Based on your username, I assume this is your basic plan:

1) take some Druid levels
2) transform your character into a wolf
3) masturbate furiously

My advice would be to uninstall DDO. There are easier ways to pop your wolf boners. Even if you're a masochist.

Technomage wrote on Apr 18^th, 2018 at 10:41am:



Go to the DDO Forums?  That’s what you tell someone who has left the DDO forums in search of real build advice from the 1%?

Shame.

Shypup wrote on Apr 16^th, 2018 at 9:14pm:


8 Druid 6 Cleric 6 Fighter - Winter Wolf THF w/Mauls

Starting Stats (36 pts, PDK)

Str: 18
Dex: 10
Con: 14
Int: 10
Wis: 10
Cha: 15

1 Fighter: Power Attack, (Cleave)
2 Druid: -
3 Druid: Completionist, (Bear Form)
4 Druid: {Level-up: Strength}
5 Cleric: (Follower of Silvanus)
6 Cleric: Natural Fighting, (Animal Domain)
7 Cleric: -
8 Cleric: {Level-up: Strength}
9 Cleric: Natural Fighting
10 Cleric: (Blessing of Silvanus)
11 Fighter: (Weapon Focus: Bludgeoning)
12 Fighter: Natural Fighting, (Great Cleave), {Level-up: Strength}
13 Fighter: (Improved Critical: Bludgeoning)
14 Fighter: -
15 Fighter: Weapon Specialization: Bludgeoning, (Weapon Focus: Slashing)

~ 6 Fighter 6 Cleric 3 Druid ~ at 15th level after Iconic Hero leveling; use Bear Form until 20th level, as Winter Wolf would only be more beneficial if you were to take all 8 Druid levels prior to 15th - which would ultimately put you at a performance deficit, as it costs critical profile.

16 Druid: {Level-up: Strength}
17 Druid: (Bear Form)
18 Druid: Quicken Spell
19 Druid: -
20 Druid: (Winter Wolf Form), {Level-up: Strength}
21 Epic: Overwhelming Critical
22 Epic: -
23 Epic: -
24 Epic: Precision, {Level-up: Strength}
25 Epic: -
26 Epic: (Perfect Two Weapon Fighting)
27 Epic: Epic Damage Reduction
28 Epic: (Epic Skill Focus: Hide), {Level-up: Strength}
29 Epic: (Dire Charge)
30 Epic: Sneak of Shadows, (Scion of Ethereal Plane)

~ 8 Druid 6 Fighter 6 Cleric ~ at cap

Of special note, the build runs Precision despite the taking of Power Attack; it only serves as a prerequisite to Cleave/Great Cleave, as the attack bonus and fortification bypass of Precision is far superior. Invest into Hide as you level, as the build incorporates Ethereal Plane - which empowers your sneak attack proportionately to your Hide skill. Even though you are not centered with fighter levels, you won't be running Heavy Armor; you can gear Silent Avenger (preferably light armor) instead of being forced into Crypt Raider or Knight of the Shadows. Because of this, you can benefit from much higher doublestrike and helpless damage - at the loss of a moderate amount of defense. To offset the PRR drop, Kensei allows you to raise your dodge cap to higher amounts, while benefiting from overall higher DPS. Invest into Heal, Hide, UMD, 1 point into Tumble, Balance, Concentration, and whatever else you want - it doesn't matter that much, as long as you grab the essentials.

I heavily recommend making a Blood Feast (5-Piece) sentient weapon set; every time you use Druidic Rage, you gain 1,000 temporary HP. This additional shielding lasts for 10 minutes, and can be refreshed as frequently as you need it to be. Since you'll be running Prowess, swap to this new set prior to raging, and then back to your main weapon to continue DPS'ing. In terms of enhancements, run Kensei T5s and invest generously into both Nature's Warrior/Protector trees. PDK isn't worth investing too much into, apart from the initial 3 points for +20 Heal Amp - but if you have Racial APs, Action Surge is always great when used in tandem with Prowess. Divine Might is essential, as it gives a bonus to Attack as well as Damage, instead of just the latter from KTA. There's a lot of low-hanging fruit that you can grab, and a lot of the freedom is up to you.

Good luck!
- Symbiont

Ulysses wrote on Apr 20^th, 2018 at 1:46am:

Well, shit. I wonder which aneurysm lead to the implementation of this decision. I'll change the post to reflect this later. Thanks!

Technomage wrote on Apr 20^th, 2018 at 1:04pm:

Apart from flavor, I'm actually not convinced that druidic melees would have any sort of major advantage over their traditionalist counterparts. Twitch-fighting with THF actually places you at a quicker attack rate than even winter wolf - without the requirement of 23482394324 druid levels. At an endgame perspective regarding melee performance, while Druid gets an influx of abilities that empower and balance the character in almost every aspect, it gets the best of none of them: taking 20 Druid levels to acquire either capstone mitigates your critical profile. Using Vistani to offset the lack of critical profile loses 1.5x modifier scaling - for a profile that's still lower than other melee. Multiclassing druid puts you in the same place; you sacrifice most of the benefits that place animal forms above other styles to retain the benefits you'd get if you rolled a Kensei instead - with just overall less performance in general. Obviously, druid isn't meant to outperform other melee, as it's a spellcaster class with melee synergy. Though, if you intend to disregard flavor to maximize performance, it isn't the way to go (not implying that you said this was your intent, but I needed to rant for at least a bit  ).

On a side note, I actually think 18 Fighter 1 Barb 1 FvS Half-Orc THF is probably the single best melee you can currently roll, after the monk nerf. With Bloodrage Chrism, Blood Feast (1,000 temp HP every time you rage), Silent Avenger (disregard of stalwart defense to incorporate Barbarian Rage and this set bonus - much more DPS for only a moderate decrease in defense) and barb non-WAI scaling, there's just way too much utility and damage you'd get from this split. I just hope SSG follows through with their promise to "better balance melee as a whole" after the monk adjustments, but an entire country inexplicitly suffering simultaneous brain hemorrhages seems like a more probable outcome.

SpaceGoat wrote on Apr 20^th, 2018 at 5:06pm:


Fight Club.

what level do you take barb and fvs lvl?

Toke wrote on Apr 21^st, 2018 at 11:54pm:

Kung Fu Panda is Gay & Retarded™

Halfmaniac wrote on Apr 27^th, 2018 at 9:11am:

Honestly, it's probably better overall to just run the base Nature's Defense with Rages instead of Stalwart Defense. A lot of the build depended on being able to benefit from immense amounts of PRR/MRR/HP without being forced into Stalwart. You'd lose HP, but you can run Light Armor with Silent Avenger, and invest into dodge cap in Kensei - while retaining a generous amount of resistance rating. Going to make one more edit to the earlier post regarding this.

S_O_B wrote on May 7^th, 2018 at 4:44pm:


I assume he meant something similar to the following, although I was lazy and this isn't fully optimized. All credit goes to Symbiont, I pretty much just copied and pasted what he posted which saved me a lot of effort.

18 fighter/1 barbarian/1 favored soul

horc, 36 point build

Str: 18
Dex: 10
Con: 16
Int: 10
Wis: 8
Cha: 14

1 Fighter: power attack, (cleave)
2 Barbarian: -
3 Favored Soul: two handed fighting
4 Fighter: weapon focus: slashing, {Level-up: Strength}
5 Fighter: -
6 Fighter: Completionist, (Tactical Training)
7 Fighter: -
8 Fighter: (improved thf), {Level-up: Strength}
9 Fighter: gcleave
10 Fighter: (tactical combatant)
11 Fighter: -
12 Fighter: improved crit: slashing, (greater thf), {Level-up: Strength}
13 Fighter: -
14 Fighter: (tactical master)
15 Fighter: greater weapon focus: slashing
16 Fighter: (weapon specialization: slashing), {Level-up: Strength}
17 Fighter: -
18 Fighter: dodge, (tactical supremacy)
19 Fighter: -
20 Fighter: (mobility), {Level-up: Strength}
21 Epic: overwhelming critical
22 Epic: -
23 Epic: -
24 Epic: precision, {Level-up: Strength}
25 Epic: -
26 Epic: (perfect two weapon fighting)
27 Epic: Epic Damage Reduction or whatever you want
28 Epic: (Epic Skill Focus: Hide), {Level-up: Strength}
29 Epic: (Dire Charge)
30 Epic: Sneak of Shadows, (Scion of Ethereal Plane)

Run prowess with Blood Feast as swap in (1,000 temp HP every time you rage), Bloodrage Chrism, Silent Avenger (disregard of stalwart defense to incorporate Barbarian Rage and this set bonus). Invest in hide when leveling. Don't forget to swap in char items for dmight. You're mostly investing in kensei and horc racial tree (although a lot of the points in your racial tree come from racial points anyways) and taking some low hanging fruit from the barb, fvs, and other fighter trees.

Please note that I didn't put the feats or leveling in any particular order, you can switch them around quite a bit if you'd rather have certain feats (the feats that're required for the kensei enh, for example) earlier when leveling. If anyone has any suggestions for changes or notices any lazy mistakes I made feel free to speak up.

Symbiont wrote on Apr 18^th, 2018 at 9:37pm:


could you do an enhancement break down on this?