State of the game

[undercover69]

I'm not wanting to hijack the other thread (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=411765) but the discussion about powerful classes has intrigued me.
I'm returning from a long hiatus and would like to know what classes are really powerful right now.

[...]
Oh yes and as we're talking about OP Classes/Builds...

Since I've been playing DDO we've had:

1. WF FavSouls!
2. WF Sorcs/Arch-Mages!
3. Pale Masters! {Many with a 2 Rogue Splash!}
4. Clonks
5. Monkchers!
6. WF Juggernauts are just the Latest alongside Shiradi Sorcs!

Artis are great to play from Lvl 1-16 - I haven't gone any further than this myself so I can't talk about end-game.
I do feel that Druids got the Dev backlash though {along with the Pets which did get heavily nerfed within the first week of Artis being on live!}
Those Pets never did get put back to a reasonable level btw and I'm seeing serious issues with Hirelings too recently!
It might be time for the Devs to do another Hireling pass to correct their UI - AND make sure Arti Dogs and Druid Wolves get corrected at the same time!

Are these still powerful or have been nerfed? And how do they rank among each other?

[...]
Plenty of other folks are soloing EEs too - Light-based divines, shiradis of various types, even defender types.

And what is he talking about?

[voodoogroves]

And what is he talking about?

Epic Destinies now are, in many ways, more important than your class.

Any character with Power Attack, Cleave, Great Cleave and high strength can do well in Legendary Dreadnaught or Fury of the Wild. Plenty of characters can get full BAB on a clickie or using SP, etc. Once you get Blitz going you can be pretty beastly on your own. If you happen to have a way to heal yourself - either with your base class or with twisted-in ED abilities, you're good to do pretty well.

Many builds are using Manyshot. It's one of the strongest burst abilities in the game.

Light-based divines can generate reliable, consistent and relatively constant cheap damage that is not highly resisted. Toss some serious self healing in and the light-based FVS are doing solid.

The Shiradi epic destiny favors lots of attacks, as it can proc a variety of extra damage / etc. on top of the original attack ... so repeater users, archers or casters slinging low-cost, non-meta'd spells or SLAs can multiply their damage. On top of that, some of the proc's it offers are no-save CC effects, meaning with a spray of cheap spells you can (no save) lock down trash on EE. You could do this with cheap wizard Archmage SLAs, so in theory you could go with Wizard 12 and be pretty solid as a Shiradi. There are no saves to speak of, so you can make a wizard (with however many levels) - or a Sorc, etc. that didn't care about saves and instead just spammed spells.

Defender wise, I recall seeing a few threads from someone on a Stalwart in the Unyielding destiny with some healing crossed in and with all their mitigation, saves and staying power were able to solo a number of EEs.

[Viisari]

Are these still powerful or have been nerfed? And how do they rank among each other?

That list is dated.

If you want the most powerful character for the current game then that'd be a warforged shiradi wizard or sorc, possibly (but not necessarily) splashed with two levels monk or paladin.

DC casting is not worth the effort, wf fvs were never terribly hot in my opinion, clonks are nice if you need a healer.

Juggernauts and monkchers on the other hand are very powerful. Furyshot is the top burst damage in the game now and burst is the king, when that is on timer monkchers can still put out a nice, steady stream of ranged damage which in the current game is very useful. Then there's the juggernaut, which is pretty much the most well-rounded build ever invented.

There are of course plenty of builds that still work, but for the highest level of play characters with a single focus are now effectively dead and useless in my eyes because they simply serve no purpose in the current game. Even divines are mostly waste of space now in certain groups because if you stack your groups damage output high enough then healing from outside sources is simply not needed and you're better off simply stacking even more damage.

[Kmnh]

Shiradi sorcs and Juggernauts are not like the builds on that list. It reminds me more of this shroud "achievement" from back when the manyshot cooldown was snarfled.

[undercover69]

Epic Destinies now are, in many ways, more important than your class.

Any character with Power Attack, Cleave, Great Cleave and high strength can do well in Legendary Dreadnaught or Fury of the Wild. Plenty of characters can get full BAB on a clickie or using SP, etc. Once you get Blitz going you can be pretty beastly on your own. If you happen to have a way to heal yourself - either with your base class or with twisted-in ED abilities, you're good to do pretty well.

Many builds are using Manyshot. It's one of the strongest burst abilities in the game.

Light-based divines can generate reliable, consistent and relatively constant cheap damage that is not highly resisted. Toss some serious self healing in and the light-based FVS are doing solid.

The Shiradi epic destiny favors lots of attacks, as it can proc a variety of extra damage / etc. on top of the original attack ... so repeater users, archers or casters slinging low-cost, non-meta'd spells or SLAs can multiply their damage. On top of that, some of the proc's it offers are no-save CC effects, meaning with a spray of cheap spells you can (no save) lock down trash on EE. You could do this with cheap wizard Archmage SLAs, so in theory you could go with Wizard 12 and be pretty solid as a Shiradi. There are no saves to speak of, so you can make a wizard (with however many levels) - or a Sorc, etc. that didn't care about saves and instead just spammed spells.

Defender wise, I recall seeing a few threads from someone on a Stalwart in the Unyielding destiny with some healing crossed in and with all their mitigation, saves and staying power were able to solo a number of EEs.

Thanks for the explanations!

That list is dated.

If you want the most powerful character for the current game then that'd be a warforged shiradi wizard or sorc, possibly (but not necessarily) splashed with two levels monk or paladin.

DC casting is not worth the effort, wf fvs were never terribly hot in my opinion, clonks are nice if you need a healer.

Juggernauts and monkchers on the other hand are very powerful. Furyshot is the top burst damage in the game now and burst is the king, when that is on timer monkchers can still put out a nice, steady stream of ranged damage which in the current game is very useful. Then there's the juggernaut, which is pretty much the most well-rounded build ever invented.

There are of course plenty of builds that still work, but for the highest level of play characters with a single focus are now effectively dead and useless in my eyes because they simply serve no purpose in the current game. Even divines are mostly waste of space now in certain groups because if you stack your groups damage output high enough then healing from outside sources is simply not needed and you're better off simply stacking even more damage.

Shiradi sorcs and Juggernauts are not like the builds on that list. It reminds me more of this shroud "achievement" from back when the manyshot cooldown was snarfled.

I've searched the forums and still have no idea what is meant by Juggernaut, what's this?
So do Arties make the list? And pale masters? If no it's because they were nerfed or b/c the other builds are better?
Thanks for the replies!

[Viconiax]

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=404822 for the juggernaut build

My PM/monk toon still do fine in ee content, even in ee GH, so I guess they're still fine. Wail is still broke and haven't been fixed though. :P

Remember, that it is all about your play style and your own kind of build that made your toon the ultimate toon.

But my "list" would be:

1. Palemaster/Monk/Shiradi/Necro-Enchant Specialist: Instant kill would made quick work of enemy casters, crowd control are perfect for melee mobs, shiradi is for DPS. Shiradi sorc is meh IMO, without good cc they would be pretty much overwhelmed by large numbers of mobs. For example: EE tor, lot of giants immune to nerves venom, and they even have boulder toss...hold monsters won't work on them though but dance does. Palemaster also provide good immunity to enemy spells.

2. Moncher: They pretty much are the king/queen of DPS right now between switching manyshot and 10k star, especially dangerous in fury of the wild. They also good at cc with Otto whistler, pin, and nerves venom.

3. Juggernaut: This is one of the most well-rounded build atm imo, great combo build with both melee and ranged capacity, and can also do a little bit of cc.

4. Paladin/Monk-or-Rogue THF in fury or dreadnought: great survivability, self-healing, high saves, decent DPS and can also tank.

Also, bring bacon, it would defeat any mobs.

[FranOhmsford]

Oh yes and as we're talking about OP Classes/Builds...

Since I've been playing DDO we've had:

1. WF FavSouls!
2. WF Sorcs/Arch-Mages!
3. Pale Masters! {Many with a 2 Rogue Splash!}
4. Clonks
5. Monkchers!
6. WF Juggernauts are just the Latest alongside Shiradi Sorcs!

That list is dated.

To the OP and to Viisari...

You both might want to take notice of this line -

Since I've been playing DDO we've had:

i.e. That list was NOT saying that those classes/builds are ALL OP at this moment in time!
Just that they have all at one time or another in the past 3 years I've been playing DDO been considered by the population at large to be The TOP Class/Build!

Pale Masters {and DC Casters in general} are being re-evaluated as we speak - The Forum Consensus from what I can tell is extremely negative regarding the changes the game has recently brought in!

WF Fav Souls were ONCE considered the Solo Build!
At one time you could virtually guarantee BYOH LFMs would be full of these!
Again though - Recently this has changed - Mainly because of the changes to Poison and Disease immunity from what I can gather.
Not really sure how changes to two issues that FavSouls have the Spells to combat anyway makes that much of a difference btw!

WF Sorcs and Arch-Mages have just had Shiradi added to them and are still Top-End!

Clonks, Monkchers and Juggernauts are up there now BUT were Virtually {Totally when it comes to Artificer Builds} Unheard of back when I started!

[undercover69]

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=404822 for the juggernaut build

My PM/monk toon still do fine in ee content, even in ee GH, so I guess they're still fine. Wail is still broke and haven't been fixed though. :P

Remember, that it is all about your play style and your own kind of build that made your toon the ultimate toon.

But my "list" would be:

1. Palemaster/Monk/Shiradi/Necro-Enchant Specialist: Instant kill would made quick work of enemy casters, crowd control are perfect for melee mobs, shiradi is for DPS. Shiradi sorc is meh IMO, without good cc they would be pretty much overwhelmed by large numbers of mobs. For example: EE tor, lot of giants immune to nerves venom, and they even have boulder toss...hold monsters won't work on them though but dance does. Palemaster also provide good immunity to enemy spells.

2. Moncher: They pretty much are the king/queen of DPS right now between switching manyshot and 10k star, especially dangerous in fury of the wild. They also good at cc with Otto whistler, pin, and nerves venom.

3. Juggernaut: This is one of the most well-rounded build atm imo, great combo build with both melee and ranged capacity, and can also do a little bit of cc.

4. Paladin/Monk-or-Rogue THF in fury or dreadnought: great survivability, self-healing, high saves, decent DPS and can also tank.

Also, bring bacon, it would defeat any mobs.

Bacon, and lots of it!!

Thanks for the clarifications! It seems that arcanes + shiradi = FtW. Arti is very strong, albeit multiclassed.
I still want to see a monkcher in action... just watched a vid in youtube (shiradi though), 10k certainly looks impressive with a bow, the time between 10k & MS is the problem.
TYVM!

[Viisari]

My PM/monk toon still do fine in ee content, even in ee GH, so I guess they're still fine. Wail is still broke and haven't been fixed though. :P

Remember, that it is all about your play style and your own kind of build that made your toon the ultimate toon.

I've explained what the problems with dc casting are elsewhere, but basically I've yet to see anyone instakill anything well in EE GH (or High Road for that matter) without massive debuffing. When you've to use energy drain and possibly other debuffs before every spell then no, you're not doing fine.

DPS is also massively more important now than it was before and that's not really something dc casters shine in.

Shiradi sorc is meh IMO, without good cc they would be pretty much overwhelmed by large numbers of mobs.

If you've no idea how to play then sure. If you do know how to play then such problems do not exist.

To the OP and to Viisari...

It's rather misleadingly written, most of those builds were not OP, simply very solid.

[Forzah]

I've explained what the problems with dc casting are elsewhere, but basically I've yet to see anyone instakill anything well in EE GH (or High Road for that matter) without massive debuffing. When you've to use energy drain and possibly other debuffs before every spell then no, you're not doing fine.

DPS is also massively more important now than it was before and that's not really something dc casters shine in.



If you've no idea how to play then sure. If you do know how to play then such problems do not exist.



It's rather misleadingly written, most of those builds were not OP, simply very solid.

Shoot me if DC-based wizards weren't overpowered befure U14!

[stoerm]

This post is a gentle notice to newer and more casual players.

There have always been flavour of the day builds in DDO. Before the ones mentioned by FranOhmsford there were batman builds (evasion pally wearing heavy armor), WoP wielding finesse melees and heavy pick CC casters etc. They are gone due to rule changes. Shiradi and juggernaut builds have their day in the sun today, but in all likelihood they won't rule forever.

As a rule of thumb, the more your build relies on a single mechanic, the more you're going to be disappointed when the inevitable change hits. A mainstream build isn't as strong but probably more long lasting.

Experienced players with lots of time on their hands can adjust more easily, eg. TRing and capping quickly again. Think twice about making a specialist build if you don't like the idea of your hard earned min2 picks rusting in the bank, or having to start again from scratch.

[Maelodic]

This post out of the Jugg thread outlines the current state of the game fairly well.

There have been a TON of builds that can...

Melee for really good dmg.
Melee and have a quickened don't die button (heal or recon)
Ranged for huge dmg
Have really great saves and evasion
Have great personal/party buffs.

(This kind of build) brings EVERYTHING to the table.

[Forzah]

Shiradi and juggernaut builds have their day in the sun today, but in all likelihood they won't rule forever.

Even without epic destinies, I'm confident the juggernaut can still perform reasonably. To nerf it one of the following things has to be done:

-Remove artificer bonus feats (simply not happening)
-Remove reconstruct or moving it to a higher tier (don't see this happening)
-Only allow adrenaline to work on one of the four arrows fired by manyshot (they could do this; but manyshot remains nice ranged damage, and the juggernaut is still superior to other melees through its selfhealing. They'd have to change blitz too, which would hurt many players)

I don't see how they can nerf juggernaut without doing something that also completely hurts other builds.

The shiradi sorc, however, is completely dependent on one epic destiny and therefore will be hit a lot harder once shiradi only works on ranged weapons (which I think they will do at some point).

[Viisari]

Shoot me if DC-based wizards weren't overpowered befure U14!

I did say most of them, I've yet to hear anyone call clonks imba

[AtomicMew]

Even without epic destinies, I'm confident the juggernaut can still perform reasonably. To nerf it one of the following things has to be done:

-Remove artificer bonus feats (simply not happening)
-Remove reconstruct or moving it to a higher tier (don't see this happening)
-Only allow adrenaline to work on one of the four arrows fired by manyshot (they could do this; but manyshot remains nice ranged damage, and the juggernaut is still superior to other melees through its selfhealing. They'd have to change blitz too, which would hurt many players)

I don't see how they can nerf juggernaut without doing something that also completely hurts other builds.

The shiradi sorc, however, is completely dependent on one epic destiny and therefore will be hit a lot harder once shiradi only works on ranged weapons (which I think they will do at some point).

Completely agree about shiradi casters being prone to nerfing, hopefully devs will be a little bit more considerate when the time comes. I think juggs will be slightly nerfed when the enhancement revamp comes, and when 18+ fighter/barb/ranger etc levels become more valuable relative to epic destinies. Juggernauts and shiradi casters are good because epic destinies levels are so much more important than heroic class levels and that needs to change.

[Forzah]

Completely agree about shiradi casters being prone to nerfing, hopefully devs will be a little bit more considerate when the time comes. I think juggs will be slightly nerfed when the enhancement revamp comes, and when 18+ fighter/barb/ranger etc levels become more valuable relative to epic destinies. Juggernauts and shiradi casters are good because epic destinies levels are so much more important than heroic class levels and that needs to change.

Juggernaut is pretty much independent of enhancements. The essential enhancements are reconstruct spell power, WF power attack, and battle engineer. That gives you over 30 AP left to spend on optional stuff. An enhancement pass will probably make Juggernauts better off in absolute terms, since they will got more use out of their AP. Relatively to other melees, Juggernauts may become a bit less powerful; but that's certainly not a nerf and actually a change I would really welcome.

[voodoogroves]

The real sneaky advantage that a juggernaut has is .... no one expects an arti to do more, and the splash doesn't hurt their ability to trap or really buff.

You can do nearly the same feat-split on a cleric or wizard (WF AM or anything PM) split; the wizard even has enough space it could go 18/2 and still probably fit in everything important. Both would have nearly the same melee output and the PM and Radiant would have a healing aura. The radiant would have that and multiple, easily hot-barred healing options. You don't need manyshot (though I'm pretty sure you can work it in) but it'd be nice. You don't have the burst, but you do have DoTs, which isn't a horrid by any means.

The cleric though, is going to be interrogated because of the expectations everyone else has, just like any "battle cleric" has always been. Hell, maybe he *can* heal the group too, but he's still got the flak to deal with - maybe not from savvy folks who see the split and LD choices and know what the heck he's going to be doing. The wizard is going to be asked what is spell pen / DCs are and when saying they are primarily melee on a light splash, be pronounced gimps. God forbid the wizard or cleric die, as they'd never hear the end of it - that's what you get when "you ignored your role, you noobs". Juggernaut would die and people would say that he zerged too hard, bit off more than he could chew.

Nasty truth, but there it is.

[Forzah]

The real sneaky advantage that a juggernaut has is .... no one expects an arti to do more, and the splash doesn't hurt their ability to trap or really buff.

You can do nearly the same feat-split on a cleric or wizard (WF AM or anything PM) split; the wizard even has enough space it could go 18/2 and still probably fit in everything important. Both would have nearly the same melee output and the PM and Radiant would have a healing aura. The radiant would have that and multiple, easily hot-barred healing options. You don't need manyshot (though I'm pretty sure you can work it in) but it'd be nice. You don't have the burst, but you do have DoTs, which isn't a horrid by any means.

The cleric though, is going to be interrogated because of the expectations everyone else has, just like any "battle cleric" has always been. Hell, maybe he *can* heal the group too, but he's still got the flak to deal with - maybe not from savvy folks who see the split and LD choices and know what the heck he's going to be doing. The wizard is going to be asked what is spell pen / DCs are and when saying they are primarily melee on a light splash, be pronounced gimps. God forbid the wizard or cleric die, as they'd never hear the end of it - that's what you get when "you ignored your role, you noobs". Juggernaut would die and people would say that he zerged too hard, bit off more than he could chew.

Nasty truth, but there it is.

On an artificer you only have to splash 4 levels (2ranger/2monk), while on a wizard and cleric you need to splash 8 levels (6 ranger/2monk) if you want to come close - half the damage comes from manyshot! On an 8 level splash you lose a lot more effectiveness from the main class - for artificer this is limited to losing some spell slots and the capstone.

[Loriac]

The real sneaky advantage that a juggernaut has is .... no one expects an arti to do more, and the splash doesn't hurt their ability to trap or really buff.

You can do nearly the same feat-split on a cleric or wizard (WF AM or anything PM) split; the wizard even has enough space it could go 18/2 and still probably fit in everything important. Both would have nearly the same melee output and the PM and Radiant would have a healing aura. The radiant would have that and multiple, easily hot-barred healing options. You don't need manyshot (though I'm pretty sure you can work it in) but it'd be nice. You don't have the burst, but you do have DoTs, which isn't a horrid by any means.

The cleric though, is going to be interrogated because of the expectations everyone else has, just like any "battle cleric" has always been. Hell, maybe he *can* heal the group too, but he's still got the flak to deal with - maybe not from savvy folks who see the split and LD choices and know what the heck he's going to be doing. The wizard is going to be asked what is spell pen / DCs are and when saying they are primarily melee on a light splash, be pronounced gimps. God forbid the wizard or cleric die, as they'd never hear the end of it - that's what you get when "you ignored your role, you noobs". Juggernaut would die and people would say that he zerged too hard, bit off more than he could chew.

Nasty truth, but there it is.

This is exactly right.

I've been mulling over rerolling my juggernaut into a HOrc 17Cleric/2Monk/1Ranger - this build would fit in everything the juggernaut has except for IPS (which not all juggs spec anyway), trapskills (meh), and weapons buffs (but conversely, the cleric would have full raid-capability healing which is far more desirable than deadly weapons). I suspect that the melee damage would actually be slightly higher than the jugg, because HOrc brings more to the table than WF does.

What stops me is that I know what the expectation would be from pugs.

The juggernaut is massively misunderstood - even in my guild (which has great players who are fun to group with) I think people see the artificer icon and simply don't associate it with melee dps. Doesn't matter that I'm sitting on more hp than anything but a barbarian, stalwart fighter or DoS paladin, or that my damage output is right up there (at least) with the rest of the melee, or even that I'm always using some kind of big pointy stick.

But as you say, this is a hidden strength of the build - by lowering expectations from the rest of the group (beyond throwing them a deadly weapons), you keep the 'fun' element high for yourself as you enjoy what your character can do without being told you're doing it wrong.

[Loriac]

On an artificer you only have to splash 4 levels (2ranger/2monk), while on a wizard and cleric you need to splash 8 levels (6 ranger/2monk) if you want to come close - half the damage comes from manyshot! On an 8 level splash you lose a lot more effectiveness from the main class - for artificer this is limited to losing some spell slots and the capstone.

Cleric 17/Monk 2/Ranger 1 - 11 feats in total, including epic (and assuming not human):

Toughness, Quicken spell, empower healing
Point Blank Shot, Rapid Shot, Manyshot
Power Attack, Cleave, Great Cleave, IC:Slashing, Overwhelming critical

Swap OC for IC: Ranged if you care more about consistent damage output than big numbers (particularly if in LD).

You don't need a deep splash, you just need to leverage the 1st ranger level. TWF is a huge trap unless you have the feats to make it work, THF is the way to go even if you have 1 or 2 free TWF feats from ranger.

Edit: I wrote this up as a concept a few weeks ago:
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=408827