DDOCast 611 - Character Stables

[pjstechie]

Strimtom joins us this week for the latest DDO news and for a discussion on what character types you should consider having in your stable of characters!

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Game News - 3:25
Community News - 34:44
Lightning Post - 45:10
Character Stables - 58:14

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DDO Chronicle 395

[FuzzyDuck81]

I'm very much a fan of characters having the primary, secondary & tertiary role/ability approach - in many circumstances trading off a little from focussing entirely on one single aspect of your character, eg. 5% or 10% damage output for increased defences & immunities, healing etc. can make a huge difference.

I think everyone should have a healer in their stable, in large part so they can realise just how annoying certain playstyles are to deal with & try not to do it any more.

Regarding the thing about people who only play healers, the excellent flexibility of ddo's classes & enhancements mean that yes, while they're all primarily built as healers their secondary ability set can mean they play quite differently, eg. a cleric healer/tank might heal from the front lines, rely on CHA & CON for lots of HP & turns for the healing bursts, aura & ameliorating strike while having relatively low WIS for casting DCs, which is very different from a healer/caster druid who maximises WIS, relies on healing over time which needs more planning ahead & has some solid DC casting like earthquake for crowd control, sunbursts & mass frog for instakills.

I find tanks are an interesting one & IMO a pure, dedicated tank is generally the one role you can regard as almost unnecessary 95% of the time so long as you're in a group that's halfway competent, where frankly they can just end up as less effective DPS, but are absolutely essential in their tanking role for that remaining 5%.

My personal favourite of the tanky type builds I've played is a bear druid as they can take a beating, they have loads of healing (combining regenerate & vigor spells plus consecration is SP intensive but really powerful), their attacks can hit multiple enemies at once thanks to strikethrough & a number of those attacks have crowd control effects too, like stunning & knockdowns - and many of those abilities will benefit team members in addition to just holding enemy attention for those times when the pure tanky role isn't necessary.