Steelmaiden U57 Update

[PainStealer]

With the changes made in U57 to fighters I have updated the Steelmaiden build.
Please note this is a ZERO DPS Tank Build. Her only purpose is to take the aggro and to survive.




This time around she is Aasimar. The new split is 12 Fighter, 5 Paladin, 3 Artificer.

12 Fighter gets you 10% Quality hit points. Aasimar get you 5% Sacred hit points. Fighter also has the new Second Wind feat that can be an amazing self heal. With 12 levels you get 4 charges of it. Outside of reaper it heals me for 9,546 hit points. In reaper 10 it heals me for 450ish hit points.

5 Paladin because we want the tier 5 Sacred Defender enhancements. I feel that they are better than the tier 5 Stalwart Defender enhancements. 3 Artificer for the 50% Bonus to your Armor's AC rating from Renegade Master Maker.

Base Stats
Strength 14
Dexterity 12
Constitution 18 <- All Level ups here.
Intelligence 14
Charisma 12

Level Ups:
1-8 Take your Paladin and your Artificer Levels.
9-20 Fighter Levels.

Feats: Every General feat is TOUGHNESS.
Fighter Feats: Shield Mastery, Improved Shield Mastery, Greater Shield Mastery, Combat Expertise, Improved Critical, Dodge, Mobility

Epic Feats:
Epic Toughness, Bulwark of Defense (Kind of a bad feat, should probably be Toughness), More Toughness.

Destiny Feats:
Perfect Shield Mastery, Legendary Toughness, More Toughness

All in I took the Toughness feat 11 times.


Gear:
Right now her gear is not quite optimized. I am in the progress of Ironing it out. It may change if I add Isle of Dread pieces into the mix.

Goggles: Collective Sight with Charisma, Insightful Charisma, Masters Gift
Helmet: Crown of Butterflies with Topaz of Swiftness
Neck: Rune Lodestone with Defense, Accuracy, Insightful Dex
Trinket: Heart of Suulomades with Draconic Soul Gem, Globe of True Imperial Blood, Diamond of Constitution 12
Cloak: Cloak of Winter with Sapphire of Good Luck 2
Belt: Direbear Belt with Essence of the Epic Litany of the Dead
Ring1: Celestial Emerald with Diamond of Strength 14
Gloves: Wildwood Gauntlets (Empty Yellow Slot)(This piece of gear needs to be examined for something better.)
Boots: Deepsnow Boots with Topaz of Deathblock
Ring2: Nocturne Ring with Topaz of Feather Falling
Bracers: Cold Iron Bracers with Diamond of Dexterity 12
Armor: Plate of the Winter Solstice with Sapphire of Armored Agility +2

Weapon: Pick anything you aren't doing DPS you just need to Filigree it up.
Shield: Crystalline Ward with Sapphire of False Life 54

So 7 Pieces of winter and a few other miscellaneous pieces. Tempted to use the Ferrocrystal Large Shield for a 2 Piece Summer set bonus but I am not ready to swap to that yet as I am considering moving to a dinosaur bone shield and weapon for 2 of the 5 pieces of a dread isle set. Then if I can find a way to fit 3 more dread isle pieces in (Maybe ring, gloves, goggles ) I would have a 7 piece winter with a 5 piece Isle of dread set. Still considering possibilities here.

A note for the green steel lovers. I tried a 5 piece legendary green steel set and netted 105 more hit points. I felt that the 105 more hit points were not worth all of the lost Augment slots and Mods on the other gear.

Filigree
2x Beast Mantle
3x Grandfather Shield
4x Technomage
4x Bravery Throughout

Enhancements

16 AP in Aasimar for Ascendant Bond
43 In Sacred Defender (Tier 5 and Sacred Defense Goodies)
24 in Stalwart Defender (Stand Fast and Reinforced Armor)
13 in Renegade Master Maker (Reinforced Armor)
1 in Harper for +1 to hit. (Universal AP Tome)
for 97 AP : 80 Standard AP, 16 Racial AP, 1 Universal AP

Destinies:
45 AP in Sentinal, 14 AP in Dreadnaught (Quite a few HP available in Dreadnaught), 12 in Shadowdancer (Immunity to Energy Drain)
for 71 AP Spent.

Reaper:
Fill out Grim Barricade 1st. Then points into the other 2 trees to pick up some Dex and some Charisma.

[voxson5]

Tasty

But... start with con 17 & cha & dex +1?

Or IoD weapon for +2 execptional con?

[Fisto_Mk_I]

Double Soulweaver/Splendid Cacophony + double Snake Bite/Grandfather's Shield?

[Hobgoblin51]

ac is nice, prr seems kinda low

take deific warding? and epic damage reduction?

[PainStealer]

ac is nice, prr seems kinda low

take deific warding? and epic damage reduction?

PRR has punishing diminishing returns. 350 PRR is 100/450 (.222) or about 78% Damage reduction. If I were to bump it to 360 using Epic damage reduction it would be 100/460 (.217) or about 78% reduction. So at these levels of PRR Epic damage reduction buys you a little less than 1/2 of 1 percent reduction. Toughness is better.

[PainStealer]

Tasty

But... start with con 17 & cha & dex +1?

Or IoD weapon for +2 execptional con?

Yes my stat numbers are odd at the moment. Once I have all the gear sorted out I may do an LR or change a couple of enhancement points to adjust them a little.

[Bolo_Grubb]

Just curious, what is your heal amp at?

[GoldyGopher]

Thank you for posting an update.

I have Dwarven Armored Trash Can build that is loosely modeled after your older Steelmaiden post. I have been putting some thought into how to rebuild that build post U57 so it is great to have an update to look at.

[Trillea]

Would maybe swapping Combat Expertise for one of the heavy armor feats get you better survivability? The ones that give PRR and MRR instead of just AC from CE?

[PainStealer]

Would maybe swapping Combat Expertise for one of the heavy armor feats get you better survivability? The ones that give PRR and MRR instead of just AC from CE?

I do not believe so. My PRR is already at the point that adding to it has a negligible effect in game. Also against any magic damage with a reflex save my MRR is effectively doubled by wearing the large shield. At this point adding more PRR/MRR is rather less effective than having a huge AC. YMMV of course. Against some raid bosses that effectively ignore AC on higher reaper (r4+) the more PRR/MRR may be better. But honestly most raids are run at r1 or below.

[PainStealer]

Just curious, what is your heal amp at?

I will need to get back to you once the game is up. I have 3 Pally PL as well as 1 Sacred Fist. Then add gear, enhancements .... it is pretty good.

I Checked .. 238

[Emergencies]

Should probably double check your math when looking at your PRR. Deciding between hp and prr should use the equation HP/(1-(PRR/PRR+100))=effective hp. Stuff like Heavy Armor Master/Combatant and epic damage reduction are just better than toughness feats. I like to think it as 10 PRR=100 HP when looking at most tanks, although this is not true for all cases. The only time when adding PRR is not usually worth it is at 650+ just because its extremely hard to hold those numbers for a significant time.

[PainStealer]

Should probably double check your math when looking at your PRR. Deciding between hp and prr should use the equation HP/(1-(PRR/PRR+100))=effective hp. Stuff like Heavy Armor Master/Combatant and epic damage reduction are just better than toughness feats. I like to think it as 10 PRR=100 HP when looking at most tanks, although this is not true for all cases. The only time when adding PRR is not usually worth it is at 650+ just because its extremely hard to hold those numbers for a significant time.

I just don't see your argument.

The formula for PRR reduction is (100 / ( PRR + 100) ) not (PRR / PRR + 100). So to illustrate my point ..... Here are a few PRR values and their Mitigation.

PRR / Mitigation
25 0.20
50 0.33
75 0.43
100 0.50
125 0.56
150 0.60
175 0.64
200 0.67
225 0.69
250 0.71
275 0.73
300 0.75
325 0.76
350 0.78
375 0.79
400 0.80
425 0.81
450 0.82
475 0.83
500 0.83

As you can see as your PRR grows the difference in Mitigation shrinks dramatically. So at this point I weigh the opportunity cost of adding more PRR against adding more HP. Also the only way that 10 PRR would be worth 100 HP is if it mitigates 100 HP of damage. Once you hit 350 PRR the mitigation of 10 PRR is less than 1/2 of 1%. This would mean you would need to have 21,276 HP or more.

Meanwhile Toughness feats Add 34 Hit points each. This is modified by all the extra Percentage growth of hit points that you can get. ( Quality %, Competence %, Sacred %, Artifact % ) With my gear setup that is modified to 58 Hit points.

I would need to have 12,340 hit points before adding a toughness feat adds less effective hit points than the additional 10 PRR from epic damage reduction.

More than that PRR only helps against Physical damage. Toughness helps against physical and magical damage.

[Coffey]

Great build thanks for sharing with us. I always look forward to the updates to see the progress you have made.

The shield multiplier is a very powerful increase against magic attacks that it applies to. A reflex save halves the spells incoming damage then shield multiplier doubles your PRR/MRR against the rest. If you become helpless it still protects you.

Do you still have a good amount of Dodge, Displacement and Incorporeality in your build? I know Displacement and Incorporeality are useless in R10s but useful in Raids if you are mostly doing R1 and lower.

[PainStealer]

Great build thanks for sharing with us. I always look forward to the updates to see the progress you have made.

The shield multiplier is a very powerful increase against magic attacks that it applies to. A reflex save halves the spells incoming damage then shield multiplier doubles your PRR/MRR against the rest. If you become helpless it still protects you.

Do you still have a good amount of Dodge, Displacement and Incorporeality in your build? I know Displacement and Incorporeality are useless in R10s but useful in Raids if you are mostly doing R1 and lower.

27% Dodge, Multiple Displacement Clickies. Incorp is covered by a Legendary Wraithborn Emerald that I forgot to slot ... thank you for the reminder.

[Emergencies]

I just don't see your argument.

The formula for PRR reduction is (100 / ( PRR + 100) ) not (PRR / PRR + 100). So to illustrate my point ..... Here are a few PRR values and their Mitigation.

PRR / Mitigation
25 0.20
50 0.33
75 0.43
100 0.50
125 0.56
150 0.60
175 0.64
200 0.67
225 0.69
250 0.71
275 0.73
300 0.75
325 0.76
350 0.78
375 0.79
400 0.80
425 0.81
450 0.82
475 0.83
500 0.83

As you can see as your PRR grows the difference in Mitigation shrinks dramatically. So at this point I weigh the opportunity cost of adding more PRR against adding more HP. Also the only way that 10 PRR would be worth 100 HP is if it mitigates 100 HP of damage. Once you hit 350 PRR the mitigation of 10 PRR is less than 1/2 of 1%. This would mean you would need to have 21,276 HP or more.

Meanwhile Toughness feats Add 34 Hit points each. This is modified by all the extra Percentage growth of hit points that you can get. ( Quality %, Competence %, Sacred %, Artifact % ) With my gear setup that is modified to 58 Hit points.

I would need to have 12,340 hit points before adding a toughness feat adds less effective hit points than the additional 10 PRR from epic damage reduction.

More than that PRR only helps against Physical damage. Toughness helps against physical and magical damage.

The equation I wrote is how I figured it out on my own not what the wiki shows. Also, it was (1-(prr/prr+100)) not (prr/prr+100). It's just another way of writing it, still will get the same answer. I probably should've added the math on why its better. Going directly off of your screenshot of 7308 hp and 350 prr your effective health is 32,886 (based only off of prr and hp). Swap a toughness for for heavy armor master (9prr and 9mrr) would make your health 7250 and prr 359, your effective hp would be 33,277. You can also check the impact of the prr by blocking with the winter shield. Looking at the effective hp in the + tab on your character sheet you can see your hp go up quite a bit, my first life tank went up by about 2000 hp (5k hp on my main). Another example is my pure fighter tank against my barb. My barb (pre U57) got ~10k hp and boosted it could get 500 prr, that is about 60,000 effective hp. Meanwhile my ftr (pre U57) could get 9k hp and 600 prr, which is 63,000 effective hp. The same equation also applies to mrr, however when you factor in absorption the numbers get so low that the damage is generally not that dangerous.

Math:
7308/(100/(350+100))=32886
7250/(100/(359+100))=33277
10000/(100/500+100))=60000
9000/(100/600+100))=63000


You are right about there being diminishing returns, the next point of prr is not worth as much as the last. But you can do the math yourself and check the character sheet and everything should line up perfectly with how I set it up. Keep in mind if you do the math and compare it to the character sheet, the game also includes dodge, incorporeality, and concealment.

[PainStealer]

The equation I wrote is how I figured it out on my own not what the wiki shows. Also, it was (1-(prr/prr+100)) not (prr/prr+100). It's just another way of writing it, still will get the same answer. I probably should've added the math on why its better. Going directly off of your screenshot of 7308 hp and 350 prr your effective health is 32,886 (based only off of prr and hp). Swap a toughness for for heavy armor master (9prr and 9mrr) would make your health 7250 and prr 359, your effective hp would be 33,277. You can also check the impact of the prr by blocking with the winter shield. Looking at the effective hp in the + tab on your character sheet you can see your hp go up quite a bit, my first life tank went up by about 2000 hp (5k hp on my main). Another example is my pure fighter tank against my barb. My barb (pre U57) got ~10k hp and boosted it could get 500 prr, that is about 60,000 effective hp. Meanwhile my ftr (pre U57) could get 9k hp and 600 prr, which is 63,000 effective hp. The same equation also applies to mrr, however when you factor in absorption the numbers get so low that the damage is generally not that dangerous.

Math:
7308/(100/(350+100))=32886
7250/(100/(359+100))=33277
10000/(100/500+100))=60000
9000/(100/600+100))=63000


You are right about there being diminishing returns, the next point of prr is not worth as much as the last. But you can do the math yourself and check the character sheet and everything should line up perfectly with how I set it up. Keep in mind if you do the math and compare it to the character sheet, the game also includes dodge, incorporeality, and concealment.

Fair enough I see the error in my math. And for the record you are using the formula from the wiki... which came from the u23 patch notes. If we simplify the math a little you can say that Effective HP = HP * (PRR/100 + 1). That makes it a little easier to see to my eyes.

Working with this it looks like at 275 PRR then +3 PRR gives me about the same effective hit points as Toughness. 557 PRR then + 6 PRR is the same as a Toughness. and 932 PRR then +9 is the Same as a Toughness. So long story short, If you need to choose between toughness and PRR then if the feat provides at least 6 PRR then take the PRR. ( I used 3,6,9 as those are the values provided by the fighter feats. ) This is dependent on your hit point multipliers and just how many hit points a toughness gives you.

Thank you for setting me straight there. Next time I build her I will take Epic Damage Reduction and Deific Warding as well as the +6 and +9 PRR feats. The +3 PRR feat is still garbage as I will have more than 275 PRR. So I guess Just 7 Toughness at that point.

Or for the interested I boiled it down to the following ( It seems to be correct but feel free to double check. )

Difference = ((ToughnessHP)(PRR+100) - PRRDelta(Hitpoints))/100
Where ToughnessHP is the number of HP gained by Toughness and PRRDelta is the amount of PRR added by a competing feat.

If the difference comes out negative then the Effective Hit Points added by PRRDelta is more than the Hitpoints added by ToughnessHP.

[drathdragon]

5 Paladin because we want the tier 5 Sacred Defender enhancements. . 3 Artificer for the 50% Bonus to your Armor's AC rating from Renegade Master Maker.


Enhancements

16 AP in Aasimar for Ascendant Bond
43 In Sacred Defender (Tier 5 and Sacred Defense Goodies)
13 in Renegade Master Maker (Reinforced Armor)

Question: does tier 4 sacred defender Reinforced Armor - The Armor Class bonus you gain from armor or docents is increased by 15/30/50%,
STACK with Artificer Renegade Mastermaker Reinforced Armor - The Armor Class bonus you gain from armor or docents is increased by 15/30/50%.

????

[PainStealer]

Question: does tier 4 sacred defender Reinforced Armor - The Armor Class bonus you gain from armor or docents is increased by 15/30/50%,
STACK with Artificer Renegade Mastermaker Reinforced Armor - The Armor Class bonus you gain from armor or docents is increased by 15/30/50%.

????

Yes, They stack. And they stack with the similar Fighter enhancement. That is why I take all 3 and get 600 ish AC.

[Bolo_Grubb]

https://forums.ddo.com/forums/showth...ishing-returns

https://forums.ddo.com/forums/showth...=1#post5418455

Not to argue or anything but the posts above seems to disagree with PRR having diminishing returns, but maybe I am not understanding all the math


oh and thanks for posting your heal amp, appreciate it.