New Player Nuking 101

[Varis]

just saying, if youre talking about +4-5 reflex you arent talking about just 20-40 more hp. most of the times its 60-80 or even 100 more hp

what are you comparing? warforged con build vs drow dex build? you eat your apples and oranges mixed much?


the difference we talk about is (let's take a human)

8str, 16dex,14con, 8int, 8wis, 18 cha dex build

vs

8str, 8dex, 18con, 8int, 8wis, 18cha con build
or
8str, 8dex, 16con, 14int, 8wis, 18cha con/int build


keep the apples with apples... and in this case, the absolute max of 40 hit points more vs +4 reflex.

[ddoer]

As for kobold you can see that I end up taking very little damage minus the stuff that is unavoidable of course. Vs the bludgeon damage from meteorswarm, the holy part of flamestrike and scorching ray that offers no save, your extra 20-40 hit points will help.

Keep it in context though please. What I reduce to 1 damage, you reduce to 30. At the rate you get hit in there solo, someone without a good dex will get creamed real fast. I had 1,8,8,6,4,14,etc etc go over my head like a fountain.
The meteor and other unavoidable damage was a tiny part compared to the massive fire damage comming my way...

it seems all of your benefit of high reflex save apply to solo. in a normal party, you don't get so many attacks. so let's stick to the solo context.

"What I reduce to 1 damage, you reduce to 30." - What are you talking about? e.g. for DBF, if you made a save, u reduce the damage by a half. if you have +5 reflex save higher than average sorc. You got roughly 25% better chance to save (assume both are in the saving scale), and it won't reduce the damage from 30 to 1.

To make the Enter the Kobold scenario clear, I have recorded the damages I received before I die in one of my attempts. I've put the figures in a spreadsheet at:
http://www.ddoer.com/guide/quest/kobold. My interpretation:

• Cometfall is the most damaging spell given we have no way to reduce the bludgeon damage. High damage spells mean it is more likely to break our concentration when self-healing, and easier to take our life before we have a chance to heal ourselves.
• around half of the attacks deal single-digit damage, and mostly under 20.
• the mobs cast 7 types of spells, most of them have reflex save.

imho, for soloing Enter the Kobold quest, (which is probably the most extreme case) a dex-build does help, any boost to the reflex save will reduce the chance to getting damage, and gives a better chance to heal and survive.

Then, my question, is your reflex-save 24 build able to solo Enter the Kobold easily? I admit I have just tried to solo it for 3 times (without Ooze Puppet and firestorm greaves) but not successful. does a 4 to 5 points extra reflex save make a huge difference?

and for the majority of other quests, reflex save has limited value other than saving heal scrolls.

[Varis]

imho, for soloing Enter the Kobold quest, (which is probably the most extreme case) a dex-build does help, any boost to the reflex save will reduce the chance to getting damage, and gives a better chance to heal and survive.

Then, my question, is your reflex-save 24 build able to solo Enter the Kobold easily? I admit I have just tried to solo it for 3 times (without Ooze Puppet and firestorm greaves) but not successful. does a 4 to 5 points extra reflex save make a huge difference?

and for the majority of other quests, reflex save has limited value other than saving heal scrolls.

Soloing enter the kobold is hard but not because of the endfight. I get hit for pittance and thus can easily make my conc checks for scrolls and nukes. I last in there a long long time.The problem is this...
It just takes too much mana to kill him and the efreet. The kobold has a tiny leash so even a dimension door mid fight to refuel won't cut it... when I come back he is back to full =(
I may very well have to suck it up and kill him at melee.

Normally I duo this... I deal with everything except the bosses. Works really easy that way. I even have no problem also doing all the healing for both of us.

[ddoer]

Soloing enter the kobold is hard but not because of the endfight. I get hit for pittance and thus can easily make my conc checks for scrolls and nukes. I last in there a long long time.The problem is this...
It just takes too much mana to kill him and the efreet. The kobold has a tiny leash so even a dimension door mid fight to refuel won't cut it... when I come back he is back to full =(
I may very well have to suck it up and kill him at melee.

Normally I duo this... I deal with everything except the bosses. Works really easy that way. I even have no problem also doing all the healing for both of us.

I guess you did that in lv 16 before, and now we are level 20 that our damage spells are more powerful.

just solo'd Enter the Kobold in my 5th attempt after the server has been up again. Used DD once and it is not that difficult after changed some tactics and got some better gears.

• borrowed a pair of firestorm greaves from my another toon, and took the Glacier Bracers from bank (someone claims it stacks with cold shield to give 75% protection, I doubt if the extra shield was turned on, however)
• fully buff'd, including DW and boost in Str
• run to the top to fight, facing the tunnel so that I can see any mob approaching
• for my build, i can't play like a ranger to ignore everything and just beat the kobold. the first thing i do is exhaust the kobold, and then, to avoid aggro those who stand in the lava, I use polar ray only at the beginning, until there are too many mobs approaching I use both CoC and Polar Ray. CoC seems to attract more aggro in my previous attempts
• Living Meteor Swarm and Living Firestorm are high priority targets. They have to be killed immediately at all cost when they are approaching. Merphits were banished when my polar ray is cooling down.
• from my previous test, the DBF from the fire elementals did minor damage only. I ignore them and just shoot the kobold. When the kobold is down, i bring the fire elementals to the doorway and CoC/Polary Ray them. And then DD out to recharge mana.
• the Pyripnon doesn't move too much. When I'm back, I take out the respawned meteor swarm and firestorm, and then kill the pyripnon. Cometfall of the meteor swarm is still the most dangerous. to play safe, I retreat and top HP whenever getting hit. (but forgot to cast prot every time)

exclude the time I've spent to drop notes and read combat log, and it took around 25 mins for the quest, and it could be faster if I run again.

There is no need to drink pots as long as you don't mind to DD. Unfortunately, the fire elementals have broken two of my major pots. I'll never bring major pots in solo again.

SO, back to the topic, you don't need reflex save to solo Enter the Kobold on normal

[Varis]

I guess you did that in lv 16 before, and now we are level 20 that our damage spells are more powerful.

just solo'd Enter the Kobold in my 5th attempt after the server has been up again. Used DD once and it is not that difficult after changed some tactics and got some better gears.

• borrowed a pair of firestorm greaves from my another toon, and took the Glacier Bracers from bank (someone claims it stacks with cold shield to give 75% protection, I doubt if the extra shield was turned on, however)
• fully buff'd, including DW and boost in Str
• run to the top to fight, facing the tunnel so that I can see any mob approaching
• for my build, i can't play like a ranger to ignore everything and just beat the kobold. the first thing i do is exhaust the kobold, and then, to avoid aggro those who stand in the lava, I use polar ray only at the beginning, until there are too many mobs approaching I use both CoC and Polar Ray. CoC seems to attract more aggro in my previous attempts
• Living Meteor Swarm and Living Firestorm are high priority targets. They have to be killed immediately at all cost when they are approaching. Merphits were banished when my polar ray is cooling down.
• from my previous test, the DBF from the fire elementals did minor damage only. I ignore them and just shoot the kobold. When the kobold is down, i bring the fire elementals to the doorway and CoC/Polary Ray them. And then DD out to recharge mana.
• the Pyripnon doesn't move too much. When I'm back, I take out the respawned meteor swarm and firestorm, and then kill the pyripnon. Cometfall of the meteor swarm is still the most dangerous. to play safe, I retreat and top HP whenever getting hit. (but forgot to cast prot every time)

exclude the time I've spent to drop notes and read combat log, and it took around 25 mins for the quest, and it could be faster if I run again.

There is no need to drink pots as long as you don't mind to DD. Unfortunately, the fire elementals have broken two of my major pots. I'll never bring major pots in solo again.

SO, back to the topic, you don't need reflex save to solo Enter the Kobold on normal

he he good job on soloing. without dex most casters die in there within seconds.
I'll give it a shot tonight.
edit:
http://de.tinypic.com/r/2a93yar/4
no greaves!!! (that's of course because I don't have the slots to wear them) but I gotta say... waiting on the shrine to recharge is annoying... just can't be helped... gotta refuel to finish off the efreet.

also, I'm not saying that 8 base dex casters need to reroll. I'm just saying that a dex version of a sorcerer is viable and not an inferior choice by any means.

[Kalundan]

Soloing enter the kobold is hard but not because of the endfight. I get hit for pittance and thus can easily make my conc checks for scrolls and nukes. I last in there a long long time.The problem is this...
It just takes too much mana to kill him and the efreet. The kobold has a tiny leash so even a dimension door mid fight to refuel won't cut it... when I come back he is back to full =(
I may very well have to suck it up and kill him at melee.

Normally I duo this... I deal with everything except the bosses. Works really easy that way. I even have no problem also doing all the healing for both of us.

I wouldn't call it hard to solo kobold on my base dex caster. To prevent the kobold chief from resetting you need to DD up top not toward tunnel that leads back to the shrine. As soon as he reaches the tunnels entrance he'll leash. Crit acid fogs plus cone makes short work of most everything in there. Polar ray down the big boys and collect your loot. I never take out the fire elementals, I just juke and nuke (no greaves, no ooze puppet). I've solo'd up to hard, never tried elite, didn't figure it worthwhile. BTW it takes several shrines ofcourse. A good tactic is to drop an acid cloud before you shrine out, and drop your door in your fog, then while your running back stuff is cooking.

[Varis]

I wouldn't call it hard to solo kobold on my base dex caster. To prevent the kobold chief from resetting you need to DD up top not toward tunnel that leads back to the shrine. As soon as he reaches the tunnels entrance he'll leash. Crit acid fogs plus cone makes short work of most everything in there. Polar ray down the big boys and collect your loot. I never take out the fire elementals, I just juke and nuke (no greaves, no ooze puppet). I've solo'd up to hard, never tried elite, didn't figure it worthwhile. BTW it takes several shrines ofcourse. A good tactic is to drop an acid cloud before you shrine out, and drop your door in your fog, then while your running back stuff is cooking.

hmm if he does not reset when I dd out, I can do try elite for sure. That's a much better test anyways =) lets see if ddoer can keep this up =)

[tinyelvis]

Its all fun and good what you boys are doing, but post up some DCs of the mobs there on elite. I like to see numbers.

So, when you ddoor out for mana and after the fight check your combat log and try to deduce the DCs. Eventually you will make or fail a close save and can guestimate the DC.

[Varis]

Its all fun and good what you boys are doing, but post up some DCs of the mobs there on elite. I like to see numbers.

So, when you ddoor out for mana and after the fight check your combat log and try to deduce the DCs. Eventually you will make or fail a close save and can guestimate the DC.

ill record the logs tonight on elite and get the dc's

edit: nevermind =) this weekend is the "volksfest" and I doubt I will be coherent enough to do anything

[jkm]

sigh. the person that taught me a long time ago to love a nuketastic sorc was varis. as i believe he described roa at the time - an unstable nuclear reactor on wobbly legs. hopefully, he'll repost the vid of him soloing von3 way back in mod3ish timeframe - back when spells cost much much more than they did now and we had far less spell points.

other notes

builds - skill can overcome a non-optimal build to a certain extent. the biggest limiting factors are quest architecture and having room to run. the obsession with hit points stems from giving yourself a greater margin of error when you make a mistake. dominating consistently with a low con build is much, much more impressive than with a human 18 con/18 cha build.

mouselook vs clicking - this one kind of made me laugh. i'm a clicker, but i use the mouse to orbit the screen. i can run in a circle and pull the screen so that i'm always looking at the enemy. i guess i can't put "best nuker on khyber" in my bio, but i'm good with that. what i find the most important thing to do is to understand what you are going to do before you do it.

[ddoer]

mouselook vs clicking - this one kind of made me laugh. i'm a clicker, but i use the mouse to orbit the screen. i can run in a circle and pull the screen so that i'm always looking at the enemy. i guess i can't put "best nuker on khyber" in my bio, but i'm good with that. what i find the most important thing to do is to understand what you are going to do before you do it.

indeed, i don't really know what's the debate about. I mostly use Tab key (that is mapped to a button in my game mouse) to select mob and use view angle to cast AoE (unless there is a lot of time for me to use mouselook.)

[Varis]

if you just gotta use a few spells, mouselock will give a pretty smooth performance but if you gotta buff, rez, heal, break enchantment, use clickies, etc mid combat your performance will drop. Better to be a clicker then =)

best way to go is to be good at both and able to swap from 1 style to the other

(althought I'm lazy and can handle everything with clicking just fine)

[Freylorn]

Hey - new poster and relatively new player here, looking to make a nuker.

A couple of things stood out to me from the video and the debate here, so I'd like to ask them if possible.

A) You take Focus and Greater Focus: Conjuration. Do those ever come in handy except for with Niac's? Seems to me they're sort of wasted feats.

B) Could you possibly post a level-by-level guide of suggested spells for a nuker? I'm sure it'd help a lot of new players, myself included. (Note: By level I mean spell level, not character level. What level 5 spells will you end up with, for example? Not asking for a character level-by-level take-this-spell-now guide.)

[SquelchHU]

Hey - new poster and relatively new player here, looking to make a nuker.

A couple of things stood out to me from the video and the debate here, so I'd like to ask them if possible.

A) You take Focus and Greater Focus: Conjuration. Do those ever come in handy except for with Niac's? Seems to me they're sort of wasted feats.

B) Could you possibly post a level-by-level guide of suggested spells for a nuker? I'm sure it'd help a lot of new players, myself included. (Note: By level I mean spell level, not character level. What level 5 spells will you end up with, for example? Not asking for a character level-by-level take-this-spell-now guide.)

Web is also a Conjuration, and while not a nuking spell it can still be very useful in combination with non fire based nukes.

I'll leave the other questions to those who have experimented with more spells.

[ddoer]

Hey - new poster and relatively new player here, looking to make a nuker.

A couple of things stood out to me from the video and the debate here, so I'd like to ask them if possible.

A) You take Focus and Greater Focus: Conjuration. Do those ever come in handy except for with Niac's? Seems to me they're sort of wasted feats.

B) Could you possibly post a level-by-level guide of suggested spells for a nuker? I'm sure it'd help a lot of new players, myself included. (Note: By level I mean spell level, not character level. What level 5 spells will you end up with, for example? Not asking for a character level-by-level take-this-spell-now guide.)

elvis has a guide for lv 1-5
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=205588

asp's handbook also cover spells by spell level.

for nuker, they could use diff kind of spells. some focus on a school , some other focus on certain elements (fire/ice, acid/electric etc).

[Freylorn]

I'm aware of Asp's guide, and it is a wonderful resource - I was using it on my current sorcerer, and it is great. Was not aware of the guilde tinyelvis had made though.

But the thing about Asp's guide is that it seems far more guided towards a generalist sorcerer. While that's fine, it's not exactly what I want to do with mine - I want, simply, to blow stuff up. A simple goal, but a fun one. Nothing quite like being a walking arcane siege weapon, after all. This is why I asked about Varis possibly posting some spells-by-level for a more nuke based sorc.

[Samadhi]

I'm aware of Asp's guide, and it is a wonderful resource - I was using it on my current sorcerer, and it is great. Was not aware of the guilde tinyelvis had made though.

But the thing about Asp's guide is that it seems far more guided towards a generalist sorcerer. While that's fine, it's not exactly what I want to do with mine - I want, simply, to blow stuff up. A simple goal, but a fun one. Nothing quite like being a walking arcane siege weapon, after all. This is why I asked about Varis possibly posting some spells-by-level for a more nuke based sorc.

Here's the thing. If your sorc is this pigeon-holed, you are gimping yourself for really no reason. If you don't have some crowd control ability, there are going to be quests you are going to be a party burden, plain and simple, because nuking is not always the answer. However, with almost no effort, you can be a good nuker AND have good crowd control for when it is called for.

[Aspenor]

Here's the thing. If your sorc is this pigeon-holed, you are gimping yourself for really no reason. If you don't have some crowd control ability, there are going to be quests you are going to be a party burden, plain and simple, because nuking is not always the answer. However, with almost no effort, you can be a good nuker AND have good crowd control for when it is called for.

Most of the time, the only real CC spell you'll ever need is web. Otto's is nice for elementals, but so is Polar Ray / Energy Drain + Finger.

[shadoken]

Varis, I'm lost here, why did u took feats on Conjuration and Greater Conjuration for nuking Sorceror, and yet your sorceror dont have such feats?

[Varis]

Varis, I'm lost here, why did u took feats on Conjuration and Greater Conjuration for nuking Sorceror, and yet your sorceror dont have such feats?

Good question

Conjuration and Greater conjuration could be possibly justified for a crowd control build that likes web at 20th.
For a pure nuker it is wasted but GREAT at low levels.

For the first 5 levels and even until 10th level when you finally pick up cone of cold will Niacs cold ray be your best cold spell. Nothing compares to the bang you get for 10 mana.

After 10th though, drop the spell focus conjuration and greater conjuration. Stick to the feats I suggested in the OP.

If you can't find or afford a respec shard for a bit don't worry. A strong web + firewall = pure awesome until you can get the respec done.