Epiphany (or what I learned today)

Spent a few hours reading the fighter class forums this evening rather than questing, and also poking folk in the advice channel. Been slowing down the questing lately on Zillee because I kept on feeling that while gaining xp and levelling is good, my knowledge base on how everything works is piss poor. And while it's cool to advance, it's not so cool that I'm not certain about what I'm doing or how to improve play style.

So going to start noting new stuff I've learnt as I go along. Feel free to add in ^^

Tonight I learnt about balance. Not reading stuff closely, I made the general assumption that the balance skill was all about not being knocked over. As I've been following the premade path for a fighter, the skill points get put into intimidate and jump. I had noticed though that custom builds for fighters favour balance over jump and scratched my head over this. Asked in advice as to why this was and learnt that balance isn't about prevention of falling over, but rather your strength and reflex determine your check on falling. The balance skill is instead about how fast you can recover after falling. Went back to read the skill description for balance and yes, lo and behold, it read "allows you to recover your balance and stand back up when knocked down". Ooops.

A helpful player then talked me through the pros and cons of balance vs jump in private. With jump potions and wizards who can cast jump boosts, it really does seem more worthwhile investing in balance. Thinking of respeccing Zillee anyway as I'd like to have the stunning blow feat and leave greater cleave to a higher level, so the jump/balance thing is another bit to alter.

I think I learnt something about the greatsword vs greataxe vs falchion debate too, but need to sleep on it to see if it went in properly.

Balance ftw!

It's not just for fighters (in fact, everyone who fights or casts can use balance). Don't forget tumble although it can be cast like jump.

Davidleeroth has a balance in the 40s. His tumble is so high he can do backflips. He seldom needs jump cast on him.

None of my other toons have nearly as much of the "holy trinity" of movement invested, but I'm sold - Davidlee is a badass.

Greataxe ftw!

The exception is if you have a Sword of Shadows and the scrolls/seals/shards to upgrade it to epic (and if you do, you rule).

What I learned today was to only invest one recovery after a raid wipe (even though people want you to go 3 or even 4 times).

Had two wipes yesterday (Hound and ToD). Made it through ToD but not the Hound on the second runs of each.

Looked up at the clock and almost 3 hours had gone by with 2,000 pp in repairs - lol.

If it takes 3 tries to finish a raid, then someone's not paying attention (btw, the Hound group was a bunch of guildies cracking jokes).

I've now made it my policy that I only give 2 shots at a raid and then I move on. I'll come back to it with another group once I've chilled.

Ooh, I need to learn about the difference between these sorts of weapons too, so I look forward to your assessment Beth

As for balance, I've been following a build for a halfling monk that suggests only getting balance up to 10 then stopping it. The build is a well recognised and respected one, so should I begin doubting this logic now?

I've also learnt that using the DDO custom builds is a waste of time. Everyone should find a guide and build their own toons from scratch.

There are probably other skills that are more important than balance for that build.

Plus, you can always get a +15 balance item once you get to endgame.

25 balance (10+15) is quite respectable.

Some people put no points into balance and survive OK.

Interesting... I'd like to know the difference between weapons too. So far I've been buying high damage weapons with some frost/acid/fire damage.. not caring much what kind of weapon.

Okay, bear in mind that this is with reference to those who are fighting with two handed weapons. This may be rambling btw, so please forgive.

For a while I've been scratching my head over why many fighters seem to prefer the falchion, as opposed to the great axe or great sword. On first glance the falchion gives the least damage out of the three, with the GS giving the best. Comparing a basic +5 of each type:

Damage
Falchion (7-13) 2d4 +5
Greataxe (6-17) 1d12 +5
Greatsword (7-17) 2d6 +5

And when you look at critical damage, the Greataxe comes out best as it has a multiplier of 3, while GS and Fal only have a multiplier of 2, so:

Critical Damage
Falchion 14-26
Greataxe 18-51
Greatsword 14-34

But when you look at the critical threat range, it is the falchion which has the highest threat range. When attacking a monster there is first the attack roll of a d20 to see if you hit it, with bonuses from your base attack bonus and strength modifier added to the d20. If you roll a natural 20, or if you roll a hit and the unmodified dice of this roll is within the critical threat range, then you have a potential critical hit. You get a second attack roll to confirm whether or not you hit the target in this instance. Looking at the threat range, the falchion comes out on top.

Critical Threat Range
Falchion 18-20
Greataxe 20
Greatsword 19-20

If you've taken the Feat: Improved Critical, this doubles the threat range of the weapon, so the falchion's threat range increases to 15-20, while the greataxe increases to 19-20.

So whille the greataxe does more damage when it hits critically, the falchion has a greater chance to get a critical hit in the first place. So theoretically a falchion can do more damage in time than a great axe, even though each hit has less damage, because it has the better chance to hit critical.

The greataxe is still awesome though if you have the stunning blow feat. Stunning blow stuns the mob, which then means any hits while it is stunned are automatically critical. With the higher critical damage, the greataxe wins over the falchion if the target is stunned.

Some mobs however are immune to being stunned, and some mobs are also immune to critical hits, like the undead. I've also read that on epic, there are mobs that are immune to critical hits, so then a greatsword comes back into being the popular weapon.

So really its a matter of knowing what mobs you are likely to hit at each level to decide which is the better weapon to use depending on their immunity to being stunned or critically hit - and changing your enhancements and weapon set accordingly. I'm starting to move on from the undead dungeons, so I'll be considering a switch soon to falchions or greataxe to take advantage of their better critical stats over the greatsword.



Edit to change part about what makes a critical hit which was wrong!

Another edit to fix the bad maths =)

Very intuitive

I actually already knew about the better crit rate for falchions, as I have enhancements for them with my elf-paladin build. One of the first weapons I invested in (thanks to Bella ) was a Xuum and I still love it to date!

However, I had recently turned to great swords as I was tempted by their higher base damage... looks like I'm going back to my Xuum as my main weapon for a bit (alternating with my paralyzing weapon which is great when in trouble).

Really I'll be watching my combat screen to see if my rate of critical hits with my greatsword remains good. At the moment I'm happy with it as I've a good strength modifier, and falchions seem to be silly expensive on the AH. Will see how it goes and experiment with a switch of enhancements to specialise in falchions and greataxe to give them a fair run before making any longer term changes. But yeah, if your strength modifer isn't brilliant, then going back to falchions is a good idea.

ETA: Or maybe not. If you can't confirm the critical hit that often, maybe it is better for you to stay with the weapon that has the best non-critical damage rate? As you can see, still getting my head around the implications =)

when calculating dps (damage per second) people usually compound it so that 1 die is rolled 20 times, each side once for the basic average. this is helpful when figuring out the math.

(one thing tho, i think on the falchion you listed the crit range as 18-20, doubled with improved critical /slashing/ that would be 15-20, which is still really good. i might be wrong tho, i'll have to double check)

also, there are ways to increase your confirmed critical hits. a bloodstone is very expensive, but adds +6 seeker to all weapons and goes in a trinket slot. additionally, it can be upgraded to epic +8 seeker, but not sure if that is the end all best trinket.

now, bloodstones are dumb expensive (750K+)

so, another alternative, but not the best one, is to get a seeker weapon, but this takes the prefix of something else.

you may have noticed by now some things are prefix only, some are suffix. for example, +5 **prefix** /kind of damage reduction(silver, byeshk, ect) -bastard sword of- **suffix**

so, im not 100% sure, but i think if you were to get a seeker weapon it will not have some of the best prefixes, like *any* burst, holy, ect.


***

in epic, you can still get critical hits, but everything is death warded so disruption, banishing, smiting, and vorpal will not work at all. however, the best (and perhaps only) way to do epic effectively, is to have a caster that can cast mass hold person on mobs. once an enemy has mass hold on them, or earth grab, or freezing guard (but NOT paralyzing), every hit you score on them will be an automatic critical.

this is the reason why, that at the next ice festival i will be farming those purples, so i can build 2 +5 triple burst heavy picks for dual wielding in epics. heavy picks have a X4 critical multiplier. this affects the bursts as well

Quote :

(one thing tho, i think on the falchion you listed the crit range as 18-20, doubled with improved critical /slashing/ that would be 15-20, which is still really good. i might be wrong tho, i'll have to double check)

yup you're right ^^

*goes to edit*

dual wielding ... eek, havent got my head around that yet =)

I ran a quick excel spreed sheet (using the random number feature to generate random numbers between 1 and 20)i put together to compare basic weapons ( no modifications) on 4 weapons (rapier,1D6,18-20/x2, falchion 2d4, 18-20/x2, kopash 1d8, 19-20/x3, and heavy pick, 1d6,20/x4, dwarf axe 1D10/x3) I also made the assumption that every critical hit was a confirmed crit)


I ran 100 swings for each, where for the 18-20, on hits 18,19,20 they were crit hits, and did the same for the other weapons using their critical frequency. Then ran ten sequences ( for a sampling of 1000 swings). What I ended up with is this ( Shows weapon and damage total for 1000 swings)

Dwarven axe 5931
Falchion 5804
Kopesh 5345
Rapier 4021
Heavy Pick 4015

Then I added a +4 modification with the following results ( which could be from a combination of str and weapon pluses ie +2 from str and +2 from weapon)

Dwarven Axe 10600
Falchion 10477
Kopesh 10119
Heavy pick 8660
Rapier 8633

And then a +8 Modification

Kopesh 14957
Falchion 14934
Dwarven Axe 14694
Rapier 13324
Heavy Pick 9583

What I conclude from this is that the extra 5% crit with the falchion makes up for the extra damage from the X3 ( also because the damage die is 2d4 vs 1d8 you have slightly better numbers) Atleast until you get up to the high modfication for weapon/strength bonuses.

I then ran the test with Keen (double threat range) weapons with 0 mods and a +8 mod, the falchion did better than the kopesh until you start added the pluses

Dwarven Axe 6607
Falchion 6574
Kopesh 6265
HPick 4636
Rapier 4594


Keen weapons with +8 modification

Kopesh 17521
Falchion 16876
Dwaven Axe 16208
Rapier 15069
HPick 11385

These numbers do not include any additional damge from things like acid, thundering, etc which get added before the crit multiplier if I remember correctly, so those x3 and x4 weaapons can really do some damage.

Alot of people like the Kopesh becasue of the crit multiplier, that is why they tend to be higher priced on AH, but if you a wielding just 1 weapon the falchion isnt that far behind. I have been told the big thing with the kopesh is that with improved TWF you can wield a heavy weapon in both hands ( ie two Kopesh's) something that you cant do with a falchion, so this is where the kopesh gets a big edge.

I also didnt take into account that if your BaB allows 3 swings that the third swing is a +5 and if allows 4 the forth is a +10 ( assuming you are not moving except maybe turning and you hold down the hit button, then again i think there a mobility feat that allows you to be moving without the -4 penalty)

One more thing, I would never go with the turbine premade path, you'll end up with useless skills, IMHO.

In the process of crafting a Lightning 2 Falchion - have tier 2 done but waiting for the shocking blast and lightning strike.

Here's the end result once I find all the large ingredients: Tier 3 Lightning 2 Falchion (roll cursor over items for explanation)

The chain lightning clicky is worthless, but the lightning strike is too cool (I never tire of it - real wrath of God kind of stuff).

And if Davidleeroth can get a Bloodstone to go with the falchion and improved critical - slashing feat, he'll be a crittin' fool.

Btw, when someone refers to a Lightning 2 or a Mineral 2, the "2" means the 2 supreme shards you need to craft it at tier 3.

i wouldnt call the clicky completely worthless, i've used it time to time.

For a ranger, I can see that.

What I learned last night - okay, didn't exactly learn this fresh as I was aware of it, but hotkeys and just how far you can to with using them. I already had some of my spells for eelliz on the main hotbar so I could hit a 1, 2 or 3 for a heal quickly under the F1-F6 keys (thanks to Mihaly who took the time to explain this to me about a month ago) - but hadn't gone any further with exploring the potential. You're getting that I'm not a computer whiz yeah?

Was starting to get frustrated with how slow I was being in hitting the crowd casting and damage spells. There's only so many spots on that main hotbar, and am finding that with a cleric I have to have a lot of hotbars set up. Was getting confused in the heat of melee in large parties, healing them, trying to keep up, and also not just standing there doing nothing else. Took me at least 10 seconds to find the cure poison wand and use it on two party members, who were likely thinking 'hello, I'm yellow, cure me cleric'. Ugh.

So did a search for hotkeys advice and found this: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=282779

After going 'oooooooooh!' I decided to take some of the ideas and managed to set up my numberpad to take care of the damage/cc spells. Of course now I have to get used to actually using these new hotkeys but feel like I'm slowly making steps to becoming a better cleric. The example linked is extreme, but I'll see if this starts to helps me.

Also spent about half an hour on the airship just firing off healing spells of different magnitude and the radiant servant burst with the various metamagics switched on/off to try and get more of a feel of how much healing each one does and at what SP cost. Think I'm really going to like the Quicken metamagic - I'll either be healing toons faster or making mistakes faster

Must admint I don't entirely understand how to use hotkeys... How can I set up my number pad to be linked to a certain bar?

That is a good explaination, I personally run in the highest res mode, and have 6-7 hotbars open. one bar is for the buffs I am getting. use ctrl-number to switch between , so i set up hotbar 1 is my spells, hotbar 2 i can click with the mouse as they are buffs, as I get more spells, the minor ones will be move to hotbar 2. on another i have various cloaks, a few healing, I also have mnem pots, and my arch necklace. I seldom use the right side of my keyboard, but am thinking I will soon need to.


A few years ago I saw online a track bar with about 20 switches that were programmable, it was specifically used for gamers, but I cant seem to find it, my next step will be to start appling dots to my keys so I can quickly find certain keys.

its all about the hotkeys

i use a xbox 360 controller to play ddo, my wrists are very thankful

it was very complicated to set up, but once i did i standardized things across the board on all my toons. the same button for jump/trip/attack/heal or potion/ is easy across the melee builds, but when it comes to wizard i have to do some quick thinking and im always making modifications to make it smoother. its definitely harder to use a controller on casters, but with a modifier key (i use left bumper for my modifier, it doubles the rest of the buttons i have) i've actually run out of thinks to hot key.

typically, i can target, select target, and interact with said target or attack it faster than ANYONE without a controller. if i want shavarath portal fragments i get them, every single time.
for those who dont know, it is a treasure bag that drops out of a closed portal. you have half a second to pick it up, whoever does so first will be the only person to get the fragment. i get it every time i try, to the point i felt bad about it and stop grabbing them altogether.

its all about comfort. if it becomes second nature to you, when things go crazy you want to have smooth play skill.

a word of caution however;

the f keys (f1-f12) are hotkeys for your party members. f1 is yourself, f12 is the last person in your raid party. using a controller myself, i find that sometimes i still quickly refer to these keys on my keyboard to find someone who i cannot see on my screen ect

if you designate a modifier key, you can use the number keys all over again if you'd like.
or even use the f1-f12 keys with the modifier, but in my experience it seemed good to leave the f1-f12 hotkeys as party members, but thats me

Zogdor wrote:

Must admint I don't entirely understand how to use hotkeys... How can I set up my number pad to be linked to a certain bar?

Under options go into keymapping. Then scroll near to the bottom. There you will find where you can map the hotkeys for the shortcutbars.

For example I have my contagion spells and things like command, soundburst etc on bar 4. So in the Key Mapping, down where it says Shortcut bar 4 slot 1 - 0, I input the number pad keys. Now when I hit the * on the number pad, I can do a quick soundburst, then follow it up with a bit of contagion to blind a mob by hitting 7 on the numberpad. Went into butchers path to do a bit of practise, knowing that if they hit me I wouldnt take much damage so I could focus on learning to use the new hotkeys =) Was fun!

here's what I learnt today:

I may be good at bashing things and getting used to clicking a million different things when fighting with my Paladin, but I'm a terrible rogue! I never remember quests so I have no idea when there's a trap >.<

Expect to hear some stories of last night's runs in the funny stories thread... I managed to single-handedly wipe out our entire team on several occasions (Valge, Vanedrim, Jaayse, Mihaly, Pyhllp - noone was safe >.<)!

*hugs Zog* Nice thing about guild runs is no one gets mad about mistakes =)

we all have to learn somehow

Yea last night it was , hey chest lets all run to it....opps
Pyhllp has died......must be trapped

zog disables trap


Mihaly has died....who would have thought there'd be two traps on the chest.

But was fun

Another thing we learned is traps on elite will kill you.

yeah, i remember in normal i smashed an explosive barrel and took 3 hp damage, went in again on elite and they were taking 30 ! Crazy

Yup - the Shroud on elite is fun to watch.

After beating down the second portal there is a series of spikes that people jump through with ease on normal.

On elite, there is always someone who dies jumping through them because they hit for so much more - lol.