Dusting off an old toon to do iconic PLs on the way to completionist, with a focus on builds that are good enough at cap with quest gear to get first time R5-ish XP before TRing again.  This is what I'm thinking (in order):

Scourge 18 Monk/2 Ranger unarmed.
Scourge 20 Ranger tempest.

PDK 15 Bard/4 Fighter/1 FvS CHA-based great sword warchanter.
PDK 8 Druid/6 Cleric/6 Fighter Silvanus wolf.

Shadar Kai 10 Rogue/6 Fighter/4 Arti gxbow.
Shadar Kai 8 Arti/6 Rogue/6 Fighter gxbow.
Shadar Kai 8 Fighter/8 Rogue/4 Arti gxbow.

I already have 1x PDK PL. 

The only PL needed that's not covered by the above is Paladin.  What's a better build than a Scourge 14 Paladin/6 Ranger TWF with Holy Sword?  I'm tempted to box the Paladin past life because I'm still scarred from the last 1-20 Paladin PL I did, and instead do another Scourge Monk PL since the toon will be melee.

Thoughts?

Healing ki is broken in reaper
I said it

Get sufficient AOE CC or youre nothing; everything else in damage, you'll be fine in most classic solo r5s, just slow

Or just farm some decent gear, or group with people while farming lives, nerd

I'd go with the silvanus wolf. Either that or a barb wolf, in this case the iconic lv would be a dead weight, but still is great at cap and for lvling. Ranger is great but I think it's a bit slow 15-20. Soon were getting bard iconic as well, keep in mind

Sounds like its about to get better as the Dev's think its weak right now

Justanotherlurker wrote on Mar 1^st, 2019 at 8:56am:

I hope you are referring to pure Tempest Rangers being weak af.
Because they are! Devs need to do something about the shit DPS coming out of tempests ASAP... 

StratleThot wrote on Mar 1^st, 2019 at 12:15pm:


Rangers are op in every game lol

Digimonk wrote on Mar 1^st, 2019 at 2:32pm:


He also still thinks holy sword is op

Carpone wrote on Feb 27^th, 2019 at 11:03am:

I don't see a scenario where the tried-and-true Swash-Skimisher isn't a better bet with short swords.

The old Swash-Defender thing + Spinning Ice build is still some good LULZ.

Bonus: No need for a FvS level and you can swap 1 Bard (which is getting you next to nothing) for 2 Rogue, getting evasion and traps.

Or 2 Arty which gets you Medium Armour proficiency, a dog for levers, Rune Arms, Repeater Xbows, traps and unlocks Cannoneer EnH.

Bard 14- Fighter 4- 2 Rogue/Arty

Or not.

YMMV.

Tempest is the most fun I've had with the game in a long time.  That toon is sitting at cap farming schisms and runes.

The toon that spawned this thread was a caster with most caster PLs I dusted off from 2013.  I didn't feel like farming up 2500+ of each Slavelord P1/P2/P3 mat for the mandatory 5pc set bonus to be useful in high skulls.  It's likely this toon will end up as a ranged FOTM when I'm done, not melee as I had originally mentioned.  Silvanus wolf is OP, but I already have a great melee and want a different long-term playstyle.

Re: Bard. I'm going greatsword because I already have SOS/ESOS for leveling. I'll be using Spinning Ice with boosted DCs from PDK Cormyrian Knight Training.  I leveled up two weeks ago with a buddy who ran this, and it was fun and effective.  My static group has traps covered each life so no need to splash for trap skills.  When I run my Shadar Kai lives, then I'll be the trap monkey.

I ended up going Scourge 20 Monk because I fucked up my starting INT, and it cascaded all my feats further down because of Combat Expertise.  So I LR+1'd out of Ranger and I'm glad I did.  20 monk shintao was fun and easy to level cap.

And I did box the paladin past life, because I'd rather slam my dick in a car door than level another paladin to cap.