Preparing my Warchanter for Vale/Shroud Completions

[AltheaSteelrain]

Well seeing I wont have evasion for a long while until I TR, I'll just have to soak up the damage and will work on getting that ASAP Minos. The other poster here suggested a benchmark of 350 HP, but after reading your post w/ all those meteor swarms, DBF's and such, I think I should aim for 400 :P With fireshield + fire resist on at all times.

Construct Bane? Is that for the Portal Beating? Noted.

Actually I'm farming for vorpals right now, I'm just picky at the moment of finding a Two-handed version (since dual wielding them w/o feats is like asking for a reroll). But if I find a vorpal that is one handed and very cheap I'd definitely buy it.

So I should do Hound/Vision for loot runs? Its also my problem as f2p, there is seem to be a lack of farming spots for plat :P

In the meanwhile, to help with the compensation and upping of HP benchmark, should I invest in + reflex saves to help w/ saving for half damage? What's the benchmark for the reflex save for half in Shroud?

[Junts]

Well seeing I wont have evasion for a long while until I TR, I'll just have to soak up the damage and will work on getting that ASAP Minos. The other poster here suggested a benchmark of 350 HP, but after reading your post w/ all those meteor swarms, DBF's and such, I think I should aim for 400 :P With fireshield + fire resist on at all times.

Construct Bane? Is that for the Portal Beating? Noted.

Actually I'm farming for vorpals right now, I'm just picky at the moment of finding a Two-handed version (since dual wielding them w/o feats is like asking for a reroll). But if I find a vorpal that is one handed and very cheap I'd definitely buy it.

So I should do Hound/Vision for loot runs? Its also my problem as f2p, there is seem to be a lack of farming spots for plat :P

In the meanwhile, to help with the compensation and upping of HP benchmark, should I invest in + reflex saves to help w/ saving for half damage? What's the benchmark for the reflex save for half in Shroud?

Single wielding them is ok too; in fact, single wielding has a very slightly faster attack speed (still) than the other two styles, so its totally ok.

You'll probably need vale access to have a decent income; the vale has like 18 rare monsters in it and should provide ample chests for solo farming, in addition to 5 quests that are good for exp, a raid which is the best plat run in the game (shroud, has 12 chests and takes 25m, and can drop +2 tomes), as well as 2 other raids which are short (even with the long-ish runs, neither is more than a 30m commitment) with 3 level 17+ chests in each one, plus possibly extra chests on the route out to hound (making its longer commitment ok most of the time).

The vale pack is incredibly value-packed, since its actually 3 raid quests in one. While you probably want to mine exp -somehow- to not really start vale until 15 or 16 if you can (since you wont have any bridge content between it and shavarath as a free player), its totally ok to buy it now and start right in on hound and vision. Those raids are decent exp,. but the odsd you end up runing them with capped toons are really high, and i think its ok to view them primarily as loot (raid loot and decent random drops) and plat (lots of 12.8k and 16.2k weapons to sell) opportunities.

400 is a good benchmark for shroud but its one that bards at lv 16 rarely made; I basically gave you the advice that was common for a melee bard at the lv 16 cap. Its possible you will occaisionally die in those situations, however, arraetrikos's spell dcs are fairly low (28 on normal), so hitting 26 reflex to ensure you always make your saves againts him isn't impossible wehn you already have a +5 resist item to begin with.

The difference btween a 350 hp bard and a 400 hp bard is a shroud 45 hp item. You can't have that, and you won't reach 400 hp without it. For perspective, look at falstian in my signature: a pure 20 bard standing at 28 constitution on my.ddo (raged, and with a 2 excep con rapier in his hand), a minos legens and full shroud hp item .. and he's got 470ish. He's got a 45 hp item and a lot of con you can't access any time soon, if at all. You do have fighter toughness 1/2, which is a big help, but its just the way hp work on a bard. 350 is your short-term goal: the one where you can melee arraetrikos if you back out halfway through each round and redo fireshield: cold.

400 is when you can stop worrying about fireshield so much and just swing.

[AltheaSteelrain]

Thank you so much with all your advices!

I will buy The Vale after maintenance, seeing that waiting for discount and getting bored at farming Mired/Stormcleave will drive me nuts :P

[Junts]

Thank you so much with all your advices!

I will buy The Vale after maintenance, seeing that waiting for discount and getting bored at farming Mired/Stormcleave will drive me nuts :P

Demon sands is well worth it, too, but the Vale really is the single best purchase for a free player IMO.

[78mackson]

Let me get this straight if I understand you; I will do fine w/ max songs and be a better than nothing Fighter, keeping a relative distance between the "cleaving" attacks and trying my best to flank the boss while watching for my HP bar to not reach the Delayed Blast Fireball Death Range?

Running back n forward vs the boss isnt really a good idea.. usually you will just run away from the heal or even worse; run away with the heal... if u take alot of dmg during a longer period move around the boss "try to stay behind him"(easier said then done when it comes to him thou..)

Maybe Junts mentioned this in his epic sized postings... Try to get UMD to around 30, then buy a 100 or so fireshield( choose blue)scrolls, ready on a fast button then swap back to weaponry again--- if u buy a mod called reavers refuge this will be common practice if your intentions are to stay alive....

Vale is, as stated above, the most important adventure pack.

[Junts]

Running back n forward vs the boss isnt really a good idea.. usually you will just run away from the heal or even worse; run away with the heal... if u take alot of dmg during a longer period move around the boss "try to stay behind him"(easier said then done when it comes to him thou..)

Maybe Junts mentioned this in his epic sized postings... Try to get UMD to around 30, then buy a 100 or so fireshield( choose blue)scrolls, ready on a fast button then swap back to weaponry again--- if u buy a mod called reavers refuge this will be common practice if your intentions are to stay alive....

Vale is, as stated above, the most important adventure pack.

This, you absoluytely cannot try to move away from the boss in these fights: heals are not targetted, they are mass cures cast on one person, and if you move one of two things happens:

1: you move away from heals, and die
2: you move the heals away from everyone els,e and they die

It is better to stand still and inevitably die than move. Period.

Also, against some of tehse bosses, like shroud 5, it is necessary to box him in and hold him still for the 120 second beating, or he'l lrun around like an idiot and waste tons of time.

You will fight him and, every 50 sec, take exactly 4 steps backwards, out of melee range, and use a scroll, no more than that, so you are still within mass cure range. If you fail the scroll for some reason, you'll use ita gain. Then you go back in.

You can be a healer in stormcleave. Its a level 8 quest. This is a level 17 quest. It is deisgned to a challenge in healing for level 16 clerics in full raid gear from all the previous modules. Its completely and totally unlike your previous play experiences. The game evolved a lot in modules 1-5, and you're basically skipping -all- of them

I suggest you look up a video of shroud pt 4 and 5 to get an idea of what you're inevitably facing. I dont think you've seen any party behavior anything like it to this point.

I suggest you follow this link and start it at the 3:30 mark

If you wish to watch the first 15 min of the video, thats fine too, but start at 3:30 and watch pts 4-5 of this raid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evGErVRvlyM&feature=fvst

Also please understand that the reason this fight looks like no one is doing anything is the dps lag that turbine made major changes to handle: the game couldnt keep up with displaying the animations and damge of all those players that quickly, but you can see at the start of the fight how the boss behaves, and how fast his hp goes down all the way through, because all those peple are attacking .. you can also see the bars yo-yo.

That is a pretty good shroud group, dps wise, also. If you are pugging, it probably won't be that easy.

[maddmatt70]

Navigating the walls of text while trying to provide some advice well here you go. Your build choice is actually a good one for a new player because it provides plenty of hp. I would advice going with 14 bard 4 fighter 2 barbarian at the end game. Make sure to take the toughness feat if you have not already done so. Although the minos legend is a tremendous item and highly recommended someday, it sounds problematic for you initially because 20 tapestries are not cheap and since you can not farm them on your own I would look actually at trying to do BAM (I do not know if this is free content or another adventure pack) for the Bam necklace. BAM has a necklace as a nugget turn which provides heavy fort. Edit: I see you already have the bam necklace well done.

Look to get +5 items until you can afford +6 items. Try to find a way to make money. Collectibles and ingredients are a great means of earning revenue for example xp potions or shroud ingredients collectibles sell well on the AH. As others have stated trying to get a spell point item if you can find one and if not use a weapon with wizardy on it then after you provide buffs swap it out for your general weapons.

I could go on, but then I would achieve wall of text status.. Good luck.

[AltheaSteelrain]

Thank you and really sorry for the wall of text; MyDDO is broke and it shows my gimpatron cleric :| So I have to put as much information as I can.