Work in progress: Critzilla

[jakeelala]

Some questions:

Why remain Halfling if you're not using Shurikens for extra procs thus necessitating Dex to damage?

You could free up a bunch of AP for other things. I know you lose some healing and SA dice, but without shuriken that SA dice has a lot less mileage, and this build is all about base damage for crits, right?

You say going strength based would result in more deaths, but I'm not really seeing why that would be the case. Just because of a lower reflex save?

Relying on Darts for big crit numbers means no Mortal Fear, which is the most insanely OP proc in the world. Although I guess if you aren't throwing a jillion shuikens it's not as compelling. The trade off I suppose is the ranged Coup De Grace, but you have to CC mobs first for that to work, which makes it really hard to consistently hit more than 1 or 2 mobs. Shiradi I suppose helps with Nerve Venom on top of Pin and Whistle. And on bosses the Coffin nail would be great.

Hmmm....lot of trade offs for the crits. And you really get slowed down on critters with high fort.

Have you tried a TF dart with Mortal fear for trash instead of the Coffin Nail? I know you lose some crit range, but I wonder which one would be better over time...

I feel like the money spot for this buils is Halfing with Dex to Damage shurikens (which is very powerful as well, I was thinking 9 bard 6 Ranger 5 Rogue) but switching to Darts for Red/Purple when you can't cheese Mortal Fear. If/When they fix ranged multiplier, the build would be even more beastly.

It's basically the same build, but largely ignores Coup De Grace which I'm not really sold on.

With Exploit Weakness and high Shuriken RoF, you'll still be critting like mad, but a little bit less than with a dart, which is made up for with Mortal Fear on mobs.

[jakeelala]

I dont know what youre talking about in that other thread.

My throwers all have ~900 HP, 50-70 saves, 50-70PRR, Displace and ghostly. The 6 monks even have shadowfade if nesc.

And 30dodge. And AC in the 120-130 range.

Lumping in all shuriken builds together is a bit silly.

[jakeelala]

Don't worry about it. It was my experiment in layering so many defenses on top of each other you could pull hordes of EE mobs. As per the developers PRR changes, they are going to nerf it anyways because they think its OP. It's just if I wanted to make a God-tier mortal fear shuriken character and stay capped for awhile what I would have made. On any build without divine grace and recon sla, your not really a god-tier character because you still fail saves and can die from it or lack of healing.

can twist no fail on 1 for all saves with Epic reflexes.

once MRR comes i might do a BF with DR60 docent for fun with MRR.

[Blackheartox]

Updated OP, added in Pali Past life as a feat option instead of EmpH, and listed new bug Slap in the Face as not working since it is a main hand melee weapon strike on live and not the offhand empty handed slap described so it requires a melee weapon. Or scroll, which as it turns out, are swashbuckleable +5 weapons. Go figure.

Also added in shadow fade bug, and made bugs a list since picture was getting too confusing and full.

Also added in links to gear of note, and few more gear pieces.

Since I'm stacking charisma, thinking of converting this to a LD/fury strength/divine might based build. I've always had good luck with LD strength based builds.

How do you get shadow fade on a bard ranger rogue?
Something is missing there..
Like, dunno maybe monk?

[moo_cow]

Ok, so updated OP due to introduction of Harper enhancement tree for fair usage of know the angles, (may need to adjust when patch hits), added in OC due to update 23 and changed feats around for earlier Skill Focus: Perform and took out Emp. Healing, added in a few pics of how the build performs while leveling at 9 and 20, added in adrenaline physical damage instakills past 20. Added link to Minos Legens. Touch ups.

Why add knowing the angles and oc? I thought your dps was so awesomely high that you were trying to tone down your dps.

[Firewall]

i noticed that you don't mention Shadowstar and Snow Star in your weapons list. Both expand your crit range at lower levels. Do you see too many misses because of not being proficient with shuriken? I would have thought at lower levels to-hit would not be much of a problem since Precision already compensates a bit of the loss and most monsters have a low AC.

Why did you take Reptilians as favored enemies? In my experience Kobolds and Troglodytes have too few HP to need extra damage to be killed especially with your high damage output. Why not take Constructs, Giants or Dragons?

(...)Anyone else have any thrower crit related bugs?(...)I updated OP with picture to keep track of different bugs affecting Critzilla.

While adding Skaldic Rage and running in Fury is surely increasing damage output by a lot maybe you should add to your list of bugs that Precision Stance should not work while being raged (Skaldic Rage, Adrenaline, Adrenaline Overload, Primal Scream, Rage Spell,...) but nevertheless it does. I was not using Precision before adding it to my Full-DPS version of the Shuricannon and saw in Ayxzs build thread that unlike Combat Expertise (which correctly supresses all rage effects) and Defensive Stance (which immediately turns off when raged) Precision Stance is still working with all Rage effects even though all of the stances say they can not be used while raged and even share the same wording in their description. I was told this has been a bug for a long time but this is at least not working as described.

Also there is the old bug that Fury Eternal should not be recharging Adrenaline uses when vorpaling on a ranged attack (wording says it should recharge on melee attacks only).

[Firewall]

(...)Hmm Precision doesn't work with barb rage, if it didn't work with Skaldic Rage then Skaldic Rage itself wouldn't make sense as part of the bard tree though.

Why wouldn't it make sense? Only the Swashbuckler tree is crit heavy and has a benefit when used with Precision and you can fully use it without going into warchanter. You could also always drop Precision and use the benefits of both warchanter with skaldic rage and swashbuckler without Thread the needle or use Precision and have no benefit from skaldic rage. Nothing in the bard tree forces you to have Precision or makes a whole tree useless without it.

It is having a bigger impact on Fury though since all Adrenaline uses explicitly state that you are considered raged and Primal Scream is a rage effect which is supressed by Combat Expertise and turns the Defensive Fighting stance off so those are obviously not meant to be used together.

I'm pretty sure Fury Eternal is working as intended, but the wording is outdated. From past posts I've seen. They patched it and noted in patch notes to specifically work with ranged.

Nope there is no such thing in the Lamannia release notes. They just changed Adrenaline from a % damage bonus to giving melee and ranged power. You always get some uses of Adrenaline for free so ranged toons get limited use from it. That does not mean it should be recharged by Fury Eternal and there is no mention of Fury Eternal being changed in the release notes to work with ranged weapons too and i really don't think it is intended to be used with ranged.

By the way Unbridled Fury has the same wording with only being charged on vorpal melee attacks and this seems to be working as described/intended.


I just mention this because you asked for a bug list and to me these are obvious bugs. You also mentioned that your build does not use exploits in the OP and obviously you don't want to make use of bugs. Your earlier build did not make use of rage effects and you even dropped the barbarian rage because of the exclusiveness of Rage vs. Precision (Post #39).

[Firewall]

Since the Devs said they want to look at ranged power in U24 i agree that it would be a good time for a discussion about this. The wording of the stances does not make a difference between Rage types and in my eyes it does not make sense that Primal Scream for example is not working with Combat Expertise and Defensive Stance but working with Precision. According to the wording it should either work with all stances or none.

The same is true with Fury Eternal and Unbridled Fury. Either both should recharge on ranged vorpal attacks or none according to the wording. In my eyes the Furyshot combination (Arrow of Slaying + Manyshot/10k stars + Adrenaline Overload + Fury Eternal) has been a bit overpowered for quite some time now and it not working with Precision stance and/or not being recharged with Fury eternal would mitigate that somewhat like i think it was intended to be. But with the latest power creep in the game they might as well leave it as it is and boost everything else like they did with Blitz. Would be nice to have a decision of the Devs about that.

[nat_1]

Jakeelala had good insight but isn't posting anymore. I hit level 20 on my current build, so am looking forward to next one. This build is based on his insights in this and other threads. The build has more button pushing and weaker defenses than Critzilla 2.0 in OP, but does more damage as a result. The halfling dex Critzilla build was the the most lethal leveling ranged build I had ever seen, heard of, or played. This. This is beyond my comprehension. I'm gona hafta try it out and get back to you.

Critzilla v. 3.0 Human Thrower, aka Jakeelala's Critzilla

12 Ranger 7 Bard 1 FVS

Starting Stats 16 Strength, 16 dex, 14 Con 8 Int/Wis 16 Charisma All level ups in Strength, more starting dex if needed to reach 19 dex at 12 (+3 tome level) for IPS and 21 dex for Combat Archery by level 24 (Only enough dex for CA)

Enhancements

37 Swashbuckling Double Shot boost (Blow by Blow Ranged does not work, SB thrown crit multiplier does not work, Advanced Open Handed does not work)
25 DWS: Sniper shot, Aimed Shot, Killer, Damage Boost
13 Human Action Boosts, Action Surges
4 Divine Might
1 Skaldic Rage

Level order 1 Ranger 1 Bard 5 Ranger 2 Bard 2 Ranger 2 Bard 1 FVS 3 Ranger 1 Bard 1 Ranger 1 Bard

Skills Perform, UMD, heal, haggle, jump, spot

Human Free Feat: Brutal Throw
Ranger Free Feats: Rapid Shot, Precise Shot, Evasion, Improved Precise Shot
Feats: Point Blank Shot 1, Quick Draw 3, Precision 6, IC:Thrown 9, Improved Precise Shot 12 (feat swapped to WF: Thrown before ranger level 11), Skill Focus:Perform 15, Power Critical 18, Combat Archery 21, OC 24, Epic Skill Focus:Perform 26, Haste 27, Epic Doubleshot 28

Ranger Favored Enemies: Reptiles Humans Undead

ED: Fury with Pin/Whistler/Whirling Wrists Twisted

So... we're on to axes?

[nat_1]

Cordovan just solidified that furyshot is WAI:



Link here.



Hypothetically, named weapons with keen property are bugged to apply keen twice for 4x crit range, and with GS crafting one might make a keen throwing weapon of any type, to correspond to any race you wish to transform Critzilla 3.0 to work with. I haven't tested this though, and I can't recommend exploiting bugs, and I actually have no idea if it will work. The RNG keen property on randomly generated loot does nothing. I have no idea if GS keen property is the RNG or named one. Feel free to not tell me. I don't care to know.

I just meant since there's no shuriken expertise. I assumed we're going for the biggest base damage instead.

[Firewall]

Cordovan just solidified that furyshot is WAI...

Actually he is only saying what we already new from the Lamannia release notes: That they changed all % damage values in the Fury ED to melee power and ranged power values. That does not mean that Furyshot is WAI. As i said in my earlier post here Furyshot is the combination of a lot of different effects and Cordovan does not state if it is WAI that

- Fury Eternal and Unbridled Fury are meant to recharge on ranged vorpal attacks despite saying they should do this on melee vorpal only (one of them does on Live, the other does not)
- the combination of Arrow of Slaying and Adrenaline Overload was meant to boost every Manyshot and/or 10k Stars projectile
- all of the Rage effects of Fury (including Primal Scream) are meant to work with Precision Stance active (that states that it cannot be used while raged) which increases overall crit damage against heavy fort monsters

So this is not really a statement about Furyshot in my eyes but just about a minor change to the type of damage multiplicator as a repetition of the Release Notes. I think the above bugs should be clarified by the Devs when they look at ranged power.

[Tilomere]

The same is true with Fury Eternal and Unbridled Fury. Either both should recharge on ranged vorpal attacks or none according to the wording.

He just said Unbridled Fury was WAI after looking at it, but the text is outdated. Unbridled as per your argument and Fury Eternal go together. Unbridled wouldn't provide ranged power if it wasn't intended to be charged and used by ranged. If the text is unclear or outdated, I try to derive intent and context. It appears clear to me that furyshot is intended to work with ranged.

Also, both Fury Eternal and Unbridled Fury recharge on vorpals on live. This isn't a high rate of fire build though, so it doesn't recharge much.

[Blackheartox]

He just said Unbridled Fury was WAI after looking at it, but the text is outdated. Unbridled as per your argument and Fury Eternal go together. Unbridled wouldn't provide ranged power if it wasn't intended to be charged and used by ranged. If the text is unclear or outdated, I try to derive intent and context. It appears clear to me that furyshot is intended to work with ranged.

Also, both Fury Eternal and Unbridled Fury recharge on vorpals on live. This isn't a high rate of fire build though, so it doesn't recharge much.

They werent meant to work with ranged, but most of us were outraged that turbine had the idea to fix it to work as its written and we made quite the effort to keep it working with ranged.
Its not working as intended and it is a bug, but a bug that was made to be viable due to players effort in keeping it bugged since it was the only way to have proper burst to deal with ee bosses oversized hp pools

[Tilomere]

They werent meant to work with ranged, but most of us were outraged that turbine had the idea to fix it to work as its written and we made quite the effort to keep it working with ranged.
Its not working as intended and it is a bug, but a bug that was made to be viable due to players effort in keeping it bugged since it was the only way to have proper burst to deal with ee bosses oversized hp pools

So it started as a bug and is now sorta WAI it seems, since they are making sure they work with ranged. If it were still a bug they wouldn't investigate and make sure it still worked with ranged. It's an acceptable but perhaps not permanent bug I guess. Sorta like how TWF on druids is being left for observation. We need an entomologist to classify these.

I realized I can squeeze a bit more heroic and early epic level dps into version 3.0 by switching WF:Thrown and Power Critical for Extend and Paladin Past Life for Divine Favor. Will also allow extended displacement and haste. I was realizing how the build wasn't really recharging adrenaline or attacking pre-WW very fast and could be better at both. BYOH = bring your own haste? Also since a 20 could be running a 30 EE quest, swapped in brutal throw for attack bonus since it will add a great deal to damage against much higher CR mobs.

[Firewall]

So it started as a bug and is now sorta WAI it seems, since they are making sure they work with ranged.(...)

I would rather say that they have no idea what's going on with Furyshot and just mindlessly exchanged all % damage boosts with melee and ranged power so it would still work with ranged because as Blackheartox said people were outranged. In my view Furyshot is the Blitz of ranged builds. But Furyshot is not as obvious as Blitz because as i said before it is a combination of different bugs from different abilities. Every one of them does not make it overpowered. It is just the combination of endless Adrenaline, Arrow of Slaying, multiple procs in Manyshot and 10k stars and all of it working with Precision stance and increasing crit multipliers from other abilities that makes it potentially overpowered and if they simply would fix it working with Precision or stopping multiple procs from Manyshot/10k it would be quite fine. I think the Devs just don't know about it and they surely are not actively investigating. They did not even know that Blitz worked with ranged builds before people complained about the planned changes. But i think those things are best brought to the Devs when ranged power is discussed. I think they should decide what of those bugs is WAI and what is not and then start to balance based on that.

On another note: I noticed that you added the Shard of Xoriat to make monsters helpless. If you want to have the ability from level 4 on you should wear a Frozen Tunic from the House C challenges. You can even craft something like Seeker on the Tier 3 versions. 5% chance (DC 35) to make mobs helpless for 9 seconds is great up to lvl 20 and works nice with throwers (high Doubleshot of course improves the chances). In higher epics they start to make their saves too often for it to still be useful though.

[Tilomere]

I would rather say that they have no idea what's going on with Furyshot and just mindlessly exchanged all % damage boosts with melee and ranged power so it would still work with ranged because as Blackheartox said people were outranged. In my view Furyshot is the Blitz of ranged builds. But Furyshot is not as obvious as Blitz because as i said before it is a combination of different bugs from different abilities. Every one of them does not make it overpowered. It is just the combination of endless Adrenaline, Arrow of Slaying, multiple procs in Manyshot and 10k stars and all of it working with Precision stance and increasing crit multipliers from other abilities that makes it potentially overpowered and if they simply would fix it working with Precision or stopping multiple procs from Manyshot/10k it would be quite fine. I think the Devs just don't know about it and they surely are not actively investigating. They did not even know that Blitz worked with ranged builds before people complained about the planned changes. But i think those things are best brought to the Devs when ranged power is discussed. I think they should decide what of those bugs is WAI and what is not and then start to balance based on that.

On another note: I noticed that you added the Shard of Xoriat to make monsters helpless. If you want to have the ability from level 4 on you should wear a Frozen Tunic from the House C challenges. You can even craft something like Seeker on the Tier 3 versions. 5% chance (DC 35) to make mobs helpless for 9 seconds is great up to lvl 20 and works nice with throwers (high Doubleshot of course improves the chances). In higher epics they start to make their saves too often for it to still be useful though.

Ya, I was looking at some of the damage a monkcher could do with adrenaline slaying 10k shurikens with 3x crit multiplier due to divine sacrifice on a helpless target. It was ... capped by the mob hp. Something like 5x damage by 6x shurikens by 3x crit multiplier by 2.1 helpless multiplier by 320 damage by 1.30 action boost damage by 1.05 black dragon armor = 82k damage in a single attack, or 39k against bosses. Pew pew? It seems OP at earlier levels, but then in high level EEs when mobs have a kajillion hp, as you and Blackheartx said, what else are you going to do? My prediction is that adrenaline is going to drop you out of 10k stars as a rage, and possibly precision temporarily, but manyshot will be ok, and that ranged power goes up to compensate. Boss dps remains intact with unbridled manyshot, but no more monkhcher dominance due to 10k adrenaline interactions.

I think Critzilla is pretty insulated from the ranged balance pass. It can go dex, charisma, or strength, be adapted to any race, works in most EDs, and is a hybrid DC/damage build. On top of that, it will gain power to compensate for nerfs if/when bugs are fixed. Unlike my mathematically elegant druid that lost something like 5k dps which was one dimensional. What was wrong with hitting for 1d10 + 2000 5x a second at level 20? Heh...


This picture is also why I'm looking at Divine Might. I've had some good experiences with Str/Charisma divine might builds in the past.

Frozen Tunic would work for Critzilla 3.0 until you hit 9 for swashbuckling. SB requires light armor though. It doesn't work with outfits or robes. I think I was delaying SB on that build till 9 to level as a ranger for a bit for variety, and to see the difference since I usually do SB first.

[Blackheartox]

My own version of melle druid actually gained dps this update.
Not only gained, gained by such a huge ammount that i can surely call it the highest dps build i ever did on overvaan.
Keep in mind that i have over 70 past lifes on him, every single piece of imaginable useful gear, from esos to pinion up to couple t3 thforged and that i soled wgu on ee several times to prove that i have some skill and even on non fotm builds.
My basic idea for new people that some are copying alrdy was a rly nice palie hybrid for max survival/dps and burst.
Why did i say this is simple, you give math and numbers without any backup on achievment nor real case scenario where it can be done. Example you talk abou whistler, but as i know mobs ai stops them sometimes from moving and the place you fight and mob movements WILL NOT allow you to do the perfect ottos shot. It is like if i said that i can masshold every single pack of mobs in the game and en burst 1 shoting them as sorc. Thing i i cannot do that, they will eventually roll a 20, there are undead, there are constructs so my sentence would be discredited by my own personal follow up. Same is with your shuri build, it is not better dps then a monkcher simply since the fact that you are dead means that you do 0 dps.
And i was interested to see how you do in ee and some friends were in groups you were.
Honestly no matter the level you should not be able to die on a max burst dps and perfect ottos build like you claim to have in lod, no matter how hard you try having over 5 deaths in the simplest of all epic elites directly shows how your build does not project what you are saying.
Also you cannot count dps in ddo with k k k math, this is not pen and this is not wow, since there is not even 1 single scenario where you can use same math for the vast variety of mobs we need to face. In a active combat game as ddo is, everyone can shift the scenario how they want and assume they know how to calculate. You do not know that.
Only thing that you can use as speed/dps factor and real power of a build is videos of solos of high end content.
And even that is not a real test, but its is the best way to show how something acts in real questing.
Grab your shuri and go into ee wgu and show us your mindblowing dps that way, i can assure you that every single one of us wil laugh when you start attacking pillars.
In case you make it til there that is.
also try to stop the 3.0 naming, its kinda sily as i dont see the 2.4462 version

[Caprice]

SB requires light armor though. It doesn't work with outfits or robes.

IIUC this should not be true. I'm not in-game but the wiki text at least includes the text "light armor or no armor", and I was successfully swashbuckling on an Iconic challenge farmer in a Frozen Tunic within the last month. The high SWF attack rate works well with the FT, and until you unlock more of the MDB/Dodge cap improvements in SB it can be nice to have the higher Dodge cap on robes rather than what you get using light armor.

[Firewall]

Oh your right. My bad. Does anyone know if the freeze counts as a stun to be able to use CDG? I'd probably switch to black dragon armor by then, but it seems like it would be fun. Does it work against undead?

It should work with CDG because it is a paralyzing and helpless effect but i can't test it. Can't remember if it works on all undead but if i remember right it did. It surely works on constructs so that is already an advantage vs. stunning and such in heroic levels.

[walkin_dude]

I searched through the thread pretty thoroughly and didn't see a mention of this, so I thought I'd include it.

I TR my rogue on G-land to try a halfling thrower build. It's something I've been wanting to try since I started playing DDO, and this thread seemed to have the best information about it, so I'm going with a variation. Mine will be 9 bard/6 ranger/5 rogue (I'm allowing for a little variance according to my mood. Could end up 8/6/6 or 7/6/7).

Anyway, I realized that the only way I'd get some variation in throwing weapons was via Cannith Crafting. So I used up my paltry supply of essences to gain some crafting levels, and made a +1 keen dart of slicing. My following observations are:

The base critical profile for the dart is 20/x2
While swashbuckling, the profile improves to 18-20/x3
With keen I crafted on, the profile remains 18-20/x3

Just to be sure it wasn't an issue with the way the information is displayed, I took it out for a few spins, and sure enough there are no critical hits for attack rolls under 18. I'm encouraged to read here that IC:throwing will still work properly.

Of course, just before the TR, I had to get myself a Nightforge Spike, so I have that to look forward to as well.

Edit: Any good suggestions for Cannith prefix/suffix combos are most welcome. I'm pretty new to the whole crafting thing.