For a Fist ful of Flowers

[Tilomere]

No bug, the HP adjustments is the 20% Unyielding Sentinel + 25% Epic Defensive Fighting +10% Winter hp adjustment. Oh, and full reaper tree including con bonuses x that adjustment is the difference between reaper and normal. 900 ish reaper hp x 1.55 = 1400 ish.

Here is AC breakdown, this is for For a Few Flowers More, original has more dex and less shield AC and is about the same. Feat bonus is from past lives, Misc bonus is from destiny and enhancement trees, mostly US, and other sources. I don't know the exact breakdown.



PRR breakdown is:

50 Epic Destiny (15 LSM + 15 C3 LD + 5 C2 GMoF + 5 Divine Bulwark + 10-30 Deific Resilience (Deific Warding Feat)
36 Past Life Divine + PDK
99 Gear: 33 Enhancement + 30 Artifact + 21 Light Armor BaB 21 + 9 Quality + 6 Mythic
5 Greater Shield Mastery
21 Sentience ish
18 Enhancements and misc I have no clue where ish

Updated For a Few Flowers More and put a link in OP! Also updated OP for newer players to not take the +threat, and instead reduce threat.

[Tilomere]

Playability nerfed in 52.1

Taking build down, msg me if you were on it and want a copy to finish your life.

[Tilomere]

Attempt at SD dps caster, build doesn't work, because scaling on paranoia is too low:



100 damage sneak x 7 spell power = 700 damage spell, 1500 crit. 4k Shiradi Proc.

[Marcb81]

Attempt at SD dps caster, build doesn't work, because scaling on paranoia is too low:

I'm really sorry to hear this. I wanted to try a druid 20 with T5 NW for SA dice and EQ for proccing this along with other stuff. Guess will just stick to RDA, Acid Ring, Stay frosty, etc.

[Tilomere]

nerfed in 52.1

Taking build down, msg me if you were on it and want a copy to finish your life.

[Tilomere]

nerfed in 52.1

Taking build down, msg me if you were on it and want a copy to finish your life.

[Bjond]

To use a shield SWF you need to multiclass to bard, and if you do that you lose the C5 crit multiplier in assassin, so you have to pick up your two multiplier from barb

VKF works instead of FB for similar DPS and more tankiness if you take Mist Stalker V. Whether it's more or less DPS depends on your Melee Power and Double Strike without VKF and whether you can afford a full 41 AP. My builds tend toward VKF.25 < FB (5~8%) and VKF.41 > FB (2~4%). I never have enough for VKF.41, though.

This would let you take either more Bard (more spells, longer buff durations), more Rogue (sneak & rogue bonus feats), or replace Barb with Fighter for more general feats and/or splitting AP between VKF & Stalwart.

Another bit to maybe consider is more TMP HP via things like Ice Barrier (cloak of winter) and Demonic Shield (demon consort or baphomet). Both proc frequently enough to be useful when tanking and I don't think TMP HP effects D.Roll trigger. Consort can be perfected, too, but I suspect it might take longer to Tetris it into your gear setup than pulling a nebula.

[Tilomere]

VKF works instead of FB for similar DPS and more tankiness if you take Mist Stalker V. Whether it's more or less DPS depends on your Melee Power and Double Strike without VKF and whether you can afford a full 41 AP. My builds tend toward VKF.25 < FB (5~8%) and VKF.41 > FB (2~4%). I never have enough for VKF.41, though.

This would let you take either more Bard (more spells, longer buff durations), more Rogue (sneak & rogue bonus feats), or replace Barb with Fighter for more general feats and/or splitting AP between VKF & Stalwart.

Another bit to maybe consider is more TMP HP via things like Ice Barrier (cloak of winter) and Demonic Shield (demon consort or baphomet). Both proc frequently enough to be useful when tanking and I don't think TMP HP effects D.Roll trigger. Consort can be perfected, too, but I suspect it might take longer to Tetris it into your gear setup than pulling a nebula.

Doublestrike caps at reaper boost, so not interested in VKF for quick strike/mist V especially since I don't want any more buttons to hit, prefer the +2 passive multiplier from FB and handaxe swashing.

I like the barb for run speed and damage reduction.

I want to redo the gear at some point, to build in permanent spell absorb planned swapping for the melee sets, and temp hp would rock if it also fits in, but that makes the tetris more complex.

[fuzzee]

What are your thoughts on acceptable replacements for the Tharne goggles/bracers for Proczilla? I was thinking Amethyst Loupe and Armbands of the Silenced Ones, respectively. You'd lose the Tharne set bonus but otherwise it seems like these items cover the base stats pretty well. Thoughts?

[Tilomere]

What are your thoughts on acceptable replacements for the Tharne goggles/bracers for Proczilla? I was thinking Amethyst Loupe and Armbands of the Silenced Ones, respectively. You'd lose the Tharne set bonus but otherwise it seems like these items cover the base stats pretty well. Thoughts?

Ya, you could do that. A well-rounded tanky-self-healing melee like the melee rogues in prior posts or a druid bear or paladin or US barb can solo VoD for the runes.

Wallwatch + Saltmarsh would also work, if you wanted to drop out all the raid gear. Most of the damage is procs, so raid gear is just nice, but it doesn't add very much dps.

[Spyder1228]

Is this build still viable? I saw a few posts up that said given recent updates it is not viable. I want to reroll my current steel maiden into something that can tank/off-tank but also do some damage. tired of playing a pure tank and not being able to play anything outside of groups lol. The idea seems like a lot of fun.

[Tilomere]

Is this build still viable? I saw a few posts up that said given recent updates it is not viable. I want to reroll my current steel maiden into something that can tank/off-tank but also do some damage. tired of playing a pure tank and not being able to play anything outside of groups lol. The idea seems like a lot of fun.

The melee builds are fine, but I brought the ranged ones down.

[Bjond]

Is this build still viable?

The melee builds are fine, but I brought the ranged ones down.

My D.Roll builds both still work and one is VERY similar to Tilo's here (just trade FB for Kensei) for CM+1 instead of Barbarian's CM+2. Zero RPLs = not enough AP for Chains & CM+2, but it does have stalwart and more dodge.

For tough stuff, I'd recommend swapping Handaxe for Labrythine. Less DPS (by roughly ~13% iirc), but CON+8 is a pretty tanky buff with close to 100% uptime and the salt proc works with the chain for more certain AE/CC.

It's too bad filigrees aren't glued to the Jewel for a one-kit "en mass" swap between weapons. The way sentient was done rather kills the entire concept of creating alternate gear sets. It would have opened up a whole new set of dialogue lines for the jewels, too -- ripping them out of their home and stuffing 'em in a new place.

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

... Reminds me of trying out those flowers from the DDO store as a weapon ...

[Bjond]

(edited by Tilomere; 10-12-2022) nerfed in u57

Ah, what killed it? Looks like you edited between preview-1 and preview-2. I could see preview-1 ripping out it's 25%, but from what I recall, both Flowers had AP in a T5 with a bonus in preview-2. AP was squeaky tight, though. Couldn't afford an extra 2 AP?

[Tilomere]

SSG proposed to nerf this build via dodge changes and then again via reduced % hp in US and then again with reduced % in Ravager. So this type of build is being targeted, which is of minor concern because it is protected by the player base trying to melee.

More concerning, super specialization of tanking by increasing fighter/paladin hp is going to further require super mobs. For example, fighter is getting ~20% tankier:
T5 Stalwart Thick of Battle replaced with a flat passive 100% threat bonus & grants 60 hit points
T5 - Against the Odds grants 60 hit points in addition to it's original effect
Core 4 Stalwart - Stand Fast - grants a 10% quality bonus to hit points in addition to it's original effect
T3 Stalwart Defensive Stance increased to a 25% competence bonus at rank 3.

When fighter and paladin tanks get 20% tankier, mob damage will go up 20% to compensate either directly or by group reaper difficulty selection to remain a threat to such a tank, which means a melee tanky build like this gets wrecked.

Allowing and promoting super tanks is what caused the lack of melee survivability due to requiring super mobs. That led to the creation of this build and running a rogue in US in the first place. Now that they are promoting super tanks even more, which will lead to even stronger mobs, and just because you maintain or give melee a small amount of base HP doesn't mean it isn't going to get even worse for them as a result of this patch. I'm dropping out of melee and going sorc. This build window is closing, and I also took down the rogue assassin framework, because that is closing as well.

I'm also looking at the very interesting logic in which a sorc nuking a group faster than an imbue build can kill a single mob is completely acceptable.

Sorc will allow me the added defense of range, added CC of mass hold, and added spell power to compensate for increased incoming mob damage that will hatch from even more super tanks, while simultaneously allowing bypassing the current idiosyncrasies of player base reasonably expected damage, understanding of melee issue sources, and self-healing penalty.

They nerfed offhand versatility for healing the rogue assassin, so also moving to sorc for more base spell power/crit/multiplier to self-heal. I could have left the S&B version up, but I started moving to sorc anyways 3 patches ago and it doesn't seem like SSG likes this type of build so I'm taking it down.

[Bjond]

SSG proposed to nerf this build via dodge changes and then again via reduced % hp in US and then again with reduced % in Ravager. So this type of build is being targeted, which is of minor concern because it is protected by the player base trying to melee.

More concerning, super specialization of tanking by increasing fighter/paladin hp is going to further require super mobs.

Yeah, I'm worried about melee/tanking fun in general due to these things happening over on Lam. Dodgy DPS tanks are a TON of fun to play. I've played them in every MMO from EQ1 to here. Fat lumps of mitigation that can't do anything other than squat and intimidate are the epitome of "not fun".

The sad part is that D&D has no such thing as a tank. ALL melee are more or less "tanks". They hold the front line. If you look at armor stats, regardless of what type of armor you wear, your total AC ends up the same or perhaps off by at most 1~2 AC.

The more DDO rushes to embrace "squat tanks", the further it gets from real D&D.

---

All that aside, I do wish you'd left the posts up for historical reference. Lots of very nice ideas in those builds that people could benefit from to make new builds even if the exact ones you had up no longer work.

I wish I had the RAP for a 15x5 D.Roller, but alas, no. So, I made a couple low-PL variants. They're a lot of fun to play and more accessible to the general populace. Just thinking about full build posting triggers my procrastination gene, but here's the gist:

13 Rogue 3 Monk 4 Fighter, D.Roll Stick/16x4, ~50% base dodge. FOTW:T5 SD:T3 GMOF:T3
11 Rogue 3 Swash 6 Fighter, D.Roll H.Axe/15x4, ~42% base dodge. US:T5 EA:T4 SD:T3

Both started with 0 EPL and used slight variations of those builds to acquire 12x EPL. Both are SDK, but if Tabaxi were around when I made the monk, I'd have done that instead. Having displace is "kinda nice" for leveling, but does nothing for high reaper. Both have tanked R10 quests, but the swash is better at it IF it swaps to Labrythine for Salt. Swash's EDs are rigged for R1 "raid tanking". It used FOTW for questing.