Better self healing?

[Gideon999]

Hey guys,

I am running a build for a pure human, pure fighter and am starting to think more about self healing for higher levels. I know about cocoon and the other epic twists, but I am more thinking about heroic levels and epics before those twists are available. I have been sinking points into UMD, but since its a cross class skill I will max out at 10 or 11 there.

So what I would like to ask are for some ideas to get either useful wand/scroll usage (how much umd really should I shoot for? Should I get skill focus UMD for 3 more points? Will that be enough to even matter?).

I would like to avoid multiclassing, but I would roll in 2 levels of rogue or something later if its the only realistic option. My build right now is roughly this :

Human Fighter 36pt build, neutral good (so no pally splash possible here)
Stats (roughly from memory)
Str 16
Dex 14
Con 18
Int 12
Wis 8
Cha 8

I will be adding in all points to str on level ups, and threw a tome on int for combat expertise and improved trip (which I love!).

For skills I am able to max out jump, balance, heal, intim, umd and a few other splashes.

Feats, my current plan includes :
Power attack
Cleave
great cleave
combat expertise
bastard sword
impr crit
impr shield bash
shield mastery
improved shield mastery
two handed fighting
Impr two handed fighting
grtr two handed fighting
stunning blow
sap
dragonmark of passage
past life fighter
toughness
Dodge

The plan is to go heavy into vanguard with stalwart stance built in.

My last life i had 4 cleric levels in there for wands, scrolls etc but was noticing a lack of success on the better scrolls (like 50% or lower success on heal and raise) with little payback in the current meta on the level 1 and 2 cleric spells.

So, any ideas? Suggestions? I still have my +20 lesser heart in the bank so lots of options but Id like to try and keep 18 fighter levels at least.

Thanks everyone!

[UurlockYgmeov]

vampiric weapons + HAmp...

[Enoach]

On UMD check out this page on the wiki - http://ddowiki.com/page/Use_Magic_Device

It has a grid that shows the No-Fail values. Such as Heal scroll (Level 6 Divine Spell) takes 39 UMD score to not fail. Keep in mind that scroll healing will take finesse if you want to use it while fighting as you will need to also make a concentration check (Or jump around a lot)

But UMD also brings other things to your build that can help reduce incoming damage - Protection spells, Fireshield and Shield (magic missile protection), Stone skin etc. As well as utility spells - for low DC locks Knock, True seeing, raise dead.

Getting the Silver Flame favor also opens up the two Silver Potions (Stack size 10 oomes with 30 second debuff). These are what I consider out of combat healing or emergency healing options.

For heroic levels the collectable turn ins have some heal and heal over time options. Also, the subterranean area has a collectable you can get called a planar shard which you can use to turn in to get a gem with charges (does not recharge) with heal, or mass cures etc. While each gem is exclusive it is an option.

The other thing to add is vampiric weapons these will help heal you on hitting mobs.

[Gideon999]

Well I do have the Nightmare sword which has vampirism on it, that isn't a ton of HP each swing. I think with UMD the most I could feasibly get without using action boosts or mega tomes would be around 20 points, which would be enough to do a heal scroll about 50/50 but that still seems kind of dodgey.

How much hamp are people shooting for? I can pretty easily get 60 from the human racial tree, is that considered enough for epic content or would I need to get items stacking on that?

[Robbenklopper]

Maybe H-Elf instead of human is an Option for you ? Cleric Dilly.

[MysticRhythms]

I think Skill Focus: UMD is a solid choice. The +3 does matter. It practically brings you to the "next level" of spell you can successfully hit off of a scroll.

It always works - no item swapping or worrying about whether or not you have the right buff going.
It stacks with everything.
You have at least 18 feats. Once you will out your primary fighting feats, you'd be hard-pressed to find a single feat that has more impact.
If you plan on using tomes and/or a Charisma item in your actively worn gear, you can get a fairly significant amount of UMD

My current pure Fighter hits 38 UMD without any buffs. He has Skill Focus UMD and has not taken advantage of many possible ways to increase it like Artificer Past Lives, Martial Epic Past Lives, a Persuasion item or a skill tome or even 36 build points.

Raising your Charisma gives you benefits with Intimidate which is a pretty good skill for a pure fighter to have.

Also, while platinum is relatively unimportant, you can get more use out of your plat by having lots of handy items that UMD offers like Teleportation scrolls or as I've found out, Wands of Fireball/Ice Storm for soloing Inferno of the Damned.

UMD is probably goign to underperform as in-combat healing when you need lots of burst heals, but that's rare until the upper levels of epic where your destiny and twists should help you fill in any holes.

The feat is worth it.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

i do not recommend helf. it requires wasting points on wisdom, and wasting points in the racial tree that you need for other things. and it doesnt provide the all around utility of umd either, just the heal scrolling.

i do not recommend the +3 umd feat. with the changes to fighter feats in u25, i would be spending nearly every feat on weapon focus/spec feats. i also recommend against wasting build points on charisma as a fighter; if your sole purpose for doing it would be umd/intim it is just too much cost for not enough gain (8 vs 14/16 lvl 1 charisma is only 2-3 points difference).

vamp weaps + hamp is a terrible suggestion. for low level heroics maybe it is feasible but honestly, if those are the levels we are talking about you should practically never need to heal anyway. first of all vamp weapons arent well represented amongst worthwhile weapons. secondly the healing is not enough, even if you have a ton of hamp. thirdly if you have a ton of hamp, your other sources of healing will be way more effective anyway, such as simply cure serious pots.

60 hamp is not enough. i take 1-3 tiers of hamp from the human tree on a pure fighter (this hamp is still over performing afaik btw), have 3 paladin past lives, and a 20/40/60 gs hamp stick. still have to use both scroll healing as well as cocoon to stay up in ee with a pure fighter (in addition to all the defensive aspects you need).

things id recommend having for good usage of your umd under ideal circumstances:

11 ranks of umd (not 11.5, 11)
8 starting cha (on a non dm fighter)
+4 charisma tome (fairly easy to acquire these days)
+2 umd skill tome (was going for 500k-1m on plat ah a while ago, should be able to find one fairly easily. if you want to spend money on a +5 umd skill tome, i would consider it i worthwhile investment)
completionist (past life, +2 stat +2 skill (+3 total), 1-28)
x3 arti past life (past life, +1 umd, 1-28)

voice of the master (trinket, +1 luck, 5-11)
head of good fortune (trinket, +2 luck, 12-19)
t3 treasure hunters spyglass w/ good luck augment (trinket, +3 enhancement +2 luck, 20-as long as you need it)
seven fingered gloves (gloves, +5 competence, 9-as long as you need it)
vile blasphemy aka po mans seven fingers (gloves, +3 competence, 13-as long as you need it)
big top (helm, +1 enhancement, 5-19)
golden cartouche (necklace, +3 competence, 7-12)
gs triple pos cha goggles (goggles, +6 exceptional, 11-as long as you need it)

[jalont]

You're going to have to use SF pots and a cleric hire. There's nothing wrong with SF pots in general. They're actually an excellent source of healing, though obviously I like them much better as secondary healing. But for you, I'm not sure you have any other choice until you get cocoon.

[Gideon999]

Thanks for all the input!

I only have an 8 base Cha, and I do intend to get a +2 tome at least (its the only stat that I have not used a tome on, so I can burn my 1750 favour reward tome on that with no qualms).

I took a look at my character plan, and I think I can afford to burn a feat on skill focus UMD. I will still have a ton of feats for everything else.

Agreed though that in combat the UMD solution will not be ideal since the fail rate will still be quite high but being able to use a raise scroll or something in a pinch is still a huge bonus.

Changing race is not an option though, or I would have gone dilly already (its an easy solution for sure).

I think it will be looking for tomes, boosting my skill to 11 and getting SF:UMD with a few other options and maybe an action boost. At the moment I am only level 11, and if I get hurt at all on heroics my healbot gets me so fast that I really have to work at it to get hurt badly (usually its the traps that kill me since I dont have any way to disable them).

Thanks so much for all the input!

[Xahtep]

For skills I am able to max out jump, balance, heal, intim, umd and a few other splashes.

Feats, my current plan includes :
Power attack
Cleave
great cleave
combat expertise I understand you need this for improved trip still im not quite convinced that +4 to dc is worth 2 feats. If you are set on having this, get stun first, +50% damage while stuned is biger imo
bastard sword i like Dwarven axes more (personal choice)
impr crit
impr shield bash
shield mastery
improved shield mastery
two handed fighting
Impr two handed fighting
grtr two handed fighting
stunning blow
sap Good for solo, terrible in an average pug
dragonmark of passage Nice to have if you can fit ddoor sla. That would leave you very tight on enhancement points tough
past life fighter Slightly more mdb and some intimidate is not worth imo
toughness 23 hp by lvl 20 is not much. You could easily swap this one
Dodge tricky on this one, +3% dodge is good, would be better if you fit mobility. The downside is that you probably wont have enough mdb to fit it in wearing a heavy plate, even with the pl: fighter

Comentary in red.

Your feat choices are good, still some of them dont make much sense to me, With your investiment in dex you should aim for precision, 25% less fortification against mobs is huge. more than the +5 damage you will be geting from power atack (you still need PA for cleaves).

Toughness is a waste of a feat, even more given that you started with max con.
Adding weapon focus and specialization (and greater specialization) feats gives you a small boost to melee power and damage. Id pick those 3 1nstead of CE, improved Trip and dodge, again, is only my preference, not a must.

You could fit skill focus:UMD in if you rearranged a bit. +3 umd is huge for a cha dumped ftr.



I see your stats and is a bit off for me. If you want to max DC get max str and lower con a bit, you will have enough hp at end.
If you are set on using your +20 id recomend you going:

18 Str
12 Dex (if you have a +1 tome to qualify for Precision and dodge)
16 Con
12 Int
8 Wis
And the rest on Charisma, that should be hiting 12 or 14.

About the multiclass i wouldnt do that since the capstone of vanguard is awesome. If you wanted to max umd then you should have taken it at 1st lvl, not at last, now it would be more detrimetal than advantageous for you (still on a vanguard i would go pure). Some reflex ( wich still wont allow you to save in hard content) is not worth.


If you have it, harper agent enhancements are good if you have a way to boost inteligence a bit. Geting tier 3 of know the angles takes 8 points so it would leave out the mark of pasaje and make you be REALLY tight on enhancements. Its not a must but adds some damage.

[Xahtep]

To boost umd, and easy to get:


2 14 Starting charisma
3 Persuation - Easily craftable. My favorite is a mobile ring of persuation ( +3 umd. +% dodge).
2-4 Heroism - Greater Heroism. Regular is easy to get an planar girds are not so expensive this days.
1-2 Luck - Time to get the Voice of the master or even better the Head of good fortune ( 2 luck, Heavy fort, 4% dodge) From Reavers fate.
2-3 Charisma item - if you cant fit a +6 cha, get a +4 cha diamond, easy to slot.
1-3 Ship buff
1 Ship cha stat boost
11 Ranks from lvling up
3 from skill focus
____________

27- 31 umd with normal means, now comes the slighlty hard to get:
1-2 tome of cha
+6 Green steel item (My favorite is a sp/smokescreen/diplacemet belt. Usefull to feed your cocoon in epics)
____________
34-40umd without much fuss. that gets you at 75% - 105% in heal scrolls, not quite reliable for mid combat but we are geting close

1-5 UMD tome. I consider this one the hardest to get and can be very expensive if store bought.



So in the end it would be around 38-45 by level 20.

Id recomend you to rely in hires/pots for combat healing in heroics. Pumping your dps and avoidance/concealmnt/resistances/immunitys will get you a higer mileage. A dead mob cant get trough your defenses.


Note that many sources of umd dont stack, like persuation, with golden cartiuche, vile blasphemy and 7 fingered. Voice with other good luck Only the higer source aply.

[Gideon999]

Thanks for the additional info!

I have since actually removed the LDmoP, eventually I will be taking the epic perma-haste feat so this is a bit of a waste I think as well. Dodge i haven't actually taken yet, as I wasn't sure exactly how the mechanic worked when I looked out the plan.

Good point on toughness, I took it early mainly because it used to be a pre-req for some of the toughness enhancements. I guess not so anymore, and I will likely swap that out as well.

Changing the build points for now I'd like to avoid doing (IE - Id really prefer to keep the +20 LHoW for later). I actually was going to go with max Str vs Con, but found that the extra point of damage and BAB really didn't seem to be worth it to me vs the extra HP (especially once boosted by sentinel as the percentage increase does make a difference there).

I was thinking of taking sap mainly because it has no save, so should be useful all the way up to epic elite. I dont pug much, so its not a huge concern for me that it can easily be broken.

This is great! Any more ideas everyone?

[Xahtep]

Sap dont have a save, thats true. Sadly it breaks once the mob gets a hit. Still worth of consideration.

If you plan to run on ee (or if you want to just have more dps) use either Legendary Dreadnaught (headsman chop and anvil of thunder is why i prefer d. axes) or Crusader if you have to do stuff in divine sphere.

Binding speed is a good feat but you could ditch it if you have a speed XV item ( 30% striding and 15% alacracy).
I love Perfect Two weapon fighting (for the 5% doublestrike) and Perfect Two handed fighting (extra glancing blows).

What are your twists of fate?

Personaly i love legendary shield mastery (7% doublestrike + 15 prr), the tier 2 from GMoF (forgot the name, but it gives you 3% ds) also cocoon that is a must. Other handy stuff is brace for impact for the extra fortification, Grim precision (if you have precision + grim thats a base of 40% armor pierce) and Sense weakness if you can buff your stun high enough.

LD is good damage and good defense while you blitz.
Crusader is good damage, some healing and imminitys.
Both are great.

[Gideon999]

So far no twists. I TR'd once I had 3 levels in dreadnaught, but the plan is to move to healing cocoon ASAP once I get back to those levels.

Have also swapped out toughness and got improved critical slash so that is done now at least.

[fmalfeas]

Regarding Hamp, if you dont' want to be swapping to a GS Hampstick, there's Levik's Bracers (40% Hamp) and Iron Mitts/PDK Gloves (60% hamp) that stack with each other and with the human racial enhancements. That would boost the output of vampiric weapons quite a bit.

Could also run in Divine Crusader rather than Legendary Dreadnaught, for the heal-on-kill effect in its cores. And while it'll take a while to build up to, the Epic Past Life Fast Healing ability may only fire once a minute, but it saves resources outside of combat, and sometimes triggers /in/ combat, possibly bailing you out of a bad spot.

Depending on shrine availability, Healing Spring might outperform Cocoon for you as well, as it lasts quite a while, ticks quickly and strongly while it's running, and doesn't cost SP.

Another option, though riskier, is to get Levik's Defender and Epic Mournlode Fullplate. They both proc Heal (2% chance every time you're hit). Without VERY high PRR though, that's not gonna cut it in EE.

[LongshotBro]

Hey guys,

I am running a build for a pure human, pure fighter and am starting to think more about self healing for higher levels. I know about cocoon and the other epic twists, but I am more thinking about heroic levels and epics before those twists are available. I have been sinking points into UMD, but since its a cross class skill I will max out at 10 or 11 there.

You're on the right track here, UMD provides healing and several other useful utility scrolls. Plus, your party will be happily surprised when you scroll raise them.

Should I get skill focus UMD for 3 more points?

You totally should, yes. A human fighter has the feat to spare and still max out 2-3 other combat lines.

Feats, my current plan includes :
Power attack
Cleave
great cleave
combat expertise
bastard sword
impr crit
impr shield bash
shield mastery
improved shield mastery
two handed fighting
Impr two handed fighting
grtr two handed fighting
stunning blow
sap
dragonmark of passage
past life fighter
toughness
Dodge

The plan is to go heavy into vanguard with stalwart stance built in.

So, any ideas? Suggestions?

The items in bold are what will make up for any lack of self-healing. Defenses will be very high; a pure human fighter Vanguard is extremely tough. Even in some EE content, you may find your ability to withstand punishment quite surprising, and post-battle pots, and UMD scrolls will get you ready for the next fight.

You'll also be mitigating damage with the stream of shield stuns and stunning blows.

In Epics...there's lots of options. i've had a lot of fun with Divine Crusader, and twisted some of the Unyielding Sentinel for moar AC and PRR from armor and shields.

Happy to see another pure Vanguard fighter out there!

[Soleran100]

What are the thoughts on a dragonmark halfling for fighter healing in regards to a pure fighter build?

[the_one_dwarfforged]

What are the thoughts on a dragonmark halfling for fighter healing in regards to a pure fighter build?

never used em, but afaik they are roughly equivalent to heal scrolls? assuming thats the case, not going to be a cure all.

regardless, -2 str and being a midget would be a deal breaker for me.

[eachna_gislin]

On UMD check out this page on the wiki - http://ddowiki.com/page/Use_Magic_Device

It has a grid that shows the No-Fail values. Such as Heal scroll (Level 6 Divine Spell) takes 39 UMD score to not fail. Keep in mind that scroll healing will take finesse if you want to use it while fighting as you will need to also make a concentration check (Or jump around a lot)

But UMD also brings other things to your build that can help reduce incoming damage - Protection spells, Fireshield and Shield (magic missile protection), Stone skin etc. As well as utility spells - for low DC locks Knock, True seeing, raise dead.

Getting the Silver Flame favor also opens up the two Silver Potions (Stack size 10 oomes with 30 second debuff). These are what I consider out of combat healing or emergency healing options.

For heroic levels the collectable turn ins have some heal and heal over time options. Also, the subterranean area has a collectable you can get called a planar shard which you can use to turn in to get a gem with charges (does not recharge) with heal, or mass cures etc. While each gem is exclusive it is an option.

The other thing to add is vampiric weapons these will help heal you on hitting mobs.

To be added to the pool of suggestions above, consider Life Shield effects, as well as still carrying cure pots (in addition to Silver Flame pots). I also have all the avoidance I can (max dodge for my AC, bracers of wind for blur, ghostly from Cloak of Invisibility). Being missed more than 50% of the time is worth a certain amount of self-healing. Once I get my greensteel I also have displacement clickies. PRR/MRR as I can get from heavy armor and enhancements.

You'll want a Persuasion item. This can be cannith crafted, as can Good luck. Or you can use game items.

If you have any serious interest in scroll healing on a fighter you really want to start with a Charisma higher than 8, otherwise the amount of gear-swapping you'll have to do to succeed will eat into your DPS.

[Eryhn]

other than getting you to a point where you can successfully scroll, making best of the heals you get is another factor. slotting a devo aug every few levels can be bit tedious, if worthwhile on epics. here is two otpions for a switch-in heal shield (as you a are vangaurd you dont wanna use these permanently as there are far better dps shields around):

http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Shield_of_Tireless_Aid
http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Wall_of_Wood

both have devo and +20% hamp, the tireless aid from new content has the healer's bounty proc going (which wont go of often when you just switch in shield for heals, but still, whereas the druids chain one offers better crit profile, not having to slot nat. armor as well as some tiny benefit from DR ...

that being said, most my toons in heroics have a crafted healing lore/sth else useful (deathblock ie) ring. there's many ways to go about that, put it one of those BTA chainreward items from the older content that remain BTA after crafting so it can be swapped between toons, put it on a dual augment slot item, so that you can "level up" the item by adding a 2nd effect via crafting laters and switchhing in higher level augments -making it semi more useful at higher levels without having to recraft from scratch ...

generally, if you have devo and pos spell crit item, plus some hamp from racial tree(I wouldnt go up to tier3 hamp in human tree, tier2 should do, 3 is AP heavy) and item, using a lesser heal scroll with 100% for the time being is probably better than 70% on the full heal. of course its nice to have as a proper heal ails you of all kinds on annoying things, but mainly, you want to keep your red bar in the full. so heal critical scrolls at 100% is a start ...

also, if you have been coveing, the med/heavy armor from there has demonic life shield too. I agree though that vampiric/life shield stuff, while maybe helping here and there a bit, does not offer sustained and reliable heals, so not enough to go buy or grind out

other than that, on a build tight on heals, layered defense all the more worthwhile: blurry item + ghostly & invis guard from mabar cloak is a higher miss chance plus a few seconds where you take no damage when the invis procs. afore mentioned GS displacement clicky