Shiradi Shuricannon

[Nodoze]

It seems to me that the progression of armor PRR should be considerably higher than it is atm. That would correct this situation. Being hit while wearing a robe, taking a lot of damage is to be expected but wearing heavy armor should provide a hell of a lot more protection than it does now. They definitely need some work on this.

As a fan of Armor (especially heavy full plate) I agree and based upon other threads I think they are working on some AC & PRR changes to make Armor more relevant... What will remain to be seen is whether they are able to make heavy armor tanks viable & desirable for a good amount of relevant content... If they do make it to where Heavy Armor Tanks have a role again it will be interesting to see if they allow for Monks in advanced Earth stance(s) to also be viable tanks. I am not sure if there is precedent for Monk tanks with high physical mitigation (PRR) in DnD 3.0 or 3.5 (or whatever DDO is supposedly based off of) as I mainly played DnD (original/1.0) and ADnD (2.0) but I did see tanks wearing cloth in SWToR via Jedi Consulars and I think in WoW so at least it has been the case in other games that some Monk builds can Tank in cloth... In the end change is typically painful as some builds lose and maybe some builds gain but I for one would like to see the types of changes you are mentioning.

[bigdmag]

Not sure if its in the thread already but anyone know whats up with 10k stars not being a monk feat now?

eTR'd and cant take it when Im supposed to, wasnt sure what the work around for it was.

[John_Rove]

Not sure if its in the thread already but anyone know whats up with 10k stars not being a monk feat now?

eTR'd and cant take it when Im supposed to, wasnt sure what the work around for it was.

It has been noted by devs and is fixed with next patch. It can be taken as a regular feat instead of a monk bonus feat.

[bigdmag]

It has been noted by devs and is fixed with next patch. It can be taken as a regular feat instead of a monk bonus feat.

Yeah but when I get to 6 theres nothing to take in its place as the monk feat.

[Wiremesh]

For my Shuricannon Wintertiger's ETRs I 'made do' with taking 10k Stars for my normal level six feat, and dropped Quick Draw. I know his DPS is less-than-optimal, but he's still quite viable in EE content with the other abilities that add to throwing speed. I took Precision for my level six Monk Bonus feat, and swap to that to increase my DPS when against stationary mobs, such as bosses, when I can afford to switch from Combat Expertise and lose the additional AC.

I've found this working well, but it looks like the fix has been done in the new patch https://www.ddo.com/en/update-22-patch-2-release-notes so back to full speed attacking

[Nightmanis]

I don't have the time to look (on my phone at work), but I'm just curious as to how exactly are shuriken expertise and the ninja core are stacking? I've got enough free feats on my build and can reliably hit 51 dex, so I was just curious as to how much I could do. I've had a few people say it's all or nothing, but I'm not going for a full range anyway. Just a better option for ranging monsters than a single star at a time.

[bigdmag]

I don't have the time to look (on my phone at work), but I'm just curious as to how exactly are shuriken expertise and the ninja core are stacking? I've got enough free feats on my build and can reliably hit 51 dex, so I was just curious as to how much I could do. I've had a few people say it's all or nothing, but I'm not going for a full range anyway. Just a better option for ranging monsters than a single star at a time.

I believe when you throw a star you get a % chance based on your dex score ( in your case 51%) to throw a second star for Shuriken Expertise, you then get another chance based on your dex ( again 51%) to throw a third star for the Ninja core . So each attack you make you get multiple chances to throw multiple stars. This is why these builds are so effective. With Dex in the 60's or 70's you are almost always throwing 2 or 3 stars and Shiradi procs have many more chances to process.

[Nodoze]

I believe when you throw a star you get a % chance based on your dex score ( in your case 51%) to throw a second star for Shuriken Expertise, you then get another chance based on your dex ( again 51%) to throw a third star for the Ninja core . So each attack you make you get multiple chances to throw multiple stars. This is why these builds are so effective. With Dex in the 60's or 70's you are almost always throwing 2 or 3 stars and Shiradi procs have many more chances to process.

Plus if you fit in the Improved Precise Shot feat (with pre-reqs) you are able to hit many more mobs with those extra stars & procs...

[Firewall]

I agree that AC is a useful layer of defense and I do pump it as much as what I consider reasonable, but sometimes offense is truly the best defense and taking extra defense is a loss. Barbarians soloing EEs with silver flame potions have no defense but their sack of meat and maybe clickies that anyone else can get, but they manage to make it. Unyielding Sentinel is much more defensive than Legendary Dreadnought, but people don't use US unless they're tanking something that would be difficult to tank otherwise - but then there's a rest of the group. I like having safety layers and nets on my characters, but there's such thing as "enough". Maybe you don't feel like you have enough, but I do just by having ~800+ hp, being ranged, and having a healing method. I usually did not use displacement last life, 5k favor duoing EEs on bravery, and I nearly never died from having weak defenses. Instead, lag and rolling 1s on CC with the harper pin on cooldown were my doom... but that happens to everyone.

Well i tend to disagree that there is such a thing as "enough" when it comes to AC. At least when you are tanking raid bosses like the Fire Dragons for example. Problem with AC is that it does not scale with levels as Displacement or Dodge do. So for higher level content and higher CR mobs you have to invest much more into AC to even get any benefit from it because the threshold where AC starts giving any noticable bonus at all becomes higher and higher. For a monster with 10 more attack value you have to have at least 10 more AC to keep the same level of defense which becomes more and more difficult with higher levels if you run EE content. 10 more points of AC make a difference of about 7% miss-chance as i calculated here in a post already. If it was a feat that would give you that nondispellable bonus everybody would gladly take it. For trash mobs of course you can always get by. Especially if you have TF shuriken which kill mobs so insanely fast that you dont need much protection in any case. But if i invest two feats into AC (Combat Expertise and Bulwark of Defense) i want to get the most out of it - or basically all or nothing. Especially when CE and Mountain Stance boost my overall AC by 30% in tank mode every point of AC counts.

[Firewall]

That may be a good idea if you have a T4 Twist slot that can't be used on something better. Since they both come from Epic Destinies, has testing been done to confirm both the SD-T3:Grim Precision (15%) & GMoF-T4:Piercing Clarity (10%) stack?

Theoretically that would be true but since i was talking about throwers and most people only have one Tier 3 and one Tier 4 slot you mostly have Whirling Wrists in one of those slots if not in Shiradi and still something better than Piercing Clarity if you are. If you have to choose between both for the second slot Grim Precision is a lot cheaper (Tier 3 vs. Tier 4) and gives you more benefit (15% + 3% Dodge bypass vs. 10%). I find Piercing Clarity totally overpriced but if you wanted to go for max armor piercing you could take it. For me personally it falls into the "leaving things like...aside" category in my above post together with (Improved) Destruction and all that other stuff.

Btw i have not tested if they do stack but i would guess they do.

[Firewall]

Not sure if its in the thread already but anyone know whats up with 10k stars not being a monk feat now?

eTR'd and cant take it when Im supposed to, wasnt sure what the work around for it was.

I think this is fixed now but if the bug is still there or it happens again simply choose Combat Expertise as the Martial Art feat at level 6 and take 10k stars as a regular feat later so you will still have the same feats in epics.

[Firewall]

I have done some tests on Lamannia when it was still up and wanted to share some insights.


About Thunderforged Weapons:

Since the Bleeding damage from Dragon's Edge does not work on offhand weapons for me it is still the best thing to take as a Tier 2 Thunderforged on my shuriken. Remember that on Trashmobs - which are basically helpless all the time with a Shuricannon - you do 215% damage (Sense Weakness, No Mercy, Ship Buff) which boosts all that damage too.

I was curious about a thing i read in a thread here: https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...=1#post5302569

about Mortal Fear damage being affected by Sense Weakness and No Mercy basically instakilling a helpless monster when it procs and i can confirm this is true. I even think this is WAI by the Devs because for one they did not nerf it right away as they did with Crippling Flames when the level drain would work on bosses in the beginning and also because it is basically a weaker and more unreliable form of Coup de Grace and you have to invest heavily into Enhancements, Twists and the Tier 3 TF weapon itself to be able to benefit from it. So basically if you have your hands on a Mortal Fear shuriken you definately want to have Sense Weakness and No Mercy along with some means to make mobs helpless in every kind of content where trash mobs can be made helpless. This is REALLY powerful especially on orange nameds! So for trash and fire immune red nameds i'd say Mortal Fear is the easiest way to go for Tier 3.


I also crafted a Crippling Flames shuriken and can confirm this is the thing you really want to have for every red named that is not fire immune which are quite a lot. Some are even vulnerable to fire damage (Frost Dragon in GH Tor/FoT, Troll in Trial by Fire, Mummy in Haunted Halls, Frost Dragon end boss in Haunted Halls,...). Especially for Frost dragons (or non-fire immune dragons in general) this thing does insane damage since You do Tier 1 damage, Bleeding damage, Crippling Flames damage and the innate TF dragon bane damage so if the boss is even vulnerable to fire it melts like ice in a volcano.

If you want to craft a third star for fire immune bosses a great alternative is to go with Touch of Shadows for Tier 1 and Burning Emptiness on Tier 3 especially if you run in Divine Crusader.

So far on the life server my TF shuriken has a Meteoric Star ruby slotted in its orange slot.


For an offhand weapon i'm still debating if i should
1) keep my Gauntlets of Immortality along with Celestia (slotted with a Golem's Heart) and a planar focus trinket
2) keep Celestia and the planar focus and slot a devotion augment into the orange TF shuriken slot to free the glove slot
3) craft a TF shortsword with positive spellpower and crit and a green augment slot as Tier 2 to free the glove and trinket slots

I will still have to think about that when i have all the new items and do my semi-final new gear setup.

[Firewall]

With the powerful on-crit effects on TF shuriken i have played some more with the Epic Destinies and come to the conclusion that in endgame - and from a pure DPS perspective - Divine Crusader is the more powerful ED for a Shuricannon. Reasons:

- Crit range expands to 13-20 (!!!) which boosts physical damage as well as on-crit effects by A LOT on monsters vulnerable to bleeding and/or fire (or Level Drain if you use a Life Stealing spelltouched shuriken)
- going for 6 WIS compensates most of what you loose by not having DEX as attribute choice for AC and 10k stars damage (- you can have WIS in the 50s easily for up to 6 shuriken per attack while in 10k stars)
- better survivability (+50 HP, +125 spellpoints (vs. +100 in Shiradi), 10% Heal Amp, +10 positive spellpower, +10 PRR, +10% Elec,Acid,Cold absorbtion, immunity to petrification)
- Trash and Boss debuffs with Purification stacks
- Undead Bane as well as Lawful and Good DR-bypass on weapons
- +4 damage from cores (vs. only +3 from cores in Shiradi)
- +2 Seeker (Purge the Wicked)
- Healing from Sacred Ground (especially good while tanking)
- Permanent full BAB 28 without need to scroll Tenser's
- Up to +10% Doubleshot from Celestial Champion stacks (+2.5% effective taking 10k stars into account)
- Burst damage from Zeal of the Righteous (Aside from the damage bonus, when Zeal is used right after the Doubleshot Debuff from 10k stars is over, you still get a benefit of 5.2% Doubleshot bonus as average over the 4 minute cooldown timer even if you keep 10k stars up constantly)

So this buffs the defensive/tanking part of a Shuricannon as well as the DPS part.
Everything works at full range so no need to worry about Sneak Attack range as i like it from Shiradi but of course Divine Crusader lacks some of the CC. But with TF shuriken trash mob DPS on a shuriken thrower basically comes down to how fast Mortal Fear procs anyway.

I will update this in the OP as the DPS variant of the Shuricannon.

[Nodoze]

I have done some tests on Lamannia when it was still up and wanted to share some insights.

About Thunderforged Weapons:

Since the Bleeding damage from Dragon's Edge does not work on offhand weapons for me it is still the best thing to take as a Tier 2 Thunderforged. Remember that on Trashmobs - which are basically helpless all the time with a Shuricannon - you do 215% damage (Sense Weakness, No Mercy, Ship Buff)
...
So far on the live server my TF shuriken has a Meteoric Star ruby slotted in its orange slot.

For an offhand weapon i'm still debating if i should
1) keep my Gauntlets of Immortality along with Celestia (slotted with a Golem's Heart) and a planar focus trinket
2) keep Celestia and the planar focus and slot a devotion augment into the orange TF shuriken slot to free the glove slot
3) craft a TF shortsword with positive spellpower and crit and a green augment slot as Tier 2 to free the glove and trinket slots

I will still have to think about that when i have all the new items and do my semi-final new gear setup.

I think it all depends on what you are doing and what your goals are.

For me when solo or with my kids I like tons of Crowd Control to keep mobs locked down as well as AoE to take/keep aggro and the Celestia procs with the Meteoric Star ruby procs fit best into that plan.

If I was running raids all the time and wanted to focus on just DPS or if I was in a group where the CC was redundant or not needed then I would gear for that.

Thanks for sharing all the insights and results of testing.

[Nodoze]

I thought deception on the off-hand worked but according to this thread it doesn't: https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...ffhand+thrower

I am still liking Celestia when I am level 23+ but need options for other levels and sometimes I don't want the AoEs to proc (kill steal from blitzers or when mobs are fascinated)...

Anyone know where a list is of good things to have on an offhand weapon for a thrower (Shuriken or otherwise)?

The ones I can think of thus far are:

- Augment slots;
- Various spell-power/spell-crit;
- Celestia AoE procs;
- Seeker (if not higher elsewhere);
- Riposte (if nothing better);
- ... (tired, can't think of more right now) ???

[GeoffWatson]

- Undead Bane as well as Lawful and Good DR-bypass on weapons
.

Blessed Blades doesn't work with shuriken.

Geoff.

[Firewall]

@Nodoze: Yes i already mentioned in post #546 that (Improved) Deception seems not to work on offhand items anymore. Right now it looks like most effects do not work in the Offhand. I can only recommend Seeker items with red augment slots for positive spellpower, Treason and Rebellion (for Sneak Attack and Armor Piercing if you have it nowhere else and the red slot on Rebellion) or a Thunderforged weapon.

@Geoff: Yes i also found that out lately. Ty for pointing it out. It should work but looks like it is bugged right now like so many other things with throwing weapons. I have bug reported it. But the DR-breaking is the least reason why Divine Crusader is so powerful for a shuricannon.

[Firewall]

I'm still very sceptical about the planned introduction of Melee Power and Ranged Power.

Still - as a side note Severlin stated that they plan to remove the prerequisites of the Overwhelming Critical feat which will make a nice addition to a shuricannon as the level 24 feat. This will boost the Shuricannon to a (13-18x2, 19-20x3) crit profile in Divine Crusader which will be devastating!

[dioss]

I'm still very sceptical about the planned introduction of Melee Power and Ranged Power.

Still - as a side note Severlin stated that they plan to remove the prerequisites of the Overwhelming Critical feat which will make a nice addition to a shuricannon as the level 24 feat. This will boost the Shuricannon to a (13-18x2, 19-20x3) crit profile in Divine Crusader which will be devastating!

This may Have been covered but what enhancements am i supposed to take under shiradi tree?

[Nodoze]

This may Have been covered but what enhancements am i supposed to take under shiradi tree?

Though I remember seeing the recommended expenditures in the Shiradi ED I don't see them anymore after the "Full DPS Variant" was added... Maybe Firewall can point us to where they are or add them back to the Initial Post(s) if they are indeed missing up front as I believe Shiradi is still the primary build (with it's blend of CC/DPS/etc) with Divine Crusader a more recent DPS focused option...