Enhancements on a swashbuckling deep gnome melee wizard

[Swimms]

After playing a divine swashbuckling build inspired by Slarden (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...Fighter-3-Bard)

I wanted to work on something similar using a 11 Wiz/ 6 Ftr / 3 Bard Deep Gnome iconic build. The general thought would be to max int (and thus int to hit and int to damage) and run in Shadowdancer for martial EPLs while swashbuckling with a "gnomish weapon" (light hammers, light maces, light picks, or shortsword)

For Enhancements I was thinking:

Harper Agent-Agent of Good, Int in the core, strategic combat 1 (int to hit) and into T2 with know the angles and versatile adept (+-15 points)

Deep Gnome-Wariness and Int for core and Gnomish Weapon Training through T4 (+-12 points)

Swashbuckler-Confidence and swashbuckling in the core, through Skirmisher and different tack (int to damage) in T3 (+-13 points)

Remaining points being split between Kensai, Stalwart Defender and Eldritch Knight where appropriate. I would love to get T5 Kensai for the +20 melee power but that would take most of remaining points. This would seem like a lot of synergies with stacking int from both Harper/Deep Gnome and Shadowdancer but I feel I might be spreading myself too thin here. Is this a viable split/build idea?

[unbongwah]

I wanted to work on something similar using a 11 Wiz/ 6 Ftr / 3 Bard Deep Gnome iconic build. The general thought would be to max int (and thus int to hit and int to damage) and run in Shadowdancer for martial EPLs while swashbuckling with a "gnomish weapon" (light hammers, light maces, light picks, or shortsword)

slarden's build uses ftr 6 / bard 3 to take advantage of Swashbuckling and Strike w/No Thought stacking, which only works with handaxes and light picks. So if you're sticking with the same split and want to use DG weapon bonuses, well, the choice is obvious. The downside is there's only one named light pick in DDO (fortunately it's ML:14 which makes it a perfect starter for an Iconic life); so everything else is gonna have to be crafted / lootgen weaponry.

If you plan to use a different gnomish weapon, then there's no particular reason to stick with bard 3 / ftr 6 since the crit bonuses don't stack. So if you decided to use e.g. light maces instead, you could do wiz 12 for wraith form and either bard 3 / ftr 5 or bard 5 / ftr 3 (depending on which tier-5 you wanted).

[Swimms]

slarden's build uses ftr 6 / bard 3 to take advantage of Swashbuckling and Strike w/No Thought stacking, which only works with handaxes and light picks. So if you're sticking with the same split and want to use DG weapon bonuses, well, the choice is obvious. The downside is there's only one named light pick in DDO (fortunately it's ML:14 which makes it a perfect starter for an Iconic life); so everything else is gonna have to be crafted / lootgen weaponry.

If you plan to use a different gnomish weapon, then there's no particular reason to stick with bard 3 / ftr 6 since the crit bonuses don't stack. So if you decided to use e.g. light maces instead, you could do wiz 12 for wraith form and either bard 3 / ftr 5 or bard 5 / ftr 3 (depending on which tier-5 you wanted).

Thanks for the reply as always, I am OK with crafted gear, I just want to sanity check my thoughts so I don't end up with something painful to level to 30. Although I am not looking to do EE content so I am not sure it matters all that much.

[unbongwah]

BTW is there any particular reason to do wiz 11 instead of cleric 11 on an EPL-farming build? At first I presumed this was for ITRs (DG+wiz PLs) but now I see you said, "run in Shadowdancer for martial EPLs."

I suppose it doesn't matter as long as you can keep yourself alive, I'm just curious...is it just so you don't have to LR +1 out of wizard?

[Swimms]

BTW is there any particular reason to do wiz 11 instead of cleric 11 on an EPL-farming build? At first I presumed this was for ITRs (DG+wiz PLs) but now I see you said, "run in Shadowdancer for martial EPLs."

I suppose it doesn't matter as long as you can keep yourself alive, I'm just curious...is it just so you don't have to LR +1 out of wizard?

Just trying to keep my options open in regards to heroic past lives and make sure I am being efficient (not playing more than 3 heroic PL classes). Yes I want to focus on Martial EPLs but I know I will get restless and want to ITR into something different after a few runs so I want to have a plan for future Iconic/Heroic combos that I can run in Martial so that I do not end up with more than 3 heroic past lives in any particular class. I have two Wizard PLs now and this is my second cleric so I am just looking for other ideas. I did find two BtA +5 hearts on a mule from god knows when, I may have bought them years ago so those give me options for taking unusual splits for additional heroic PL options.

As to why I am focusing on Martial, in my mind it is the least enjoyable of the destinies to play in and I know I can always "easy mode" a warlock in Arcane/Primal/Divine so I guess I am just trying to bang out what I find to be least enjoyable as far as ED's go. (although I have to admit, SD and LD have both grown on me, especially SD).

Slarden's Divine Swashbuckler above has been a breath of fresh air, really fun build to play and very survivable. Having a blast with it so far so I will do at least 2-3 Epic runs on her.