Fortification bypass

[0ldschool]

You really should try capping LD when you get a chance then Master's Blitz is like an almost permanent +70 Ranged Power (and 30 PRR) buff, it's disgustingly good. And of course you can still use Action Boost: Power on top of it.

That's the plan!

If you plan on staying at cap for a bit, or doing a few ETRs, consider looking for some good gear I'd highly recommend looking for some easy to get pieces, like Orcish Privateer's Boots and Iron Mitts from epic 3BC. They're quite solid stat-wise, and offer a bunch of useful things stacked on one item.

Orcish Boots are on my want list. Boots of Blessed Travel are on my dream list. I'll look up Iron Mitts.

If you own it, Thunderholme is a great source of ML22/24 weapons without a lot of grinding required; even a T0 Thunderforged "blank" is a pretty solid beater unless you have a relevant named item.

Thanks, I followed some good advice and farmed up a Tier 0 TF GxB to replace Divine Artillery when I realized it was a bit lacking. I now have Tier 1 with Blinding, and it gives me good CC and SA damage. I'm happy with it, though only proc'ing once every 12 sec is a limitation. Tier 2 Dragon's Edge is going to be wonderful when I find time to gather 300 more ingots!

Flip side, there's some really good lower level gear out there that can be worth grabbing. Won't get you XP on the way, but often it's a quick zerg or six for a nice item like Blurfingered Gloves from Ravenloft, which give 25% concealment miss chance which is even better than the 20% from those Twisted Shade Bracers (although those are likely a better item otherwise). Or a Mysterious Bauble which is IMO one of the best clickies in DDO especially given how easy it is to obtain (although it's in a weird pack); it would help quite a bit with your healing issues (restores enough SP for 8-50 Cocoons).

Again, we think alike. I went and farmed the Blurfingered Gloves when I realized I would have to dump my Ring of Shadows for the Ring of Stalker. I'm still wearing the gloves, but getting one effect out of that slot is not ideal as I move higher into epics. And here we come to my real desire from Defiler, the Belt of Braided Beards. Lesser Displacement to open up my gloves slot, and INT +17! That belt is calling my name

EDIT: I thought about trying to get one of those helms in Memory Lapse, but my experience trying to farm Kind of Big Deal for the Snake gloves was not good. No named items at all in 12 EH chest openings I worry about White Plume drop rates.

[Ulfo]

And here we come to my real desire from Defiler, the Belt of Braided Beards. Lesser Displacement to open up my gloves slot, and INT +17! That belt is calling my name

You can use Legendary Animated Rope until get your dream item. I use it on all my ranged toons.

I thought about trying to get one of those helms in Memory Lapse, but my experience trying to farm Kind of Big Deal for the Snake gloves was not good. No named items at all in 12 EH chest openings I worry about White Plume drop rates.

For helmet slot you can use Legendary Executioner's Helm, it's good and can be easily farmed. 8)

For INT you can use Legendary Acolyte's Lenses... loot from f2p quest Lost at Sea.

Of course, here always puzzle how put all you wanna in one build...

[0ldschool]

You can use Legendary Animated Rope until get your dream item. I use it on all my ranged toons.



For helmet slot you can use Legendary Executioner's Helm, it's good and can be easily farmed. 8)

For INT you can use Legendary Acolyte's Lenses... loot from f2p quest Lost at Sea.

Of course, here always puzzle how put all you wanna in one build...

Those are on my list, especially Acolyte Lenses which appear to be the ultimate INT item. Can the helm be easily farmed on EN or EH?

I've decided that I'm not going to be able to solo farm the Epic named items that I want any time soon. I tried to run Stay at the Inn on EE (my first attempt at EE) in Tier 5 Shadowdancer, with all the buffs I have, and my Level 10 scarecrow, level 25 owlbear, and level 24 hireling FvS, and couldn't make it past the first fight. Even if I had, that shadow in the basement would have certainly killed me, based upon the fights in EH. Since I can't hang in EE, which I'm totally OK with since this is my first toon, farming gear is not going to be worth it with the lower drop rates on EN or EH. I've seen very few named drops in Epics so far at the lower difficulties, granted that I've mostly run all of the Level 20-24 quests only once. I have an EH streak of 16 going right now, so EH is clearly my lane. Maybe it's time to see if I can tag along on some EE LFM's.

For whatever reason, I'm finding Shiradi not so interesting. Maybe it's the randomness of the damage effects. I'd like to get Nerve Venom, but nothing else is left to really excite me. I may switch out of Shiardi when I get to Tier 4 and move back to LD and take that to Tier 5. Devastating Critical and Master's Blitz are calling me. I could really use the extra 100 HP that LD is giving me too. Tier 1 Avatar is done, I'm 900k into Shiradi, so not far from Tier 4 now.

The Epic Destiny feats look to be generally pretty bad, but I sure like the looks of Elusive Target. Having LD and SD maxed at L28 will allow me to take it if I understand correctly, so that's another reason to max out LD. Or maybe I should just take Toughness, which is likely what I will do at Level 26. I wish I could take Guardian Angel or Holy Strike, both are better than any of the L26 feats (for ranged) in the martial sphere.

[Ulfo]

Can the helm be easily farmed on EN or EH?

Never run EN, but in EH drop rate enough good. I see usual 1-2 per run with full group. For solo it can be longer, but acceptable anyway. And you get precious mats also for later crafting. 8)

[EllisDee37]

I've decided that I'm not going to be able to solo farm the Epic named items that I want any time soon. I tried to run Stay at the Inn on EE (my first attempt at EE) in Tier 5 Shadowdancer, with all the buffs I have, and my Level 10 scarecrow, level 25 owlbear, and level 24 hireling FvS, and couldn't make it past the first fight.

I never was able to solo EE anything, but I did farm multiple epic items on EH, including bracers of twisting shade. So it's possible.

For whatever reason, I'm finding Shiradi not so interesting. Maybe it's the randomness of the damage effects. I'd like to get Nerve Venom, but nothing else is left to really excite me. I may switch out of Shiardi when I get to Tier 4 and move back to LD and take that to Tier 5. Devastating Critical and Master's Blitz are calling me. I could really use the extra 100 HP that LD is giving me too. Tier 1 Avatar is done, I'm 900k into Shiradi, so not far from Tier 4 now.

Unfortunately you're already in a build that is suited to shiradi, so it won't really get better in a different life. I would try to grin and bear it to max shiradi now.

When I maxed out shiradi I did it on a longbow ranger build and found it to be acceptable, if not great. The +4 ranged power from cores (same as Shadowdancer, double the +2 from LD cores) is the primary benefit. As for abilities, I kept Double Rainbow stance active and used the active attacks Pin and Otto's Whistler. Everything else was basically an afterthought. (Mostly spent my AP on dex, as I was a dex build.) I'd advise it's worth another shot (no pun intended) on this life.

As for blitz in LD, it doesn't synergize all that well with a great crossbow. You may find it difficult to raise the stacks above around 5 (of 10) and having it expire completely between fights, though it's always great for long boss fights. Its charges are granted on a per-hit basis, so it works great for repeaters, shuriken throwers, and TWF melee builds. For THF, longbows, and great crossbows, with their slower rate of fire? Not so much. And keep in mind that blitz starts with -12 ranged power compared to shadowdancer and shiradi because LD only gets +2 RP per core instead of +4, so the first 2 stacks of blitz are needed just to break even. I'd rather you play around with blitz on a combat style that's more suited for it so as not to sour you on blitz altogether.

Regarding destiny feats, yeah, they're mostly for melee. PTWF grants +5% doublestrike to all melee weapons regardless of combat style, so that's a no-brainer for all melee. For ranged, the clear best #1 destiny feat by a mile is Doubleshot, but that requires two Primal destinies. Which brings me to...

Fury of the Wild is actually pretty solid for a great crossbow build. Adrenaline -- granted immediately in the first core ability -- is a single-shot active attack that does large damage, increasing as you get more cores. It's got a delay, in that you click it, your character freezes for a full half second, then your next attack of any kind includes adrenaline. When the destiny is maxed, the adrenaline effect is +16 crit range and +400% damage, which for a great crossbow means guaranteed crit, and the damage is 4x a normal crit, 5 times per rest. In tier 5 you get to take Fury Eternal, which has a chance to recharge 1 adrenaline use on vorpal, and your great crossbow build vorpals on 19-20 so that's a total win. You'll want your adrenalized shots to be as damaging as possible, so try to only do it with Wracking Shots (+1[W]) or Leg Shot (+2[W]), tiers 2 and 4 in the mechanic tree respectively.

For ranged builds, the epic past life from primal is much better than martial, so you may decide to switch over from martial to primal for your first epic past life. If you do, max shiradi and fury and take doubleshot as your level 28 destiny feat.

If not, I would just take shiradi to tier 5 for fate points (maxed if you can stomach it), then switch back to shadowdancer for the rest of this life and reincarnate at 30 back to 20, then either run another epic life or TR back to 1 into something else.

[0ldschool]

I never was able to solo EE anything, but I did farm multiple epic items on EH, including bracers of twisting shade. So it's possible.

Unfortunately you're already in a build that is suited to shiradi, so it won't really get better in a different life. I would try to grin and bear it to max shiradi now.

When I maxed out shiradi I did it on a longbow ranger build and found it to be acceptable, if not great. The +4 ranged power from cores (same as Shadowdancer, double the +2 from LD cores) is the primary benefit. As for abilities, I kept Double Rainbow stance active and used the active attacks Pin and Otto's Whistler. Everything else was basically an afterthought. (Mostly spent my AP on dex, as I was a dex build.) I'd advise it's worth another shot (no pun intended) on this life.

As for blitz in LD, it doesn't synergize all that well with a great crossbow. You may find it difficult to raise the stacks above around 5 (of 10) and having it expire completely between fights, though it's always great for long boss fights. Its charges are granted on a per-hit basis, so it works great for repeaters, shuriken throwers, and TWF melee builds. For THF, longbows, and great crossbows, with their slower rate of fire? Not so much. And keep in mind that blitz starts with -12 ranged power compared to shadowdancer and shiradi because LD only gets +2 RP per core instead of +4, so the first 2 stacks of blitz are needed just to break even. I'd rather you play around with blitz on a combat style that's more suited for it so as not to sour you on blitz altogether.

Regarding destiny feats, yeah, they're mostly for melee. PTWF grants +5% doublestrike to all melee weapons regardless of combat style, so that's a no-brainer for all melee. For ranged, the clear best #1 destiny feat by a mile is Doubleshot, but that requires two Primal destinies. Which brings me to...

Fury of the Wild is actually pretty solid for a great crossbow build. Adrenaline -- granted immediately in the first core ability -- is a single-shot active attack that does large damage, increasing as you get more cores. It's got a delay, in that you click it, your character freezes for a full half second, then your next attack of any kind includes adrenaline. When the destiny is maxed, the adrenaline effect is +16 crit range and +400% damage, which for a great crossbow means guaranteed crit, and the damage is 4x a normal crit, 5 times per rest. In tier 5 you get to take Fury Eternal, which has a chance to recharge 1 adrenaline use on vorpal, and your great crossbow build vorpals on 19-20 so that's a total win. You'll want your adrenalized shots to be as damaging as possible, so try to only do it with Wracking Shots (+1[W]) or Leg Shot (+2[W]), tiers 2 and 4 in the mechanic tree respectively.

For ranged builds, the epic past life from primal is much better than martial, so you may decide to switch over from martial to primal for your first epic past life. If you do, max shiradi and fury and take doubleshot as your level 28 destiny feat.

If not, I would just take shiradi to tier 5 for fate points (maxed if you can stomach it), then switch back to shadowdancer for the rest of this life and reincarnate at 30 back to 20, then either run another epic life or TR back to 1 into something else.

I saw the +10% Doubleshot feat, and immediately thought I couldn't imagine maxing Primal Avatar. I had looked at FotW once and I saw so much melee stuff that I figured it was pointless. Thanks for bringing to my attention. Unbridled Fury looks spectacular for a boss fight! This may be the new plan. I was still going to max Shiradi, I was just thinking of going back to LD to max it first. But now I may have a reason not to bother. Primal feats are more suited for ranged, no doubt.

I've got all of +W clickies lined up on my hot bar: Leg Shot/Shrouding/Executioners in SD, and Leg Shot/Pin/Otto's in Shiradi. Right next to them is Assassin's trick to get that extra fortification bypass and sneak attack on red named and constructs/undead/plants. I sequence through them in every fight to sustain +2/3W. Executioners Shot gives a +1 crit range and +1 crit multiplier, making it my favorite by far. While I use Improved Uncanny Dodge in Shiradi, I can click Meld/IUD/Improved Invis in sequence while in SD, which is a nice survivability combo to start a fight. That, the +7% dodge, and the 25% incorp from Shadow Form are what I miss the most when I'm not is SD. Oh, the extra 6d6 Sneak attack too. I hope that when I get up into the more serious damage from the 7% chance procs in Shiradi, it will start to shine.

I'm finding that most of my focus on maxing miss chances that I had in heroics is fading, probably because I've maxed them, and that my attention is now focused on maximizing the chance to crit and the damage when crit'ing. Well, that and Doubleshot and Ranger Power and maxing sneak damage. Adrenaline and Unbridled Fury look fun!

EDIT: +6 RP total for FotW stinks I was researching ways to increase Ranged power last night (not many) and had a revelation. That Action Boost Power that gives me +30 RP, the one I was missing so much from LD, it exists in the same form in the Assassin tree! I already have 24 AP into that tree for SA and Killer, so re-specing for the boost was trivial. I dumped Venomed Blades III for Boost III. At the time I was building that tree, I had no appreciation for what Ranged Power really was. There's an argument to be made that full time 1d8 poison per shot is better, esp at lower levels, but now into Epics the boost seems a much better use of 3 AP. Venomed Blades only scales with melee power, not ranged, so yet another reason to dump it for my toon.

[0ldschool]

Apologies to anyone annoyed by my use of this thread as running commentary on my first journey into epics. I have been following EllisDee's wonderful advice on Destinies that he posted in this thread, and continue to value all of the great feedback that I've gotten.

I capped Shiradi last night! It actually happened while wandering the Demonweb wilderness, not really intended as I was looking around for quests. Shiradi started to shine as I had hoped. I'd like to credit Double Rainbow and Nerve Venom, but I think it probably had more to do with the core increases in RP and the core 5 and 6 extra damage effects. I hate to leave it behind now, it was just coming into its own.

I'm still in Eveningstar, so many quests in the Level 21-24 range are based there. I still have the 4 Demonweb quests and 4 Druids Deep quests to run, but I may veer off track to Giantold for now, I'm tiring of the Forgotten Realms a bit. I'm either going to knock out the last 1M in LD or start FoTW, have not decided yet. The L28 feat choices appear to be Doubleshot or Elusive Target, depending on what destinies I have filled when I get there. I'd prefer Doubleshot of course, but we'll see how FotW goes. L29 feat will be Harbinger I guess, I don't know if anything else will be available to me.

Since I just hit the finish line of the plan that was mapped out for me, I wanted to thank EllisDee yet again for taking the time to not only explain epic destinies to this newbie, but for taking the time to give me a roadmap for my first character's journey through the destinies. I feel like my path now is to continue moving upward, filling destinies, and getting to L30 with Zanthiss. I'm actually anxious to get to the point where I can run raids. I know that I'll probably be the least powerful toon in there, but if I can contribute in any way and not just be a backpack stone, I will be very happy.

EDIT: Forgot to add that I farmed the L24 Bracers of Twisting Shade on EH with little trouble. They are working for me, for now. I wish that they had an augment slot. I also farmed Golden Guile when I realized what Improved Deception can do for me. This was an easy farm too. It seems to be one of those heroic items that remain useful into Epics. The gear tetris game continues.

[SpartanKiller13]

Apologies to anyone annoyed by my use of this thread as running commentary on my first journey into epics. I have been following EllisDee's wonderful advice on Destinies that he posted in this thread, and continue to value all of the great feedback that I've gotten.

I'm enjoying it

To address one of your earlier concerns, farming for gear on EN/EH: devs have stated that for the last bunch of updates, drop rates of named loot are 10/16/33% on N/H/E, +1% per Reaper Skull. So you certainly can farm on EN/EH, but it might take longer.

I capped Shiradi last night! It actually happened while wandering the Demonweb wilderness, not really intended as I was looking around for quests. Shiradi started to shine as I had hoped. I'd like to credit Double Rainbow and Nerve Venom, but I think it probably had more to do with the core increases in RP and the core 5 and 6 extra damage effects. I hate to leave it behind now, it was just coming into its own.

Gratz! That's awesome! And also the hardest part of working through ED's, just where you start to get used to them it's time to swap out XD It can be worth swapping back for gear farming or low-XP quests.

I'm still in Eveningstar, so many quests in the Level 21-24 range are based there. I still have the 4 Demonweb quests and 4 Druids Deep quests to run, but I may veer off track to Giantold for now, I'm tiring of the Forgotten Realms a bit. I'm either going to knock out the last 1M in LD or start FoTW, have not decided yet. The L28 feat choices appear to be Doubleshot or Elusive Target, depending on what destinies I have filled when I get there. I'd prefer Doubleshot of course, but we'll see how FotW goes. L29 feat will be Harbinger I guess, I don't know if anything else will be available to me.

Make sure you have enough Destiny stuff filled out to qualify for the Destiny feats you want, or it's a sad day. Remember that you can bank almost one level worth of XP (so you can get 1 XP short of 29 before you have to take 28). Might be useful to fill out the last bit of a Destiny.

FotW has been a lot of fun for me (I'm LD usually, but trying to get Primal Karma). The burst on demand is amazing although it, like other Destinies, takes a little bit to get going.

Since I just hit the finish line of the plan that was mapped out for me, I wanted to thank EllisDee yet again for taking the time to not only explain epic destinies to this newbie, but for taking the time to give me a roadmap for my first character's journey through the destinies. I feel like my path now is to continue moving upward, filling destinies, and getting to L30 with Zanthiss. I'm actually anxious to get to the point where I can run raids. I know that I'll probably be the least powerful toon in there, but if I can contribute in any way and not just be a backpack stone, I will be very happy.

EDIT: Forgot to add that I farmed the L24 Bracers of Twisting Shade on EH with little trouble. They are working for me, for now. I wish that they had an augment slot. I also farmed Golden Guile when I realized what Improved Deception can do for me. This was an easy farm too. It seems to be one of those heroic items that remain useful into Epics. The gear tetris game continues.

Your signature says you're on Cannith (and I feel like I've seen you before) so feel free to PM here or in-game @Khysiria and I'd be happy to have you in my raids If you're interested, open invite to Hand of Death as well; we're the largest guild on the server, and have plenty of teaching raids multiple times/week. We tend to run fairly chill raids, you won't die much and you won't stay a stone for long at all Also plenty of other new people so you'll be in good company XD

Gear tetris is a constant battle in DDO, to the point that I've used heroic gear well into epics plenty often (last two lives using 6-piece slaver set ML8 at level 28). Good luck!

[askrj1]

Apologies to anyone annoyed by my use of this thread as running commentary on my first journey into epics. I have been following EllisDee's wonderful advice on Destinies that he posted in this thread, and continue to value all of the great feedback that I've gotten.

I can't speak for everyone but I have to say you're refreshing to read/watch compared to most newer players complaining what's not working for them rather than asking for help learning to be a better player. Also nice to see all the experienced players willing to come forth to help and give good advice to new players, and top it off not being brushed off. Would probably be a much healthier community if we had more new players like you.