what would you buy and why?

[silinteresting]

hi all, i have a small problem that im hoping all you wonderful folk can help me with. i was going to go vip at christmas but decided to buy the 9000ish points offer instead as i felt in my situation it was to good to turn down so this gave me just over 10,000 total. my problem is im not sure with what i have what to buy next.
i have,
delera's tomb
demon sands
gianthold
vale of twilight
devils of shavarath.
necro 4 (forgot that one oops)
i have earnt veteran status and will unlock whatever(32pt build all i can remember) you get for 1750 favour soonish.

my thoughts are to get reavers reach,ruins of thernal(for crafting reasons) and then my mind is all a blank. i want to go on to epics eventually so could somone point me in the right direction there please. should i buy the new pack cannith(i think). do i buy half elf etc etc.
i also want to tr my characters maybe even go for completionist so i need to make sure i can earn enough points there to, oh well im hoping and looking forward to some good answers, thx for reading.


your friend sil

[cdr]

Pray for 50% off holiday specials. Turbine has been moving away from those, though, so who knows whether it'll happen. At the very least, buy when packs are 20% off.

10K points should buy you every single pack considering you already own the most expensive ones, so you can just pick things up as they come on sale. If you're going to spend some of those on races/classes/shared bank/etc, you can create a prioritized list.

[smallstones]

Do you have the Necro Series yet? A big pain But Taps are always useful, and Silver flame Pots are great on non-UMD builds (but does require you plan to use them when yo build your toon, and all 4 necro packs and the Catacombs)

The Phiarlan Carnival is a good one too, both at level, and epic. A good into into Epics, and some decent gear.

Tangleroot... has been part of my leveling plan for years, not epic yet, but some good low level gear that is now bound to account.

STK for low level play... I just like it.

Sorrowdusk, another pack good for midlevel leveling in the 7-10 range. Decent XP, some good gear (not a lot, but a few things)

Reavers Refuge- Hmm, that's a firm Meh... Great if you want DT armor, Story is decent, the quests are fun enough, but once you get your DT armor, or better, there is little reason to run it.

Cannith 1: as soon as it goes on sale, gonna snag that... (hate being cheap sometimes)

Cannith 2: Zero, Nada, No, Zilch interest in. Yeah you can unlock artificer with it, but it breaks too far from the rest of the game.. This is just my opinion... Others might love it.

Sentinels: Another decent lowbie pack, that also includes some decent beginner Epics. While BoB is a little meh epic, The Tides Turn is some fun.

Just some Ideas... If you are willing to wait, pick these up as they go on sale (we should be getting some decent sales soon) Your points will go that much farther.

[silinteresting]

thx for reply so far, i will defently wait for 20% off packs and yes fingers crossed for a good christmas offer cdr thx for that, small edit thx to smallstones, i forgot to add necro 4 to already have list, keep the idea's coming,
also ive been reading sirgogs review on packs and was wondering about The Vault of Night? the phiarlan carnival smallsones mention to.
your friend sil

[Kages]

thx for reply so far, i will defently wait for 20% off packs and yes fingers crossed for a good christmas offer cdr thx for that, small edit thx to smallstones, i forgot to add necro 4 to already have list, keep the idea's coming,
also ive been reading sirgogs review on packs and was wondering about The Vault of Night? the phiarlan carnival smallsones mention to.
your friend sil

If you TR, the raid loot in this pack is amazing. Some of the better epic items aswell, will take you some time to get into epic raid runs, but once you get there and start getting completions it is worth it.

Figured i would answer that for you. As for the rest good advice I would just be repeating.

[AZgreentea]

First of all, only buy on sale and unlock for free where you can. You got the TP at a discount so buying on sale is like a double discount. I know how tough it can be to NOT spend the TP burning a hole in your pocket but it will be worth it.

Second if you are planning to TR you will want to focus on endgame and work your way backwards. You will spend most of your time looking for XP at lvl 13+ when you TR.

Phiarlin carnival, Tangleroot, Necro 1-4, Harbringer/Reign of Madness, Assault on Stormreach, Sentinals, Secrets of the Artificers. That should be most of the game you dont already own. You might consider skipping the Challenges because you can run them for free. Buy that when you have lots of TP left over.

You might wait off on the races/classes until you have most or all of the content packs you want. They are great and eveything, but you will get more mileage out of the packs. Oh! And the Shared Bank. If you have any alts the shared bank is a must.

[jwdaniels]

I think there's a reason to own every adventure pack except for Three Barrel Cove. Some are more useful than others, but I find that I run content from all of them except that one, especially now with the Bravery Bonus factored in.

[silinteresting]

thankyou all for the above info, with the help of this post and others ive read ive compiled a nice list of adventure packs/races etc etc to buy, now its all down to the store on which of the above goes on sale first. i did buy the shared bank tho as i agree this is a must and somone in game said that was only recently on sale(hopes they were right), so i thought why wait.again thx all.

your friend sil

[evilgardengnome]

The absolute most important buy is Warforged. I also like the shared bank.

[smallstones]

The absolute most important buy is Warforged. I also like the shared bank.

While Warforged, Shared bank, Monks, half-races and other things are nice, they don't limit your game play as much as lack of content.

my order of importants is Action Packs before Account options before favor unlocks... While the WF FvS may be desirable to play, there are many other great combos you can try until you can unlock/buy these.... But spending points to unlock them now, yet not having a lot of packs to run them in could leave you out when your friends say "let's run XXX, oh you don't have, then lets run XXX, well, what do you have? Oh we already ran that"

[Jaid314]

While Warforged, Shared bank, Monks, half-races and other things are nice, they don't limit your game play as much as lack of content.

i'll agree with races and classes, but shared bank is *huge* to have. a lot of ingredients are BTA, and shared bank lets you keep them all in one place where they can be combined into something useful, instead of scattered all over your account and uselessly taking up space.

add to that the fact that lots of good useful loot is BTA, and imo shared bank (at least the first tier) is a worthwhile purchase.

[PNellesen]

Agree with what others have said about buying packs before races. If you do eventually get the TP for the races, I would recommend Half-Elf if you plan to do a pure Divine or a good self-healing multiclass due to the Dilettante feat (even though they're ugly as sin [sorry, Pataris. It's true ] ). I haven't rolled an Arcane or Arti yet, but my understanding is that Warforged is generally considered the race to get for those.

Oh, and Shared Bank for sure. Before anything else, even packs.

[Koowluh]

I actually bought one of these large packs too and am now sporting 9k TP. I'm waiting for sales too and hope for a nice one. With all the adventure packs already bought, I'm able to buy the rest not on sales for about 8k. I'm patiently awaiting a good sale though, and hope on a big sale this Christmas. If I ever need more points for additions, I can always buy the second highest tier pack.

I'd like to see a to-skip list of items though. What would you NEVER buy from the store? My list:

- Drow. Easily unlocked using favor.
- Veteran status. I made that favor easily too.
- Consumables of any kind.
- Armor kits. If I want to play dress up I can play with my nieces' toys.
- Weapons. Really, there's enough weapons in the game already.
- Seasonal items.
- Extra inventory bag. I'd rather create a mule.

The following purchases have been made (all adventure packs):

- Tangleroot Gorge
- Sorrowdusk Isle
- Delara's Tomb
- Gianthold
- Sentinels Of Stormreach
- Sands of Menasomething
- Sharn Syndicate
- Devil's Assault
- STK
- Necropolis Pack

I've heard that I should skip on the Catacombs and TBC. I may actually toss them in later if I got TP to blow. You know, if there's nothing else to choose from anymore but mummy rot elixers and these areas. I'm still a little doubtful about purchasing the challenge pack since I get 5 tokens for a challenge each day and been saving them ever since.

[silinteresting]

koowluh i think you covered about everything on the dont buy list, i concur with it all.

[Lifespawn]

make sure if you like to TR that you buy packs with epics in them so you can get 20 tokens and tr for free

[Tobril]

When the sales happen…


Red Fens
Devil Assault (or whatever pack has chrono/devil assault)

Both of these have reasonably easy to assemble epic items, as well as
pretty good twink items for TRing.


Lordsmarch pack has what are arguably the strongest non-GS/epic items
plus is decent for leveling.


Unlock FvS, Veteran, etc with favor.

[countfitz]

First, wait for Xmas sales. In the past I bought everything at 50% off (and while that might not happen again, I expect to see a 20% all packs sale).

Second, to answer your question. You have all the great ones, and Reaver's Refuge is great, I dunno if you really want Threnal though... but if you do ok.

I'd buy Sentinels, Red Fens, and Carnival, for the at level then end game content. It's like buying two quest packs for the price of one, since it has double playability.

[Zuka]

Adventure packs:
------------------
Over the past couple of years I've been able to acquire all of the packs, excluding the most recent cannith challenges, I have to say that it sort of matters what you plan to play with to decide on the order in which to buy things, personally I think that the sentinels of stormreach is a must-have lowbie pack while tangleroot when XP and loot are both taken into account, is only about half as worthwhile, it's a brutally long chain with minimal reward, true, with brave bonus it's more significant, but still meh in my opinion.

Threnal, great loot, fun chain, impossible to get a group for, it was one of the first packs I ever bought and I have run the whole chain (over the lives of more than 20 characters) 2 times, and parts of the chain without the entire completion about 30 times, the problem here is not that I have an obsession with finishing an entire chain, but rather that you have to go through this entire brutally long chain to get the decent rewards.

Red Fens is a far better choice in this range, groups are much easier to find, loot is better spread so that it's not JUST the end reward you're after, XP is very nice and the whole place is simple enough to take pugs into, not mentioning that it has an explorer area, I don't know about you but I love explorer areas, best thing ever for topping off that last couple thousand to your next level.

Von, yes, absolutely, the loot is out-dated for the most part, but the experience can't be out-done in the 9-12(maybe13 MAX) range.

Hmmmm, the newer packs are a much better option as far as both loot and adventure balance, honestly, the assault on stormreach chain might very well be one of the best additions in recent years, a great spread of loot almost all upgradeable and common enough to get without farming the whole chain nine times, the XP is great and besides the cool named stuff there are tons of great chests throughout the whole chain.both the U9 and U10 packs are great for the same reason, a huge variety of loot for all classes and great XP in the level range, I can't recall the names exactly but I'm sure someone can fill in that blank.

I know it gets mixed reviews but I also really enjoy reaver's reach, sure DT armors are the best things out of it, but DAAAAAAAMN are they good, there are very rare ocassions in the game where you're building a character and will need an armor other than your custom made DT armor, I mean, a firestanced monk (or splash) with Jidz Tetka and a 30% healing amp dragontouched, it's craziness, with full human and monk healing amp you can easily keep yourself up with just your fists of light, we're talking cure lights at a minimum of 100.

I also think that the cannith pack with U11 (non challenges) is a great chain for end game, granted, the quests might be a bit tough for your standard leveling pack (I don't think so but I know some who do) it also comes with three slayer areas (two are frigging crazy and shouldn't be attempted without either serious awesomesauce or a good group) and there are two raids, granted, the raid loot, much like things from shroud, is useless unless you run the raid a thousand and a half billion times and look up thirty or forty crafting wiki's and planners, but the quests themselves have 4 of the better late game sets I've had the privilege to see, and they aren't ridiculously difficult to come by, it's also worth noting that the experience in the slayer areas is absolutely top-notch and ranks up there with the best experience for the effort that's available.

Races:
------------------
In the end it comes down to your playstyle when deciding what packs you need, same applies to races. I have them all and I use my Warforged and Half elf races, but I really practically never use my Half orc or drow (which I did NOT pay for.)
So if you were going to ask me to suggest a race I'd go with warforged, but if you already have them or if for some insane reason you're fleshy obsessed (points at a guildy who will go un-named... you know who you are!)
Then I would highly recomend the Half elf, the dilletante feats are really quite cool, although in nearly all other departments you're better off being a human.

Classes:
------------------
As far as classes go, buy monk, buy it buy it buy it,
Favored soul, it's a matter of preference, I don't like favored souls as much as clerics, but again, it's a playstyle thing, I can't stand having little to no versatility in spell options, I like memorizing what I need at the time rather than going "Sorry, didn't take resist energy/deathward/RAISE DEAD" all of which I have seen on more than one ocassion.
Besides that, for me radiant servant tops ANY amount of spell points, or weapon focuses, or anything offered by the angel of vengeance prestige, if I were you I'd ask people on both sides of the cleric or favored soul argument and weigh out what info they have for me, if I were contemplating buying the favored soul at all (which I have done, regretably as I got one to 16, they released radiant servant, and I haven't touched them since.)

Well, hope that despite it's longwindedness this was useful.

[Zuka]

Oh yeah, forgot to mention, Shared bank is a MUST, I mean a real, absolute, necessity. Believe me when I say (I speak from experience here) you don't want to run all of those chains 9-10 times PER character just to equip them with a hoard of BTA gear.