Revisiting paths: Builds for new players

[tihocan]

I do have on issue. though. It seems that when I'm sneaking and get into sneak attack range, the monster will suddenly notice me. And sometimes, when I do a single sneak attack from stealth (I.E. The enemy hasn't noticed me and my hireling is idling back a bit waiting for me to give her the go ahead), the first of the two attacks will sneak attack just fine, but the second one deals normal damage. Is that normal?

The second part is normal, yes. The first attack makes your target aggro on you and you lose your sneak attack on the 2nd attack. Though it may be classified as not intended, it's how it works right now.

For the first issue, I'm not a stealth expert, MrCow could probably tell you better. But even if you are sneaking very well, a monster will detect you if you get too close (and maybe in a specific angle too).

[Ethias]

Awesome resource. Keep it up! The more the merrier; I have a bunch of friends trying out DDO for the first time and this would have made their lives immeasurably easier if I'd seen it earlier >.<

[malaquite]

Hi,

I am a very new player to DOD, and not at all used to make builds. So a BIG thank you.

[Atoro87]

Thanks for the input on the tomes, but since I've gone back to my Halfling Dark Blade for a bit I've got some more questions on that particular build.

Since you had Halfling, my initial choice, AND Drow listed as optimal choices I used the character planner to run both of them up to 20, but I looked at it for so long I need some outside perspective on the racial differences. It seems to me that the halfling is going to have higher HP, 20 points higher by 20, better saves overall, and from enhancements a harder hitting sneak attack. The armor bonus and bonus against fear doesn't hurt either.

It seems the drow is going to have better spell resitance from the racial, better saving throws against enchantments particularly, better base damage from the Melee enhancments and higher overall skills but with only a 1 point advantage on Open Lock, Disable Device, Spot, and Search by level 20. Immunity to sleep? Meh, haven't been put to sleep yet on any char so I don't know if that's a big deal or not.

Because of the higher HP and saves of the halfling I've stuck with it, since in I'll be scrapping the majority of the time. Does it really make a difference or is it a "6 of one, 1/2 dozen of another" kinda deal, with the halfling slapping out more sneak attack damage and having a bit more staying power while the drow is going to be able to pop traps a little easier and have a slight edge in melee without sneak attacks? I know it's probably picking nits but I can't help it haha.

[tihocan]

I know it's probably picking nits but I can't help it haha.

Yes it is, pretty much. The fact I both listed them as "best" doesn't mean they are equal. The "best" category is broad and there can be a "best of the best".. and it may very well depend on personal preference.
The main advantages of Drow over Halfling are +1 damage from Str, +2 to-hit/dmg from enhancements, and +1 UMD. Whether it compensates for the loss of 20 HPs, 1 fort save and the nice halfling sneak attack enhancements... you decide

[Rigsta]

Tihocan, thank you for this. I've never played any D&D game before so this game's class paths provided some much-needed direction without needing to spend hours researching and carefully planning a path to 20. Concise, practical tips & instructions on making them better is just fantastic.

[Irinis]

Eagerly looking forward to nitpicking your Spellsinger choices.

Very curious as to your choices on a new-player-friendly Virtuoso build. My romantic notion of Virtuoso is TWF + Enthrall and maybe rogue levels for evasion and trapskills but maybe that's just me.

[tihocan]

Very curious as to your choices on a new-player-friendly Virtuoso build. My romantic notion of Virtuoso is TWF + Enthrall and maybe rogue levels for evasion and trapskills but maybe that's just me.

Sorry, I'm unlikely to match this, since I try to avoid multiclassing unless it really helps achieve the main goals of the build, and bards are short on feats so that TWF is hard to fit.

[Zaqs_dk]

Very nice work, thanks alot for putting in all the effort!

I've been following this guide since I created my first toon about 3 weeks ago and thought it was about time for some feedback.
A little background: I've created a human Savage of the Wild (THF barb), a human warpriest and a drow dark blade. The Barb is level 10 now, the rogue is 5 and the priest 4 (now only used as mule or if a lowbie group can't get a healer).

The barb was THE first toon I ever created in DDO, so I hadn't figured that I needed to choose 'Custom build' at char creation to place the stats as outlined in this guide (and yes, I did see the guide before creating him!) a remark about this in the first post would have been nice .. however, I've finally gotten hold of a good mith full plate, and I kinda like the fact that I have the best AC I can get without the need for the (for a new player) extremely expensive tomes or +4 dex items.
Time will tell of cause, but I have a feeling I'll keep using full plate's - I can't quite see why my AC should get too low to matter, with a mith full plate and sacrificing 1 slot for a protection item the tanks will only have the shield as a difference to what I'm wearing - and I'll have the option to swap to 1hander + shield if I start getting hit by something big.
Since my barb was created using the original SotW build he has had toughness since level 1. I think this does a good job of making up for the missing starting con and I'd recomend anyone else simply choosing toughness from the beginning and simply follow the feat selection for other races.

Since the priest is only level 4, my grouping experience with her is very limited. But I once got into a group that was admitedly doing content that was way over my head level wise. But it made me feel like she wasn't cutting it as a healer. I expect it will pass when I get her a bit higher - after all I think I was a level 2 priest (1fighter) trying to heal level 7 team mates. However point is: at the moment she feels like she's half fighter half healer and just barely doing half the job in each role.

So far I really like the rogue. Again I was in a group with her where I was the min level they wanted to drag along into that dungeon, and completely failed to spot anything in there (3 rogue 1fighter .. I'll look up later what quest we were doing) but I suspect it's a gearing issue + I hadn't chosen spot enhancement yet at the time.
When I leveled her to - I think - level 3 I didnt think toughness would be that big an issue and figured I'd take oversized two weapon fighting ... and really regretted it! I think a coment on what difference there is between shortswords and rapiers would help spare others the flawed shard and some gold.
1 issue I do have with the rogue is: what am I supposed to do about the ghost skele's in delera's? She's true neutral and as such can't use good weapons. Not that neutral good would have helped me that much - rapiers with good in them cost 1mill gold on the server I play on (in fact the selection on our AH seems to be '.. of pure good' or plain +x rapiers .. making it hard to get a nice weapon at lower levels)!

I'm not sure this is the place to bring up next issue, nor am I sure it's not already covered somewhere out there, but I'd like a recomendation on which necklace to choose from the misery's peak quest for some of the builds. So far I haven't seen a way to change your mind and get another necklace once you've completed misery's peak the first time and some of them are actually usefull for a lot of levels. This might be very late even for a new player, but I was level 10 before getting rid of the anger set on my barb. On him, its a no-brainer choosing the anger set, however, on the cleric I chose the healer set, and its outdated already since I'm mostly using her lv2 heal spell - and I think she could really have benefited from the hit bonus in the anger set.

Finally 1 question on skills: when you say 'Get one rank in ...' (e.g. in the barb description) you mean 1 rank at char creation and then never again? this had me confused quite a bit. My barb gets very few skill points each level, so I don't think he'd be able to get anything but the ones he is to max out and tumble if it was 1 rank each level.

[Zachski]

I was looking at your Flame of Justice build again, and I think I have a little comment to make about Warforged.

For one thing, you have their constitution higher than every other race's. I suppose that's a great advantage, but you can easily make up for the Wisdom deficit by reducing Con to 14, and increasing Wis to 10. Warforged already have more potential for higher HP than the other races, so that works out well, IMO.

So it would look like this:

Strength: 16
Dexterity: 8
Constitution: 14
Intelligence: 8
Wisdom: 10
Charisma: 14

The downside of Warforged, then, is lower Charisma, but the upside is rampant immunities, never needing to breathe, and the Bladesworn Transformation.

Also, do you think it would be worth it to wield a Greatsword as a Warforged since that's their "favored weapon"?

[tihocan]

This is just a backup of the original feat progression I proposed for the Human Savage of the Wild build, for people who started following it:

Two-handed Fighting (1), Power Attack (1), Cleave (3), Improved Two-Handed Fighting (6), Improved Critical: Slash (9), Greater Two-Handed Fighting (12), Stunning Blow (15), Toughness (18)

[tihocan]

The barb was THE first toon I ever created in DDO, so I hadn't figured that I needed to choose 'Custom build' at char creation to place the stats as outlined in this guide (and yes, I did see the guide before creating him!) a remark about this in the first post would have been nice ..

Ok, I rewrote the intro of this thread to make it more explicit.

Time will tell of cause, but I have a feeling I'll keep using full plate's - I can't quite see why my AC should get too low to matter, with a mith full plate and sacrificing 1 slot for a protection item the tanks will only have the shield as a difference to what I'm wearing - and I'll have the option to swap to 1hander + shield if I start getting hit by something big.

You should realize your AC does not matter once you start running quests in Gianthold (around L13).

Since my barb was created using the original SotW build he has had toughness since level 1. I think this does a good job of making up for the missing starting con and I'd recomend anyone else simply choosing toughness from the beginning and simply follow the feat selection for other races.

Thanks, after thinking about it I agree with you, taking Toughness early is going to be better for new players. I went a bit too much into min/maxing here I updated the build info.

But I once got into a group that was admitedly doing content that was way over my head level wise. But it made me feel like she wasn't cutting it as a healer. I expect it will pass when I get her a bit higher - after all I think I was a level 2 priest (1fighter) trying to heal level 7 team mates. However point is: at the moment she feels like she's half fighter half healer and just barely doing half the job in each role.

Obviously if you are a L2 cleric in a L7 quest it may be hard to keep up with healing. Lacking one level of cleric mostly makes a big difference in the early levels. Clerics improve a lot just going from L2 to L3 (in particular 50% increased duration on buffs, access to Cure Moderate Wounds, Resist Energy). In the longer term this difference won't be much noticeable though.

So far I really like the rogue. Again I was in a group with her where I was the min level they wanted to drag along into that dungeon, and completely failed to spot anything in there (3 rogue 1fighter .. I'll look up later what quest we were doing) but I suspect it's a gearing issue + I hadn't chosen spot enhancement yet at the time.

Since there isn't much room for Wisdom, spot tends to lack a bit behind, which is mostly noticeable early on. Using a spot item is definitely recommended if you want to spot traps. I'll add something about that in the Tips section.

When I leveled her to - I think - level 3 I didnt think toughness would be that big an issue and figured I'd take oversized two weapon fighting ... and really regretted it! I think a coment on what difference there is between shortswords and rapiers would help spare others the flawed shard and some gold.

What kind of comment do you have in mind? In the Tips section I'm recommending to start using a light weapon in off-hand, until to-hit is not an issue.

1 issue I do have with the rogue is: what am I supposed to do about the ghost skele's in delera's? She's true neutral and as such can't use good weapons. Not that neutral good would have helped me that much - rapiers with good in them cost 1mill gold on the server I play on (in fact the selection on our AH seems to be '.. of pure good' or plain +x rapiers .. making it hard to get a nice weapon at lower levels)!

The lack of PG weapon can definitely be annoying with a TN character at low levels, but there are workarounds... Mostly, try to find a flametouched iron or holy weapon. There is no point in using rapiers against skeletons, so just hunt the AH for finesseable weapons you are proficient with. There is enough choice that you should be able to find something.

I'm not sure this is the place to bring up next issue, nor am I sure it's not already covered somewhere out there, but I'd like a recomendation on which necklace to choose from the misery's peak quest for some of the builds. So far I haven't seen a way to change your mind and get another necklace once you've completed misery's peak the first time and some of them are actually usefull for a lot of levels. This might be very late even for a new player, but I was level 10 before getting rid of the anger set on my barb. On him, its a no-brainer choosing the anger set, however, on the cleric I chose the healer set, and its outdated already since I'm mostly using her lv2 heal spell - and I think she could really have benefited from the hit bonus in the anger set.

That's a good point. I took a note about it somewhere, I'll eventually add it. Thanks!

Finally 1 question on skills: when you say 'Get one rank in ...' (e.g. in the barb description) you mean 1 rank at char creation and then never again? this had me confused quite a bit. My barb gets very few skill points each level, so I don't think he'd be able to get anything but the ones he is to max out and tumble if it was 1 rank each level.

"Get 1 rank" really means only one rank total. I'll clarify it at some point as well.

Thanks for all the feedback

[tihocan]

For one thing, you have their constitution higher than every other race's. I suppose that's a great advantage, but you can easily make up for the Wisdom deficit by reducing Con to 14, and increasing Wis to 10.

You're right, looks like I went too much into min/maxing on that one, 8 starting Wis is not very new player friendly, since it can be a while before you get a +3 Wis item. However I wouldn't go all the way up to 10 either since in the long term these points spent into Wis are wasted. So I think the best solution is the middle-ground, Wis 9/Con 15 (finding a +2 item at L5 shouldn't be too hard). Going to update build.

The downside of Warforged, then, is lower Charisma, but the upside is rampant immunities, never needing to breathe, and the Bladesworn Transformation.

Bladesworn Transformation isn't that great as it's highly situational (and has a 10 min cooldown as far as I know). I wouldn't count it as a significant benefit of being WF. The healing penalty is also one reason why I wouldn't recommend WF for a new player, since it impacts your self-heal ability through wands / spells, having to rely more on pots which are expensive.

Also, do you think it would be worth it to wield a Greatsword as a Warforged since that's their "favored weapon"?

At low level, definitely (I'll add a note about that). Later on, not really, since +1 to-hit isn't particularly exciting compared to the increased crit range of a Falchion.

[Zachski]

At low level, definitely (I'll add a note about that). Later on, not really, since +1 to-hit isn't particularly exciting compared to the increased crit range of a Falchion.

Greatswords can have Holy Sword cast on them, though. Falchions can't.

[tihocan]

Greatswords can have Holy Sword cast on them, though. Falchions can't.

Right, I guess I could add something about this spell in case people don't read Junts' guide. I added that to my TODO list If you don't have a good Falchion to hurt stuff that requires DR bypassed by Holy Sword, it's quite likely the "holy sworded" greatsword will be better.

[Atoro87]

Thanks for the assassin advice haha, I stuck with my halfling after reading that and thinking about it some more.

Since I've gotten both my mains up past 10 I'm thinking of rolling a thief-acrobat to play with a buddy who just started up, both for the sake of some extra favor and some extra fun.

Thinking about taking fighter at level 2 for the extra toughness and the ability to throw out some extra damage from other two-handers since good melee staves seem to be tough to find. I'll probably take THF then, was thinking about maybe taking weapon focus: blunt down the line, what would you suggest?

[tihocan]

Thinking about taking fighter at level 2 for the extra toughness and the ability to throw out some extra damage from other two-handers since good melee staves seem to be tough to find. I'll probably take THF then, was thinking about maybe taking weapon focus: blunt down the line, what would you suggest?

Sounds reasonable to me.

[steve6]

Dear Tihocan,
I recently started playing DDO and I'm still experimenting with characters, as I figuring out what I want to be my "main". Out of all the forum topics I've read, this one is probably the most helpful. I love the layout (color coded FTW) and the way you explain everything. I will definitely be trying out a few of these builds. Great work! Keep it up!

~ Steve ~

PS: I can't figure out how to give rep on this forum. I feel like an idiot for having to ask, but if someone could explain it to me I'll make sure to +rep them as well.

[FauxSho]

PS: I can't figure out how to give rep on this forum. I feel like an idiot for having to ask, but if someone could explain it to me I'll make sure to +rep them as well.

I don't believe F2P accounts can give out rep. If you're Premium or VIP, click the little scales icon at the top right of the post you want to rep. Don't worry though, I'll toss some tihocan's way for you in either case, since I've been meaning to for all the great work.

[steve6]

I don't believe F2P accounts can give out rep. If you're Premium or VIP, click the little scales icon at the top right of the post you want to rep. Don't worry though, I'll toss some tihocan's way for you in either case, since I've been meaning to for all the great work.

Oh, that would explain it. I'm F2P right now, but I've been giving serious consideration to switching to VIP. I am really enjoying DDO so far. Thanks for your help.