Help me craft an Iconic Challenge Farmer

[EllisDee37]

The sweet spot for farming non-epic House C challenges is level 15, so I'm hoping to come up with an Iconic Challenge Farmer that could be rolled up and 30 minutes later be fully capable of farming challenges. The idea being roll one up, get your mats, and then delete it if you like. Or spend some effort gearing it up if you want to, but not required.

The most natural fit is a baldeforged sorcerer: Haste, DDoor, Knock, Reconstruct, nice dps.

I'm wondering which savant would be best, or if maybe no savant at all would actually be best. The assumption is that this alt should be able to easily solo any level 15 house c challenge. Most of these have bosses you really kind of need to kill, so let's look at the bosses:

- Disruptor (Giant Skeleton) is immune to cold
- Devashta (Marilith) is immune to electricity
- Storm Giant is presumably immune to electricity
- Fire Giant is immune to fire
- All bosses merit dotting

Also, there will be traps to simply run through in Mansion challenges, so high saves would be nice. A second pally level may be justified in order to easily get all the bosses. That trap hall has spinning blades and fire traps, so a fire savant would take less damage and have a better chance of running through.

There are lots of devils in Short Cuts, so overly relying on fire would be problematic.

Animated Armors have high elemental resistance, so lots of little attacks (frost lance, scorching ray, wall of fire, ice storm) won't work for them. High burst DPS is the name of the game; Fireball? Cone of Cold?

With 1 pally level you get low saves but 1 level 7 spell. With 2 pally levels you get no level 7 spells but solid saves for the trap hall.

Any thoughts?

[John_Rove]

Build a friend is using for the same purpose. He has no forum access and asked me to pos.

http://pastebin.com/REJgy68C couple tweaks tho:
oh str was 10 huh/dex 12/con 18/int 12/wis 6/cha 16 I think
also repair enhancements I only did the um 1AP in it

[EllisDee37]

Build a friend is using for the same purpose. He has no forum access and asked me to pos.

http://pastebin.com/REJgy68C couple tweaks tho:
oh str was 10 huh/dex 12/con 18/int 12/wis 6/cha 16 I think
also repair enhancements I only did the um 1AP in it

That's sort of along the lines of what I was thinking, but how does he deal with the disruptor?

[nibel]

- Storm Giant is presumably immune to electricity

Yes, storm giants are immune to eletric. Thankfully, there is no storm giants in any House C challenge, only Cloud Giants, that are not immune to anything.

I think the worst problem with the concept of "roll, farm, discard" is that the best way to use this is using their initial gearset, and the Bladeforged gearset is not focused on casting to benefit a sorcerer build. And since we are one month away from the enhancement pass and the release of the other iconics, I think this type of build can wait for a bit before thinking too much into it.

[Lonnbeimnech]

Yes, storm giants are immune to eletric. Thankfully, there is no storm giants in any House C challenge, only Cloud Giants, that are not immune to anything.

I think the worst problem with the concept of "roll, farm, discard" is that the best way to use this is using their initial gearset, and the Bladeforged gearset is not focused on casting to benefit a sorcerer build. And since we are one month away from the enhancement pass and the release of the other iconics, I think this type of build can wait for a bit before thinking too much into it.

As a 2 pally 13 sorc, you would have 2 sixth level spellss, tensers and recon might be one way to do it. on a str build using spells where saves dont matter much like firewall and acid rain... just a thought

[nibel]

As a 2 pally 13 sorc, you would have 2 sixth level spellss, tensers and recon might be one way to do it. on a str build using spells where saves dont matter much like firewall and acid rain... just a thought

DC is not the main concern to me. Is that you are missing 72 spellpower from a casting stick (they get 72 repair). And in two challenge maps (Extraplanar Palace and Kobold Island) you don't have any shrines to use to keep Max/Empower on all the time.

That, or I suck at running long challenges on my casters.

[EllisDee37]

My initial thinking is to just grab any ML14 thaumaturgy staff just for the potency. If you happen to find one with one proper spellpower, score. Two good ones + lore is probably asking too much. But really, ANY t-staff will do just for the potency.

EDIT: ML14 T-Staffs give 48 potency.

[EllisDee37]

On further review, I'm not in love with this idea.

It gets expeditious retreat, (extended) haste, ddoor, knock, invisibility, blur and sonic blast, so that's all great for challenge farming.

However, it will have issues dealing with animated armors, and will have mana issues in extraplanar palace because there is no shrine. I'm skeptical this build would be effective at all in Dragon's Hoarde, 20 minutes long with no shrine and tons of animated armors. It may even struggle with labor shortage at 10 minutes or buying time if you buy time more than once.

I base this on some challenge farming I did with my 15 monk (linked in signature) and a freshly rolled up bladeforged water savant that was rolled up so that guy could farm up non-epic challenge mats. He struggled mightily with animated armors and mana issues in both labor shortage and dragon's hoarde. I essentially had to solo the second half of dragon's hoarde. (Which, of course, the monk could do easily.)

It was weak for clearing ahead, so we switched him to center defense since there is so much less mana needed for that. Even still, he ran out of mana within 8-10 minutes.

[PsychoBlonde]

On further review, I'm not in love with this idea.

Are you farming for *XP* or *mats*? If you're farming mats it shouldn't make any difference because the difficult challenges have such poor return/minute on mats that you're better off doing easier ones and trading the mats 2/1 to get the ones you need. If you're farming XP why make a character exclusively to do challenges? If you're trying to get Artificer you need to do the House C quests for favor and you can't do those at level 15 anyway.

So, pretty much, make your sorc and do the challenges where it's REALLY EASY to get one star and then run your score up.

[droid327]

L7 is a weak tier, nothing really good that isn't DC based, and with limited gear your DCs wont be that great.

Here's my vote:

13 Sorc/2 Paladin, boost STR and CON and a little in CHA, go THF with a Greataxe. Earth Savant, focus on no-save DOTs like Acid Rain, Burning Blood, and Melf's SLA, and buffs like Haste and Displace, and of course heals. Melee feats: PA, Cleave, Great Cleave, Toughness, and then Max and SF:Evo for your Savant prereq.

Melee Sorc means you wont have the mana concerns, you can just cruise through with your Greataxe and save the DOTs for bosses and AOEs to soften up packs of mobs all at once. Maxed Melfs SLA is a great and cheap way to boost your DPS.

I'm assuming you have Shared Storage if you're farming mats on a throwaway char, so just stick in some type of Greataxe of Disruption, Smiting, and Banishing. Disruption solves all your problems on Disruptor, Banishing works nicely in Extraplanar Palace, and Smiting for the odd Animated Armor or Statue. Carnifex for a pure-DPS axe, since you wont have IC:Slashing, and everything better is BtC. Just remember to return them to the stash before you delete.

The best part is, once you get a feel for them, you can DOT a mob and then just move on, trusting the DOT to finish the job while you save time getting to the Extractor or laying down Torches and Teleporters.

[EllisDee37]

That's not bad.

I'll do some more thinking on this; 13/2 sorc/pally melee has potential. I was originally thinking the two level 6 spells a 13 sorc gets would be chain lightning and reconstruct, but now I'm thinking maybe tenser's and reconstruct. Hmmm.

[EllisDee37]

Now with more iconics to choose from, there may be some more viable options:

PDK Wizard?
PDK Bard?
Shadar Kai Monk (14/1 monk/rogue) -- won't have DDoor, unfortunately

[Jingwei]

If monk are allowed, then a Artificer 13 / paladin 2 blade forged would do ok.

You have access to endless fusillade and crossbow damage, artificer lightning SLAs and bracers of the wind to power them.

[EllisDee37]

If monk are allowed, then a Artificer 13 / paladin 2 blade forged would do ok.

You have access to endless fusillade and crossbow damage, artificer lightning SLAs and bracers of the wind to power them.

The two main requirements are DDoor (for lava caves) and haste or naturally fast movement. (Barbarian, monk or druid in wolf form.) Do arties get ddoor and haste?

Regardless, if you don't need anything from lava caves I bet 13 artie would be excellent, especially geared up. Keep in mind that the hope is to come up with a disposable build, meaning the only gear you get is whatever comes with the iconic starter equipment.

[Jingwei]

No, they don't. Now that Challenge accessories are 1 ML lower (3, 7, 11, 15 instead of 4, 8, 12, 16) then a set of T2 BTA gear could be swapped in if you needed it, and stored otherwise, I guess.

[RockHeavy]

Shadar-Kai with maximum APs spent in the chain attack is really effective in House C challenges - especially lava caves with all those annoying scorpions. Run north at start, collect all scorpions all the way to the bridge to the giant camp, then unleash the chain and watch them die. Quickest way to kill them by far. Will use 17 of your available AP - but if we are talking a dedicated challenge farmer it is worth it.

So, with that in mind - Shadar-Kai... Rog 2/Wiz 7 and something else for the other 6 (or more wiz). Use the daggers (Reward in main hand, Risk in offhand) for self-healing, chain attacks for quick trash killing, maximised and empowered MM sla to help with bosses.

Ranger could work as the other 6 levels for Manyshot and a challenge longbow of earth (not much immune to acid in the challenges) - and the free 2WF feats wouldn't hurt either. Might be a bit of a spell point struggle on a long challenge, as you'll need to be keeping haste up almost permanently (not gonna be a sprinter this guy). Monk 6 may be a better option - dex based short swords with fists of light? No need for 2nd rogue level then either.

[Dawnsfire]

I would probably go with a PDK melee bard of some sort. Bards get the haste and DDoor you want. You can tailor it to taste with a few rogue or fighter levels depending on your favored fighting style.

[Jingwei]

How about PDK: Wizard 7, cleric 6, fighter 2

You get access to 7 + 2 (wizard) + 2 (fighter) feats

Your healing is via aura and energy burst.

expeditious retreat, Dimension door, haste, rage, displacement, invisibility, and maybe firewall

From cleric, you get
divine favor, magic circle against evil, cure serious, lesser restoration

Feats are something like:
fighter: power attack, cleave
wizard: quicken, extend
regular: toughness, great cleave, empower healing, mental toughness, greater mental toughness, empower, maximize? or maybe extra turning, if the SLAs turn out to be too hard to get or not very useful.

Melee version enhancements:
human damage boost, kensei haste boost, healing aura, positive energy burst, divine might, inflame?


If caster focused then you could try to get by with magic missile, chain missile, numbus of light, searing light, holy smite, and flamestrike as SLAs.

[carll78]

Please check out this build:

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/423615

[EllisDee37]

Please check out this build:

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/423615

That's my other build. It's stronger for farming heroic challenges than an iconic version will be, but it's labor intensive to set up. (But soooo nice once you do.)

I'm looking for a disposable version that's ready to go in a matter of minutes.