There is a huge difference between Samius and Darth Samius and playing them over the weekend made that very clear to me.

Samius is fast, highly resistant to damage/spells, extremely capable at selfhealing and can solo almost any quest where massive selfhealing mobs are not rampant. Oh and very dependent on the wide range of items in his TR cache at different levels.

Darth on the other had is slower, attacks and spells hurt him a lot, is a lot better at self healing then some other melees I have had in the past and can solo (healbot) almost any quest where raw DPS wins out as long as the incoming hits are small enough that the healing can keep up.

To make the point I need to rewind back two to my lives on Samius, it was a very similar build to how Sam is now. Monk base, but with fighter levels vs pally levels, and it struggled to solo things like Shadow Crypt and Offering of Blood. In all fairness Darth had issues in Shadow’s end fight also. But that was will saves vs keeping up with the healing via damage.

Now lets fast-forward to this last weekend and those many WixKing runs.

Samius (in 3+ man runs each team was doing a tower) was able to solo a tower, zip down and in to a second tower often catching up to that person before they opened the last door to the genie. And slaying that towers genie and helping that person with the tower boss. And on more then one occasion Sam, caught up with the third tower person in time to help with the tower boss if not the genie. About 10-15 mins completion times.

Darth on the other hand, was able to do two hard runs per trip to the ship, or about 20-25ish mins a run. Stopping to heal up once or twice per tower. Still for the most part he was around a 1k/min.

Why does it matter?

Because real soon I will start talking about my “final” life on Samius, this pally life is the last one I need before I can TR in to a completionest life and a place where I will sit on Sam and catch up on all the end game content I have missed out on while rocking the lives. And I don’t have a clear plan for Sam other then someone with a blue bar and removal spells. But having a list of the other tools in my tool box is important. And right now I have a tank, (working on) DPS, 2 buffers (one barb, one Arty) and a few halfhearted healers. And Java who I think will become a melee dps arty or a druid.

Also I am reminded by something Tobril says all the time. Everyone should have to play an all out melee at least once. Just to learn how to play with the active combat system we are lucky to have in DDo.

Duck and weave. Crit real big.

❤