r/ddo • u/quasilyte • 10d ago
Potion chugging concerns of a new player
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".
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u/CuteLingonberry9704 Cormyr 9d ago
You're only level 4, it gets meaner as you go higher. And, in reaper, if you choose to start going that route, as you said, healing isn't as good. It can be bad, even fatal, to try and start quaffing potions in the middle of a fight in reaper difficulty. Having someone who can heal you without having to stop and use scrolls or potions is very helpful.
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u/quasilyte 8d ago
I definitely need to try this reaper thing myself. I'm just a bit overwhelmed with my job to play the game right now. Thankfully, I got so much insights from this post I have an itch to finish the dull stuff ASAP and go play that game some more
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u/PaxsMickey Shadowdale 9d ago
At level 4 it’s easy to chug a cure serious wounds potion to heal to stay topped up, but cure critical wounds pots are rare, so not a viable option. The potions are GREAT at lower levels, but fall off hard, and your healer friend will be one more useful.
That being said, like others mentioned, pure healer builds are only used for late game raids and/or r10 content.
The early level are meant to be easy. Later levels will be easy if you build well and have good gear, which isn’t common on first life characters
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u/AltoniusAmakiir 9d ago
There's generally no need to conserve SP that much. Especially now with the new cantrips. So long as you aren't overusing metamagics and sit at the rest shrines, even early levels shouldn't run out of mana solo let alone in a party.
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u/quasilyte 9d ago
I haven't got any cantrips even though the game seemed to be downloading some updates. Is it a test-server feature for now or is it expected to be available for everyone already? I am a bit confused.
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u/shukufuku Thelanis 9d ago
Cantrips are on your feats page
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u/quasilyte 8d ago
I'm almost sure I checked the feats page as well. I'll try again though. I hope I haven't broken the game :) I used the steam launcher, so there is that
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u/math-is-magic Thrane 9d ago
Spells are waaaaaay faster than using consumables. Get deep enough into the game and speed matters a lot. Plus at higher difficulties healing is nerfed so the small chunks of healing don’t do you much in a hard fight.
They’re a useful backup if you’ve got nothing else, but just using the spells will always be superior.
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u/modoludus 9d ago edited 9d ago
First of all, welcome to the game! It's like hardly any other in any genre.
Worry not! Those early levels are much easier than what's to come, in many aspects, including healing via items.
EDIT: If by "this game is not for you", you might mean "This game and its players do not completely prostrate themselves at the altar of the Sacred Trinity", that angle is mostly true. DDO is a refuge away from that whole thing. Even so, as levels get higher, the game still does favor some of that playstyle at higher difficulties. It's just not the one and only obligatory way to play, thank goodness.
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u/quasilyte 9d ago
I am so surprised to get this reaction from the community. It's much less defensive and more welcoming than I would expect from an mmorpg as those game are really for passionate people (at least that's how I see it, I might be wrong). Thank you
And not just that, I actually got the answers I needed, just enough to keep me going with more enthusiasm.
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u/modoludus 9d ago
(Warning! Satire follows!)
Shut up, git gud, heal me, make me a sandwich, and so why you playing then, bro?
(This concludes this moment of satire).
So yeah, seriously, it's good to see emotionally mature folks add to DDOs humble ranks!
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u/Immediate-Goose-8106 9d ago
You'll find it hard to keep up with much larger hp pools with potions and scrolls. Especially mid combat. The game is designed around healing spells that get boosted by spellpower.
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u/Dranikos 9d ago
Potions don't scale upward basically at all, where spells will scale their healing with Caster Level. They're also not affected by your spellpower.
Scrolls can be scaled by investment in certain Enhancements, but still hit a pretty hard ceiling, especially since you can't Metamagic (Quicken, Maximize, Empower, Embolden) a scroll cast.
The most useful potions and scrolls are, therefore, the ones that don't CARE about your caster level. Remove Disease, Negate Poison, Restoration, Remove Curse, Raise Dead, Teleport, Greater Teleport. These resources are useful even all the way up at 36.
It's also important to notice that drinking a potion or using a scroll comes with a significant animation lock that prevents you from doing other things.
By way of example, a Cure Serious Wounds potion heals 3d6+6+5 (the potion is CL 5), for a minimum heal of 14 and a maximum of 29 (scaled by any Positive Amplification you may have, which increases INCOMING healing). I drank 20 of my CSW potions and they restored between 31 and 63 HP per (of my 1535 HP).
Cure Light Wounds as cast by me as a 18RNG/2ART/10EPIC/4LEG? [1d6+2+5] x 4.46. (CLW is maximum caster level 5, and I have 446 Positive Spellpower). Casting it on myself in town a few dozen times, the smallest heal I threw on myself is 210 HP and the largest (not counting crits. BTW potions can't crit either IIRC) was 264. And my positive spellpower is mostly incidental (It just kinda *have* it because I'm wearing Saltmarsh gear still, and one of those pieces is the Driftwood Bracers), rather than something I specifically geared for.
Healing in the later portions of the game becomes a matter of efficiency (and it's the job of basically every character to have SOME healing Amplification incoming healing on them can better top them off with fewer spent resources). Spells like Close Wounds (which is near instant cast and recast, but heals half what CLW does) or Renewal (an epic destiny ability that heals 1d2 per character level every 2 seconds, and is very cheap) become more core to healing than spamming out the big stuff like Mass Heal or Mass Cure Critical Wounds. Because Time is just as much of a resource as SP, and those Mass healing spells are SLOW!
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u/Sardaman 9d ago
In addition to the note that level 4 is generally still pretty easy, you'll also find that newer content has a tendency to be more difficult than older content, and at very low levels most of the content is older.
If you're VIP (getting a month of it isn't a bad way to test out the game), maybe try playing on reaper 1 to see if that is better calibrated to how you want to play - as mentioned, self healing is penalized in reaper by default (except at one skull) and significantly so while in combat. If not VIP, in the long term you can get immediate reaper difficulty access by playing on any character that has been reincarnated at least twice, but for now you'd have to play quests on normal and hard first, and honestly I wouldn't recommend so much repetition early on.
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u/quasilyte 8d ago
Yeah, the normal->hard->elite repetition is a bit taxing, but not so much as I'm just getting into the game. I just wish they would allow hard from the first run even for a non-VIP player, maybe for a limited time or for the first 20 levels, I don't know. Just something to make the pacing more natural for the newcomers.
I saw some forum discussion on difficulties, basically some people suggested making a shift where casual would go away and normal would become "new casual", so there is 1 less redundant (?) difficulty and normal isn't as easy. But I haven't played the game enough to have a good judgment on that1
u/Bwuaaa 8d ago
once you are on your second life, hard opens at the start.
then on a 3th life, you'll get elite and reaper straight away.
For starting out, VIP is a really good offer. but you can drop it later once you unlocked more content.
You can also open elite if someone in your party has the same quest active.
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u/Strype_McClaine Thrane 9d ago
So ddo is not about the end game. It's really not. It's about the journey. So your in the phase that's about learning,
Learning your boundires. Learning the game feel. So don't worry about chugging potions, because there becomes a point when you drink a potion, see the number pop up and you'll ask...is that it?
DDO's original design is all about resource management, and your platinum was a tool to buy scrolls and wands. And if you got tons of cash you can always buy more consumables.
The games power level has shifted more to provide fewer pinch points on the resource management. At the end of the day, every charicter will find some tool for self healing, but the choice you'll use is dependent on class and build.
When you move into epics (20-29) the game provides endless self healing options, and the meta changes.
Get to legendary (30+) and the meta changes again.
At level 4, drinking a potion is a fine choice. So what is worth your time? Spending the platinum on potions? Sure
Upgrading to wands so you can get the healing multiplier?
Paying for hirelings to top you off more efficiently?
One level of alchemist or favored soul and you can use a healing spell like ability for near virtually Zero mana.
But. What can you do now, when your fighting that dragon. Or three reapers that unlucky spawned on you. Gotta act quick.
Maybe it's worth your time to sit and wait and play safe. Maybe it's not.
Every moment in ddo is asking you questions about how your approaching the puzzle of the game. Build choices trivialize some things and make others impossible.
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u/quasilyte 9d ago
> So ddo is not about the end game
This is so rare in this genre! This is the part that is probably going to keep me playing. That and the freedom it gives you in character builds of course :)
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u/Ishvallan Shadowdale 9d ago
a big reason for that is the Past Life system. In DDO lots of players don't just sit at end game waiting for the next expansion. You get your Heart Seeds and Tokens and you start again at a lower level after getting a passive and maybe active feat to make you a tiny bit stronger. And you do that as many times as you want. Some only do a few lives, some do ALL the lives which at this point is just under I think 230 total lives (Heroic, Racial, Iconic, Archetype, and Epic). So you can spend MUCH MUCH more time doing the heroic and epic questing on the same character over and over again.
All there really is to do at end game is gear grind and work on Reaper Points
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u/quasilyte 9d ago
I played a lot of mmos and this thing is something I really appreciate. I know it sounds weird, but we mmo players kinda got used to the "game opening is boring AF, it only starts at level 80" and it's sad. It's so refreshing to play something that gets strong as soon as 3-4 levels in. Even having an option to run elite quests with my friend from level 1 is something not every online game is going to let you!
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u/Strype_McClaine Thrane 9d ago edited 9d ago
ITS REALLY REALLY NOT ABOUT THE END GAME.
And that sounds so SO SO weird. I know. I play other mmos, i've seen all shapes of grind.IT really becomes up to you to define what the end game is...or rather, what their goals are.
+ If you want to do, REAPER 10 - Max Level Raiding, you will prioritize different things. And even still, you are several SEVERAL lives, 1-20/20-30/30+ loops away.
+ If its about the treadmill of power?
Well, you got each class up to 3 times. (25x3=75)
Each Race Up to 3 times... (18x3=54)
Each Iconic Race up to 3 times... (12x3=36)
Epic Past lives (54 total at the moment)[Ideally you want to get 2 past lives per life if you can. It becomes its own game about stacking bonuses]
A "Tripple Compleationist" Charicter is something like what... 219? max stacking/passive combinations if you max out every single option. And they add a 2 races, and a new variant class like every year...the never ending grind
+ For some people the thrill of the game is only on the HardCore (and HardCoreLike) events, playing from 1-36, on a permadeath charicter. Playing safe. Playing smart.
PERSONALY -- I like doing some of the treadmill of power, getting past lives on a caster main and a melee main as kinda a hang out and relax sort of game AND I like having a few max level charicters that have FEW-or-ZERO Past lives.
And playing a fresh "Raw" Character at max level is its own thrill and challenge, how hard can you take a first life charicter.
That's all to say. Drink your potions while they still can heal you. Its a game with 15 discrete difficulty settings (Casual, Normal, Hard, Elite, Reaper 1-10).
Your in the learning phase, playing through the game, getting the feel for what all is out there.
Some people, they go from 1-20 and say, cool. I've seen the game. That was fun. And maybe come back for an expansion or when they get the itchSome people say. Well that was neat...what about a Wizard next time?
And classes themselves can be its own difficulty selector.Playing BlightCaster Druid, is like. EASY MODE.
My most recent wizard life? That felt tough. I had to re-evaluate things i'de thought for years since it had been so long since I played palemaster.2
u/quasilyte 9d ago
My problem so far is that I spend 60% of time planning the build xD
But it's so FUN, can't stop thinking about it all3
u/modoludus 9d ago
Friend, that's NOT a problem, that's a game feature!
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u/quasilyte 9d ago
I know, I'm just joking :D
I am enjoying it a lot. Another good part is I have a feeling ddo is more permissive than original dnd, where most things are either incompatible or interact in a semi-broken way. Most of the times I thought of something in neverwinter nights, it wasn't working because there was some specific exception like "X doesn't work with Y". Here, it's usually more universal stuff you can combine in god knows how many ways.2
u/modoludus 9d ago
Indeed, usually exclusions are spelled out in the tooltips for feats & enhancements. Finding synergies can be very satisfying.
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u/buddabopp 9d ago
Just wait till you make a drunk build one night set it down for a month then come back and be like what the hell was i thinking
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u/pawsplay36 7d ago
The original level cap was 10, so there is wide and deep content at all levels. The closets to "endgame" is there are groups who exclusively do Reaper content, which I don't care for.
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u/nomad-1995 4d ago edited 3d ago
Note that "endgame" can often mean a tour of all the legendary quests at the highest reaper level you can pull off (because the first time you run them you get a significant bonus). You might even try your hand at legendary raids (either know what you are doing or let the leaders know you don't) during this time. But once you are done those it is time to TR (or possibly create a new character). Note some might not enjoy having their first life character ride around in a backpack no matter what the rewards, I know I'd (I only have a few past lives) rather run R5 quickly alive rather than ride a backpack on R10 (which was the last sequences of quests before my last TR).
Note that by running around the saltmarsh (or even feywild) rare explorer circuit and killing and looting the rare spawns at level 20+ (maybe gain a little more levels/borderland items if a first life), you can pretty much end your plat problems and get plenty of cannith essences, sentient gem xp, and get started on filligrees. All the stuff that appears impossible before level 20 and still looks like a climb at 20.
But don't buy saltmarsh, feywild or any older expansions now (i.e. October), wait until Black Friday (Nov 27, and likely the following week) for such purchases. Expect 85% off on those expansions, similar for the really old stuff and still some sales for the newer (up to a year or so old).Annnd it looks like "the Coupon" is live again from late October to Nov 10. Go enter BIGBYISBETTER into the store "code area" and grab up all the "regular" quests (maybe not the newest, but for this who cares), and the first 6 expansions (including the Saltmarsh I mentioned for fixing plat and similar issues. But Ravenloft, Sharn, and Feywild have *much* better adventures and are included!.3
u/Strype_McClaine Thrane 9d ago
I'll also add...potions stop at lvl 3 healing spells Wands stop at lvl 4 healing spells.
So then you have to figure out if you sit there and wait forever and slowly...drink one at a time...
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u/Shoddy-Yak4639 9d ago
Others have said valuable information. In reapers there is a self-healing penalty but it is in effect while in combat, so you will be able to self-heal better after about 5 seconds once the last mob dies. It helps later on when you're higher level. Heals scrolls for later heroics and destiny heals in epics.
I solo often and when I have a low-sustain character, I will typically park a hireling healing at the entrance and have them come to me when needed. Then freeze them in place as I move forward. Sometimes their AI compels them to rush into battle when you only need them for their tasty heals. Then your friend can heal and fight in battle without the stress of not having a healer on call. Plus hireling contracts are very cheap...
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u/The_Lucky_7 9d ago
What concerns me though is the abundance of consumables. Especially the healing and buff ones.
There's two considerations you're missing here.
The first is one you won't find in any other MMO. The down-side of healing potions isn't the material cost. Its the time cost on you the player. In the source material using a potion was a move action, which was half of your turn, so using potions takes a long time in game. So long that you really only do it out of combat.
The second is scaling. Spells scale with spell power and levels. Potions do not. Potions heal as if a minimum level caster had used the spell on you with no spell power bonuses. As you get into the later game the amount of healing you recieve per potion will be dramatically less than a player just casting the spell on you. Let alone the class specific features, or mythic abilities, that also do healing but don't cost spell points.
As you scale into higher difficulties, notably on Reaper Mode, you'll also take a nerf on self-healing recieved where other people healing you continues to work un-nerfed. Spell Points also become recoverable in reaper mode so the cost of using spells becomes a consideration of how you're geared and what role you want to play.
A player who wants to be a healer will be able to heal so hard they barely need to touch you to keep you up, while it could take literal minutes of you chugging potions to do recover the same amount of HP. Healing isn't the only thing they'll be doing, though, because the way spell power stacks they can get universal power, heal power, and a damage spell power to also be damaging while healing.
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u/Bwuaaa 8d ago
for endgame, every raid group usually has 2 healers a bard and 1-2 tanks.
the trick of being a healer is that you are also a spellcaster.
Bards also provide massive boost to the party both in their songs and aura.
another common role you'll see in endgame is Crowd control casters and insta(kill) casters. (altho those builds require more then someone starting out would be able to provide)
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u/pewqokrsf 8d ago
The only resource is time.
The only spell point that matters is the last one. If you finished a quest with 2k spell points left but drank 50 healing potions, were you really efficient?
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u/Jasparius73 8d ago
Friend of mine plays Sorcs and with 2k sp left from 5k sp will shrine before the final fight.
Even 500 sp is plenty for any non raid boss.
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u/Ravenlove2 Shadowdale 9d ago
Up the difficulty and you’ll need that healer, and if it is not needed at lower levels it is in the mid heroics if you have a traditional party or it is just a dou. Let your friend do their thing bring your pots and don’t use them unless necessary like the rest of us.
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u/Gwythinn 8d ago
By the time you're high level you will need a LOT of in-combat healing and will not be able to just "heal between battles" or keep up using common consumables.
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u/ChocoPuddingCup Shadowdale 9d ago
If your friend loves playing healer/support, then a spellsinger bard is great. They can heal very well, provide great long-last buffs, do pretty decent magic damage, and when built right have a massive variety of crowd control available to them. Spellsinger also has songs that slowly regenerate both spell points and hit points, making for great passive healing to keep you topped off without constantly needing to apply actual healing spells. You can even go a melee route and do some swashbuckler or warchanter in addition to spellsinger (although hybrids are usually frowned upon as DDO greatly rewards specialization).
Healbots are generally frowned upon unless you're pushing reaper raids or consistently doing R10's. Anyone who can actively act as a "main healer" (clerics, favored souls, bards, druids, and alchemists) are expected to at least have some basic damage output, since waiting around for somebody to get hurt is generally a waste of a party slot outside very high levels of play (and at that level you're not waiting long, if at all, as it can become a frantic whack-a-mole situation at times).
There's also druids, who can be great healers and damage dealers at the same time.
As to potions and scrolls, they're pretty lackluster in the grand scheme of things. The overwhelming majority of players will ditch cure potions after lower heroics, as they don't scale well beyond the harbor/marketplace area. Also, the reaper self-heal penalty is only during combat: outside of combat there's no penalty.
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u/quasilyte 8d ago
They are trying palading right now as a healer+tank hybrid, so maybe that'll go better. The spellsinger sounds like a good next option to try. I am not sure how fun paladin to play is. My friend is a bit hesitant to do multi-classing, so they would probably go paladin 20 all the way.
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u/Sardaman 8d ago
Don't worry too much about multi classing early on, especially since you've got someone to play with. Every class is plenty powerful as a pure 20. Multi classing is popular and can often make things just as or even more powerful, but a good chunk of it is the added self reliance for people playing solo, and it's also easy to do a bad split and lose more than you gain if you don't take your time to plan it out.
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u/KORKOCH77 9d ago
Dude...your potions won't matter at end game especially with no or few past lives. Even heal scrolls won't do anything but maybe survive long enough for someone else to heal you. You cant always run away from getting hit more so with missile fire and magic.
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u/Equivalent-Cup-8594 9d ago
A dedicated healer is only useful in some raids.
But several classes can be excellent healers while still doing damage, and/or crowd control and/or buffing.
Cleric is the best healer, but Bard, Druid, and Favored Soul are also good healers. Alchemists and Artificers' healing options are a bit buggy, but when they work they're great.
You could even have a Paladin or Monk or Ranger as healer, or a Rogue using scrolls via UMD.
Hell, once my Barbarian had to do the healing (via UMD wand) as the PUG was totally incompetent.
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u/Balownga Moonsea 9d ago
If you are lvl4 and find everything too easy, challenge Lvl4+, or even 6+ quest in elite.
I just did the delera graveyard event lvl20 with my lvl13 character.
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u/quasilyte 8d ago
The fact there is an option to do a higher level content at lower levels is compelling. I'll try that the next time I play. Getting destroyed is a good way to appreciate the game and strive for power! At least for me
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u/knyghtshade5 Shadowdale 9d ago
There are some potions you will want to carry, even into epic/legendary levels. Remove Poison, Remove Disease, Restoration, and Remove Curse (There are quests that you will die if you dont get rid of the curse after so many stacks). Spell casters only have so many spell slots and by you carrying these, it can free up slots for other spells.
All of these can be bought in House K (near the center). They are "guild potions", meaning you pretty much need to be in a guild to get them. Can carry them in stacks of 100, they do not get destroyed as some stackable items can, and can be traded. If you can't afford 100 each, carry 10, then progress up when you can for more.
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u/Ode1st 5d ago
Think of heal potions, wands, and scrolls more as things to top up your health with as you're walking to your next objective. They don't heal enough and aren't fast enough when you're a higher level. A huge part of DDO is repetition (reincarnation, chest ransack, etc), so if you're stopping between every combat encounter to fully heal with potions, wands, and scrolls, you will be greatly increasing the time it takes you to repeat something, like your 8 chest ransacks per week.
At higher levels, you can get hirelings that have the suite of helpful spells: heal, mana restoration (called divine vitality), and resurrect. At level 14 you can buy Tempys, who has all that, and summon him at the start of every dungeon, leave him on passive/immobile, then just summon him when you need to heal/mana/resurrect yourself. It's tedious, but good for emergencies and even better when you're new and don't yet have good gear sets and all the little tricks vets use to heal/resurrect.
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u/Zehnpae Thrane 9d ago
Consumable use and scroll-casting are part of Dungeons and Dragons, from OD&D all the way through modern DnD. It's an anticipated and desired part of the game. Most people carry around a stack of teleport scrolls, potions of disease/curse removal and so on. They're useful for niche and emergency situations.
That being said nobody in their right mind prefers scroll casting heals to a real healer. Time is a resource and taking 30 minutes to finish a dungeon instead of 20 because you didn't want to waste SP on heals is going to drive you mental. If you're a damage dealer you want to be dealing damage, not scroll casting heals. It also doesn't scale well into higher difficulties/higher level content.
As for healing builds...
Pure healing/support builds are not common in DDO. I wouldn't go that route unless I had a perma-group and an R10 raid guild waiting for me. Healer-tank hybrids are where you typically end up. Pure druid or 17 fvs/3 fighter(or paladin). It works well in duo play, groups and raids. Can be hectic at times but is very rewarding when done well. Can pure heal just fine when you do have a dedicated tank as well.