Poppy's Para

[Ladislaio]

By popular request, a Quick and Dirty type up on two para builds.

Race: Elf (Helf and Sun Elf work too, but not as well)
str 8
dex 16
con 12
int 15
wis 18
cha 8

FvS setup
Level Class Feat Bonus Feat
1 Fighter PBS Rapid Shot
2 Monk Percision
3 Monk Precise Shot Zen Archery
4 Monk
5 FvS Beloved of the Silver Flame
6 FvS Compeltionist Knowledge of Battle
7 FvS
8 FvS
9 FvS Manyshot *Cold Absorb*
10 FvS
11 Monk
12 Monk IC: Ranged
13 Monk 10k Stars
14 FvS Stout of Heart
15 Fighter Master of Forms IPS
16 FvS
17 FvS
18 FvS Grandmaster oF *Electric Absorb*
19 FvS
20 FvS
21 Epic Quicken
24 Epic Combat Archery or Spell Focus: Enchant or Enlarge
26 Epic P. Addy? Holy Strike?
27 Epic Blinding Speed
28 Epic MASS FROG FUNNESS
29 Epic Doubleshot
30 Epic Epic Reflexes Scion of Feywild

19 elf 41 AA(elf) 9 Shintao 13 Vistani (I have 2 racial ap's)
Note that I have the Raid bow to summon my arrow so I don't use Conjure Arrows from the tree.


13 reaper points in the middle tree for 4 points of wisdom and 3 universal spell DC's. Rest to flavor.


Runs in Fury. Dance of Flowers, Pin, Piercing Clarity, Grim Precision, and a Point of Wisdom are my current twists.
Also in this SS you can see my current spell section, which I am very happy with, and my current weapon that I keep promising myself I'll fix whenever I pull a longbow with reaper and/or mythic on it.


Gearing:

Silent avenger set
3pc Slaver's set (Helm, 2 crafted bits that need re crafted into more useful ones, quality wisdom / positive spell power / spell focus / wisdom / armor pen are the key stats to have on these; Spinneret could be useful here too)
Leg. Bracers of the Fallen Hero
Leg. Ring of Prowess
Leg. Shadow's Footsteps
Cannith Crafted items:
Concentration / Insightful Enchant Focus / Insightful wisdom Goggles w/ Festive wisdom slotted
Constitution / Sonic Spell Power / Insightful PRR ring w/ Resistance 8 slotted
Cold Spell Power / Healing amp / Insightful Positive Spell Power Gloves

Int / Search / Insightful Search helm to swap to (most to hit the search DC's for doors in reaper 30's, I don't know any that I care about that I cannot find, works great for amber. I can also search traps in LH strahd)

#### Important underrated gear swap time ####
Nystul's Mystical Defense. You want a bow with a 5 pc set of this in it.
You see a lot of people saying "robes need a higher MRR cap". This is how you GET that cap when you need it. Doing the cards in strahd? have this bow out. Get aggro of Baba? Swap to this bow. Stupid mean flaming skulls? Nyst set. The endboss of Grim on r8? Use. This. Bow. I find it unlikely that I can overstate how powerful this set is when used correctly.

[janave]

Looks cool.

What do you think about a Helf version with +2 WIS and the last 2% to hit, maybe a little extra healing amp ?
Do you have any gear that helps for Mass Frog DCs, it would work on Ravenloft undead up to r1 maybe with just your wisdom score?

[Ladislaio]

This is an *old* build updated. AFAIK the first use of this build was way back when Thunderholme was new, and my little group drafted up a build that would work *amazingly* in FoTP. It did great there, and with updates does great today too.

Race MUST be Elf. You need to be elf to get dex:damage with your longbow.

str 8
dex 16
con 12
int 15
wis 18
cha 8

Level Class Feat Bonus Feat
1 Rogue PBS
2 Druid
3 Druid Rapid Shot
4 Monk Percision
5 Monk Zen Archery
6 Druid Precise Shot
7 Druid
8 Druid
9 Druid Quicken
10 Druid
11 Druid
12 Druid Manyshot OR Enlarge OR Empower Healing
13 Druid
14 Druid
15 Druid PL: Wizard OR Enlarge OR Empower Healing
16 Druid
17 Druid
18 Druid IPS
19 Druid
20 Druid
21 Epic SF: Evo (Just to get the evo DC twist)
24 Epic Burst of Glacial Wrath OR Flavor
26 Epic P. Addy? Holy Strike? Positive spell power?
27 Epic Embolden
28 Epic MASS FROG FUNNESS
29 Epic Doubleshot or Warding or Font of Life
30 Epic Epic Reflexes Scion of Air OR Feywild

20ish AP in elf for dex:damage; 41 ap AA(elf) for capstone; Rest to flavor.
The build can run in Cloth, Light, or Medium armor; Which you use depends on gear an personal preferences.
ED of choice is Fury, same layout as above.

Why this over a pure druid? This adds some damage to a druid (a weak point of druid casters) and it dials its CC up to 11, possibly 12. On the downside because you are using a bow you give up having LGS Ice or Salt in your offhand and make gearing for DC's quite a bit trickier.

I think that this build provides so very very much utility that it is *better* than the FvS version, but I don't enjoy playing this setup as much. The FvS split can kill stuff at an ok rate without a solid party, this build... not so much. But on the rare instances that I am on a DPS toon, I'd *much* rather have this druid build supporting me than the FvS build. The druid build is just amazing, but requires quite a bit of button pressing (Full caster, Fury Archer, Full healer, Full Trapper, all at the same time) in order to play well.

Manyshot is optional on this build. If you have it, you can lay down some nice damage with Manyshot + Adren &Slayer and you have access to Furyshot. If you don't have it, it may be more wise to shift into Exalted or Shardi and just forgo doing any damage with your bow, but have better DC's / even more CC.
Rapid shot and IPS are not optional for this build. Both of these scale the usefulness of your Para (or terror, or smiting) arrows heavily.

Mantle of the Icy Soul and Mass Regenerate are too powerful to give up the 17 druid and still have an optimal build. Worthy of note tho is that Deep Gnomes are appropriately sized and have the best dance; 15 druid / 4 ranger / 1 (rogue, wizard, or arti) Deep Gnome in Exalted is a fun, if non-ideal and no-damage, variant of this.

[Ladislaio]

Looks cool.

What do you think about a Helf version with +2 WIS and the last 2% to hit, maybe a little extra healing amp ?
Do you have any gear that helps for Mass Frog DCs, it would work on Ravenloft undead up to r1 maybe with just your wisdom score?

Non reverent undead (skellies, ghosts, ghouls, shadows, hands, zombies) and scarecrows get frogged just fine on poppytop even up to r10 in ravenloft. I just have the universal +6 DC on my slavers and a +2 augment currently for frog. When I ran some more trans focus gear I was able to get about 50/50 on many other things too, and had about 2/5 success rate with archers in r10 Mem, and I had 100% on Animated Weapons (now it is closer to 3/5). I can usually frog most archers and wizard mobs on r6, I'd say 4/5 in r6 Multitude. Remember deathblock champs block mass frog, as does any spell resistance.

With the elf tree I'm able to get a tiny bit more doubleshot, which I value highly, and with the % to hit and +1 to hit bonuses I get solid hits on r10 mem bosses on 5+. Before I took the deep elf bow skills line it was only solid hits on a 7+.

Poppytop has 181 hamp right now, while more is always nice I'm partial to the 3% doubleshot from the elf tree. I, um, *cough* also don't own Helf so, um, haven't really tested that race for this build. *cough*

Oh, only things that I rarely para'n with the gear/stats above are Black Abishi and Drow Archers. Other archers and divine casters save sometimes, how much depends on reaper level. Feytouched Reavers in Amarath are also a problem. Archons sometimes too, but that seems weird and isn't consistant between runs of the quest on the same r level.
I can para wisps in reaper baba, but I cannot para wisps in the normal quests. Not sure why.

[flute136]

i have a similar build, but i am using wisdom for attack and dmg, why do you use dexterity?

[Kodwraith]

i have a similar build, but i am using wisdom for attack and dmg, why do you use dexterity?

He is using Wis, the FVS Knowledge of battle feat works as long as you have at least FVS 10.

[shino23]

You think this is viable with 2 rogue level for trapping? Also is this viable to play only heroic or is pointless?