Frogo is a good buddy and DC's land now

[ianflaer]

I bought the top pack and I have zero regrets so here are some of my thoughts.

I'm sad that stat squish took away my bard's 100% sonic crit but things are still dying just as fast sooooo, it's knida cool and I think I can get back to 100 after another energy crit epic life and some filigree farming. work work work

my bard is not built for DC's because it was a first life toon and I don't build DC casters very well but . . . her 84-ish DC on mass hold is hitting everything everywhere up to R2. sharn is a little tougher but not much. I would say it is definitely easier for DCs casters to land their spells now. 84DC got laughed at yesterday.

Frogo. the Bullywog rogue hireling. I have only taken the level 30 guy around, but. . . I took him into the new haunting of saltmarsh quest, he did great. I have one question mark about the assassin's chest. I couldn't get to it. and my rogue has pretty good skills and there was no spot no search nothing. just a chest I could target through a wall and not get to. I think I missed a secret lever or trick and not failed rogue skills

took him into R1 White Plume Mountain. he did great. found all the secret doors and traps and disabled them no problem. if you can toss Frogo a bard song or some greater heroism there doesn't seem to be anything he can't do.

Frogo makes me happy

I am loving Saltmarsh don't listen to the haters, it's sweet stuff. get in and play

[Oliphant]

There's a chest behind a wall in a room, and there is a lever inset amongst some crates. Might be the chest you saw, not sure.

[ianflaer]

There's a chest behind a wall in a room, and there is a lever inset amongst some crates. Might be the chest you saw, not sure.

maybe. Frogo found a secret door upstairs. got the spot, heard the reveal noise but could not find it. that was among the boxes maybe it revealed the lever I didn't find. did that lever open the wall below kitchen where you fight assassin guy Ned Shakeshaft?

[o2t4f]

I bought the top pack and I have zero regrets so here are some of my thoughts.

I'm sad that stat squish took away my bard's 100% sonic crit but things are still dying just as fast sooooo, it's knida cool and I think I can get back to 100 after another energy crit epic life and some filigree farming. work work work

my bard is not built for DC's because it was a first life toon and I don't build DC casters very well but . . . her 84-ish DC on mass hold is hitting everything everywhere up to R2. sharn is a little tougher but not much. I would say it is definitely easier for DCs casters to land their spells now. 84DC got laughed at yesterday.

Frogo. the Bullywog rogue hireling. I have only taken the level 30 guy around, but. . . I took him into the new haunting of saltmarsh quest, he did great. I have one question mark about the assassin's chest. I couldn't get to it. and my rogue has pretty good skills and there was no spot no search nothing. just a chest I could target through a wall and not get to. I think I missed a secret lever or trick and not failed rogue skills

took him into R1 White Plume Mountain. he did great. found all the secret doors and traps and disabled them no problem. if you can toss Frogo a bard song or some greater heroism there doesn't seem to be anything he can't do.

Frogo makes me happy

I am loving Saltmarsh don't listen to the haters, it's sweet stuff. get in and play

Saltmarsh is fine, but hirelings are still useless. I always felt that a bard and rogue permanent hireling would be something I would love. But looking back, never did the need for a rogue hireling came up at the levels these 2 from saltmarsh are available. After a TR, Elieri, the only one I used to use sometimes even though I have all the permanent ones from previous bundles, I often forget to even get her out of the bank before I reach a level where she will be more of a time waste than any help at all.
I do use a few rogues (just for lockpicking) at some level 10, 14 and 22 quests iirc (maybe the lv 3 will help at lv 10, doubt it will help at 14 and 22). But with a stockpile of gold seal rogues from leftover shards on the hardcore server, I gotta ask myself "why the hell did I buy the ultimate bundle?"

It is similar to the question SSG asked me when they gave the 10% VIP discount: "why the heck are you still VIP?"

EDIT: Just found out something nice. Just buy the smaller bundle. If you decide you really want yet another useless hireling or they somehow become useful in the future, you can upgrade it by paying just the difference between your bundle and the upgraded bundle.

[Tyrande]

Saltmarsh is fine, [..]

It is similar to the question SSG asked me when they gave the 10% VIP discount: "why the heck are you still VIP?"

+10% bonus XP permanent, +10% bonus reaper XP permanent, +15% VIP extra bonus now and they stack with the buddy XP bonus...
not to mention the moving 10% faster.

I guess that's where your characters like?

[Phatlewts]

Saltmarsh is fine, but hirelings are still useless. I always felt that a bard and rogue permanent hireling would be something I would love. But looking back, never did the need for a rogue hireling came up at the levels these 2 from saltmarsh are available. After a TR, Elieri, the only one I used to use sometimes even though I have all the permanent ones from previous bundles, I often forget to even get her out of the bank before I reach a level where she will be more of a time waste than any help at all.
I do use a few rogues (just for lockpicking) at some level 10, 14 and 22 quests iirc (maybe the lv 3 will help at lv 10, doubt it will help at 14 and 22). But with a stockpile of gold seal rogues from leftover shards on the hardcore server, I gotta ask myself "why the hell did I buy the ultimate bundle?"

It is similar to the question SSG asked me when they gave the 10% VIP discount: "why the heck are you still VIP?"

In my opinion, even the gold seal hirelings from the various ultimate packs are lackluster. A level 3 rogue? How useful is that, unless you run Hard difficulty or lower. Sure, the couple quests from the Sharn marketplace quests but will it even get the fire traps in Shan-To-Kor on elite or higher? I am skeptical. Hirelings, in general, although I use them A LOT, because I solo a lot, they are so poorly set up. Like, rogues with a dps boost, but no skill boost? Is there anyone using a rogue hire for DPS? And Bards are the same story, how many bards don't have a dedicated button for inspire courage? What is the primary reason to use a Bard hire vs cleric or FvS, inspire courage. I get that not all bards will have spell song chant but.... I had very high hopes that the Feywild bard hirelings would have brought with them some efforts to improve these glaring problems with bard hirelings and hirelings in general, but no. I have been VIP since 2007, bought every ultimate fan bundle, but my disappointment with Feywild quests that involve chasing one mob through areas of tons of spawns and the weak implementation of the bard hires has really soured me on spending any extra money for this game....

[Malignar]

I only messed with the heroic frog so far on traps and the legendary I've only messed with as combat support.

I took the heroic frog into Gwylan's Stand on R1 last night. A pugger who was a trapper ended up joining me part-way through so the frog only took a crack at 11 of the traps, but he was 7/11 with no buffs of any kind. Enough for xp bonuses when soloing. Not bad froggy!

I busted out the legendary frog while soloing new content on LE and he seemed a little more capable than any other hireling. I didn't really pay attention to what all he does, what his DPS is like, etc. but he self-heals a little somehow (when he hits, maybe, like light monk?) and definitely stayed alive longer than my other hirelings. I mostly solo, but rarely use hirelings. I like this lil dude, though!

[Dark_Lord_Mary]

Frogo is not worth the money the pack is not worth it - the ideas are not implimented in a way to be fun

Frogo lvl 30 cannot trap or rogue because he cannot find secret doors or all traps @ LE/LR

The new gear crafting system is a time sink waste of time - why would I drop real money to run quests where I have to farm mats just to get basic gear when I can go run RL or sharn or Fey since all the gear now is vanilla and the same?

Who's brilliant idea was it to move this game back into the awful Turbine years????????????????????????????????????

So far this mini-expac, aside from the fact that its a cool actual D&D set of modules, is a big disappointment the way it was implimented.

They really expect me - really - like actually really expect me to sort through 9 pages of scrolls seals and shards and turn them in one by one to convert them to crafting mats? Something a batch program could have done for us, the players, who apparently according to SSG have nothing better to do with our time than convert what was 3 crafting mats into what is now, what 9 raid mats and exchange gear for stuff that is no better than what is easily attained elsewhere?

Massive fail

[Dark_Lord_Mary]

In my opinion, even the gold seal hirelings from the various ultimate packs are lackluster. A level 3 rogue? How useful is that, unless you run Hard difficulty or lower. Sure, the couple quests from the Sharn marketplace quests but will it even get the fire traps in Shan-To-Kor on elite or higher? I am skeptical. Hirelings, in general, although I use them A LOT, because I solo a lot, they are so poorly set up. Like, rogues with a dps boost, but no skill boost? Is there anyone using a rogue hire for DPS? And Bards are the same story, how many bards don't have a dedicated button for inspire courage? What is the primary reason to use a Bard hire vs cleric or FvS, inspire courage. I get that not all bards will have spell song chant but.... I had very high hopes that the Feywild bard hirelings would have brought with them some efforts to improve these glaring problems with bard hirelings and hirelings in general, but no. I have been VIP since 2007, bought every ultimate fan bundle, but my disappointment with Feywild quests that involve chasing one mob through areas of tons of spawns and the weak implementation of the bard hires has really soured me on spending any extra money for this game....

The entire SSS pack being lvl 3/30 is useless

we needed lvl 7 and 8 content not lvl 3 - a lvl 3 gold seal rogue is garbage due to how easy the traps have been vanilla'd to in one of the massive trap nerfs that occured after HCL 1

And lvl 30 - who sits at 30 or uses 30 gear? Raiders? Anyone TRing with never use 30 gear until the lvl cap is 50 and at that point who knows who will still be playing whatever morphed homebrew this becomes.

I am not at all happy with the direction this U50 took DDO.
Some of the minipack is nice - the quests are fun - but the changes to the way the game played and that new god awful epic crafting system that is 1000X more complicated than the old system - a system that should have just been removed and everything made like RL/Sharn/Fey

is that so hard? we do not need 2532115456236623 crafting systems in this game.
Cannith Crafting is enough.
Take a page out of other MMOs and stop nerfing the good stuff and adding poorly conceived overly useless stuff

[Dark_Lord_Mary]

I bought the top pack and I have zero regrets so here are some of my thoughts.

I'm sad that stat squish took away my bard's 100% sonic crit but things are still dying just as fast sooooo, it's knida cool and I think I can get back to 100 after another energy crit epic life and some filigree farming. work work work

my bard is not built for DC's because it was a first life toon and I don't build DC casters very well but . . . her 84-ish DC on mass hold is hitting everything everywhere up to R2. sharn is a little tougher but not much. I would say it is definitely easier for DCs casters to land their spells now. 84DC got laughed at yesterday.

Frogo. the Bullywog rogue hireling. I have only taken the level 30 guy around, but. . . I took him into the new haunting of saltmarsh quest, he did great. I have one question mark about the assassin's chest. I couldn't get to it. and my rogue has pretty good skills and there was no spot no search nothing. just a chest I could target through a wall and not get to. I think I missed a secret lever or trick and not failed rogue skills

took him into R1 White Plume Mountain. he did great. found all the secret doors and traps and disabled them no problem. if you can toss Frogo a bard song or some greater heroism there doesn't seem to be anything he can't do.

Frogo makes me happy

I am loving Saltmarsh don't listen to the haters, it's sweet stuff. get in and play

Just wait till you try to deal with the gear. Unless you have nothing to do and I mean clear your schedule for the time sink converting scroll seal shard to the 24524 new mcguffins; the only good thing about the new gear are the filigrees

[Malignar]

There's a lot here that I have a much different perspective on, but ain't nobody got time for that.

I just wanted to chime in to make sure that we all agree that what we actually need is 11 and 13 content.

7 and 8 would be nice, give some more options maybe, but 11 and 13 is where the xp feels squeezed to me.

Spot on, though, that the LAST thing we needed was more level 3 stuff, and this would have been better served as probably 7.

[o2t4f]

+10% bonus XP permanent, +10% bonus reaper XP permanent, +15% VIP extra bonus now and they stack with the buddy XP bonus...
not to mention the moving 10% faster.

I guess that's where your characters like?

Don't think that 15% is currently up, but yeah, that is a good one when it happens. The other 10% are hard to give up too.

As for 10% faster movement, surely you mean 10% mounted movement. Though it feels like everyone is VIP because it is rarely noticed. If it was 10% character movement that would be too massive.

[Gniewomir]

Out of curiosity friend just tested it. R1 von 3 - no problems doing traps with gh. R1 wpm - decided to give it a try without gh, still - frogo got no problems finding and disarming traps. Seriously, imo lvl 3 hire doing traps in lvl 11 (on reaper) quests without any problems - it's a bit too much.

[slarden]

my bard is not built for DC's because it was a first life toon and I don't build DC casters very well but . . . her 84-ish DC on mass hold is hitting everything everywhere up to R2. sharn is a little tougher but not much. I would say it is definitely easier for DCs casters to land their spells now. 84DC got laughed at yesterday.

So landing DCs is not easier. It's roughly the same in sharn+ content and slightly harder in earlier legendary content to land spells for a typically geared caster.

If you didn't have any DC items to speak of and/or were undergeared you could get this effect because saves were reduced by -6 in older content and -16 in newer content. This would end up feeling like a buff to someone severely undegeared for dc casting.

So an 84 DC now is roughly the same as a 100 DC before the stat squish and that did work for will saves on many mobs in sharn. If it feels easier it would be because your gear didn't get hit as hard which is likely due to being undergeared or not having dc items. There is no scenario where someone with endgame DC casting gear would feel that DC casting is working much better - it's simple math.

I did a detailed analysis here: U50 Preview 2: Endgame Itemization Adjustments (ddo.com)

My effective DC is up 1-2 in Sharn+ and down 8 to 9 in older content.

Frogo is not worth the money the pack is not worth it - the ideas are not implimented in a way to be fun

Frogo lvl 30 cannot trap or rogue because he cannot find secret doors or all traps @ LE/LR

The only thing of value in the ultimate fan bundle is frogo. I don't know that it's worth $72 honestly, but I bought the ultimate fan bundle on 1 of 3 accounts just for froggo, but SSG could have sold me 3 of those if the value was there.

Frogo hasn't failed a trap or secret door check for me yet. Over several years that's alot of bonus rxp if you don't already have the trapping - and I rarely have trapping at 30.

I do have 3 druid past lifes, but haven't had to throw GH on him yet so without any past lifes it would work for sure with a GH scroll. Sadly the only other thing with a little value is the ability to use horizon walker on hardcore. Frogo is solid though. Whether he is worth $72 is up to each person.

[GeoffWatson]

Out of curiosity friend just tested it. R1 von 3 - no problems doing traps with gh. R1 wpm - decided to give it a try without gh, still - frogo got no problems finding and disarming traps. Seriously, imo lvl 3 hire doing traps in lvl 11 (on reaper) quests without any problems - it's a bit too much.

If he can do high-level traps the pack might be worth getting.
I thought that only getting L3 and L30 trappers would be useless for the majority of the game (eg about 6-29).

[Kza]

Lovely to hear, same as me. Frogo is my new best friend.

[mikarddo]

Just wait till you try to deal with the gear. Unless you have nothing to do and I mean clear your schedule for the time sink converting scroll seal shard to the 24524 new mcguffins; the only good thing about the new gear are the filigrees

Hmm, I just handed in 280 seals last night in 10 mins. Its not really bad with a few tricks.

a) Set the counter to 500 (it carries over between items)
b) When you drag make sure to hit the red area not just the line.
c) If the red area isnt showing click on the x to the right of the search field.

A friend told me these 3 little gems last night and things went significantly smoother. A bit tedious, yes, but not totally bad.

Also, there are only about 10 new mcguffins so thats quite a manageable number compared to lthe number of different s/s/s.

[Madja]

There's a lot here that I have a much different perspective on, but ain't nobody got time for that.

I just wanted to chime in to make sure that we all agree that what we actually need is 11 and 13 content.

7 and 8 would be nice, give some more options maybe, but 11 and 13 is where the xp feels squeezed to me.

Spot on, though, that the LAST thing we needed was more level 3 stuff, and this would have been better served as probably 7.

This is the thing that confuses me the most. Level 3 now has almost twice as many quests as level 13 despite it taking like an hour or two to get through. Do we really need 26 quests at that level?
My only guess is that they want newer, more polished content early, so that new players will buy and play it before they quit again.

[Tyrande]

This is the thing that confuses me the most. Level 3 now has almost twice as many quests as level 13 despite it taking like an hour or two to get through. Do we really need 26 quests at that level?
My only guess is that they want newer, more polished content early, so that new players will buy and play it before they quit again.

Besides polished content, the devs need to make new people feel they are on an equal platform. Right now they signed up, doing the Borderlands quests, got some basic equipment and a basic horse; head to the Cerulean hills, and then head to Saltmarsh... met some people with reaper wings running around claiming casual people running R10 blindfolded walking backwards with 500+hp w/ 100+ past lives at level 5... then they felt that they cannot catch up to 10+ years of DDO; and they quit again...

To make them feel better, reset all reaper points to 0, and reset all past lives to "none"; let everyone starts on being an equal basis starting with Update 50.

[Tyrande]

Out of curiosity friend just tested it. R1 von 3 - no problems doing traps with gh. R1 wpm - decided to give it a try without gh, still - frogo got no problems finding and disarming traps. Seriously, imo lvl 3 hire doing traps in lvl 11 (on reaper) quests without any problems - it's a bit too much.

Did you test the L30 Frogo. Can he do Legendary Elite and Legendary R1 traps (on level 30+ quests)

According to another poster above you, is that he cannot; and hence Saltmarsh Ultimate Fan edition does not seem like a buy.

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Frogo lvl 30 cannot trap or rogue because he cannot find secret doors or all traps @ LE/LR
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