Thinking about a return to Epics

[Ryan]

Hello Swords

In recent times Ive spent a majority of my questing doing Heroic TRs for Mantrax. I had no real end goal for him other than to have fun.
However the fun is now now starting to become a grind and Im thinking a change to Epics is in order.

I only have three EE capable characters

Nannabot (Cleric) – built as a pure raid healbot. Given the amount of self healing that is around now healbots arent needed anymore so he’s pretty much redundant. Hes a first lifer so pretty much useless even if I LR him

Soultrax (Pally) – built as survivable DPSer. He does really well in EEs and is my go to alt for easy EE questing.

Corazonroto (PM) – my capable EE DC caster that is let down only by Spell Pen issues with EE Drow and my severe lack of practice.

So Im thinking two approaches.

1. Live with the Pen issues and just have some Epic fun

or

2. Iconic TR Corazon through a couple of FvS lives to bump his Spell Pen up a bit.

Which finally leads to my question.

Are DC caster FvS’s viable in todays EE quests?

Corazon does have the benefit of Completionist and triple Sorcerer and triple Wizard PLs but he’ll need some regearing.

I dont fancy Shiradi spamming as I never seemed to be any good at it on a Sorc or Wiz and I dont know what Melee FvS are like in Epics

Many thanks

[Sinaefay]

Have fun and play with both characters!

Havent seen that many FvS DC casters atm, as most are cha-based and using the SLAs in EA for dps. Here is Ambi’s FVS build (Colin uses the same on his FvS): https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/436367-Violence-Favored-%28Soul%29-Build

[Ryan]

Thank you Jan.

It looks an interesting build.

I think I would like to see it in action before trying it though.

[Legend]

Cleric – At the moment the majority of basic cleric builds are redundant, for end game ee a semi heal specced bard meets your needs, either that or no amount of healing will help you if build is wrong in ee! you really need to make them a bit more than one trick ponies nowadays, tbh most clerics I see tend to run around healing themselves as they somehow managed to get a bit of aggro by accident or pretend they contribute to melee damage by attacking the same mob as a pure dps’er (trust me you are not :-)), you need past lifes and gear to make decent along with a plan for offensive capability.

Pally – soloing ee’s depends on which quests you are soloing! getting the right balance between offence and defense can be tricky, too much offense and you can get too squishy, too much defense and dps can really suffer, I use ee vol as a benchmark, if you can solo this on ee at lvl 28 on a Pally without time dragging on then you got something right.

Wizard – As a completionist you should not be having these issues, what necro dc are you aiming for end game? what feats have you taken instead of spell penetration? there are also other sources of spell pen if struggling, this sounds like a build and gear issue.

FVS – Evoker FVS builds are still viable, bb, exalted and implosion work well on ee, mine is still built as an evoker and can solo most ee, but the charisma build fvs’s comparably do have a lot more dps output, the only comment I would say on seeing these in action is they die quite a lot, purely as the dps leads to them being aggro bots, with large groups of mobs a few wrong moves and you r toast on ee quests and eh raids, but the dps is pretty awesome so mobs dont last too long.

You dont see many fvs pure melees so that tells you something, people splash 4 lvls into their builds for the tier 4 enhancment something strike, thats if you like multiclassing!
if you want melee go Pally, Barb (very nice now) or even Bard

I would tr the cleric into something more interesting and rebuild the caster, if you got a +20 heart can use on cleric to have a more relevant past life.

[Ryan]

Cheers for the reply Leg.

Re. my Caster.

In answer to your questions –

Its been a while since Ive looked, so I could be wrong, but I think in full DC mode Im sitting with an Int of 80 and a Necro and Ench DC in the low 70’s

Feat wise I could drop PL Bard (I took it as I thought 3 Wiz and a FvS PL would be enough) and take Spell Pen. The loss of one Ench DC is no biggy.
I dont remember what 20+ feats I took but Im guessing E-Int and E-Necro would be there.

It could be a gear issue – but Im at work so cannot check.
None of his gear is raid gear and probably never will be.
Im also pretty sure he has no Orchard quest gear either as that came out after I quit Epics.

Ill have a look later and see what Pen Gear I have.

[Ryan]

I had a tweek of feats for LR.

1)Spell Pen

W) Maximise

3) PL Wiz

W)SF Enchant

6) Completionist

9) G Spell Pen

W) SF Necro

12) Quicken

15) GSF Necro

W) Heighten

18) GSF Enchant

W) Extend

21) E Necro

24) E Int

Dest) ????

27) E Spell Pen or Empower??

Dest) ????

I ditched PL Bard and Empower at low levels for :
Spell Pen and
Greater Spell Pen

With my 3 Wiz PLs and FvS PL do I really need E Spell Pen? I could take Empower if not.

I dont really know what Destiny feats I took.

Thoughts appreciated.

[Legend]

You only really take the first 2 spell pens as a pre to epic, but it depends on gear set-up, as you completionist with v high dc’s you can afford to go for 2 thunderforged sceptres, if you want another 1 dc then go for staff, imo you will need to craft:

Thunderforged robe with +1 profane bonus to dc’s and either:

Thunderforged staff with: Dwarverncraft tier 1, +6 necro dc tier 2
Thunderforged staff with: Dwarverncraft tier 1, + 6 enchant dc tier 2
and swap accordingly or use another enchatn item or:

Thunderforged sceptre with Dwarverncraft tier 1, +6 necro dc tier 2 with a
Thunderforged sceptre or orb with Dwarverncraft tier 1, spell pen +7 tier 2
(you will lose 1 dc from not being a staff)
with a different enchantment dc item.

Would thn recommend helm, neckie and trinket from new Mark of Death raid, worth looking at ring and gloves from necro 4.

if go staff route for max dc then would get a spell pen item somewhere else.

It’s really up to you on either e spell pen or empower.

Destiny feats dont matter.

[Ryan]

Cheers for the reply.

I doubt I’ll ever get the raid loot items as raidings not really my thing.

I shall log in with Corazon later and have a look at what gear he has re. Spell Pen.
I suspect he only has Spell Pen III from the Blue robe tbh.

I think a trip into EE BfES to check out my Spell Pen is in order to give me an idea of how much Pen I have.

[Author]

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