Going to make a Pale Master from a TR - help please

[Hanji]

DDO Guru's

I've been away from the game for about a year. Playing since just after launch.

I've been reading the forums for hours and going to give rolling a Pale Master a try. I am hoping that someone can make a suggestion on what toon to TR from to a PM. Also recommendations on human/helf/elf/etc. would be great.

Here are my current lvl 20 capped toons:

2nd life 20 Sorc
1st life 20 Sorc
1st life 20 Bard
1st life 20 Arti
2nd life 20 Barb
1st life 20 Barb
2nd life 20 Fight
1st life 20 Fight
1st life 20 Rang
1st life 20 Fvs
1st life 20 Pal
2nd life 20 Cler
1st life 20 Cler
(i won't tell you about my no capped toons :/)

Thanks in advance for your help and feedback. Glad to be back!

[Drekisen]

I'm gonna go with the second life Cleric....you'll get a small +1 to your conjuration spell DC's......plus you can twist in the Draconic Epic Destiny for another +2 to conjuration........for +3 total and let me tell you conjuration is quite a handy spell school......I'd say pretty much equally as important as enchantment and necromancy.

[Seb]

I would say the Favored Soul. The +1 Spell Pen isn't much but I think it will be more useful to a Pale Master than any of your other options.

I would choose Warforged for race. Any of the races you mentioned are playable and have advantages. I choose Warforged because I found there are times when it is a really bad idea to be in undead form (lots of light-spell users like Running With the Devils). It would be nice to have a good self-healing option in those cases. The additional hp available to Warforged is on par with the benefits of other races.

The other thing I would consider is what gear you have available on each character. I think Pale Master benefits more than any other class from having a Torc. If you have a Shroud of the Abbot and the materials to upgrade it on some character that would be almost enough for me to recommend choosing Human over Warforged. The Staff of the Petitioner is a great consolidation of useful effects.

[Inouk]

Either of the above suggestions are fine selections for PL. For race it's largely a matter of taste. I personally have a 2nd life Drow PM as my main and love it. HP are still very respectable (was around 500 at level 20), the self healing is very good, and maxed int for maxed DCs is pretty key. But human and helf are obviously good choices also and elf gets the +4 spell pen which might be nice since you don't have any wizard PL and at most 1 FvS PL.

For me there is way too much overlap between WF and PM. Both get immunites (really resist) to disease and poison, water breathing, fort, extra HP, ability to self heal. As a result the 99.9% of the time you are in form your only "benefit" from being WF is that you lose 2 int. The .1% of the time you decide to not be in form I guess it's a major benefit... but is that worth it? For me the answer is a definite "no".

[Hanji]

thanks for the quick feedback all. interesting choices.

any other's feedback?

thanks again!

[sirgog]

Wizards are immensely more powerful with at least one Wizard past life.

The PLs that are useful to a Wizard are (from best to worst):

The Good:
Wizard - +2 Spellpen, option to take a feat for +1 to all DCs
Cleric - +1 Conj DC (Web, most Acid damage spells)
Sorc - +1 Evoc DC (almost all non-acid, non-negative damage spells), +20 SP.
FVS - +1 Spellpen, +20 SP

The OK:
Barbarian - +10 HP
Arti - +1 UMD (mostly for situations where you need to conserve SP, in this situation UMDing Heal scrolls is often a worthwhile contribution to the group that uses no SP)
Ranger - +2 elemental resists (Barb is more useful than this defensively but this is still a benefit)

The Useless:
The others except as stepping stones to completionist.


Personally with your character setup, I'd roll a new toon, get them to Wiz20 (with just the most basic of gear, make a Greensteel +9 Int stick and a HP item if you have mats to burn but don't worry about getting everything right) then TR that toon into the second Wiz20 life. If this toon becomes your main, you can later work on getting the other useful lives (Clr, FVS, Sor).

[Erruun]

I agree with Sirgog. Go for a quick first and second life wizard. It will be much faster then doing a third life (Clericx2 PL) or a second life (FvSx1) through 2 wizard lives which would be my backup suggestions. That wizard PL feat really is a must have.

[Kinerd]

Emphatically thirding sirgog.

I would also go WF PM the first life, for two reasons:

1. You are clearly a dedicated player and used to slogging through the early bit. However, it's still nice to have potent self-healing before level 12. Especially with everyone running elite these days, potions get a little stretched.
2. It's all well and good to hear people say how infrequently they drop out of form, but why not test it out yourself? Maybe you want to drop form more often, and would therefore like the WF backup. Maybe you never want to drop form, and therefore the WF backup is useless. This would be useful information for you to obtain during a dress rehearsal.

[Drekisen]

I have to say I disagree......staring a new character you are throwing away some of the past life feats you have built up already....conjuration is really nice and honestly unless you planning on going to end game just getting to 20 with no past life spell pen is not that big of a deal.

With enhancements and and feats towards spell pen you'll still have a decent enough spell pen to cap comfortably...plus you will have immediate elite unlock if you choose any of your already 2nd life characters.

I just don't understand throwing away at least two past lives.

I am just guessing here but with your original post are you planning on this PM being your most played or only character? Also are you going to keep TR'ing or stop with this life?

Plus if you went with the cleric past lifer I am pretty sure there are no conjuration spells with spell pen anyways

[Kinerd]

It's a question of benefit vs. cost. If you start as a first lifer, you can get +2 spell pen and +1 stacking DC and be re-capped at 5.04m xp from now. If you take the +2 Conj DC from 2 cleric past lives, you re-cap at 4.38m xp from now, and due to its being heavily weighted towards the 18-20 range it ends up being about the same effort (or more).

2 spell pen and 1 Necro DC is WAY more important than net 1 Conj DC (or net 1 Evo DC from the sorc). More benefit, same work, easy call.

[Drekisen]

It's a question of benefit vs. cost. If you start as a first lifer, you can get +2 spell pen and +1 stacking DC and be re-capped at 5.04m xp from now. If you take the +2 Conj DC from 2 cleric past lives, you re-cap at 4.38m xp from now, and due to its being heavily weighted towards the 18-20 range it ends up being about the same effort (or more).

2 spell pen and 1 Necro DC is WAY more important than net 1 Conj DC (or net 1 Evo DC from the sorc). More benefit, same work, easy call.

While I agree there has been no mention yet from the OP of whether they want to keep building up one of the existing characters mentioned or if they are looking to make a new purely PM.

From the OP it seems as tho they want to add onto an existing character...that's what I got out of it......listing all the characters like that seems to me that they want to use one of them.

Also I miscalculated.....the 2nd life cleric or sorc would be a +2 to conjuration or +2 to evocation from the 2nd life sorc......which is not to bad really.

I do reiterate that I agree with Sirgog tho OP if you are just looking to make a PM and do not wish to add onto existing characters......otherwise my vote is the 2nd life cleric still .

Another thing to consider is if you do add the PM life to one of those existing characters and you wanna go back to a different casting class you will have added +2 to your spell pen and possibly +1 DC to all your spells and 10 free magic missiles if you purchase that feat on your PM afterlife. Honestly with BB and ELITE unlock it's not to hard to cap even a 3rd+ lifer anymore.

[Hanji]

thanks all for your help and feedback. i dig the forums!

going to go the wiz PL path.

take care and i'll let you know how it goes...