What's the secret to eternal life?

[Lhohkar]

Okay, so before anyone asks, I'm not a new player (though it surely seems like it) but this is gonna seem like an incredibly newbie question. What is the secret to not dying in Elites? Playing through a 1st life Sorcerer and now a 2nd life Artificer has been a nightmare in terms of aggro. But the thing that gets me; I die to a measly Acid Blast cast by a **** Green Abishai. So what is it? Are there levels in classes I need to take? Certain stats? Feats? Items? I see paladins and wizards running around in lava and through traps while I take a sword to the face and get hit harder than Donald Trump in social media... Any help that could be provided would be greatly appreciated

[AzureDragonas]

It's easy
1.st CON it's not dump stat, CON is 1 of 2-3 stats you should focus and most of time it's in 2nd place as priority reason in elite more hits you can take better chance to survive and example would be when 600hp rog cryes at 24+ lvl ee quests he gets killed in hit from champ while that hp my rog have at lvl 15. So Vitality, false life, CON, Insight CON, Exceptional CON etc must be included in build to achieve high hp
2.nd defense stats PRR and MRR if you able invest as much as you can too. As they say you can have 0 defense and do 10x more damage or have 10x more defense and do less damage difference is that soulstones don't do damage unless you Chuch Norris. 100prr makes you ignore 50% damage from each hit, add dr etc can lower received damage even further
3. miss chance. Blur, ghostly, dodge, AC each gives separate scores which leads to a point when you can let's say ignore 50% hits couse you dodge them etc.
4. some way of heals. You can be wall of china as long as i care, but in end you still die if you can't rescovere hp fast enough. For heroics low lvl can use healing potions spells, for epics can use twists of infinitive hp (rejuvenation coccon), but i prefer for both to get UMD high and use Heal scrolls, with some twitching in healing amp, scroll mastery etc if possible can get healed foor 400-500 easily.
5. tactics and self awareness. Always watch your hp, can even make marking for yourself <70 must heal but can finish off if enemy low. <50 need to take step back and regain hp etc. If you put priorities and tactics to survive can be easy even in ee raids, unless you dont meet other requirements and get 1 shooted.
6. control. If u play any class and have no way of cc you are dead duck which eventualy will die. As melee don't be 1 of those soulstone guys and get some dc and effects. thx to ddo every class have some cc they can use each have and can access in 1 way or another just need to find what you can do and max it to let's say stun champion. CC let's you make safe 1 sided fight instead who will kill who faster brawl.
7. saves. Higher your saves less damage you suffer so dont ignore saves worst safe you got it's your weakness.
8. Buffs, Deathward, shield, protection form evil, freedom of movements, magic resistance, energy resistance and many others leads you to a point when you can be imune to effects which in other circumstances could just kill you on spot.

Combine each of this and you be able survive even EE easily

[Talon_Moonshadow]

My style is to enter a room far enough back that the monsters see the guy in front before they can even see me.

I also tend to wait until someone else damages them before I attack.

Being at full HP between fights. Having myself buffed.

And of course wearing the best gear I can get.

I value Ref save above all others.

and find Evasion toons far easier to play.

For casters, even sorcs, don't forget the CC spells.
Otto's Irresistible Dance can be that last ditch life saver for that one baddy you just can't seem to lose agro from.




Or go with what the rest of the world says, grind gear and just max DPS and HP. (a few have come around to valuing high saves)(and there was that short time when they could use MRR....)

[JOTMON]

It's easy
1.st CON it's not dump stat, CON is 1 of 2-3 stats you should focus and most of time it's in 2nd place as priority reason in elite more hits you can take better chance to survive and example would be when 600hp rog cryes at 24+ lvl ee quests he gets killed in hit from champ while that hp my rog have at lvl 15. So Vitality, false life, CON, Insight CON, Exceptional CON etc must be included in build to achieve high hp
2.nd defense stats PRR and MRR if you able invest as much as you can too. As they say you can have 0 defense and do 10x more damage or have 10x more defense and do less damage difference is that soulstones don't do damage unless you Chuch Norris. 100prr makes you ignore 50% damage from each hit, add dr etc can lower received damage even further
3. miss chance. Blur, ghostly, dodge, AC each gives separate scores which leads to a point when you can let's say ignore 50% hits couse you dodge them etc.
4. some way of heals. You can be wall of china as long as i care, but in end you still die if you can't rescovere hp fast enough. For heroics low lvl can use healing potions spells, for epics can use twists of infinitive hp (rejuvenation coccon), but i prefer for both to get UMD high and use Heal scrolls, with some twitching in healing amp, scroll mastery etc if possible can get healed foor 400-500 easily.
5. tactics and self awareness. Always watch your hp, can even make marking for yourself <70 must heal but can finish off if enemy low. <50 need to take step back and regain hp etc. If you put priorities and tactics to survive can be easy even in ee raids, unless you dont meet other requirements and get 1 shooted.
6. control. If u play any class and have no way of cc you are dead duck which eventualy will die. As melee don't be 1 of those soulstone guys and get some dc and effects. thx to ddo every class have some cc they can use each have and can access in 1 way or another just need to find what you can do and max it to let's say stun champion. CC let's you make safe 1 sided fight instead who will kill who faster brawl.
7. saves. Higher your saves less damage you suffer so dont ignore saves worst safe you got it's your weakness.
~a high Reflex save is the one I find will keep me alive most of the time. If I have to choose, this is the one I invest in the best I can.
8. Buffs, Deathward, shield, protection form evil, freedom of movements, magic resistance, energy resistance and many others leads you to a point when you can be imune to effects which in other circumstances could just kill you on spot.

Combine each of this and you be able survive even EE easily

^This is the pretty straight forward list

some notes...

1. its not just CON.. Keep your HP optimized in general.. Find the best augments, gear, tomes... every +1 hp is more survivable than you were before..
2. PRR/MRR is a bit more grindy beyond armor.. but every bit helps..
3.everything that prevents you from taking damage is a good thing.. personally I would say..learn to love shroud...mmm clickies....
4. Heals is a big one.. quickened Spells for those I am in trouble moments.. but don't just have one source of healing..
Pots are ok but have your hotbar prepped with an assortment of easy access cures.
~self sufficiency is paramount even if you have a healer in the party.. invest heavily in UMD to at least hit that 39 no fail heal scrolls.
Vendor scrolls are unlimited and stack to 100, UMD is easily the most powerful skill is the ability to cast endless scrolls as needed.
~Healing AMP.. will give you bigger bang for your incoming heals.. get this as high as you can.
5. Tacics..adjust your tactics to suit the situation.
~sometimes pure DPS (and conversely pulling aggro) is not the right solution.. mix it up with some CC.. paralyzer, BB, tactical detonations...
~Utilize the environment.. corners, walls, big rocks... poke and shoot.
~keep moving...old survivalist say ' don't be where the breath is going to strike'
.. in other words.. don't stand there and take it.. be on the move.. position yourself between tanks and mobs. if you are a pew-pewer you don't need to be in front taking it in the face.
6. play smart.
~if party runs ahead into an obvious death trap don't be the lemming and follow them in for a party wipe..
~being alive means you have choices.. being dead limits those choices...
~learn your character limits.. or as Johhny cash would say.. know when to walk away.. know when to run...
7. Saves are a strong survival opportunity, unfortunately not all classes are made equal.. benchmarks for saves are usually high, heavy investment into stackable resistance items will help..this will take some researching to optimize.
8. Buff, buff, buff.. get the best buffs you can maintain.. ask for ship invites.. its more layers of protection from harm..

Building your toon to be 'the best that it can be' will take some time and planning.
This will be from your perspective.. not from the uber elitists, or ultimate soloists..(the things they have done do tend to optimize all the goodies so reading up on their builds is not a bad thing)
You are building the character to play the way that you want it to play, you just want it to play better..

Things to keep in mind.

plan for the long game.. farm Shroud clickies, other goodies from quests, raids.
Getting to endgame and skipping all the stepping stone quests may seem like the best choice, but every good veteran player has their inventory loaded with survival goodies.
You will see a lot of players TR/ER and skipping all kinds of content generally because they already have the items form the content they are skipping.. they are levelling for a different purpose (past life bonuses).

DDOWIKI.. its a great resource.

Learn your class/build.. understand its strengths and weaknesses adjust your playstyle to mitigate the weaknesses and don't forget to hunt things to bolster your weaknesses.

DDO is a complicated in-depth game with many confusing and conflicting concepts...
The game is constantly evolving, so it is easy to think you understand something and then realize it is no longer that way.
~ not all descriptions do what they say.. most are poorly explained, some items have changed but descriptions haven't, some are broken, some are just lies.
~ understanding what does and doesn't stack .. that's a madness all on its own..


note to newbies.. Forums are a good place to post your questions but keep in mind you will get many extreme points of view.. take with a grain of salt and adjust to best suit how you want to play.

[Enoach]

I tend to self evaluate after a night of getting my rear handed to me...

What got me...

1. Trap
2. Spell
3. Melee

Things that generally need to be examined. Fortification - In Epics Crits can kill, Saves - Resistance items, PRR/MRR - Any amount is good but outside of a Defender type you are looking for around 25% reduction usually more may be cutting into other aspects.

Did I see it coming? If not why? Did I do something stupid to put myself in the situation?

When I died was I surrounded? Was it one on one? Did I forget to heal appropriately for the encounter? Was I having trouble accessing/casting healing?

The other aspect is to remember you can adjust per quest, more saves, more MRR or more PRR depending on the need.

[FifthTime]

I'm not sure if it was mentioned yet, but while playing a Wiz or Arti you should be Warforged/Bladeforged if you don't like dying.

Being a fleshie type caster makes you considerably more squishie.

[Dandonk]

My style is to enter a room far enough back that the monsters see the guy in front before they can even see me.

Lots of good stuff here, but I do want to mention that I fairly often get aggro from mobs that definitely saw someone else first, but decided instead to run straight past him (even though I didn't damage them yet). And I experience the opposite, too - I charge into a group of mobs, only to have them all run past me to the poor guy in the back who was only minding his own business.

[JOTMON]

I'm not sure if it was mentioned yet, but while playing a Wiz or Arti you should be Warforged/Bladeforged if you don't like dying.

Being a fleshie type caster makes you considerably more squishie.

Its not just Wiz or Artie, the master race is of the opinion that all fleshy classes are squishy.
Join the Forged. Resistance is futile

[SableShadow]

Its not just Wiz or Artie, the master race is of the opinion that all fleshy classes are squishy.
Join the Forged. Resistance is futile

"Good. Bad. I'm the one with the Wave Motion Cannon." - CyberPanda

[Miow]

Lots of good stuff here, but I do want to mention that I fairly often get aggro from mobs that definitely saw someone else first, but decided instead to run straight past him (even though I didn't damage them yet). And I experience the opposite, too - I charge into a group of mobs, only to have them all run past me to the poor guy in the back who was only minding his own business.

Aura? That is all it takes to get agro.

[Gljosh]

Depending on your play style (I have one main so I change every couple of months), but some past lives are just great on any style of character.

Ranger-Elemental Resists (+2 per life) can really tone down arrow damage
PDK Iconic-PRR (Divine Epic Lives work great as well can hit 36 (roughly 25% reduction if you have no other sources)
Barb-more HP (Primal Epic Lives work great as well, they stack-so a total of 30 (barb) + 145 (Primal))
Paladin-more Healing Amp (healers love having to spend less of their blue bar to feed your red bar)
Sorc/FvS-more SP can hit 120SP regardless of build- that is quite a few Cocoon casts

DDO is a game of layers, incoming weapon damage needs to get past AC, Concealment (Dusk, Blur, Displacement), Incorporeal (Ghostly), Dodge, DR, and PRR to reduce your red bar (technically you could add temporary hit points to this list as well).

[Dandonk]

Aura? That is all it takes to get agro.

Yeah, the aura does it. But I do see it sometimes when I don't think there's an aura going. Could be wrong, of course.

[PsychoBlonde]

Lots of good stuff here, but I do want to mention that I fairly often get aggro from mobs that definitely saw someone else first, but decided instead to run straight past him (even though I didn't damage them yet). And I experience the opposite, too - I charge into a group of mobs, only to have them all run past me to the poor guy in the back who was only minding his own business.

Mobs don't "see" the way players do, and can pick up initial aggro before a door is even opened. Casters in particular often have wide-reaching abilities that aren't stopped by anything so paltry as a wall or a door. The mobs will count an aura effect as "first hit" even though it does no damage.

I basically give up completely on the concept of getting aggro if I'm playing with someone who has an aura-type ability.

[changelingamuck]

I'm not sure if it was mentioned yet, but while playing a Wiz or Arti you should be Warforged/Bladeforged if you don't like dying.

Being a fleshie type caster makes you considerably more squishie.

This isn't necessarily true. And it's boring and generic to have all characters of a class running around in the same race. If you want to go fleshie, you have to worry about survivability a lot less on a caster if one or more of the below factors are applicable:

...you're specialized in some form(s) of crowd control.
...you'll be playing in an undead form.
...you've splashed two levels of rogue or monk for the evasion feat and maximized your dexterity or instead you've also taken the Insightful Reflexes feat and instead maximized your intelligence
...you're maximizing your use magic device skill, allowing you to use healing scrolls/wands--this will be perfectly fine positive energy self-healing at least until epic levels when all characters have a bunch more self-healing options from epic destinies, but you can get through heroics without it too on some fleshie builds
...you'll be taking the eldritch knight enhancements that make you proficient in heavier types of armor (mainly for the added PRR) and/or you'll be wielding a larger-type shield
...you're maximizing the diplomacy skill in order to shed aggro (you can't rely on this alone, but it's really more like icing on the cake if you've got one or more these other survivability options)
...and there are other things I'm forgetting, I'm sure, that help a fleshie caster be perfectly viable

Just because it takes a little more careful attention to survivability choices if you're playing fleshie, doesn't mean you're going to be somehow supremely disadvantaged by not playing a robot. If you listened to most of the power gamers here on the forums, you'd end up effectively playing the game in easy mode on epic elite. They like to lazily be able to zip to a group of mobs, be able to take any hits while paying little if any attention to their health, push one or two buttons in order to kill all the mobs in the group simultaneously, then lazily zip to the next group of mobs to do the same thing. Then end up at the end of the quest after having no risk of death whatsoever. Then they come to the forums and demand a new difficulty setting after they've made every single possible gearing/build choice in order to have no risk of death whatsoever, making the game completely boring for themselves. Really, there's a lot of different choices a character can make to improve their survivability and you don't have to have them all. And you don't have to play a type of character that you don't want to play in order to be survivable.

[Lhohkar]

Its not just Wiz or Artie, the master race is of the opinion that all fleshy classes are squishy.
Join the Forged. Resistance is futile

Well as tempting as this is, my roleplay and story-telling side of me doesn't want to do this with every character I have But thank you all for your assistance, especially on the aura's. Maybe in hindsight throwing fireballs at the door I'm about to open isn't gonna help

[FifthTime]

This isn't necessarily true. And it's boring and generic to have all characters of a class running around in the same race. If you want to go fleshie, you have to worry about survivability a lot less on a caster if one or more of the below factors are applicable:

...you're specialized in some form(s) of crowd control.
...you'll be playing in an undead form.
...you've splashed two levels of rogue or monk for the evasion feat and maximized your dexterity or instead you've also taken the Insightful Reflexes feat and instead maximized your intelligence
...you're maximizing your use magic device skill, allowing you to use healing scrolls/wands--this will be perfectly fine positive energy self-healing at least until epic levels when all characters have a bunch more self-healing options from epic destinies, but you can get through heroics without it too on some fleshie builds
...you'll be taking the eldritch knight enhancements that make you proficient in heavier types of armor (mainly for the added PRR) and/or you'll be wielding a larger-type shield
...you're maximizing the diplomacy skill in order to shed aggro (you can't rely on this alone, but it's really more like icing on the cake if you've got one or more these other survivability options)
...and there are other things I'm forgetting, I'm sure, that help a fleshie caster be perfectly viable

Just because it takes a little more careful attention to survivability choices if you're playing fleshie, doesn't mean you're going to be somehow supremely disadvantaged by not playing a robot. If you listened to most of the power gamers here on the forums, you'd end up effectively playing the game in easy mode on epic elite. They like to lazily be able to zip to a group of mobs, be able to take any hits while paying little if any attention to their health, push one or two buttons in order to kill all the mobs in the group simultaneously, then lazily zip to the next group of mobs to do the same thing. Then end up at the end of the quest after having no risk of death whatsoever. Then they come to the forums and demand a new difficulty setting after they've made every single possible gearing/build choice in order to have no risk of death whatsoever, making the game completely boring for themselves. Really, there's a lot of different choices a character can make to improve their survivability and you don't have to have them all. And you don't have to play a type of character that you don't want to play in order to be survivable.

Feel free to purposely gimp yourself if that's what you like but everything on your list also applies to a Forged caster, who also gets massive self healing, higher Con, and better DR.

If the OP really wants the best survivability he can get then he needs to roll up a master race caster. If not, then he can continue being a squishie fleshie.

I'm not here to play flavor builds because I think Elf girls are cuties. I like playing the best character I can roll, which usually means I'm playing a Warforged or Bladeforged.

[Enderoc]

Heavy armor I think is a better choice than evasion almost always except in lower levels.

[changelingamuck]

Feel free to purposely gimp yourself if that's what you like but everything on your list also applies to a Forged caster, who also gets massive self healing, higher Con, and better DR.

If the OP really wants the best survivability he can get then he needs to roll up a master race caster. If not, then he can continue being a squishie fleshie.

I'm not here to play flavor builds because I think Elf girls are cuties. I like playing the best character I can roll, which usually means I'm playing a Warforged or Bladeforged.

It would matter that my suggestions also apply to -forged casters if I had been engaged in calculating a cookie-cutter clone build with every single point perfectly placed. The fact that you assume that the OP and I feel some absurd need to min/max every single thing to be identical with everybody else's flavor-of-the-month 'practically perfect in every way' build to avoid being "gimp" is ridiculous. I mean, I repeatedly stated that those tips would help a fleshie caster be perfectly viable; the whole obvious point of my post was that min/maxing everything isn't necessary, let alone desirable for having fun and success, and your reply is basically 'but it's not min/maxed.'

And the fact that you assumed that the OP would want "the best survivability" rather than a good or sufficient survivability and possibly being, *gasp*, somewhat unique, interesting, and personally tailored is also really telling. You assumed that motivation on the OP's part without anything indicating it (and were wrong).

This should be obvious, but not making min/maxing choices about everything isn't the same thing as making a character "purposefully gimped" like you stated. You can perform well with a character without squeezing out every last percentage point of perfection by copying-and-pasting somebody else's character build into the character creation screen.

If Mary Poppins practically-perfect-in-every-way (PPEW) easy-button builds used by everybody and their mother are fun for you, that's fine. It's the idea that everybody needs to have a clone build in order to avoid dying frequently that I take issue with.