DDOCast 495 - Leveling 16-18

[pjstechie]

This week we continue our leveling series by looking at levels 16-18 with our guests Evilbeeker, Asheras, & Voodu!

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Leveling 16-18 - 3:37
Game News - 1:15:35
Community News - 1:19:54
Lightning Post - 1:23:00
Closing - 1:31:06

Watch shows live at twitch.tv/ddocast

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DDO Chronicle 258
Damsels of DDO 76
DDO Players News 154
Micki’s Delirium: Raids Week 49
Micki’s Delirium: Epic Crucible on Reaper 2
Voodu: Falling in the Litany Pit

[Captain_Wizbang]

I lost count how many Ive watched. Thanks as always.

[FuzzyDuck81]

Todays rambling thoughts

Lords of dust chain is a great one, though mentioning the loot you forgot about the doublecross bow - the epic version I still regularly use at cap since it has crippling & enervation & I slot an endless night augment in it for the double chance of negative levels, it's a great debuffer & crowd control. It's also one of the few chains where the s/s/s gear isn't too hard to get since it's still run so regularly.

The shroud flagging quests are on my always-run list, but with the introduction of champions crikey they've become a real challenge again despite their age. Quick note if you want to burn through them just for the flagging though - casual only has a 50% chance of dropping the stone which you need to combine to get into the shroud, so stick to normal unless you've already got a completed signet stone.

I still like to do the s/r/e run in Reaver's Reach & it's worth grabbing the gems from the other explorer areas to get into the eerie forest where there's that nifty little mechanic to summon the vampire by sacrificing enemies on the altar. I used to enjoy those quests back in the day & stealer of souls was a lot of fun but it's been a very long time since I ran them.

Useful tip when running the Xoriat chain in the twelve - if you get a blinding effect from any source on the eyeball enemies, it's an instakill - glitterdust (particularly with the high DC from a rogue mechanic's trap) or sleet storm is basically a murderzone. Shout-out to the earthshatter warhammer from that chain, it's a pretty nice weapon and it's instakill effect against stone (wait, sorry...STONE) enemies is no-save, it can be worth holding onto for situational use even at cap.

If you're a stick user, palace of stone (STONE) drops the bone crusher staff, very nice weapon with extended damage & critical profile & AoE damage proc, awesome bit of kit.

Good intentions is a great quest with some amazing loot, but watch out for those constructs, they have some hefty adamantine DR - ideally use an actual adamantine weapon rather than just metalline since you'll almost certainly break your weapons if they don't have the extra hardness. Shout-out to the hardened hide armour that drops in there, it has some good effects, much higher than normal maximum dodge cap for medium armour and has a pretty nice, practical gambeson-style appearance too.

For the subterrane, it's worth learning how to find & farm Garamol since his big chest has an increased drop chance for a number of old but still good gear like sunblades which are particularly nice for monks & rogues to tackle zombies & the mace of smiting which is IMO an essential piece of gear for most lowbie melees.

Terminal delerium is amazing, it's one of those quests that everyone should run once just for the experience but ye gods it can be tricky on higher difficulties. It's worth farming it to get the stone wall/epic stone wall shield, one of the very few druid-compatible tower shields which has some nice DR & a pretty high-DC petrify on shield bash effect.

Inspired quarter is a lot of fun - shout out to Elocator's Habilment from Mindsunder with it's displacement clicky, good for artificers in particular since they'll boost the caster level for it to beyond the standard 30sec duration & it's one i like to make a cosmetic of, because it's got the MAXIMUM RAINBOW FABULOSITY colour scheme. Terror used to be really nice with it's PK proc but depsite having the glass material, it seems to be bugged & still takes damage from oozes which is a shame.