The Divine Cuisinart: A dual khopesh wielding pure tempest ranger in divine crusader

[CThruTheEgo]

Updated the OP with final feat choices. I decided to go with precision instead of power attack, and added dodge, mobility, and spring attack. Adjusted starting stats by lowering str by 1 and int by 2, and raising dex by 5 and wis by 2. Changed alignment to neutral good and dropped 1 str from divine crusader for blessed blades. Dropped versatile adept from harper and improved defense from tempest to pick up 2 ranks each of improved reaction and improved dodge.

Net loss: 1 damage, 3 PRR (0.67% damage reduction), 3 MRR (1.12% damage reduction), 1 melee power, 1 ranged power, deflect arrows procs only once every 6 seconds instead of once every 2 seconds.
Net gain: 9 dodge (5.45% total miss chance), 6 reflex save, 1 will save, 28 sp, weapons do good damage

Overall, I think it's a good tradeoff. The loss of damage, PRR, MRR, and deflect arrows is negligible. Reflex save will be useful now. And the miss chance is a little more where I'm comfortable with.

[cru121]

So, hmm, why not go all the way to Chaotic or Lawful Good to break some more alignment DR?

[CThruTheEgo]

So, hmm, why not go all the way to Chaotic or Lawful Good to break some more alignment DR?

Because I'm not sure it would matter either way. Currently, there a lot of mobs at endgame who have good DR. The only mobs that come to mind with chaotic or lawful DR are much lower in level. Maruts have chaotic DR. Thaarak hounds have lawful DR iirc. I can't think of any others off the top of my head. Neither of those are encountered anywhere near endgame and, where they are encountered, they aren't really a problem. Breaking DR in EE Shavarath content is definitely an issue though.

[unbongwah]

Page is obsolete, but: http://ddowiki.com/page/Monster_DR_and_weaknesses

Lawful is marginally more useful than Chaotic, IMHO, but Good DR is the important one.

[slarden]

Because I'm not sure it would matter either way. Currently, there a lot of mobs at endgame who have good DR. The only mobs that come to mind with chaotic or lawful DR are much lower in level. Maruts have chaotic DR. Thaarak hounds have lawful DR iirc. I can't think of any others off the top of my head. Neither of those are encountered anywhere near endgame and, where they are encountered, they aren't really a problem. Breaking DR in EE Shavarath content is definitely an issue though.

Good has a downside, but there isn't too much downside in lawful or chaotic.

There are Thaarak Hounds in Tempest Spine which will be epic'd soon so I went lawful good so I can bypass that DR with blessed blades.

[slarden]

My Plan is:
Dodge
Khopesh
Precision
Point Blank Shot
IC: Slashing or Piercing (swap as needed)
IC: Ranged
Maximize
Quicken
Overwhelming Critical
Perfect Two Weapon Fighting
Combat Archery
Doubleshot
Epic Damage Reduction

But it sounds like you aren't interested in that much ranged option so I would be looking at defensive feats. Dodge, Mobility, Two Weapon Defense, and Toughness + Epic Toughness. Dropping all Ranged options my build would be

Dodge
Khopesh
Precision
Mobility
IC: Slashing
Maximize
Quicken
Toughness
Overwhelming Critical
Epic Toughness
Perfect Two Weapon Fighting
Epic Damage reduction
Elusive Target

The list looks good but I would take empower healing over maximize. I would take weapon focus feats over toughness/epic toughness but 4MP vs 80 hp is a definitely a toss-up. It's so rare I am betwee 0 and 100 hp that I tend to not value toughness/epic toughness much.

I took silver over elusive target, then take blessed blades in Divine Crusader and twist in gird of demons if I need cold iron.

[CThruTheEgo]

Good has a downside, but there isn't too much downside in lawful or chaotic.

What relevant mobs are there that do evil damage? I know certain alignments were a problem back when the level cap was 20 (e.g. Lailat with her true chaos and unholy burst effects), but afaik it's not really an issue anymore. Anyone know what mobs do chaotic or evil damage?

There are Thaarak Hounds in Tempest Spine which will be epic'd soon so I went lawful good so I can bypass that DR with blessed blades.

I had forgotten about epic tempest spine.

[Eth]

Anyone know what mobs do chaotic or evil damage?

Chaos hammer can be annoying if you are lawful (hezrous cast it a lot).

And yes, there are a couple of mobs that deal unholy damage to good aligned characters, but 2d6 won't kill you.

[CThruTheEgo]

Chaos hammer can be annoying if you are lawful (hezrous cast it a lot).

Ah right, forgot about that. I think I'll stick with neutral good. I don't think thaarak hounds will present much of a problem, even on EE.

[LargoKeyWest]

Updated for U28.

Feats:
1 khopesh proficiency
1h precision
3 dodge
6 mobility
9 imp crit slash
12 imp crit ranged
15 maximize
18 quicken
21 overwhelming crit
24 spring attack
26 perfect two weapon fighting
27 epic damage reduction
28 elusive target

As much as I love Khopeshs, I decided to roll the later feats forward and take the Improved Critical Piercing rather then Khopesh. Epic Envenomed Blades & Priestess Daggers (as well as others) are just so **** easy to get and work incredibly well in almost all content leading right up into EE.. it's just too good of a branch of weapons to pass up...

[daniel7]

As much as I love Khopeshs, I decided to roll the later feats forward and take the Improved Critical Piercing rather then Khopesh. Epic Envenomed Blades & Priestess Daggers (as well as others) are just so **** easy to get and work incredibly well in almost all content leading right up into EE.. it's just too good of a branch of weapons to pass up...

Yeah there's a lot of named items that are so good that I think a lot of people don't take khopesh now once they get a couple awesome named weapons. I plan on just doing iTRs and eTRs (for a while anyways) so I plan on just duel wielding Oathblades at 20 and Mornh at 23. If I had a couple Epic Choas Blades maybe I'd still fit khopesh in, use my old Greensteel Khopeshes from 15-20.

I guess if I stayed at cap longer I'd forge some Khopeshes and if Epic Vale Loot works like it does now then it makes sense to just craft the weapon with the best crit profile, which will almost certainly be khopesh again.

[Grailhawk]

Yeah there's a lot of named items that are so good that I think a lot of people don't take khopesh now once they get a couple awesome named weapons. I plan on just doing iTRs and eTRs (for a while anyways) so I plan on just duel wielding Oathblades at 20 and Mornh at 23. If I had a couple Epic Choas Blades maybe I'd still fit khopesh in, use my old Greensteel Khopeshes from 15-20.

I guess if I stayed at cap longer I'd forge some Khopeshes and if Epic Vale Loot works like it does now then it makes sense to just craft the weapon with the best crit profile, which will almost certainly be khopesh again.

The flip side of this is those of us with 6 pairs of green steel khopeshes (Lit II x2, Min II x2, Triple Pos x2) and 2 pairs of Alchemical khopeshes we look at those new weapons and are like there nice but I've got all these other weapons that I don't have to hunt for and are better then most of them anyways.

[daniel7]

The flip side of this is those of us with 6 pairs of green steel khopeshes (Lit II x2, Min II x2, Triple Pos x2) and 2 pairs of Alchemical khopeshes we look at those new weapons and are like there nice but I've got all these other weapons that I don't have to hunt for and are better then most of them anyways.

Oh yeah I know what you mean. Especially if you are doing a normal TR. Greensteel is still way better than everything else from level 12-20 (12-23?). It's also easy to pick Khopesh because it's slashing and there's a lot of other nice named slashers. There's lots of good piercing weapons too but not a good exotic piercing weapon (maybe they should add an exotic piercer) and certainly not a lot of good bludgeon weapons.

[CThruTheEgo]

As much as I love Khopeshs, I decided to roll the later feats forward and take the Improved Critical Piercing rather then Khopesh. Epic Envenomed Blades & Priestess Daggers (as well as others) are just so **** easy to get and work incredibly well in almost all content leading right up into EE.. it's just too good of a branch of weapons to pass up...

There are definitely more/better named piercing weapons than named slashing weapons. In heroics, though, I tend to prefer raw dps. Mobs don't really present much of a challenge these days so the faster they die, the better. And greensteel still dominates dps in mid to late heroics. With the way the game is going (i.e. increased character power), raw dps seems to be the way to go in most epics as well. A couple of drow khopeshes would be nice from 21-24, then Thunder-Forged from there on up.

[unbongwah]

Balizarde is a nice complement to any TWF build if you have one banked away: useful static bonuses, keen so you don't need IC:Pierce, 15-20/x3 becomes 13-20/x4 with Holy Sword or rgr crit bonuses which puts it on par with drow khopesh.

[Grailhawk]

Balizarde is a nice complement to any TWF build if you have one banked away: useful static bonuses, keen so you don't need IC:Pierce, 15-20/x3 becomes 13-20/x4 with Holy Sword or rgr crit bonuses which puts it on par with drow khopesh.

I would say its better then Drow Khopesh. And the fact that its Keen means you can use them from 23-26 on a Khopesh build (TF tier 2 at 26 or you can just hold off and wait till TF tier 3 and keep Balizarde)

[unbongwah]

Drow khopesh has higher base dmg (3[1d8] vs 2.5[1d8]) and does an extra 2d6 dmg from Maiming 40% of the time (or ~2.8 dmg per hit). While Balizarde does an extra 2d8/3d8 (9/13.5) dmg per hit vs bleeders.

Since Bali's passive bonuses don't stack with itself, that's one incentive for having a different weapon in your other hand. Since this isn't a tactics build, Tendon Slice 10% would be a nice perk.

[Grailhawk]

Drow khopesh has higher base dmg (3[1d8] vs 2.5[1d8]) and does an extra 2d6 dmg from Maiming 40% of the time (or ~2.8 dmg per hit). While Balizarde does an extra 2d8/3d8 (9/13.5) dmg per hit vs bleeders.

Since Bali's passive bonuses don't stack with itself, that's one incentive for having a different weapon in your other hand. Since this isn't a tactics build, Tendon Slice 10% would be a nice perk.

There are also the red slots on Balizarde I guess Drow Khopesh can be called on par with an unupgraded Balizarde. But the reds slots with Metioric Star Rubys pull Balizarde ahead in my mind.

[unbongwah]

Well, yes, I suppose if you happen to have two fully upgraded Balizardes and a couple of Meteoric Star Rubies burning a hole in your bagspace, go for it. Not everyone is that fortunate, though.

Although if you do have a bunch of MSRs or Ruby Eyes to burn, another option would be a pair of Axe of Adaxus fitted with two gems each. These become 17-20/x5 weapons with rgr bonuses (17-18/x5 19-20/x8 in LD). Balizarde and drow khopesh are still ahead on effective hits, but those should be some awe-inspiring crits.

[Grailhawk]

Well, yes, I suppose if you happen to have two fully upgraded Balizardes and a couple of Meteoric Star Rubies burning a hole in your bagspace, go for it. Not everyone is that fortunate, though.

Jeweler's kits are fairly cheep from the store ($1.50) or can be got off the AH on my server for 250-500k plat (I'm plat capped at least 2 times over so that's cheap to me) and have seen Meteoric Star Rubies on the ASAH for as low as 50 shard by out and was able to get one for 25 shard by being patient and just waiting for the auction to expire. Bit pay to win but not that much in the grater scheme of things, IMO.