DDO Orien server catch all - Static Group nights Tuesday and Thursday 8PM EST

fangblackbone wrote:

Well, I could see trying to pump wisdom for the druid spells and zen archery would make longbows ki weapons and allow you to use wisdom for hit% with the bows.

You could take 2 levels of monk for evasion but if you are going with wisdom for hit% would you tank dex and not have a decent enough reflex save so that evasion is wasted? The levels of fighter I have since determines are for the feats every other level.

edit: Thanks for the post arovin!

You need a moderate Dex score for all the ranged feats, so your Reflex save will still be good. Water stance will increase it even more.

I think it is also for the 34 point build...

Just curious about bow strength, does it scale? It seems 2 or 3 to bow damage might be good for levels 1-4 but not worth a feat higher than that?

Oh and doesn't it work for an arcane archer req?

Arovin, do you need the PL: Sorcerer for that? I was under the impression you only took that to get a SP pool but you'd be getting that from Druid levels anyway...right?

Yeah, but that's not really really the thrust of why I was asking

Plus, I typed the wrong thing.

Yeah, with this class mix I don't need Arcane Prodigy, I could have taken Metal Toughness in its place. Still the little extra SP I get is nice and the 34point build helps quite a bit.

Bow Strength will add your Strength modifier to all bow attacks. Normally bows do not get a damage bonus from any stat. Strength is one of the easier stats to increase through buffs and gear. For the early levels the Half Elf Dilettante: Ranger will be enough but it caps at +8. By end game I should be able to get more than a +8 bonus to Strength so that is when I will take Bow Strength and swap Helf Dil:Ranger for Rogue and add some bonus sneak attack damage.

The big issue is fixing this character. Right now she is a level 5 Fighter. You cannot use a +5 lesser reincarnation till level 11. That means I need to take 1 level of monk and 5 levels of druid before I can swap out the 5 fighter levels over to monk. The build will be pretty bad until I can fix it at levle 11.

It will also cost me 395 turbine points for an alignment change and 1595 for the +5 lesser heart of wood.

I really should have done more research before jumping in with my Fighter plan. I knew about 10k stars, but did not realize it was as big of a deal as it turned out to be.

Call me crazy but my druid's wolf pet is sneak attacking (and must be critting) for 50 damage at level 2. I have to laugh because I took the pet feat that causes the wolf to generate 10% less hate. I don't think things last long enough for the wolf to gain aggro and if she does, 10% less isn't going to help much when she is doing 8x my damage. (if I even get a chance to hit the monster)

I am sure the damage will normalize at some point. The druid pet also seems to have better AI than the artificer's. I assume you can only have 1 out at once? That would be pretty ludicrous if you could have a level 10/10 druid/artificer with 2 level 10 pets out!

C'mon steam sale... don't let me down. Put Menace of the Underdark on sale =P

Any chance I could grab a guild invite on Orien? I was playing on a different server, but I created a new character last night to try and join up.

Kitami Karst, Artificer (level 2 so far)

thanks!

Likewise might I get an invite for Tithegha Wancrest, Favored Soul? I have a Rog14 off on another server from back when I subbed a few years ago, so I thought I'd try something a bit different this time.

Thanks

I love hoping on a pub group and getting 17.5k Exp from a 30 min quest.

Invites have been mailed.

Good news everyone, I have terrible news! They have fixed universal challenge tokens. They are no longer able to be traded.

I had a ton of fun this weekend playing in small groups with various gwjers. Shahes (my AA crazy build posted above) is just about level 8 and she is doing pretty well. Got a great bow after giving up farming for it and buying it on the auction house (Thanks for the backup JMJ) It has higher damage and crit chance then a normal bow and is able to bypass DR on most undead and devils.

IMAGE(http://ddowiki.com/images/thumb/Item_Silver_Longbow.jpg/420px-Item_Silver_Longbow.jpg)

I have a challenge for everyone, lets see if we can get enough people on to run The Chronoscope raid (level 6) one of the two nights this week. I'll get guest passes for who everyone needs it. We should be OK if we run it with at least 10 people. Max would be 12.

The raid is pretty straight forward and there are not any quests you need to do leading up to it. It is a good quest to learn the raiding mechanics.

Go team!

Ooooo.... that would be awesome. My Mage (Automan) is currently level 5 and might just be able to make it to lvl 6 for tomorrow.

Also, on my Bard who got Stoned to lvl 16, boy am I undergeared. Actually I can't decide if it's my gear or the bard class in general that's underpowered. Then again I do realize that the Bard's main strength is grouping. So I'm farming the lower level quests for items right now. Thank goodness there's a sale on Hirelings on the DDO store this week. I'm stocking up on Clerics and Barbarians.

PS. If anyone needs a Stone to lvl 16, let me know. 2 more before I get my pet.

If anyone is looking to buy the Chronoscope it is in the Devil Assault pack and costs 350 Turbine Points. It has 2 quests, Devil Assault (levels 6, 12, and 18) and the raid can be run at level 6 and epic level 20.

You can't summon hirelings in a Raid, correct? Clerics will be very important.

From what I gather, the loot rewards in there are bind to account, not character, so I could bring my lv. 7 Favored Soul. She's never been played before, but what the hell, right? Unless there's some other reason I'd want to bring Hightower in particular.

Count me in for this.

So I assume we're not doing more 3-Barrel Cove tomorrow, since we all seem to be excited to try the raid? If that's the case, I'll try to log in early to spend some time there using up the rest of the guest pass that Blind Evil graciously provided me last time. I know they're small, but I still hate letting such things go to waste.

Here's hoping my lvl 5 mage can join the raid. Didn't quite make it to 6 last night.

Special rules For Raids

Raids are meant to be the most challenging content in the game. Raids have special rules and restrictions that you won't find in other quests:

* You can take up to 12 players into a raid, versus the usual limit of 6 for standard quests.
* You cannot bring hirelings into raids.
* You cannot use certain DDO Store items in raids: Siberys Spirit Cakes, Ethereal Rest Shrines or Summoned Repair Shops.
* Difficulty Scaling is disabled in raids. Whether one player or 12 players enter the raid, the enemy difficulty remains the same.
* For many raids, re-entry is blocked out at some point in the raid. Be careful not to release if you're unsure of the lockout mechanic. Two raids are exceptions to this rule: Tempest's Spine and The Chronoscope are for lower character level players.
* The Chronoscope has one special ability unique to any other raid: Should you die and release, you will return to The Rusty Nail tavern instance within the raid itself.

Just read up a little on the Raid. Almost everything in there has DR/Good. So ideally all melee need a Flametouched/Aligned/Pure Good/Holy/Holy Burst/Good Burst/Good Blast weapon.

Holy

Prefix
Base price modifier: +2
Effect: A holy weapon is imbued with holy powers. This power makes the weapon good-aligned. Evil characters wielding this weapon suffers a negative level. The weapon deals an extra 2d6 against all targets of evil alignment.

Example: Bezekira has DR 5/Good in The Vale of Twilight explore area, but weapons heaving Flametouched Iron, Aligned, Pure Good, Holy, Holy Burst, Good Burst or Good Blast will do full damage. Moreover, some of them will do extra damage: Pure Good 1d6, Holy 2d6, Holy Burst 2d6 + more on crits (3d6 for x2, 4d6 for x3, 5d6 for x4), Good Burst 1d6 + more on crits (3d6 for x2, 4d6 for x3, 5d6 for x4), Good Blast does dmg only on crits (3d6 for x2, 4d6 for x3, 5d6 for x4) and additional 4d6 on roll 20.

A Walk through of the Chronoscope. Also, it looks like there's an Inn in the Raid where we can buy Potions of Resist (Fire & Acid) and Flametouched weapons.

emyln wrote:

Just read up a little on the Raid. Almost everything in there has DR/Good. So ideally all melee need a Flametouched/Aligned/Pure Good/Holy/Holy Burst/Good Burst/Good Blast weapon.

Righteousness also adds the good property to weapons and does not have the good only restrictions that pure good does. They are often easier to find as well.

I read through the "Special rules" and the Chronoscope walkthrough... just to make sure I'm not missing anything critical here -- I saw that as a Cleric, I should have Remove Disease trained and ready to go, but what's the reason for buying wands of healing? Just to conserve SP? Is it really going to be that significant?

merphle wrote:

I read through the "Special rules" and the Chronoscope walkthrough... just to make sure I'm not missing anything critical here -- I saw that as a Cleric, I should have Remove Disease trained and ready to go, but what's the reason for buying wands of healing? Just to conserve SP? Is it really going to be that significant?

You can wand whip or use scrolls in between casting heals, this allows you to heal twice as fast. It is probably not a big deal since we are running it on normal but in later raids it is a good skill to have.

Great job tonight, everyone. I don't know if I'm the only one but I wouldn't mind another run on Thursday, unless there's a week lockout or something.

That was a lot of fun, thanks everyone! Screenshots coming later today.

Blind_Evil wrote:

Great job tonight, everyone. I don't know if I'm the only one but I wouldn't mind another run on Thursday, unless there's a week lockout or something.

Raids have a 3 day lockout.

I will not be on Thursday night. It is my wife's birthday.

I think there is a Raid Timer that you have to wait 2 days and 18 hours (so 66 hours total - or Friday at 5:00 pm).

Those are glorious pictures!

So I was starting a thief acrobat build before work and got her through the 3 initial Korthos quests. I took barbarian dilettante for the DR and then I realized I could do so much more with a bard. So I am going to reroll and build a bard like a thief acrobat (quarterstaff and THF feats with rogue dilettante for sneak attack)

It won't be as good at trap disabling but the trade off is buffs, nukes, heals, regen song, fascinate (which works great with sneak attack). Any tips or is there a reliable build out there like this? I was thinking a level of fighter for some extra feats but I want to keep it simple and fun as I have been spending too much time in novice theory crafting.

I was thinking is taking dilettante paladin to add my charisma bonus to my saves. Is it just me or are quarterstaves hard to come by?

fangblackbone wrote:

So I was starting a thief acrobat build before work and got her through the 3 initial Korthos quests. I took barbarian dilettante for the DR and then I realized I could do so much more with a bard. So I am going to reroll and build a bard like a thief acrobat (quarterstaff and THF feats with rogue dilettante for sneak attack)

It won't be as good at trap disabling but the trade off is buffs, nukes, heals, regen song, fascinate (which works great with sneak attack). Any tips or is there a reliable build out there like this? I was thinking a level of fighter for some extra feats but I want to keep it simple and fun as I have been spending too much time in novice theory crafting.

I was thinking is taking dilettante paladin to add my charisma bonus to my saves. Is it just me or are quarterstaves hard to come by?

For a bard going THF quarterstaff is probably not the ideal why to go. A bard can use any martial two handed weapon with the spell masters touch they get at level 1. Also if you are going for sneak attack damage THF is not the way to go because you loose out on the number of sneak attacks you get. It only works for Acrobats because they get an insane increase to quarterstaff attack speed they get that stacks with rogue Haste boost.

There are good melee quarterstaves in the game, they are mostly named items you have to grind specific quests for.

IMAGE(http://itemwiki.cubicleninja.com/images/ShowImage.aspx?itemID=149&thumbnail=0)
IMAGE(http://itemwiki.cubicleninja.com/images/ShowImage.aspx?itemID=192&thumbnail=0)
IMAGE(http://itemwiki.cubicleninja.com/images/items/item_1257.png)
IMAGE(http://itemwiki.cubicleninja.com/images/items/item_1356.png)
IMAGE(http://itemwiki.cubicleninja.com/images/items/item_355.png)

So it sounds like casting the proficiency spell and using the nice ember great axe you get from the intro quest will do for a while.

Do sneak attacks not work on glancing blows (I'm guessing not after your post)? I was thinking a combo of fascinate a few enemies and then the wide swing of the axe would multi-hit with glancing blows which would then add sneak attack damage.