My melee toons drop off in damage as I hit Epic. What can I be doing wrong?

[Circon]

It happened on several lives on my completionist wizard, it happened to my last fighter-splashed paladin in the heavy armor, and it's happening to my current rogue-splashed paladin with a sideline in traps, evasion and sneak attack. Monster HP scales up from what feels like 600 in Gianthold to 2000 by level 18-19 then jumps to 10 000 in the epic quests, and I have not figured out how to get fifteen times as much damage from level 15 to 20.

I've tried reading a bunch of melee builds, but they usually describe full destinies and a set of endgame gear that involves running level 29 quests like Epic Desecrated Temple of Vol on elite, and I struggle badly enough with much lower and more common quests like Tomb of the Wizard-King on epic hard. It seems infeasible for me to *get* to that endgame build point without my melee being carried for a long while to farm items and destinies, whether by a friendly group or by a wizard life or something else.

I have Power Attack, I have Cleave, I have the style feat chain (Shield Mastery + Vanguard in current case, but previously THF or TWF), I have Deadly gear, I have bought Strength 16 at chargen and raised it at every levelup and used +3 str tome and +7 str item. I have various class buffs (with current paladin, Holy Sword, Zeal, Divine Favor, Human Damage Boost), and my current weapon is a choice of greensteel swords, Lit2 or Min2. I reached 21 and took Overwhelming Critical. Yet I'm beating on monsters for ages to ever kill something solo if I step beyond Epic Normal Small Problem.

So what is a *new* melee supposed to do upon hitting epic levels? What are the early tricks for dealing with the hit point blob monsters to get to the point where I can farm Epic Temple for late tricks? How are stabby sorts are supposed to deal with the inflation of monster HP without having a full assortment of goodies yet?

[kain741]

One thing to consider is at 18 you are doing level 16 quests that are 18 on elite...effectively at level. At level 20 you are doing at a minimum level 22 quests on EE that is actually consider still "brave" until 24. If you feel like the mobs are too powerful as soon as you get to heroic cap you can scale back your expectations and run a lower difficulties until your gear and destinies catch up with the mobs you are fighting. Keep an open mind on how to level these lower epic levels. This could mean some slayers in KF or some EN / EH questing. Bravery has made many think that everyone should do EE at all times, but if you're toon is telling you otherwise then just be patient with it.

[unbongwah]

A lot of your epic dmg boost comes from your ED; even if you have no Twists, Legendary Dreadnought or Div Crusader are a lot more powerful than most of the other EDs. [There's also FotW, ofc, but it doesn't play nice with defensive stances, which as a Vanguard I presume you use.]

Beyond that, it's largely a question of gear, feats, and Enhancements, ofc. Can you post the rest of your build?

[Circon]

A lot of your epic dmg boost comes from your ED; even if you have no Twists, Legendary Dreadnought or Div Crusader are a lot more powerful than most of the other EDs. [There's also FotW, ofc, but it doesn't play nice with defensive stances, which as a Vanguard I presume you use.]

Beyond that, it's largely a question of gear, feats, and Enhancements, ofc. Can you post the rest of your build?

Paladin 18/Rogue 2/Epic 1
Skills: Search, Disable Device, Intimidate, Heal, UMD
Ability scores: Str 42, Dex 21, Con 26, Int 18, Wis 20, Cha 26
Feats: Power Attack, Cleave, Improved Critical, Overwhelming Critical, Shield Masteries
Destiny: Divine Crusader 2. Turn Undead (for the Bane, since I already have it from paladin), Endless Turning, Purge the Wicked, Smite the Wicked, Strength.
Twist: Divine Energy Resistance from Unyielding Sentinel
Gear: Belt of Speed VI, Deadly V Necklace, Tier 3 Level 16 Swashbuckler (Parrying VIII, Doublestrike 6%, Guardbreaking, Riposte), Maenya's Iron Fists and the rest of the Sora Kell set for +2 set bonus. Sword is as mentioned Lit2 or Min2 greensteel.
Vanguard enhancements: To the Fore!, several Shield Specializations
Sacred Defender enhancements: Sacred Defense with +6 Sacred bonus to Strength
Knight of the Chalice enhancements: Slayer of Evil III (5d6 light damage), Strength +2, Divine Sacrifice III, Divine Might III, Exalted Smite III, Avenging Cleave, Holy Retribution (the 1000HP instakill on this was great in heroic but has now become mostly useless. Still gets me regenerating Smites though)
Human enhancements: Damage Boost

Pretty much everywhere else you should assume there's some non-damage-relevant stuff like a greensteel cloak giving heavy fortification, +5 protection, extra hp, and stoneskin clicky which I figure isn't the part of my build that you wanted to know about and would mostly be distracting from the question of how to get damage except insofar as I swap it out. How much stuff like that should I be swapping out for +damage bonuses in unusual slots?

[Grailhawk]

Paladin 18/Rogue 2/Epic 1
Skills: Search, Disable Device, Intimidate, Heal, UMD
Ability scores: Str 42, Dex 21, Con 26, Int 18, Wis 20, Cha 26
Feats: Power Attack, Cleave, Improved Critical, Overwhelming Critical, Shield Masteries
Destiny: Divine Crusader 2. Turn Undead (for the Bane, since I already have it from paladin), Endless Turning, Purge the Wicked, Smite the Wicked, Strength.
Twist: Divine Energy Resistance from Unyielding Sentinel
Gear: Belt of Speed VI, Deadly V Necklace, Tier 3 Level 16 Swashbuckler (Parrying VIII, Doublestrike 6%, Guardbreaking, Riposte), Maenya's Iron Fists and the rest of the Sora Kell set for +2 set bonus. Sword is as mentioned Lit2 or Min2 greensteel.
Vanguard enhancements: To the Fore!, several Shield Specializations
Sacred Defender enhancements: Sacred Defense with +6 Sacred bonus to Strength
Knight of the Chalice enhancements: Slayer of Evil III (5d6 light damage), Strength +2, Divine Sacrifice III, Divine Might III, Exalted Smite III, Avenging Cleave, Holy Retribution (the 1000HP instakill on this was great in heroic but has now become mostly useless. Still gets me regenerating Smites though)
Human enhancements: Damage Boost

Pretty much everywhere else you should assume there's some non-damage-relevant stuff like a greensteel cloak giving heavy fortification, +5 protection, extra hp, and stoneskin clicky which I figure isn't the part of my build that you wanted to know about and would mostly be distracting from the question of how to get damage except insofar as I swap it out. How much stuff like that should I be swapping out for +damage bonuses in unusual slots?

For epic levels I would say the gear looks kind of meh. Try and farm some Commendation in Evening Star, Focus on getting the PDK set, along with Oathblade (the PDK commendation Long sword). Also your ED being only level 2 isn't helping but that will come with time.

http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Oathblade
http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Purple_Dragon_Armor
http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Purple_Dragon_Gauntlets
http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Purple_Dragon_Helm
http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Epic_Ring_of_the_Stalker

Those would be the foundations I would build a first lifer on in epic levels (pluse the best Deadly Item I can buy +6 or better preferred) commendation are an easy grind out in Kings Forest and the Challenge Ingredients for the ring aren't that hard to get either.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

i agree with the ring of the stalker suggestion, an all around useful ring and simply a matter of farming the challenges. id stop at t2 on the ring so it remains bta.

id also farm the spare hand. adds so much, +5 tac dcs, 3% dstrike, 3 comp umd, 2 slots, and a somehwat unreliable (depending on what content you run) free knockdown proc. depending on ones overall gear set up at various epic levels, this can be the best melee dps belt all the way from 20-27.

instead of the pdk set, id get the fabricators gunatlets and bracers from the house cannith quests. they can be a bit annoying to pull, but not hard and not difficult to upgrade them once each for the set bonus which adds +2 dmg per hit and +25% stacking fort, while the gloves have great stat consolidation with 10% permahaste, 6 str, and 5 resist, and the bracers have +balance and a tensers proc.

then for your chest piece you can get a heroic black dragon scale [whatever type you want], which has haste guard, 10% fort bypass, and a 5% dmg buff when you kill something. thats pretty much definitively the best lvl 20-24 straight up dps chest piece. even epic marilith chain and cormyrean red scale really arent better dps than this cookie cutter heroic item.

for a dps necklace at level 20, i use veriks necklace which gives me 2 extra action boost per rest, and after ive used those ill swap to either a jorgundals collar (since i use eclaw set instead of fabricators) for 10% permahaste or an epic (or heroic, works the same and super easy to get) golden guile, because improved deception allows you to pull aggro and still sneak attack.

an easy to get dps cloak would be drow piwafi for the sneak attack damage. on that note drow smoke goggles are also easy to get and can give you seeker and manslayer (which is actually not bad, avg 5 damage a swing) if you dont have a stalker ring. usually though i slot a deadly of resist item in my goggle slot from levels 21-28.


your build looks like its headed in the right direction if you want dps, though any further min/maxing that you could do would make a surprisingly large difference. however gear, is truly much much much more important for dealing good melee dps, because assuming ones build isnt totally worthless (you have more than 40 str, so youre ok :P ) its easy to get more little damage increases from gear. and thats what melee dps in epics is all about, amassing a solid base of little/moderate damage bonuses in your heroic build and your gear, and multiply them by your epic destiny. so if you are levelling off destinies and you arent using a supermaxx dps 1-20 build and your gear isnt great, then yes your dps will be challenged in epics. i also have to agree entirely with the comments about what content you are running. heroic elite is a cakewalk and generally run exactly at level. epic elite is much harder even on the easy or low level epics, and typically epic groups will be of much wider level ranges, given that epic bb is quest level +4, and 28s prepping sags often open the lfm to as low as lvl 20. trying to run ee storm horns at lvl 20 is not a good idea usually.

[RTFM]

The key is getting your Epic Destinies and Twists opened up. These are much more powerful than "heroic past lives" now. And then once that is done some ePL also help (but not really needed for many builds)

Gear is important but not THAT important that you can't throw and assortment together which is all easily available. Start with the Eveningstar gear (trade for estar comms which are super easy to get), some of this stuff is great for lvl 20-28 until you get more gear. Troll the plat AH now and again. All sorts of Enorm or Ehard Gianthold gear, other named stuff like drow {weap]} of the weapon master, caster staves, etc. which used to sell only for shards you see for plat now a days. I have one guildie constantly levels 20-28 without changing really any gear at all, it is possible.

I've run into several returning players lately (some even with completionist and even a 3X completionist) who never finished or started their epic destinies. It is just something you want to do if you want to run epics. My suggestion to each one of these returning players is "farm a few epic destinies each life now, don't TR at 20, and even eTR at 28 once or twice before you heroic TR again"........because they make all the difference in epics, even more so than gear.

It happened on several lives on my completionist wizard, it happened to my last fighter-splashed paladin in the heavy armor, and it's happening to my current rogue-splashed paladin with a sideline in traps, evasion and sneak attack. Monster HP scales up from what feels like 600 in Gianthold to 2000 by level 18-19 then jumps to 10 000 in the epic quests, and I have not figured out how to get fifteen times as much damage from level 15 to 20.

I've tried reading a bunch of melee builds, but they usually describe full destinies and a set of endgame gear that involves running level 29 quests like Epic Desecrated Temple of Vol on elite, and I struggle badly enough with much lower and more common quests like Tomb of the Wizard-King on epic hard. It seems infeasible for me to *get* to that endgame build point without my melee being carried for a long while to farm items and destinies, whether by a friendly group or by a wizard life or something else.

I have Power Attack, I have Cleave, I have the style feat chain (Shield Mastery + Vanguard in current case, but previously THF or TWF), I have Deadly gear, I have bought Strength 16 at chargen and raised it at every levelup and used +3 str tome and +7 str item. I have various class buffs (with current paladin, Holy Sword, Zeal, Divine Favor, Human Damage Boost), and my current weapon is a choice of greensteel swords, Lit2 or Min2. I reached 21 and took Overwhelming Critical. Yet I'm beating on monsters for ages to ever kill something solo if I step beyond Epic Normal Small Problem.

So what is a *new* melee supposed to do upon hitting epic levels? What are the early tricks for dealing with the hit point blob monsters to get to the point where I can farm Epic Temple for late tricks? How are stabby sorts are supposed to deal with the inflation of monster HP without having a full assortment of goodies yet?

[Stormraiser]

Paladin 18/Rogue 2/Epic 1
Skills: Search, Disable Device, Intimidate, Heal, UMD
Ability scores: Str 42, Dex 21, Con 26, Int 18, Wis 20, Cha 26
Feats: Power Attack, Cleave, Improved Critical, Overwhelming Critical, Shield Masteries
Destiny: Divine Crusader 2. Turn Undead (for the Bane, since I already have it from paladin), Endless Turning, Purge the Wicked, Smite the Wicked, Strength.
Twist: Divine Energy Resistance from Unyielding Sentinel
Gear: Belt of Speed VI, Deadly V Necklace, Tier 3 Level 16 Swashbuckler (Parrying VIII, Doublestrike 6%, Guardbreaking, Riposte), Maenya's Iron Fists and the rest of the Sora Kell set for +2 set bonus. Sword is as mentioned Lit2 or Min2 greensteel.
Vanguard enhancements: To the Fore!, several Shield Specializations
Sacred Defender enhancements: Sacred Defense with +6 Sacred bonus to Strength
Knight of the Chalice enhancements: Slayer of Evil III (5d6 light damage), Strength +2, Divine Sacrifice III, Divine Might III, Exalted Smite III, Avenging Cleave, Holy Retribution (the 1000HP instakill on this was great in heroic but has now become mostly useless. Still gets me regenerating Smites though)
Human enhancements: Damage Boost

Pretty much everywhere else you should assume there's some non-damage-relevant stuff like a greensteel cloak giving heavy fortification, +5 protection, extra hp, and stoneskin clicky which I figure isn't the part of my build that you wanted to know about and would mostly be distracting from the question of how to get damage except insofar as I swap it out. How much stuff like that should I be swapping out for +damage bonuses in unusual slots?

For one, you do not have epic level gear. You're using a ml 12 weapon, and the Sora Kell set... and ML 11 accessories. Check the eveningstar turn-ins.

[Grailhawk]

id also farm the spare hand. adds so much, +5 tac dcs, 3% dstrike, 3 comp umd, 2 slots, and a somehwat unreliable (depending on what content you run) free knockdown proc. depending on ones overall gear set up at various epic levels, this can be the best melee dps belt all the way from 20-27.

He has he Cove shield which has more double strike this means that all hes really getting out of Spare Hand is the UMD and slots. Its not a bad item and if he goes for it cool but he has other options IMO.

instead of the pdk set, id get the fabricators gunatlets and bracers from the house cannith quests. they can be a bit annoying to pull, but not hard and not difficult to upgrade them once each for the set bonus which adds +2 dmg per hit and +25% stacking fort, while the gloves have great stat consolidation with 10% permahaste, 6 str, and 5 resist, and the bracers have +balance and a tensers proc.

then for your chest piece you can get a heroic black dragon scale [whatever type you want], which has haste guard, 10% fort bypass, and a 5% dmg buff when you kill something. thats pretty much definitively the best lvl 20-24 straight up dps chest piece. even epic marilith chain and cormyrean red scale really arent better dps than this cookie cutter heroic item.

Giving up the PDK set bonus for Heroic Black dragon would not be a bad idea but the gloves and helm are worth it and IMO better then Fabricators (I would rather have the Hamp from the gloves) though you could do PDK Helm, PDK Gloves, and Fabricators Bracers for a bit.

for a dps necklace at level 20, i use veriks necklace which gives me 2 extra action boost per rest, and after ive used those ill swap to either a jorgundals collar (since i use eclaw set instead of fabricators) for 10% permahaste or an epic (or heroic, works the same and super easy to get) golden guile, because improved deception allows you to pull aggro and still sneak attack.

an easy to get dps cloak would be drow piwafi for the sneak attack damage. on that note drow smoke goggles are also easy to get and can give you seeker and manslayer (which is actually not bad, avg 5 damage a swing) if you dont have a stalker ring. usually though i slot a deadly of resist item in my goggle slot from levels 21-28.

Drow Piwafwi is a good call. IMO Deadly googles with a Epic Ring of the stalker is a better call then Drow Smoke Goggles and a deadly ring but either could work.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

He has he Cove shield which has more double strike this means that all hes really getting out of Spare Hand is the UMD and slots. Its not a bad item and if he goes for it cool but he has other options IMO.

what other dps belt is there before ragers harness?

besides getting that amazing belt means not needing to have the dstrike on the shield allowing an upgrade to, well any small shield or buckler thats better i guess...

[Grailhawk]

what other dps belt is there before ragers harness?

besides getting that amazing belt means not needing to have the dstrike on the shield allowing an upgrade to, well any small shield or buckler thats better i guess...

First the shield has +6% Doublestrike which is 100% better then the belts Doublestrike second Guardbraking or what ever its called on the shield really is good, the shield is a better item then the belt.

As for the other DPS belts, at that level, the oncs that jump to my mind are out of TOD Encrusted or Ravagers set which he probably wont have available.

Given he has the shield Spare Hand really is not a good item as all it is is a colorless and blue slot which he can get else where. He probably cant find a DPS belt given his means but he would have a better investment on time by just using a loot gen belts with good stats (Fortification, Dodge, STR, CON, etc.) then farming up the Spare Hand.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

First the shield has +6% Doublestrike which is 100% better then the belts Doublestrike second Guardbraking or what ever its called on the shield really is good, the shield is a better item then the belt.

As for the other DPS belts, at that level, the oncs that jump to my mind are out of TOD Encrusted or Ravagers set which he probably wont have available.

Given he has the shield Spare Hand really is not a good item as all it is is a colorless and blue slot which he can get else where. He probably cant find a DPS belt given his means but he would have a better investment on time by just using a loot gen belts with good stats (Fortification, Dodge, STR, CON, etc.) then farming up the Spare Hand.

forgot about tod belts, but those sets arent worth blowing a ring slot on, or the belt slot, when epic spare hand exists.

[Grailhawk]

forgot about tod belts, but those sets arent worth blowing a ring slot on, or the belt slot, when epic spare hand exists.

Ravager ring with 40 hamp is not blowing a ring slot.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

Ravager ring with 40 hamp is not blowing a ring slot.

if it means not wearing the stalker ring or say a dun robar or avithoul ring, it is.

and the ravager belt is utterly worthless no matter how you spin it. and that set bonus is 3.5 dmg, nowhere near as good as 3% double strike which you get just from the spare hand. and i really dont get the recent hampsession... its nice but not that big a deal most of the time. id rather have more dps

[Grailhawk]

and that set bonus is 3.5 dmg, nowhere near as good as 3% double strike which you get just from the spare hand.

You would be surprised how often that's not true. Also there's are other sources of more double strike at that level such as an alchemical weapon (6%). Yes you probably only play toons who use an ESoS at that level but for the other 75% of players that's a better option the spatrhand.

Spar Hand is a Walmart epic item at level 20 there are much better gear layouts. For new players it's a great easy to get item in the OP's case he has another item that's better so he can use the slot on something more useful (than a blue or colorless slot) even if it's only a defensive option.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

You would be surprised how often that's not true. Also there's are other sources of more double strike at that level such as an alchemical weapon (6%). Yes you probably only play toons who use an ESoS at that level but for the other 75% of players that's a better option the spatrhand.

Spar Hand is a Walmart epic item at level 20 there are much better gear layouts.

i also use drow axe/cleaver when im bored of esos, and drowpeshes for twf, thats 3 other weapons!!

ill take 3% dstrike over 3.5 dmg/hit that doesnt scale with mp even on twf. regardless of the slotting considerations and other value brought to the table by spare hand.

ive thought about making alchemical khopeshes before, but thats 2 more inv slots down the drain for one level of use (also thought about stopping them at ml 18, but min2 khops destroy heroics just fine). they are also a pain in the ass to make and something i doubt a new player would use either, though certainly they are nice if you have em.

if spare hand is walmart, then walmart stronk. stonk only thing that matters, no? or is a tod belt better despite being garbage just because it has a name and comes from a raid? cause then i may have made a mistake destroying all my various tod belts...oh noez...

[svinja]

It happened on several lives on my completionist wizard, it happened to my last fighter-splashed paladin in the heavy armor, and it's happening to my current rogue-splashed paladin with a sideline in traps, evasion and sneak attack. Monster HP scales up from what feels like 600 in Gianthold to 2000 by level 18-19 then jumps to 10 000 in the epic quests, and I have not figured out how to get fifteen times as much damage from level 15 to 20.

I've tried reading a bunch of melee builds, but they usually describe full destinies and a set of endgame gear that involves running level 29 quests like Epic Desecrated Temple of Vol on elite, and I struggle badly enough with much lower and more common quests like Tomb of the Wizard-King on epic hard. It seems infeasible for me to *get* to that endgame build point without my melee being carried for a long while to farm items and destinies, whether by a friendly group or by a wizard life or something else.

I have Power Attack, I have Cleave, I have the style feat chain (Shield Mastery + Vanguard in current case, but previously THF or TWF), I have Deadly gear, I have bought Strength 16 at chargen and raised it at every levelup and used +3 str tome and +7 str item. I have various class buffs (with current paladin, Holy Sword, Zeal, Divine Favor, Human Damage Boost), and my current weapon is a choice of greensteel swords, Lit2 or Min2. I reached 21 and took Overwhelming Critical. Yet I'm beating on monsters for ages to ever kill something solo if I step beyond Epic Normal Small Problem.

So what is a *new* melee supposed to do upon hitting epic levels? What are the early tricks for dealing with the hit point blob monsters to get to the point where I can farm Epic Temple for late tricks? How are stabby sorts are supposed to deal with the inflation of monster HP without having a full assortment of goodies yet?

It is kind of misleading to say that mobs have 10000 HP in epic quests. The following numbers are solo (so no party scaling).

A minotaur in VoN1 (your level, 21) has ~500 HP in epic normal, the minotaur boss has ~3k. On epic elite, the numbers are ~2000/13000. So the boss is barely over 10k on epic elite. A troll enforcer (a mob with relatively good HP) is 5-6k on epic elite.

In Wiz King hard which you mentioned having trouble with, a red named gatekeeper has 3k HP, the skeletons have 2k, mummies have 1.5k. I do agree this quest can be hard for new characters, but it is not because mobs have vast numbers of HP, it is because of a lack of fortification bypass and because people tend to do it in a group, but not actually do it as a group (split to 3 sides etc)... In this quest you often end up soloing under full party scaling, you are fighting 100% fort mobs with no fort bypass, and the boss is relatively strong compared to other quests. No wonder a lot of new characters have problems.

I'm just not seeing this sudden huge mob HP increase (except with certain mobs on EE). But I agree some quests can be a pain for new characters for various reasons. Get to tier 4-5 divine crusader and it will get better.

[FranOhmsford]

what other dps belt is there before ragers harness?

besides getting that amazing belt means not needing to have the dstrike on the shield allowing an upgrade to, well any small shield or buckler thats better i guess...

The belt slot is one of the easiest places to slot defensive buffs like Hvy Fort, Con and False Life - If every slot is taken up with DPS then you're going to die a lot!

[FranOhmsford]

Get to tier 4-5 divine crusader and it will get better.

Until he has to swap out to Exalted Angel to farm that destiny up!