I really want my next char to be a halfling AND to be a similar build. I get that you're going WF for self-healing, but if someone held a gun to your head and told you to modify this for a halfling, how might you do it?

[AnderlornLOTR]

I had great results with a Halfling Barbarian\Rogue before I deleted him which I now regret.

[brlftz]

Agreed.. there I think the answer is to take your melee levels first.. get to 6 Ranger right at the start and then fill in the caster levels.

i think it depends on the balance you're trying to strike between your arcane side and your melee side. in your example, if you want to go 6 ranger levels, it probably would make sense to do them first. since i haven't tried anything more than a few splash levels for proficiencies and evasion, it wouldn't help me much.

usually i take a skill pt/evasion level first, a weapon proficiency/feat/enhancement boost level second, and then start working on arcane levels, trying to get to haste/firewall/GH/solid fog/reconstruct territory as fast as i can. once i hit the wiz levels that make you a capable buffer, self healer, and damage dealer, i take the second evasion level before finishing off the wiz levels.

[Aspenor]

Asp, I like your builds as a rule and this looks like fun. One question. I really want my next char to be a halfling AND to be a similar build. I get that you're going WF for self-healing, but if someone held a gun to your head and told you to modify this for a halfling, how might you do it?

Halfling dragonmarked Wiz/Fighter/Rogue. Take the rogue levels first. then fighter and sprinkle wizard in the beginning but fill it out at the end. You need not even have many wizard levels if you're planning on only fighting. maybe 10 or so? Fighter bonus feats should fill out your combat oriented feats, and rogue for evasion, skill points and sneak attack dice. The halfling dragonmarks allow some (limited) self healing, and you should be able to UMD the rest of your healing.

I prefer taking higher BAB classes first because it makes it much easier to grab combat feats with prerequisites earlier.

[miceelf88]

Cool, thanks, Asp

[ongbak]

must say, I have recently started this build and is up to lvl 6 and having a blast Thank you for posting this build Aspenor

[Aspenor]

must say, I have recently started this build and is up to lvl 6 and having a blast Thank you for posting this build Aspenor

I am glad you're enjoying it, the to-hit gets a little hairy around level 7-8, but once you hit level 9 and can start using some 3x/day divine power clickies that problem disappears again. Good luck.