Melee THF ein heroics

[mikarddo]

Which melee THF build do you consider the strongest overall (dps and surviveability) currently for running heroic past lives?

Pure Paladin? Pure Barb? Something else?

Details will be most appreciated

[FuzzyDuck81]

I'm rather fond of a warforged pure wizard eldritch knight... not totally 2hf since you're mixing in spells too, but a great combination of damage dealing, crowd control, self healing & general resilience from a variety of buffs plus you have all those nifty innate racial immunities.

[Fauxknight]

For me pure CHA based pally has been working out best, 41 KOTC, 31 SD, 9 Feydark. Great damage, healing, healing Amp, and off the chart saves.

[Gniewomir]

Actually, with some gear and some common sense (here i mean not making some weird builds that have a big chance of failure) you shouldn't have any problems running r1 heroics, pretty much every melee can zerg through.

[AbyssalMage]

Which melee THF build do you consider the strongest overall (dps and surviveability) currently for running heroic past lives?

Pure Paladin? Pure Barb? Something else?

Details will be most appreciated

Heroic PL's?
Any - Most are getting the shaft soon so choose your poison. Even a 2HF Druid will work thanks to self-healing and healing amp. Otherwise Paladin is probably best with Barbarian close behind. Probably worse would be Acrobatic because you have to repair your weapons every 3 minutes.

[FuzzyDuck81]

Heroic PL's?
Any - Most are getting the shaft soon so choose your poison. Even a 2HF Druid will work thanks to self-healing and healing amp. Otherwise Paladin is probably best with Barbarian close behind. Probably worse would be Acrobatic because you have to repair your weapons every 3 minutes.

Acrobat rogue or henshin monk are both a lot of fun, but yeah the durability is an issue, on mine I made sure to take the magical training feat & invest in feydark illusionist relatively early so I'd have the shadow imbue ready & waiting when I hit level 7 & had access to elemental bloom - previous to that I was using a crafted adamantine stick.

[SpartanKiller13]

I'd vote THF Paladin because of LoH; while Barbarian has easier sustain (Blood Tribute & T5's) being able to save party members is worth it to me, and LoH goes a long ways towards that goal

I think both are great w/r/t killing stuff and survivability though.

If you're doing Heroics only it's often worth considering 1-2 levels of dips for easy access (like Fighter 1 gives 4AP Haste boost and a feat). Not reaching Core 5/6 doesn't matter much given how little time you spend at 18+ IMO.

[Vish]

for ein thf melee that would be henshin

see my theory crafting for stats

[Kebtid]

Barb fighter mix, you will for heroics not get 18 core so it is less important.
Fighter gives you extra feats which you spend to get spring attack fast.

So you have temp hp from barb, later on on hit/kill heal, and feats to get martial feats and spring attack to move faster and complete faster.
(paladin is to slow, cannot have multiple cleaves and not as efficient, and it is actually one of the worse options right now for 2handed as opposed to pure fighter and barb, strictly at cap speaking, it also does not have useful abilties for heroic leveling)

You can add 1 soul for trance, but your stat unless you are packed with charisma plifes and gear /tome wont be high enough to use trance to its most ability to offset need to splash fsoul although it offers prot from evil which is nice to have in heroics unless you have bard plifes and sufficient gear never to fail a will save, so this one is less important.

All other options work out, but are not as efficient as this one.

Basically run as fast as you can, cleave barb cleave (cleaves are extraordinary feats now thus why fighter splash makes sense).

This is in metagaming terms from a min max standpoint.
Also uncanny dodge and improved version make for suberb defensive tools

Ek is terrible, due to bab reqr for feats and being extremely slow as you try to mix spells and melee and its not really a melee.
2 barb levels give you temp 150 hp, it is by far the best thing for zerging, and later on combined with on hit/kill hp you will never need healing and can be hyper agressive which in turn means faster racials. Ek is actually a extremely slow leveler.

[Arctigis]

Which melee THF build do you consider the strongest overall (dps and surviveability) currently for running heroic past lives?

Pure Paladin? Pure Barb? Something else?

Details will be most appreciated

Do you mean racials? Reincarnating at 20?

For WF, Sorc EK with 1 Barb, 1 FVS.
For fleshies, Wiz EK with 1 Barb, 1 Rogue or Fighter for bonus feat. PM for healing.
Can do traps if Rogue is taken.

FVS is for trance in Sorc build.

Can either go str based with con and int/cha secondary or go int/char primary and
con secondary. However, you will still need to invest in str for THF.

Pure Paladin and pure Barb are also great. Barb needs a bit of help until you can get
Bloodstrength. EK with FB then DBF has better AOE than Paladin if that matters to you.
Use them like a cleave or Energy Burst once you get Knight's Transformation.

[Logicman69]

Oddly, I have been liking my Aasmir THF pure Fighter. Basic STR/CON fighter, Kensai tree with points into Stalwart Defender. I went with the Fallen bond for the double strike boost and Vunerability. Plus the healing hands ability of Aasmir goes a long way to shoring up some of the weaknesses of the fighter class. I'm sure Paly is better overall, but I like having all the feats of the fighter to play with.

[Stormraiser]

Barb fighter mix, you will for heroics not get 18 core so it is less important.
Fighter gives you extra feats which you spend to get spring attack fast.

So you have temp hp from barb, later on on hit/kill heal, and feats to get martial feats and spring attack to move faster and complete faster.
(paladin is to slow, cannot have multiple cleaves and not as efficient, and it is actually one of the worse options right now for 2handed as opposed to pure fighter and barb, strictly at cap speaking, it also does not have useful abilties for heroic leveling)

You can add 1 soul for trance, but your stat unless you are packed with charisma plifes and gear /tome wont be high enough to use trance to its most ability to offset need to splash fsoul although it offers prot from evil which is nice to have in heroics unless you have bard plifes and sufficient gear never to fail a will save, so this one is less important.

All other options work out, but are not as efficient as this one.

Basically run as fast as you can, cleave barb cleave (cleaves are extraordinary feats now thus why fighter splash makes sense).

This is in metagaming terms from a min max standpoint.
Also uncanny dodge and improved version make for suberb defensive tools

Ek is terrible, due to bab reqr for feats and being extremely slow as you try to mix spells and melee and its not really a melee.
2 barb levels give you temp 150 hp, it is by far the best thing for zerging, and later on combined with on hit/kill hp you will never need healing and can be hyper agressive which in turn means faster racials. Ek is actually a extremely slow leveler.

The best suggestion is here. Run speed is key, especially with sprint boost. Clearing trash on R1 is not too different between a 2HF barb, paladin, fighter, ek or other hybrid. What is different is how fast you can get from one room to the next.

[scut207]

Barb fighter mix, you will for heroics not get 18 core so it is less important.
Fighter gives you extra feats which you spend to get spring attack fast.

So you have temp hp from barb, later on on hit/kill heal, and feats to get martial feats and spring attack to move faster and complete faster.
(paladin is to slow, cannot have multiple cleaves and not as efficient, and it is actually one of the worse options right now for 2handed as opposed to pure fighter and barb, strictly at cap speaking, it also does not have useful abilties for heroic leveling)

You can add 1 soul for trance, but your stat unless you are packed with charisma plifes and gear /tome wont be high enough to use trance to its most ability to offset need to splash fsoul although it offers prot from evil which is nice to have in heroics unless you have bard plifes and sufficient gear never to fail a will save, so this one is less important.

All other options work out, but are not as efficient as this one.

Basically run as fast as you can, cleave barb cleave (cleaves are extraordinary feats now thus why fighter splash makes sense).

This is in metagaming terms from a min max standpoint.
Also uncanny dodge and improved version make for suberb defensive tools

Ek is terrible, due to bab reqr for feats and being extremely slow as you try to mix spells and melee and its not really a melee.
2 barb levels give you temp 150 hp, it is by far the best thing for zerging, and later on combined with on hit/kill hp you will never need healing and can be hyper agressive which in turn means faster racials. Ek is actually a extremely slow leveler.

100% agree with this strategy but whats the level mix? splash how many fighter levels thinking just 2 to get 2 extra feats or 6 to front load the hell out of feats and ride the temp HP for a bit?


STR MAX
Min Dex 13
rest con

1-Barb - 2HF runspeed yay
2-Barb 2 --- N/A gets you access to temp HP
3-Fighter 1 Dodge & Mobility
4-Fighter 2 Spring attack
6-Fighter 4 PA & Cleave
8-Fighter 6 Imp 2HF
9-Barb 3 Great Cleave
12-Barb 6 GTHF
15 Barb 9 IC slash/bludgoen
18 barb 13 w/e

for someone with an upgraded quiver reordering the PA-Cleave priority over spring attack might make sense since youre running max speed anyway to get the first cleave in faster for dealing with kobald packs.

[Kebtid]

100% agree with this strategy but whats the level mix? splash how many fighter levels thinking just 2 to get 2 extra feats or 6 to front load the hell out of feats and ride the temp HP for a bit?


STR MAX
Min Dex 13
rest con

1-Barb - 2HF runspeed yay
2-Barb 2 --- N/A gets you access to temp HP
3-Fighter 1 Dodge & Mobility
4-Fighter 2 Spring attack
6-Fighter 4 PA & Cleave
8-Fighter 6 Imp 2HF
9-Barb 3 Great Cleave
12-Barb 6 GTHF
15 Barb 9 IC slash/bludgoen
18 barb 13 w/e

for someone with an upgraded quiver reordering the PA-Cleave priority over spring attack might make sense since youre running max speed anyway to get the first cleave in faster for dealing with kobald packs.

That sounds about right feat wise, splash does not matter that much, barb is there to grant cleaves and temp hp, and the sustain is actually (from blood st) not needed until lv 16ish so a 4 fighter splash would do great, reason being that with sufficient gear at level prrr/mrr and uncany coupled with hood (advise to farm it while mabar is on) allow for hyperagressive play without risk of dying.

For information sake, leveling that split as a razorclaw shifter is the fastest i breezed trough heroics outside of sorc, sp boost, barb mov speed and 2 fast approaches make for a wonderful leveling experience.

[Arctigis]

Curious as to why players are still taking the Cleave/Great Cleave feats. In my experience,
strikethough changes obviated these feats entirely.

[Strider1963]

Curious as to why players are still taking the Cleave/Great Cleave feats. In my experience,
strikethough changes obviated these feats entirely.

This ^^^ Cleave/Great cleave used to be mandantory for 2hf Barb etc., now they're kind of a waste of a feat IMHO.... I just take the thf feats for strikethrough and then you have 2 xtra feats to spend on lets say Heavy armor for a barb etc. For just 1-20 and tr I like 18 Barb 2 Fighter.....run through the dungeon, round em up and strikethrough/haste boost and done.

[Sebastrd]

2 Barb/18 Druid Bear. Full stop.

[Weemadarthur]

Curious as to why players are still taking the Cleave/Great Cleave feats. In my experience,
strikethough changes obviated these feats entirely.

ST works great once you have enough to reach 150+ but for heroic zerg runs cleaves are a much faster option for clearing trash. I agree in epics they are a waste of feats but in heroics (especially early heroics) they can halve the time it takes to run quests.

[Vish]

I’m telling ya

Henshin with staff of the seer

[SpartanKiller13]

Curious as to why players are still taking the Cleave/Great Cleave feats. In my experience,
strikethough changes obviated these feats entirely.

Until you get GTHF (usually level 12+ depending on BAB) you'll be hitting like 2 enemies/swing.

At the difficulties/content I run, there's usually >2 enemies/pack. In a group of 6 enemies you're basically getting 3 hits per cleave in the same time as one swing Also you're not even losing single-target DPS now that DS applies to cleaves. Given most of DDO's questing involves mass-trash clearing, optimizing your build towards that goal is usually pretty valuable.

For an extreme example, step into Slave Lords on Elite+ and see how well ~100% Strikethrough does ya vs Cleave. Certainly most content is better than that, but it's a pretty obvious example of why I think C/GC can be worthwhile for leveling.