Struggling with the learning curve.

[Chazzle]

Hey all, coming back to DDO after 3 years inactivity. I'm currently going to be joining a group of my friends and my roll will be backup heals/backup tank/buffer. I've been rummaging through the forums and have noticed that this game has a 90 degree learning curve. I'm so lost in everything I have no idea how my character is/will turn out.

So I'm posting to get an idea of where I should be at what level... Right now here's what I'm looking at

Level: 10 (6 Cler/4 Fighter)

HP: 200
SP: 430

STR: 23
Dex: 16
Con: 21
Int: 8
Wis: 17
Cha: 6

Stats include equipment bonuses.

BAB: +8
AC: 31 (10 base 2 Dex 12 Armor 7 Shield)

Feats are rather numerous, for the sake of simplicity I'll post the ones I've actively chosen:

Extend Spell
Imp. Crit- Slashing
Luck of Heroes
Mental Toughness
Precision
Toughness
Weapon Focus: Slashing

Enhancements:

Dwarven Armor Mastery I
Dwarven Axe Attack I
Dwarven Axe Damage II
Dwarven Constitution II
Fighter Crit Accuracy II
Cleric Life Magic II
Fighter Strength I
Cleric Wisdom II
Fighter Toughness II
Cleric Divine Vitality II


Long-winded, but thats pretty much where my character stands ATM- but I'm not sure how he's going to stack up later on or what it is I need to do to make him fulfill his role in the group properly.

Any advice greatly accepted.

[TreknaQudane]

The question is what do you want to do with your character?

The Fighter levels and lowish Wisdom impede any sort of serious spell casting

Your Feats don't support any sort of combat style that will be remotely effective

Do you want a caster that melees? Do you want a melee that can heal? Lower level buffs are not going to be terribly useful as you progress.

You will need to do some serious changes to your character either way. It may be better to just start fresh and get reacquainted with the game in the process..

I mean.. if you really just want back up healer, back up tank, back up buffs... Why not just make a Defender type Paladin?

[Lorien_the_First_One]

I don't want to sound too negative to someone just comming back... but I don't know that I'd continue that build. Past L12 they changed the game a lot. Backup healer and backup dps sounds like a roll that is not often needed. The game kind of forces you to excel at something, even if you can handle something else as well.

A full on battle cleric who can heal in a pinch works. A full on healer/caster who can also melee a bit works. Balance tends to leave you short a bit in my experience.

[FunkyGoose]

Not bad, although I would swap out luck of the heros and precision for empower heal (or maxamise) and power attack, as youll find that your save will probably be fine even at higher levels, and the bounus grated by precision is not enough to justify that much damage that it looses, and will halve the benifit of your damage enchancements and buffs

...So sayeth the Funk...

[RobbinB]

Good news is that with true resurrection, no matter how you turn out you can start again with better stats. So I wouldn't sweat it too much.

First thing you should probably decide whether you want to be more a healer or a fighter. If a healer I think you can just take all additional levels as cleric and you should perform ok at endgame.

If you want to be more a melee type then you'll probably want to do a lot more research and come up with a strong build plan.

Regardless of which path you take you might decide that you'd like to swap out some feats. Note that compared to when the feat swap (Fred) was introduced, the current costs are insane for high level characters, but not so horrible for lower level characters (assuming you are using the auction house to get the necessary shards).
So you'll want to plan your ultimate feat selection and make changes over the next few levels or you might regret it.

Reroll is also a possibility, but I would only go that route if you are a very casual gamer and don't expect to be tr'ing at any point.

[Chazzle]

So lets say I were to go 16 cler/4 fighter, bought some store tomes to get my wis to an acceptable level, swapped out some feats/enhancements, this char will not be elite-worthy end-game?

If so, man this game has become a real elitist paradise, little room for the casual player

Thanks for the quick replies, hope more to come!

[dkyle]

It's fine for a static group. Don't expect to heal raids, but you should be ok helping out your friends. Too many fighter levels in my opinion, but not worth worrying over. I'd definitely stick with cleric the rest of the way.

STR: 23
Dex: 16
Con: 21
Int: 8
Wis: 17
Cha: 6

Your offensive casting isn't going to do much with that wisdom, so keep focusing on melee damage.

AC: 31 (10 base 2 Dex 12 Armor 7 Shield)

Your AC will soon be (probably already is) worthless. Drop the shield, and go either Two Weapon Fighting or Two Handed Fighting. THF is decent even if you can't afford the feats (you should be able to with four levels of fighter), whereas TWF needs them to be worthwhile. You need 17 base Dex for the full TWF feat chain. Not sure if that's within reach for you with tomes. My guess is no.

Extend Spell
Imp. Crit- Slashing
Luck of Heroes
Mental Toughness
Precision
Toughness
Weapon Focus: Slashing

Precision, WF:Slashing, and Luck of Heroes aren't really worthwhile. Precision is especially bad. Use Divine Power to help you hit better, and you shouldn't have any problems hitting. Better off with either of TWF or THF feat chains. You'll want Power Attack, and empower healing. Retrain them while it's still cheap.

So lets say I were to go 16 cler/4 fighter, bought some store tomes to get my wis to an acceptable level, swapped out some feats/enhancements, this char will not be elite-worthy end-game?

Simple answer: no.
You'll be subpar DPS with subpar healing, and a tome isn't going to get your wis to a worthwhile level. Noone wants that in their raids. You might get to fill a last spot every once in a while. But, your initial post was about grouping with friends. That doesn't mean "elite-worthy end-game" to me. Have fun questing with them and don't worry about trying to run the high level raids.

If so, man this game has become a real elitist paradise, little room for the casual player

Well, there is "casual" difficulty. I doubt you'll have any trouble with it at all. Honestly, it isn't bad. Battle clerics are quite powerful all around. You'll be a fine asset to your friends, and might even solo pretty well if you want.

Elite raids means elite players/characters. But who said you have to run them to have fun?

[Chazzle]

Exactly what I was looking for D- thanks a ton. Going to start figuring out all the stuff I need for re-training.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

So lets say I were to go 16 cler/4 fighter, bought some store tomes to get my wis to an acceptable level, swapped out some feats/enhancements, this char will not be elite-worthy end-game?

If so, man this game has become a real elitist paradise, little room for the casual player

Thanks for the quick replies, hope more to come!

No, if you really want you can salvage it. The question is which roll would you prefer to follow. The L16 cap makes you less useful as an offensive caster, but you could probably still heal. You could probably also spec for melee/battle caster who can heal a bit. What direction would you like to take it?

I don't think it would be ideal for either...but possible... and as others have said, then a fine candidate for TRing later based on what you have learned since returning.

[unbongwah]

If you're willing to spend money on your character, you could do a LR +3 to cleric 9 / fighter 1 (also redo stats, feats, etc.) then level as cleric the rest of the way: i.e., a plain-vanilla but effective battle cleric. If not, though, it's not the end of the world if you leveled as a cleric 16 / ftr 4 (though missing out on lvl 9 spells kinda sucks) or even cleric 14 / ftr 6 (give up lvl 8 spells for Kensai - less magic spewing, more axe hewing). What's most important is matching your build to your play style (or vice versa), not minmaxing your numbers out the wazoo, IMHO.