Revisiting paths: Builds for new players

[tihocan]

Thank you very much for these builds. I am returning to the game after a few months on break, and I totally lost the thread on where I was going on my current character. As I have Drow unlocked, I decided to just make a new character and take advantage of the extra the Drow has.

I would like a build that has decent solo ability and self-sufficiency. I would also like to avoid ranged target (despite it being my favourite style of play in other RPGs), as I fail at using it in DDO.

Right now, I'm trying to decide between two builds, but any other suggestions would be great.

Currently leaning towards The Mighty Protector (L18 Paladin/L1 Fighter /L1 Rogue )

I like it for the Open Locks, but I can't recall if that will work on all locks I'll find in solo content, or even most of them.

On the other hand, there is The Truthbringer.

My question is: Has U9 changed anything major in the builds that's not covered in the build descriptions? And is the L20 capstone worth dropping the Rogue and fighter level in the Might Protector build, considering that I will be soloing 90% of the time? Well, that's not quite accurate, but my play time is erratic, so I can't say I'll always have a group, and I'd rather be able to do something rather than wait for people to be online.

No, nothing major changed.

Whether dropping the capstone is worth it or not is very subjective. For someone mostly interested in end-game & raids, probably not. If you're going to mostly solo, I'd say yes, definitely (and yes, you would be able to open the very large majority of locks).

[PointyRhiana]

No, nothing major changed.

Whether dropping the capstone is worth it or not is very subjective. For someone mostly interested in end-game & raids, probably not. If you're going to mostly solo, I'd say yes, definitely (and yes, you would be able to open the very large majority of locks).

So Mighty Protector it is Thank you very much.

[Terminusz]

Hello and thank you very very much for this guide Tihocan! have it bookmarked almost before i even stepped foot in DDO.
I'm loving this game and so far I've tried ur tempest build up to lvl 7 and the Vanguard Warrior up to lvl 8.

I decided to stick with the vanguard warrior and hopefuly hit 20 with it.

My questions tho are:

Why is it u consider that up from lvl 12/13 its quite hard to solo with this build? (Vanguard Warrior) 'cause from my still little experience, it is far far superior to solo with a hireling up to lvl 8 than it was, as a splashed tempest ranger.

Will this build be good to excelent dps once i get some very nice raid gear? or to be a some-what top dog i should definitely TR?

This was probably asked before but, what are the main differences between the Vanguard Warrior and the barbarian version of it? (i'm guessing slightly more dps but less survivability?)

Once again thank you very much for this and thanks in advance for ur input in these questions if u do take the time to answer them.

[Dancingrage]

Quick question about Warchanter splashing.

I noticed that you splashed Fighter and Barbarian on that build to give it more effectiveness in combat, but I was wondering about a more Jack-of-all-Trades build myself.

I was considering taking the Warchanter route you posted and instead of splashing the melee classes splashing Rogue instead, two levels would get Evasion and a lot of skill points towards disabling traps, at the price of the combat feats. I doubt I'd be able to fix every trap out there but for a JOAT build I think it could work decently, especially since I find the Warchanter so far to be effective and fairly easy to play.

Would the two levels of rogue be worth it or should I only splash the one and look at plunking down fighter instead? Can I get enough Disable Device to be worth the investment?

[karl_k0ch]

Quick question about Warchanter splashing.

I noticed that you splashed Fighter and Barbarian on that build to give it more effectiveness in combat, but I was wondering about a more Jack-of-all-Trades build myself.

I was considering taking the Warchanter route you posted and instead of splashing the melee classes splashing Rogue instead, two levels would get Evasion and a lot of skill points towards disabling traps, at the price of the combat feats. I doubt I'd be able to fix every trap out there but for a JOAT build I think it could work decently, especially since I find the Warchanter so far to be effective and fairly easy to play.

Would the two levels of rogue be worth it or should I only splash the one and look at plunking down fighter instead? Can I get enough Disable Device to be worth the investment?

Yes and No.

It is actually pretty popular to splash 2 melee levels (generally Fighter for the feats) and two rogue levels into Warchanter builds. Also giving up another bard level for a 3rd Rogue level is done sometimes.

There are several benefits of the rogue levels:
Evasion
DPS increase via Sneak Attack damage
Access to Open Lock, Search, Spot and Disable as a Class skill. Also Intimidate, but that's a rather exotic choice as it's rather hard to make a Warchanter hate tank.
Skill points.

The issue with Traps is that if you want to be able take care of finding and disabling traps, you will need to invest skill points into Search and Disable Device on a regular basis. If noone in your group knows where to search, also Spot. As these three skills are no bard class skills, you will need to invest 2 points to get 1 rank during bard levels. So either you take enough Int to do that during all of your bard levels (e.g. Human and 14 Int) or you take more than 2 rogue levels, sacrificing either a bard or a fighter level, e.g. rogue at level 1, 10ish and 20, spending the excessive skill points for skills neglected during the bard levels. This needs actually some proper planning.

Open Locks on the other hand are not that demanding. With 4 points at level 1 (rogue) and about 4 more from the second rogue level, you will be able to take care of most locks. Not every lock on a roll of a 1, but most of them eventually.

It really depends what you want to get from the rogue levels.

I do not recommend a total JOAT character, but with a decent amount of planning and dedication one can actually incorporate a lot of viable things a Warchanter.

[Dancingrage]

Hm, that's going to be tough, I think I was looking at 14's in just about everything the last time I was considering a multi-tasking character like that. This is the second time I rolled this guy up (I made some pretty vicious errors the first time like taking the wrong songs, etc) but the idea is that I want to be able to handle a lot (but not expecting to handle all) traps and locked doors I run into as I run through dungeons levelling.

But if I need more intelligence for the skill points to make everything stretch this could be somewhat problematic. I'll go dig up the skill emulator from wherever it is and take a look-see and see if I can make it work.

Looking at it through a skill emulator, it doesn't seem too tough if I put Con/Int/Chr at 14, Str at 16, and 8s for Dex and Wis (yeah, painful on the saves). I probably could get away with Int at 12, if I worked at it with a human. I assume you suggest going rogue for the first level to get the maximum out of the skill points though, which isn't a bad idea when I think about it.

Hm, I'll have to try this out and see how it works. Might get what I want out of this build after all, doesn't have to be excellent at everything, just good enough to get by when soloing.

[tihocan]

Hello and thank you very very much for this guide Tihocan! have it bookmarked almost before i even stepped foot in DDO.
I'm loving this game and so far I've tried ur tempest build up to lvl 7 and the Vanguard Warrior up to lvl 8.

I decided to stick with the vanguard warrior and hopefuly hit 20 with it.

My questions tho are:

Why is it u consider that up from lvl 12/13 its quite hard to solo with this build? (Vanguard Warrior) 'cause from my still little experience, it is far far superior to solo with a hireling up to lvl 8 than it was, as a splashed tempest ranger.

Will this build be good to excelent dps once i get some very nice raid gear? or to be a some-what top dog i should definitely TR?

This was probably asked before but, what are the main differences between the Vanguard Warrior and the barbarian version of it? (i'm guessing slightly more dps but less survivability?)

Once again thank you very much for this and thanks in advance for ur input in these questions if u do take the time to answer them.

It gets harder to solo because L12-13 is when you start hitting GH quests, and taking a lot more damage. Although it should still be quite easy to solo with a hireling healer (at least on normal difficulty).
A splashed tempest ranger should have an easier time due to being more versatile (self-healing, UMD, evasion...).

Yes, a L20 Vanguard should have good to excellent DPS, there is no need to TR unless you really want to optimize it (in which case you'd probably want to TR a dozen times to get all possible bonuses

I summarized the difference with barb at bottom of build:
"This build is close in spirit to the Savage of the Wild (Barbarian) and Flame of Justice (Paladin) paths. To give a rough idea of the differences, in terms of overall sustained damage output, Barbarian > Fighter > Paladin (but all three classes can take the role of a primary damage dealer). In terms of self-suffiency, Paladin > Fighter > Barbarian"
Overall the difference is rather meaningless. Both fill similar roles and do it well.

[tihocan]

Hm, that's going to be tough, I think I was looking at 14's in just about everything the last time I was considering a multi-tasking character like that. This is the second time I rolled this guy up (I made some pretty vicious errors the first time like taking the wrong songs, etc) but the idea is that I want to be able to handle a lot (but not expecting to handle all) traps and locked doors I run into as I run through dungeons levelling.

But if I need more intelligence for the skill points to make everything stretch this could be somewhat problematic. I'll go dig up the skill emulator from wherever it is and take a look-see and see if I can make it work.

Looking at it through a skill emulator, it doesn't seem too tough if I put Con/Int/Chr at 14, Str at 16, and 8s for Dex and Wis (yeah, painful on the saves). I probably could get away with Int at 12, if I worked at it with a human. I assume you suggest going rogue for the first level to get the maximum out of the skill points though, which isn't a bad idea when I think about it.

Hm, I'll have to try this out and see how it works. Might get what I want out of this build after all, doesn't have to be excellent at everything, just good enough to get by when soloing.

Yes splashing two levels of Rogue is popular. Then adding 2 levels of FIghter can also be quite helpful feat-wise.
Personally I'd suggest Str 16/Dex 8/Con 14/Int 15/Wis 8/Cha 12
Get yourself a +1 Int tome (cheap enough) to run at Int 16 at L3+.
Start as a Rogue.
Level-ups in Str.
Pick Insightful Reflexes and wear a +Int item to take advantage of evasion.

[karl_k0ch]

Yes splashing two levels of Rogue is popular. Then adding 2 levels of FIghter can also be quite helpful feat-wise.
Personally I'd suggest Str 16/Dex 8/Con 14/Int 15/Wis 8/Cha 12
Get yourself a +1 Int tome (cheap enough) to run at Int 16 at L3+.
Start as a Rogue.
Level-ups in Str.
Pick Insightful Reflexes and wear a +Int item to take advantage of evasion.

Something along these lines is my Warchanter build Twiddler: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=255480
As tihocan suggested, you can drop Cha to 12, start with 15 Int and spend the 10 ( = 6 bard + 1 human + 3 int) skill points on bard levels on:

Perform (1)
UMD (1)
Spot (2)
Search (2)
Disable Device (2)
and you'll still have room for 2 of Haggle, Balance, Jump, Move Silently, Hide, Concentrate or Open Locks (counts double, though).

For Twiddler, I picked Extend, Emp. Heal (now switched to Maximize) and Quicken; the latter two helping him to cast healing spells. If you want to improve your Melee performance, you could drop Maximize and Quicken for THF and ITHF.

[Dancingrage]

Something along these lines is my Warchanter build Twiddler: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=255480
As tihocan suggested, you can drop Cha to 12, start with 15 Int and spend the 10 ( = 6 bard + 1 human + 3 int) skill points on bard levels on:

Perform (1)
UMD (1)
Spot (2)
Search (2)
Disable Device (2)
and you'll still have room for 2 of Haggle, Balance, Jump, Move Silently, Hide, Concentrate or Open Locks (counts double, though).

For Twiddler, I picked Extend, Emp. Heal (now switched to Maximize) and Quicken; the latter two helping him to cast healing spells. If you want to improve your Melee performance, you could drop Maximize and Quicken for THF and ITHF.

Twiddler's starting abilities look exactly like mine, but I did splash the level of fighter (for the extra feat) but I don't think I'll splash much beyond the one level. I'm actually pretty pleased with how well he performs, once I get the rogue level in I think I'll push a few more bard levels and see how things land. I might need to eat a tome or two for more Int, but I think I'll be heavily referencing your build for pointers as I level. I also took Emp. Healing for a start and I'll probably swap it later on, but it's a good way to make the healing spells stretch a bit when you're mid splashing. Aside from that, this is some excellent advice and I'll make sure to put it to use.

[karl_k0ch]

Twiddler's starting abilities look exactly like mine, but I did splash the level of fighter (for the extra feat) but I don't think I'll splash much beyond the one level. I'm actually pretty pleased with how well he performs, once I get the rogue level in I think I'll push a few more bard levels and see how things land. I might need to eat a tome or two for more Int, but I think I'll be heavily referencing your build for pointers as I level. I also took Emp. Healing for a start and I'll probably swap it later on, but it's a good way to make the healing spells stretch a bit when you're mid splashing. Aside from that, this is some excellent advice and I'll make sure to put it to use.

I strongly suggest to plan the whole class progression beforehand. Nothing is more painful to realize that you are one skill point short for what you are trying to accomplish. In particular: If you want to have Rogue skills on your character, always take the rogue level at level one.
With that in mind you shoud check if your starting int is high enough and if not, drop cha to 12.

My build is not an optimal one and I don't think I'd roll a 18/2 so soon again.

Also, I would consider to splash at least one more level of Rogue: Evasion is an extraordinary feat, only granted by getting either 2 levels of Rogue or Monk, or 9 Levels of Ranger. It helps to mitigate spell damage during combats, and in high-level dungeons, it allows you to get through the traps to the boxes unharmed. Noone likes a soulstone in the middle of a dart trap.

[redmoth]

Such an awesome thread! Thank you all so much....I am thinking of rolling a 32-point build halfling monk, and I would love to see if there is any love you can give to the Shintao Monk Path. Thanks again!

[tihocan]

Such an awesome thread! Thank you all so much....I am thinking of rolling a 32-point build halfling monk, and I would love to see if there is any love you can give to the Shintao Monk Path. Thanks again!

Unfortunately, I haven't had time lately to keep updating this thread. I'm hoping I can find some time during the summer to catch up

[Ttip]

Bump

[stille_nacht]

ehh may i suggest that you change the spell selections for the sorc with regards to new savant prestiges? the ones listed were fine before savant, but are now too diversified for any one savant :/.

i suggest adding a list of spells for each savant or something similar

[tihocan]

ehh may i suggest that you change the spell selections for the sorc with regards to new savant prestiges? the ones listed were fine before savant, but are now too diversified for any one savant :/.

i suggest adding a list of spells for each savant or something similar

Yes thanks, one more on my to-do stack... and you know I hate doing sorc spell selection, it takes an awful lot of time

[CabooseJTS]

hey, just recently found your guide as i was trying to find a guide for a completionist build(not sure if I'll make a completionist character or not, but never hurts to research), was just wondering what the Two-Headed Heron was? I've ever seen nor heard of that before, but I'd love to see a build for it, sounds interesting.

[lovand005]

Hey Tihocan, thanks again for all the work you've put into this. I'm a fairly new player and it has helped a ton. I rolled a toon based on your mighty protector build. I was curious however, if you updated it for the Half elf race yet? Or if there would be any major changes for it, or worth picking Half elf.

I chose for the extra intimidate, and the dilly feat you get with it. So far its treated me fairly well, I'm level 9 atm, sitting at 51 ac with just my aura and CE turned on. I took bastard swords for the glancing blow proc and since I didn't think I would have the money for decent khopesh weapons. One thing I noticed with the build flow, and I don't know if it was a mistake I made or not, but it says to take imp crit slash at level 8 when you take fighter, but my BaB was only 7 at the time, I just rearranged the feats and got it at level 9.

I read Junts guide, that coupled with the info here makes for a good base of info for this toon. I was just wondering if there was any more that could be elaborated with the build. For instance I've read alot about intimitanks not being viable anymore? If so is there a way to shape this build toward more hate gen?

Thank you in advance for any advice or feedback you can offer.

[Alektronic]

hey, just recently found your guide as i was trying to find a guide for a completionist build(not sure if I'll make a completionist character or not, but never hurts to research), was just wondering what the Two-Headed Heron was? I've ever seen nor heard of that before, but I'd love to see a build for it, sounds interesting.

Compedium entry can be found here.

[DirkHardly]

NM wrong thread. Thanks for the builds.