Hardcore iv advice

[GLITRKING]

I know it's a competition, so I'm not asking anyone to post their hardcore builds or what they have planned. As a new-ish player and just catching the tail end of last season, I was wanting to hear some basic advice from our Hardcore veteran players. What to build for? What not to build? Since it's a little more difficult to have a higher level toon farming for you, how do you go about optimizing gear? How to grab as much favor and RXP as possible with the least amount of risk?

[cru121]

Hardcore iv advice?

Don't die.

[janave]

HP, PRR, MRR*
Fortification 100+ as soon as you can
Saves and Immunities
Self healing / Temp hp
Speed is helpful
Non resource based DPS ( unless wanting to spend on spellpoints)
UMD (Heal Scroll, Restoration, Fireshield, Spell Resistance ...)

Kind of reduces the optimal solo builds, especially when you add in the reaper stuff:

Ghost touch for melee/ranged
Deathward/deathblock
Shield spell
Cold damage resist and absorption
Stacking miss chance
No-save or easy to reach CC ( for reapers )

Palemaster and Robots give a front loaded defense package, I imagine recently updated builds would do well too. Google search for "DDO Hardcore Builds".

[arminius]

If you are looking for survivability above all else, then bladeforged paladin is hard to beat, and hard to screw up building. It is as close to an easy button as hardcore gets.

Not build-related, but an important tip: keep depositing everything you don't need, including excess money, in the bank after virtually every quest. I saw a lot of people get burned by building up a great nest egg and then getting smote and suddenly not having even two coppers to rub together.

[fatherpirate]

If you want reaper awards, build for reaper
If you just want elite, build for that

[cru121]

Frankly, for a newer player, I would not focus on RXP as a goal for hardcore. Imho, 1750 favor and level 20 are great goals to shoot for. Unlike normal servers, hardcore offers many opportunities to group for elite difficulty. Enjoy that.

[GLITRKING]

If you are looking for survivability above all else, then bladeforged paladin is hard to beat, and hard to screw up building. It is as close to an easy button as hardcore gets.

Not build-related, but an important tip: keep depositing everything you don't need, including excess money, in the bank after virtually every quest. I saw a lot of people get burned by building up a great nest egg and then getting smote and suddenly not having even two coppers to rub together.

Yep, got burned with the gear thing last season.

Not a huge fan of bots, but this may well be my first!

[kanordog]

Yep, got burned with the gear thing last season.

Not a huge fan of bots, but this may well be my first!

You can't do 5K favor if you don't aim for it as you will outlevel quests. So try to do all quests as you go even if you will be capped and gain no xp.



Warforged are not robots.
https://eberron.fandom.com/wiki/Warforged

[GLITRKING]

HP, PRR, MRR*
Fortification 100+ as soon as you can
Saves and Immunities
Self healing / Temp hp
Speed is helpful
Non resource based DPS ( unless wanting to spend on spellpoints)
UMD (Heal Scroll, Restoration, Fireshield, Spell Resistance ...)

Kind of reduces the optimal solo builds, especially when you add in the reaper stuff:

Ghost touch for melee/ranged
Deathward/deathblock
Shield spell
Cold damage resist and absorption
Stacking miss chance
No-save or easy to reach CC ( for reapers )

Palemaster and Robots give a front loaded defense package, I imagine recently updated builds would do well too. Google search for "DDO Hardcore Builds".

Very nice, thank you!

[GLITRKING]

Don't die.

Tru dat, especially this season where there will not be additional lives!

[slarden]

I know it's a competition

It's only a competition if you opt into that aspect of it which is a tiny #, otherwise it's PVE if you are just going for a specific reward. I would suspect there is less than 50 people interested in the leader board aspect of hardcore and most of the people on the leader board (including me) just wanted to get a specific tier reward and move on and only ended up on the leader board due to lack of interest in leaderboard position by the community in general. My experience is people are only protective and secretive of their build when there are aspects of it involving an exploit or favorable bug. I don't think most people are worried about sharing their hardcore builds.

I am going to be running a variant of this build:? 12 Artificer 6 Fighter 2 Monk Reaper Build (ddo.com) This isn't the right build to farm rxp at 30 if you are going for the leaderboards. If you just want to get 10 reaper points and move on - this build worked really well for me.

In past seasons I went 15 artificer 3 fighter 2 monk warforged. This season I am going bladeforged 15 artificer 3 paladin 2 monk due to the amped up enemy spell damage. Robot for the easier self-healing vs. scrolls. I use repeater because the dps is reasonable without a huge ap investment. If you go for ratcatcher you can go inquisitive at higher levels for better dps. In season 1 and 2 I was one of the first 10 to 10 reaper points with this build and ran solo both seasons for rxp.

Have a gear farmer that stays ahead of you farming fey, ravenloft and sharn for gear. This season I will zerg my farming character to 9 and then farm out blademark docent and fey gear for my rxp character. I like to get 4 shield clickies from korthos - the chest doesn't ransack. A few expeditious retreat clickies are nice also (Korthos guaranteed or keep as a drop). The rune arm from the fey wilderness gives ghostly, trap the soul and profane hp. I am definitely going for that over the 3bc rune arm this season even with the lower proc damage. Once you have your fey gear you are good to go for several levels.

Good luck and most importantly have fun!

[Vish]

its not a competition, so heres my advice

dont play hardcore

come join me on sarlona doing racials

i have 15 left
so 15 weeks?

by the time hardcore is over

thats where im putting my competition

[SpartanKiller13]

Inspect every FvS that joins your party; if they're a half-elf, drop immediately.

Social distance between yourself and Arcane casters (and Druids past level 5), at least until you get FoM running. Extra care needed in Tempest Spine.

Keep an eye peeled for Globe of Invulnerability; it'll disable your FoM & Deathward if you're inside it.

Don't run Heroic Shroud. Avoid any quest with player-set explosives (like Undermine or Blockade Busters).

[KoobTheProud]

Never lead the party.

Have heal kits available to get the people who lead the party up when they run into that trap they forgot about and if they got lucky and only got knocked out by it instead of dying (approx 1% chance in my experience.)

Find a way to get the diehard feat/ability and also extended Unconsciousness range. This probably means taking some Barb levels in your build.

But even if you do get diehard follow the first two rules above.

[JOTMON]

Its going to be laggy as F. Go slow. Try not to die.

[cru121]

Never lead the party.

If you're talking about having "the star" in the group, why not?
If you're talking about being the first person to lead an assault.. Now this particular advice. Far too often I've seen that Paladins / Bears / Barbs with twice my HP and defenses let my squishy spellsinger lead the attack... And these characters at least eventually joined and helped me clean up. Even worse at the useless shield fighters who run into a room as the second/third person and mobs simply run past them, but they keep shield blocking.

[Feralthyrtiaq]

Inspect every FvS that joins your party; if they're a half-elf, drop immediately.

What? Why? Wait. I suspect but don't think I really want to know.

[Cianos_Fanas]

Also, make sure you can cast/scroll Spawn Screen.

[duey]

Some really good advice here so not to duplicate I will address other things-

Keep your keyboard and mouse clean- dirt jamming keys or hair that block mouse laser can lead to....well walking off into a lava pit in panicky baffled amusement

Don't play tired, or fatigued

Try to play with a consistent group of people

Go your pace, if a group of people or person are running in a group too fast for what you feel is safe for you or the group-politely notify such, and leave.

Play the quests you know best, if you don't know quest-play on normal server to learn unless you really trust your group guide. If you playing favor you will play some, but not all, difficult quests so it is a good idea to have a 'get the hell out ' option. And courtesy goes along way on HC server; tell your group your comfort level and your intentions to bail. Some players will be on same page, but some may bail when you don't expect it then your stuck with the after math...

Get a teleport wand from store, the tp you use to buy will be made up with all the favor you earn during the HC season easily. Failing that, having dimension door/teleport or umd to use scrolls for such is helpful.

Get a anti beholder crystal from store, they are cheap

Take your time, stack odds in your favor. All the above advice about builds is great. Getting buffs with potions, scrolls and wands is a pain but can help survivability until u get ship buffs, and house p favor for elemental buffs.

If you can use voice chat. I didn't for season one but did for season 3 and made things so much better, esp for reaper runs.

Keep your distance. Tactically, lag sucks and keeping your distance from engagement/danger helps by creating a time buffer. When you freeze at range, but mobs are actually closing the distance sometime you will have enough time to react once lag clears. One of the lessor reason range trumps up front melee. Think enlargement meta magic, ray spells, or pew pew xbow, bows and alchy knives!?

Most melee you see aren't doing it for the melee dmg like 2 hand damage, but are built for hit points, and many time their only option for dmg output is 2 hand or melee. Think druid bear, barbs, fighters.

Ex: Last season I played bear tank with barb and warlocks levels and pushed to 2000+ hp ( no store bought stuff), as a test to see how high you could get hp. Was kinda boring but I did live to get r10

Ex: season 2 I played half elf fvs/monk arcane archer for ranged reaper. Good dps and crowd control, but squishy, which you can afford to be IF you keep that range, but never count on that though.Got me r10

[Feralthyrtiaq]

What? Why? Wait. I suspect but don't think I really want to know.

Healing wall bug. It's nasty.