First off, Kudos to 5 Foot Step for the beginners' guides.  Very useful for new players, or old guys like me that have spent 11 years really only playing one of three classes.   

Any chance anyone's got any advice to pass on for the best order to acquire past life feats?   I just started a new toon, and I'm about 4 heroic/epic lives in.  Now with racials, I'm really not sure the optimal path to build a completionist... 14 class lives for completionist feat... 20 racial for basically +2 stats for free...  or up to 36 epic lives for pretty nice bonuses overall. 

I'm sure the answer depends on the character's final destination, but not really sure of that, yet.  So, just looking for general thoughts on best bonuses to start with.

Don't worry about XP, play for fun.

If you're gonna grind anything then do Cannith Crafting and Slavers (Heroic / Epic) since they have big bang for buck.

The amount of completionists I see running around in their underwear is hilarious when all those past lives don't compare to optimal gear at level.

First of all I find the advice "don't worry about XP play for fun" hilarious because it's always from people who almost certainly grinded for years at PL's to have one or many completionist toons, and did lots of grinding that wasn't that fun.

That aside, it's not that any given TR can't be fun, it's that when you're looking at a mountain of lives to do, the spectre of how many you still need to do to do them all is at times soulcrushing.

My solution to this, other than otto stones, is to specialize. As in only have one toon I actually play. But aside from both of those, you you just choose paths for the toon and stick with it. When I did play multiple toons, I chose paths for them, and tailored both their gear and past lives to that. I know most people sort of do this in general with their toons, but I was pretty disciplined about it. My DC caster toon was never going to do a DPS life, because I already had a DPS or three toons to try it on. THis allows your to maximize the investment of say, 10-20 lives on character so that it performs at it's role at around the 97th percentile for what is possible on a character with all past lives. Because if you're only ever casting, there's only a given number of PL's that will truly improve your ability to do that casting.

There are now:

-14/28/42 Heroic Past lives, but just 14 for Completionist.
-36 Epic Past Lives, 12 for Epic Completionist (Twist Slot)
-10/20/30 Racial Past Life Feats
-4/8/12 Iconic Lives

So, for my main, which has been a thrower for 4+ years now, I still don't even have 3 of every heroic past life. Could I? Yes. Would there be some gain? Not really at all. I have 3x the PL's that benefit throwing and ranged combat in general, but all in all previous to RR, I think I have like 22PL's on my main, with only 1 in every caster class.

Epic PL's are similar in that the Twist Slot (like heroic Completionist), is a huge payoff for the first 12 lives. But the PL's along the way are also accretive and valuable. Is there a benefit to having 36 EPL's? Yes, but actually not that much over 12 of the ones you hotbar everytime tailored for a toons role.

Racial Reincarnations are the only example where this kind of breaks down. While not every role toon will need the stat bonuses of doing all 30 RPLs, all role toons will largely benefit from the extra 10 AP that can only come from doing all 30. The one sort of caveat to that is even just having 5 racial AP and the valuable stat increases (STR/DEX/CON or INT, CHA WIS, or whatever combo you prefer for that toon/role) is 50% of the work and probably 75% of the value (since you do the valuable stats first and skip the ones that don't do so much).

The variation in build platforms this allows for on a given toon is really good, and in fact I got by with just 2 for a long time before I went to down just to main. The caster and the non-caster DPS one.

harharharhar wrote on Apr 9^th, 2017 at 8:29pm:


Typical whiny cunt Jakee. Be real dude. You don't find it hilarious. On another note, the amount of mind-reading you do about my posts is bullshit. I'l fucking repeat myself since you don't give me the benefit of the doubt. I don't do XP except as a side benefit.

harharharhar wrote on Apr 9^th, 2017 at 9:02pm:


ftfy

5 Foot Step wrote on Apr 10^th, 2017 at 10:30am:


Yeah, I think that's accurate.  Optimal in terms of getting what you need the quickest or easiest.   And I was originally thinking what you suggest -  focus on ERs, then move on from there.  Problem is, epics are dead right now.  It's a newer toon, so not geared up to run EE solo, so I ran the same annoying XP train every evening to get to 30 last life. 

Even with the slower XP/min, I'm guessing it'd still be "optimal" in terms of helping out with tougher classes later.


harharharhar wrote on Apr 9^th, 2017 at 8:29pm:


I've generally kept 3 toons - melee, ranged, and caster.  I've never been happy with my ranged toon, though.  I was thinking this new toon would fill that role, but the top tier builds for ranged/thrower/etc, are pretty PL dependent.  So, I guess that's what's driven me into this.


harharharhar wrote on Apr 9^th, 2017 at 8:29pm:


Soul crushing, indeed. 

wolff wrote on Apr 10^th, 2017 at 8:53pm:

I'm not sure you could be more wrong.

A shuri build is terrible to level as a thrower in heroics and mediocre to level in epics until you get FotW, Shiradi and GMoF filled for twists, but once you hit 28+ and those destinies filled, they're one of the stronger low-PL builds in my opinion. 

A shuri is a glass cannon build with good avoidance and saves but if you're playing a shuri right, they shouldn't be getting hit much.

They are fairly gear dependent, but that's an easy problem to fix if you're leaving them at cap for a while.  Legendary Executioner's Helm, Legendary Slave Master's Cloak, crafted Slave Lords bracers, boots, and ring, cannith crafted goggles and gloves, the U31 ring and belt and a ToEE robe + offhander upgraded for the set bonus and you're good to go.

This may sound counter-intuitive but you probably wanna do PDK Barbarians first.
10 hp, and
3 prr
goes a long way for heroic leveling.

The alternative IMO is hitting a couple Epic PLs, since PRR is very efficient for heroics due to the low amount available.

Lets say you did 3 barbarian PDKs with 3 EPLs to get to half the PL prr value...

100/(100+18), for a 17% reduction in damage at level one.
Investing in a heroic Slavers set @ level 8 can up the PRR a bit more. (12 enhancement / 2 quality)

@ lvl 10 you can pick up 6 PRR from cannith crafting insightful.

I recommend making your heroic slavers a caster set for the 2 Artifact DCs, since they're probably worth more than 1 Con and 1 PRR.

at level 8 this puts you..
100/(100+18+14), for a 24% reduction

at level 10 this puts you..
100/(100+18+14+6), for a 27% reduction

5 Foot Step wrote on Apr 11^th, 2017 at 2:07pm:


This is definitely true in my experience. Though I find at 18 mech slows a bit in IQ where mobs start to have really high HP. I ended up slotting a Endless Night ruby in my deception repeater I was using on my last Mech life for reaper RR's and it was pretty nice.

harharharhar wrote on Apr 11^th, 2017 at 12:11pm:

I'm not sure if you just want to argue, have poor reading comprehension, or just don't know how to play anything but a shuri properly but whatever.

How do you think that saying something sucks until level 18 is any different than shuris are terrible to level in heroics since  essentially the last heroic level most players working on completionist take before epics?  If you want to be a pedant and split hairs, by all means, help yourself but shuris will still suck to level as a shuri in heroics.   It's better to run it as a handwraps or staff build until epics, then redo a few feats and the enhancements for ranged.

harharharhar wrote on Apr 11^th, 2017 at 12:11pm:

If you're out killing warlocks in heroics with a shuriken build, the warlock sucks or you're cherry picking a few quests trying to disprove the rule with the exception.  I've run most of the FotM builds from 1 to 30 and warlocks are faster in heroics. 

For the record, I'm not talking about the shitty 3k HP, tower shield-wielding, Con-as-the-primary-stat wastes of space Warlocks that seem to make up 90% of the warlock population.  I'm talking a full-retard Int + Cha + spell power and crit focused build that wipes out entire groups of mobs with 1-2 button presses and doesn't need them lined up perfectly to do it.

If you're assuming that you hit level 20 and automatically have access to all the destinies/twists, go back and read the title and OP more carefully.  Even with all the destinies and twists though, warlocks still faceroll the lower EE content faster.  They're more durable and far less gear and stat dependent than a shuricannon.  Once you hit 25-26, it starts to change as you get the higher stat gear, thunderforged, etc. 

You apparently don't understand what a glass cannon is.   Glass Cannon = high DPS toon/build that dies easier than other builds when it gets hit.  Non-glass cannon builds can take more hits and get hit for less damage per hit.  Avoiding hits does not mean a build is not a glass cannon.  I even mentioned that a shuri has good saves and avoidance and that one should not be getting hit often if played properly because I knew someone like you would come along say exactly what you said.

I'm an admitted fanboy of shuriken builds.   They're far and away my favorite build type in DDO, but you've got your head in the sand if you think a shuricannon clears trash faster than a proper warlock build in heroics and low to mid epics.

5 Foot Step wrote on Apr 11^th, 2017 at 3:30pm:


It's basically implicit in the name, cuz glass breaks when you hit it?  duh.

5 Foot Step wrote on Apr 11^th, 2017 at 3:30pm:

Common sense?

Glass breaks when hit hard.  Cannons are generally considered to inflict lots of damage when they hit things.

Glass + Cannon = breaks when hit hard but does lots of damage.

Durrrh.    


Regarding the "but it has avoidance!", if you don't hit glass, it doesn't break.  That doesn't mean it's not glass.

5 Foot Step wrote on Apr 11^th, 2017 at 4:16pm:

Neither is recommending a mechanic build over a shuricannon but you did.  =P

I am aware I was being pedantic, but the pedantry was intentional in response to Jak's intentional obtuseness.  You just decided to jump into the middle of the stupid so I responded in kind.