Tag Archives: Project DPS

The Mast Plan as it is Today

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One of the things I get a lot of positive feed back from you readers on is gear and build thoughts. Well them and tv/movie talk. Know your readers I guess… Anyhow I took 15-30 mins while waiting for an email reply at the office and fiddled with the new Giant Hold gear and my tank. Sure I could have done some “work” but you know, make the day fun when you can. ☺

For the record this gear list is set up for a few things but mainly max out those big hits on Darth Samius and gear out as he is mostly wearing junk/easy to get loots.

Epic Marith Chain: My seeker, Shatter, some DR, and a blue slot (PRR)

EE Bracers of the Twisting Shade: Disable Device +20, Search +20, Exceptional Seeker +5, Blurry, Resistance +7

Together these two items are the cornerstone of my set up. I need to look at the math but I think with a big Int tome and a lesser heart I should be able to work in rog skills, I might have to give up a lot of points in UMD which I will miss but I can live with a it in the middle to high 20s. I just will have to rely more on clicklies.

Now we/I start to add in the gear to finish fleshing out missing abilities like Fort and key stats.

EH(planed)/EE Ancient Band Protection +7, Heavy Fortification, Yellow Slot (Fear Immunity)
EH Dream Visor: Dream Vision +4, Spot +20, Colorless (EXP STR)

Planar Focus: Prowess: Int Str 3

Okay these last three items round out the main DPS bonuses even if that means I need to complete the Purple Knight favor to unlock my axe…

EH (planed)/EE Girdle of Giants’ Brawn: +8 str, green (goodluck+2), colorless (INT)

EH (planed)/EE Helm of the White Dragon Con 8, green (HPs), Colorless (Chr)

EH (planed)/EE Jorgundal’s Collar: Melee Alacrity 14%, Striding 30%, yellow (Feather Fall), Colorless (Chr)

EH Jeweled Cloak: Inherent (10) Elemental Resistance, Spell Absorption (20 charges), Green (Death Block), Colorless (INT)

We leave the Purple gloves on for now, Con, Amp30%

2 pair of GS boots. 1, all HPs! 2, chr skills
Think that covers the main “should be fairly simple grind list”. Don’t think I am using anything that I would need to pull a second copy of before passing it down to Darth I think I am covering every key stat with as many bonuses as I can work in. The only EE item in the list is something that I can get the Brits to help me farm up easily enough I think. Over all everything else is while farming for Xps or other items nab them.

So what did I miss?

<3s

Gear Thoughts 1/22/13

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For the last week or two my gear has been in the forefront of my thoughts. Armor for Darth (all none weapon slots really), leveling gear for my Arty, Java is a total mess when he makes the switch to druid here real soon, and eGH is about to shit all over my world. Lets not for get the quickly leaving Ice game stuff and what I can only assume is the soon to return Cove…

Growl!

So lets break some things down and I assume that I will be covering it a few more times this week. So prepare.

Darth Samius:
I have talked about his gear issues a few times in the last few weeks but mostly focusing on two slots, weapons and armor. Well what else is there in a big hit build?

Well weapons are covered, Armor not so much. I have earned 16 reds and begged/borrowed the rest from Dim and could make a set of Armor from the FR side. Well I could if I had 100 more favor… Mean while I am a base Marith Chain short of rocking a epic version. Which other then the lack of PRR I think covers my needs better. That and now that I have 20 reds, I think that Java as a druid would be better off using them to make a Ebbron docent while in dog form. But I think it will be a matter of what comes first the PDK favor or the Chain. I am running both as often as possible.

Everything else is butter; I need a EE Bracer, find and use a +3 con trinket to make my plainer set. Breaking my PDK set lets me adjust my helm slot as well meaning that my I have helm/cloak/belt slots fairly free. Some of the Lam preview stuff looks good. Epic Dragon Helms have too slots and insightful dex, so 2 slots. Maybe you can get an str version and that would be badass! Although I like the EH Girdle of Giant’s Brawn, 8 str/+2 str green slot so maybe the added dex wouldn’t be soooo bad.

Over all I have more gear questions then answers. Heck the Epic Black set looks good also.

Lets jump to something I can decide on. Samiusbot, my arty build. Even though I want to have a melee option on the Bot. I know he will mostly be ranged while leveling. So I am thinking about making him a DPS heavy Greensteel repeater.

But there are lots of good options, I could run down them but I am fairly sure a Rad2 or a Dust2 is the way I will be going. Maybe a simple trip positive???

Damn thought I could decide on that at least??? Lolz

Well time to get back to the grind. More Gear tomorrow unless something nasty happens.

<3s

That’s My FAT AXE, SIR!

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That’s right folks, thanks to a few good people a now own a Cleaver, Hewer of Suffering on Darth. Thanks to everyone that ran the raid, it was fairly smooth. Thanks to the nice arcane that put it up for roll. And thanks to Sou who was the only one to roll against me, who realized that he was on a 2wf guy and wouldn’t really use it vs my 2handed fighter guy who would use it most of the time. Turns out simply saying “congratz “in party when someone wins a roll might get them to ask a few questions “Why am I rolling?” and “Who am I rolling against?”

Sometimes those are important questions, and I am not just saying that because someone thought about it and removed his roll. But because sometimes we all roll with out thinking or roll when we see other rolling just so we don’t miss out of maybe getting something. But sometimes once you think about it you realize that you don’t really need X or Y and remove your roll and maybe help a Samius out.

First thing post recalling and picking up my end reward was hit an explorer zone and swing at a few guys. In 2 or 3 swings I rolled a crit and hit 999. I wasn’t even axe specked or blitzed or anything. Just a good crit. Drop everything and run (teleport) to a trainer and reset my enchantments from falchion to great axe. As always mess up in some minor way and miss out on some minor thing like 10 more hp…. I took Arty skill boost and human versatility aka wasted points as I will not use the arty +2 when I have my human +4…. Grrrrr. But I can live with that error for 3 days.

Then the group wanted to ToD. Sure I got nothing better to do. Other then grind out the Antique seal until I get one…. I use my new axe as able watching large numbers get a little smaller as I break like no DRs but still the hits are better then my silver/holy falchion due to the much larger base. But I do miss criting on 14+ but 17or 18+ is not bad when your like X5 or X6… Later I will fix LD to be more axe based and will watch the truly big hits roll in.

Whats next?
Int tome and a lesser to redo my skills to try and work in most Rog skills, I will also need the EE Twisting Shade for skills/Exp sneak attack.

Armor I am torn between Cormyrian Red and the Epic Marith Chain. I could use the red in some other places so I am half hoping to stumble into the Chain blank (I have all the other parts).

Goggles have so many good options; Epic Goggles of Time-Sensing vs Tharn’s are the main two in my mind. But there are others.

Amp using the purple gloves and a ToD ring with 20% amp I need to cram in 10% someplace and handle a swap to UMD healing vs Helf Dilly healing and I can swap to Monk for Amp and get 200% amp. As is I am at 150% and that is not bad at all for tanking.

Well this is now a page long so I am going to do a heard break.

<3s

I have a fat axe btw you know you like it.

Tools for Power Leveling

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Leveling my dps project Darth Samius has been a bit of an eye opener again. Playing Samius for so long and just having the tools at hand is kind of different then playing someone with more or less nothing. I have done what I want to have in my tool box lists before but maybe this will give a little more insight.

Some setup, currently lvl 10 with 8 fighter, 1 arty, 1barb levels. Main weapons are falchions: +5 acid, +1 holy enfeebling (starting to feel its age) other weapons my lvl 2 +1 holy/icy burst greataxe, Phase Hammer, Shock Everbright club and a holy heavy repeater.

Last night I did a lot of Thrall runs and Threnal east/west part 1s. And let me tell you I really think a maul with holy/everbright with a large guild slot and if I were super lucky adamantine would be killer for this level range. As it was there were lots of times I was trying to kill one kind of mob while surrounded by a different mob type and my weapon would damage the first but not the second. Making the fight go longer and wasting resources.

Starting to feel the lack of fort. I have a Minos in the bank at level 11. And I have the xp banked to take 11 but I want to try and bank as much as I can here because when I start doing Shadow Crypt I want that xp to go as far as possible. Anyway back to the fort, normally I would try to work in say the claw set for some fort at this level or if I had it the Nightforged necklace. But right now I am using the bracers of wind and I am having a hard time swapping them out for anything. Think I could do some major gear swaps loosing the Greater Stalwart Trinket and swap into more fort and Hps but I would loose the Earthen Guard which I really don’t want to do.

Something I am starting to feel that is missing is a big seeker item at least in quests where you can crit. With extend Crit slashing falchions are 15+ crit weapons. That is why keen is so killer on them before your bab is 8 or highter. When ¼ of your attacks try to crit that extra seeker is amazing both to confirm and to the damage. +12 damage every forth swing is tasty.

Last think I want to touch on today is healbot hires. The FvSs are often stronger over all having more SP and HP over their Clr counter parts most of the time. Will often fail you because they often don’t have a second healing spell. And there are times when you need a second healing spell. That said being able to live long enough to cast that spell on you could be super important.

Okay enough for now, Tomorrow might be a total change, as I think I will take 11 later tonight and gear with get a major shuffle.

❤

Project Dps, lvl 10

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So I was able to power to level 10 on Darth Samius, aka project dps, but now what? Level 10 is where melees take a hard level turn and try to dive on the wrong side of the road. That would be on the left for those of us god loving Americans, on the right for you red coats.

The main body of the xp to be had while keeping up elite streaks are slanted towards those with WoF. For example: Tomb of the Shadow Guard, Shadow King, Shadow Knight, Shadow Lord are by far best quests in that level range for xp per min, but you need massive aoe dps to do it. Cleave and great cleave will not cut it.

So I am down to Co6 and some house D junk quests, but mostly I need to count on Thrall of the Necromancer for most of the heavy lifting. I will need to make those four ranks in my trap skills really work for me. That or use the alt account and make a fast trapper account…. That is a thought; in fact I think my alt account might already have just such an alt. a 9/1 bard/rog…

Well I got stuff to do. Maybe more later, idk. If you have a topic for me to talk about use the comments.

❤

Burn you Bloody War Forge!

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Okay, so I didn’t want to use bloody in the title but last time I cursed in the title I think a Dev (Jerry) changed it. So I thought why make him work???

Saturday the wife had a birthday party out of town to go to so I got the house to myself to play, have chicken wings delivered and generally not do a damn thing that is actually useful to the household. Well I did put the dogs out when I needed a drink. ☺ aka Project Dps is in full swing.

Darth Samius is now a Helf, 6 fighter, 1, arty, 1 barb and it is working out really well. I grabbed a falchion with a med guild slot and made it Keen for the first few levels. Then around level 3-4 I took a moment to slap maiming on it and life is good so far. Using the Clr dilettante feat my healing is really sweet for the level and soon I should be able to drop 3 ap in to powering up the dilettante feat and be able to use heal scrolls with a fair chance.

The barb interaction is working as expected. Having two rages (barb level + barb past life) means 3+ mins of MORE damage. And that is often the just right amount of time to be raged up for me. 90ish seconds at a time lets me clear a few rooms but doesn’t go so long that I need to pot for healing. And right now wand healing is great! Making plat on a heavy melee alt that wasn’t monk based, color me surprised.

So everything is going smooth right? Well um Tobril may have finally gotten his work RL issues cleared up. To the point where in the hour and change he got to play last night he capped and prepped for xp farming starting tonight. So I need to get Samius ready to go. Thing is I still don’t have a pally build. Sure I have an out line for what I am calling the Catholic Priest. But saying 9/9/2 monk/pally/fighter a build doesn’t make…. Oh well I will figure it out on the run I guess.

If I didn’t have a ton of leveling monk gear btc on Sam I would try more of a tanky build but after seeing the places where Tobril had issues on his sorc frame I think the monk will just do better as I know where it struggles and that is where his sorc frame will pick up the slack.

In any case go by plat sink WF melee and hello to plat earning Helf melee.

❤

Oh ps, using that keen maiming falchion first number crit max so far is 130ish all raged up (spell+feat) + great cleave on one of the priests in Bloody Crypt.

Project Dps, p3

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So I don’t have a full build laid out yet. And odds are I wont. I play kind loose and fast with my builds but I am really warming to that 18/1/1 fighter/barb/arty. As for leveling order it would be arty, barb, and finishing out fighter. Seems simple enough.

But the question becomes what weapon? I mean if your Kensei you have to pick one, right?

Well sort of…. You have to pick a type of weapon. And all the best 2 handers for max dps are slashing weapons so that is easy. But remember you can reset enchantments every 3 days so switching from say a falchion while leveling to a great axe because you have an epic one at 20 and then back to falchion after pulling a Breach, The Dividing Blade works.

So my current plan is big two handers with the plan to at least tear two my green steel falchion blank as holy/good burst giving me a res clickly if needed. Meaning I need to run the shroud some…. Well once and get passed power shards. Have to see about getting some guildies together or hitting up some of my Sarlona buds…

Basic leveling gear should be fairly simple, I might take the time to casual run Threnal chain for a cloak and maybe a few look for the blood rage but other then that I think most of my misc gear should work to power him up.

Although with Mabar is right around the corner an a few epic cloaks of night might need to be farmed up. As well as some leveling robes of night, think they have the night shield clicklys…

Well assuming I don’t decide at the last sec to go dual wielding heavy picks and cashing in some tome pages for Deathnips….

Also I am looking a little at the elemental weapons via the Cannith challenge system and some of them look fairly solid at T2 and T3…..

<3s

Project Big Hits, p2

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So we know fighter will be the main class in my Darth Samius build. So to me the next big call is race and splash levels….

To me race and splash levels are very close things. You wouldn’t want to splash sorc on a Horc melee build would you? Not unless your trying to be very funny…. And frankly you not that funny, so stop trying.

So options:

Horc, the clear winner in 2 handed dps, when that is heavy action boosted focused.
Helf, the clear winner with the most options…. And the strongest race right now.
Human, a very solid choice not as strong as Horc but I would say in the top 3 races in the game right now.
Dwarf, Very solid if you plan to use axes and combat skills. You could do worse also cool beards…. ☺
Halfling, who doesn’t love them? And with fighter as the base finding some feats for the healing marks might be a fair way to go. But they are not the strongest melee race…
Are there other races?
Elfs would be good if you want to use race weapons they get a falcon line, very nice but down con…. ;’-(
Drow, nope.
Oh WF…. They went from a powerhouse race to meh in one update. Sorry your heals suck, you lost your immunities, armor is shitty and more. There is just no reason to play WF unless you’re an arty right now.

So in my mind it is between Horc, Helf and dwarf with Elf maybe poking its head into the race as I am leaning at using a falcon over the greataxe. But really it comes down to who can heal the easiest and that at least for now is the Helf via the dilettante feats.

The Helf has a lot of other things going for it atm, human amp and human versatility are huge, throw in human adaptability and you have the best of the human options.

As for the splash…

To me there are 4 main options.

2 rog, skills (mainly umd) which will let us lesser at 20 to adjust the stats and let umd take over for healing freeing up the dilettante feat for something else and evasion.

2 arty, same skills as above but gives most of the key xbox feats so giving a ranged option with little work. We loose evasion however. But we can go xbow and shield when needed or rune arm for a little more ranged dps.

2 monk, we decide not to worry about umd and will stay clr dilly wise but gives fists for some fights, as well as evasion. But mainly 2 more feats to play with.

Or the one I am leaning towards atm, 1 barb 1 arty. You loose rune arm use from the 2 arty splash but gain fast movement and another rage (assuming I take the past life barb feat {I totally will}) and +1 more to power attack I will be losing do to my race and main class picks.

As always let me know what you think via the comments.

❤

Project Big Hits, p1

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So after much thought I am leaning towards fighter base at least 12 most likely 18 levels for Darth Samius. I think most of you know I like options and what melee class has more options open to it then fighter? There is an argument that could be made for monk, but lets sit them aside for now.

Fighter over barb:

Not rage dependent. – Rage is the bread and butter of the barb class. Pure number breakdowns are putting fighters about 10-16 points behind barbs per swing assuming everything is equal. But I have been reading lots of people pointing out that the math guys are forgetting the openings on the fighter feats allowing for (g) weapon specialization feat line, and Kensei pluses and room for the other great combat feats. So the numbers might be smaller. Where barbs pull back out a head is that Frenzy/Great Frenzy combo for another fireball (6d6) on top of the few point lead that fighters pushed to catch up on….

Flexible – As I kind of said above all the extra bonus feats allow me to pick and choose more combat feats to add to my arsenal. I could for example go slashing weapons and make use of both the two weapons and two handed fighting styles. Or trick out with other combat feats like Imp Sunder and Stunning blow all awhile-keeping toughness feat as well as others. 10 bonus feats are nothing to laugh at.

Easier to selfheal. – This is a huge part of why I am leaning this way and goes along with reason one; Not being raged based means that if I need to use a scroll or wand mid combat I don’t have to worry about unraging to do so.

Easy Fighter Haste boost – I know I could grind a million twist points and twist in a haste boost or I could just be the class that gets them and not have to worry about that. I am not sure I could work in the full line for 10 Ap but I might find away. You never know.

If I lived in a world where I could trust someone else to heal me 100% I think I would go 18/2 barb/fighter but as is the 18/2 fighter/x just seems a better fit.

❤

IP, The Big Hits Project

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This weekend I really worked on leveling up Darth Samius. I went from 13 to 18 and I learned a lot of things.

1, WF suck right now. Like a lot. Immunities are a joke as “magical” stuff still gets you, so um everything. Healing is a joke as they changed the WF friend line to make the later part of the line work better but makes you spend 3or4 points to get to the same pre change 1 point effectiveness. Meaning that the main healing my WF had (a lesser vamp sword from attack on stormreach) heals for 0 per hit….. I went ahead and made a vamp only greataxe and it only heals in small bursts for 1-2 even though it shows 1-3 on every hit.

2, I really dislike relying on others for HP care, even hirelings. See the last half of the above paragraph. Trying to be at least ½ under my own healing I downed more then 200 repair pots in the first 5 quests on Friday. Then I said F it and started to use a few pocket hires. Even so I still drank another 200+ pots over the weekend, very pricy….

3, Maiming is not as bad on a high crit range weapon as one might think. I happened to have a Maiming Clever sitting in my backpack. I remember buying it off the AH thinking it was a clean Bloody Cleaver for next to nothing. Then once I saw it in the mail I realized that it wasn’t want I thought it was so it sat taking up space. Then I started working the IQ last night I remembered the human bane part of the cleaver and thought why not try it??? By far the best numbers of the weekend where happening.

I have broken 400 before but that is around my best personal best. I mostly build for high normal numbers and consistently. Java for example does between 88 and 92 points every hit, but only crits for 150 or so. This barb so far is all over the map, hitting from anywhere between 30-100 on normal swings. Lots of that is how raged up I am and what weapon I am using. Remembering to down a rage pot every 90 secs can be a challenge. And using the right weapon for the mob is key. I saw a lot of 430+ crits vs mobs with some kind of DR making my numbers yellow; who knows if I would have hit harder earlier if I had the right DR breaker in my hand at the time….

4, Might need to find a few mad greataxes and I need to look in to heavy picks (if I want to dual weld.. @Tobril keeps telling me that THF is the best for big numbers right now when working in EDs. But as I plan to TR into something else once I hit 20 and fight my way back up before getting into EDs on this guy for sure. I wonder if I would be better for heroic levels to dual weld and then do some switching around for EDs when I get there……

And there are always khopeshs and axes… Need to do more DPS reading to find the right weapon type for me.

Anyway <3s