Fortification bypass

[yfernbottom]

I am on an Epic Hard streak of 13 now, but thinking after my Sands experience that I should give up on it. The lower level epic stuff on Hard was manageable, and more fun to me on Hard, but I burned through Raise Dead and Heal scrolls like never before in WizKing and Chain of Flame. I was getting hit hard by trash mobs. King Raiyum was a beast and wiped my hireling party in seconds. The quests took so long (1:45+ each) to figure out (and heal up) that it just wasn't fun by the end.

I know there is some nice stuff you can get in there, but I personally can't stand the entire area. The quests take way too long, and the wilderness area is a huge pain to navigate repeatedly. I do like to get the explorers once and hit all the mini quests (the ones where you just walk up to the entrance to start, and head back to town to turn in). Apart from that I tend to skip the entire adventure pack on both heroic and epic. I personally don't find the main quests to be very fun.

[0ldschool]

You really should try capping LD when you get a chance then Master's Blitz is like an almost permanent +70 Ranged Power (and 30 PRR) buff, it's disgustingly good. And of course you can still use Action Boost: Power on top of it.

That's the plan!

If you plan on staying at cap for a bit, or doing a few ETRs, consider looking for some good gear I'd highly recommend looking for some easy to get pieces, like Orcish Privateer's Boots and Iron Mitts from epic 3BC. They're quite solid stat-wise, and offer a bunch of useful things stacked on one item.

Orcish Boots are on my want list. Boots of Blessed Travel are on my dream list. I'll look up Iron Mitts.

If you own it, Thunderholme is a great source of ML22/24 weapons without a lot of grinding required; even a T0 Thunderforged "blank" is a pretty solid beater unless you have a relevant named item.

Thanks, I followed some good advice and farmed up a Tier 0 TF GxB to replace Divine Artillery when I realized it was a bit lacking. I now have Tier 1 with Blinding, and it gives me good CC and SA damage. I'm happy with it, though only proc'ing once every 12 sec is a limitation. Tier 2 Dragon's Edge is going to be wonderful when I find time to gather 300 more ingots!

Flip side, there's some really good lower level gear out there that can be worth grabbing. Won't get you XP on the way, but often it's a quick zerg or six for a nice item like Blurfingered Gloves from Ravenloft, which give 25% concealment miss chance which is even better than the 20% from those Twisted Shade Bracers (although those are likely a better item otherwise). Or a Mysterious Bauble which is IMO one of the best clickies in DDO especially given how easy it is to obtain (although it's in a weird pack); it would help quite a bit with your healing issues (restores enough SP for 8-50 Cocoons).

Again, we think alike. I went and farmed the Blurfingered Gloves when I realized I would have to dump my Ring of Shadows for the Ring of Stalker. I'm still wearing the gloves, but getting one effect out of that slot is not ideal as I move higher into epics. And here we come to my real desire from Defiler, the Belt of Braided Beards. Lesser Displacement to open up my gloves slot, and INT +17! That belt is calling my name

EDIT: I thought about trying to get one of those helms in Memory Lapse, but my experience trying to farm Kind of Big Deal for the Snake gloves was not good. No named items at all in 12 EH chest openings I worry about White Plume drop rates.

[Ulfo]

And here we come to my real desire from Defiler, the Belt of Braided Beards. Lesser Displacement to open up my gloves slot, and INT +17! That belt is calling my name

You can use Legendary Animated Rope until get your dream item. I use it on all my ranged toons.

I thought about trying to get one of those helms in Memory Lapse, but my experience trying to farm Kind of Big Deal for the Snake gloves was not good. No named items at all in 12 EH chest openings I worry about White Plume drop rates.

For helmet slot you can use Legendary Executioner's Helm, it's good and can be easily farmed. 8)

For INT you can use Legendary Acolyte's Lenses... loot from f2p quest Lost at Sea.

Of course, here always puzzle how put all you wanna in one build...

[0ldschool]

You can use Legendary Animated Rope until get your dream item. I use it on all my ranged toons.



For helmet slot you can use Legendary Executioner's Helm, it's good and can be easily farmed. 8)

For INT you can use Legendary Acolyte's Lenses... loot from f2p quest Lost at Sea.

Of course, here always puzzle how put all you wanna in one build...

Those are on my list, especially Acolyte Lenses which appear to be the ultimate INT item. Can the helm be easily farmed on EN or EH?

I've decided that I'm not going to be able to solo farm the Epic named items that I want any time soon. I tried to run Stay at the Inn on EE (my first attempt at EE) in Tier 5 Shadowdancer, with all the buffs I have, and my Level 10 scarecrow, level 25 owlbear, and level 24 hireling FvS, and couldn't make it past the first fight. Even if I had, that shadow in the basement would have certainly killed me, based upon the fights in EH. Since I can't hang in EE, which I'm totally OK with since this is my first toon, farming gear is not going to be worth it with the lower drop rates on EN or EH. I've seen very few named drops in Epics so far at the lower difficulties, granted that I've mostly run all of the Level 20-24 quests only once. I have an EH streak of 16 going right now, so EH is clearly my lane. Maybe it's time to see if I can tag along on some EE LFM's.

For whatever reason, I'm finding Shiradi not so interesting. Maybe it's the randomness of the damage effects. I'd like to get Nerve Venom, but nothing else is left to really excite me. I may switch out of Shiardi when I get to Tier 4 and move back to LD and take that to Tier 5. Devastating Critical and Master's Blitz are calling me. I could really use the extra 100 HP that LD is giving me too. Tier 1 Avatar is done, I'm 900k into Shiradi, so not far from Tier 4 now.

The Epic Destiny feats look to be generally pretty bad, but I sure like the looks of Elusive Target. Having LD and SD maxed at L28 will allow me to take it if I understand correctly, so that's another reason to max out LD. Or maybe I should just take Toughness, which is likely what I will do at Level 26. I wish I could take Guardian Angel or Holy Strike, both are better than any of the L26 feats (for ranged) in the martial sphere.

[Ulfo]

Can the helm be easily farmed on EN or EH?

Never run EN, but in EH drop rate enough good. I see usual 1-2 per run with full group. For solo it can be longer, but acceptable anyway. And you get precious mats also for later crafting. 8)

[EllisDee37]

I've decided that I'm not going to be able to solo farm the Epic named items that I want any time soon. I tried to run Stay at the Inn on EE (my first attempt at EE) in Tier 5 Shadowdancer, with all the buffs I have, and my Level 10 scarecrow, level 25 owlbear, and level 24 hireling FvS, and couldn't make it past the first fight.

I never was able to solo EE anything, but I did farm multiple epic items on EH, including bracers of twisting shade. So it's possible.

For whatever reason, I'm finding Shiradi not so interesting. Maybe it's the randomness of the damage effects. I'd like to get Nerve Venom, but nothing else is left to really excite me. I may switch out of Shiardi when I get to Tier 4 and move back to LD and take that to Tier 5. Devastating Critical and Master's Blitz are calling me. I could really use the extra 100 HP that LD is giving me too. Tier 1 Avatar is done, I'm 900k into Shiradi, so not far from Tier 4 now.

Unfortunately you're already in a build that is suited to shiradi, so it won't really get better in a different life. I would try to grin and bear it to max shiradi now.

When I maxed out shiradi I did it on a longbow ranger build and found it to be acceptable, if not great. The +4 ranged power from cores (same as Shadowdancer, double the +2 from LD cores) is the primary benefit. As for abilities, I kept Double Rainbow stance active and used the active attacks Pin and Otto's Whistler. Everything else was basically an afterthought. (Mostly spent my AP on dex, as I was a dex build.) I'd advise it's worth another shot (no pun intended) on this life.

As for blitz in LD, it doesn't synergize all that well with a great crossbow. You may find it difficult to raise the stacks above around 5 (of 10) and having it expire completely between fights, though it's always great for long boss fights. Its charges are granted on a per-hit basis, so it works great for repeaters, shuriken throwers, and TWF melee builds. For THF, longbows, and great crossbows, with their slower rate of fire? Not so much. And keep in mind that blitz starts with -12 ranged power compared to shadowdancer and shiradi because LD only gets +2 RP per core instead of +4, so the first 2 stacks of blitz are needed just to break even. I'd rather you play around with blitz on a combat style that's more suited for it so as not to sour you on blitz altogether.

Regarding destiny feats, yeah, they're mostly for melee. PTWF grants +5% doublestrike to all melee weapons regardless of combat style, so that's a no-brainer for all melee. For ranged, the clear best #1 destiny feat by a mile is Doubleshot, but that requires two Primal destinies. Which brings me to...

Fury of the Wild is actually pretty solid for a great crossbow build. Adrenaline -- granted immediately in the first core ability -- is a single-shot active attack that does large damage, increasing as you get more cores. It's got a delay, in that you click it, your character freezes for a full half second, then your next attack of any kind includes adrenaline. When the destiny is maxed, the adrenaline effect is +16 crit range and +400% damage, which for a great crossbow means guaranteed crit, and the damage is 4x a normal crit, 5 times per rest. In tier 5 you get to take Fury Eternal, which has a chance to recharge 1 adrenaline use on vorpal, and your great crossbow build vorpals on 19-20 so that's a total win. You'll want your adrenalized shots to be as damaging as possible, so try to only do it with Wracking Shots (+1[W]) or Leg Shot (+2[W]), tiers 2 and 4 in the mechanic tree respectively.

For ranged builds, the epic past life from primal is much better than martial, so you may decide to switch over from martial to primal for your first epic past life. If you do, max shiradi and fury and take doubleshot as your level 28 destiny feat.

If not, I would just take shiradi to tier 5 for fate points (maxed if you can stomach it), then switch back to shadowdancer for the rest of this life and reincarnate at 30 back to 20, then either run another epic life or TR back to 1 into something else.

[0ldschool]

I never was able to solo EE anything, but I did farm multiple epic items on EH, including bracers of twisting shade. So it's possible.

Unfortunately you're already in a build that is suited to shiradi, so it won't really get better in a different life. I would try to grin and bear it to max shiradi now.

When I maxed out shiradi I did it on a longbow ranger build and found it to be acceptable, if not great. The +4 ranged power from cores (same as Shadowdancer, double the +2 from LD cores) is the primary benefit. As for abilities, I kept Double Rainbow stance active and used the active attacks Pin and Otto's Whistler. Everything else was basically an afterthought. (Mostly spent my AP on dex, as I was a dex build.) I'd advise it's worth another shot (no pun intended) on this life.

As for blitz in LD, it doesn't synergize all that well with a great crossbow. You may find it difficult to raise the stacks above around 5 (of 10) and having it expire completely between fights, though it's always great for long boss fights. Its charges are granted on a per-hit basis, so it works great for repeaters, shuriken throwers, and TWF melee builds. For THF, longbows, and great crossbows, with their slower rate of fire? Not so much. And keep in mind that blitz starts with -12 ranged power compared to shadowdancer and shiradi because LD only gets +2 RP per core instead of +4, so the first 2 stacks of blitz are needed just to break even. I'd rather you play around with blitz on a combat style that's more suited for it so as not to sour you on blitz altogether.

Regarding destiny feats, yeah, they're mostly for melee. PTWF grants +5% doublestrike to all melee weapons regardless of combat style, so that's a no-brainer for all melee. For ranged, the clear best #1 destiny feat by a mile is Doubleshot, but that requires two Primal destinies. Which brings me to...

Fury of the Wild is actually pretty solid for a great crossbow build. Adrenaline -- granted immediately in the first core ability -- is a single-shot active attack that does large damage, increasing as you get more cores. It's got a delay, in that you click it, your character freezes for a full half second, then your next attack of any kind includes adrenaline. When the destiny is maxed, the adrenaline effect is +16 crit range and +400% damage, which for a great crossbow means guaranteed crit, and the damage is 4x a normal crit, 5 times per rest. In tier 5 you get to take Fury Eternal, which has a chance to recharge 1 adrenaline use on vorpal, and your great crossbow build vorpals on 19-20 so that's a total win. You'll want your adrenalized shots to be as damaging as possible, so try to only do it with Wracking Shots (+1[W]) or Leg Shot (+2[W]), tiers 2 and 4 in the mechanic tree respectively.

For ranged builds, the epic past life from primal is much better than martial, so you may decide to switch over from martial to primal for your first epic past life. If you do, max shiradi and fury and take doubleshot as your level 28 destiny feat.

If not, I would just take shiradi to tier 5 for fate points (maxed if you can stomach it), then switch back to shadowdancer for the rest of this life and reincarnate at 30 back to 20, then either run another epic life or TR back to 1 into something else.

I saw the +10% Doubleshot feat, and immediately thought I couldn't imagine maxing Primal Avatar. I had looked at FotW once and I saw so much melee stuff that I figured it was pointless. Thanks for bringing to my attention. Unbridled Fury looks spectacular for a boss fight! This may be the new plan. I was still going to max Shiradi, I was just thinking of going back to LD to max it first. But now I may have a reason not to bother. Primal feats are more suited for ranged, no doubt.

I've got all of +W clickies lined up on my hot bar: Leg Shot/Shrouding/Executioners in SD, and Leg Shot/Pin/Otto's in Shiradi. Right next to them is Assassin's trick to get that extra fortification bypass and sneak attack on red named and constructs/undead/plants. I sequence through them in every fight to sustain +2/3W. Executioners Shot gives a +1 crit range and +1 crit multiplier, making it my favorite by far. While I use Improved Uncanny Dodge in Shiradi, I can click Meld/IUD/Improved Invis in sequence while in SD, which is a nice survivability combo to start a fight. That, the +7% dodge, and the 25% incorp from Shadow Form are what I miss the most when I'm not is SD. Oh, the extra 6d6 Sneak attack too. I hope that when I get up into the more serious damage from the 7% chance procs in Shiradi, it will start to shine.

I'm finding that most of my focus on maxing miss chances that I had in heroics is fading, probably because I've maxed them, and that my attention is now focused on maximizing the chance to crit and the damage when crit'ing. Well, that and Doubleshot and Ranger Power and maxing sneak damage. Adrenaline and Unbridled Fury look fun!

EDIT: +6 RP total for FotW stinks I was researching ways to increase Ranged power last night (not many) and had a revelation. That Action Boost Power that gives me +30 RP, the one I was missing so much from LD, it exists in the same form in the Assassin tree! I already have 24 AP into that tree for SA and Killer, so re-specing for the boost was trivial. I dumped Venomed Blades III for Boost III. At the time I was building that tree, I had no appreciation for what Ranged Power really was. There's an argument to be made that full time 1d8 poison per shot is better, esp at lower levels, but now into Epics the boost seems a much better use of 3 AP. Venomed Blades only scales with melee power, not ranged, so yet another reason to dump it for my toon.

[0ldschool]

Apologies to anyone annoyed by my use of this thread as running commentary on my first journey into epics. I have been following EllisDee's wonderful advice on Destinies that he posted in this thread, and continue to value all of the great feedback that I've gotten.

I capped Shiradi last night! It actually happened while wandering the Demonweb wilderness, not really intended as I was looking around for quests. Shiradi started to shine as I had hoped. I'd like to credit Double Rainbow and Nerve Venom, but I think it probably had more to do with the core increases in RP and the core 5 and 6 extra damage effects. I hate to leave it behind now, it was just coming into its own.

I'm still in Eveningstar, so many quests in the Level 21-24 range are based there. I still have the 4 Demonweb quests and 4 Druids Deep quests to run, but I may veer off track to Giantold for now, I'm tiring of the Forgotten Realms a bit. I'm either going to knock out the last 1M in LD or start FoTW, have not decided yet. The L28 feat choices appear to be Doubleshot or Elusive Target, depending on what destinies I have filled when I get there. I'd prefer Doubleshot of course, but we'll see how FotW goes. L29 feat will be Harbinger I guess, I don't know if anything else will be available to me.

Since I just hit the finish line of the plan that was mapped out for me, I wanted to thank EllisDee yet again for taking the time to not only explain epic destinies to this newbie, but for taking the time to give me a roadmap for my first character's journey through the destinies. I feel like my path now is to continue moving upward, filling destinies, and getting to L30 with Zanthiss. I'm actually anxious to get to the point where I can run raids. I know that I'll probably be the least powerful toon in there, but if I can contribute in any way and not just be a backpack stone, I will be very happy.

EDIT: Forgot to add that I farmed the L24 Bracers of Twisting Shade on EH with little trouble. They are working for me, for now. I wish that they had an augment slot. I also farmed Golden Guile when I realized what Improved Deception can do for me. This was an easy farm too. It seems to be one of those heroic items that remain useful into Epics. The gear tetris game continues.

[SpartanKiller13]

Apologies to anyone annoyed by my use of this thread as running commentary on my first journey into epics. I have been following EllisDee's wonderful advice on Destinies that he posted in this thread, and continue to value all of the great feedback that I've gotten.

I'm enjoying it

To address one of your earlier concerns, farming for gear on EN/EH: devs have stated that for the last bunch of updates, drop rates of named loot are 10/16/33% on N/H/E, +1% per Reaper Skull. So you certainly can farm on EN/EH, but it might take longer.

I capped Shiradi last night! It actually happened while wandering the Demonweb wilderness, not really intended as I was looking around for quests. Shiradi started to shine as I had hoped. I'd like to credit Double Rainbow and Nerve Venom, but I think it probably had more to do with the core increases in RP and the core 5 and 6 extra damage effects. I hate to leave it behind now, it was just coming into its own.

Gratz! That's awesome! And also the hardest part of working through ED's, just where you start to get used to them it's time to swap out XD It can be worth swapping back for gear farming or low-XP quests.

I'm still in Eveningstar, so many quests in the Level 21-24 range are based there. I still have the 4 Demonweb quests and 4 Druids Deep quests to run, but I may veer off track to Giantold for now, I'm tiring of the Forgotten Realms a bit. I'm either going to knock out the last 1M in LD or start FoTW, have not decided yet. The L28 feat choices appear to be Doubleshot or Elusive Target, depending on what destinies I have filled when I get there. I'd prefer Doubleshot of course, but we'll see how FotW goes. L29 feat will be Harbinger I guess, I don't know if anything else will be available to me.

Make sure you have enough Destiny stuff filled out to qualify for the Destiny feats you want, or it's a sad day. Remember that you can bank almost one level worth of XP (so you can get 1 XP short of 29 before you have to take 28). Might be useful to fill out the last bit of a Destiny.

FotW has been a lot of fun for me (I'm LD usually, but trying to get Primal Karma). The burst on demand is amazing although it, like other Destinies, takes a little bit to get going.

Since I just hit the finish line of the plan that was mapped out for me, I wanted to thank EllisDee yet again for taking the time to not only explain epic destinies to this newbie, but for taking the time to give me a roadmap for my first character's journey through the destinies. I feel like my path now is to continue moving upward, filling destinies, and getting to L30 with Zanthiss. I'm actually anxious to get to the point where I can run raids. I know that I'll probably be the least powerful toon in there, but if I can contribute in any way and not just be a backpack stone, I will be very happy.

EDIT: Forgot to add that I farmed the L24 Bracers of Twisting Shade on EH with little trouble. They are working for me, for now. I wish that they had an augment slot. I also farmed Golden Guile when I realized what Improved Deception can do for me. This was an easy farm too. It seems to be one of those heroic items that remain useful into Epics. The gear tetris game continues.

Your signature says you're on Cannith (and I feel like I've seen you before) so feel free to PM here or in-game @Khysiria and I'd be happy to have you in my raids If you're interested, open invite to Hand of Death as well; we're the largest guild on the server, and have plenty of teaching raids multiple times/week. We tend to run fairly chill raids, you won't die much and you won't stay a stone for long at all Also plenty of other new people so you'll be in good company XD

Gear tetris is a constant battle in DDO, to the point that I've used heroic gear well into epics plenty often (last two lives using 6-piece slaver set ML8 at level 28). Good luck!

[askrj1]

Apologies to anyone annoyed by my use of this thread as running commentary on my first journey into epics. I have been following EllisDee's wonderful advice on Destinies that he posted in this thread, and continue to value all of the great feedback that I've gotten.

I can't speak for everyone but I have to say you're refreshing to read/watch compared to most newer players complaining what's not working for them rather than asking for help learning to be a better player. Also nice to see all the experienced players willing to come forth to help and give good advice to new players, and top it off not being brushed off. Would probably be a much healthier community if we had more new players like you.

[0ldschool]

I'm enjoying it

To address one of your earlier concerns, farming for gear on EN/EH: devs have stated that for the last bunch of updates, drop rates of named loot are 10/16/33% on N/H/E, +1% per Reaper Skull. So you certainly can farm on EN/EH, but it might take longer.



Gratz! That's awesome! And also the hardest part of working through ED's, just where you start to get used to them it's time to swap out XD It can be worth swapping back for gear farming or low-XP quests.



Make sure you have enough Destiny stuff filled out to qualify for the Destiny feats you want, or it's a sad day. Remember that you can bank almost one level worth of XP (so you can get 1 XP short of 29 before you have to take 28). Might be useful to fill out the last bit of a Destiny.

FotW has been a lot of fun for me (I'm LD usually, but trying to get Primal Karma). The burst on demand is amazing although it, like other Destinies, takes a little bit to get going.



Your signature says you're on Cannith (and I feel like I've seen you before) so feel free to PM here or in-game @Khysiria and I'd be happy to have you in my raids If you're interested, open invite to Hand of Death as well; we're the largest guild on the server, and have plenty of teaching raids multiple times/week. We tend to run fairly chill raids, you won't die much and you won't stay a stone for long at all Also plenty of other new people so you'll be in good company XD

Gear tetris is a constant battle in DDO, to the point that I've used heroic gear well into epics plenty often (last two lives using 6-piece slaver set ML8 at level 28). Good luck!

Yes, I am banking XP, now an old habit from heroics. I found that taking the levels is less problematic in Epics, since over level XP penalties are gone (except for wilderness areas), and it is nice to get the extra ranged power at each level, but old habits die hard. I was forced to take Level 26, now there and banking again with 5.7M XP. I've had quite good luck farming on EH, I'm just not at the solo EE level yet. Farming MoTU gear is a joy compared to White Plume, or Trial of Archons, but it's of course pretty out of date. For now, I am getting use out of it so I'm happy.

Thanks so much for the raid invite and the guild invite. I will PM you.

[0ldschool]

See my new signature - Level 30! I hit Level 30 last night on my first toon, Zanthiss, after completing Break in the Ice, just once quest short (WGU) of knocking out the last two FR sagas. I'm kind of surprised how quickly 8.25M xp came, well, quickly for me. I think it was roughly 9 weeks or so from buying MoTU during the sales and jumping into Epics. I must say, it's been lots of fun, and I'm SO glad that I decided to not TR at 20. Going from owning some content to basically all content over the course of a week in late December has really opened up the game to me.

I hit the 1.98M xp cap in FotW exactly when I hit Epic cap last night, mostly due to pure luck. This was key to getting the 10% Doubleshot feat that I missed when I moved to L28. I took Level 29 and 30 at once, got my fate points, Doubleshot and Improved SA feats, and my scion. I then equipped the one real end game piece of loot I've lucked into in my limited farming attempts, the Bracers of Order & Chaos. As someone who's been somewhat obsessed with maxing saves (since my rogue is a bit squishy), I was pretty excited to pull them. I've got a lot of gear tetris to manage right now as I try to prep for raiding. Thanks to Khysiria for hooking me up with the raid scene. I plan to reside at cap for a while, still plenty of L28+ quests to be run and at least one sphere to still be filled with 2M more xp.

Again, much gratitude goes to EllisDee for taking the time to explain Destinies and map out a path for me. I remember the first time I looked at the Epic Destinies page, I was completely baffled and frankly very intimidated by it. Your generosity in taking the time to lend a helping hand to this newb meant a lot to me.

Zanthiss moves forward into the unknown! If you're on Cannith, I'll take any help I can get farming out RL and raid loot, I'm pretty much a blank slate when it comes to end game gear

[Bozone]

Congratulations!

[SpartanKiller13]

See my new signature - Level 30! I hit Level 30 last night on my first toon, Zanthiss, after completing Break in the Ice, just once quest short (WGU) of knocking out the last two FR sagas. I'm kind of surprised how quickly 8.25M xp came, well, quickly for me. I think it was roughly 9 weeks or so from buying MoTU during the sales and jumping into Epics. I must say, it's been lots of fun, and I'm SO glad that I decided to not TR at 20. Going from owning some content to basically all content over the course of a week in late December has really opened up the game to me.

I hit the 1.98M xp cap in FotW exactly when I hit Epic cap last night, mostly due to pure luck. This was key to getting the 10% Doubleshot feat that I missed when I moved to L28. I took Level 29 and 30 at once, got my fate points, Doubleshot and Improved SA feats, and my scion. I then equipped the one real end game piece of loot I've lucked into in my limited farming attempts, the Bracers of Order & Chaos. As someone who's been somewhat obsessed with maxing saves (since my rogue is a bit squishy), I was pretty excited to pull them. I've got a lot of gear tetris to manage right now as I try to prep for raiding. Thanks to Khysiria for hooking me up with the raid scene. I plan to reside at cap for a while, still plenty of L28+ quests to be run and at least one sphere to still be filled with 2M more xp.

Again, much gratitude goes to EllisDee for taking the time to explain Destinies and map out a path for me. I remember the first time I looked at the Epic Destinies page, I was completely baffled and frankly very intimidated by it. Your generosity in taking the time to lend a helping hand to this newb meant a lot to me.

Zanthiss moves forward into the unknown! If you're on Cannith, I'll take any help I can get farming out RL and raid loot, I'm pretty much a blank slate when it comes to end game gear

Gratz! Been a fun journey to watch

If you're not tired of your current build, after you finish up farming a bit etc I'd recommend an ETR. Then you can do 20-30 again, which is pretty breezy, and get some nice benefits!

Hope to run with you soon And good luck!

[spyder7723]

See my new signature - Level 30! I hit Level 30 last night on my first toon, Zanthiss, after completing Break in the Ice, just once quest short (WGU) of knocking out the last two FR sagas. I'm kind of surprised how quickly 8.25M xp came, well, quickly for me. I think it was roughly 9 weeks or so from buying MoTU during the sales and jumping into Epics. I must say, it's been lots of fun, and I'm SO glad that I decided to not TR at 20. Going from owning some content to basically all content over the course of a week in late December has really opened up the game to me.

I hit the 1.98M xp cap in FotW exactly when I hit Epic cap last night, mostly due to pure luck. This was key to getting the 10% Doubleshot feat that I missed when I moved to L28. I took Level 29 and 30 at once, got my fate points, Doubleshot and Improved SA feats, and my scion. I then equipped the one real end game piece of loot I've lucked into in my limited farming attempts, the Bracers of Order & Chaos. As someone who's been somewhat obsessed with maxing saves (since my rogue is a bit squishy), I was pretty excited to pull them. I've got a lot of gear tetris to manage right now as I try to prep for raiding. Thanks to Khysiria for hooking me up with the raid scene. I plan to reside at cap for a while, still plenty of L28+ quests to be run and at least one sphere to still be filled with 2M more xp.

Again, much gratitude goes to EllisDee for taking the time to explain Destinies and map out a path for me. I remember the first time I looked at the Epic Destinies page, I was completely baffled and frankly very intimidated by it. Your generosity in taking the time to lend a helping hand to this newb meant a lot to me.

Zanthiss moves forward into the unknown! If you're on Cannith, I'll take any help I can get farming out RL and raid loot, I'm pretty much a blank slate when it comes to end game gear

A year from now you well be knocking out the epic levels in a single day. There is so much xp in epics you just blue through the levels.

[Noir]

It's been a joy watching you experience DDO for the first time.
To hit obstacles, take a step back and seek advice or re-evaluate the situation
for a "better" way to overcome the challenge.

Never once did I see you come to the forums and rant or complain or ask for something in a quest
to be modified or changed. I envy the folks on Canneth that have or will be grouping with you.

Three Cheers for the new Level 30!!!!
Hip Hip Huzzah!!
Hip Hip Huzzah!!
Hip Hip Huzzah!!

[Gabrael]

if you got ravenloft, go grab your free lvl 29 weapon of your choice, AND the free sentient gem.

also gratz on 30, now get +9% doubleshot epic past life :P

[0ldschool]

if you got ravenloft, go grab your free lvl 29 weapon of your choice, AND the free sentient gem.

also gratz on 30, now get +9% doubleshot epic past life :P

Thanks! I just got around to looking at the Morninglord / Nightmothers weapons. I found no easy place to view their stats on DDOwiki, had to dig to find it on the U37 Named Items page. Unless my math is very off, I have no more reason to really even think about upgrading my TF Tier 1 GxB to Tier 2 (which I tentatively planned to do and was dreading the ingot collection). I really like Blinding on my Tier 1 for SA, and I very much wanted that AP +35 @ tier 2, but the base damage put out by the RL weapons is simply so much higher than the TF Tier 2 that there is no real point in pursuing it any more. I can find Armor Piercing elsewhere. I had planned to take an RL repeater as an undead killer, a place where the GxB does not shine, but I now see no reason not to grab the Morninglord GxB and make that my main weapon until something better comes along, if ever. (Volley, Epic DA perhaps?)

Thanks for the reminder!

EDIT: Coming full circle on the original topic, if I don't get AP on my weapon, and assuming I don't CC a pair of gloves, I see only a few really good end game options for high AP bonuses (30+). Leg. Knife Toed boots (not thrilled about them), Molten Silver Gauntlets, and the rogue-iest of the options, Leg. Mask of Vulkorim. Am I missing any good ones? And yes, I'm aware of the Silent Avenger bonus and want that too.

[SpartanKiller13]

Thanks! I just got around to looking at the Morninglord / Nightmothers weapons. I found no easy place to view their stats on DDOwiki, had to dig to find it on the U37 Named Items page. Unless my math is very off, I have no more reason to really even think about upgrading my TF Tier 1 GxB to Tier 2 (which I tentatively planned to do and was dreading the ingot collection). I really like Blinding on my Tier 1 for SA, and I very much wanted that AP +35 @ tier 2, but the base damage put out by the RL weapons is simply so much higher than the TF Tier 2 that there is no real point in pursuing it any more. I can find Armor Piercing elsewhere. I had planned to take an RL repeater as an undead killer, a place where the GxB does not shine, but I now see no reason not to grab the Morninglord GxB and make that my main weapon until something better comes along, if ever. (Volley, Epic DA perhaps?)

Since there is a whole set of them they are only listed on the U37 page instead of like 20 individual pages. Means they don't show up on individual weapon searches though.

For me, I have TF T0 (for ML22), TF T1 (for ML24), and just now I'm getting into LGS (for ML26). Ravenloft raid weapons are 28, otherwise Morninglord etc are 29. If you own it, 2 runs of LShroud should get you a T2 LGS weapon if you ask for Small/Medium ingredients (only need a few people to pass to have enough ingredients, and many will happily), which is pretty great.

It's worth having multiple weapons if you plan on ETRing (or even just epic leveling) frequently the powerspikes are pretty noticeable.

AFAIK Volley is BIS among GXBow builds; excellent base damage and the fact that it's Bludgeoning damage (and thus qualifies for Pulverizer in LD = +1 crit range) mean it wins DPS wars, and Fetters + the guaranteed 90% slow proc is amazing utility as well. Besides, it takes a max of 20 Baba runs (15 if you run on LH like most groups do) to get the runes for it (if it doesn't drop), whereas Archon's can be a pain to farm in my experience.

As far as Armorpiercing for a ranged build, I think your best bets will be either Legendary Mask of the Vulkoorim from Toxic Treatment (if you own it), or a Cannith Crafted Gloves/Trinket (only level 50 for the AP shard, but the ML shard is a lot higher for an epic piece...). Otherwise you're using an entire gearslot for one effect like Legendary Pendant of the Warrior's Focus, which feels bad; or requiring raid loot like Molten Silver Gauntlets which isn't much better (although if you plan on melee lives in the future consider getting a pair). Still, Precision/Grim Precision/Opportunist/Airship/whatever gear you can use adds up fast.

Edit: to address your edit, Cannith Crafted ML34 is only +23. But you can put like Doubleshot, or Bluff, etc on them as well

[0ldschool]

Since there is a whole set of them they are only listed on the U37 page instead of like 20 individual pages. Means they don't show up on individual weapon searches though.

For me, I have TF T0 (for ML22), TF T1 (for ML24), and just now I'm getting into LGS (for ML26). Ravenloft raid weapons are 28, otherwise Morninglord etc are 29. If you own it, 2 runs of LShroud should get you a T2 LGS weapon if you ask for Small/Medium ingredients (only need a few people to pass to have enough ingredients, and many will happily), which is pretty great.

It's worth having multiple weapons if you plan on ETRing (or even just epic leveling) frequently the powerspikes are pretty noticeable.

AFAIK Volley is BIS among GXBow builds; excellent base damage and the fact that it's Bludgeoning damage (and thus qualifies for Pulverizer in LD = +1 crit range) mean it wins DPS wars, and Fetters + the guaranteed 90% slow proc is amazing utility as well. Besides, it takes a max of 20 Baba runs (15 if you run on LH like most groups do) to get the runes for it (if it doesn't drop), whereas Archon's can be a pain to farm in my experience.

As far as Armorpiercing for a ranged build, I think your best bets will be either Legendary Mask of the Vulkoorim from Toxic Treatment (if you own it), or a Cannith Crafted Gloves/Trinket (only level 50 for the AP shard, but the ML shard is a lot higher for an epic piece...). Otherwise you're using an entire gearslot for one effect like Legendary Pendant of the Warrior's Focus, which feels bad; or requiring raid loot like Molten Silver Gauntlets which isn't much better (although if you plan on melee lives in the future consider getting a pair). Still, Precision/Grim Precision/Opportunist/Airship/whatever gear you can use adds up fast.

Edit: to address your edit, Cannith Crafted ML34 is only +23. But you can put like Doubleshot, or Bluff, etc on them as well

I picked up an interesting option for AP. Legendary Stormreach Guardians Crossbow with +31 AP. As far as my math tells me, it's the best non-RL crossbow out there. If I need the +31 AP and only get it from the xbow, it COULD be a viable alternative to the Morninglord GxB, but I think it will need to be the right situation. I've never had luck keeping up Blitz, maybe Blitz with this thing would work. My good luck farming legendary non-RL quests continues vs. my absolutely horrific luck farming RL. It's become pretty frustrating, I can't pull a thing out of Fresh Baked or Sealed In Amber with re-rolls and with help from others joining in my LFMs (and yes, I'm keeping an eye on chest ransack).

So I'm finding it very difficult to leave FoTW (I have not left it since hitting epic XP cap). Loved the cool rogue gadgets in SD, the +CON and damage boost from LD, and the CC options and random procs from Shiradi, but nothing is quite like Adrenaline Overload and Unbridled Fury. I can typically survive the trash mobs in Legendary EH if I take my time, but the high HP red names present the largest threat to me, occasionally killing my hirelings and then me if the fight takes too long. AO and UF are game changing, allowing me to make relatively quick work of the bosses. I'm getting 7k damage per shot consistently. This may not be much dps for you vets, but for me, a mostly soloing newb on my first life, getting 17 7k shots in a little over 60 seconds feels irreplaceable. It allows me to survive boss fights in Legendary EH quests that I otherwise would not by ending the fight much more quickly. I want to go back to SD and Shiradi and LD for some more fun with those destinies, but how do I give this amazing power away?!? I'm going to play around with my new xbow in LD and see if I can sustain Blitz, that may be the only thing close to my Adrenaline addiction.

I'd like to add that not being able to see Fortification Bypass anywhere in the character sheet continues to be annoying. Not knowing mob fortification makes it that much harder to guess when it's needed.