Duo Difficulty and Quest Advice?

[Starsong]

My husband and I have recently started playing DDO again, after a long break. Instead of picking up our old characters, we started new characters: a cleric and a barbarian. These choices were made more because these are what we want to play than for any strategic consideration. We usually only have an hour a night, maybe two, to play which makes DDO a particularly good game for us. It's easily played in smaller amounts of time.

We made it to level four pretty easily. Honestly, most quests up to this point were sort of cakewalks, with a couple of exceptions. We remembered it being much tougher, so we were surprised by this. Now that we've reached level four, however, it seems like there is a serious and sudden difficulty increase. We made it through the first two STK quests okay. We died horribly trying to do the last Catacombs piece. We struggled through about half of Irestone Inlet before we figured out we wouldn't be able to finish it. We struggled through, but completed (barely) Rest for the Restless and Freshen the Air.

What I guess I'm asking for is advice. We're considering redoing level 2 and 3 quests on Hard (or even just on Normal if Hard proves too much), but I'd rather not redo content we've already seen so soon. At the same time, struggling through the quests we do have available seems an exercise in futility and frustration. Assuming we continue with the same characters, what should we do? Go ahead and repeat quests? Use some yet unknown trick to get some better gear? (We're both using the best +3 stuff we can find right now. Everything else seems out of our price range.) Wait for F2P which may change things in such a way as to make things easier?

Is there something else we're missing?

Thanks in advance for any help or advice.

[Trillea]

It seems that you are having problems with the quests that have a lot of caster aggro. This is not at all uncommon. Your best bet would be to make enemy casters your primary targets, even if you have to have your barb jump over the closer enemies to get to them faster. Then you will be able to whittle down the melees without having to worry about the stray scorching ray or lightning bolt. Doubly important is killing enemy clerics, as they heal themselves and others.

Further than that without being able to see your playstyle I can't be much more help, but I hope I was SOME help...

[Crownhold]

My friend and I have duoed right up to level cap. Make sure you use elemental resistances and remove fear at lower levels, its the scorching rays that always did us in. We also found being warforged helped immensely as it made us immune to hold person.

[Impaqt]

Next week Dungeon scaling comes with Mod 9/EU.

It will make duoing quests much easier.

In the mean time, Command and Soundburst are your friend when facing Casters.

[Starsong]

Thank you, everyone! This is all very helpful.

[Zenako]

Let me add a few things as well.

You should also be sure to revisit Kothos Isle and get all the nice clickies you can as end rewards, they are very very useful for small groups.

Also be sure to use the explorer areas. THey are great for short time runs, you might get a few rares and their chests, and work on slayer totals. Waterworks tunnels, Ceruelan Hills, and even Tangleroot are all east to handle at those levels. Searing Heights can be done, but will be a little more challenging.

You can also head out to Three Barrel Cove for some explorer stuff and some of the quests if you are feeling confident.

Going baack and redoing some quests on hard might be more challenging than you think, especially ones with lots of casters in them.

Your Cleric Barb duo should be able to handle tons of quests for many levels.