Pure Class Popularity for Hardcore

[Dark_Lord_Mary]

Here is a random sampling of the Hardcore server as of 8/30 - evening

pure class popularity for hardcore only - I did not count splash builds - there are a ton of splash builds.

The winner? Artificer! by a long shot - people love Arti for HCL and it's easy to understand why - good defense, good dps, trapping - artis can do it all.

Followed by Cleric! Domains seem to be the reason here - whether animal (hcl most popular) or some other - clerics are wildly popular. I've seen some very effecting turning builds work very well in hcl.

Least played is Monk - which is very surprising considering the new iconic is basically a monk - this goes to show just the bad place monks are in.

followed by Alchemist and Sorcerer - not a surprise, sorc is a glass cannon unless you make a warforged; and alchemist really is awful till lvl 12 - why are the heals so slow? legit? Why? Its dumb you cant quicken alchy heals.

Here are the actual numbers from the Hardcore Server who list this evening:
PURE CLASSES:
wizard - 12
warlock - 27
Sorcerer - 5
Rogue - 14
Ranger - 8
Paladin - 20
Monk - 3
fighter - 12
Favored Soul - 27
Druid - 20
Cleric - 32
Bard - 20
Barbarian - 15
Artificer - 40
Alchemist - 5

[balvix]

Here is a random sampling of the Hardcore server as of 8/30 - evening

pure class popularity for hardcore only - I did not count splash builds - there are a ton of splash builds.

The winner? Artificer! by a long shot - people love Arti for HCL and it's easy to understand why - good defense, good dps, trapping - artis can do it all.

Followed by Cleric! Domains seem to be the reason here - whether animal (hcl most popular) or some other - clerics are wildly popular. I've seen some very effecting turning builds work very well in hcl.

Least played is Monk - which is very surprising considering the new iconic is basically a monk - this goes to show just the bad place monks are in.

followed by Alchemist and Sorcerer - not a surprise, sorc is a glass cannon unless you make a warforged; and alchemist really is awful till lvl 12 - why are the heals so slow? legit? Why? Its dumb you cant quicken alchy heals.

Here are the actual numbers from the Hardcore Server who list this evening:
PURE CLASSES:
wizard - 12
warlock - 27
Sorcerer - 5
Rogue - 14
Ranger - 8
Paladin - 20
Monk - 3
fighter - 12
Favored Soul - 27
Druid - 20
Cleric - 32
Bard - 20
Barbarian - 15
Artificer - 40
Alchemist - 5

Well, looks like arti nerf will be next. Ssg wont be happy until nothing stands out as fun and everything is exactly the same so that nothing is different and its all flavor.

[TitusOvid]

https://www.ddoaudit.com/servers

Scroll down a bit more than halfway and you find some class statistics (primary class).
I would have thought bard is still more popular. But your are right, Arti is way off . I saw caster druids perform really well. I am astonished about Alchemist and Sorc. Yes, they are kinda weak on low lvl but they perform great later on, in my experience.

Cheers,
Titus

[thwart]

Now we know how to swing the nerf bat!

Here is a random sampling of the Hardcore server as of 8/30 - evening

pure class popularity for hardcore only - I did not count splash builds - there are a ton of splash builds.

The winner? Artificer! by a long shot - people love Arti for HCL and it's easy to understand why - good defense, good dps, trapping - artis can do it all.

Followed by Cleric! Domains seem to be the reason here - whether animal (hcl most popular) or some other - clerics are wildly popular. I've seen some very effecting turning builds work very well in hcl.

Least played is Monk - which is very surprising considering the new iconic is basically a monk - this goes to show just the bad place monks are in.

followed by Alchemist and Sorcerer - not a surprise, sorc is a glass cannon unless you make a warforged; and alchemist really is awful till lvl 12 - why are the heals so slow? legit? Why? Its dumb you cant quicken alchy heals.

Here are the actual numbers from the Hardcore Server who list this evening:
PURE CLASSES:
wizard - 12
warlock - 27
Sorcerer - 5
Rogue - 14
Ranger - 8
Paladin - 20
Monk - 3
fighter - 12
Favored Soul - 27
Druid - 20
Cleric - 32
Bard - 20
Barbarian - 15
Artificer - 40
Alchemist - 5

[slarden]

Arti should definitely be popular on hardcore, but not because it's an over-powered class.

- Repeater doesn't require a significant investment to be useful and is solid dps at low levels.
- Hp, hp, hp- RMM cores, 15 more in tier 1, 15 more in harper on the way to KTA
- Self-healing via either repair or healing flasks - some of which are available as SLAs in RMM
- Feat-rich build which means more front-loaded power
- seamless transition to inquisitive at higher levels and ratcatcher isn't hard to get.
- Class end rewards actually mean something unlike most classes since you get many good crossbows to look at in end rewards
- Trapping and easy to splash evasion for 2 levels of rogue or monk and minimal penalty for splashing
- UMD is fantastic to have and esp with arti that gets raised caster levels on scrolls and wands.

You don't see it as much at 30-32 and that also makes sense.

[fatherpirate]

Well here is the rub on why Arty is #1

In HCL a super cool build that comes into it's own at
level 8 is worthless if you can't get to level 8 alive.

and,

That is why Arty is #1
Arty is survivable at level 1 and on.
Decent Defense
Traps handled
Burst damage to put don't monsters add each season

It is the all around boss in HCL

[Clemeit]

Ran some additional reports for fun! Sample size of ~33,000.

Pure Classes Only


Primary Classes (Includes Multiclasses)


Source: DDO Audit

[Dark_Lord_Mary]

Ran some additional reports for fun! Sample size of ~33,000.

Pure Classes Only


Primary Classes (Includes Multiclasses)


Source: DDO Audit

That's great yeah! As you can see, what I saw was just a snapshot of a given moment; not set in stone. Seems players who do pure classes chose that pure class for overall survivability while soloing and pugging; I know many who do splash builds are trying them out to see how they do. Many of the static teams I know are already done so people are just playing around now; though there are still many players working towards goals.

for heroic solo or pug HCL it's hard to beat a warforged artificer for the raw power, defense, self-heals, and utility - trapping too - they really can do it all and there are many ways to build them for high dps. In my YouTube video about the best race/class warforged/arti won hands down.

Of course there are others - clerics, warlocks, barbarians all very good to solo on and pug with.

I did favor on two toons, a fvs and an alchemist; my alchemist died @ 16 in Toxic Treatment due to the very very slow heal bottle cast and missing myself completely with it. They just cast heal spells way too slow to keep up with burst; I can quicken my dps but not my heals?

The other problem my alchy had was low hitpoints - even with toughness on my alchy at 16 i had 300 hitpoints, 400 with temp - the barbarian i was running with had 900 + blood tribute; so when the eyes popped and burst dmg occurred in Toxic, He survived but I died; 400 hitpoints was not enough with a heal that takes 4 seconds to cast (and you have to position your camera down to throw the pot at your feet or you completely miss)

[Kayze]

The other problem my alchy had was low hitpoints - even with toughness on my alchy at 16 i had 300 hitpoints, 400 with temp - the barbarian i was running with had 900 + blood tribute; so when the eyes popped and burst dmg occurred in Toxic, He survived but I died; 400 hitpoints was not enough with a heal that takes 4 seconds to cast (and you have to position your camera down to throw the pot at your feet or you completely miss)

You can take toughness multiple times and get temp HP from many sources. I was running around with 500 HP + temp at level 16 on my alchemist without external buffs, and I could spike to 850 if I got buffs from other people.

[drathdragon]

next nerf on the list:

Artificer

[KoobTheProud]

I've done a few Arti splash builds and one pure Arti this HCL and I finally stopped when I realized that the lag on the HC server was too much to make the play style manageable solo.

It's losing the first salvo fairly reliably that does this. Point at the mob, shoot, nothing happens, they close and then your second salvo hits. However in a multi-mob scenario losing that first salvo makes things much too unpredictable and they've all died sometime between 5 and 8 as a result. This just in Elite, solo with a hireling and sometimes a dog if the Arti levels support that. Hounds just accentuated the problem because you really don't want to lose a salvo there.

[slarden]

Hounds just accentuated the problem because you really don't want to lose a salvo there.

Artis are actually more valuable due to the hounds. It's easy to aggro the hound on your flame turret and dog which makes for a very easy beat-down.

next nerf on the list:

Artificer

Seems unlikely to me since outside of hardcore their only niches are heroic leveling and buffing the party in casual raids.