theorycrafting out loud. bard/wizzy/fighter

[Jastarn]

sortof theorycrafting for my wizzy pl, since i want to have a few pls before doing a caster.

7 bard (for CSW/swashie enhs) 9 wizzy (for buffs, pl, doublestrike/EK enhs, and lvl 5 spells) 4 fighter? for feats/prot benefits from StD, and offensive damage buffs from vanguard.

s&b buckler+something, not sure what best dps for swashie is. would be going bard for the 1st 4 levels or so to get some healing in place right quick, not sure about leveling order after that.

another possibility is bard 3 (for skirmisher), wizzy 12 (for wraith), with 5 levels to play with.

ideas are more than welcome

(i'm not dead set on bard, its just bard dps with swashie is VERY attractive)

[Jastarn]

does Hamp affect negative energy? like death aura for PM? if so, barb might be a tempting splash also.

[Jastarn]

I have a few tomes on the char this is for, I think +2 or +3 to all stats. All f2p races+drow+pdk, NO EDs.

this would just be for leveling from 1-20 and tring.

[Kwyjibo]

I played a 10Wiz/6Bard/4Ftr for my wizard PL's. I wouldn't want to play it at end game or anything but eHard was a breeze and even eElite wasn't terrible with the help of a few friends. Admittedly, I didn't gear for or plan for life after 28 so maybe it could be done.

[unbongwah]

If you had Warforged, I would say bard 5 / ftr 3 / wiz 12 would be an amusing option for wiz PLs: Swashie DPS + defensive stance + Vanguard perks + Reconstruct, wiz buffs, and some EK enhs. But going fleshie w/Pale Master spreads your APs too thin, IMHO.

[Jastarn]

sadly, I don't have WF. how about my EK/bard with CSW idea?

[unbongwah]

CSW by itself doesn't seem like enough healing, though, esp. w/so few CLs. I had thought about something a bit wackier, like bard 7 / FvS 4 / wiz 9: Swashbuckling for DPS, Ameliorating Strike for in-combat heals, wiz for the buffs & PL.

[Jastarn]

i'm currently doing a cleric pl with AS swashie, so not overly interested in repeating what would basically just be a slightly different variant. Trying to think if there are any sources of healing I could go for..

maybe barbarian 5 for ravager t5's?

OS also has some healing benefits that would be useful, and either tree could ramp up my dps, even if I didn't use rage.

[Jastarn]

that would be a LOT of aps though. not convinced it would be worth it

[Jastarn]

the DPS from barbarian looks like major synergy with the melee power from SWF and shield mastery, assuming they stack. that would require skirmisher though, and dropping the stance from fighter.

[Gabrion]

I've been playing various melee arcanes since the level cap was 12, so I'm a fan of any such build. A few random thoughts in no particular order...

-I think you're looking in the wrong direction if you want healing to come through Bard alone if you don't go pretty deep or have a lot of healing amp stacked.
-If you look for healing from Warpriest Ameliorating Strike, it's very good, but only excellent if you are TWF in my opinion (double heal if you get an offhand attack when you use it).
-I think bard is fine though for picking up the swashbuckling enhancements, though the last build I played similar to this was before swashbucklers and I did versions that were either TWF or THF.
-Speaking of Bard enhancements, it looks like you can pick Different Tact (INT) for INT to damage while taking the T1 Harper for Int to attack. This is very different that the world in which I played "battlemage" types, where I usually stuck to STR for melee attack and damage. See more about this below.

-I ran a few deep wizards melee types about a year ago and I really liked the level 12 break point. I found my best healing through heroics to be in undead form...the auras alone are usually enough and if you want burst healing, you can go T5 PM for the Blast SLA. The world of DDO has also changed to arguably favor heavy armor wearers, but you will still find with this type of build that the incorp from wraith, plus dodge, plus displacement will make you really hard to hit in the first place.
-Speaking of wraith...if you want to go one hand fighting, think about picking up a wounding of puncturing rapier. They fell out of favor a long time ago (to some extent), but through heroics you won't find much to clear trash faster than the combination of wounding/puncturing and the extra con damage on crit from wraith form.
-These types of builds, for me at least, always worked best when I supplemented melee damage with casting. This usually involved at least one AoE clearance spell like wall of fire (or any of the equivalents), one of the level 5 stacking damage over time spells, and whatever else to round it out. What was always unfortunate was not being able to rely on spells that required a save. Related to what I said above, you can get around this now by getting your INT to damage from swashbuckler's different tact and INT to hit from Harper Strategic Combat I. So unless I'm missing something, you can pump most all your points into INT and CON if you want to. And back to the spells...you can also pick up CC spells if you want to now, since you didn't have to "dump" INT!
-One bad thing about deep wiz melees is feat prereqs (especially anything that requires BAB). Fortunately early on you can pick up things like metamagics to enhance the spellcasting aspect of the character, but you won't be able to meet the +6 BAB and +11 BAB (or even +8 for improved crit) until latter than a traditional melee class. For at least on of my deep wizard melee builds, I remember taking levels 19 and 20 as fighter because not only does that class give bonus feats, but it gives them when you want them in your career (in this case when you have high enough BAB for things like Greater _____ Fighting feats).
-If you don't want to be undead, or if you do but feel like aura healing is enough and don't need blast, T5 Pale Master is very strong for a melee arcane. I can't say I was thrilled with that enhancement line when they rolled it out, but honestly I used it for a fair bit and always found it outperforming my expectations.

Sorry, like I said just some random thoughts, but hopefully they help at least a tad.

[Jastarn]

that does help, thanks! I should have noted though, I don't have access to harper yet, or enough quests to farm favor for it.

[Gabrion]

that does help, thanks! I should have noted though, I don't have access to harper yet, or enough quests to farm favor for it.

No problem.

Forgot you might not have access to that though. You can certainly make it work without, just probably won't be DC casting from the Wiz side.

One question...how set are you on the bard/swashbuckler aspect?

Edit: Doh, you don't need harper...just the second Different Tact enhancement from swash to have INT to attack/damage.

[Jastarn]

not set on it much, i've used it alot, kinda bored..

but its a tried-and-tested high dps output

[Gabrion]

Since I solo a lot, figuring out how I'm going to heal is always a priority question I ask when making a new build. Here are some more thoughts I have, mostly on the topic of self healing.

-If you go the Pale Master route, I think you'll have enough healing through heroics just through auras. Personally I find the T5 enhancement very nice for burst healing though just because the nature of this type of character is that you don't get hit a lot, but when you do it tends to be spiky damage since you don't have as high PRR etc. In any case you'll need to make sure you have a good for negative spell power to keep healing as effective as possible.
-You brought up ameliorating strike and I'll just say a few things about it. The build I was playing until last week was a FvS/Monk/Wizard combo relying almost exclusively on ameliorating strike for healing (and he was level 28 until I TRed). I loved that ability a lot, but like I said before, it only works optimally if you decide to go with TWF. Even then, it can be a bit of an enhancement point drain unless you see other things you really like in the warpriest tree. The weapon enhancements there are good in my opinion if they match whatever build you're playing/deity you've selected. Smite weakness is very good for anything you have to beat on for a while (though it's better once you get another way to build 20 stacks of vulnerable and then just use smite weakness to keep it stacked). Divine Might is great if you rely on STR for damage AND you have a high CHA. My overall point is that you need a pretty specific build to make full use of what warpriest has to offer (TWF Paladin's have a very easy time making use of it for instance). Otherwise it's hard to justify going all the way to ameliorating strike just to cover your bases regarding healing.
-Speaking of Paladins, they of course have some ok options for healing, but obviously have to drop bard from the mix (part of the reason why I asked how much you cared about bard/swash). If you went that route you probably wouldn't bother with undead form since you'd probably want to spend a lot of points between eldritch knight and the pally trees. Still not sure you'd end up with enough healing though and you'd also have a nightmare with stats, probably needing STR, CON, INT, and CHA. Well you could always play the old school melee wizard type and just dump INT, but you'll probably want high STR and CHA at the least to use Divine Might.
-Another option that excludes bard is monk. I know it's not very "flavor of the month" to suggest monk dips these days (whereas a year ago most threads involved some sort of "can you fit X monk levels in the build" type comments), but I still find them pretty effective to mix with a melee wizard. I actually played a Wizard/Monk/Fighter combo (or was it Wiz/Monk/Rogue?) that was a stick build and had a blast. Believe it or not, "shadows cannot exist without light" was enough healing for me throughout heroics.
-Lastly, you could always fall back on traditional spell based healing from cleric or favored soul. You sort of suggested this through bard, but it's just a more delayed progression. You'll never reach the heal spell if this is a Wiz past life, but you can get pretty good single target heal spells and supplement them with metas, healing power, healing amp, etc. Plus if you go this route, you're back to having warpriest open to you if you want to play with it.

Long story short, for a melee build meant to pick up a wiz past life, I still think undead form is one of your most solid self healing options. Get good dodge, stack miss chance, run auras, profit. Take T5 blast SLA if you find yourself still needing more burst healing options.

[Jastarn]

thanks for your help!