38 AC at level 4?

[Westerner]

[replace with adamantine full plate (or even any other heavy armor) if you can afford it, that DR/- helps]
wear one of the lesser axebane (and sometimes spearbane) bracers from Korthos.
if you can get it, Furor's hide is one of the best protections at that level. If you get it, use it with the spearbane bracer. Furor's hide is like an improved axebane bracer.
keep a shield (possibly a tower shield) in your backpack, plus a one handed weapon. You will rarely use it, but when you want it, you will need it.

You will notice a lot of damage resistance gear and very little AC gear. That is because DR works well and AC doesn't.

This.

Adamantine full plate provides DR3 and is a simple, effective approach to defense at low levels. That's what I did for my wife's cleric. She wanted something that worked and wouldn't require a lot of switching items around or technical min/maxing.

[Westerner]

Without spells I've only got 33 at level 6! I knew I was a gimp. (hangs head)

EDITED: Your character sounds fine to me.

[Westerner]

Is TWF really that much worse than THF at low levels? I re-rolled my THF fighter to switch to TWF. I guess that must change when you get good critical effects on weapons. Twice as many weapons means twice the criticals. Maybe I should just turn off power attack for a while and see how things go.

THF is better at low levels, b/c you don't yet have the TWF feats that bring your attack speed into a decent range.

You needn't reroll to specialize in THF, however. TWF can eventually outperform THF, just expect it to not pay full dividends until you can get GTWF at level 11-12 or so.

The advantage of TWF isn't in the additional criticals per se. This part gets technical so feel free to skip if boring:
1) More total damage as additional TWF attacks pile up. This is because fixed bonuses like weapon plusses, buffs, flaming/frost, benefit the dual weapon TWF more than the single weapon THF. As those bonuses scale up over your character's career, TWF will eventually outdistance THF. But not until you get GTWF really.

2) More weapon special effects aka "procs". Nifty weapon effects like paralyzing, cursespewing, smiting, etc. help TWF twice as much as THF. But only once you have access to these, again, roughly at level 12+ is when it starts to open up.

Oh, and welcome to PUG drama. Frequent topic of complaint on the forums. Just read the LFM carefully, if it's unclear go right ahead and send a tell, and keep being upfront about what you don't know when joining the group. I've met loads of quality players while pugging.

[yawumpus]

THF is better at low levels, b/c you don't yet have the TWF feats that bring your attack speed into a decent range.

You needn't reroll to specialize in THF, however. TWF can eventually outperform THF, just expect it to not pay full dividends until you can get GTWF at level 11-12 or so.

The advantage of TWF isn't in the additional criticals per se. This part gets technical so feel free to skip if boring:
1) More total damage as additional TWF attacks pile up. This is because fixed bonuses like weapon plusses, buffs, flaming/frost, benefit the dual weapon TWF more than the single weapon THF. As those bonuses scale up over your character's career, TWF will eventually outdistance THF. But not until you get GTWF really.

2) More weapon special effects aka "procs". Nifty weapon effects like paralyzing, cursespewing, smiting, etc. help TWF twice as much as THF. But only once you have access to these, again, roughly at level 12+ is when it starts to open up.

Oh, and welcome to PUG drama. Frequent topic of complaint on the forums. Just read the LFM carefully, if it's unclear go right ahead and send a tell, and keep being upfront about what you don't know when joining the group. I've met loads of quality players while pugging.

Note: rangers and rogues nearly must be two weapon fighter (AAs will use TWF when not using bows).
Paladins should be TWF if they can afford the feats (the special attacks wind up doing twice the damage).

Fighters can do a little more damage, but it isn't so clear. Also it costs twice the plat and/or grind to equip both weapons. You have been warned. - Note, my ranger will stay a ranger.
"When fighting many enemies, draw both your swords" - Miyamoto Musashi
"When anything gets too close to use a bow, draw both your khopeshes" - Hralgar the ranger

[Postumus]

I did die, and so did most of the party, but that was because we were in an elite quest, and the yeller thought we'd all done this quest thousands of times and knew it perfectly. He kept yelling things like, "Go up! They're shooting you from above. Go up!" when there was no obvious way to go up. When I figured out how to go up (I had to go around in a big circle, which he didn't mention), I got attacked from all sides by archers shooting acid arrows.

Still, it would be nice to have a higher AC. Damage is no problem with my two +3 dwarven axes.

You guys were running Coal Chamber at level four??? Daaaaaannnnnng!

[pasterqb]

At level 4 it is possible to find a +2 protection item, but a RARITY. I don't think I have one.

I found a No ML BTA Prot 3 ring out of u8 chain reward.

[MrWizard]

Some background:
How hard is it to get >40AC at 4th level: A(above) moderately hard for players with at least one 20 level toon.
How much benefit do you get from such AC: Very little. You lose a lot of DPS (damage per second). DPS matters (in this forum it is essentially the whole point of most characters), AC does not.
Can you get the same benefit without such extreme sacrifice: Yes, while a robe of invulnerability would not stop the monsters from hitting you, it would stop almost all damage.

The conclusion is that the player bragging about his AC was either lying or an idiot (probably both) and you should not follow any advice of his on how to build a character. I would suspect that anyone at least pretending to have a decent AC would be wearing a shield. Forget it, use a greataxe.

AC is of little importance to DDO (it does help at 4th level, but for most of the life of your character, it won't matter).

Wear the following:
full plate +whatever you can afford.
[replace with adamantine full plate (or even any other heavy armor) if you can afford it, that DR/- helps]
wear one of the lesser axebane (and sometimes spearbane) bracers from Korthos.
if you can get it, Furor's hide is one of the best protections at that level. If you get it, use it with the spearbane bracer. Furor's hide is like an improved axebane bracer.
keep a shield (possibly a tower shield) in your backpack, plus a one handed weapon. You will rarely use it, but when you want it, you will need it.

You will notice a lot of damage resistance gear and very little AC gear. That is because DR works well and AC doesn't. Any points put into dexterity would largely be wasted already (full plate allows one point of dexterity bonus, +4 dexterity gear is technically available at the chronoscope in a couple of levels). Using a shield lowers your damage output so far as to make "sword and boarders" a gimped laughing stock of the forums (even intimitank builds made to hold agro while blocking with shields expect to use two handed weapons >95% of the time), don't even think of doing that (the shield you carry is typically for door blocking while casters attack what is beyond you).

Finally, expect to see some really stupid stuff on Korthos and in the Harbor (and beyond). People with no clue are often the first to mouth off. Also, the /advice channel is pretty sad. Stick to the forums.

did you just rag on people not knowing what they are talking about and then saying ac is useless and not worth it after 4th level... ? You do know that with gear/buffs alone (no wasted feats) you can obtain a significant AC til level 10 that will lower almost all damage taken to a small percentage...even a barbarian and caster?
At gianthold and beyond you need to start branching to AC to make it matter though.

I gotta disagree and say you are giving bad advice. If ac is useless then why plate armor as you suggest? Use robes for fast change effects. Why wear any armor at all if ac does not matter a smidgen?

I find ac does matter, DR is only really effective in shield blocking (which requires a shield), etc..

[Arvess]

A long time ago a noob in our guild who liked to talk that he was super powerful remarked that we were all killing stuff way faster than he was and took a lot less damage. I told him that my toon had like 20 million gold invested in it and he had about 2 million.

The difference when you can twink your lowbies with race required gear or bound to account raid loot is huge. And if you don't have higher level toons to farm money or level appropriate loot, you're not gonna have the same equipment.

[MrWizard]

and the point is, no matter how you play the game or what your level of play is...someone who is feaking out like that is not someone you want to play with.

this is for enjoyment and personal pursuit as you see fit, not as 'mr. leader' wants it. Tell him to go build his own game where he is emperor, until then he should **** and gtfo

[yawumpus]

did you just rag on people not knowing what they are talking about and then saying ac is useless and not worth it after 4th level... ? You do know that with gear/buffs alone (no wasted feats) you can obtain a significant AC til level 10 that will lower almost all damage taken to a small percentage...even a barbarian and caster?
At gianthold and beyond you need to start branching to AC to make it matter though.

I gotta disagree and say you are giving bad advice. If ac is useless then why plate armor as you suggest? Use robes for fast change effects. Why wear any armor at all if ac does not matter a smidgen?

I find ac does matter, DR is only really effective in shield blocking (which requires a shield), etc..

I'm saying that the barely unattainable AC the OP leader's was boasting about was pointless. Hitting such levels requires boosting dexterity to levels that are only useful in certain situations, and are unlikely for an AC tank to want (unless going the monk route). It also requires sword and boarding, which is not so useful.

If you continued reading, I did suggest wearing no armor at all (for the "leader", since he had the means, not for the OP): the robe of invulnerability will cause *everything* to hit, but remove almost all damage. For the OP, I suggested decent armor (plate mail +whatever he could afford), but not to worry too much about it, and to be more concerned with DR than AC. As far as I can tell, he is going the TWF route, so I assume he can max out the dexterity limit of his armor without any items.

So, the OP needs:
pair of weapons, plus other DR breaking weapons. Plus plenty of special case weapons.
decent armor
[no idea about dexterity tomes]
some sort of DR gear

This is appears to be pretty close to a first character (a wizard/rogue was also mentioned). Just how much expensive gear to you expect this guy to have, anyway? I suppose I should have asked about alignment, but I don't remember where the chaos bracers are found.

Feel free to put things on his shopping/grinding list.*

* not sarcastic. Its just after I've maxed out armor (not much after 8th level for +5), weapons, strength items, hit point items always seem more important.

[Delt]

I did die, and so did most of the party, but that was because we were in an elite quest, and the yeller thought we'd all done this quest thousands of times and knew it perfectly. He kept yelling things like, "Go up! They're shooting you from above. Go up!" when there was no obvious way to go up. When I figured out how to go up (I had to go around in a big circle, which he didn't mention), I got attacked from all sides by archers shooting acid arrows.

Still, it would be nice to have a higher AC. Damage is no problem with my two +3 dwarven axes.

I'm not sure if it was mentioned, as I only read the first page, but sounds like good times in Freshen the Air. At or under level elite PUGs would definitely induce plenty of 'lolz'. Not that AC would help much there.

38 AC at level 5 is pretty excessive without a shield, with heavy focus (either in gear or feats). Low 30's isn't.

[Grenada]

For any fighter under level 5, having an ac between 23-29 will do you by just fine. No one has prestiges yet, so even a future stalwart would benefit more from going THF at this level.
Anyone who thinks u need over 30 ac is probably used to using their high leveled toon.
Do the math:
ill give u a worst case scenario, a fighter of 5th level (and lets say ur 3rd)
lets say Str 20 (+5), BAB +5, and weapon focus (+1)
they have a +11 to hit.

Lets assume u have +2 full plate (not bad for 3rd), dex of 12 (+1) and a heavy shield (+2ac)
That gives u an ac of 23 (10 base + 10 armour + 2 shield + 1 dex)

they'll only hit u on a 12 or more, or 40%.

increase your ac to 30, and they'll only hit on a 19-20, or 10%.

And since a 20 is always a hit, an ac of 31 is the most u can benefit from. So to anyone with 38 ac at 4th, your wasting body slots.

[Grenada]

Sorry, to clarify my previous post, the enemies of Korthos have maybe +2 to +3 to hit, so anything over 23 is enough to handle the mobs, while an ac of 25 is enough to handle the named enemies

[tgu]

I've gotten 70 AC at level 4.

I also beat Chuck Norris in Martial arts, but it wasn't official. He quit/"retired" after that.

I drink coffee straight from the pot.

I can't count how many women I've slept with, they count for me.

Running out of jokes here...

I beat Shade in a DPS challenge, and I didn't even submit a video or screenshots. He just accepted it.


Ugh...

[protokon]

I have found that there are 2 basic type of elite players. The first type, wants everyone to succeed. They are helpful, wont spoil the quest if you ask, and will offer friendly advice in a calm way. Planting seeds to create a smarter new player base.

The second type wonder why everyone isnt an OVER 9000 TR who memorized everything in the game. If they did it, why cant you? OMG I just ran ahead in the shortest path and soloed the quest while you was loading in, you bunch of pikers.

Which one will you be?

2 types of *elite* players: those who actually know what they're doing, and those who don't.

The ones who know what they are doing don't have to brag or talk themselves up, most (though not all) are not even condescending towards newer players, especially when asked for help.

The second type are those who managed to level one character to 6, and think they are gods of DDO because they soloed waterworks on casual. And now they feel the need to shower there awesomeness on other new players of the same caliber. Hoorah.

[noinfo]

some 5/6 years ago, my AC build fighter at 50 AC at lvl5..

These days you could manage a 60+ with the TR stuff.

Should you try it?

No.

AC is a crutch relied on by players who just haven't quite figured out this game that well yet. There is a reason said guy with the 30+ ac died, while my 28pnt 8 AC dwarf barb has easily solo'd said quest on elite at lvl (Freshen the Air I bet based on your comments)

Sort of like HP are a crutch? Or high DPS is a crutch? Seriously while I will never argue that having a high hp is ever a bad thing and for beginners its so much harder to screw up, any element of the game can be considered a crutch from a point of view. Building an ac based toon that works is a skill, building a high dps/hp toon not so much (build not play btw).

On the flip side of the coin, I ran with a S/B melee at end game that could not pull the lever in von 5 on normal, not sure how he would expect to hit the epic dragon but that is a sample of giving far too much up for your ac. If you want an easy build that is viable in all content all str and con barb all the way, if you want a build that can dominate key elements of a raid and make the entire run smooth, a good ac build is a very viable option.

[Letrii]

2 types of *elite* players: those who actually know what they're doing, and those who don't.

The ones who know what they are doing don't have to brag or talk themselves up, most (though not all) are not even condescending towards newer players, especially when asked for help.

The second type are those who managed to level one character to 6, and think they are gods of DDO because they soloed waterworks on casual. And now they feel the need to shower there awesomeness on other new players of the same caliber. Hoorah.

How sad, needing level 6 to solo WW on casual.

[Grenada]

In the whole scheme of things, ac needs to reflect the aggro you take.

An intimi-tank will need as much ac as he can get, without hurting his DPS too much (so the mobs only hit 10% or less). A melee DPS needs just enough ac that he can kill the mobs without dying quickly (they need to have only a 25% chance to hit or less). A ranged DPS needs enough ac to handle one-two melee enemies while the rest of party either kills the enemies, or someone else gets their attention. Strikers (such as assassins) need enough ac to avoid 2-3 enemies for short periods of time. Lich/Wraith wizards need the same as a striker, while archmages and sorcerers need very little ac. However, they must make sure that the aggro is on a tank before using AOE spells. Battle clerics should aim for an ac of a melee DPS (same for combat oriented fvd souls). Pure healers need about as much as a ranged DPS.

This table assumes unbuffed stats: buffing/stances will increase (such as SoF) or decrease (such as rage) this value

Level....intimi-tank....melee DPS....ranged DPS....strikers....archmage/sorcerer
1-2..........19-25..........18-25.........16-22..........15-20...............8-14
3-4...........22-30..........20-30..........18-25.........17-23..............9-16
5-6...........23-32..........21-31..........19-29..........19-29.............9-20
7-8...........26-35..........23-33..........19-30..........20-30.............10-20
9-10..........28-38..........24-34..........20-31..........21-31..............12-24


I wont go into detail after this, as it will start to vary wildly due to play style and equipment. However, this table is meant only to be a guideline for setting up your character, not a hard and fast rule. As stated above, this is not including temporary stat improvements of any sort.

[mroks28]

this is not pnp ac does not matter in this game its either dr or kill the monsters thank you

[Cam_Neely]

this is not pnp ac does not matter in this game its either dr or kill the monsters thank you

If your going to necro, at least make a decent comment.

AC at level 4 is hugely useful.