Help me craft an Iconic Challenge Farmer

[Garorg]

I did a goof with mine, doing an LR and forgetting I had two levels banked, so I have to take mine to 30 to ITR back to 15/16. This build is very fun in normal questing, and is holding up well in late heroic reaper content! I took Quicken, so the next feats I'm looking at would be to eventually fill out the Shield Mastery line, grab Overwhelming Critical, Perfect Two Weapon Fighting, Great Cleave, Dire Charge, Inspire Excellence, Empower Healing, perhaps Tactician, maybe Scion of the Astral Plane. I haven't set a real plan for the feats, but those are some that catch my eye. The additional APs are going into things such as Kingly Recovery, En Pointe, Chant of Power, Lingering Songs, and extra Charisma if nothing else looks interesting.

I'd like to make one of these to use in epics:
https://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Epic_Envenomed_Blade

That sounds like a solid plan from the little I know. I took the shield mastery options, thinking they would help with survival but I find myself occasionally missing the boost that the meta-magic feats would bring. Would be interested to hear your thoughts after you get to 30! My other thought was to possibly go with one of the warchanter/ice based bards out of the build thread.

[Dulcimerist]

That sounds like a solid plan from the little I know. I took the shield mastery options, thinking they would help with survival but I find myself occasionally missing the boost that the meta-magic feats would bring. Would be interested to hear your thoughts after you get to 30! My other thought was to possibly go with one of the warchanter/ice based bards out of the build thread.

When I did the LR, I swapped the Shield Mastery for metas. Quickened CC spells have been helpful. Will probably grab Shield Mastery feats later, if there isn't anything better.

This is an alt of mine, so I'm unsure how quickly I'll get to 30, I'll be sure to post about it, though!

[Livmo]

I ran it with L16-18 Challenge Farmers in PUGs.

The PDK Bard was my favorite.

I got 12 Favors a run and scored the d12 on my alts and a Banhammer. Plus a bunch of collectables and some Sentient food.

What I liked was the run speed and Displacement/Blur/Invis/Haste/Fascinate/DDoor.

[unbongwah]

With Crystal Cove now open, I thought it would be fun to revisit this thread and try to come up with some Scoundrel. Given their starter gear, you have three possible options:

• Swashbuckler using their rapier & fiddle (Feydark Illusionist recommended to get CHA to hit)
• Inquisitive with their light crossbow (requires Inquisitive obviously)
• Spellsinger whose sonic spells got some buffage in U48.4

The first option will probably be the same as my Baron Munchausen, with your feats being: SWF (1), Precision (3), Shield Mastery (or metamagic of your choice) (6), ISWF (9), IC:Pierce (12), GSWF (15). So I'm not gonna rebuild it for Scoundrel here. And since Inquisitive requires another P2P feature, I'll set that aside for now.

So I'd like to do Spellsinger since it has no additional P2P requirements, but Scoundrel's starter gear only includes Resonance/Combustion spellpower: no Spell Focus, no Spell Lore. So I'm looking for easy-to-farm options to boost it. Blasting Chime is an obvious option; Resonance, Sonic Lore, Evocation Focus, Anthem, and Cacophonic Guard are all useful to a Spellsinger. I was also thinking of Increased Potential: orb with generic caster bonuses.

Anyway here's a first draft:

Scoundrel Spellsinger
Bard 16
Tiefling Scoundrel




Stats
               32pt     Level Up
               ----     --------
Strength         8       4: CHA
Dexterity       12       8: CHA
Constitution    16      12: CHA
Intelligence    10      16: CHA
Wisdom           8
Charisma        20




Skills
          1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
         ------------------------------------------------
Perform   4  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  19
Concent   4  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  19
Spellcr   4  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  19
Bluff     3  2     2     2     2     2     2     2     2  19
UMD       4  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  19
Heal      2     1     1     1     1     1     1     1      9
Tumble    1                                                1
         ------------------------------------------------
         24  6  6  6  6  6  6  6  6  6  6  6  6  6  6  6




Feats


 1        : Maximize Spell
 3        : Empower Spell
 6        : Quicken Spell
 9        : Heighten Spell
12        : Improved Bardic Music OR Extend Spell
15        : Enlarge Spell OR Extend Spell




Spells



Detect Secret Doors (1), Grease (2), Sonic Blast (3), Expeditious Retreat (5), Focusing Chant (16)
Glitterdust (4), Hold Person (4), Rage (5), Soundburst (7)
Displacement (7), Haste (7), Good Hope (8), Crushing Despair (10)
Cure Critical Wounds (10), Dimension Door (10), Otto's Sphere of Dancing (11), Shout (13)
Mind Fog (13), Mass Suggestion (13), Shadow Walk (14), Greater Dispel Magic (16)
Otto's Irresistible Dance (16), Greater Shout (16)



Enhancements (Spent: 62+0r +0u / Max: 64+0r +0u AP)


Spellsinger (40 AP)
Spellsinger, Music of the Sewers, Music of the Dead, Music of the Makers
Magical III, Lingering Songs I, Sonic Blast III
Reverberate III, Marigold Crown: Violet
Shout III, Spell Song Trance
Sustaining Song, Arcane Aid III, Frolic, Song of Arcane Might
Advanced Musical Studies, Prodigy III, Spell Song Vigor, SLA: Horn of Thunder III

Tiefling Scoundrel (14 AP)
Bloodsong I, Charisma I, Bloodsong II, Charisma II
Hellish Rebuke, Obscuring Darkness
Hellish Reverberation, Lasting Darkness
Ash Imprisonment, Dance in the Darkness

Swashbuckler (7 AP)
Confidence
On Your Toes I, Tavern Shanties III
Fast Movement

Warchanter (1 AP)
Skaldic: Constitution

Leveling Guide

Warchanter: Skaldic: Constitution

Swashbuckler: Confidence
On Your Toes I, Tavern Shanties III
Fast Movement

Spellsinger: Spellsinger, Music of the Sewers, Music of the Dead, Music of the Makers
Magical III, Lingering Songs I, Sonic Blast III
Reverberate III, Marigold Crown: Violet
Shout III, Spell Song Trance
Sustaining Song, Arcane Aid III, Frolic, Song of Arcane Might
Advanced Musical Studies, Prodigy III, Spell Song Vigor, SLA: Horn of Thunder III

[unbongwah]

So I did a sample run with this build thru the Cove.

Pros:

• Nothing resists sonic damage in the Cove AFAICT and fully meta'd Horn of Thunder and Shout SLAs are pretty strong.
• Lots of CC options for a Spellsinger: Fascinate, Grease, Color Spray, Hold spells, Sonic Blast/Burst, etc.
• Good base runspeed: +15% from Swashbuckler Fast Movement stacks with Expeditious Retreat
• Sustaining Song + Spell Song Vigor meant I never needed healing and still had about 1/2 my SPs at the end without shrining.
• Frolic saves a spell slot (replaces Freedom of Movement)
• AoE buffs for kobolds too: Good Hope, Haste, Rage
• Dimension Door for quick returns to base whenever you here "Incoming!"

Cons:

• Single-target DPS is unremarkable. Fiendish Arpeggio and Reverberate are DoTs with decent SP-to-dmg ratio but they're slow. Frankly Shout and Horn of Thunder were more useful vs bosses.
• Enlarge Spell only affects two low-level SLAs so it's probably not worth it.
• Undead are immune to mind-affecting spells. This includes most Color Spray effects except blindness, ironically, which is...I mean, how does a skeleton even "see" in the first place?
• The strongest Spellsinger SLAs are cones so you have to get up close and personal to use them.

Overall a good first attempt. No one will mistake this for a well-tuned fire sorcerer, but DPS was decent for a build with literally only one caster item. Add the buffs / survivability from bard and it's a well-rounded toon.

[NemesisAlien]

how does a skeleton even "see" in the first place?

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

Help me craft an Iconic Challenge Farmer

At first, you need a hay fork ...