Bank Mule

[EllisDee37]

A basic mule build will have 5 inventory pages and 3 bank pages of storage space to work with, for a total of 160 items. You can further add to this with store purchases, but I'd probably just roll up a second mule instead.

This mule is essentially the same build as my favor farmer, except it has a few more points of strength so it can hold more stuff in inventory. Pkus it takes slightly different feats and spells. Reproducing the overview text from there:

Build concept is air/fire savant with wings. Sorcerer also gives us dimension door, teleport, haste, invisibility, jump, merfolk's, knock and detect secret doors, so lots of goodies to work with. Splash barbarian for sprint boost and we're off to the races. Kill just about everything with chain lightning.

Go with Morninglord using all starter gear except armor (run naked) and using a lootgen or crafted magnetism of electric lore one-hander. (My guy uses an ML14 lootgen one.) Use the orb instead of the shield.

Bank Mule
12/2/1 Sorcerer/Barbarian/Cleric
Morninglord


Level Order

1. Cleric          6. Sorcerer       11. Sorcerer
2. Barbarian       7. Sorcerer       12. Sorcerer
3. Barbarian       8. Sorcerer       13. Sorcerer
4. Sorcerer        9. Sorcerer       14. Sorcerer
5. Sorcerer       10. Sorcerer       15. Sorcerer


Stats
               32pt     Level Up
               ----     --------
Strength        14       4: CHA
Dexterity       14       8: CHA
Constitution    14      12: CHA
Intelligence    10
Wisdom           8
Charisma        16


Skills
          C  B  B  S  S  S  S  S  S  S  S  S  S  S  S
          1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10 11 12 13 14 15
         ---------------------------------------------
Spellcr   4        2  2  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  18
Concent   4              1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  14
Jump         2  2                                       4
Swim         2  2                                       4
         ---------------------------------------------
          8  4  4  2  2  2  2  2  2  2  2  2  2  2  2


Feats

 1        : Force of Personality
 1 Deity  : Follower of: Amaunator
 3        : Eschew Materials
 6        : Extend Spell
 9        : Maximize Spell
12        : Heighten Spell
15        : Mental Toughness


Spells

Sorcerer
Detect Secret Doors, Jump, Merfolk's Blessing, Nightshield
Invisibility, Knock, Scorching Ray, Web
Displacement, Haste, Fireball, Lightning Bolt
Dimension Door, Wall of Fire, <Any>
Ball Lightning, Teleport
Chain Lightning
Cleric
Cure Light Wounds, <Any>, <Any>

Enhancements (56 of 60 AP)

Air Savant (35 AP)
Air Savant, Air Affinity, Greater Air Affinity, Conduction
Acrobatic III, Spell Critical, Electrocution III
Efficient Maximize III, Spell Critical, Alternating Current III
Spell Critical, Charisma
Feather Fall, Spell Critical, Charisma
Wind Dance
Fire Savant (13 AP)
Fire Savant, Fire Affinity, Greater Fire Affinity
Spell Critical, Conflagration III
Fanning the Flames III
Charisma
Frenzied Berserker (8 AP)
Die Hard
Die Harder I, Athletics III
Sprint Boost III

Running this favor is much easier for VIPs who can open elite. I use a dualbox elite opener to do this in one pass as a premium.

Order	Quest	Coin Lord	Kundarak	Argo	Other	Notes
1	Recovering the Lost Tome	9				Set up hotbars at start waiting for NPC
2	Cannith Crystal				6
3	Heyton's Rest	6
4	The Storehouse's Secret	6
5	The Collaborator	12
6	Stopping the Sahuagin	9
7	Redemption	9				Teleport to Harbor
8	Durk's Got a Secret				12
9	Haverdasher		6
10	Irestone Inlet	12				Teleport to Harbor
11	Garrison's Missing Pack	12
12	Stealthy Repossession				9
13	The Kobold's New Ringleader	12
14	Kobold's Den: Clan Gnashtooth	12				Refresh ship buffs
15	Archer Point Defense	9
16	Dirty Laundry	6
17	Missing In Action	9
18	The Sunken Sewer	9
19	The Chamber of Insanity		9
20	The Forgotten Caverns		12
21	The Lair of Summoning		9
22	Ruined Halls		12
23	Fathom the Depths		15
24	The Claw of Vulkoor		12
25	Gateway to Khyber		9
26	Tharashk Arena		15
27	Reclamation		15
28	Sykros' Jewel		15
29	The Tear of Dhakaan		21
30	Diplomatic Impunity	18
31	Feast or Famine			18
32	Trial by Fire			18
33	Foundation of Discord			18
34	A Cry for Help			21
		150	150	75	27	402 total favor

Those last Gianthold quests are optional, for if you want the mule to pay for his own Collapsed Portable Hole. If you do that, the quest list is designed so that when you hit 75 Argo favor you also end up with 402 total for another 25 TP.

Once you're done running all the favor you want, delete everything out of his inventory and bank. Leave the magnetism of electric lore weapon as his equipped weapon, and then pass it to any favor farmers you roll up.

If you run into any problems running the quests, remember that you only care about completions, not xp. Don't hesitate to run in blasting, then if you die, recall, rebuff and re-enter. Or if you run out of spell points, recall, rebuff, re-enter.

[EllisDee37]

I find the best place to park my mules is in the Resort Spa in Ataraxia's Haven. It has a bank and mailbox right next to each other, which are the only things my mules ever need to interact with. Plus there's a general vendor right there in case stuff you're storing is obsoleted by game changes, you can just sell it.

[cru121]

I find the best place to park my mules is in the Resort Spa in Ataraxia's Haven. It has a bank and mailbox right next to each other, which are the only things my mules ever need to interact with. Plus there's a general vendor right there in case stuff you're storing is obsoleted by game changes, you can just sell it.

Hall of Heroes has the same stuff + also auctioneer and airship portal (for extra storage).

[C-Dog]

You can further add to this with store purchases, but I'd probably just roll up a second mule instead.

An extra Inventory Tab (+20 slots) costs 595 DDO Pts, while an extra Character Slot costs 625 - so, yeah, making a 2nd mule is def the cheaper way to go.


Of course, if it's just a matter of storage slots, starting a F2P alt account is even cheaper, and has 5 (Edit - correction, true F2P has only 3!) character slots for mules and basic-build experimentation. However, that won't have access to starting an Iconic Character at Level 15, nor even Level 4. Having only recently purchased Shadowfell and MotU, I am only too familiar with having to "make due" without such luxuries.

If you can dual-box, you can drag any build thru quests up to Level 3* and get 75 Coin Lord Favor. You can't get close to enough House K favor (not without being Level 4), and leveling can be tough if the opener is over-level. But Level 1 will still get you 100 inventory slots - not bad.

(* You can't enter Level 4 quests unless you're at least Level 2, and you need to be Level 4 to get in to the Level 7 quests needed for 75 House K Favor.)

This is nothing new, but while we're here, I'd recommend:

Favor
(Total/Coin Lord)
30/24 4x Korthos Village
27/18 Korthos island (NOT Necromancer's Doom)
12/12 Kobold's New Ringleader
12/ - Information is Key
9/9 Sunken Sewer
6/6 Missing in Action (Hard only)
6/6 Any 3 of the 4 Harbor Solo quests
102/75

This gets 25 DDO Pts and the first extra Coin Lord bank slot for 100 inventory slots, done.

[EllisDee37]

Of course, if it's just a matter of storage slots, starting a F2P alt account is even cheaper, and has 5 slots for mules and basic-build experimentation

In addition to the other limitations you mentioned, you also can't store BTA stuff on an alt account. Most of what I store on a mule nowadays is BTA.

[C-Dog]

True that.

And I said "5 (character) slots" - shoulda said "3 slots", unless you're going Premium. (Altho' that can be cheap enough, even a few dollars is not for everyone, no argument there.)

[Merfyn]

I wanted to thank Ellis for this; I made a couple of these with a month's worth of "free" VIP.

One thing I noticed is that point distribution & spells may not be optimum, probably because the build is several years old. Might be because the option for another race in the original favor farming build?

For example, I don't quite get why points are put into the Feather Fall toggle when Morninglord characters already have an item, or taking Merfolk's when Charm Person gets a lot more bang for the buck & there's only a couple of places in the run where water breathing is useful.

[HungarianRhapsody]

I wanted to thank Ellis for this; I made a couple of these with a month's worth of "free" VIP.

One thing I noticed is that point distribution & spells may not be optimum, probably because the build is several years old. Might be because the option for another race in the original favor farming build?

For example, I don't quite get why points are put into the Feather Fall toggle when Morninglord characters already have an item, or taking Merfolk's when Charm Person gets a lot more bang for the buck & there's only a couple of places in the run where water breathing is useful.

Since you get Delayed Blast Fireball at level 14, I end up making Bladeforged Paladin 1/Sorc 14 for my bank mules. Delayed Blast Fireball = very fast room clearing.

Expeditious Retreat + Jump + Shield (or Nightshield) + Delayed Blast Fireball + Fireball + some other AoE attack for fire resistant slimes = fast Coin Lord and House K favor.

[Merfyn]

Since you get Delayed Blast Fireball at level 14, I end up making Bladeforged Paladin 1/Sorc 14 for my bank mules. Delayed Blast Fireball = very fast room clearing.

Expeditious Retreat + Jump + Shield (or Nightshield) + Delayed Blast Fireball + Fireball + some other AoE attack for fire resistant slimes = fast Coin Lord and House K favor.

I just realized I was suffering a "senior moment" - the Feather Fall enhancement is a prereq for Wind Dance...

[C-Dog]

One thing I noticed is that point distribution & spells may not be optimum, probably because the build is several years old. Might be because the option for another race in the original favor farming build?...

Without too much tweaking, you can design something to cover multiple "back burner" tasks. Mine can farm Risia Coins and top-tier that Skate challenge, and isn't a bad Ingredient Farmer (altho' hardly specialized for that).

o https://ddowiki.com/page/Risia_Ice_Games

(And I haven't looked very hard at the new EK trees - might be some love there to find.)


So long as the alt can stumble through the quests to completion on Elite (even if they have to die/release/re-enter), it works as a "free" mule and favor-earner, and anything else is gravy on top.

[Merfyn]

So long as the alt can stumble through the quests to completion on Elite (even if they have to die/release/re-enter), it works as a "free" mule and favor-earner, and anything else is gravy on top.

I've created something like 5 of these in the past month. For starters, I don't much care for Merfolk's, so I took Charm Person instead. Only in "Fathom the Depths" would have been worthwhile, & that would mainly be to make the trip between air pockets quicker. I had a low-level Buccaneer ring available & didn't even think about it.

In comparison, Charm Person saved boatloads of mana trying to charge through Tear of Dhakaan, Feast or Famine, and A Cry for Help... it even works well for Foundation of Discord for certain mobs. It's not guaranteed but since I'm NOT using a better quality Lightning Lore item in most cases it's definitely of overall benefit.

I'm trying to decide whether the best 4th level choice was Lesser Globe or Solid Fog, and I didn't try Stoneskin or Monster 4. Solid Fog seemed to work well for Diplomatic Impunity; I'd had a couple of wipes there but Solid Fog & a dual-box toon parked outside at the handle made it almost quick.

[Hostyle]

Running this a few times over as I'm a total pack rat.

Thanks Ellis.