So I haven't played much in a while and I figured I'd play a bit.  I prefer melee casters, but I'm not sure what still exists as viable (Most enjoyed Greatsword Fvs tank, vampire wizard monk, melee artificer)

So I'm asking the vault, what kind of tanky melee casters exist (prefereably reaper viable) and what should I prioritize to get there in terms of past lives etc.

Here's what I have at the moment.

Reaper Points:5
Crafting lvl 183

Epic Lives
2 Brace
3 Colors of the Queen
1 Doubleshot
1 Doublestrike
3 Enchant Weapon

Iconic Lives
3 Morninglord
3 PDK
3 Shadar-kai

Heroic Lives
Completionist
3x Barbarian
2x Bard
2x Cleric
2x Ranger
3x Rogue

Missing packs:
Dragonblood
Mines of Teth
New xpac

Missing Races:
Dragonborn
Gnome
Deep Gnome Iconic
Half Orc
Half Elf
xpac stuff

Thanks

bob the builder wrote on Feb 25^th, 2018 at 3:04pm:

Can't tell if serious, are the benefits from racial pls worth that much compared to other things?  Cause honestly, if i have to spend over a year at the rate I play to be solid, it doesn't seem worth it

Tene wrote on Feb 25^th, 2018 at 2:48pm:


Well there's cleric, if you don't mind most of you tankiness coming from heals, and...uh...does bard count?

I'd look into 14 cleric/6 fighter animal domain. You'll need to be a non-morninglord FR iconic to worship Silvanus for the maul buff.

5 Foot Step wrote on Feb 26^th, 2018 at 3:49pm:



Appreciate it.  Which past lives would I need to pick up for that?

Also, is there anything like these still in game?

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/268346-The-Soul-Survivor-(WF-FvS20-Hea...
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/404822-The-Juggernaut-Prime-of-the-War...
18Wiz/2 Monk Vampire Form Melee Fighter, the really old version that got self heal from melee attacks and had decent necro dc's

Carpone wrote on Feb 26^th, 2018 at 5:20pm:


Enough tank, no melee.

Tene wrote on Feb 26^th, 2018 at 5:23pm:


I think you've got plenty of lives to run it. More Pally would probably help the most. Though you're also close to Epic Completionist if you want to grab that. Racials are also very powerful, but they are backloaded, so it is a big grind.

Tene wrote on Feb 26^th, 2018 at 5:23pm:


My idea is to update this build:
http://www.ddovault.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1477330451/0
into the 14 cleric/6 fighter animal domain silvanus build. I just haven't gotten around to posting it.

prioritize leaving again.

Make a warlock alt to farm stuff. Farm ravenloft stuff. It's easy to drop. If you pug the quests are fine on r1. You can easly have a reaper functional character in this game with easly obtained ravenloft gear, I seriously don't understand why the majority still suck with this game.

Tene wrote on Mar 1^st, 2018 at 11:54pm:


I found with warlock builds that use the distance attack as opposed to the AOE, you have to mix some AOEs in like Energy Blast, the healing one from Exalted Angel and a few others. Get a rotation going in addition to your blast attack. Most people switch to the cone version but I like the one that jumps from target to target.

I'm in roughly the same position as you, coming back with a near-totally unfamilar new gear meta.

My plan is

Justanotherlurker wrote on Mar 2^nd, 2018 at 10:25am:


and then reincarnate back to one and relearn as I start on racial PLs and Reaper xp.

If you're worried about losing your streak numbers, there is a dude on guild ships and in the Hall of Heroes that will "pause" your streak.  Not that it's very important, it's easy enough to get it back to max, but I understand if you have a large streak number and want to keep it.

Warlocks took a few nerfs over the last couple of years; they're still pretty OP but maybe read up on the changes and swap your enhancements around accordingly. 

Crafted gear seems to beat the hell out of lootgen in most cases, and I think you'll be able to craft some good placeholders with your levels while you farm out the new named stuff.  Levelling crafting is pretty easy anyway.  Collectables are the sticking point, so be sure to grab all the nodes as you go.

5 Foot Step wrote on Mar 2^nd, 2018 at 1:02pm:

+1 on this.

There are other builds that are stronger overall but the basic auralock is the best training wheels build in the game for new players or returning players that are getting up to speed on all the changes and current state of the game.  They're simple to play, have a good mix of survivability and damage output, have some utility, have some CC, are pretty easy to gear and don't require a massive spell point pool to be effective.

Personally, I prefer a Fey pact auralock in Shiradi destiny instead of Fiend due to higher reflex saves, wings/step, and the number of fire resistant/immune mobs in the game, and the synergy with Shiradi procs but either version is a great starter build.  You do have to put a bit of focus on Evo DCs for Fey though.

One change I might recommend on a Fiend warlock is to twist Draconic Spell Augmentation from Draconic Incarnation instead of Energy Burst (or take both if you can get two tier 4 twists).  It's decent since it scales with spellpower.  It will help shore up your single target DPS more than Energy Burst which is a good thing since a warlock's biggest weakness is red-named/single-target DPS.

EE is much harder the HE. I'm not at all surprised you are hitting a wall at the first Estar chain. Be prepared to drop to EH when soloing but EE and reaper will still be ok in a group.