I have never really enjoyed melee before. Sure I have liked how some builds do /handle in melee or the rare moment when it all clicks and I find the love. But as the main focus of my build not so much. Which is a strange to write/read as Java has been my (hate) tank many times….. Back during my barb life I did find myself liking how things where playing out but that ended at level 13 or so. That might have been a different story if I had a different base on my Lig2 say a falchon vs maul. But you know I built that maul for when I was a wizard and while I might not see the huge numbers that a X3 crit weapon can bring my maul is super consistent and that is important to me.

Anyway, as it was Thursday aka Fopo’s night in the bowling alley/ teaching raid night, I worked on my pure fighter Samyus. Now he is meant to be a pure AC tank. Epic plate, big LoB tower shield a few stacking dodge bonuses a few epic items here and there and whatnot and I see a nice high Ac tank.

But last night he was level 7. Was because I leveled to 8 as I logged for the night. You can check him out http://my.ddo.com/character/sarlona/samyus/ if I have it set up right. You can see he is not decked out in any thing super uber special. Other then my +6 con ring, which is good but not really super uber special at this level. I once had a pair of RR dex boots level 6. So even before the eyes chain bo bo at level 6 +6 stat items were out there. Then they where super uber special! Most of Samyus’ main gear is crafted. A set of full plate crafted to have invulnerability, a +6 stunning tower shield normally he uses a crafted holy lesser vamp battle axe with a med guild slot sloting a few more points of damage.

But last night I felt tanky. And I was getting into it.

I first started noticing it in the very first quest. Phlor joined me in a zerg Lair of Summing. I knew he was behind me some place but I didn’t really know where. But before I knew it I was at the end fight and yellow or orange skulled. No big. Get in stance and knock the alert down with a few cleaves and great cleaves along with some pot drinking.

*Note Phlor bud if you are reading this please load up on pots. If you need the plat for a stack let me know and I will hit my bard and get you a stack on the cheap.

Anyway once the room was cleared I noticed Phlor standing in a corner with his throwing weapon in his hand… Lol, your a nut bud. And I say this for everyone if your not “helping” you need to let the party know your piking or at least hanging back as to try and not make things worse.

A few more runs and we are Bloody Crypt flagged. Rebuff and start Bloody, Tobril on his TRed caster goes east, I take west. Phlor is to help Tobril. After a few moments we are red skulled and I am totally surrounded. It was great!.

Don’t get me wrong, being skulled is shitty, but being able to just stand there and take what every the uber pissed mobs were dishing out was a good feeling. On Samius, I try to kill fast enough to keep the alert down. Or at least have thing under control at all times so going red is not a worry.

Any way that run was fairly smooth. I finished up my side not much after Tobril aka webs and acid ball/wall of fire guy. Not bad for a melee with a holy weapon…

I caught the window and soloed the quest as everyone else did their teaching raid. And while I never got skulled again I adjusted my play style some to try and keep that feeling. It was a little slower. Having to do every myself and it was not 1k a min alone. But it was super fun and better then 500 a min.

❤