TWF Builds for Low-Mid Reaper Fun & Profit

[Fefnir_2011]

I've got an old pally raid tank (circa 2014) sitting around feeling sad that she doesn't get random tells asking her to come tank any more. I've been looking at various TWF builds, but the most well-documented posts I can find are fairly outdated. She's sitting on a sizable cache of gear and a Rogue PL. When MotU came out, I used the +20 heart eventually to respec from 12 Fighter / 6 Ranger / 2 Rogue DPS build into an AC hate tank when that was a thing for a hot second. Still used khopeshes though since that's what I had on hand.

I have my eye on a few different builds so far, all Aasimar. One is a 14 Paladin / 5 Ranger / 1 Monk, the other is a 12 Fighter / 6 Ranger / 2 Monk, and the last is a 14 Paladin / 6 Ranger. Here's some benefits I see for each and cons:

14 Paladin / 5 Ranger / 1 Monk
Pros

• Lots of healing and healing amp
• Holy Sword with Tempest T5 and Monk Fire Stance
• Evasion if I run in Shadowdancer

Cons

• Lower PRR & MRR because pajamas
• I have a lot of khopeshes that I'll have to spend a feat for on a feat-strapped build until I farm new longswords

12 Fighter / 6 Ranger / 2 Monk
Pros

• Kensei Power Surge is a lot of fun to use
• 2 Monk means evasion while leveling
• More feats than I'll know what to do with
• One With The Blade for leveling (Tempest T5 is the clear DPS winner)
• Manyshot and archery feats for lulz

Cons

• Lower PRR & MRR because pajamas
• No Holy Sword
• Worse healing due to lower hamp and fewer LoH
• Lower saves

14 Paladin / 6 Ranger
Pros

• Most of what you get with the 14/5/1 build except for monk stance and evasion
• Paladin archery for the lulz
• Clear choice is heavy armor

Cons

• No evasion (seems like nobody cares about this for reaper 10 at-cap nonsense but I'll be spending a good few months leveling through heroics and running low Reaper to farm better gear)

Anything I'm missing or not considering? Wondering if anyone else is out there running TWF considering it's not FotM any more. Also curious about alternative builds. Pure ranger never appealed to me, but it seems like TWF Barbarian with Wood Elf could be good for a lark.

[arminius]

I definitely wish you luck. I am getting very frustrated because I am farming for something that is directly taking all my melee characters through the exact same quest on the exact same difficulty with (functionally) exactly the same equipment, and it is plain as day that the THF Paladins wipe the floor with everyone else, with anyone TWF of any class coming in dead last.

I had really wanted to hang on to my TWF characters for as long as the game is up, because they have been TWF for as long as they have existed, but not having fun with them is not fun. I want to say "flavor" or "difference" is enough to be fun, but it isn't. It takes longer to do the same things, battles end up being a running-around-the-room, just-survive by-the-skin-of-your-teeth existential struggle when they should not be, it is really discouraging

[unbongwah]

You might want to check out Gilga1's thread.

14 Paladin / 5 Ranger / 1 Monk
Pros

• Holy Sword with Tempest Capstone and Monk Fire Stance

I presume you mean "tier-5 Tempest" since you aren't taking the capstone on a non-pure ranger.

Cons

• Have to choose between evasion and wearing heavy armor

Wearing armor uncenters you which defeats the purpose of the monk splash, in which case you'd be better off with paladin 15 / ranger 5 for Zeal (+10% doublestrike), especially since offhand doublestrike = 1/2 mainhand doublestrike. Paladin 14 / ranger 6 would let you take Exposing Strike but in practice I'm not convinced it makes up for the DS loss unless you're planning on FotW.

12 Fighter / 6 Ranger / 2 Monk
Pros

• One With The Blade means more versatility in weapon choices

Taking OwtB locks out tier-5 Tempest and you really want Dual Perfection+Dance of Death+Thousand Cuts.

Anything I'm missing or not considering?

Don't forget one of the advantages of going heavy into paladin is the massive boost to saves.

I have an old alt based on Noyellowbar (PDK rgr 15 / pal 4 / ftr 1) that I had planned to LR into pure ranger but I'm wondering if it might be worth sticking with the original split. APs are tight but doable: 40 Tempest / 24 DWS (Killer + Adv Sneak Attack) / 8 KotC (Div Might) / 6 Sacred D (defensive stance) / 1 PDK (Dmg Boost). Or ditch defensive stance and run in FotW: Adrenalized Exposing Strike while Dance of Death is active was pretty good, IIRC.

[Fefnir_2011]

You might want to check out Gilga1's thread.

I presume you mean "tier-5 Tempest" since you aren't taking the capstone on a non-pure ranger.

Wearing armor uncenters you which defeats the purpose of the monk splash, in which case you'd be better off with paladin 15 / ranger 5 for Zeal (+10% doublestrike), especially since offhand doublestrike = 1/2 mainhand doublestrike. Paladin 14 / ranger 6 would let you take Exposing Strike but in practice I'm not convinced it makes up for the DS loss unless you're planning on FotW.

Taking OwtB locks out tier-5 Tempest and you really want Dual Perfection+Dance of Death+Thousand Cuts.

Don't forget one of the advantages of going heavy into paladin is the massive boost to saves.

I have an old alt based on Noyellowbar (PDK rgr 15 / pal 4 / ftr 1) that I had planned to LR into pure ranger but I'm wondering if it might be worth sticking with the original split. APs are tight but doable: 40 Tempest / 24 DWS (Killer + Adv Sneak Attack) / 8 KotC (Div Might) / 6 Sacred D (defensive stance) / 1 PDK (Dmg Boost). Or ditch defensive stance and run in FotW: Adrenalized Exposing Strike while Dance of Death is active was pretty good, IIRC.

Thank you, I made edits to my first post to make it more accurate. Proof positive I shouldn't make builds unsupervised after being away so long.

I was looking at Noyellowbar 2.0 myself. Evasion is fun while leveling but I'm also noticing that nearly no-one is building for it anymore. Or is that just the R10 crowd? I was also considering Redsonja 3.0 since I've never played a barb.

Based on your notes, is it accurate to say that in the current meta, ranger or paladin-primary TWF builds are the most optimal? I appreciate the response. It's hard to tell what builds are relevant after several years, given how complex builds can be..

[Fefnir_2011]

I definitely wish you luck. I am getting very frustrated because I am farming for something that is directly taking all my melee characters through the exact same quest on the exact same difficulty with (functionally) exactly the same equipment, and it is plain as day that the THF Paladins wipe the floor with everyone else, with anyone TWF of any class coming in dead last.

I had really wanted to hang on to my TWF characters for as long as the game is up, because they have been TWF for as long as they have existed, but not having fun with them is not fun. I want to say "flavor" or "difference" is enough to be fun, but it isn't. It takes longer to do the same things, battles end up being a running-around-the-room, just-survive by-the-skin-of-your-teeth existential struggle when they should not be, it is really discouraging

It's definitely a different feel. I mostly main divines and wizards. My THF toons are a Warchanter (16 Bard / 4 Fighter) and a pure THF Cleric based on Axel's build. My bard has ridiculous DPS but is undergeared for epic reapers and a little squishy. The clear pro of THF is being able to clear out groups of mobs efficiently. On the other hand, with most bosses I turn on auto-attack and go do something else while I grind them down.

Fingers crossed that they'll do another pass at TWF and give them back some of their more unique features around getting more secondary effects and being better single-target DPS. Or something else that makes them both flavorful and fun. My paladin is still a complete doorstop, but even after a heavy respec into KotC from SD she's just not fun to play any more.

[unbongwah]

Evasion is fun while leveling but I'm also noticing that nearly no-one is building for it anymore. Or is that just the R10 crowd?

It's probably because of the MRR cap; there's plenty of magic damage which can't be Evaded. Right now I think the best a light-armor TWF build can do is 150 MRR cap: 100 base + 10 Two Weapon Defense + 40 Nystul's Mystic Defense Filigree set. I guess technically you could add another +20 from Beacon of Magic or Esoteric Initiate, but those are caster sets so presumably would be suboptimal for a melee DPS build.

Based on your notes, is it accurate to say that in the current meta, ranger or paladin-primary TWF builds are the most optimal?

*shrug* Beats me: I haven't really played much DDO since last summer. I'm aware of general trends and how the mechanics work; so I know how useful tier-5 Tempest is for TWF. But optimizing for Reapers is someone else's department.

[Doomflayer]

I definitely wish you luck. I am getting very frustrated because I am farming for something that is directly taking all my melee characters through the exact same quest on the exact same difficulty with (functionally) exactly the same equipment, and it is plain as day that the THF Paladins wipe the floor with everyone else, with anyone TWF of any class coming in dead last.

I had really wanted to hang on to my TWF characters for as long as the game is up, because they have been TWF for as long as they have existed, but not having fun with them is not fun. I want to say "flavor" or "difference" is enough to be fun, but it isn't. It takes longer to do the same things, battles end up being a running-around-the-room, just-survive by-the-skin-of-your-teeth existential struggle when they should not be, it is really discouraging

Do you have Dust and Affirmation weapons? A Dust weapon offhand would greatly increase DPS. Multiclass combos need a specific reason (DPS wise) to be built, haphazardly throwing class combos together doesn't work. Stick with pure Ranger and give twf another try, Aasimar is also highly recommended.

[count_spicoli]

Running a 12 ranger/5 cleric/3 barb twf razorclaw that is alot of fun but more of a cap build then running racials. 12 ranger self explanatory and ap expensive so racial complete helps. Idea here is using barb rage with all the razorclaw bennies and getting 10% offhand to get the full 100% offhand. 5 cleric gets str domain which gives you str to reflex, of course dm , +2 str and a few buff spells. Using longswords and for heroics the longswords from relic of soveirgn past are solid. When raged up getting big str and con bonus. Regular shifter solid choice but would lose 10% off hand yet gain 5% qauility hp. Helps with ranger general squishyness with big hp pool. Downside is cant cast while raged so not healing others sucks.

[Doomflayer]

Thank you, I made edits to my first post to make it more accurate. Proof positive I shouldn't make builds unsupervised after being away so long.

I was looking at Noyellowbar 2.0 myself. Evasion is fun while leveling but I'm also noticing that nearly no-one is building for it anymore. Or is that just the R10 crowd? I was also considering Redsonja 3.0 since I've never played a barb.

Based on your notes, is it accurate to say that in the current meta, ranger or paladin-primary TWF builds are the most optimal? I appreciate the response. It's hard to tell what builds are relevant after several years, given how complex builds can be..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6Q3Iu18tfY pure melee Ranger soloing R5 and NEVER taking a point of damage except for extra hit point pool. This is what I mean about SOLOING. Can the above post use a healing hand on reaper for 850+ hit points instantly, even on reaper 4? How about 7 times with one coming back every 3 minutes? HOW DO YOU PLAN TO SELF HEAL IN AN EMERGENCY ON REAPER? Come on guys, be real. A 12 Ranger has ZERO meaningful ability to self heal in reaper as a race other then Aasimar! He is talking about soloing low to mid reaper.