This is probably an abomination but bear with me, not looking for anything beyond something fun that won't suck that's a bit different for a shifter life. Can someone tell me if there are any major flaws in my logic.

I can't play pure melee, I get bored, I quite like pure EK builds but have played them to death.

5 Barbarian / 15 Sorcerer
My thinking is that Barb gets most of it's functionality through enhancements, I would go FB for crit multiplier, cleave, blood tribute etc. Sorcerer gets most of it's power through class levels. Casting whilst raged works through shifter.

Theory is that what I might lose in melee damage I'd make up a bit from the spellsword damage and make up a lot by chucking a fireball or similar at everything as I approach. I'm not worried about stats or gearing as I play R1 to R4 and rarely have issues with spells not landing due to past lives and most of the named gear there is.

Sorcerer over other casters due to cast speed and therefore not needing any casting feats beyond maximise which will be always on so all other feats will be typical barb two hander cos that's what I fancy playing. Cannith crafted Spellpower/lore/insightful rings take care of that side for the levels named stuff doesn't cover it.

Racial life only, may take it to 30 for an epic life it it's fun. Not intended for cap or high reaper, I don't play either at present.

Barb/sorc shouldn't work but I'm struggling to find the holes in it - pointing out the holes / feedback would be welcomed.

Feel free to ignore any advice I give because I'm drunk and I'm bad at DDO.

First instinct is to say fuck it - do it for the fun of it. What's the worst that can happen, you have to TR?

Slightly more nuanced view is that you're losing a lot of core enhancements by only taking 5 Barb.

Still leaning towards fuck it - might try this on a bank alt for funsies.

noamineo wrote on Mar 2^nd, 2022 at 7:14pm:


No point in the build without 5 barb for tier 5 goodies. If you're not going to 5 you might as well stop at 1 (or zero).

That being said, since the 15th level of sorc is indeed not doing much, you might want to consider 5 barb/14 sorc/1 whatever.

Or maybe 5 barb/12 sorc/3 bard. With the right weapon, swashbuckling adds +4 crit range which combos amazingly with the +2 crit multi in FB

1 fighter is a good choice.

SpaceGoat wrote on Mar 7^th, 2022 at 5:20pm:


If all you care about is a zerg chances are barbarian sorcerer is not the build for you.

SpaceGoat wrote on Mar 7^th, 2022 at 5:51pm:


What are the favored soul levels doing?

Reason I ask: I've got an 18 wizard/1/barb/1fvs that I could never get working, and I'm trying to figure out wtf I was thinking when I took that 1 fvs level. In any case I'm probably going to roll him into 15 wiz/5 barb for unrelated reasons.

FvS 2 could also let you use cha to-hit, if you wanna have DCs. speaking of that, you get cha to-damage for free at lvl 7 - Nice to have the same stat for on-hand damage and spell DC with these builds.

If we're already on that topic FvS 11 is necessary to maintain these bonuses with most splits, and FvS 17 gets you the rest of the offensive spells you want alongside the leap of faith.

And the way from 17 to 20 is paved with good intentions

My point is everything you say points me you want to play FvS the-bad-way, jack of all trades. It's still better at being itself than most of the other splits and bad advice here.

SpaceGoat wrote on Mar 8^th, 2022 at 1:29pm:


That seems accurate. No offence to Linker, he is a great builder, but not everyone "gets" the concept of doing something silly for fun.

You can get Cha to hit + dmg out of the Feydork Illusionist tree pretty cheap, so could easily go all in cha.

If it doesn't work, play to 20 and TR. No harm, no foul.

You can also try to resurrect the old sorc/paladin/rogue build, albeit the save bonuses from paladin are capped now.

Yep, you got it. Smash and burn.

For pure I think FvS is my favourite nuker and I've got three shifter lives to do, I might as well try both builds.

As feats are tighter would you bother with cleaves or just 2hf? More likely to be soundburst and the level 4 nukes for most of the life as I won't get blade barrier till 17 and this is mainly for a heroic life, but I do like those anyway. No haste/displacement either but no biggie.

noamineo wrote on Mar 13^th, 2022 at 3:12pm:


With strikethrough, you don't even need to bother with the enhancement ones anymore except at low levels.

Binkey wrote on Mar 17^th, 2022 at 5:37pm:


Strikethrough is a passive ability that makes every attack a cleave attack:

https://ddowiki.com/page/Strikethrough

Getting over 100% strikethrough is stupid easy. I definitely still like using cleaves though, just not the feat-based ones.