The chasm between players and builds.

[KoobTheProud]

And then everyone says "oh well you can just play on lower difficulty". Yeah, technically, if you're only playing for fun. If you're running through new content for the first time, sure. If you actually want to accomplish anything or(and this is the biggest use for alts) farm gear, you are wasting your time on anything less than elite.

I think technically you're being wasteful of time expenditure for everything but reaper points if you do not run on r1.

However I prefer challenge to pure XP so I play mostly Elite at -1, -2 levels, meaning +3 to 4 levels on the quest. That gives me the best bang for the buck in terms of difficulty vs progression. R1 doesn't do that for the builds I play because the mana drops keep me from having to shrine or make decisions on buff recasts when I am disjuncted. When I play a melee-based non caster I run r1 instead.

[Weemadarthur]

Say what? I'm unable to get a decent stun DC that works on R1 and I have all the "stuff" on my pali. Blaming peoples skill levels is a big assumption. This idea of needing "the required skill level" is a lot like saying it gets good after 100 hours. Some folks can play basketball for fun just fine. They don't need professional athlete level skills just to drop a ball in a hole. Thinking you have to spend hundreds of hours perfecting your twitch and twerk to play a video game is a poor excuse for bad game design.

Now apologies if this is going to seem a bit rude here but claiming that you can't hit stun DC's because of the past life grind is a classic you don't understand your argument moment. Even with all past lives you will still struggle to hit your stun DC. This is a balance issue due to bad game design and nothing to do with past lives. If you have every single past life in the game that will still only give you +9 to your stun DC's. This is not a huge amount (especially as 6 of those DC's can be gotten with just 3 lives). To get a reliable stun DC in the game atm requires a lot of work and focus on build, gear and knowledge and can still only be done on a few classes regardless of past lives.

Now if you want to start a thread about stun DC's and how tactics don't work on all but a select few builds that I agree with and would support. I have been saying as much since U49 was on Lam. Trying to use it as a strawman argument to push something completely unrelated won't actually help that.

[Weemadarthur]

I'm not really sure where people get the notion that past lives make no difference.

Who exactly has claimed past lives make no difference? I have seen several posts say that you don't have to have every past life to be effective (and by proxy if skilled enough you may not need any at all) but no one sane is claiming that they are just fluff that have no impact.

There is a huge world of difference between the statements you don't need every past life to be successful in this game and past lives make no difference.

[Amorais]

There's other ways to have fun other than making your character super powerful.

I regularly use the DDO random character generator for a laugh and see how far I get before I peg it. Playing with zero equipment, playing on a new account new server, no guild no support. Player only uses named items. I have a vegan druid, only uses wood shields and no animal products. Gnome pally with a greatsword....

I find reaper tedious to the point of frustration and farming is the most heinously mind numbing experience in the entirety of gaming so I do neither except very grudgingly for tokens of the 12 to TR with.

That said I am a filthy casual who doesn't raid so I don't really need all the gear

[slarden]

When the f2p model was introduced, shortly after, TRs and past life benefits and eventually completionist was introduced. This is the time in end game when auto crits and insta kills were the meta (monks and DC wizards). Tanks were needed as well for bosses, expecially raids. Heck BYOH was a common Epic LFM, but you never went in difficult content without a DC wizard. First life DC Wizards did not work.

Pre-motu dc and spell pen requirements were definitely not out of bounds for a first-lifer. I used a second life wizard as my main dc caster for epic raiding/questing including epic chronoscope and devil assault. My DC and spell pen were fine everywhere but heroic shavarath which had higher save requirements than those epics did. The big advantage of more spell pen from past lifes back then was you didn't have to take the spell pen feats and could instead take toughness which mattered more back then. I did have a backup first life DC wizard which I used when my other caster was on a timer and it worked just fine other than seeing the blue symbol a few times.

Back then the difference in DC between a first-lifer and second-lifer was 1 and the difference between a second lifer and completionist was 1. a bard past life could boost your enchantment dc by 1.

Spell pen requirements didn't really start requiring past lifes until motu when you needed all of them (3x wiz and 3x fvs) for spell pen to land spells on the orange named drow on epic elite. Motu was the first content where past lifes were required to land spells on elite.

Pre-motu I believe 41 was the magic DC # and it was achievable for a first-lifer. And not having +2 spell pen from past lifes meant a 5% more chance of spell pen failure on just one enemy in devil assault. Building characters in general was tougher at that time because the enhancement system wasn't as transparent - so if you didn't have the pre-req you wouldn't even see the right enhancements.

First and second life DC casters were common in epic raiding and questing for the simple reason that tomes didn't persist through TR. So you would park a few characters with tomes for farming tokens and epic mats while your main TR'd.

[Eantarus]

I think technically you're being wasteful of time expenditure for everything but reaper points if you do not run on r1.

However I prefer challenge to pure XP so I play mostly Elite at -1, -2 levels, meaning +3 to 4 levels on the quest. That gives me the best bang for the buck in terms of difficulty vs progression. R1 doesn't do that for the builds I play because the mana drops keep me from having to shrine or make decisions on buff recasts when I am disjuncted. When I play a melee-based non caster I run r1 instead.

My alts(once leveled to cap) aren't advancing any further. They farm rares in salt marsh & feywild(and now IoD) or run over-level content to farm heroic gear for TRs on my main(since even the jenkist alt at lvl 30 can run a lvl 15 quest on elite). The time expenditure is purely about the material rewards.

[Eantarus]

I find reaper tedious to the point of frustration

Most accurate description of reaper ever.

[MaeveTuohy]

I'm not really sure where people get the notion that past lives make no difference.

I build a lot of alts for farming purposes(such as grinding dino boners in the wilderness of IoD, grinding star fragments in Saltmarsh, etc). At one point I had a sorc alt who was at complete parity with my main in terms of gear. In fact, the alt had slightly better gear. Well despite all of this, the main with 150 or so past lives could easily solo reapers while the alt could barely survive. Both were speced out exactly the same and played by the same person in the same way. So yeah, PLs make a huge difference.

It's like people want to argue with math. Behind the pretty colours, there is a server making calculations and bigger numbers are simply more effective.

[Bagel99]

It's like people want to argue with math. Behind the pretty colours, there is a server making calculations and bigger numbers are simply more effective.

If we are arguing pure numbers past lives always make a difference, but whats being said is that most skilled players know alternatives if they can't make a DC for a certain spell or make do and find a way. Sometimes standing up on a ledge and chipping at something is mandatory. Like said before i don't think anyone is arguing past lives arent effective and beneficial but most players can work around having them. We have to the whole time we are earning them.

[MaeveTuohy]

If we are arguing pure numbers past lives always make a difference, but whats being said is that most skilled players know alternatives if they can't make a DC for a certain spell or make do and find a way. Sometimes standing up on a ledge and chipping at something is mandatory. Like said before i don't think anyone is arguing past lives arent effective and beneficial but most players can work around having them. We have to the whole time we are earning them.

Yep, that's all known.

[slarden]

I saw one pali with 9.4k HP. 910 PRR, 560 MRR and 400+ AC. If I didn't see it with my own eyes I'd swear it was impossible. He wasn't even buffed.

I would like to see the breakdown for PRR and MRR.

The hp and ac I can verify are possible on a pure paladin with math. The PRR and MRR on a pure paladin I can't verify.

[jskinner937]

Pre-motu dc and spell pen requirements were definitely not out of bounds for a first-lifer. I used a second life wizard as my main dc caster for epic raiding/questing including epic chronoscope and devil assault. My DC and spell pen were fine everywhere but heroic shavarath which had higher save requirements than those epics did. The big advantage of more spell pen from past lifes back then was you didn't have to take the spell pen feats and could instead take toughness which mattered more back then. I did have a backup first life DC wizard which I used when my other caster was on a timer and it worked just fine other than seeing the blue symbol a few times.

Back then the difference in DC between a first-lifer and second-lifer was 1 and the difference between a second lifer and completionist was 1. a bard past life could boost your enchantment dc by 1.

Spell pen requirements didn't really start requiring past lifes until motu when you needed all of them (3x wiz and 3x fvs) for spell pen to land spells on the orange named drow on epic elite. Motu was the first content where past lifes were required to land spells on elite.

Pre-motu I believe 41 was the magic DC # and it was achievable for a first-lifer. And not having +2 spell pen from past lifes meant a 5% more chance of spell pen failure on just one enemy in devil assault. Building characters in general was tougher at that time because the enhancement system wasn't as transparent - so if you didn't have the pre-req you wouldn't even see the right enhancements.

First and second life DC casters were common in epic raiding and questing for the simple reason that tomes didn't persist through TR. So you would park a few characters with tomes for farming tokens and epic mats while your main TR'd.

I think your numbers seem right. Maybe I was not as good with casters back then, but I found it hard to break a 35DC on my first life wizard. Maybe your gearing was much better than mine. I rarely saw spell pen failure outside of sands to be honest but my DCs were far from no fail in most epic content. Holds and instakills. But I have to admit wail of the banshee worked so much better back then even with lower DCs.

[LightBear]

I think your numbers seem right. Maybe I was not as good with casters back then, but I found it hard to break a 35DC on my first life wizard. Maybe your gearing was much better than mine. I rarely saw spell pen failure outside of sands to be honest but my DCs were far from no fail in most epic content. Holds and instakills. But I have to admit wail of the banshee worked so much better back then even with lower DCs.

Multi-classing was also more viable back then.
As a caster we're now forced to stay true/loyal to the class.

[Kayze]

That's how vast the chasm is today. A lot like rl society I guess.

DDO is a co-op MMORPG with no ranked pvp...or in fact, ranked anything (hardcore notwithstanding). Why does it matter what someone else has? It's like eating a hot dog, and you're loving it. But then you look over to your right side and you see someone eating a hot dog, but covered in unicorn rainbow farts and fairy wing dust. Does that make your own hot dog any less appetizing?

It's a MMORPG. Team up with others to bring down the obstacle, or take on the challenge to overcome it yourself. Why does everything have to be a competition? If you're shooting a boss, and your party member is shooting the same boss but with more damage, do you lose out on some sort of tangible character value?

Gear matters more than past lives anyway.

[Azoyhn]

I would like to see the breakdown for PRR and MRR.

The hp and ac I can verify are possible on a pure paladin with math. The PRR and MRR on a pure paladin I can't verify.

Hi, the pure paladin with the 919 PRR and 544 MRR. I cannot provide a solid breakdown, only a screenshot with an 8 second video using a bunch of buffs to provide a situational bonus to skyrocket the PRR/MRR value.

[Weemadarthur]

Hi, the pure paladin with the 919 PRR and 544 MRR. I cannot provide a solid breakdown, only a screenshot with an 8 second video using a bunch of buffs to provide a situational bonus to skyrocket the PRR/MRR value.

Hi, I hope you don't mind my asking but what is the unbuffed standing PRR and MRR on your toon?

[hale99]

Most accurate description of reaper ever.

I truely believe that the argument that reaper is a waste of time is (in my opinion) made by those that don't want to put in the effort because they don't have the effort nor energy. Therefore there shouldn't be that argument to begin with. It you have issues with R1 (sorry if this sounds harsh) still after all of these years and all of the gear and stuff that has some out then there's some serious issues going on with your build or breakdown. We all started at 0 reaper points and had to work our way up. Reaper is by far so worth the rewards. You get HP and a lot of other bonuses in the trees that help you out so much. So even if you decide to just run R1 all the time (which is fine) you will be so much stronger than on Elite. Hearing that reaper is a waste of time is for me the same argument that makes me scratch my head everytime I see a legendary raid up on LE why not just do R1. You're so much stronger xD

[noinfo]

I know right?!
I have a toon with a couple dozen past lives and toons with 3-4 or none. The difference in power and defense is far from negligible. It makes all the difference in the world.

I have literally dozens of toons.

I have 1 with pretty much everything including over 156 reaper points

I have 5 others that all have wings and a handful of pastlives. They didn't get those playing r1.

I have a Favoured Soul nuker first life that is currently running r10's and a 3rd life bard that is as well, both are in the 25-30 reaper point range.

If you are saying that lives will make some difference, you are right, that they will add some defense? yep its true. You can actually build those defenses fast with... Reaper points. These are front loaded and easy to get if you actually want them. Unlike past lives. The server does numbers and you can hit numbers without massive past lives or reaper points to begin with.

I am very concerned that these threads will make reaper the new elite as it was so diluted by people who believed every one should be able to max out their favour or gain max xp that elite became not so elite.

I get that some people don't like reaper and many prefer the TR part of the game. I can't stand TR for example, I don't enjoy playing my toons as less than they can be and progression by regression is not dnd or intuitive but each to their own.

But here is a simple truth. If you want to participate in reaper and at high levels then do it. Ask in groups and let them know you are new. Its going to hurt and its not very forgiving but unless you are currently trying to do a melee, which is not in a very survivable situation at the moment, with good gear and experience you will be fine.

[noinfo]

It's like people want to argue with math. Behind the pretty colours, there is a server making calculations and bigger numbers are simply more effective.

I agree, bigger numbers are always better, however understanding what the numbers actually do and how to maximise their performance within what you are trying to achieve is what actually gives your build bang for buck instead of it being a multi life soul stone.

[noinfo]

Most accurate description of reaper ever.

Or the most accurate description of TR ever?