DDO Party of 3 - Best characters to use?

[wonkey]

I think the main thing is just that you have to get used to the game. Your builds until that point will make some difference, but the difference between an optimized group of great builds, and a mediocre group of ok builds will be minimal, I'd think, until then.

Just as a fun aside, currently, our guild, Mortal Voyage (which is a permadeath guild with some strict rules to increase difficulty) is running our second duo tournament, where teams of 2 people each, starting at the beginning of level 4, and not leveling any more, without using any equipment other than what they find (no brokers, no AH, no magical items from vendors), and other MV restrictions, running a series of selected quests on hard. Ramp up (getting to level 4) included only level 1-2 quests, solos, and Korthos and C-hills explorers.

There are all kinds of interesting build combos, showing that you can make all kinds of different ideas work. I would NOT recommend you copy us, but our duo is a 1 rogue/3 cleric, and 1cleric/3 bard [my toon is the bard], which I thought would be a fun and interesting combination.

So far, we've worked our way through most of the korthos and the harbor hard and/or elite in the ramp up, and Waterworks, Freshen the Air, and Redfang hard in the tourney without a death [being a permadeath guild, death ends your run in the tourney - as well as with the character].

To help out, here's a post copied from the MV forums. I'd just give a link, but I think this is in the members-only area:


Aggro Management-
Monsters kill. Let the tank (whether it be an Intimi-tank, the guy with the big axe, or your pet dog) gather aggro before going in for the kill. If you are a rogue, it's the best way to get the extra sneak attack damage. If you don't have a tank, have one person get the aggro and hide behind a wall while the rest of the party flanks the monster. This could be the single most important skill we have to keep ourselves alive. A useful tactic is for someone to call out who has aggro so that the other party members can charge if necessary to take out the caster firing lightning bolts into the wall.

Everyone should have a good shield on their hotbar. If you get something's aggro, the best thing to do is shield up. If you feel the need to tumble, try to do so in circles. If you run, the healer has to leave the rest of the party to chase you because heals are line of sight. If you get aggro, run towards the tank. Run right through the tank and stop on the other side of him. That way all he has to do is swing his sword and he'll kill what was after you.

Sneaking-
If the rest of the party is sneaking, you may wish to consider it. If you could wake the dead with your move silent, you may wish to consider staying in the back until the fight starts.

Doors-
When approaching doors, creatures on the other side cannot see you, but they CAN hear you. Sneak to the side of the door, open it and go back into sneak. Anyone who did not see you standing up will not be aware of you... as long as you didn't move before going back into sneak.

When opening doors, stay to the side. If there is a caster already aggro'd inside, they can cast a bolt of lightning at the door and hit that poor shield blocker who likely has no defense against it. The best form of 'shield blocking' I've found is to have a strong intimidator just inside the door who can intimidate anything who comes through.

If it is determined that shield blocking is the best course of action (after opening a door) only one person should hold the door. Two if the door is especially large. The more people you have on the door, the more likely that a big bad guy will use Cleave and attack the door blockers instead of focusing on the ranged guys behind. If you are the shield blocker, don't attack. If you draw the aggro, you'll be the one getting pummelled. Wait until the baddie is near death, then deal the killing blow.

Pulling Monsters-
There are several ways to do this, depending on the creature in question. The best way I've seen so far is the bluff pull. Have the rest of the party hidden around a corner. The bluffer can get into range, select a creature (that can be bluffed... oozes, undead, etc cannot) and bluff, sneaking back towards the party where the tricked creature will meet its doom. The rest of the mob will turn towards where the bluffed creature came from, so try to pull one from the other side of the mob. Also, this appears to work through walls, so if you can get visual cover first, it's even better.

When sound pulling, turn auto-target off. The point is to NOT HIT the monster. If you hit him, all his friends will come too. Aim near his feet. Once you have his attention, he'll need to see you to come running.

Breaking boxes near creatures can work if sound pulling does not.

Last tactic if all else fails is to range someone and hope for the best. However, if you are able to range a monster without him doing anything to stop you, you must move up until he activates. If he's throwing fire pots at you, he's active.

Speaking of this, auto-attack and ranged weapons typically mean death. I recommend not using it. It's not that hard to hold down the right mouse button (or whatever your method of attack is)

Crowd Control-
If you are lucky enough to have a CC caster in your party, pay attention to the icons over the creatures' heads. If there is a pink swirl, don't hit it! They will stay incapacitated for several seconds. Long enough for the party to go through and one by one surround the monsters and take them out quickly. You shouldn't each pick a monster and go at it- you're just wasting spell points at that point.

When you surround a charmed monster to take it down, remember not to stand directly in its face if it's a caster. It will shoot you. Also, don't constantly swing at it. The charmer has to physically click on the monster to select it, and it is near impossible when 4 guys are swinging 6 weapons at it. Since it's on your team now, Tab selection does not work.

Selective Casting-
If you are a caster, spell points are a premium. Don't cast your maximized burning hands on a single monster about to meet its end to a shiny sword. Save maximized/empowered damage spells for red-named bosses you need to take out quickly. Let the melee guys act as your escorts and bodyguards so you can take out the boss. If you are crowd control, don't charm more than half a mob... usually if you can get one good charm in, it's better than 5. If you are the only healer, you may want to try not to cast too much in case your party needs you to really come through for them. Clerics- use those DVs if you have them... especially if you're not a capable turner.

Communication-
Communication is key in most of our groups. it's no secret that the world of Xen'drik is a dangerous place filled with traps. Those traps may be the fire spraying towards your party, or the mob that is summonded when you pull a lever. Every lever you pull, door you open, or chest you unlock could bring death and destruction upon your party. Do not touch anything unless your party knows you're doing it. Announce your intentions, through chat or preferably voice, and wait a couple seconds to see if anyone will object. This is especially important if you don't know the quest well, or if you know it will do something bad.

While voice communication is not mandatory, and I don't believe we can make it so, it is extremely useful. And if you don't have voice, you need to have your audio turned on so you can hear the rest of your party. Even if you don't have voice, you still need to communicate through the party chat box. If you spot a trap, let everyone know! If you are the rogue, you shouldn't just stop in the hall and start searching and assume everyone will see you and stop. Tell them! It's the healer's job to keep everone healthy, but it's the rogue's job to make sure nobody wanders into avoidable danger.

If hidden 'shadow' monsters are incoming, call it out. Many times your meat-shield will have low spot and not be able to see them.

Scouting-
Whether your scout is a rogue, ranger, monk, or just a guy with good spot, let them determine the party's follow distance. If the scout notices a gate in the ceiling, for instance, he may want everybody to enter the room together. If he's scouting out a new corner and thinks there may be a mob on the other side, he may ask everyone to stay back around the corner so he can pull instead of having a mob surround him. If your scout asks you to stay put, for the sake of the party, stay put! If you ARE the scout, be aware that wherever you tell your party to be, that's where they are, so don't try to play the hero and go in daggers blazing to die a heroic death with your party hanging out wondering why your health just disappeared.

Pay attention to your surroundings. If there's blood and bodies on the floor and walls, there is likely a trap or a big baddie. If there's a gate in the ceiling, it may come crashing down to separate the party. Even if you don't know the quests, there are visual and audio clues to let you be prepared for what lies ahead. Read the quest giver's dialogue. Sometimes it contains invaluable information like "Don't try to attack these creatures... they'll eat you for breakfast."

Etiquette-
We all know real life calls... with some of us more often than others. ops: If you need to go AFK, tell your party, preferably by voice AND text. Find a safe corner behind cover, go into sneak mode and type /LFH or /LFB. This way the party can look at you and see that you are not at the keyboard. Whether the party waits or continues without you is up to them.

If you do die, wait until the battle is over. If you want to let the party loot from you, tell them what you have. If not, don't just quit. This is an excellent time to go over what happened and what could have been done better. Those talks with ghosts can be some of the most enlightening times for a player to learn from their mistakes. Let them know you are releasing your spirit then go.

As our mission statement says, this is a mature guild and a family-friendly place. Try to keep profanity out of guild chat and ESPECIALLY voice. It's not only for the sake of the few minors who play with us, but the children who are in the room where Daddy's playing the game without headphones. It's also for those of us who tire of hearing curse words thrown about like confetti. There is a profanity filter in chat for a reason. Some words like 'spell penetration' may be filtered unneccessarily, but don't try to bypass the filter for a real curse word. If you want to disable your own filter, you can do so in the Options panel. Don't do it for the rest of us as well.

This is just a small bit of the tactics used each day by MV, but a big part of the minimum new players should be aware of to keep the party safe. The intricacies can be learned through play

[Club'in]

My brother, myself, and another friend have recently gotten our trio up to level 20. We are all warforged, and we don't use hirelings. I use the Tukaw build, which is 2 Rogue/2 Paladin/ the rest sorcerer. The synergy between paladin saves enhanced by sorcerer charisma, combined with evasion from the rogue levels make this a very survivable build (all my saves are in the 30's). My brother plays a pure fighter kensai build, mainly using great axes. The other character is a mix of rogue, paladin, and monk. Mainly rogue. Either he or I can handle traps. My brother brings the pain. And with the quick casting and large spell point pool of a sorcerer, I can keep the two of them standing through just about anything. We did Bastion of Power last week (level 19 quest), which ends in a monster fight with first a wave of devils, and then the demons show up. That was the most fun I've had in this game in a long time. My roommate happened to be walking by at that time and watched the fight. He's now a subscriber.

We did every quest once, on hard. Once my Tukaw build was able to start using Reconstruct scrolls (and two levels later, the actual spell), we became practically indestructible. I've tried many iterations of wiz/rogue, and just don't like their low hit points, low Base Attack Bonus, and small spell point pool. I think you'd be happier, and stronger, with the Tukaw anchoring an all-warforged party. I mainly took buff spells (Resists, Haste, ,Rage, Blur, Displacement, Greater Heroism), pumped up the force/repair and the fire/cold enhancement lines, used all my skill points on Disable Device, Search, and Use Magic Device. It was a 32 point build, though, so that I could have high charisma, decent con, and decent strength. The lower levels (until you get firewall), you are fighting more than casting. Mainly using repair wands to keep everyone rolling. But once you have haste/displacement/firewall/reconstruct, the dungeons become much easier to handle.

[Ungood]

Hello and Welcome to the Game that is called DDO!

I know that starting the game can be hard, and finding what works for you and what does not work for you, is a quest in it's own right.

If you dungeons go like this:

There we were, the first fight had been a slight shock, who knew the spiders could pop of nowhere, but we got em and took them down hard and fast. However the trap caught up off guard, as our trapper had no spot skill, but we could overcome, the tank ran into the fire and the cleric is now at half mana. We move down the hall and there to our surprise behind the door is a pack of bandits. The tank charges in screaming insults about their mothers, and cleric ends up with no mana half way through the fight and the wizard burns their mana bar trying to save the party, but we emerge victors! The next trap ends us.

Then you're just about normal for most players when they start.

As others have said:

18Wiz/2Rogue, Warforged
18Cleric/2Monk, (Clonk) - Any race is fine
20 Pally - Dwarf

Give this a shot, and see how it goes.