Return of the Undead Shiradi Sorc

[Tilomere]

nerfed in u51

[Stormraiser]

Do you have fire or light spells to keep this fully procced?

[Stormraiser]

Btw, have any screenshots of damage? Can alchemist fit in here?

[Tilomere]

Do you have fire or light spells to keep this fully procced?

Yes, we have scorching ray, but I only use it single target. So a good twist for raids. You can experiment with twists. I haven't really figured out what I want.

Btw, have any screenshots of damage? Can alchemist fit in here?

Templar was kind enough to host a raid, this is at 11 MoK stacks (was trying to get close to math in OP):


I had an alchemist/warlock/paladin multiclass similar build here. It has more screenshots for you of damage at bottom vs. a raid boss. In actual play, due to the random range and nerve venom helpless, you can get some really silly damage #s. If the group you are with isn't tearing through mobs or you are solo you will stack MoK up more and deal more damage. With full debuffs and MoK stacks you may see bigger procs, and even more on helpless trash. A 40k magic missile spell is pretty cool though!

You could also go pure 20 alchemist bombardier/poison (no evasion) and it would work fine, as would 12 alc 6 sorc or wiz, 2 paladin? BF. There are many different combinations that all work for Shiradi casting once you understand the proc math above! You just need lots of spell hits and power (ranged and spell). I was going to make an alc again, but decided to make this instead because I really liked the original build by Eth but didn't ever make it due to the poor heroic leveling it had with Eth's version, and because bow revamp to DWS was too unwieldy reaper gameplay so I wanted a simple gameplay strong bow build. I even had a poem ready for alc:

Four proc, three proc, two proc, one.
Your procs, their procs, Tupac, gone!

Proc it like you mean it
Proc it if you can

But multiprocs and weapons
ain't no more man!

You can proc off your axe
You can proc off your bow

But if you wanna proc for damage
You gotta be in the kno'

The first step is powa'
The second one is grace

Cuz no good procs
From a mace to da face

You work a little magic
And add a dash of bow

Toss the mega poison
And Ho Ho Ho!

Multivial/SLA hits 4x AoE, so you are looking at 10k in procs each. On a reaper raid you will have enough time to bring your MoK stacks to full, and even through a reaper penalty your magic missiles will demolish things. Here are R1 sonic procs, and cold attunement DoT:


So, I'm used to just ignoring curses from undead lives. It was not pretty doing Nemesis and not recognizing to need to decurse my character. Oh, when you are doing longer reaper raids, you will notice that only 20 spell points at a time from Just Rewards procs are used if your normal mana pool exists, but once you burn through your normal mana pool you will start to use the full Just Rewards temp mana pool. If you manage your metas at this time, you can build up a hefty temp mana pool to keep refreshing all your buffs and use any spell you want.

[Stormraiser]

I played a similar concept back in the day but with FVS as the primary class. Blade barrier was quite good for proccing things in large groups. Can't remember if it was 12 or 11 fvs 6 wiz 2 sorc? or 6 sorc 2 wiz? don't remember the details. I remember scorch was quite good at stacking Emp.

[Tilomere]

Ahh, think it is FvS 13 for BB level 6 spell and heal, 6 wiz for missiles and missiles slas, then 1? But ya, BB works well since you get a spell hit on entry and exit and it is AoE, and Shiradi is wisdom based.

Edit: If you went 14 fvs/6 wiz dg you could use cha/int gear set above and combo destruction + slay living + PK SLA from DG in heroics. Or 13/6/1 any iconic. Sunelf looks like it has some good heroic leveling SLAs, but I hear they aren't updated yet.

[Tilomere]

Decided to give this another life and polish up the gear this time around because I like the game play. Updated OP with a level 15-17 gear set for dual stat int/cha DC + DPS casting, with some self-healing and decent tankyness. Much better than first time around. Will get to 20 soon-ish. Also updated VKF AP and added comment about force missiles.

I don't think the fire/lightning elemental attunement procs are critting, so I will try drop those spell powers down to potency on goggles next life to free 2 slots up for LGS matt/opp. Last life used a RL Belt and necklace to boost fire/lightning crit rates. Will also allow a reshuffle negamp from helm 41% to neck 85% to increase negamp. I screwed up last life and had VKF negative amp reduction, so this life will have a lot more self-healing and hp, and a bit less dps.

I think instead of DDoor we grab PK and PK SLA now that we have much better gear, and spam PK for straggler cleanup in heroics. We will replace electric loop SLA, which really isn't powerful enough to be toolbar-worthy. The dual stat and spell focus mastery gear gives us two working PKs, to go with a working color spray SLA for AoE helpless, as well as really nice evo DCs on sorc nukes. Will try swapping PK for force missiles in epics this time around. The new gear set just pulls everything together:



Now if we run across lightning immune or resistant mobs or champions, we can use sonic, negative, fire, and FoK, or we can just PK it. I think this is my new favorite build solely because of all the mechanics shenanigans. It heals wiz undead form with sorc spells. It instakill DC casts off of two different stats. It transforms from an AoE Evo DC nuker to no-save random damage nuker. It combos int-based AoE helpless with charisma based AoE nukes. It uses a bow and ranged feats to power spells. It uses Tensor's for full base attack bonus but doesn't attack. It completely transforms its spell book and game play between heroic and epic. I think with level 30 feat of manyshot instead of epic DR we can also Hunt's End Manyshot and single target dps better, making this a rare true hybrid. This is the most interesting build for mapping out and customizing self-healing vs. tanking vs. casting vs. ranged dps since AoN old tree builds.

See normally, when you make a dps build, you start with a 260% fortification reaper in high skulls, and reverse engineer your build and gameplay from that with a calculator. Or if you want to make a midskull tanky, you reverse engineer from 180 fortification on a red named in mid-reaper Sharn and the need to self-heal 4k hp/2 seconds due to the R6 penalty and red named incoming damage again reverse engineered with a calculator. On a normal dps or DC caster build with DCs, you again reverse engineer the DCs necessary to land spells, and again reverse engineer your build with a calculator. Such a build is simply the results of balancing equations.

Like old AoN builds though, this is different. This has no-save damage and CC in epics. So this has the freedom to play around with that self-healing vs. tanking vs. casting vs. ranged dps build space, to find a balance you like. You are also balancing heroic DC vs. epic (Con) leveling. So this is a build with build space to explore, rather than the output of a calculator. Which is why I'm giving it a second go with different gear this time around, and getting different results and usage. The first test run DC gear wasn't as good, and heroics were leveled as a straight nuker. I can also play around with classes, such as trying warlock/wiz or something else.

I also really like FoK instead of meteor being the big nuke, since it forces you to close in and group mobs up which rewards risk. I think I'm going to also try this life to have a working Hunt's End at cap as well, since we have deadly/accuracy/Tensor's and bow and are in Shiradi already with tons of ranged power. I think with completionist at 15 feat swapped to manyshot, and combat archery at 30 will give a x5 multiplier on Hunt's End, but I may have already screwed up the feat order. Maybe next life.

[Tilomere]

Ok, it's been awhile since I played a low-self healing squishy dps. Updated OP with a level 20 gear set. So what I've figured out is that you want to enlarge basically all the time in legendary content except when you are running low on mana, and also block to be invisible via cloak of night, and nuke at double range outside of reaper true-seeing radius. This will keep most mobs on the tank since they won't be able to see you to even swap to you. I didn't use enlarge + cloak of night all the time on prior life and prior levels, but it just makes the build click.

As a squishy low-self healing build, it works well in full groups, not as well in small groups or solo where you will have a bunch of aggro. This has the dps and enough cc to contribute in high legendary reaper at low epic levels, but only if you stay alive, which has taken me a few levels to figure out, last life I didn't do as much legendary midskull leveling. You want to start off at low epic levels in the easier legendary reaper quests, and go into harder quests as you level and become more powerful. This does not have the dps to carry a group through legendary R6 in low epics levels, but it does have enough to contribute and duo dps it, if you master staying alive!

Putting together the right PUG group is crucial. 20-30 people for R4 leveling, 28-30 people for R5 leveling, and 29-30 for R6+. It is also important to overall be neutral on your piking. That's what the overwhelming heroic level 15 gear set is for, to dominate heroics to balance out epics. There are about 50 heroic quests to cap, and about 80 legendary reaper quests, so we want to dominate heroics a bit more than we pike in legendary leveling. What I found works well is to level in heroics to 20, then do epic house K chain for bank space for 20-21, then go into legendary R6-8 to finish leveling to cap. This gives tons of favor for DDO points to spend on cosmetics, SXP, and RXP, and you are always on first time bonus. Then when you run out of first time bonuses, just reincarnate and tweak build based on what you liked and disliked about it.

This second life was about improving gear sets and game play, which allows me to level as above 15-30 without overall piking. Next life I'm going to make sure to have more starting dex and completionist at 15 to be able to swap into manyshot and take combat archery at cap to explore hybrid game space. (Edit: hybrid doesn't work since mobs have too much fortification)

Some people have brought up concerns elsewhere with difficulties dpsing or hitting DCs on their sorc, or questioning a sorc's ability to spam nukes in high skulls reaper. This is for them:

















PS: It has taken awhile to learn this build, but slowly the secrets are revealing themselves to me! Old dog, learning tricks slowly! Oh, and failing from time to time, for sure. But that is how you learn.

[Tilomere]

Ok, so I tested going into high reaper Sharn at a few different levels. I found level 26 to be a good spot for R8 Sharn, because you gain access to LGS for some survivability. Updated OP with 26 gear upgrades.

Especially when you are playing in a small group with no tank, you are going to have to accept you are going to die a few times due to the random nature of Shiradi, and well, because you are level 26 in Sharn R8. Heh. But, on average, it works out overall. Here is how I did in Sharn Chain 2, maybe you can figure out how to do better!

I also did a bit of grouping as a healer. You can drop undead form, and twist renewal, consecrate-sacred ground, and cocoon and be a group healer. I tried with just renewal, and it worked ok-ish in a small group with 2 dps, but not that well since I also had the problem of aggro due to no tank.

















PS: Force damage in R8 Best laid plans rocked my world, so use this more as a guide than a rule! Also I do need to thank everyone who let me test out my crazy builds and fail many times in their groups while trying to figure them out over the years!

[Tilomere]

Ok, so as I level, I notice that even just post-divine casting revamp, there are no divine casters to level with in heroics, and commonly in epics as well. This has three effects. One, I have to self heal, which is fine because I built it into the build. Two, it is better to be undead than fleshy, since the availability of death auras from other wizards and sorcs and some warlocks is higher than the availability of heal spells. And three, melee and ranged and offensive casters are generally not going to be able to play aggressively and contribute to dungeon clears because they don't have healing support, which means my character will generally have to clear the majority of the dungeon scaled up by their characters.



As such, my 15-20 gear set for leveling needs to be further improved to reflect this general requirement to solo a scaled group dungeon. 15 is as good as it can be, but 16-18 had substantial room for improvements, and so I improved it in OP.

Now we are at 700 spell power electric, and 500 universal at the end of heroics. This is R3:



We can use the level 18 staff to finish heroics stronger as all the unsupported dps fail to contribute even more as content gets harder, and also again 20-30 as a swap in to boost buff duration and death aura output. Of course, even if a dps did have support, its not like a 50 melee/ranged power weapon wielder with a 1.5W paragon weapon is going to contribute much to a 700 spell power sorc with maximized 850 spell power nukes. Heh. Good thing they nerfed the RL belts, or it would be 927 spell power nukes, and *that* would be overpowered. Hahahah.

[Cambo]

Ok so I thought this looks good for my racial TR (will take to 30 each time) (Only ever been Ranged Before(1 melee rogue life)) I was already at lvl 9, so took 3 Wiz for Undead Healing.
The self healing is a godsend. But everting is taking a few casts to kill, all good mana not running out often. Im running Heighten Max and Emp to give me a kick due to lack of past lives etc.

On R1 at 4 levels over im stunning most things with Lighnting Loop but need more DC for R1 closer to level, so I looked at your level 15 Build (im only 12 at moment) and thought how on earth have you got 54 Charisma....
I am so far away from that so I went through it and sure enough Lvl 15 DG with starting 18 Charisma max is 54 (assuming only 2 from enhancements). so Im probably looking at 8 less than that by 15 (no racial/H/RCompletionist and only +6 tome) So my DC's will be 4 less, and no sorc past lives 3 less so thats 7 DC lower at Lvl 15 - Ok time to get some lives behind me and catch up. Having fun, looking forward to seeing performacne in Epic with ED benefits.

Thanks for Posting.

Charisma at LVl 15 (Gnome)
Base	18
Level Ups	3
Equip	8
Ins	3
Except	1
Profane	1
EnhTree	2
H-Comp	2
R-Comp	2
RacialLife	2
Tome	8
Guild	2
Artifact (Set)	2
	54

[Arctigis]

Hi Tilomere,

Another very interesting build thread. Thank you for posting it.

Any chance you could do a proper breakdown of stats, key skills, melee power
etc.? It's very difficult to see what's sustained and what's burst. For instance,
you're showing over 700 electric spell power and 265 USP at level 19 (i.e. no
Epic destinies). This seems absurdly high hence I'm very curious how you
are reaching these numbers. Have you considered using a builder such as:

https://github.com/Maetrim/DDOBuilder/releases

It would enable you to more easily show L15, L20 and L30 versions of your
builds.

[Tilomere]

Vampire gives +2, and reaper hat gives +2, and deep gnome gives -2, racial past lives give +3 (tiefling, helf, dragonborn) not +2, tome at 15 is +6 not +8, profane stats gets swapped in at 17 on cloak when quality spell power gets swapped in on boots to cover that spell power type. But otherwise ya that looks correct.

There are a lot of stat breakdowns that could be done. Of the spell power at 19, all but 45 reaper boost are either permanent or pretty much permanent. Check out the 16-18 gear upgrades. It is something like this:

Electric 703

Temporary: 45
45 Reaper Boost

Semi-Permanent: 45
20 Alchemical pots (3 min duration, vendor)
25 Electrocution (air savant) stacking on-cast
Maximize (not added to total but generally used)

Permanent: 613
40 Air Savant Cores
27 Air Savant per point
11 EK Core 2 + tier 1
18 Implement (from EK core 2)
14 Archmage 10 Traditionalist caster + 4 Core 1
15 Pale Master Core 1-3
18 Reaper
4 Tome
10 Guild
133 Sentience
110 Spellcraft
104 Equipment
47 Insightful
15 Quality
25 Artifact
22 Mythic/Misc/I forget since I leveled 20 and reset new gear/enhancements

The output of builders are generally too confusing for me. But it does sound interesting. Something to check out! Maybe you could do a breakdown at a level if you know how it works?

[Cambo]

Hi Tilomere,

Another very interesting build thread. Thank you for posting it.

Any chance you could do a proper breakdown of stats, key skills, melee power
etc.? It's very difficult to see what's sustained and what's burst. For instance,
you're showing over 700 electric spell power and 265 USP at level 19 (i.e. no
Epic destinies). This seems absurdly high hence I'm very curious how you
are reaching these numbers. Have you considered using a builder such as:

https://github.com/Maetrim/DDOBuilder/releases

It would enable you to more easily show L15, L20 and L30 versions of your
builds.

Does this builder support a level limit? It looks like its for a full build at 30 and you would need to manually work your way back?

[Arctigis]

Does this builder support a level limit? It looks like its for a full build at 30 and you would need to manually work your way back?

Yes, it is. I figured the breakdowns would be level appropriate but they are not.

It's a truly fantastic tool - but only for full builds at the moment.

[Arctigis]

There are a lot of stat breakdowns that could be done. Of the spell power at 19, all but 45 reaper boost are either permanent or pretty much permanent. Check out the 16-18 gear upgrades. It is something like this:

Electric 703

Temporary: 45
45 Reaper Boost

Semi-Permanent: 45
20 Alchemical pots (3 min duration, vendor)
25 Electrocution (air savant) stacking on-cast
Maximize (not added to total but generally used)

Permanent: 613
40 Air Savant Cores
27 Air Savant per point
11 EK Core 2 + tier 1
18 Implement (from EK core 2)
14 Archmage 10 Traditionalist caster + 4 Core 1
15 Pale Master Core 1-3
18 Reaper
4 Tome
10 Guild
133 Sentience
110 Spellcraft
104 Equipment
47 Insightful
15 Quality
25 Artifact
22 Mythic/Misc/I forget since I leveled 20 and reset new gear/enhancements

Thanks. I was missing the sentience - thought it was a mistake but it looks like the
Bone Crusher is bugged. I have a Mythic (when mythic was a separate item) one
of those on a mule somewhere, but I think it's ML24 or 26...

The output of builders are generally too confusing for me. But it does sound interesting. Something to check out! Maybe you could do a breakdown at a level if you know how it works?

Yeah, I'm an idiot - it doesn't support arbitrary levels. I did put in the L30 version but I had to fill in a lot
of blanks wrt. PLs etc. I don't have anywhere to post the .ddocp file though :-)

[Tilomere]

Thanks. I was missing the sentience - thought it was a mistake but it looks like the
Bone Crusher is bugged. I

It was bugged, but I think last I saw they decided to leave it so as to not destroy the sentience people have in them. So now it is WAI. Update 42.4:


The Heroic Bone Crusher still accepts sentience erroneously, we're not fixing it because it would destroy all of your Sentient XP, so you're welcome :P

Oh, and thank you! It polishes off heroics just when an additional boost to carry others is most needed, while still acting as that wonderful swap in death aura/buff item for epics!

[o2t4f]

Been trying this build and I like it. Did a few things differently, mostly gear and race, just for convenience. It does work well.

Two things I'd like to point out that don't work as I expected. One is rain of arrows apparently doesn't get any procs. Which is quite sad because that would be so powerful. The other is that Tsunami also procs mental honing stacks from master of knowledge. Helps a little bit in crowd control while getting a few more MoK stacks from the aoe hits. Not hard to maintain full stacks at quests with large groups. Also, for some reason, it procs empyrean magic.

[Tilomere]

Two things I'd like to point out that don't work as I expected. One is rain of arrows apparently doesn't get any procs. Which is quite sad because that would be so powerful. The other is that Tsunami also procs mental honing stacks from master of knowledge. Helps a little bit in crowd control while getting a few more MoK stacks from the aoe hits. Not hard to maintain full stacks at quests with large groups. Also, for some reason, it procs empyrean magic.

Well that's awesome! Moar damage! Updating OP with that and that since you have your level 18 sentient staff, you can also just level as a lightning savant in Magister or Draconic until you are ready to swap to Shiradi when you swap to leveling against mobs with high saves.

TYVM for your testing and sharing!

[Enderoc]

If you want undead why not go abyssal and warlock?