Smells like Enlightened Spirit

[Bjond]

I've been mulling over a way to try and make an "ETR touring" build that plays like a caster and wondering if maybe an imbue-heavy warlock might do it.

BTW, "ETR Touring" is not really in game parlance. It's just what I've been calling a build for running ITR+ER lives (1 ER + 1 ITR to gain 1 EPL 1 HPL 1 IPL), repeat to completionist. Due to Iconic and HPL constraints, I'd have at most 9~10 levels of ONE class of my choice available to support essentially the entire life. I have no desire to redo a full gearset for less than a full epic completionist cycle and certainly not for each iconic.

It's really easy to make a build like that for melee and for ranged; qstaff and inquisitive are my go-to picks for those styles. However, casters are so dependent on class-levels that I can't quite come up with something that leverages at most 9 levels of just ONE class and plays like a caster.

I'd go Acolyte of the Skin, but it punts the ES tree and thus has no imbue. My understanding is that ES T4 "Spiritual Retribution" is the ONLY imbue in game that works with Eldritch Blasts. If others work, AS wins for DPS and AP cost. If not, I'm pretty sure even 4 Warlock with 2d8+Id6 would beat AS's 8d8 by miles, but it does require T4 AP compared to AS's zero AP.

I'm a bit worried the DPS might be intolerably low with only 3d8 base blast. My own requirement for any ETR-Touring build is to have at least "INQ level" DPS, since that is so ridiculously easy to achieve and because I can steal my ranged DPS's sub-cap gear for it.

Guessing that with cone or chain being so much more reliable than IPS that Warlock trash DPS will be higher, but the single would probably be a fair bit less due to NIH.

Draconic would be the obvious DPS go-to, but also pondering Shiradi+Primal. Shiradi charm with it's double damage combined with primal's mantle share might be interesting assuming when it shares your mantle it doesn't also share your proc CDs, too. This leans into ES's hire/summons buffs; I've always wanted to find a use for those.

Has anyone tried something like this? Any various thoughts on the general idea? Sound good enough to run off and try it right away? (It doesn't to me, but it does feel like there might be something in the general idea)

[Dendrix]

I though about this exact thing and decided to play all the caster Archetypes that I didn't like as an Artificer.

Art 9. <Archetype> 11. Stats are Int 18, Con 18, Dex 14. Level ups on Int

Art 9 gets you up to Greater Elemental Weapon.
Spend all your action points in Battle Engineer (35ish), Harper (20ish. Int to hit, damage, int, hp, resists, skills etc), Feydark Illusionist 12 ish (for Int and perma-shield and Greater Colour Spray)
Anything I get from my Archetype 11 class levels is a bonus.

For a Iconic you have 1 of your 11 Archetype levels as the iconic, Makes you a 1/9/10 so you still get the Archetype class. Or do as I do and just us a +1 heart to get 9/11 split

[Valerianus]

i'd suggest to ask a mod to edit the title into Smells like Enlighteen Spirit



btw

as a template i personally like inquisitive, if from lvl 1 starting off with arti level, like many others i guess, if i need to override anything else cause i am running a frankenstein for tr\pl purpose without the risk of getting into trouble with a caster type and just chill....but i admit i never tried to think about a warlock template. i am curious, what about those new feats? did i understand right, the new archetype get them for free but other warlocks can select them as regular feats, yes? do you get decent dps even with around 10 warlock levels?

[GODDEATH]

came to say i love your nirvana reference and it adds to all the other great ones in the game.
thankS!

RIP To my old friend who would run Rainbow in the Dark rocking out and could do it blindfolded , and did so more the once.

[C-Dog]

<sings: "Here we are now... reincarnate us...>

BTW, "ETR Touring" is not really in game parlance. It's just what I've been calling a build for running ITR+ER lives (1 ER + 1 ITR to gain 1 EPL 1 HPL 1 IPL), repeat to completionist.
...
Has anyone tried something like this? Any various thoughts on the general idea?

What you're doing is (in game parlance) a "TR Template" - something that has a variable that can be plugged in to achieve desired past-lives. Racial templates are easy, class are a bit trickier.

That said... maybe/definitely? Warlock 10/X 10* is easily strong enough to get the job done to 20. I don't have the personal experience to vouch for it going to 30, but it's been stated that it works fine:

o https://forums.ddo.com/forums/showth...=1#post5964591

(* A 10 Warlock/10 X split loses "dominant class" tiebreakers to all Classes but Alchemist.)

[Bjond]

all the caster Archetypes that I didn't like as an Artificer

i personally like inquisitive

That's what I eventually decided to play him as -- INQ with (usually) an Art piece for traps, RA, & buffs. I keep pondering how to do it casterish, though.

Warlock 10/X 10* is easily strong enough to get the job done to 20

Yeah, it's pretty hard not to be overpowered for Heroics. I'm more focused on 15->30, since that avoids the worst part of the game. When I'm all done with all Epics on all characters, the game is over for me. I'm highly unlikely to ever run purely heroic lives. It's just too boring to contemplate for one life, much less 40?'ish. BTW, from a quick skim on the thread you linked, it's purely about heroics (OP was running racial PLs).

It's not too hard to add a fair number of imbue dice at cap (20~30). It's MUCH harder to increase dice sub-cap; that's more like +6~9 in epics without greater class freedom. Blast DPS for warlocks should have AS winning Heroic, Warlock & AS tied for Epics, and Warlock @ Cap (phenomenally higher than AS due to imbue dice potential).

Strimtom has some commentary from his Imbue Blaster trial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_M4h0T4QHFU

He calls ~20d6 inconsequential because he's already got 40~50d6'ish spellpowered dice damage already (uh, that's still nearly a 50% increase!). He considers the ~15% increase to Enervating to be quite significant for boss damage. And, at the same time seems to feel SLAs are such a big part of Damage for Warlocks that blasts are inconsequential, but the d6->d8 / d4->d6 shift for blast dice is meaningful.

So, his reasoning is specious and wildly self-contradictory, but it's pretty clear he's not happy with the result of a high imbue dice warlock blaster. Despite the unfortunate reasoning, the "not happy" part carries a fair bit of weight simply because he actually played it and the classic low-imbue counterpart.

---

Google hasn't found anything about anyone trying Greater Beguiling Charm with or without Primal Shared Mantle. Charm kinda fell off the map when it got nerfed in high reaper (can't remember the exact nerf .. think it was duration -- used to be able to charm a Carnage or Plague, buff it, and tow it through entire dungeon). It's still really nice for protecting Vengeance from premature AE-deaths and tapping a temporary tank you don't need to heal.

[C-Dog]

BTW, from a quick skim on the thread you linked, it's purely about heroics (OP was running racial PLs).

It's largely about Heroics, but that quote did have a buried comment re Epics which led me to my qualified recommendation...

...Heroic warlock alone is such a powerhouse that I didn't notice much difference when I was running epic elites in shadowdancer (instead of my normal exalted angel) for 6 martial past lives. I did miss the wings, though...

As I said, no personal experience to 30 (AND that's pre-Destiny pass), so take it with whatever grains of salt you deem approp.

[Bjond]

no personal experience to 30 (AND that's pre-Destiny pass)

Your comments helped quite a bit -- greatly appreciated. Gonna be rough finding current commentary on this kind of build (the "I played something just like that" kind). It needs a fair bit of work if I want to know in advance if it's worthwhile (mock up in builder plus working out rotation). Laying it out in builder would highlight AP and gear issues; might end up too tight on AP and not enough imbue dice to beat Acolyte sub-cap.