Hope you have already farmed all your reaper xp

[Oliphant]

A some point a previous generation of DDO devs decided that LOTR: Fellowship of the Ring is garbage because Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippen disgraced the game by deigning to even be in the same party with the likes of Gandalf and Aragorn. Never again! sayeth'ed those old devs, ne'er on our watch.

[zooble]

...

All of the high reaper points players i know box heroic and epic...

fixed

[Marshal_Lannes]

I will say this again, last time. If you cannot contribute ....

I have already outlined my reaper play in this thread, scroll back up. Never said I couldn't contribute. I have pointed out the enormous difference in power based on reaper trees and past lives. That has nothing to do with skill it is an exercise in accumulation. You are pushing the fallacy that skill is equivalent to contribution. We see this all the time in HC. Many of the people who think they are great players die by the score in the first month of hardcore because they don't have the dozens of past lives and reaper points to fall back upon.

Almost everyone wants a balanced game. A balanced game is a more fun game. Once again, this is why HC is so popular because characters are more or less equal. The only people who don't want a balanced game are the small section of winged players who horde their power and like being 500x superior to everyone else. This isn't all of them, some are helpful and realize the game imbalance that can never be bridged in its current form. But others think it is their ordained right to always be at the top of the DDO pyramid. And again this has little to do with skill, it has everything to do with accumulation. Accumulation that can never be bridged in the game's current form. This is why a catch-up mechanism should be put into place with any level increase and in light of the upcoming game changes since it is the normal DDO players will be most adversely affected and the power gap will widen.

[Catabree]

I have already outlined my reaper play in this thread, scroll back up. Never said I couldn't contribute. I have pointed out the enormous difference in power based on reaper trees and past lives. That has nothing to do with skill it is an exercise in accumulation. You are pushing the fallacy that skill is equivalent to contribution. We see this all the time in HC. Many of the people who think they are great players die by the score in the first month of hardcore because they don't have the dozens of past lives and reaper points to fall back upon.

Almost everyone wants a balanced game. A balanced game is a more fun game. Once again, this is why HC is so popular because characters are more or less equal. The only people who don't want a balanced game are the small section of winged players who horde their power and like being 500x superior to everyone else. This isn't all of them, some are helpful and realize the game imbalance that can never be bridged in its current form. But others think it is their ordained right to always be at the top of the DDO pyramid. And again this has little to do with skill, it has everything to do with accumulation. Accumulation that can never be bridged in the game's current form. This is why a catch-up mechanism should be put into place with any level increase and in light of the upcoming game changes since it is the normal DDO players will be most adversely affected and the power gap will widen.

You are mistaken more than you could ever imagine, what are you going to do with 0 skills? Walk, move your character? Nothing? Be able to direct the camera in the direction you are walking? Skill, being playing skills, game knowledge being able tonwork within a group will take you from a totally incompetent player to being able to be the number 1 contributor in r10 runs. As for hardcore, why didn't everyone get their wings in 3 months? They all started the same? Face it they lacked the skills, game knowledge and group support. The sooner people stop blaming everything else and looking at everyother reason for their poor performance, and actually play the game for what it is, learn and accept advice, the happy they will be.They will always complain about the gap, and any other excuse. Even being a player that has farmed a ridiculous amount of reaper xp, and have run with first lifers with 1/4 of my reaper points or others with 5 past lives out doing me on kills. You still won't take this advice and listen, and try to learn how they do this. Because you simple are not interested at all. People will just argue and argue this point so the devs give them what they want. The whole thing is kind of pathetic really.

[Wizard1406]

Part of the problem is also the population, not enough players and especially not enough casual players per server. So you get pushed to higher difficulties than you are comfortable with.

You can completely ignore the higher difficulties in most MMOs and still get a group all the time. Not so much in DDO , most of the time you need be really patient waiting for a suitable LFM or your LFM to fill.
Or you solo or look for a static. But why mostly solo in a MMO and statics are not for everyone, with the set play times and all.

And I agree the high first time reaper xp bonus instead of decent xp every time you run reaper is a problem. And high reaper legendaries being the only real source of reaper xp. With first time bonus, many people will only want to do legendaries once a life and only on high reaper.

[Marshal_Lannes]

You still won't take this advice and listen, and try to learn how they do this. Because you simple are not interested at all.

What advice? I've already outlined my reaper play. Once you get beyond the quest meta benefits, DDO is not a skill game. The difference is stat accumulation. If I gave you my 35 reaper point character and I took your 100 point reaper character I'd be in the top 2 of kill count in R10 and you'd be at #5. It's simple math on a character sheet. DDO should be working to close the gap on those character sheets.

Part of the problem is also the population, not enough players and especially not enough casual players per server. So you get pushed to higher difficulties than you are comfortable with.

You can completely ignore the higher difficulties in most MMOs and still get a group all the time. Not so much in DDO , most of the time you need be really patient waiting for a suitable LFM or your LFM to fill.
Or you solo or look for a static. But why mostly solo in a MMO and statics are not for everyone, with the set play times and all.

And I agree the high first time reaper xp bonus instead of decent xp every time you run reaper is a problem. And high reaper legendaries being the only real source of reaper xp. With first time bonus, many people will only want to do legendaries once a life and only on high reaper.

Yes, yes, and yes. Looking back on the reaper XP dynamic it's clear they should have tied the trees to the number of reaper quests completed and not XP which over rewards high-level legendary play. A server merge would alleviate some of the stress involved in grouping but would not close the widening power gap. Please close the power gap and help the players who will be disproportionately affected by the U50/51 equipment/ED changes!

[rabidfox]

What advice? I've already outlined my reaper play. Once you get beyond the quest meta benefits, DDO is not a skill game. The difference is stat accumulation. If I gave you my 35 reaper point character and I took your 100 point reaper character I'd be in the top 2 of kill count in R10 and you'd be at #5. It's simple math on a character sheet. DDO should be working to close the gap on those character sheets.

You keep mentioning 100 point characters as some high power baseline/goal... diminishing returns on RP has one not caring about points long before then (well before getting wings); after 21 points in grim + X points in your main tree everything else is just tiny little HP gains that don't really effect much (other than for some specific builds). And kill counts aren't a measure of anything other than timing of when one pushes their attacks (outside of 1-shotting mobs); I've lead kill counts for giggles at times on my healer by sniping the final HP off all the kills in a run.

Yes, yes, and yes. Looking back on the reaper XP dynamic it's clear they should have tied the trees to the number of reaper quests completed and not XP which over rewards high-level legendary play. A server merge would alleviate some of the stress involved in grouping but would not close the widening power gap. Please close the power gap and help the players who will be disproportionately affected by the U50/51 equipment/ED changes!

I'll hold my judgement for how I perform next hardcore season for how u50/51 effects new characters. But with zero anything at start, game knowledge has been enough to push me thru previously; we'll see how that holds up next season.

[Stormraiser]

What advice? I've already outlined my reaper play. Once you get beyond the quest meta benefits, DDO is not a skill game. The difference is stat accumulation. If I gave you my 35 reaper point character and I took your 100 point reaper character I'd be in the top 2 of kill count in R10 and you'd be at #5. It's simple math on a character sheet. DDO should be working to close the gap on those character sheets.

I'm sorry, this is fairly laughable.

[Marshal_Lannes]

You keep mentioning 100 point characters as some high power baseline/goal...

The goal is more 50 points. At this point, every character should be given 50 reaper points in U51. I can see the vast gulf of power between a 30 reaper point character of mine compared to a 10 or under reaper point character. Correspondingly, there is a large gap between a character in the 20-30s and one in the 80-100s. The gap between 80 and say 5 is ludicrous. It's not even the same game.

50 points allow every character to get the low hanging (vital) HP boosts from GB then they have another 25 points to spend on either DPS or DCs as their class dictates.

[Rockcrusher99]

It's like MJ explaining triangle offense to Naismith.

Love the basketball analogy. Kudos! I'm going to add some basketball tidbits since it was one of the loves of my life.
1) When it came down to crunch-time, the triangle offense was tossed out and the Bull's game plan was "Give the ball to Michael and get the flock out of his way!"

2) Darryl Dawkins (Chocolate Thunder) from the late 70s' era 76ers named all his dunks. One that I always remembered was:
Hello, Dr. Naismith,
Get out of my way, Smith,
There'll be peach-basket splinters all over your face, Smith.

[Merrillman]

You are mistaken more than you could ever imagine, what are you going to do with 0 skills? Walk, move your character? Nothing? Be able to direct the camera in the direction you are walking? Skill, being playing skills, game knowledge being able tonwork within a group will take you from a totally incompetent player to being able to be the number 1 contributor in r10 runs. As for hardcore, why didn't everyone get their wings in 3 months? They all started the same? Face it they lacked the skills, game knowledge and group support. The sooner people stop blaming everything else and looking at everyother reason for their poor performance, and actually play the game for what it is, learn and accept advice, the happy they will be.They will always complain about the gap, and any other excuse. Even being a player that has farmed a ridiculous amount of reaper xp, and have run with first lifers with 1/4 of my reaper points or others with 5 past lives out doing me on kills. You still won't take this advice and listen, and try to learn how they do this. Because you simple are not interested at all. People will just argue and argue this point so the devs give them what they want. The whole thing is kind of pathetic really.

I think people need to take a step back. The gentleman is right w accumulation, as no matter what I do, I will NEVER have the free time to spend on DDO that it would take to accumulate all the lives and gear people have. I’ve been playing for 5 years. I only have 7 EPL, 5 RPL, and an Epic Completion (still not even halfway to gathering all benefits of EPL). I have spent MONSTER cash on shards for refills and gold rolls, otto’s (still have 6 saved) just to ATTEMPT to get to where I am now. Most “skill” is because it’s a repetitive action. You definitely didn’t start out great. You spent a lot of time. And yes you can be faster or slower but your stats and buffs (and raid equipment — I can almost never raid — never enough players and I CANNOT spend 2 hours waiting for a group to form BEFORE being allowed to even start. I just don’t have that kind of free time) from reaper and PL is what really keeps you survivable. PRR, MRR, HP and AC do in fact contribute. So do all the racial points that are “extra” so you can spend more on normal trees.

Time in game in every way is what matters. “Great” players have spent a significant portion of their lives playing and thats just a function of how much responsibility they have thats put upon them in their regular lives. I’m sorry, but I’m lucky to get 180 minutes of play on a good WEEK. I have children to raise and do things with, a home to take care of and a job that’s extremely demanding. How people have this kind of time to spend is monumentally amazing to me. God bless you but it’s not skill. A long adventure is still a long adventure. Maybe you have figured out some things to avoid. Again, just a function of time in game.

[Anuulified]

The goal is more 50 points. At this point, every character should be given 50 reaper points in U51. I can see the vast gulf of power between a 30 reaper point character of mine compared to a 10 or under reaper point character. Correspondingly, there is a large gap between a character in the 20-30s and one in the 80-100s. The gap between 80 and say 5 is ludicrous. It's not even the same game.

50 points allow every character to get the low hanging (vital) HP boosts from GB then they have another 25 points to spend on either DPS or DCs as their class dictates.

Why should any character be given anything. Stop taking the time to forum post and use it to reaper exp, instead of asking for free things. The game is Free To Play, NOT free to win.

[zappy]

If I gave you my 35 reaper point character and I took your 100 point reaper character I'd be in the top 2 of kill count in R10 and you'd be at #5. It's simple math on a character sheet. DDO should be working to close the gap on those character sheets.

are you for real? LOL must be a troll or something

[slarden]

If I gave you my 35 reaper point character and I took your 100 point reaper character I'd be in the top 2 of kill count in R10 and you'd be at #5. It's simple math on a character sheet. DDO should be working to close the gap on those character sheets.

If we are looking at a caster as an example. At 35 reaper points you probably want 21 in the tank tree and 14 in the caster tree. So this is +4 to casting stat, +2 DC, +3 spell pen, +100 spell points, 414 hp.

At 100 reaper points you likely have 58 in tank tree, 42 in caster tree. This gives you and additional +1 casting stat, +1 dc, +2 spell pen, a nice dc boost clicky, + 350 spell points, 408 more hp+ possibly 30 more hp if you find a way to use that extra +1 con from tier 5.

I personally think you are fine going into R10s with 35 reaper points and you will get from 35 to 50 very very fast. The extra 65 points are impactful, but mostly for the extra spell points and hp. I don't think it translates into extra kills (except to the extent the extra hp keeps you from dying) though and kill count isn't really important as a measure unless you are spec'd for killing trash. If a DC caster isn't killing more than dps characters in difficult content it's probably not carrying it's weight regardless of reaper points because dps on bosses is way less.

If you are zerging R1s it's usually chaotic but successful. R10s are going that direction and will probably go the way elite went previously eventually, but in most groups you have a role and what's important is doing that role properly. If your role is cc, instakilling and general dc support 35 reaper points is fine for R10 questing and those extra 65 points won't help your kill count. It might help you avoid a few deaths, but not every quest you run. I don't have alot of experience pushing skulls in raids and I find those extra hp very helpful pushing skulls in raids but some of that is just not having as much experience in that space as some of the others I raid with, but not really in quests. So I have no problem bringing a 35 reaper point character to R10 and contributing. For more difficult reaper raiding I will only bring my higher rxp characters mainly due to my lack of experience in that space.

If you need help with tweaking your build and playstyle for R10 try finding a good discord channel for your server. You are certain to find some groups that are happy to bring along someone that is willing to learn and 35 reaper points is actually a solid place to start R10s.

I personally think the hp and sp from reaper trees is too much and said that from day 1, but that ship sailed and the devs will hit a wall of resistance if they try to change it at this point. If the devs want to offer a way to close the gap they should avoid expanding reaper tree power further and put rxp tomes and potions in the store rather than applying a nerf hammer to reaper trees. They could do something like give 1 hp per ap over 156 for self-proclaimed "power gamers" and they will complain like they always do about it not being enough, but will still continue to go for more powah despite their complaints.

[Weemadarthur]

What advice? I've already outlined my reaper play. Once you get beyond the quest meta benefits, DDO is not a skill game. The difference is stat accumulation. If I gave you my 35 reaper point character and I took your 100 point reaper character I'd be in the top 2 of kill count in R10 and you'd be at #5. It's simple math on a character sheet. DDO should be working to close the gap on those character sheets.

Sorry but I disagree here (yeah I know shock huh). Skill is the 1 factor that no amount of past lives and/or reaper points can make up for.

To give an example last night I ran a mid reaper RL saga run. Every quest I pretty much topped the kill count as I was the main dps in the group (but not the one with most PL's or RP). The catch is though that if I had been replaced with any other character the group would still have completed just as easily (albeit maybe a bit slower). Now at a glance this corroborates what you say but the fact was that we had 1 1st lifer in the group that was a very skilled healer. Without him the group would have failed. Now with my 50+ reaper point toon I could not have done his job anywhere near as well (and we probably would have wiped) as I dont have his skill at playing a cleric. On the other hand if he had been given my barb he would likely have died in the 1st battle as he doesn't have my skills at playing melee.

End result:- skill is a factor and not a small one in how people play a character. Player skill can enable a 1st life toon with no reaper points to successfully run R10's with no fatalities. A lack of skill can make a 100 reaper point triple completionist fail doing the exact same thing (I have witnessed both). I agree RP makes a big impact (I also agree with 50 being the desired amount of points to make an impact) but I would say those points act more as a buffer to make up for a lack of skill than a free pass to be as good as anyone else. A truly skilled player will be just as good (or better) with 10 reaper points as an unskilled player with 100.

[Catabree]

I'm sorry, this is fairly laughable.

Strange but each to their own.

[LightBear]

Do you know that joke about a tank and a cleric that got into a fight over who was leading the kill count?
Legend is they're still at it.

[Wizard1406]

I think people need to take a step back. The gentleman is right w accumulation, as no matter what I do, I will NEVER have the free time to spend on DDO that it would take to accumulate all the lives and gear people have. [....]

Time in game in every way is what matters.[...]

This is true... even if I had much more time in the game, I wouldn't get there. Repeating so often is just too much.
I think a problem is the D20 system. If you can get only 80% as good as top players, that can still mean enemies save every time against your spells vs. no fail from the veteran (ex Dc 120 -> 100) or you fail your save every time , which means you get one-shot or two shot before you can get healed since you also have less hp and mrr. Or you get 90% as good, it could still mean failure 50% of the time. (50% success is too low to play DC caster and too low to do good dps as dps caster)

I personally think you are fine going into R10s with 35 reaper points and you will get from 35 to 50 very very fast. The extra 65 points are impactful, but mostly for the extra spell points and hp..

IDK how to contribute with 35 RP as melee or caster. I have a little more RP and can't really contribute.
R10 has extremely high saves so I'm not effective as caster. And I get nearly oneshot as a melee and not do much damage. Even if I'm careful and trying to only attack CC'ed mobs I still get killed often by melee attacks, sometimes by spells too.
Probably a mix of gear and skill issue.

I think high reaper is simply out of my skill range and out of my grind tolerance because it requires hard to get gear and more senti xp etc.

[Catabree]

What advice? I've already outlined my reaper play. Once you get beyond the quest meta benefits, DDO is not a skill game. The difference is stat accumulation. If I gave you my 35 reaper point character and I took your 100 point reaper character I'd be in the top 2 of kill count in R10 and you'd be at #5. It's simple math on a character sheet

So we finally get the crux of problem you are having in this game. You are losing the kill count and you think it's because people have more past lifes and reaper points then you. I'm sad you feel this way. Oh but by the way, there is no glory being second in the kill count, just saying

[Kebtid]

Do you know that joke about a tank and a cleric that got into a fight over who was leading the kill count?
Legend is they're still at it.

Not a appropriate Joke for ddo based on how clerics can be quite ok dc casters and lead kill count sometimes..