New player with a few questions about the cleric class

[Eryhn]

Where I'm at right now (and what permanent mistakes I may have made already, ha ha):
Drow, Bard 8 Rogue 3
14 STR, 15 DEX (14 start, +1 level up to be able to take Two Weapon Fighting), 10 CON (14 with equipment bonus), 16 INT (19 with equipment bonus), 10 WIS, 17 CHA (16 start, +1 level up, 21 with equipment bonus).
The feats I have taken are Magical Training, Two Weapon Fighting (I got Fred to switch Nimble Fingers for that), Quick Draw, and Power Attack. (Quick Draw doesn't seem particularly useful, and idk about Power Attack either; but none of the feats really appealed to me that much anyway, they didn't seem all that significant compared to, well, everything else. Two Weapon is nice since I hit more and do more damage with it, and feel like a cool Rogue and was not going Swashbuckler, and Magical Training helps to still be able to heal myself out of combat if I run out of SP).
Bluff, Disable Device, Perform, Spot, and UMD are all at 14; Search is 12, Jump and Listen are 11, and Open Lock is at 8. (Not including Ability/Misc mod)
For Spells I have Cure Light Wounds (useless?) Merfolks, Expeditious Retreat, Sonic Blast, Cure Moderate Wounds (useless?), Eagle's Splendor (Doesn't stack...), Fox's Cunning (Doesn't stack), Soundburst, Cure Serious Wounds, Good Hope (I think this one isn't useful now with Song of Heroism? But when I googled it people said it was important for Bards..?), and Haste.
Lastly, we are on the Orien server.

Thank you again for all of the help; I feel like there is so much of this that is good to learn as early as possible, particularly because so much of it is still applicable to future lives, classes, etc. For my next life, despite that being eons away for now, I was looking at a possible Monk/Warlock build? Something to do with a ton of cleaves and AoE auras? Or perhaps a pure 20, full damage focused. So many options!

eh. pains me to say it bluntly but this is kinda broken in many small to medium serious ways
meaning it is hard to turn it into something workable for a new player with little gear on first life in elite mid and high level heroic quests. I read this over morning coffee and then tinkered in the planer with it for nearly an hour, then was outside doing yard work for 2h while still pondering a bit and truth be told the chances of getting some non frustrating melee out of this are rather slim.

so without going into detail for now (im just on coffee break and gotta get back to work) ill stick my neck out the window and recommend heavy surgery for the patient: my advice is ditch the 4th rogue level, too. find a kind veteran player on orien or 2 who help you out with dumping some mid level syberis shards and some 50-70k plat for 4 mid level feat swaps on you out of the good of their heart. use that to bit by bit become a regular at fred's and swap out a bunch of feats:

replace magical training with toughness and get magical training back via spellsinger tier1 magical studies rank3
after that, bit by bit swap all other feats too:
pick up spell focus enchant
pick up empower healing
pick up heighten spell
at the next feat slot take quicken for safe emergency heals or maximise to boost damage on sonic SLAs from spellsinger.

put all AP not needed elsewhere into spellsinger as well as some low tier swash and warchanter for more songs. all further levelups to CHA.
change your playstyle to buffing the party with songs, healing with sustaining song, get a devotion item and use empower healing metaed cure med wounds to keep the barb up. use enchantment spells to make life for the party easier: open engagements with heightened hypnotism on the mobs to stun them. then drop a crushing despair to further lower their saves, follow up with making one minion with heightened suggestion, another with charm monster. after that use sonic blast and shout SLAs for some bit of added damage if you have SP to spare for dmg spells. deep slumber can put a group to sleep and the suggestion SLA costing one song from the spellsinger tree can charm multiple mobs. once you get it, use the mass hold SLA from spellsinger for easy targets for the barb, use the spellpoint regen song on the cleric and yourself.

this is still a lot of change and work, and yes im aware you liked warchanter more than spellsinger. but with swapping feats and going spellsinger you will end up more useful by lvl 15ish or so than say by putting yet 2 more levelups into dex to be able to take further 2 weapon fighting feats at lvl 16+, trying to get better melee gear and stun gear and weapons with procs like paralyzing and con damage and hpoping you proc as much as possible on your 2wf attacks.

the thing about melee is you kind of need a way to gain a crit increase and/or an enhancement tree with bang for your buck. the crits usually are tied to enhancements and are granted with 12 class levels for most classes. for bard that is in swashbuckler tier 5. however after looking at it, now switching to single weapon fighting is a bit late, not feasible anymore due to the requirements in balance and feat order. warchanter tier 5 has also a +1 crit multi on rolls of 19-20. the downside about going for warchanter imho is your low strength though. because the other shiny thing in the tree, the freeze stuns are based on bard level strength modifier + stunning bonuses hence your DCs will remain lowish on this for elite. the two weapon dmg seems better at first, but is not so great either unless you get further 2wf feats and have an enhancement tree that synergizes well with it like tempest or at least kensei.

the biggest drawback to melee though is your CON10. you should never ever roll any toon in this game with less than 14 CON starting stat. for a melee health this low is seriously punitive, more so on a light or medium armor toon in elite content.

on the bright side, you opened up various cans of worms that lead directly to very important learning processes about how builds in this game work. so this might turn out a bit painful but overall its not a catastrophe either. with that in mind dont give up and go for boring warlock next life. use the things you learn on this life to come up with a more focused and more pre-planed approach to building next time


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if you do not want to do so much respec, at the least get med armor proficiency from warchanter asap so you have at least some PRR added. sheltering item, max CON item, false life item would be important too with your CON. finding a stunning or combat mastery item, maybe even added with a second one that has a stacking insightful bonus AND a max STR item would be mandatory to get a chance at landing the freezes. also go for weapons that offer useful secondary effects:
http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Sting
http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Vampiric_Fury_Shortsword

these 2 come to mind in your level range.

if you want to try to up raw damage regardless try find weapons with increased crit profile:
http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Axe_of_Adaxus i.e.

a lootgen weapon with paralyzing proc on it would also be something synergizing well.

if you do stay with melee you will need feat: improved critical slashing/piercing/bludgeon depending on your choice of weapon as soon as you can take it. you will also need to take lvl12 DEX levelup and lvl 16 DEX levelup so you meet requirements for improved two weapon fighting and greater two weapon fighting.

edit:
there might be one other way to gain some decent damage with warchanter while also further building on the freeze mobs capability. add the next 3 levels monk. this will net your a flat +20 melee power from henshin core 1 and core2. go for pyjamas and use the freezing ice tunic from the cannith challenges which has a freeze proc, too. for this you would also need to boost dodge though. in that case maybe swap magical training for dodge and quickdraw for mobility. also swap the 2wf for a staff and get quick strike from either henshin or rogue thief acrobat. with this added, go for the warchanter tier5. but well, truth is im bit clueless on monk, just remembered you are VIP and that the 3 level investment can get you a cheap 20 melee power. maybe somebody else better knowledgeable on monk can chime in if that would make sense with warchanter and freezing tunic ...

edit2: whichever way, how to proceed and make the best of things is worth some thought, so it might be wise to hold off on taking 12 and bank xp for a bit till you get some more advice and come up with a plan for your remaining levels. further taking a bit of this and that which looks nice at first glance will not add up to much and result in more problems -quests in the lvl10-12 range are getting noticeably tougher from before it's a bit of a watershed rly ...

[arduousFrivolity]

There is, though it isn't complete. But it's plenty filled out enough to give you an idea of what search/spot/disable/open lock you'll need.

Spot and Search

Thank you for that..! I will have to look at that more closely, maybe check both sides for each quest we're planning to do. I thought that I was going slightly overkill with around 36 search, but now it looks like I may be cutting it kind of close? I guess the best way to find out would be to respec away some points, and then play as normal, and then if I get one shot by a trap that I didn't see, respec again to put the points back.

[...]

Hoo boy. This is a lot to think about; I don't know where to start. I am not sure about completely rebuilding the character to go Spellsinger. I would have to look more closely at what it had to offer; but relying finding a person willing to just hand me 4x my net value in materials is a huge roadblock in the build; particularly as I already kinda enjoy the two weapon fighting more than I did standing back and running out of SP (I still use my level 1 sonic spell all of the time; I have noticed that you haven't once mentioned Soundburst. Is that not something I should be using? It doesn't seem to really... Do anything, at least not compared to Sonic Blast, but I still have been using it). Also, it would take a minimum of 9 days (plus the free feat change), and would probably involve me having to hold off on leveling for a decent chunk of that time.

Honestly I really like Bard as a class, and wouldn't really hesitate to reincarnate as a 20 bard and go Swashbuckler or Spellsinger (or even Warchanter done right) and do a racial reincarnation. I would probably still play bard even if it was objectively the weakest class in the game. Plus, particularly because this is my first life and we're certainly going to reincarnate (probably at 30 -> 20 -> 1, but we'll see where we're at), I don't really need to be the best optimized 28 point build; I just need to be good enough (I want to be a third wheel, not a spare tire).

In Warchanter I can certainly take Ironskin Chant (+6 DR/PRR), and Boast gives a comfortable +100 Temp HP for dangerous situations. I will take the Medium Armor enhancement ASAP (as I said, I can get rid of Harper Agent, temporarily if it starts causing more problems, permanently if it doesn't affect anything, which I fear it may at -6 to all of my important skills), but I can't do so immediately as my current light armor has 65% fortification; we are going to go for the 100% fortification neck as soon as we can, but I would assume that I am correct in thinking that I shouldn't change the light armor until then. When I reincarnate I will certainly make sure to get at least 14 CON!

I like the idea of putting my next two points into DEX and getting the upgraded two weapon fighting feats. I know it's not the best option, but it wouldn't involve fully rebuilding the character, which is a plus, and I could continue going into Warchanter. I could also grab the Ambidexterity enhancement in the Drow tree to boost that up a bit; and it would help with proccing Northwind as frequently as possible.

I noticed that none of the weapons you linked had any sort of 3d6 good damage, 2d6 acid damage, etc. Are those not something important to get? In writing they seem like that contribute a large amount of the weapon's damage, but is that not the case? Or are the other effects on the weapons just that much better to outweigh the loss of dps?

Also, for the challenges that we will be doing (both now to get that blasting chime, but in general so we can unlock Artificer before we reincarnate), should we bring Hirelings? I know that they in some ways scale to your party size, so is it better to leave the hireling behind? Also, can we still get 5 stars doing the challenge on a lower level than our own? Like, can we just go in and blast through it at the lowest level for the stars, and then a regular level for the materials?

[EllisDee37]

I like the idea of putting my next two points into DEX and getting the upgraded two weapon fighting feats. I know it's not the best option, but it wouldn't involve fully rebuilding the character, which is a plus, and I could continue going into Warchanter. I could also grab the Ambidexterity enhancement in the Drow tree to boost that up a bit; and it would help with proccing Northwind as frequently as possible.

Sounds good. You won't be optimal, but you'll be fine in your group to get to 30. Next life you can start worrying about a more optimized build.

Also, for the challenges that we will be doing (both now to get that blasting chime, but in general so we can unlock Artificer before we reincarnate), should we bring Hirelings? I know that they in some ways scale to your party size, so is it better to leave the hireling behind? Also, can we still get 5 stars doing the challenge on a lower level than our own? Like, can we just go in and blast through it at the lowest level for the stars, and then a regular level for the materials?

For most challenges, when you're looking to collect parts to make an item, stars don't matter. In many cases, going for stars lowers your parts reward, so you're probably better off shooting for 1-star completions.

The keys to getting more parts are:

1) Play a higher level challenge than you are (eg: level 16 characters running CR20 challenges)
2) Collect many more crystals than you need (lava caves, extraplanar palace, kobold island)

Rushmore mansion is the exception in that the thing that gets you points (which is what your parts reward is based on) also happens to get you stars: Opening doors, killing bosses.

See the "Cannith Challenge Tutorials" link in my signature for tips on running the challenges for parts.

In terms of unlocking artificers with favor, you'll need to 5-star challenges at their highest possible level to get the 6th star.

[Eryhn]

I guess the best way to find out would be to respec away some points, and then play as normal, and then if I get one shot by a trap that I didn't see, respec again to put the points back.

in hindsight, better way to find the soft spot than spending stuff on respec is looking for a lower level search/detrap/spot/open item than the one you currently use, and swap that to attempt a skill check at current minus XY.

Hoo boy. This is a lot to think about; I don't know where to start. I am not sure about completely rebuilding the character to go Spellsinger. I would have to look more closely at what it had to offer; but relying finding a person willing to just hand me 4x my net value in materials is a huge roadblock in the build; particularly as I already kinda enjoy the two weapon fighting more than I did standing back and running out of SP (I still use my level 1 sonic spell all of the time; I have noticed that you haven't once mentioned Soundburst. Is that not something I should be using? It doesn't seem to really... Do anything, at least not compared to Sonic Blast, but I still have been using it). Also, it would take a minimum of 9 days (plus the free feat change), and would probably involve me having to hold off on leveling for a decent chunk of that time.

if I sounded a bit harsh I didnt mean to discourage you btw. it is just that being first life and having not much good gear plus not knowing the quests yet in itself is something that ups the challenge when running elite on your level range. add to that that the mid level quests get a bump in difficulty and thats why I came up with that suggestion when looking for with what you got where to get most efficiency. effectively bard is your strongest class as you can still go to level 17 there. lacking 3 levels is a minus to DCs and how early ya get spells but that's still sort of workable if you focus a lot.
I didnt recommend swashbuckler any further because respecing to that is yet more of a pain imho. it is where in average case the easiest to attain melee dps in bard lies though.
I also did not recommend dmg casting because that easily turns into a spellpoint drain for a less geared new player. as for soundburst, it is a solid stun spell but it also does some damage and thus may interrupt other CC spells from the cleric. hence the ones i recommended like hypnotism or slumber which dont hurt the mob. I also did not include soundburst in the damage spell list because it is not an SLA and metamagics on it are not free. currently though you dont have any metas so that doesnt make a difference rly. if you find an enchant item try out suggestion and charm monster though - temporarily making 2 mobs your allies can be very helpful....

Honestly I really like Bard as a class, and wouldn't really hesitate to reincarnate as a 20 bard and go Swashbuckler or Spellsinger (or even Warchanter done right) and do a racial reincarnation. I would probably still play bard even if it was objectively the weakest class in the game. Plus, particularly because this is my first life and we're certainly going to reincarnate (probably at 30 -> 20 -> 1, but we'll see where we're at), I don't really need to be the best optimized 28 point build; I just need to be good enough (I want to be a third wheel, not a spare tire).

bard is a very fun class to play and the fact that you can do many things is what makes it interesting. you spread yourself very widely on a lot of things though:
1) stats: in pen and paper and maybe in some adventure novel, the jack of all trades balanced out fighting bard may work very well. you are charismatic and can sing songs and use some spells to heal and damage, you are't overly strong but not weak, you aren't an acrobat but rather dexterous and when you wield your 2 weapons you are kind of balanced with it and do a good job. you aren't so sturdy but that is fine because your flourish of swords and the ability to charm your enemies cover your weaknesses. alas, this is not ddo
in the game, while it certainly is not mandatory to min max and throw roleplay out the window completely, it certainly always is helpful to look for synergies and not spread out too far.
your STR 14 is raised by 6 from base drow for a lot of points spent, yet, for a melee STR based dmg build it is lowish (people tend to go for 16 when stats need to be spread some, 18 if possible and then put levelups there too)
DEX, same story, nice little boost to reflex but still not enough to fully unlock the 2weapon feat line, meaning the 2nd and 3rd feat are backloaded to lvl16+ so you benefit of them later.
your CHA with 16 is decent but for a bard it is the #1 stat, could be as high as 20 on a drow in theory and should arguably be 18 starting.
INT has added benefit of granting skills and is needed for rogue, but yet again, its points spent elsewhere from the main class stats.
2) feats being a bit over the place and not in line with your focus, in a way also because
3) enhancements lack dedication to one focus.

none of this in and off itself is terrible but things add up a bit with elite and meh gear so keep in mind life will likely be a bit harder on you then on your 2 groupmates and be wary of opponents like champs or orange named that can hit very hard in melee. letting the barb grab the aggro first is also one way to do it.

when thinking about how to do a bard next time i would argue, do not pick BOTH STR and the rogue skills and stats in addition to CHA and CON for bard and health. thats just way too much stuff to put points in on a 28p or even 32p build. then think about the playstyle and chose feats accordingly. also go for strong enhancements high up in the trees as soon as you can to max the benefit from it early.

trapping bard is fine but then aim to use a weapon benefiting of CHA,INT or DEX (to which swashbuckler would have offered itself as there you can chose your dmg stat with swashable weapons) so you don't have to put further points into STR (warchanter is an exception here btw since it requires some STR for stun modifer which is STR based - due to that doing warchanter proper often relies on a STR weapon/build so here the rogue stats and needing dex for twf come in as a detriment - though at same time 2 weapons may proc the freezes more often, this is a wide spread build though needing good planing).
two weapon fighting looks cool and looks powerful on paper but in terms of game meta it works much better on a proper ranger tempest which is where it shines as the chance to hit with offhand weapon, and the offhand weapon damage are upped in that tree. the key here is to get a high stat mod to up the base damage, add to that a good crit profile which you can't get so well from bard for twf and then it starts doing crazy damage coupled with high attack speed from dual wield and some special attacks from tempest enhancements that raise melee power and doublestrike chance.

which brings us to the weapons I suggested and why they do not focus on base dmg and not on additional element or good dmg effects. where the damage should come from normally is base dmg of the weapon + stat mod + enhancement bonuses to dmg X crits. critting often and hard is what most contributes to a good melee or ranged damage output. this is not so easily attainable for you as the warchanter tier5 only boosts the crit damage but not crit chance. as for the added weapon damage, 2 or 3 dice extra damage is not bad but you lot are just about to enter the level range where this added damage becomes less effective as mob HP rise quite a bit on elite. between 100+ or even 200+ dmg dealt on a crit and some 9-18 added dmg per swing, if the critting often part works out, the crits easily win out in dps over some extra dice. then again crit chance ain't your forte for now either, hence I recommended special weapon effects, such as poison ->con drain, or paralyzing or feeding which gives the mob a negative level on crit. either way, most likely both weapon effects that reduce stats, or slow or neg level or stun the enemy and or any weapon that has an increased crit profile would be more effective than lootgen with added dice dmg from element, force, good. exception: if a mob is weak to that particular dmg. i.e. use opposing element on elemental creatures to get purple numbers on those extra dice dmg. or when you need a DR break from good dmg.

http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Nightforge_Avenger_Blade is an option too btw as that is 17-20 crit range.

In Warchanter I can certainly take Ironskin Chant (+6 DR/PRR), and Boast gives a comfortable +100 Temp HP for dangerous situations. I will take the Medium Armor enhancement ASAP (as I said, I can get rid of Harper Agent, temporarily if it starts causing more problems, permanently if it doesn't affect anything, which I fear it may at -6 to all of my important skills), but I can't do so immediately as my current light armor has 65% fortification; we are going to go for the 100% fortification neck as soon as we can, but I would assume that I am correct in thinking that I shouldn't change the light armor until then. When I reincarnate I will certainly make sure to get at least 14 CON!

nothing has to be changed immediately. also, going for the med armor is one of two options. given that you have displacement as a bard or get it soon, light armor with high dodge may also work with some investment into it with good dodge item. just, maaaaybe, with med armor and thus higher PRR when you DO get hit, the chances are slightly better you dont get oneshot. either way you should keep the fort item for now, and get it to 100% soon and also always be on the lookout for sheltering items.

I like the idea of putting my next two points into DEX and getting the upgraded two weapon fighting feats. I know it's not the best option, but it wouldn't involve fully rebuilding the character, which is a plus, and I could continue going into Warchanter. I could also grab the Ambidexterity enhancement in the Drow tree to boost that up a bit; and it would help with proccing Northwind as frequently as possible.

not sure if the ambidexterity is worth it that depends a bit on how much AP are left after warchanter getting the tier5s and keeping the trapping viable. its 3AP for +1 hit/dmg/dodge so hm. average.

I noticed that none of the weapons you linked had any sort of 3d6 good damage, 2d6 acid damage, etc. Are those not something important to get? In writing they seem like that contribute a large amount of the weapon's damage, but is that not the case? Or are the other effects on the weapons just that much better to outweigh the loss of dps?

see above

Also, for the challenges that we will be doing (both now to get that blasting chime, but in general so we can unlock Artificer before we reincarnate), should we bring Hirelings? I know that they in some ways scale to your party size, so is it better to leave the hireling behind? Also, can we still get 5 stars doing the challenge on a lower level than our own? Like, can we just go in and blast through it at the lowest level for the stars, and then a regular level for the materials?

with 3 people running, the spread on crystal farming challenges should usually be 1 guarding the base, 1 scouting and killing mobs and partially guarding an active line when time allows and the 3rd person running the torches. afaik the scaling with 4 doesnt have much difference to 5 or 6 so you might as well use 2 or 3 hires if you use 1 anyways. prly with the cleric with an offensive hire guarding base, the barb killing mobs ahead of you who is doing torches. so maybe a heal bot for the barb and whatever other hire suits you best. keep in mind haste is super useful in here. a bard hire with haste could also help with the cleric at base cause that way he can always keep the kobolds hasted if he has no mobs to deal with

as for the other question, yes, you can either run for mats and then dont mind stars, or you can run for stars and then nvm the mats, thats how people do it. keep in mind though you dont have to farm the arti favor from this alone, there are level 18 cannith favor quests later, too. there's a newer lvl14 quest from u28 that might actually also give cannith favor, dont remember.