Help with icnoic hero build - returning player

[FearlessFreep]

Greetings, All!

I played various characters up to level 10 or thereabouts several years ago, and have recently felt the urge to dip back into DDO. I purchased the recently-on-sale Sun Elf and Shadar Kai heroes, and deleted a couple of my characters to make room for some more. Things have changed so much, and become so much more complex than in the early post-launch period, that I think I'm better off inquiring as to good existing builds rather than trying to craft something of my own. From what I gather, the iconic heroes are less than ideal for most builds, but starting them at lvl 15 is a big draw for me, so I'd like to make the most of them. If you can point me in the right direction, I'd appreciate it. Here's what I'm looking for:

First off, I'm a very casual player. I will likely do a lot of stuff solo with a hireling or two, or perhaps tempt a friend to join me, but I will not be playing so often that I have a sense of competing with others. So my character needs to be fun and competent (i.e., not frustrating), but doesn't need to be super finely engineered. That said, it would be nice if I could contribute to larger groups without being a total waste of group space, just in case I wind up joining some.

Second, I'd like play to be at least somewhat uncomplicated. I know DDO is not an easy game to play (that's why I like it), but with starting a character at level 15 I think there's likely to be real potential for being overwhelmed by having too many in-combat options to choose from. So, passive feats/skills or mechanics where I use one toolbar for the beginning of the fight and then switch to another toolbar for the next (and etc), are probably good ways to manage the info overload at first. Options for increased complexity later on with the same build would be a nice bonus. Basically, I'm hoping not to need too many complexities in the play style, but perhaps to have them available when I get comfortable with the basics and gain a couple of levels.

Finally, one of the things that DDO still does better than any other game (much of the reason I returned) is the thief skills - traps, locks, and etc. So it would be great if at least one of the characters (shadar kai, I am assuming) has a few levels of rogue so I can creep around and disarm traps and such. This is a lot of fun to me, but obviously I'll need to be able to fight pretty well too.

Looking around at the forums, there are Sun Elf Necromancer type builds that seem interesting. I'm not sure if these would work with a few levels of rogue, but I definitely do not want to have my spells constantly resisted (frustrating!), so maybe better as a character for non-trapped dungeons. Still, sounds cool, and I haven't played this type as of yet. There are a variety of Shadar Kai builds, but no real consensus as to which is most casual-friendly yet retains effectiveness to some degree.

Many thanks, in advance, for any ideas.

[scottmike0]

Greetings, All!

I played various characters up to level 10 or thereabouts several years ago, and have recently felt the urge to dip back into DDO. I purchased the recently-on-sale Sun Elf and Shadar Kai heroes, and deleted a couple of my characters to make room for some more. Things have changed so much, and become so much more complex than in the early post-launch period, that I think I'm better off inquiring as to good existing builds rather than trying to craft something of my own. From what I gather, the iconic heroes are less than ideal for most builds, but starting them at lvl 15 is a big draw for me, so I'd like to make the most of them. If you can point me in the right direction, I'd appreciate it. Here's what I'm looking for:

First off, I'm a very casual player. I will likely do a lot of stuff solo with a hireling or two, or perhaps tempt a friend to join me, but I will not be playing so often that I have a sense of competing with others. So my character needs to be fun and competent (i.e., not frustrating), but doesn't need to be super finely engineered. That said, it would be nice if I could contribute to larger groups without being a total waste of group space, just in case I wind up joining some.

Second, I'd like play to be at least somewhat uncomplicated. I know DDO is not an easy game to play (that's why I like it), but with starting a character at level 15 I think there's likely to be real potential for being overwhelmed by having too many in-combat options to choose from. So, passive feats/skills or mechanics where I use one toolbar for the beginning of the fight and then switch to another toolbar for the next (and etc), are probably good ways to manage the info overload at first. Options for increased complexity later on with the same build would be a nice bonus. Basically, I'm hoping not to need too many complexities in the play style, but perhaps to have them available when I get comfortable with the basics and gain a couple of levels.

Finally, one of the things that DDO still does better than any other game (much of the reason I returned) is the thief skills - traps, locks, and etc. So it would be great if at least one of the characters (shadar kai, I am assuming) has a few levels of rogue so I can creep around and disarm traps and such. This is a lot of fun to me, but obviously I'll need to be able to fight pretty well too.

Looking around at the forums, there are Sun Elf Necromancer type builds that seem interesting. I'm not sure if these would work with a few levels of rogue, but I definitely do not want to have my spells constantly resisted (frustrating!), so maybe better as a character for non-trapped dungeons. Still, sounds cool, and I haven't played this type as of yet. There are a variety of Shadar Kai builds, but no real consensus as to which is most casual-friendly yet retains effectiveness to some degree.

Many thanks, in advance, for any ideas.

Try a barbarian rogue or a kensai rogue. I believe kensai would be a better fit, but i could be wrong. as for build either 12 rogue 8 kensai or 12 kensai 6 rogue and 2 barb for some cool tricks. (Who would not want your barbarian to black flip across the map) its up to you to decide. Although paladin could be also good if you really want to have some other buffs.