Angel of Destruction

[JDCrowell]

This was an idea to be a hybrid. Melee DPS with good Divine casting. Casting DPS coming from Good to High DC's for Evocation (Blade Barrier, Soundburst, Cometfall, Implosion, and Mass Frog) SWF for attack speed and using an orb for casting abilities.

I'm at level 23 at the moment, and leveling was difficult. Once I hit 15, everything seemed to come together better. All seems overall underwhelming, and I'm looking for areas I can improve. If this is just going to be stuck in mediocrity, I might just TR into a Dragonborn for CHA and Divine Might instead. Same build, or Pally. I'm not sure which. Thoughts are appreciated, as are optimal gear options. If this should work really well, then I'm doing something wrong.

I've tweaked the enhancements a bit. Dropped BoH and went with more War Soul and some AoV.


Angel of Destruction
18/2 Favored Soul/Fighter
Lawful Good Aasimar


Level Order

1. Favored Soul . .6. Fighter . . . .11. Favored Soul. .16. Favored Soul
2. Favored Soul . .7. Favored Soul . 12. Favored Soul . 17. Favored Soul
3. Fighter . . . . 8. Favored Soul. .13. Favored Soul. .18. Favored Soul
4. Favored Soul . .9. Favored Soul . 14. Favored Soul . 19. Favored Soul
5. Favored Soul . 10. Favored Soul . 15. Favored Soul . 20. Favored Soul


Stats
. . . . . . . .28pt . . 32pt. . .34pt . . 36pt. . .Tome. . .Level Up
. . . . . . . .---- . . ----. . .---- . . ----. . .---- . . --------
Strength. . . . 10. . . .10 . . . 10. . . .10 . . . +6 . . . 4: WIS
Dexterity . . . .8. . . . 8 . . . .8. . . . 8 . . . +6 . . . 8: WIS
Constitution. . 15. . . .16 . . . 16. . . .16 . . . +6 . . .12: WIS
Intelligence. . .8. . . .10 . . . 12. . . .14 . . . +6 . . .16: WIS
Wisdom. . . . . 20. . . .20 . . . 20. . . .20 . . . +6 . . .20: WIS
Charisma. . . . 10. . . .10 . . . 10. . . .10 . . . +6 . . .24: WIS
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28: WIS

Skills
. . . . .Fv Fv Fi Fv Fv Fi Fv Fv Fv Fv Fv Fv Fv Fv Fv Fv Fv Fv Fv Fv
. . . . . 1. 2. 3 .4 .5 .6. 7. 8. 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
. . . . .------------------------------------------------------------
Concent . 2. 2. . .1 .3 . . 2. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 23
Heal. . . 4. 1. 1 .1 .1 .1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 23
Jump. . . . . . 1 . . . . . . .2 .1 .2 .2 .2 .2 .2 .2 .3 .1 .1 .1 .1 .23
Spellcr . 4. 1. 1 .1 .1 .1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. . .22
Balance . 2. ½. . .1 . . . .1 .½ .1 .½ .½ .½ .½ .½ .½ .½ .½ .½ .½ . . 11
Diplo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. 2. 2. 4. 10
Tumble. . 1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
. . . . .------------------------------------------------------------
. . . . .16. 5. 5 .5 .5 .4. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 7. 7. 7. 7. 7
Max . . .16. 5. 5 .5 .5 .5. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 6. 7. 7. 7. 7. 7. 7


Feats

.1. . . . : Maximize Spell
.3. . . . : Empower Spell
.3 Fighter: Single Weapon Fighting
.6. . . . : Spell Focus: Evocation
.6 Fighter: Power Attack
.9. . . . : Improved Single Weapon Fighting
12. . . . : Empower Healing Spell
15. . . . : Quicken Spell
18. . . . : Improved Critical: Slashing
21 Epic . : Overwhelming Critical
24 Epic . : Greater Spell Focus: Evocation
26 Destiny: Perfect Two Weapon Fighting
27 Epic . : Greater Single Weapon Fighting
28 Destiny: Mass Frog
29 Destiny: Dire Charge
30 Epic . : Intensify Spell
30 Legend : Scion of: Arborea

.1 Aasimar: Bond of the Protector

.2 FavSoul: Knowledge of Battle
.9 FavSoul: Stout of Heart

.7 FavSoul: Energy Absorption: Electricity
12 FavSoul: Energy Absorption: Fire
17 FavSoul: Energy Absorption: Cold

.1 Deity. : Follower of: Sovereign Host
.8 Deity. : Unyielding Sovereignty


Spells

1. Cure Light Wounds (1), Nightshield (1), Divine Favor (2), Protection from Evil (4)
2. Cure Moderate Wounds (5), Lesser Restoration (7), Soundburst (9), Hold Person (11)
3. Cure Serious Wounds (8), Magic Circle Against Evil (9), Prayer (11), Searing Light (13)
4. Cure Critical Wounds (10), Holy Smite (11), Death Ward (13), Freedom of Movement (15)
5. Divine Punishment (12), Raise Dead (13), Greater Command (15), Flame Strike (17)
6. Blade Barrier (14), Heal (15), Cometfall (17)
7. Destruction (16), Greater Restoration (17), Mass Cure Serious Wounds (19)
8. Fire Storm (18), Mass Death Ward (19)
9. Implosion (20)

Enhancements (80 AP)

War Soul (39 AP)

• Smite Foe: Melee, Resilience of Battle, Sanctuary, Blur, Haste
  1. Divine Will III, Toughness III, Righteous Weapons
  2. Wall of Steel III, Righteous Weapons, Haste Boost III
  3. Radiant Flourish: Melee III, Righteous Weapons, Wisdom
  4. Ameliorating Strike, Righteous Weapons, Holy Striker: Doublestrike III, Wisdom
  5. Divine Champion

Aasimar (28 AP)

• Stronger Bonds, Wisdom, Stronger Bonds II, Wisdom, Stronger Bonds III
  1. Fight the Wicked, Improved Recovery
  2. Fight the Wicked, Arcanum III, Divine Purpose
  3. Fight the Wicked, Divine Charge III, Blessings III, Improved Recovery
  4. Divine Form

Beacon of Hope (13 AP)

• Pleasant Disposition, Beacon of Grace, Shining Light
  1. Good Hope III, Spell Critical, Spell Points I
  2. Spell Critical
  3. Spell Critical

[cru121]

have you considered Vistani instead of War Soul? Should be a lot more DPS there.

[elvesunited]

While there may be some power builders out there to prove me wrong.
Hybrids are tough to make. Splitting youir design to be good at multiple things rather than to focus on one thing and be really good at that.
And you're going for the whole enchilada of Favored Soul.

DC Caster:
Spell DPS:
Melee DPS:
Healer:

That's a lot of ground to cover for feats and equipment. DC Casting in particular requires almost universal focus on it, scrapping for every DC you can get. Otherwise it gets a little pointless. So what is your priorities? What's your primary focus?

[Tilomere]

This was an idea to be a hybrid. Thoughts are appreciated, as are optimal gear options.

Your build is performing as well as intended. Divines aren't exactly powerhouses, and hybrids are not that well supported. I'm running a radiant servant cleric now, and lower the difficulty when I play it to the point that an arcane hireling can just kill everything.

[Haphazarduk]

Apologies - I should have replied when you posted this in my thread. Have just been really busy.

I think you can make hybrids work but you have to work pretty hard. I don't believe the 'they're just terrible at both jobs' line. Of course they're not going to be top notch casters nor will they they be top melee fiends but I think can do well in both.

The version of your build I ran was a 16 FvS/4Pal in Vistani. The 4 Pal gave a lot of survivability and Vistani delivered on the DPS, as Cru says. I didn't go for War Soul, even after the pass. Its a shame really but I don't think it delivers as much as it should. For me it was Vistani, Aaasimar and Sacred Defender - lots of HP, lots of PRR and MRR and really good saves. Wood Elf might open up some possibilities with War Soul as you can use Rapiers or Scimitars with Wis/Chr, especially if you have racial APs, but I haven't really looked at that yet.

I have found Sun bolt to be surprisingly good support DPS but it depends how deep you want to go into AoV which really depend s on what else you're splashing (every point in Sacred Defender seems worth it).

Hap

[JDCrowell]

have you considered Vistani instead of War Soul? Should be a lot more DPS there.

I have Vistani, but haven't really looked at it. I don't have any daggers, nor do I know of any good ones. Haven't really looked into it much.

While there may be some power builders out there to prove me wrong.
Hybrids are tough to make. Splitting youir design to be good at multiple things rather than to focus on one thing and be really good at that.
And you're going for the whole enchilada of Favored Soul.

DC Caster:
Spell DPS:
Melee DPS:
Healer:

That's a lot of ground to cover for feats and equipment. DC Casting in particular requires almost universal focus on it, scrapping for every DC you can get. Otherwise it gets a little pointless. So what is your priorities? What's your primary focus?

What I want overall is good melee dps. Something that can solo low reaper and survive. Also good casting DPS. I understand now that having good DC's are going to be extremely difficult if I sacrifice anything, so what divine spells hit hard enough to not worry about spell DC's? I understand giving up insta kills and any crowd control. Raw damage would be acceptable. Bladebarrier seems to be difficult to use since a lot of newer quests have a lot of mobs that don't move a lot.

Apologies - I should have replied when you posted this in my thread. Have just been really busy.

I think you can make hybrids work but you have to work pretty hard. I don't believe the 'they're just terrible at both jobs' line. Of course they're not going to be top notch casters nor will they they be top melee fiends but I think can do well in both.

The version of your build I ran was a 16 FvS/4Pal in Vistani. The 4 Pal gave a lot of survivability and Vistani delivered on the DPS, as Cru says. I didn't go for War Soul, even after the pass. Its a shame really but I don't think it delivers as much as it should. For me it was Vistani, Aaasimar and Sacred Defender - lots of HP, lots of PRR and MRR and really good saves. Wood Elf might open up some possibilities with War Soul as you can use Rapiers or Scimitars with Wis/Chr, especially if you have racial APs, but I haven't really looked at that yet.

I have found Sun bolt to be surprisingly good support DPS but it depends how deep you want to go into AoV which really depend s on what else you're splashing (every point in Sacred Defender seems worth it).

Hap

It's ok Hap, I figured the thread just kinda got overlooked by others. Like I replied to cru, I don't know much about Vistani. I guess that's something to try out, but I do agree that some Pally levels would help a lot with survivability.

I'm really tempted to TR him back into a sort of a Steel Shrine
Probably going 15 Pally / 3 Monk / 2 FvS. And likely Dragonborn or Human.

[Jetrule]

I have found that I can do ok as a divine melee caster hybrid. Right now I am doing a cleric fighter morninglord life on my caster focused character. I focus on just a few offensive spells though. Sound burst, greater command and blade barrier for kiting being my offensive selections. This targets each type of save and sound burst and blade barrier are both evo spells. Greater command is a enchant spell but it targets the easiest save of will.

I gear evo dcs or general dcs depending on level and rely on melee dps, except for some blade barrier kiting in heroics. The two caster feats I choose are evo focus and quicken the rest are melee feats. I run a 14/6 cleric fighter animal domain mix with all enhancement points in kensai, falconry, and stalwart defender. Maxing wisdom and wis to hit and damage and the wis based divine might thing from falconry.

Like you I use single weapon fighting with a orb off hand, and a eviscerating expenses khopesh in main hand. After I hit level 29 I will likely switch to rapier since I have a Strahd rapier on the character.


For favored soul I have done a couple of melee fvs in the past one a vol worshiping dwarf vistani build the other a warforged greatsword user. I just did heroic levels for racial pastlives and the vol vistani build was a little better dps probably but much more button mashing and cooldown watching. The forged was 14 fvs 6 fighter and the dagger build was 14 fvs, 6 monk. Neither did much casting besides soundbursts buffs and healing. Neither spent much in any fvs tree beyond divine will 4 points in warpriest.

[JDCrowell]

So I respecced for Vistani, and changed a couple of feats. Exchanged Power Attack for Precision, and went with Heighten instead of Empower Healing.

APs are mostly all in Vistani and War Soul.

I did try a few combinations suggested to me by a member of my guild. I "think" I have just the right balance.

Is it the best Melee DPS? No, but it seems to be top end melee DPS for a FvS.
I've sacrificed Spell DPS in favor of DCs, and that has worked out well. Emplosion hits at least 75% of the time, and the Sacrificial Dagger helps to level drain mobs that have higher saves. Sound burst is reliable too, and I do enough Light damage to sit back and cast Divine Punishment before joining the fight.

Seems to work out well.

[Selvera]

I love hybrids; but I've never been satisfied with how my hybrids worked out endgame (with the exception of a cleric/bard hybrid melee-healer which I TR'd into a stronger build which wasn't quite stronger-enough to satisfy me. Go figure).

On the other hand; I have been very satisfied with hybrid builds in heroic levels; since the gearing requirements to be effective in the upper difficulties seem to be much lower, and can be largely covered by tomes and pastlives. (Not exactly my strong suit; but I have enough to feel a difference). Some builds I’ve tried including the https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...7-Ninja-Healer have been able to successfully DC cast, melee and heal in reapers in upper-heroics.

Meanwhile; I’m starting to believe (after some experimenting) that the true path to a hybrid might be to write off the idea of getting in melee range of enemies at all. Melees sort of have to write off half their gear slots to be able to survive hits in higher difficulties; and the other half of their slots are so they can deal adequate dps. Trying to find a bunch of items that allow them to deal acceptable spell damage or aquire acceptable DC’s have pretty much no place in their gearset. On the other hand, ranged can avoid most damage, so you could theoretically dedicate half their gear slots to ranged dps and half their gear slots to DC casting and maybe you could theorycraft a build that could do both effectively in higher reaper.

Another part of the problem is with the weapon; where DC casters are very strongly recommended to use the http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Nightmother%27s_Sceptre, which is a 1 handed melee weapon with terrible damage per hit, uncenters monks (sorry shuriken), is not a runearm (sorry artis), and can’t be used at the same time as a bow (sorry rangers). So the best DC casting weapon (by far) is fairly exclusive with both melee and ranged playstyles. Perhaps there has been a new DC weapon that’s not bad introduced since then?

So; with my discussion on endgame itemization out of the way, then you come down to the problem of how to build a hybrid with feats/enhancements/class splits. And the very basic is that most decisions you make will have to choose between increasing your melee (or ranged) dps or your spell dps; very few options increase both and almost none synergise with having to use both (and those that do are typically fairly weak). With the basic math; if you can do 1000 damage per second with melee and 1000 damage per second with spells, then you can use either equally; but if you have the opportunity to split another 800 dps between melee and spells; you will get the highest damage per second by dumping all 800 into the same stat and dealing 1800 dps with using exclusively that style; then you will by splitting it 400/400 and being able to do 1400 dps with either style. This is a large part of why a lot of my hybrid ideas haven’t been trying to do melee dps and spell dps at the same time; but trying to get different benefits from melee/spells (typically doing dps with melee or ranged, and using spells for instant kills; CC or healing).

So let’s look at the build:

The three weaknesses I see about this build are the lack of AoE damage (except spells) and the lack of spell penetration (essentially prevents you from doing instakills or CC with spells against some mobs). And the lack of defenses (will you be able to survive in melee?). I suppose you’re expecting to cover the AoE weakness with spells and not try to DC cast? And cover the weakness in defense by gear and/or using a tank in your parties?

You’ve already expressed that you’re going for vistanii; so I’ll mostly ignore your enhancements for now. (Are you going to pick up some of the vistanii defenses? That might help a bit). But IF you are going for warsoul Tier 5’s, you should take more then just one of them. IMO the only legitimately bad warsoul T5 is divine intervention, and divine power/wrathful weapons are easily top picks for AP per power enhancements. That said; vistanii tier 5’s are also pretty good so you might want to swing that way.

You don’t mention destiny; I’m assuming this means you’re doing the generic melee route of blitzing which is simply the best melee dps you can get in epics. It will hurt your DC’s pretty significantly.

Twists are a pretty hard balancing act since all the archetypes you seem to be aiming towards have very powerful twists.
DC casting -> School specilization from Magister
DPS casting -> empyrian magic
Melee -> Sense Weakness
Getting all of these in the same build essentially requires a lot of epic pastlives for bonus fate points.

[Tilomere]

I'm at level 23 at the moment, and leveling was difficult. Once I hit 15, everything seemed to come together better. All seems overall underwhelming, and I'm looking for areas I can improve.

That is what good heroic melee dps looks like and requires.

[JDCrowell]

I've decided that since I have 2 main toons. One more geared to melee dps, the other casting. I'm just going to leave one as a Divine Caster, and the other as DPS.

That is what good heroic melee dps looks like and requires.

This has me curious. I just TR'd my Melee toon into a Paladin variant of this split. I've never thought to go unarmed with this type of split as I am usually using SWF. Just by this SS alone I now know I lag way behind in my knowledge on how to increase Melee Power. I'm missing things. It's either my gear, which is outdated badly, or my build....I need to do more research. I've only seen numbers like this on a pure Fighter SWF with Khopeshes.
I've never been one to fully copy someone else, but this has me wondering what I'm missing. I can't remember, but I think the highest melee power I've had on a toon was close to 66 - 70~ and I think that was at level 24-25. I need to find more sources and look into different gear set-ups.

Looks like its back the the research board, the wiki, and crafting better gear. I do now understand how difficult making a hybrid would be. I really enjoy Divines, though. FvS is my favorite class, followed by Paladin.

[Tilomere]

What I want overall is good melee dps. Something that can solo low reaper and survive. Also good casting DPS.

While there may be some power builders out there to prove me wrong.
Hybrids are tough to make.

Ok, I'm going to make you a hybrid power build.

Here ya go.