Adventure Pack Reviews and Buyer's Guide

[EllisDee37]

That is one sick staff!

[Blackheartox]

One more item of note, Theurgic Stave. Level 8, and pretty much the best quarterstaff out there until level 20+ (level 18 inspired quarters staff does a bit less damage, but has other bonuses). Superb item for aspiring acrobats.

Not true, comes from someone who hasnt seen stave of seer, chieftains spear, breeze or dreamspitter nor tried them out

[Stoner81]

One more item of note, Theurgic Stave. Level 8, and pretty much the best quarterstaff out there until level 20+ (level 18 inspired quarters staff does a bit less damage, but has other bonuses). Superb item for aspiring acrobats.

Very nice staff indeed but a LitII Green Steel one would have it beat I think

Stoner81.

[psykopeta]

One more item of note, Theurgic Stave. Level 8, and pretty much the best quarterstaff out there until level 20+ (level 18 inspired quarters staff does a bit less damage, but has other bonuses). Superb item for aspiring acrobats.

what is it good for? some earth ele?

get a http://ddowiki.com/page/Dreamspitter upgraded an unsuppressed, by far the best stick ingame, only beaton by sireth agains bosses and by triple pos (stick too) for undeads

y, negging a mob has no prize

[Blackheartox]

what is it good for? some earth ele?

get a http://ddowiki.com/page/Dreamspitter upgraded an unsuppressed, by far the best stick ingame, only beaton by sireth agains bosses and by triple pos (stick too) for undeads

y, negging a mob has no prize

Breeze with shileagh is the most fun and prolly best til 20. cc it offers beats dream by miles, you can basicaly jump into 20 flenserers and start cleaving and they cant do anything to you.

Thats like a dream come true

[TheNameIwasntB4]

First, KUDOS to the OP. A tremendous amount of work on your part.

Not sure if it is a D pack or not. I will move it up to C. Just about the best bang for the Turbine Point spent. For me, it takes around 3 hours to solo the entire thing. Including my breaks.

If you solo a lot, like I do, the Eternal Wand of Cures is awesome. 50 charges of cures(+1 or +2) which is on average around +70 cures. I have fought battles and wand whipped myself afterwards. It usually recharges by the next battle.

You can get some BTA jewelry or clothing if you have a shared account and actually think that crafting is cool. My best loot out of it recently, Pale Lavender Ioun Stone.

Luckily, I was able to purchase the pack at 75% off, so that was 67 TP or so. I ran the pack on four servers and recouped 100 TP, so I net gained 33 TP. Buy the pack on sale. Buy all packs on sale if you can.

Very admirable work by the OP.

[susiedupfer]

Good work OP. I agree with the list as far as for NEW players. Not so much for TR's. But, great work on this so far!

[Postumus]

Adventure Pack	Level	Cost	Favor	Patron	Grade
The Catacombs	3-4	250 TP	66	Silver Flame	B+
The Seal of Shan-To-Kor	3-5	250 TP	48	Coin Lords	B
Tangleroot Gorge	3-7	550 TP	99	House Phiarlan	C
The Sharn Syndicate	4	350 TP	36	Coin Lords	B
Phiarlan Carnival	5	450 TP	48	House Phiarlan	C
Necropolis Part 1	5-6	250 TP	66	Silver Flame	A
Three-Barrel Cove	5-7	650 TP	99	Free Agents	B
Delera's Tomb	5-11	850 TP	129	House Jorasco	A+
Sorrowdusk Isle	6-10	450 TP	117	House Deneith	D+

Nice work with the tables and putting this together. I changed the grades in the table above to how I rate them and my additional comments below:


Catacombs is a fun, good low level pack for people new to the game. Replayability factor is decent. End rewards are good for new players. Good story. Very DnD type of quest.


Tangleroot I find more on par with Sorrowdusk as it gets monotonous and the replayability factor is low, nor is it particularly challenging. Weak story.


Carnival lots of groups I've been in hate the first quest and don't particularly like the last one. Replayability factor is so-so but has epic versions which is a plus. End rewards decent. Story OK.


Three Barrel Cove has a fun atmosphere. Fun explorer area. Nice, low level end rewards. Very replayable if you like pirates. Not so much if you hate pirates. Quests are about average, and Ghost of a Chance has one of the best (or most annoying depending on your POV) puzzles in the game.


Necropolis 1 our greatest difference of opinion here. I love the Necro chains. If players like undead, Necro 1 is a great series. Good xps. Decent end reward (silver flame amulet). Decent challenge. Good story (you get to fight a vampire!). Replayability is above average.


Delera's have to give it an A+ for replayability, story, xp, and end rewards (Carnifex and Voice of the master).

[EllisDee37]

This gives me an idea:

"Rebuttal" grades are an excellent resource. I would encourage you to post more as I write more reviews, but if at all possible when all is said and done gather them into a single post. Whether that means adding your grades with short explanations piecemeal and then when all the reviews are in copy & pasting them into one post or just editing this first post to add more. Either way, noting all the disagreements and collecting them in a single post would be ideal.

Then I can link to everybody's "rebuttal grades" directly from the OP.



Tangleroot would get a C- in my grades at best except for the visor. That alone makes the pack.

I rather like both Necropolis 1 and 3BC but couldn't in good conscience grade them highly for new players. I'm particularly fond of necropolis 3, but you can bet that will suffer a similar fate. heh.

[EllisDee37]

Man, what a brutal murderer's row of reviews I just finished. Tomorrow will be much more fun when I (finally!) get to start reviewing packs that are actually good.

CE2JRH123, I'm connecting your reviews as I catch up to them with mine. All of yours except VON should be set.

Can someone in game check Retribution and see what happened to it since the loot pass? I suspect it's been updated and the wiki is out of date.

It got a red slot.

[CE2JRH123]

I figured. I bought basically none of the low level packs, which is why I skipped to higher level.

ML8 on the Retribution? It used to be 6, but got changed at some point.

Coyle has gotten much sturdier in recent years, but that quest is still brutally tedious.

He's still not study enough.

And I think Gift of the Master has a lot to recommend at least a single Threnal run for anyone TRing --- colourless slot >>> using my trinket/cloak slot up.

[CE2JRH123]

The Demon Sands

• Cost: 950 TP
• Favor: 213, Free agents. (4.52 TP per favour)
• Level: 10-12
• Content: 11 quests, 1 of which is a raid
• Epic: 5 quests, one of which is a raid
• Gear of Note: Lots: Ring of Spell Storing, Bloodstone,
• Crafting: none
• Fun: Very
• Grade: A to A+
• Priority: High

This pack has 11 quests, and one of the coolest explorer zones in the game. The explorer zones are divided between Undead, Gnolls, and Drow/Scarrow, and the quests are similarly divided, meaning the pack has a very varied feel to it, despite the content all being in the same vast explorer zone. The quests are all entertaining, with a large number of relatively straight forward slaughterfests with few traps (the only quest with non-trivial traps is Chains of Flame and arguably the pre-raid), and there aren't many puzzles in the pack, either. What there is, however, is a lot of entertaining, well designed fights with good experience and loot for the challenge.

The quests can be soloed, but a number of them are relatively tough, and the entire pack is a lot easier with Blade Barrier or Firewall. Getting a group is easy, since everyone runs through here at least once, and Wiz-King in particular gets farmed (when a group can split up and each person takes a tower, the exp per minute is exceptional). Occasionally you even see an at level LFM for the raid, but that's rarer.

The loot is excellent, with many good midlevel items coming from the quests and wilderness area. In particular, the Ring of Spell Storing provides 3 charges of 25 mana, which is a rare and valuable effect. The Bloodstone is a ML9 trinket with Seeker+6, which is slightly less valuable now that Seeker comes on random gear. But still, Trinket slot. Whirlwind is an excellent midlevel greatsword with a knockdown effect until you have Greensteel --- and Sirocco, from Wiz-King, is the longsword version. The raid has a lot of excellent loot, the most famous of which being the “Torc”, the Torc of Prince Raiyum-de II, which upon being hit, generates mana in a way that stacks, and is more frequent than, the concordant opposition effect on greensteel crafting. And the Spectral Gloves from An Offering of Blood are again, a little dated at this point, since Ghost touch and undead bane got combined, but still are useful against blur/displacement (I believe).

The epic content is a little less run, for being notoriously difficult, but since some of the items still are in the end game, people do run it. Between excellent gear, excellent experience, and thoroughly enjoyable content on both heroic and epic, Demon Sands is a must have pack --- one of your first buys, along with Vale of Twilight, Ruins of Gianthold, and Vault of Night.

[CE2JRH123]

Attack on Stormreach
Attack on Stormreach

• Cost: 450
• Favor: 63 (Coin Lords), 7.14 TP per favour
• Level: 13
• Content: 4 quests
• Epic: No
• Gear of Note: Not really
• Crafting: Cauldron of Sora Katra
• Fun: Good
• Grade: B-
• Priority: Medium to Low

This pack has four quests, mostly involving Hobgoblins, Kobolds, and other enlisted Droaam creatures. The quests are decently entertaining, in particular, the second, which involves Blowing ships up, and the 3rd, which involves placing explosives, which is loads of fun. The fighters are entertaining but generally a little tough (bring CC), and the experience is okay for the level. They generally have a good number of chests for their level, but the named loot is a little underwhelming from my perspective --- a TR character is going to be putting on raid loot right about now, and a first lifer won't get the marks they need to upgrade the gear and make it actually useful.

The thing that really shines in the quest series is how cool they are --- each quest is unique, the plot is entertaining, there is a good puzzle at the end of the series, the fights are decent. The rewards that tie down around it, however, feel a little weak. The Sora Kell's set, which actually comes from three FTP quests a level or two lower, are upgraded here, but the marks to upgrade the set are a little slow to collect; slow enough that you'll out level them unless you're dedicated farming for a TR.

However, the Pack is part of the 35$ Menace of the Underdark Standard Bundle, which I highly recommend any Premium player purchasing. As such, you might be getting it without directly purchasing it, and many others will have it, making it an easy pack to find a group for an elite-once-and-done sort of run of each quest. The lack of epic or lasting loot makes it not a high priority pack for anyone else, however.

[wayreth602]

I am enjoying the write ups of the packs.

Just a quick note, Necro 1 is 350 TP not 250.

[EllisDee37]

Just a quick note, Necro 1 is 350 TP not 250.

Nice catch, thanks much. Updated.

[Jingwei]

Attack on Stormreach gets an A from me.

Reasons:
The combination of making you feel awesome, interesting quests, understanding the story, and so on make this one of the best crafted packs in my eyes.

As for notable loot:
The vampric stonedust handwraps are still very good and the Petrifying Shadow Staff may still have some utility.
The upgraded Sora Kell set is a good set of gear to wear up until lvl 20, though the melee cleric/fvs that they were best for is somewhat rarer now.

[EllisDee37]

I think very highly of that pack as well, largely for the same reasons as you.

Where it gets hurt is a) only 4 quests, no wilderness, and b) no epic version. This lack of content is the only meaningful strike against it, but it's a non-trivial strike. I'm currently thinking A- or B+, but not sure which.

Attack on Stormreach would be a fantastic epic pack.

[zaphear]

what is it good for? some earth ele?

get a http://ddowiki.com/page/Dreamspitter upgraded an unsuppressed, by far the best stick ingame, only beaton by sireth agains bosses and by triple pos (stick too) for undeads

y, negging a mob has no prize

Crit range sucks on dreamspitter.

[CE2JRH123]

The upgraded Sora Kell set is a good set of gear to wear up until lvl 20, though the melee cleric/fvs that they were best for is somewhat rarer now.

I ran all the quests twice and got 1 mark in a chest and 2 for the chain end reward. I have a hard time imagining it being worth it to upgrade the set except across multiple lives. That and the no epic and the fact there are other good packs at level range (gianthold and demonsands) made it easy to give it a slightly lower grade.

[EllisDee37]

I have a hard time imagining it being worth it to upgrade the set except across multiple lives.

That's odd. I not only upgraded full sets on first lives, but also weapons.

Paladin, first ever character during first life:
Sora Kell set
Vampiric Cleaver

Ranger, second character during first life:
Sora Kell set
Bloody Hooked Blade
Destructive Hooked Blade

Cleric, fourth character during first life:
Sora Kell set

Monk, fifth character during only life:
Sora Kell set
Vampiric Stonedust wraps
Garments of Equilibrium

Fighter/Cleric, sixth character during first life:
Sora Kell set


All were well worth it, and most of that farming was done long before they added the 3rd completion loot lists. It takes about an hour to blast through the whole chain on casual or normal, you get xp for it if you do it at level (after the initial bravery run) and now with 3rd lists you're pretty much good to go on a fully upgraded sora kell set in a night or two of effort, maybe three at the most. For a set you equip at 13 and wear until commendation gear at 20, that's absolutely worth the effort.

You can also just buy the marks from the store if you're impatient, but I never bought stuff like that from the store.

EDIT: At the time I farmed this up back on the pally & ranger first lives, the packs I owned (in order of purchase) were:

Vale of Twilight
Gianthold
Sorrowdusk
Delera's
Red Fens
Tangleroot
Attack on Stormreach
Harbinger of Madness

(I bought Attack and Harbinger in the same purchase.)