The Blackguard

[Pilgrim1]

In 3.5 a blackguard was a fallen paladin. One who was a front line evil melee based toon who used spells to supplement themselves. In DDO we cant be evil, and sooo much is different, however this toon is an undead front line melee.

Goals:
1) stupidly survivable (approaching tank levels)
2) self healing that works in reaper questing
3) melee combat
4) strong DPS (top-tear would be nice, but not likely)

The play-style is to self buff yourself with aura’s and use your strong defenses to go toe-to-toe with mobs and bosses.

20 wizard, con/str build - No DC casting.
41 AP into PM to get greater death aura(capstone), 37/39 AP (t5) in EK for melee goodies

Race: I picked warforged as my race for fast swaps of docents, also i have racial AP so i could get 15 MP.
Str: 18 + level ups
Dex: dump (or min for TWF)
Con: 20
Int: 12
Wis: dump
Chr: dump

Feets:
1) - Power attack/precision (13 dex)
1w) - extend
3) - SWF/TWF/2HF (15 dex)
5w) - quicken
6) cleave
9) adamantine body
10w) maximize
12) great Cleave
15) ISWF/ITWF/2HF (17 dex)
15w) Empower
18) Improved Critical
20w) Mental toughness
21) GSWF/GTWF/G2HF
24) Overwhelming critical
26) PTWF/P2hf
27) master of death
28) negative spell power/PTWF
29) Deific warding
30) wellspring of power
30) scion of FIRE!


Points:

• I am currently running 2hf, i like it a lot. The gear also works really well with swf but i like the aoe from 2hf.
• The destiny is fate singer because it provides 70 melee power, 5 caster levels, 100 negative spell power, 10 negative amp, and a handful of other goodies.
• Twists are meld, tsunami, emperian magic, a dance of flowers, and commanding presence. lots of other options to try to.
• My end game stats (outside of reaper - unbuffed) are ~2200 hp, 328 heal amp, 270 PRR, 200 MRR, 200 MP, 92% DS, and 190% strikethrough. In addition i have 50% displacement, 25% incorporeal, and.. 3 dodge!
• The self healing comes from swapping gear, activating clickies/boosts/feets, and casting extended greater, lesser, and normal death aura. With these combined I heal for ~900hp total every tick in r6.

This is my gear set for 2hf:

• Legendary Collective sight (con/str)
• Legendary Panasonic circlet
• the families blessing
• bloodrage chrism
• Legendary black velvet capelet
• Legendary festering mummy wraps
• Sigil of the triumvirate
• Legendary hammerfist
• Legendary Slave lords shackles (sheltering/accuracy/tendonslice/Qstr)
• circle of malevolence
• Legendary bracers of the fallen hero
• Legendary umberal soul docent
• tail of the scorpion and legendary blackrazor are both great options

Every 3 minutes I stop fighting and have to re-buff my auras. To do this i swap in 6 gear items (The legendary dreadkeeper set, legendary silverthread belt, null the darkness within + legendary stygain wrath, and a 3x negative crit damage LGS item). Then I use all my boosts (spell power action boost, reaper spell power action boost, and wellspring of power). Then i re-equip the 6 items.

The build is extremely survivable. By far this is the most tanky melee toon i have ever played (bar pure tanks). It lends itself to some really good solo play as well, I have soloed a handful of ravenloft quests on r8 and some sharn on r6. The DPS is quite strong as well. On my burntsmash tests auto attacking with no boosts yielded ~15k dps. Compare to similar tests as a pure 20 pally was 17k.

This build deliverers on being a very tanky melee and having good damage. The issues that irritate me are the intensive gear swapping when I need to re-buff (can take almost 15 seconds), the lack of much crowd control, and the lack of any real burst damage or continuous action boosts.

[Pilgrim1]

Still working on gear, tbd

Tank gear set:
(special thanks to Tronko on Cannith for his gear list)

Guardian of the gates set (chest, helm, neck).
Esoteric Initiate set (goggles and bracer only).
2 PC LGS opposition with reflex and fort (gloves and boots).
Legendary silverthread belt (belt)
Legendary Celestial Emerald ring (with con).
Legendary Black velvet cloak.
Stolen Signet of Ir'Wynarn (ring).
CC trinket of wisdom/Neg amp/In. con

Legendary Mirrorplate Tower (to be replaced by the lunar eclipse)
Null, the darkness within.

With this setup, when casting your death auras, all that needs to be swapped is the docent (for enigma core), the shield (for stygain wrath orb), and a LGS item for a negative crit damage.
This nets you full crit chance and spell power when casting your death auras. Extra props to swap for those gloves with arcane augmentation.

I'm not fully satisfied with the gear set, but i think it will have to do until they fix the new pack. The docent associated with the negative heal amp set was not released. That may change my get set-up.

[Tilomere]

They changed death auras to proc on-spell hit effects. So maybe one of the new raid weapons like Flow with a strong LGS proc with no cooldown ... on your death auras.

They didn't change them in a way that makes them not proc on players, even if they don't ultimately affect players. So pick something that doesn't have a sound, or you will hear it continuously.

You may find you enjoy melee in Shiradi ... using CM as your offensive spell.

[NemesisAlien]

Park for more updates.

[Pilgrim1]

They changed death auras to proc on-spell hit effects. So maybe one of the new raid weapons like Flow with a strong LGS proc with no cooldown ... on your death auras.

They didn't change them in a way that makes them not proc on players, even if they don't ultimately affect players. So pick something that doesn't have a sound, or you will hear it continuously.

You may find you enjoy melee in Shiradi ... using CM as your offensive spell.

It has been this way for a long time. I would only do this with lesser death aura. The other auras are needed for self healing. Possibly salt and affirmation. Also only LGS provide on hit effects with spell cast, all the new raid weapons are melee. Well there is aoe blind from a battle axe and the quarterstaff. Also defiec triggers off aura spells.

I would never run in sharadi on this build, it does not provide melee power, CL, or spell power bonuses. Caster level is incredibly important for death aura procs. If you have 300 amp, 100% crit chance, 280% crit damage, and 1400 spell power your multiplier is 168 * base. So the difference between CL 26 and CL 20 is 3 points from each death aura or a total of 1008 hp each tick of incoming healing.

My gearing goal is to meat the above numbers without more then 1-2 gear swaps. When the new set’s docent becomes available I may switch to that set. Gearing on these types of builds is a big struggle.

You can of course go into draconic and pump int instead of str. This eventually leads to a DC casting style, but its worth considering if your not heavily inclined to melee. I do have a pure DC wizard and the toon is disgustingly strong, however i wanted this toon to focus more on melee.

I suspect as I massage the gear and play more with a melee wizard ill end up going INT>CON>STR, similar AP with a stronger investment into evocation DC. We will see.

BTW switching into draconic yields only a 5% increase in healing.

Something else I have been thinking about is running vistani with PM. It would free up more AP for harper (so i could go pure int). I’m not sure if the melee damage would change, but the survivability drops.

In addition a self healing wizard tank is very possible. My back of the envelope numbers sit in at ~3500 hp, 325 PRR, 200 MRR, 375 AC. Along with 5300 hp/tick.

End goal of course is to combine everything into one monster toon.

[Tilomere]

Pale master auras apply only certain LGS effects, so coonsider:

Does Work: LGS Dust/Ooze while casting Death Auras.

Doesn't Work: Affirmation, Salt, Vacuum, Shiradi (any)
Untested: Ashe, Radiance, Damage Procs

Also untested: Hellish Rebuke with LGS? May also proc empyrian?

Was thinking but not sure to then melee twf with Balanced Attacks and Sense Weakness twisted with daggers in Shiradi, using ranged power for damage from weapon versatility and FoK as a cleave.

PS: Docents was brilliant...
PSS: I just realized I can add ooze, dust, and ash? to my wizzy inquizzy at level 26 with the two auras...

Edit: Fixed up as per Pilgrim1 and testing on live

[Pilgrim1]

I was thinking more of a Rainbow Unicorn Build.

Rainbow Unicorn
1 Cast Lesser Death aura with a Hoarfrost(LGS Ice and LGS Vacuum) + LGS Dust
2 Cast Death Aura with a LGS Ooze + LGS Ash
3 Cast Greater Death Aura with a LGS Salt + LGS Radiance

Was thinking but not sure to then melee twf with Balanced Attacks and Sense Weakness twisted with daggers in Shiradi, using ranged power for damage from weapon versatility and FoK as a cleave. Shiradi adds in Nerve Venom and Colors of the Queen CC procs, just in case the mobs aren't jacked up enough. PM wraith 41 AP, 8 AP Harper for dire charge DC, 26 AP VKF, 6 AP EK

Shattered Device will add a bit more RP and another 10 PRR/MRR debuff to your attacks. Plus this way when they nerf the LGS procs to an internal cooldown of 3 seconds per mob to stop the inquisitor boss gibs it won't affect you at all since you will have a rainbow instead! At worst it will look spectacular.

PS: Docents was brilliant...
PSS: I just realized I can add vacuum, ooze, dust, and ash to my wizzy inquizzy at level 26 with the two auras...

Be carfull what weapons you use to do this, hoarfrost only works on to-hit. Read the weapons carfully. Also by going this rout you lose 18% crit chance from not having the orb. You need to find another source of insightful negative spell power, and if you use a lgs to apply the effects you also lose any option of sentence to add more to your spell power and caster levels.

If you go this rout my suggestion is to use 2x lgs for lesser death aura then go TWF and swap into nightshard + flow. Swap flow for oze for boss?

It will make for a very solid front line toon.

Edit: something else to consider: all LGS effects have some sort of internal cooldown timer, this is what stops you from applying salt to all mobs in a group with fireball or cleave. This means that your aura’s will only apply this effect once per tick per aura. Dont forget affirmation. Also teifling’s guard will also trigger LGS effects.

[Tilomere]

Do you know if tiefling gaurd (Hellish Rebuke) procs Empyrian? That would make up for loss of crit on orb.

Not all LGS have internal cooldowns. LGS Dust doesn't, for example. Fixed up Rainbow Unicorn.

[Karthunk]

At what reaper level would this tank start to fail?

[A-O]

4) strong DPS (top-tear would be nice, but not likely)

How would you itemize for "strong" dps? Dropping Part of the family means dropping a significant amount of damage (hard fitting doublestrike, and the set bonus itself of course).
And if you're not dropping part of the family, how do you reckon you'll tank better than an int version pushing high 90s / low 100s DC mass hold? The int version would have *slightly* lower dps (assuming you still ignore KTA), but a very solid mass hold. Good enough for R5+ sharn at least.

My suggestion is. Go full int, but itemize +21/22 str and +10ins str item if possible. Start with 14-15 str, 18 int, and whatever con. Go full int, go for DCs, but still run str/con as main dmg stats. Pick upp int to accuracy in EK, but ignore harper in favor of 41PM/39EK. You'll do slightly lower dps (think ~10-16 less str), but you'll have a heck of a mass hold. Check your items and see what you can build, that's going to be the real determiner of how viable DPS you'll get along with the tanking.

[Pilgrim1]

Do you know if tiefling gaurd (Hellish Rebuke) procs Empyrian? That would make up for loss of crit on orb.

Not all LGS have internal cooldowns. LGS Dust doesn't, for example. Fixed up Rainbow Unicorn.

I don't know if hellish Rebuke proc's Empyrian, i would suspect not.
I found out that some LGS effects will trigger off of death aura's and some will not. Tested the following.

Affirmation - never trigger.
vulnerability - never trigger.
Freeze - trigger
oze - never an oze, debuff triggers.
salt - never trigger

At what reaper level would this tank start to fail?

I watched Tronko tank 3 of the 5 bosses in PN on R1. I suspect he could face tank all 5 on elite (i can do all 5 on a DC wizard on hard). I have seen him do r10 quests tanking. Thats with a dedicated tank build (witch is only slightly more defensive then this) and a boat-load of PL and reaper points. When I run on my undead the aura's heal both of us and he is close to immortal. Frankly I suspect that the best dedicated groups would all be undead.

How would you itemize for "strong" dps? Dropping Part of the family means dropping a significant amount of damage (hard fitting doublestrike, and the set bonus itself of course).
And if you're not dropping part of the family, how do you reckon you'll tank better than an int version pushing high 90s / low 100s DC mass hold? The int version would have *slightly* lower dps (assuming you still ignore KTA), but a very solid mass hold. Good enough for R5+ sharn at least.

My suggestion is. Go full int, but itemize +21/22 str and +10ins str item if possible. Start with 14-15 str, 18 int, and whatever con. Go full int, go for DCs, but still run str/con as main dmg stats. Pick upp int to accuracy in EK, but ignore harper in favor of 41PM/39EK. You'll do slightly lower dps (think ~10-16 less str), but you'll have a heck of a mass hold. Check your items and see what you can build, that's going to be the real determiner of how viable DPS you'll get along with the tanking.

Thank you for your thoughts. I suspect your right that there is a build in there for a DC - DPS - tank. I think it may require some raid items that I don't have yet however. Now the issue is that if your going full int and building to DC, you might as well go all-in. My DC wizard can get 4k hp in reaper in US. Add in epic defensive fighting and a more con focused and your looking at almost 5k hp. However, once your fully focused on DC negative energy and DC spells become effective mob killing methods. Spell damage has become sufficient that casters can now kill deathblocked and boss mobs, abet at a slower rate. I worry about spreading the build into to many directions.

That said getting an effective mass hold monster or BoGW, or hell, even web, would be great.

[A-O]

[QUOTE=Pilgrim1;6254916]
Now the issue is that if your going full int and building to DC, you might as well go all-in. /QUOTE]

Depends on what you lose. You'll have to make the item plan to be sure of what you lose. But if everything you lose is 2% dps, and you gain a 100dc hold. I think that's a pretty easy choice. If you start losing ins con and stuff like that, then it's a harder question.

[Gilga1]

Hey!
Regarding wiz20 tank I can provide my equip:

Helm: Legendary Standard Issue Faceplate
Necklace: Legendary Standard Issue Sigil
Trinket: CC (Resistance +12, Negative Amplification +61, Insightful Constitution +7)
Goggles: LGS
Armor: Legendary IronHeart
Cloak: Legendary Black Velvet Capelet
Belt: Legendary Silverthread Belt
Wirst: LGS
Gloves: LGS
Ring: Stolen Signet of ir'Wynarn
Ring: Legendary Celestial Emerald Ring
Boots: LGS
Weapon: Null
Shield: The Lunar Eclipse

Like Pilgrim1 said, use item swaps to cast auras.

I played almost all the lvl 30 quests in r10 and I liked it.
Some remarks:
- build is a bit tricky, I took shield proficiency because I wanted Shield Deflection.
- maxing Intimi can also be tricky. I have +22 +11 insightful +11 exceptional on equip and I'm sitting at 125, 135 drinking pot.
- build is strongly PLs/rxp dependent (hp, saves, ac, etc...): I have 6200+ hp, 373 AC, 440 PRR, 305 MRR, saves 114/92/77.
- cloak of night is really good
- reactive discorporation is awesome
- my self heal works perfectly up to r8. In r10 self healing needs more time, so you have to be more careful if you don't have another undead in party.

[Gilga1]

I suspect your right that there is a build in there for a DC - DPS - tank.

I do not think tank+dps+dc is viable in r10. Neither the tank+dps nor the tank+dc are viable in r10... for medium skulls, any build is fine.

I think an EK DPS+DC build is possible, but for equipment reasons I will drop undead form and probably I will go for scoundrel sorc 18-1-1.

[BigErkyKid]

I do not think tank+dps+dc is viable in r10. Neither the tank+dps nor the tank+dc are viable in r10... for medium skulls, any build is fine.

I think an EK DPS+DC build is possible, but for equipment reasons I will drop undead form and probably I will go for scoundrel sorc 18-1-1.

I'd be interested in seeing it. I tried EK DPS with tiefling to remove immunities. It was alright, but not super strong (INQ, wolf. assassin, even tempest). Vistani, tiefling, max EK.

As for tank+DPS, I agree that I don't think it works.

[srjefe]

With this setup, when casting your death auras, all that needs to be swapped is the docent (for enigma core), the shield (for stygain wrath orb), and a LGS item for a negative crit damage.
This nets you full crit chance and spell power when casting your death auras. Extra props to swap for those gloves with arcane augmentation.

I'm not fully satisfied with the gear set, but i think it will have to do until they fix the new pack. The docent associated with the negative heal amp set was not released. That may change my get set-up.

Curious what you ended up with max critical chance?

[Pilgrim1]

Curious what you ended up with max critical chance?

105% =)

[srjefe]

105% =)

curious to know how you got up to 105... Its impressive. I can't seem to break past 86%. At any rate, would love to know your secret ;-)

[Pilgrim1]

curious to know how you got up to 105... Its impressive. I can't seem to break past 86%. At any rate, would love to know your secret ;-)

the toon is now a reconstructing robot, but let me try to re-do it.

5 base
8 PM enh
5 EK enh
15 excpetional (sinsoul docent)
10 artifact (dreadkeeper set)
31 equipment (dreadkeeper bracer)
18 insightful (stygain wrath)
10 empyrean magic
2 feat
---
= 104

Might be some rounding issues somewhere to, o, maybe +1 in a filigree? I would swap items, then cast boosted 3x aura's then swap back. Fatesinger was the best destiny because it boosted spell power, melee power, and arcane caster levels.

It was clumsy to play due to the gear swaps, and the DPS was average, however it had the most absurd healing ever. Like 7,000+ hp every 3 seconds. In reaper 7 end game I was healing to full every 3 seconds.

I am playing the same toon after a lesser reincarnation as a reconstructing robot. It has 41ap in EK and 0 in PM. Also the feats are more offensives in nature, and I have since gotten raid gear for the toon. I do significantly more damage, however my surviability is significantly reduced. My reconstructs hit for 3k, or 750 ish in R5. Past that into more difficult reaper my self healing becomes much weaker. The damage is really strong, with 900 spell power my imbues do crazy damage. I think a 41 ap EK toon is one of the top melee DPS toons out there (single target).

[srjefe]

the toon is now a reconstructing robot, but let me try to re-do it.
10 empyrean magic

^^ great call here - totally forgot about this enh

The gear swaps are a pain. Makes me want to look into macros.