The ideal solo?

[Carlobrand]

DDO is ideally a multiplayer game, as indeed the pen-and-paper was better with more friends around the table. However, fortune being what it is, I gotta solo it most of the time. I'm trying to puzzle out an ideal solo build. Part of the problem, of course, is that what's ideal at the lower levels might be a handicap later - not sure, I haven't worked past about L7 yet - so it might be that "ideal" is an evolving thing that requires a heart of wood down the line to undo the thing that brought you fortune early and brings you woe later.

I'm finding for my own needs that the ideal build starts with a level of rogue - lots of skill points, lockpick and trap-disarming, good sneak and serviceable weapons and armor. A bit squishy but the sneak helps counter that if you don't mind the pace being slow and cautious. High dex offsets the armor limitation. Light punch can be offset with two weapon feat, the weapon finesse feat, and eventually the Dagger in the Back enhancement - means you don't need a lot of strength (though average strength is still recommended for carrying capacity). That means over the long term a minimum three levels of rogue. Also sets me on the road for the Thunderstone, which is also a wickedly useful way to help the Rogue survive without a fighter-wall.

The next level: cleric. I'm having a lot of good luck with at least a level of cleric to give me the ability to hunker down someplace quiet and heal up between fights. Potions are nice but expensive if you're doing mostly elite; wands are better but still not cheap if you're doing a lot of healing. You could live without the cleric level in normal mode, but normal mode is a bit - unchallenging. The shrines give me all my spell points, and there are magical items to boost those, so I end up getting a lot of mileage out of that cleric level. I'm debating additional levels - depends on whether I want those higher-level spells or want to focus on my rogue advancement.

Beyond that, I'm debating. Pulling two weapons and weapon finesse feats means either sticking to human (I actually prefer humans for the most part), throwing in a level of fighter for the accompanying feat (and the lovely range of weapons), or taking a couple of levels of ranger for the free two-weapons feat (and the lovely range of weapons). Either the fighter or the ranger option means you don't start at full capabilities, but there are long-term advantages. The ranger's conjure arrows and elemental arrows enhancements are particularly appealing, and the ranger's skill choices mean you don't tend to fall as far behind in your rogue skillset when you take that ranger level. Long-term, you eventually get some cleric spells, so maybe the cleric level can be omitted - if you don't mind struggling a bit until they show up. The fighter's added feats every couple of levels is pretty attractive as well, for alleviating the squishy with a bit of toughness and for adding a bit more combat punch. That "lovely range of weapons" bit can be pretty important when you're limited to light weapons: there seem to be a lot more magic hand-axes out there than magic sickles and kukris, and DDO's followed D&D in considering the shortsword a piercing weapon; finding a light-weapon slash combo with good magical punch for those zombies gets easier if your range of weapons is wider.

Pure rogue with a level of cleric feels like a pretty solid near-pure, keeping those important sneaking, trap-finding and lockpicking skills sharp. Cleric with a level or three of rogue is serviceable with some +# gear and magical boosts to overcome the increasingly difficult locks and traps you'll encounter, but the more rogue you add, the further behind the curve you are as a cleric. Fighter or ranger with a bit of rogue backed by cleric sounds pretty fierce - again a bit behind the pure form but a solid melee platform. There might be other options, but I know almost nothing about monks, bards, druids and suchlike, so I can't say what they might bring to the table.

Thoughts? Ideas? What path works better after the initial rogue and cleric level? Maybe ranger-rogue with a bit of cleric garnish? What problems show up at the higher levels? Back before I dropped off the face of the world for a couple of years, the level cap meant multiclassing put your top-level abilities out of reach, but the new level cap seems to encourage it, and the reincarnation bit is confusing me.

[Aglabac]

What do u think about Wf 18/2 wiz/rog? Trap skills, selfheal and powerfull as all casters

[Kriogen]

@OP: hmm, not.

Rogue is good, Cleric not so.

Warforged Wizard18/Rogue2: Max INT, solid CON, some STR (but not much). First level Rogue, 7-8 levels of Wizard (for Firewall, Ice Storm), second Rogue, Wizard the rest. Do take Insightful Reflexes feat (you use INT instead of DEX for reflex saves). Near undestructable when you get Reconstruct, no problem with locks/traps, can nuke, CC, instakill, even melee when low on mana (rogue acrobat has some nice enhancements for q-staff)

If you don't like robots, look for a build called Pale Trapper.

Warforged Rogue2/ArtificerX or Monk2/ArtificerX: no problem with locks/traps, good ranged damage with X-Bow, solid SLA abilities, nice buffs, repair/reconstruct, a couple of nice damage spells, pet.

Rogue1 / RangerX: Good melee, good ranged, no problem with lock/traps, maxout UMD. For healing: wands at low level, Heal scrolls and Cure spells at higher levels. Its a good idea to take Empowered Healing feat.

For me, the easiest leveling was with WF Wiz/Rog or evasion Artificer.

Key points:
- must do damage
- must stay alive
- melee does huge damage, but because you are alone, many times its best not to get too close

[danotmano1998]

I would agree that a warforged 18 wizard/2 rogue is a solid choice for being an excellent solo build.

[Seikojin]

In all the lives I have tested, I would say 2 levels of rogue is essential if you want to deal with traps. Mainly because you can evade your way to the box if you need to.

Next would be monk. Mainly again because of evasion. If you do a monk/paly combo, you are pretty much a shoein for never worrying about failing saves. You just don't disarm them.

[Xianio]

The best 'solo' is definitely a War/Bladeforged Ranged Arti + either Monk/Rogue for Evasion. While not required, you could also get 2 paladin levels for super saves ensuring that you can do anything.


That lets you attack for high damage, trap, cast spells, spam 'arm-nukes' (no sp costs so you never 100% run out of spells), use almost any scroll in the game with significantly improved levels/duration, summon a pet for pulling levers, self-heal and Arti gets bonus feats so you won't even be feat starved.

All told, Warforged Artificer with an evasion splash (because lets be honest, it doesn't matter where it comes from) is probably the most solo-friendly build in the game.

[ValariusK]

I've been seriously considering this for my next life:

Elven Rogue-2, Cleric-7, Ranger-11

Trapping, decent healing, nice warpriest utilities, and devastating archery. Warpriest would take silver flame to make longbow the righteous weapon, would have backup rapier/longsword for melee and to proc ameliorating strike as needed (longbow, rapier, longsword are all the elven racial bonus weapons). Don't bother with grace for dex to damage, since you'll have divine might giving you your charisma bonus to strength. You'd probably start with rogue-1, then two levels of ranger to get your offense going, then probably cleric to cleric-4, then mix the rest of them as desired. This gets you all the ranger free feats, level 4 cleric spells (Cure crit, deathward, freedom of movement), not bad healing ability, and a huge plus to your longbow damage (4 from warpriest, perhaps 4 from elven racials and then yet more from arcane archer, where you don't need the spell point enhancement since you already get magical training).
My motive for that build is to improve my secondary healing/group support function (right now I'm rogue-1/fighter-1/ranger-18/epic 4), which I use a surprisingly large amount of the time---you wouldn't believe how many non-self-sufficient melee types I see in my groups and how infrequently we have a genuine cleric. With your rogue levels and ranger skill points, you should be able to keep disable device, spot, and UMD maxed out. You can afford to skimp on search a bit, because you'll have +3 or so from find traps, and more bonus there from being an elf also.

[Jasparion]

What do u think about Wf 18/2 wiz/rog? Trap skills, selfheal and powerfull as all casters

Yep.

Level 1 Rogue. Then take as many Wizard levels as you can to get Wall of Fire / Ice Storm. Once you find you really need Evasion, take your 2nd Rogue level. You can nuke or use insta-kill spells.

Many will say to take UMD. But I think its optional. With self healing, Dimension Door, Teleport, Evasion and immunity to negative levels, there is not a lot you will need to scroll.

If you have Bladeforged, then that is another strong option. 16 Wiz, 2 Pally, 2 Rogue. Focus is more on on nuking spells rather than insta-kills.

[Carlobrand]

Why the "cleric not so"? Is that contingent on Warforged being available, or is there some general problem with clerics? I don't know much about Warforged, but I also don't have access to them yet. I'll take a serious look at that when I do, but it's not on the immediate horizon. Didn't know they could self-heal.

I like the rogue-ranger - my highest level's going that way - but the first cure doesn't show up until Ranger level 8, which is a long wait. By that point, I could have been either a decent 8th level cleric with a bit of rogue or a decent almost-pure rogue backed by a bit of Clerical healing. I can see rogue-ranger if you want a ranger with some trapfinding/lockpicking, but it's still dependent on wands for healing unless you invest deep in ranger levels; you can toss off a healing spell without switching your weapon out if chance finds you needing to grab a bit of healing in the midst of a fight, which is something a wand does not offer.

[Lanhelin]

Why the "cleric not so"?

The ideal solo toon is capable of everything: trapping, damage and staying alive of course. A Cleric is good at staying alive, but if you do not plan for a caster or melee Cleric, the damage would be meh. Also while two Levels of Rogue in theory will make you able to disarm traps, mind that both Search and Disable Device are Int skills, thus affected by your Int modifier, while most essential Cleric skills are Wis based and furthermore a Cleric also only gets few Skill points.

I currently play a Druid/Wiz/Rogue, took the second Rogue Level now at 12, did the Chains of Flame quest on Elite in a party and was killed by traps several times (though I have Evasion :/ ) and couldn't find the boxes except one of them (Int 17 + 4 Int clicky + Human Skill boost + 10 search item, skilled Search and DD every Level up) - without the boost I had no chance. Also Lockpicking more was a +5 Tools grave than anything else. This is just an example of a - in my case - primarily based on Str and Wis build, where trapping is included, but very hard to do it successfully.

Second example: I'm melee specced, though as Druid I have a few cure/vigor spells available. On Level 11 I soloed VoN3 on Elite, but the Marut killed me. I did no damage to him despite the chaotic fang buff, first he killed my Wolf, then my Cleric Hire and then me. Due to the lack of Dimension Door after re-entering I called a melee Hire and only this combination was successful, because the melee Hires have high Healing Amplification, so I was able to keep him alive with Vigor and Cure Moderate Wounds only during the relatively long fight against the Marut.

That's why - if you want to multiclass - a Wizard/Rogue combination is the better choice, damage-wise and trapping-wise as your Int will be high. A Wizard on the other side is not so good at staying alive, except he is a Warforged who can self-repair or has high UMD or as Helf the maxed Cleric dilly for Heal scrolls.

But you can slot repair spells and/or buy repair scrolls too as a Non-Warforged and buy a Warforged Hireling to get the "Melee Wall" and heal him in case of emergency.

[zwiebelring]

And of course everything is topped by the possible Iconic race Bladeforged, who got Reconstruct as racial SLA and thus you can be pure in anything while having sufficient self healing. Trade-off: you must like Bladeforged and have to slot sp on mundane classes. So, if going the path of pieces aka robot, then Bladeforged. Sad, but that's the logical consequence of the power increase ion that particular race.

It boils down to style over substance or playing efficient class feature synergizing each other. Using scrolls needs you to watch your Concentration skill, animation time and safe in-combat retreats in order to use them at all. Bladeforged eliminates everything but animation time, the SLA is not subject to interruption (neither was the spell on a caster class if used with Quicken Spell but it depends on your spell point number, which is better), except stun, trip, incapacitated, and Quicken Spell feat narrowed it down further to incapacitated as only way to prevent self healing.

An ideal solo toon has got either high survivability for all dangers or can neutralize them. Traps for example, either high ref. save/Evasion or trapskills right away, of course both together is top, but not needed everytime (low ref. save needs you to know trap locations). If you can combine both, then you will have the top tier of solo capability and everything else is done by playing accordingly. Hence the current 2 Pal/ 2 Mnk/ x who-cares class splits. Easy to get survivability by boosting saves.

For your example, OP, why not go this way? 2 Pal/ 2 Mnk/ 16 Rog should give you a maximum on survivability on a mostly pure Rog. I don't know the enhancement trees of rogues so it might be less optimal than expected regarding dps. Anyway I think 1 Clr is not as good since we got epic destinies and Twists of Fate to compensate certain class features. back then when you had lvl. 20 cap splashing 1 lvl. had a bigger effect than it has now. Twisting Cocoon (Primal Avatar ED) would give you maybe better self healing than 1 Clr and you could stay pure Rog.

[Tilomere]

A BF or WF juggernaut 2 Pali/2 Mnk/ 16 Arti is very friendly to new players. However, new players would miss out on the leveling experience with a BF. A BF Monkcher also works well.

Either can be made especially friendly with an Ooze GS repeater or bow.

Some of the newer quests involve spawns of 25+ mobs at once, with an instant red alert if you are in melee range which will aggro them all at once. If you are a melee character, you will likely lag out and die before you can react, or be unable to kite and heal as needed to dispatch them, and just die.

So whatever your solo champion is, it better be able to handle saving throws of different types from 20+ mobs at a time and be ranged. So basically it has to have /2 monk /2 Pali, and be good with either a bow, repeater, shuriken, or shiradi spells.

Since you will run out of mana with shiradi spells, it better be a bow, repeater, or shuriken user. Shuriken's suck at 1d2 base damage and 20x2 crit profile, which means it better be a bow or repeater user.



http://oi61.tinypic.com/zy7xw6.jpg

[Zoink]

I have a slightly different "solo" char than the robot rogzard (which I also have). A Elf lv 3 Artificer, 11 Ranger, 6 paladin. Wait, 6 paladin? ***? Yeah, strange I know.

Evasion from ranger + ranged and melee feats galore. Can go arcane archer OR TWF depending on your mood with just a enhancement respec.

Traps and mana from artificer. Plus a pet who can pull levers or stand on triggers for various non-solo friendly quests. (Which makes this choice edge out rogue for soloing)

6 paladin gives unyielding sovereignty and makes the 4x LoH actually do a reasonable amount of healing. It also gives you the saves to back up that evasion and some cheap DPS vs undead as desired.

I also threw in the elf dragonmark to get displacement, and since I was spending the points in elf, picking up "Nothing is Hidden" which is great for a newer player who is soloing.

Is it going to be optimal DPS? No, but still respectable burst DPS, solid utility, and quite survivable solo char.

[Lurzifer]

Best solo character for heroic an epic content is a juggernaut, either with 2 ranger or 2 paladin next to 16 arti and 2 monk, depeniding on tomes and preferences.

When youre advanced and own bladeforged, then its some bladeforged melee with trapskills, as long as you keep 4-6 pally levels you cant go wrong.

[LOOON375]

Myself and the latest copy of Hustler.