hola sarlona... greeting and rant

[silmwaren]

Hello Sarlona community!

I am here because, quite simply, i feel that i have to explain some things to quite a few players. This of course doesnt apply to the great and kind players of sarlona. But it is for the bad apples of Sarlona

I shall begin...

Im sorry that you dont know how to play. Yes i play a cleric with 200hp. Apparently this is some sort of a ddo tos violation in your eyes. I have tried to explain 2 u the reason why i only have 200hp. I dont need much hit points; Because i dont get hit. I pretty much am impervious to ranged attack and brush off most damage spells with clerical resist spells. As for melee... pfft... im to fast for them to get close 2 me. I play mostly solo with this character, and it is quite enjoyable. It is exciting to be under a *miss* spam, storm of arrows while brutish melee monsters chase you around and around; slowly clipping them 1 by 1.
I can do this because 75% of character skills,feats... r things that protect me from spells, ranged...
As for melee. I have boots that match there forward run speed while i run backwards. So all i have to do is plug them with ranged weaponry or spells.

I challenged you 2 a solo elite dungeon run. I was somewhat confused when u said no.




You invited me to help your party do 2 mired. I said sure, you rudely kicked me out because of 200hp. Thats fine. But, if you are afraid of having a 200hp healer in your party, well that means that you and the other party members arent doing there characters job.

I am a unique player i know that. My last great run was mired on hard. I was lvl 17 cleric and stalemated the mommy black dragon. I couldnt kill it, but it couldnt kill me. I was somewhat sad that i didnt record the run.

[Zyerz]

The reason you get booted is cause you'll likely die. And a lot of people really care about that 10% xp that no death bonus grants...

Yes, you could move around and avoid getting hit. But at lower levels it's a cake walk. At higher levels, your AC wont mean a thing cause they'll hit you every single time (unless your AC and PRR are in the hundreds) Also one disintigrate or an unsuccessful FOD will probably kill you. Also, some monsters now cast DOTs more frequently (drow priestess in the xpack quests) (damage over time) spells, so that will eat at your HP if you're not careful. AOE spells like ice storm, flame strike, and the like have a reflex save, and as a cleric, you probably have a low reflex save, so you'll take nice amounts of dmg from those as well.

Also, you said you solo a lot. Quests scale depending on party size. Playing solo makes enemies weaker, hence their spells, weapons and arrows don't hit that frequently and don't damage that much. If you're in a group, it scales, and then you'll get hit the majority of the time. And on hard or elite, you'll always get hit.
A healer is undoubtedly in the back healing others, but if they are to draw some agro, they cant have the luxury or runing around that much. You can't heal others that easily if you run around trying to get monsters off of you. If you're a battle cleric then HP should be very important.


I dunno if you've considered this: Toughness and a min base 14 of Constitution. It's very important. For any class. That should get you decent HP. Constitution and Toughness are not a dump stat and feat; respectively. They're pretty much a requirement these days. And a necessary one. Perhaps fighters and barbs wont need toughness (it does help them a lot though) but they gain a lot more HP per level than other classes. But apart from them, it is highly reccomended you take toughness and have a base constitution of 14. Or more if you can afford it.

Its easy to gain decent HP so you don't get booted. Just friendly advice.

[ulticleo]

... or to put it a little more mildly:
doing mired on hard (lvl 14) on a lvl 17 toon is good, but nothing to brag about (though I always say - if it's an accomplishment for you, that's great. be happy with it and keep on pushing yourself. you do have to recognize, though, that what might be an accomplishment for you, is not an accomplishment for someone else).

Now, you said you solo a lot, and therein lies the problem. the dungeons scale with group size. A LOT. The archers that are missing you when you solo on hard, are hitting you in a full group. the spell that does 30hp and gets absorbed by your resists will do 100 points in a full group.

At QUEST levels 16+ there is A LOT of unavoidable damage, and no matter how awesome you think you are, you WILL get hit by hits and spells, and THE ONLY thing that will save you is having enough hp to survive at least a couple of hits so you can heal yourself.

Level 17? go run some vale. running with the devils hard in a full group, for example...

Like distributed said - I don't kick 200hp toons out of my parties (well, I might for a raid), but I do expect them to die, and am almost never disappointed on that account.

[ZeebaNeighba]

So you're what...level 17 cleric? Generally most builds have 6 starting points in Con...even on an elf or drow that's 12 base Con. Add on +6 gear and you'll hit 18 Con, at least.

So...that's: 20 base from heroic durability, 136 from cleric base, 19 from toughness, 20 from toughness enhancements, 30 from greater false life, 68 from constitution...all very easy to get and don't cost to much in a build. They total up to 303 HP.

It's not just a low HP thing, it's how simple it is to get it to a decent number. You'll run across +6 Con gear and greater false life in random loot. Con +6 appears on belts, rings, and necklaces, and Greater False Life is on belts, rings, and I think armor and sheilds as well (if you're lucky, you might get them both on the same ring or belt...but even I haven't found any of those yet). Starting with 6 build points in Con is very simple and easy for a cleric, and spending one feat and 3 enhancement points on toughness and the racial enhancements is all you need for about 100 more HP than you have.

[ulticleo]

on a different note, even if you dumped con, you should be able to get more than 200 hp at lvl 17:

020 heroic
136 cleric 17
051 con (16 con = 8 + 2 tome + 6 item. if you can't afford, beg, cheat, or steal)
020 toughness (minos is cheaper and easier to get than ever)
019 toughness feat
020 toughness enhancements
030 greater false life (see con and minos comments)
----
296

not amazing, but no one will comment on 300hp first lifer level 17 either.

[silmwaren]

Thanks for the tips. I dont think im cool r some kinda elite player. I have minimal fear of magical spells. be it disinegrate or wutever else. I am unaffected by damage spells and enchantments. The thing that i am weak against is traps, and getting caught in a corner and surrounded by melee attackers.
Do i die? ya every1 does. but i also understand mob AI.
That is a part of my success. Running in a stop sign pattern while fighting causes mobs 2 miss you. Id say by running n a stop sign pattern causes mobs 2 miss 20-30% melee attacks.
If you run in a straight line then u r pretty much dead.
But if u run n a stop sign pattern, the mob ai has to adjust each time u change direction. which benefits you quite well over several spans of time.

[Zyerz]

Thanks for the tips. I dont think im cool r some kinda elite player. I have minimal fear of magical spells. be it disinegrate or wutever else. I am unaffected by damage spells and enchantments. The thing that i am weak against is traps, and getting caught in a corner and surrounded by melee attackers.
Do i die? ya every1 does. but i also understand mob AI.
That is a part of my success. Running in a stop sign pattern while fighting causes mobs 2 miss you. Id say by running n a stop sign pattern causes mobs 2 miss 20-30% melee attacks.
If you run in a straight line then u r pretty much dead.
But if u run n a stop sign pattern, the mob ai has to adjust each time u change direction. which benefits you quite well over several spans of time.

Your tactic works because movement creates a penalty to the attacker, but try that tactic on elite. Monsters will always hit ya except when they roll a 1. Unless you're a high AC and PRR tank, you'll get hit. I dare ya. You'll be dead in a few hits. No offense. Trust me, I've seen players say the same thing you said and die every single time. Weapons have a range. So they don't have to be hugging you to hit you.

Look, I was once like you. All hopefull about my tactics and like that. Thankfully I had a nice guild to teach me the game and understand how it works. Then I started building my own custom toons, but covering the necesities so the toons can survive.

I totally understand your point, but listen to us.

[Nysrock]

Thanks for the tips. I dont think im cool r some kinda elite player. I have minimal fear of magical spells. be it disinegrate or wutever else. I am unaffected by damage spells and enchantments. The thing that i am weak against is traps, and getting caught in a corner and surrounded by melee attackers.
Do i die? ya every1 does. but i also understand mob AI.
That is a part of my success. Running in a stop sign pattern while fighting causes mobs 2 miss you. Id say by running n a stop sign pattern causes mobs 2 miss 20-30% melee attacks.
If you run in a straight line then u r pretty much dead.
But if u run n a stop sign pattern, the mob ai has to adjust each time u change direction. which benefits you quite well over several spans of time.

So basically you kite the mob around through blade barriers and hope you don't get caught by them. Yes that tactic works and yes I use it myself when I solo. The difference is I make sure to build enough HP into my characters so when I DO get caught I have time to heal and fight my way out before I die.

Like others have said before it is very easy to get the basic gear needed for adding a few more HPs without sacrificing anything. To do otherwise is to spend your days talking to Heystack by yourself.

Edit: Love the fact you have your characters kept private so no one can comment on them. LOL

[ZeebaNeighba]

Edit: Love the fact you have your characters kept private so no one can comment on them. LOL

I'm pretty sure I've been in a group or 2 with a cleric with the same name as the forum name...I think that cleric is also an archer. But that's all I remember.

[Dagolar]

It used to be that you could hit Elite Shroud (Toon Level 16 range~) with about 280 hit points on a support toon, or 350 on a melee, and you could survive. Then the game got boosted up, and the expectations went to 350 and 400, and now people often expect closer to 400 and 500.

Now, I've played tactical toons before, and survived on all sorts.
But, see, managing on a 200 hp toon would have been conceivable back when the expectations were in the 280 range, but now that it's 400..
It's simply a matter of 'if you can't survive a single hit, you're a liability to your party, ESPECIALLY if you're a healer- the healer should ALWAYS have high survivability, so the party doesn't need to worry about them ever dying'.

The thing is, you're thinking that you're going separate of a FEW hp additions.
But, people assume a basic constitution and a single toughness feat, etc, as the baseline for /low hp/ toons.

Multiple toughness feats, some decent hp items, and a strong con are the guidelines people look to.

The thing is, if you're managing fine in non-solo groups, that's all that matters- but don't expect to hold on to that for any remotely difficult content. There are plenty of attacks you're not going to be able to defend against that will insta-kill you, and taking time to manage your hp instead of the party's is never good for a healer anyway.

If you're good with your tactics and you run with decent parties, you can manage with fairly low hp.
But that's along to the 400hp range, not in the 200hp range.

If you need more personal experience to validate or invalidate these suggestions we've made, then by all means, go for it. And, if you don't ever plan on running the more challenging content in the game, it's hardly an issue anyway.

But don't expect many groups to welcome you with open arms, when you've purposefully reduced your class's basic hp for what others will perceive as no meaningful reason. That's simply something you'll have to get along with, at least when you're not playing solo or with a guild that understands and works with your playstyle.

[DarkForte]

You invited me to help your party do 2 mired. I said sure, you rudely kicked me out because of 200hp. Thats fine. But, if you are afraid of having a 200hp healer in your party, well that means that you and the other party members arent doing there characters job.

...

People are not afraid of having a 200 hp healer. They just don't want to carry your soulstone around after you die to a single DBF/Acid Breath. You can say all you want about how you're impervious to spells, but the truth is, when doing stuff solo on normal at low levels, 30 resists is more than enough for blocking any elemental spells. Absolutely not so in elite quests.

Get into an elite quest with a full party at levels 16+ (servants of the overlord is the easiest example I can think of), monsters can throw fireballs for 150/200+ damage. You, as an undergeared pure cleric, have a bad reflex save and no evasion. If you're not UMDing fire shield, you'll die in 5 seconds unless you have enough HP to keep yourself healed in the meantime.

Those people saying you need more HP are right, and ignoring that advice is jeopardizing your own abilities.

[Belduroz]

HP isn't all, that's true. But even if you always try to avoid damage as much as you can you simply can't avoid every incoming damage. Someone with aggro might direct a DBF next to you and some mobs simple target everything around them (harry in shroud eg) and do more than 200 damage on elite/epic.

If you want to dump any source of hp you should check benefits/costs first. If i had the choice between 18 str and 8 con or 16 str and 14 con i would always prefer 14 con (maybe 12 as elf/drow). Why? Because you only lose 1 hit/dmg, but get 3 hp per level. I never felt a lack of ability points when having 14 con. Checking the hp you can hit on 20 with minimum effort i see numbers like this:

20 base hp
160 cleric (20x8)
40 from 14 con
60 from a +6 con item
30 from false life
20 from a +2 con tome
__________________
330 hp as a 20 cleric

That's the minimum i expect from someone for difficult elite/epic content. I even left out toughness feats/enhancements, shroud item, toughness, guild slots, ship buffs, argonessen favor, yugologh potions etc - everything that requires a feat slot or adventure packs. And since you can get +6 con and greater false life on one item the required item slot is not really an argument. Also +2 con tomes are very cheap now and since they are permanent, they are a must.

[Nysrock]

After looking up character names like the forum name the only conclusion I can come to is that someone is trolling. I cannot see anyone who has supposedly been playing since Jan have a level 18 character with that kind of **** gear. It just isn't possible with the amount of items that drop in DDO. Even a totally F2P player would have found better stuff by level 6.


So good day to you sir!

[Memnir]

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[Eighnuss]

I would rather buy 10 silver flame pots than have your soulstone scale my quest.

[vyvy3369]

I'd just like to point out that the last PUG cleric who claimed low HPs were ok because he didn't get aggro had all numbers for his name. Since then he has become fairly famous Around Sarlona. Oh, and he also died about 12 times in that normal VoD run.

[Lost_Leader]

200hp cleric? Dude you are welcome on any of my drink 'n shroud runs. Get yourself shroud flagged! Sure, we will only be in there on Hard, but we will all be sure to bring extra booze with you along. And you can happily prove to us why you don't need hp and why there is no need for you to fear spelz.

[Thaxlsillyia]

Hello Sarlona community!

(snip)

Hello to you too. Good for you if you are enjoying the game. But tosay a 200 hp 1300 sp cleric is awesome at lvl 20 is a bit far fetched. I think I ran a demon queen raid with you on my sorcerer yesterday, rather soloed it with you in party. I am happy to help new players and ensure you have a good experience. but running to forum because you got kicked out over very legitimate reasons is silly. There is always place for improvement. At your current level I am afraid challenging people is not the way to go.
As many people have pointed out it is very easy to have atleast 300 hp if not a lot more. If you ask for advice on a basic build then most people will be happy to give you suggestions and may be even give you some basic equipment to start with. I suggest making use of the free LR token. I personally do not play clerics and am not in a position to help you with that.

[Hendrik]

Being 'good' in solo play, with dungeon scaling working toward your advantage, does not make you 'good' in a full party.

You are going to find more often then not the 200HP will get you kicked.

[twigzz]

Hells yeah! We defin need this guy in drunken hard Shrouds, we'd be ****ing wasted by the end!

*Ding* Drink
*Ding* Drink
*Ding* Drink
*Ding* Drink
*Ding* Drink
*Ding* Drink

That's part 1 so drinks are x5(or x10, depending on how hardcore you are)! :P

You wouldn't wanna see the other parts.....