Epic Utility/Events Build?

[Rhysem]

I have an old level 24 melee soul bot hanging around that I'm thinking should burn the +20 LR and Raider's Reward cache and try to become a utility toon. By this I mean, 'can go do non-epic quests to farm <thing> for my TR' -- of course pretty much any build can do that. No biggie. The other thing I'd like to have it do is be good at cove/mabar/risia. That is part of why the character was a favored soul -- leap of faith. Not so relevant with exalted angel now, and the character actually has some epic levels in that destiny. Mabar is somewhat of a non-entity right now. Cove still has good stuff and is fun ("I'm a double barreled kobold!" never gets old), so being cove competent is happy (maybe I'll be lucky they'll add coves @28 as the level cap goes up?). That means beating down undead and the occasional pirates, and that speed bonuses (ran a lot of cove on a pure monk main, both heroic and epic. The speed bonuses are a HUGE help).

This isn't going to be a main, so gear is always going to be on the weak side. It will continue to be a warforged. Right now it is CG, but as a FvS I could modify alignment before TR, and that's fine. I don't want to dump a billion EPLs in it and it is sitting in the divine sphere right now.

Things under consideration:

Sireth + rogue/thief-acro + barbie/supreme cleave. Gives evasion, 10% movement.

Mutineer's Blade + bard/swash + precision. Might have evasion. For sure feat starved. Is critting stuff in epics through precision a thing or not? Gives 15% movement speed, which is nice. Lots of defense possibility, splash fighter 3 for stance, rogue 2 for evasion.

Sireth + monk/henshen. Fastest movement, but possibly not as effective due to larger than other builds gear dependence? 30% movement if it splashes less than 3 levels, 25% otherwise. Low on utility without artie/rogue UMD splash -- not easily able to whip haste scrolls on kobolds, etc.

Thoughts?

[giftie]

I never run much Cove, but plenty of Cannith and ES challenges.

If I had to do a specialized event/challenge runner, I'd base it on Ranger T5 Dance of Death. Since DoD currently works with any weapon style, it's - AFAIK - possible to pair it with swashbuckling Bard. You don't mention trapping skills, only UMD, so I'll assume that's a non-issue.

Personally I'd go with 9 Ranger/8 Bard/3 Fighter if you want Improved Evasion. Could be done as 9 Ranger/7 Bard/4 Fighter for extra feat, but I'd like to have all of CSW, Haste and Displacement. Only 8% extra run speed (and Expedious), but you can still pick up Speed Boost.

EDIT: just noticed that you mentioned you'll LR+20 into this. So 3-class splits are out unless you're fine with waiting or have a Reincarnation Timer Reset available. Maybe 15 Bard/5 Ranger instead? Possibly Bard/Ranger/FvS split for Divine Might.

[Rhysem]

I never run much Cove, but plenty of Cannith and ES challenges.

If I had to do a specialized event/challenge runner, I'd base it on Ranger T5 Dance of Death. Since DoD currently works with any weapon style, it's - AFAIK - possible to pair it with swashbuckling Bard. You don't mention trapping skills, only UMD, so I'll assume that's a non-issue.

Personally I'd go with 9 Ranger/8 Bard/3 Fighter if you want Improved Evasion. Could be done as 9 Ranger/7 Bard/4 Fighter for extra feat, but I'd like to have all of CSW, Haste and Displacement. Only 8% extra run speed (and Expedious), but you can still pick up Speed Boost.

EDIT: just noticed that you mentioned you'll LR+20 into this. So 3-class splits are out unless you're fine with waiting or have a Reincarnation Timer Reset available. Maybe 15 Bard/5 Ranger instead? Possibly Bard/Ranger/FvS split for Divine Might.

Ugh, yes. I'd forgotten that little gotcha about LR+20. Bad coding. If nothing's locked in, nothing should be locked in. I don't think I want to do pick something that's based around what can only be quantified as a bug anyway.

For cove/mabar/risia, trapping skills are a non-issue. UMD is good to scroll stuff, because sometimes you want invis. For the cove role in my 2 to 4 man teams I usually fill, speed is the most important thing, followed by killing undead, then bosses, then hobs, then utility like haste scrolling kobolds.

I'm not stuck on improved evasion. If I'm in light, I'll want evasion. If I'm in heavy, I can skip it.

[Firewall]

In Crystal Cove (and a lot of other challenges) one of the most useful abilities is DDoor. It can substitute teleporters and you can use it to quickly go back to the start if the center is attacked. So i would splash some levels of bard, wizard or sorcerer (or Dragonmarked Human). Haste is nice too but if needed you can wear a Crystal Cove Pirate Hat that applies the buff to kobolds when you run by.

You could also go mainly Sorc and if you want Wings take Wind Dance from the Air Savant tree. Probably Warforged/Bladeforged 2 Paladin/18 Sorc for easy selfhealing and good saves (and because Bladeforged have a Pala level anyway)? Adamantine Body for Heavy Armor damage reduction? Would be not very gear intensive either.

If you want to do fire damage maybe 16 Sorc/2 Pala/2 FvS for Scourge, Just Reward and better Crits.

You could even do a Shiradi Sorc.

[RD2play]

I have an old level 24 melee soul bot hanging around that I'm thinking should burn the +20 LR and Raider's Reward cache and try to become a utility toon. By this I mean, 'can go do non-epic quests to farm <thing> for my TR' -- of course pretty much any build can do that. No biggie. The other thing I'd like to have it do is be good at cove/mabar/risia. That is part of why the character was a favored soul -- leap of faith. Not so relevant with exalted angel now, and the character actually has some epic levels in that destiny. Mabar is somewhat of a non-entity right now. Cove still has good stuff and is fun ("I'm a double barreled kobold!" never gets old), so being cove competent is happy (maybe I'll be lucky they'll add coves @28 as the level cap goes up?). That means beating down undead and the occasional pirates, and that speed bonuses (ran a lot of cove on a pure monk main, both heroic and epic. The speed bonuses are a HUGE help).

This isn't going to be a main, so gear is always going to be on the weak side. It will continue to be a warforged. Right now it is CG, but as a FvS I could modify alignment before TR, and that's fine. I don't want to dump a billion EPLs in it and it is sitting in the divine sphere right now.

Things under consideration:

Sireth + rogue/thief-acro + barbie/supreme cleave. Gives evasion, 10% movement.

Mutineer's Blade + bard/swash + precision. Might have evasion. For sure feat starved. Is critting stuff in epics through precision a thing or not? Gives 15% movement speed, which is nice. Lots of defense possibility, splash fighter 3 for stance, rogue 2 for evasion.

Sireth + monk/henshen. Fastest movement, but possibly not as effective due to larger than other builds gear dependence? 30% movement if it splashes less than 3 levels, 25% otherwise. Low on utility without artie/rogue UMD splash -- not easily able to whip haste scrolls on kobolds, etc.

Thoughts?

I need to replan mine it has been gathering dust for some time, but things I found very useful for challenges and cove is to have access to DimensionDoor, and trap skills. (OL for mansion) also a decent ranged option can save you time or help you kite a Boss that proves difficult to melee.

[RD2play]

also it is better to stay at 25, since most epic challenges don't go higher so you would take a hit on mats, before we had 28 we did plenty cr30 runs in CC and that will give you a boost to mats.

[Mercureal]

I don't have much in the way of personal challenge/event strategies to offer, but you might want to check out EllisDee's thread on his Challenge Farmer build.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...allenge+farmer

It's at a lower level than you're considering, but it seems to have the same build goals and he's put a fair bit of thought into how to optimize it. There's some discussion on the thread of alternate possibilities, too.

[elcagador]

For utility I'd probably go with a Bard/rogue for trap skills, umd (resurrection scrolls), ddoor, party buffs an songs, fascinate for soloing, run speed with swashbuckler, even can go human charisma based for chest blessing with dragonmark. Can even take some fighter levels for extra feats, haste boost and stance defenses.

For example a Bard 15/Fighter 3/rogue 2 can fit all of that, keeping good defenses with a buckler and stalwart stance with good dodge and evasion.

or if you have tomes and gear can even make a hybrid caster with more Bard lvls with cc, some dps and rogue splash for traps.