DDOCast 548 - Past Life Prioritization: Heroic Lives pt 2

[pjstechie]

The Damsels of DDO return as guest hosts for this week’s DDO game and community news, then we continue our series on Past Life Prioritization by looking at more Heroic Lives with Vooduspyce, Nimvind, and Strimtom!

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Game & Community News - 2:30
Past Life Prioritization: Heroic Lives pt 2 - 35:41

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DDO Chronicle 320
Update 41.3 Release Notes

[FuzzyDuck81]

Druid passive past life can be useful especially in heroics since it never hurts to have more durable hirelings & at lower to mid levels using summons like the gem of wind it makes them considerably better - the stat boost on wolf/iron defender can really help with activating levers & runes too. The flame blade spell really needs to be updated to scale better in line with newer damage progression all the way up to level 30 but that'd presumably be quite a bit of item creation work for Lynnabel. Also, while a monk is centered with them, they're scimitars which monks aren't inherently proficient in so weapon proficiency in itself should definitely be added as a property. Then, change the damage type to light & make them moonblades instead so they work on more things

Favoured soul passive is nice for anyone that uses spells, but the active one is IMO pretty much worthless - replace it with a 3/rest wings maybe & then you've got something that'll actually be desirable. Still, at least the class is fun to play from 1 to 20, especially as a caster considering how powerful their SLAs are thanks to those caster level & max caster level boosts they get & you can take the HP boost at 7 to make them pretty tough.

Fighter passive DC boosts are always handy & are particularly good for falconry or assassin builds since there's not as many ways to boost assassinate DCs. Active one can be good situationally as Strintom pointed out & the extra benefit of full BAB is more PRR from your armour so it'll boost your defense as well as your attack.

About the only time I can see the monk active past life feat being useful on a non-monk is on an INT-based caster with insightful reflexes, but the 1/rest nature of it makes it far too limited - if it was on a timer more like uncanny dodge then it could have some potential as a really desirable feat. The passive +1 damage is nice to have but not huge - and btw you can get a x9 multiplier (& even higher on specific attacks with a multiplier boost added too) or so with, eg a barbarian FB in dreadnaught with overwhelming criticals using a greataxe but that's still only +18 damage which isn't all that huge in the scheme of things at that point.

Paladin passive past life healing amp is always great & I agree there's no other past life that gives as consistent a benefit for almost every build - particularly powerful for light monks due to rounding on fists of light & with their attack rate, even only +1 HP extra per punch adds up fast. Active one really not worth the effort.

Ranger active one is currently rubbish, but that's because the spell needs reworking to scale better, replacing it with camouflage or pass without trace (maybe a combo version of both?) would make it nice for stealthy builds though since those spells stack with items & it'd be in keeping with the general ranger theme. Passive one is amazing on ranged builds, especially repeater users... I've got 3 ranger plus 2 monk lives on a character i'm running through racial lives & am just doing them all as artificer since having at least +8 damage - on each of the 3 shots in a volley - is just phenomenal particularly in the low to mid levels. The inherent elemental resistance stacks with everything & is a handy side benefit.