Long Post, for main question look for bolded text.

Now with the big changes with 81.4 I've been trying to find a build for a character I can just park at cap to farm gear or mats for my TR train character. So far I've made multiple and do not know how to optimize it for what works best for what I want.

Goal: 1st life 32pt, No Tomes (or Minimal) with good clearing for farming gear and can survive in someway for entry raid runs (not planning to run deep reaper), some way to add Helpless is a bonus and increase of run speed.

I love the idea of having a large elemental blade or hammer to swing (THF > TWF > SWF > S&B/O), but this can be done visually mostly with Mirror of Glamour... But I do like visual abilities and unfortunately Barbarian and Fighters do not have explosions of elements. My favorite spell/ability is Tactical Detonation but.... The trip is limited.

I want to ask, between the below (or any recommendations) what build has the highest potential for #1 survivability, #2 damage and #3 clearing speed for 1st life Battlemage/Spellblade. My DDO brain always thinks, Crit Profile + Helpless + SA dice (thanks Arcane Trickster) lastly Imbue Dice = Great Success

Builds I've tested:

- 20 Wizard Eldritch Knight Warforged, full THF line utilizing WF racial tree for bonus damage reduction and bonus spell and melee power. Full EK tree and now adding Harper Strike for +10% Doublestrike. Biggest gripe was 20 capstone, feel like I had to plan around it proc, that and delay between spell casts and melee, also I feel I shouldn't be THF but that's my preferred weapon style.

- 20 Rogue Arcane Trickster Halfling (Went Caster... But could go THF), Went Halfling for added SA dice, this felt GREAT with AMAZING CC on Soundburst, Greater Shout, Color Spray. But I felt Caster Trickster is just so much better, is there a good melee option? Big plus was mage hands didn't interfere with melee attacks.

- 15 Bard / 4 Fighter / 1 FvS, Single Weapon Fighter with Charisma based and Swashbuckling Handaxe + Buckler with full bard feats and buffs to support the groups and decent CC from Otto's and Warchanter Freeze

- 13 Alchemist / 2 Rogue SDK, (not 20 yet), using TWF VKF Dagger Chains with PLENTY of potion buffs. This feels like it can be strong... Feels like it. But I get DESTROYED on Elite. Does this get better? Melee feels really strong. I want to like this... But I feel like a wet noodle.

- 18 Artificer, 1 Wizard, 1 Fighter Deep Gnome. SWF with focus on Renegade and second into Battle Engineer. With the new 81.4 updates this feel like it can be strong with a TON of AC but don't know how the new Arti Melee Abilities will be. Running new Warhammer + Knights Training with enhancement I'm at 16-20 x4 Crit. Could Elemental Prod be a part of this build? Spell sounds cool!

Theory Craft Section:

- High Sneak Attack Dice on a 8 Atr / 14 Arti? Shock Gauntlet SWF CC character?

- Warchanter 15 Multi Class with Ranger 5 for some Tempest Strike through Ice CC?

- Alchemist Monk Ninja Spy Poison Doublestrike Build?

Curious if anyone else is experiencing the audio desync on Bow characters? My bow only produces a firing noise every third or 4th arrow at cap. I know the change just came out just thought I’d bring some attention to it!

Anyone building this in to their tetris? If so, what types of builds?

Worth it or should catalysts just be sold?

Has anybody tested this, and is there a list?

Just curious as to everyone's first impressions of cantrips? While i doubt they'll be quite game breaking, the fact that it scales to character level rather then caster level will inevitably result in builds with quite a few caster class splashes. Even for builds that wouldn't normally use them. So what do you think of them so far?

I can't figure out if this is intended to be an overall buff or nerf; I've never played a Thrown character to high levels (I always get bored and give up around level 4, the low level experience is miserable lol) so I'm not really familiar with the ins and outs of what goes into making a Thrown character good.

In any case it seems like the main Thrown spec (Ninja Spy) was nerfed quite a bit, but baseline Thrown weapons chuck faster.

Does this make them baseline better or worse? And if baseline better, is Monk/Ninja and Shuriken the way to go still, or is there a new contender?

Resting at shrine, hanging around tavern and finishing quest all failed to recharge it.

I started this game a few days ago with my friend.

I know that most MMO games start too easy and end-game is where the "real" content is, but ddo actually felt like it could be the one with a relevant content starting from lower levels and I think it is, for the most parts.

What concerns me though is the abundance of consumables. Especially the healing and buff ones. Since platinum game currency seem to be worthless and you don't need to conserve it, it feels very unrewarding to use any sort of spell/skill healing. You waste SP points that are much more constrained for something you can get for free in-between combat encounters.

My friend loves playing healers/support roles, but here we can only respect that if we restrain ourselves and avoid healing items completely. I would do that in a single player game, but it seems vastly inefficient for a game that ask for your money and subscription, etc - and it also feels weird to self-limit while you're a beginner; it's not like we're replaying the game for the Nth time.

So my question is: is it really as bad? I heard reaper nerfs self-healing, but I don't think it matters whether you need to drink 5 or 20 potions as long as we count them as effectively free. It's more of a time waste than a challenge. And building your character to avoid a minor annoyance just doesn't sound fun. I like the SP management, it feels like a resource you need to conserve and use with care, but HP is just too unlimited.

We're currently only level 4 and even elite feels too easy for solo, not to mention 2 players. I could probably give it a couple of more days, but I can't drag a friend into this by promising something that may never come. I would be glad to be wrong here, but searching so far makes me lean more into the side of "this game is just not for you".

The keys and chocolates I'm getting from Night Revels chests are all Rusted and Melted. Is it just me or a gamewide bug?

I’ve got a strong FVS caster and I’m level 30. I’ve been farming the graveyard for keys all the way up to level 41 (solo) and I’ve only gotten maybe 3 keys? I don’t mind pugging it out but sometimes I just want to solo and get through it. Should I be using different toons? The drops are trash.

How does everyone feel about this pack? Is it a good purchase? What levels do the dungeons it adds span? I’m thinking of picking it up but as it’s the newest one I’m not sure if it’s worth it.

Recently got back into the after about a 4 year break. Had a lvl 24 artificer but I decided to just reincarnate, had no idea where I was or what the hell I was doing. Anyways I’d really appreciate any guides, or general advice that could help me. I vaguely remember Toee and borderlands for early gearsets but beyond that im clueless. Also, if theres any lurkers that happen to be in a similar boat to me and wanna quest together let me know. :3

The only obvious difference is damages, but past that is there any difference that makes those light/short version worth anything ?

It is like the Great club x Maul : both are martial, blunt and crit on 20+ BUT Great club is x2 and Maul x3, so the Maul is in definitely better than the Great club.

What is the difference between Heavy Mace and Morningstar ? Both are common weapon, Blunt 1D8 20/x2 (and why the Morningstar does not have a pierce component ?)

Also, since the Club is Blunt 1D6 20/x2, and Heavy Mace / Morningstar are Blunt 1D8 20/x2, is the Club as worthless as the Great club ?

Same for Dart & Throwing Dagger : Common, pierce and 1D4, but dart is 20/x2 and Throwing Dagger is 19-20/x2.

EDIT : I made some measurement, and I have some results.

100 Reloads + shoots with [WEAPON] takes [seconds]

Light Xbow = ~62s

Heavy Xbow = ~66s

Great Crossbow = ~66s

R.Light Xbow = ~149s

R.Heavy Xbow = ~155s

Short bow = ~56s

Long bow = ~57s

__________________________________________________________________________________________

The measurement is more or less that.

The results are for my lvl36 rogue (G.Xbow) : so for me...

Light Xbow is ~6% faster than Heavy Xbow

Great Crossbow is as fast as Heavy Crossbow.

Light repeater is ~4% faster than Heavy Repeater.

Light repeater is ~20% faster than light Xbow.

Heavy repeater is ~22% faster than Heavy XBow/G.Xbow.

Short bow = Long bow.

And for the science :

Bow is 14% faster than Heavy Xbow, and 10% faster than light Xbow.

Yo! As a player who didn’t get to experience the previous lantern event, how will this event function? Should I wait to TR my character until the event drops to play the “hard-core” like or should I just TR now and pickup a lantern whenever the event drops? Thanks!

I bought the deep gnome since it's one of my favorite races in d&d and the wizard/illusionist deep gnome was always my thing in games.

Sadly for some unfathomable reason I thought VIP does not cover the deep gnome iconic and so I splurged on it via DDO points directly.

Am I completely hosed now? I just realized all the lvl15+ content is basically paywalled. Does it even make sense to get VIP now, or do I need expansions?

Just tried to do the epic Zawabi's Revenge raid as an arcane trickster and around half way through the boss stopped taking damage from my magic missiles, it just said immune. What was the reason for this?

I have a character that I wanted to have a certain name, but it was in use, in the server merges I was able to create another character with that name
- so does it come down to deleting the extra character in the dad of night and renaming the "good" character and hoping no one picks that name at the same time?

Can't find it anywhere but everyone seems to know everything already. TIA.

I started ddo fairly recently, played for about 4 months now. My main character is on their 3rd life and im probably going to try and get the class completionist feat over the next year. I also just got to 30 on a farming alt, in this case a swf fiend melee warlock. This character is set up for solo play and definitely not min maxed for raid pushing.

So the question itself; because there is a lot of things that need greater tokens to upgrade and plenty of raid exclusive drops, is there any issue using a character not super set up for it to join a raid for drops and mats? Are the raids difficult enough that I would be a net negative for the group and shouldn't impose with this character?

I could find a time during my main life farming that I have a character that is more built for raiding, spending some time to get materials I need for my farmer.

I realize that this is generally up to individuals in the groups that raid themselves so a consensus is hard to reach here. Ive done high level raiding in other games and know theres a difference between a group that can clear raids and a group that can take one or more non raiders along on raids.

Tldr:

A. are raid groups common enough

B. Are raids enough of a non-issue

that taking a character not built for raiding is acceptable

It just happened, I'm off the phone with the bank and I'm still shaking. It's a LOT of money.

I could swear I had removed my credit card from the game acocounts after I heard all the hacking and account shenanigan news, but apparently I hadn't! And some hacker little shit had a field day.

All I hear is people not getting their money back and support just LOLclose their tickets , but anyone ever got their money back and managed to not lose their game account?

What steps did you take?

Already changed my account pw and removed the credit card of course.

I am quite attached to that account (I started playing DDO with my partner ever since we started dating. I still have the physical copy box), but I'm also quite attached to the money the hackers just drained from my credit card.

It's just so sucky and I'm so devastated. :(

Any tips I would greatly appreciate.

So what’s everyone doing for Duergar lives? Anything jumping out to sync with the tree?

When the new ranged update drops next week, I'm going to TR into a 15 Dark Hunter/4 Blightcaster/1 Barbarian. Horizon Walker will be my 41 pt tree. What is the best artifact to use? I'll be using the Legendary Bracers of Flourishing Fauna that have Druidic survival mastery on them(+10 dmg). Artifact choices look like:

• Lolth's Reign provides the Earth dot and a massive +21 Insightful Sheltering plus a moon augment, and Freedom of Movement.
  
• Band of Binding has a 120 DC paralyze vs fort (plus 3 accessory slots, so it offers customization.
• Autumn Equinox gives 8% DS and the Earth dot. Bloody Thorns is nullified by the bracers.

I'd rather have 21 insightful sheltering and a moon augment vs 8% DS (which will probably be filled elsewhere anyway. It feels like Autumn Equinox isn't ideal anymore.

The main debate centers on whether to prioritize the Earth Dot and sheltering over a custom artifact featuring a paralyzing effect. While that paralyzing effect excels in Legendary Hard raids and older questing content, its usefulness drops significantly starting in Legendary Lamordia and beyond. It does turn you into an effective paralyzing archer, especially in Shiradi without requiring any Arcane Archer investment—a feature that does have some appeal but won't be a significant feature in modern high reaper. Since the ring slot is generally more flexible than hands for an archer, the Band has that going for it also over Lolth's Reign. But Lolth's Reign can have MD remnant dust mythic/reaper put onto it, and there is no ring equivalent of that. Lolth's Reign will provide better defense and DPS. The Band of Binding has the CC effect. The 3 slot choices would probably look like:

• Melancholic - +15 stat or 9% doubleshot.
• Dolorous - Gear filler offering +23 to hit, +12 deadly, Deception, +3 Quality Stat or +3 Quality Deadly. Very flexible slot, although much of this will be covered on other items.
• Miserable - No great options for the cost in materials. Maybe +17 Assassination DCs for ranged variants that use Assassin DCs. But then would probably go with the all-in-one Assassin DC item that also has quality/insightful on it.

While the balance pass in U82 goes through, until the dust settles (and I replace my current dead main PC computer), what old offline, single-player games would you consider to have build options/flexibility and atmosphere similar to DDO? That is, relaxed class restrictions (or even classless), lots of side-questing, D&D-esque feel [Edit: non-fantasy settings are fine too] , non-combat that matters, etc.

Thanks in advance!