I believe I said I would share a little bit of my internal debate on what to do with my Epic Jidz. So here is the deal. I have everything I need to build an Epic Jidz and a few characters that I could use it on. And possible ideas for those builds.

So Samius is using a jidz a far amount of time now but that is mostly for leveling. Once he doesn’t spend a lot of time a cap lately and when he does get to the point where is will be hanging out there he will be using that slot for his cordOp. So he is an easy no.

Javabot is sitting at cap and for a long time this is where I just assumed I would put them. But lately I have become less pleased with his dps and I am thinking of TRing him in to a full Monk or WF. It is strange half of his gear would make him a good candidate for a monk. At the same time he has some gear that would scream a melee caster of some kind. Something not unlike how Gemstone is built.

I also have Samyus that can us a little love. He is a human wiz/ranger/monk that still need to be caped. And SamiusJr , my monk, also needs to be ran to cap. Or any number of arcane or divine casters that use robes and have no real ac but can use the +8 from bracers or the +1 wisdom and the epic slots.

As always there are so many options I can’t really decide. But the main question is can I use them on Javabot even if I tr him in to a FvS? And how would I slot them for his as a FvS and how would I slot them for X build and Y build. And what can I do with them now that doesn’t hurt those plans. Because you never know how you might lean in a year.

So last night the DG (Defense Guild) gets all currently on line members together to knock out the normal “we have an hour or two” epics, Bargain and Tide Turns.

We pick up a few puggers and Fopo and get started. 2 or 3 of get started while the rest of the group makes their way to the quest. With little problems. Tobril Dcs a few times, making me herd the group or watch as my buffs count down. Hence we start caster and a monk (Fopo).

Bargain was not bad. Tobril was playing his WF barb so I got to scroll repair him. But I started the night with 75 or so scrolls no problem. Oh, also I was able to loot the chest after dancing the water eles, for a seal of Jidz, completing my list to epic one of my Jidzs. I will save that debate for tomorrow I think.

Anyway, afterwards we head to TTT. Tobril and I step in. Haste, Rage, and Gh Tobril and we are off. Yep once again we are not waiting for puggers. We get the Npcs in the fight and get moving. No problem.

We do have a death as our healer is having a hard time keeping Tobril’s barb healed with his jumping around, taking massive amounts of damage and what not but that was while I had pulled out the First Mate so I am not 100% of the details. But we are making good time.

Until the first trap. Everyone begins to carefully move threw the trap. And the box becomes visible. Sweet, we have a rouge! I know I should care about party make up.. but as long as everyone is killing (and this rogue was) why do I care? So I stand and wait. No reason to risk a lag death, when I can wait a sec and not have to risk anything.

Boom! 5Millon points of damage! And 3 people are dead, including me.

Okay maybe I should have moved along….

No big, get a raise, as the rouge explains that she swapped into the wrong goggles. No problem.

I risk lag death as I move to threw the second trap, but I don’t have any problems. And I turn to take with my son.

Boom! 5Millon points of damage! I think we had 3 or 4 losses, again including me. Guess the rouge failed to disarm…

Again we get up, and buffed and move along.

Lighting traps….

Hell no, I yell over mic, and every one busts into laughter. But the rogue to her credit, while laughing disarms the traps.

Then the hard door. The one with the sorc, the spirit caller and all the drow… I get a mass off and start my charge into the room to dance the caller and boom. Comet fall for 100 points or so over my max Hp… Reallty? When did to night become kill Samius? Well I know when. When we invited Fopo to run with us, thats when.

So I get resed again. And we clear the hall. All the way up to the exit, the rouge disables the traps. And we shrine. Kill our way to the end. But as we head below I see a drow archer running up from below. But we are going in to the last room no big deal.

The boss fight went smoothly, even though I had to repair Tobril again but what the heck I have 10 scrolls.. What? 10? Well I have been toping him off all night but I should have more then 10? Well fine I can use Sp if I need to.

Clearing the final room… I have 300 or so sp via a few little pots and my spell storing ring. Should be enough for the final room.

Go in and mass. Every one saves. No way. Fine. Hold Person, Hold Monster. Dance a Elie. Die from the drow arrows and a volley of ice ray from the other ellie. Then another pugger drops. Then the wife (our healer) then Tobril. I bellow retreat. Some how tobril gets a rez and he is the only one to make it out.

He starts drinking pots, and was able to get Fopo picked up and runs him to the shrine. After a min Fopo is up and Tobril is running back as Fopo shrines.

Ding. Tobril dies. We hear how there is an archer. Be careful. But Fopo stuns it and kills it quickly. Doesn’t hurt that he is at max thanks to a mediating. We all get raised again and I drink 3 or 4 little pots to get to 300 or so mana again toggle my heighten feat. And we clear the room with ease. I want to blame that near wipe on the heighten bug.

But even threw out everyone was in good spirits and laughing and having a good time. It was a pug that gives me hope for doing more pugging. It was a good time and everyone rolled with the punches. Oh and 2 good shards dropped. The Jidz and the Elyd Edge.

❤

Something of late that I am finding to be a little frustrating is playing with none TRs while leveling my TR. Its not their skill or anything. It is being told how I am holding their character up. Let me explain.

Samius has about 2.5 millon xp, putting him squarely in the first rank of level 16. Considering that he was level 15 on Friday and I got about 20-25 epics runs in I would say that is a fairly good weekend. I earned somewhere in the ball park of 75k on Saturday and Sunday.

But the thing is since I end up playing alone most of the time. So I end up doing a lot of the same quests on Normal. But when my leveling team logs on, and is ready to help. They end up banking lots of xp, wanting to level up but waiting for me. And/Or getting burned out on the level of quests I have to do, trying to say around at level or one above the quest. And lets not talk about wanting to farm out some peace of gear, like the Dragontouched armor. According to my xp plan I need to be at least level 17 before heading in to those quests.

Anyway I had a good time. Oh and I failed to 3 man Reaver at level 15, but I can’t get a raid group to run it somewhere near level. I will have to try to take sign up via the forms I guess.

Okay see you all tomorrow.

Oh this weekend is shaping up into a real good time. My wife is talking to me again (don’t ask), Tobril’s girl is out of town and he is not on call, I don’t foresee any major time sinks other then playing Ddo and taping a Cocktail Hour. Well maybe I will ask my wife to the movies to go see Limitless, but Abbott/Reaver/Shroud flagging also sounds like good times.

So we have a solid 3 or 4 Defense Guild people ready to run me as far up to cap as possible. Two quick levels and I can play with the big boys again.

This is a great time to sit and play some Ddo. +1 loot, a large stack of xp and loot boosts thanks to the Pax hat code (Ty Stiner), level 15 is getting back into some of the quests I have always found to be the more fun and hell if everything goes smooth I might even pug a few slots or maybe get into a raid or two.

In other words I have high hopes for the weekend.

Lets see how I feel about the weekend come Monday morning.

❤

Once again it might be time to start the fight again for the Practiced Spellcaster feat. Here is the feat for those that might not know/remember.

Practiced Spellcaster

Choose a spellcasting class that you possess. Your spells cast from that class are more powerful.

Prerequisite: Spellcraft 4 ranks.

Benefit: Your caster level for the chosen spellcasting class increases by 4. This benefit can’t increase your caster level to higher than your Hit Dice. However, even if you can’t benefit from the full bonus immediately, if you later gain Hit Dice in levels of nonspellcasting classes, you might be able to apply the rest of the bonus.

For example, a human 5th-level sorcerer/3rd-level fighter who selects this feat would increase his sorcerer caster level from 5th to 8th (since he has 8 Hit Dice). If he later gained a fighter level, he would gain the remainder of the bonus and his sorcerer caster level would become 9th (since he now has 9 Hit Dice).

A character with two or more spellcasting classes (such as a bard/sorcerer or a ranger/druid) must choose which class gains the feat’s effect.

This feat does not affect your spells per day or spells known. It increases your caster level only, which would help you penetrate spell resistance and increase the duration and other effects of your spells.

Special: You may select this feat multiple times. Each time you choose it, you must apply it to a different spellcasting class. For instance, a 4th-level cleric/5th-level wizard who had selected this feat twice would cast cleric spells as an 8th-level caster and wizard spells as a 9th-level caster.

My argument would be with many of these class abilities getting fixed to use class level and not character levels (hit dice) there is a need for Practiced Spellcaster. Maybe with some minor changes to also help with some of the monk abilities….

So here is my old post wondering what would make this feat too good?

❤

The Winds of Change are once again with us. And we all know what that means, DOOOoooM. Well odds are that is the impression you would get if you looked at the forums for any amount of time. So yep once again I crawl in to my doom shelter and get ready to weather the storm. Can you tell I live in Kansas with imagery like that?

Lets take a quick look at what is on the list for today.

Acid Rain – Release Notes Correct? Will Acid Rain become the new Wall of Fire? Maybe I hope you have your 30 acid item already. Okay maybe a less doom in the original post then the follow up posts. But I have never seen Ghoste go full on doomie on us. Cooler heads and all that. But some of the math being stated …. wow. I have always liked Acid Rain, and its little brother Acid Arrow but if this math pans out I might have to leave my wife and marry Acid Rain. Or at least see about a threesome. Come on baby you, me and Acid Rain. You know it will burn just right.

New spells makes existing Wizard upset. We we have a few new spells. Looks a lot like Acid Arrow but doing cold or electric damage. But there are no scrolls for these new spells, DOOOOOom. Come on we all know that scrolls for new spells will be in chests. Get a character in to the right level range for the and be happy when your scrolled. Oh looks like these new spells are level 5, good to know.

The last one for today.

Multiclass casters and enhancements not using the proper class levels change. This change will not kill multi-classed builds. Well maybe it will hurt those so deeply splashed they are almost built around using a loop hole in how some abilities were working. Do I like this change? Yes and no. It is hard to see a few fun builds get “nerfed” to death. But at the same time if this opens the way for us to get the Practiced Spell caster feat and/or a way to get some Mystic Theurge like builds to work I am game.

All right guys, always it is only a doomy out as you want it to be.

Will there be changes you don’t like? Yep.

And I bet there is a long list of ones I won’t/don’t like on the way.

But I bet there will still be a game once they are here. And I bet update 10 will also be full of Dooom and gloom.

❤

So I have started and stop todays post 3 or 4 times. Each time I have started I have tried to write a new post I have swapped topics and got I don’t know a few lines of content and run out of steam. So today scatter shot.

Break:
I have been on the TR grind for the last few weeks. And the last few nights I have taken a kind of break from Xp by knocking out a few epics. I have a ton of Cove Items to slot up. And last night I logged off after an hour or so.

Some times you need a break, a change of pace as it where. So now that I took some time off it is back to XP per hour baby. Back to Giant Hold.

Drama: So Tobril and I have gotten in to some drama. While on my break we ran BoB and Tide on Epic over and over (other epics as we felt like it). First one then the other, and swap Pcs and post a new Lfm. The first few runs we just take whoever. But soon we noticed a trend. At least one pugger per run was not a helper. And we hit myDdo and we noticed a pattern. People loaded up with cove epic items and lacking other important items/stats, like Hps and fort. So he posted a comment.

Believe me folks. All the gear in the world wont make you great if your skill level is shitty. If you need help, say something. Most people will try to help you out. If they don’t you don’t want to play those people.

If you are missing gear or need something explained, ask for help.

Okay that is plenty for today. I hope tomorrow my muse is a little more helpful.

<3s

I don’t have ALL the answers. I know. Go ahead and keep on disbelieving. I am willing to be a minor god in your eyes. But that really is the ugly truth, I don’t have all the answers right the second you ask me. I may have to do that “research thing” to learn the answer.

Why am bringing this up? I was asked about a building a melee wizard/monk with the new undead forms.

You know I never found a good way to feel like a wizard and add monk levels and do good melee damage. Sure I can use rouge and get fair damage in melee mode. But monk levels and wraps? My TR layout is 3 monk/ 6 ranger/ 11x with my main weapon as wraps so how come I can’t get behind a 18/2 wiz/monk? I thing it all comes down to stats and feats BAB.

Lets look at my 2nd life wiz/rog stats:
Strength 14
Dexterity 8
Constitution 14
Intelligence 18
Wisdom 13
Charisma 8

So do these stats say monk? Not to me…. Not enough str or con and where is the dex for the two weapons chain? But I guess you could use an staff but doesn’t that remove the reasons for a cool monk splash?

Feats: This is my basic layout for feats for a Wiz.

Power Attack (can be a monk bonus)
Extend Spell
Toughness (can be a monk bonus)
Maximize Spell
Spell Focus: Necromancy
Insightful Reflexes
Heighten Spell
Spell Focus: Necromancy
Quicken Spell
Empower Spell
Past Life: Arcane Initiate
(Past Life) Past Life: Wizard

I guess we have two bonus feats. So if we did get our stats up enough we have a few open feats for twf and Itwf. But our BAB will never be good enough to get Gtwf.

Now I am not saying that we can’t make something work just it starts to loose wizard levels and picks up fighter or Ranger levels and by then you turn to a melee/caster and less of a caster. I love those builds too. But they are not Wizards. I will share with you Samyus or Javabot some time, they have a Wiz symbol but are melee builds. No really.

So once again the sky it falling. Time to TR into a melee or I guess +5 hearts are back time to buy 4 and move to not a caster.

If your one of the people that are freaking out because Wall of Fire is changing just go a head and find a new game, die in a fire or you can take a breath and relax. From what I have read these spell changes are not the end of the world. Are some spells getting a little nerf? Yes. But is WoF really one of them? Not really. Not that its not getting a nerf. Just that it is not that big of a deal. The spells I am worried about are the ones where the cool down timer as shot way up, aka Wail of the Banshee.

My gut feels is that the devs want us to use a wider selection of spells per quest. Always be doing something. Melees are always in motion. Sure some times you turn on your auto attack and go afk, but most of the time swing, swing, some attack option, move, next target… You can look at the wizards PREs and see that they are trying to get us doing something all the time. So making some spells have a set timer is fine.

Also I think a lot of of changes lately is to reduce pathing calculations. Seems like making kiting less attractive would also help with lower those

Okay now that that is done, lets take about how a few ways to adjust. We can cast a lot more spells per rest, now that the costs are being reworked. Also now that both arcane classes have PRE lines people will have access to cheep spell like abilities, all arcanes have something “magical” at do. And you know you can always cast attack with a weapon. I think shield blocking and taking it will become more popular. So mobs wont get extra saves.

So lets look at the shields I am looking at for blocking.

Fanion my go to shield. 0% Asf, magi and GFL, blocking DR 2. It is a good level 12 shield.

Epic shield X. Most epic shields have blocking DR 12, and a way to add a blue slot for -15% asf. I like the epic Kundarak Warding Shield just so I could get a spare slot.

But I think the best shield if your shield blocking with right now is the epic Swashbuckler. +6, Superior Parrying , Doublestrike 6% , Guardbreaking, Riposte, Exceptional Dexterity +2, Blue Augment Slot for the -15% with blocking DR 8 To me it feels like the right shield for for the time investment.

So I don’t know about you but I will be standing in a WoF, with my Death Aura ticking, spaming my nerco attacks while blocking or using my lighting 2 maul. It is all about clearing mobs and getting to the end and the XP!

I don’t know about your pencil and paper game but mine from a long long long time ago would have your standard cookie cuter magic items. But from time to time this strange magical item would fall into our laps. I bet all you old time pnpers have a favorites list. Here is a few from mine and a possibile version of them for DDo.

As always it would be great if a dev or two take a fancy to an item and pushes it though the development cycle. But I won’t be holding my breath waiting for them.

Vorpal Bunny Slippers: These are cute pink bunny slippers. With a bonus to Move Silently and movement speed. But the really great thing I would like to see is unarmed attacks treated as vorpal when wearing the slippers or at least the kicks. 🙂

Blade of Grass: This is a small shield or a buckler with it’s art work as a big green blade of grass. It has bonuses to Hide and Move Silently but the main purpose of the shield is it casts makes the welder invisible and lowers agro any time the user shield blocks. The Invis ends a few seconds after the welder is done blocking.

“A master thief of my skill can hide in the shadow of a blade of grass!” Every rogue I have ever played with.

Wand/Rod of Blunder: This would be a muilti action or random clickly not unlike the Staff from Demon Queen or Kormor’s Belt. But there is a simi high chance that the effect is not super helpful or even selfgriefing. Example: You fire off a fireball from the item it hits the target and then a fireball shoots out from the target back at the user. I like the this can be really good or really bad depending on the dice roll.

More then once my only weapon was one of these wands/rods and it would never fail to disappoint. But I remember those games the most clearly.

There are many more just off kilter items out there. Heck, there are tons in the DMGs and published campaigns. I always thought that these fun magic item added a lot of spice to a pnp game I bet adding them to Ddo would do the same.