Dragonmarks - have you tried them?

I'm considering a second lesser reincarnation for zillee to try out the human dragonmarks. Basically she's got three feat spots that could be respecced and while its tempting to just bung them all into toughness to bring her unbuffed total to past the 700 hp mark ... I'm thinking that it could be fun to try one of these out.

Mark of Finding
Least Dragonmark of Finding Search skill +2, Spell: Locate Object
Lesser Dragonmark of Finding Spell: Knock
Greater Dragonmark of Finding Spell: Treasure Finding

Mark of Making
Least Dragonmark of Making Repair Ⓢ skill +2, Spell: Repair Light Damage
Lesser Dragonmark of Making Spell: Repair Serious Damage
Greater Dragonmark of Making Spell: Reconstruct

Mark of Passage
Least Dragonmark of Passage Balance skill +2, Spell: Expeditious Retreat
Lesser Dragonmark of Passage Spell: Dimension Door
Greater Dragonmark of Passage Spell: Teleport

Mark of Sentinel
Least Dragonmark of Sentinel Intimidate skill +2, Spell: Shield of Faith
Lesser Dragonmark of Sentinel Spell: Protection from Energy
Greater Dragonmark of Sentinel Spell: Globe of Invulnerability

Has anyone had experience of these?

The Mark of Finding looks interesting, but the spells are dependent on charisma and that's been a dump stat for me. Also I've spent some time watching others 'bless' a chest while people wait impatiently and the rate of failure seems high. The Mark of Sentinel could be useful for soloing with the protection of Energy but I'm leaning towards the Lesser Dragonmark of Passage (and a lvl of toughness with the left over feat) so I would have two uses of DDoor every rest. Or three if I respec my enhancements - currently I used a left over point for an additional use of my boosts which I very rarely get to use.

The general consensus is that the dragonmarks are basically useless as a feat. I've never heard anyone actually like them. They aren't strong enough to make a difference in performing a cross class skill like searching, and what's the point of search anyway, really, if you can't disable? The sentinel ones you can basically get from pots and clickies. The passage is probably the more useful one, but I can think of a million other feats I'd rather have than the ability to ddoor occasionally. Don't get me wrong, ddoor is nice, but is it really worth two feats?

as interesting as they sound, for 3 feats just doesnt seem to be worth it, but idk i never tried.

I think, Grace, its because fighters have feats coming out of their ears that I feel happy to use two of them on the ddoor thing. Its one of the spells that I think I would find useful. Just running through necro atm for favour and oooh man, doing it solo, I seriously would love that facility for the 'oh shit' moments, or the 'speed up the quest by a quick return to the start' moment. If I was being sensible, I'd just pile them into toughness and try to do more hate tanking, but hmmm ...

and you get the cool blue dragonmark on the face!

Does this sound like I've made up my mind? Probably *grins*

But still interested in hearing experience of them if people have tried them ^^

Can you take UMD feats and get a decent enough UMD with that and items to just use scrolls? That would be far more useful.

Well ... hmm. The ddoor scroll can only be got from drops and goes for around 15-20k on the AH. That could get real expensive.

Never really worked out what sort of UMD I could get on a pure fighter so ... let's see.

Base charisma incl tome - 10
+2 Ship buff (soon!) - 12
+ 6 item (cloak swapped in) - 18
+ 2 exceptional cha on a tod ring - 20
= charisma modifier of +5

+5 cha mod
+11 ranks of skill points
+ 3 UMD skill feat
+3 golden cartouche (necklace swapped in) competence bonus
+ 6 exceptional cha skills item (GS boots or something?)
+ 2 head of good fortune (trinket swap in) luck bonus
+ 4 GH clickie (necklace) morale bonus
+ 1 human versatility 20 second boost (repec enhancements needed but doable)

Which comes to a UMD of 35. Not too shabby, would only have to grind out the golden cartouche (easy grind), make a new tod ring (meh!) and make the GS boots (meh! meh!) and would give me acces to the following according to ddowiki:

Master's Touch 19
equip most alignment-restricted items 20
Invisibility 23
Cure Serious Wounds, Repair Serious Damage 27
Cure Critical Wounds, Repair Critical Damage, Dimension Door, Stoneskin, Lesser Globe of Invulnerability, Fire Shield 31
Raise Dead, Teleport, Waves of Fatigue 35

I'm just sorta crossing my eyes a bit at the thought of having to do all that equipment swapping to be able to do anything, even knocking off the second necklace swap to bring it down to 31 which seems to be the key number for me. We're talking ring, cloak, trinket, boots and necklace. Then swapping the weapon out for a scroll/wand. And then the cost of the scrolls.

Yeah it may be more useful to me and is feasible, but at the cost of being an expensive fiddly pain in the ass each time I'd want to use it

ETA: Chuckling at myself reading the above back. I think I now officially qualify for my DDO Geek Badge!
ETA2: Ooooh bunny hat from the DDO store gives a +3 competence bonus too so could use that instead of the golden cartouche and cut down on the necklace swap! =D Might also be able to make a GS weapon for the offhand for the + 6 charisma and +2 exceptional charisma, rather than swapping the cloak and wasting tokens on a tod ring. Hmmmm... I need to really think about this. Can you dual wield a scroll and an offhand weapon? It will mean another 5 LDS to grind out though for the boots and the weapon >.<

yes, you can dual wield a scroll and an off-hand weapon

Definitely food for thought then. I think I'm still going to go with my original thought of 2 feats into the dragonmark and one more to toughness, but I may work towards doing this UMD thing for Zillee on her next life. It's also made me start to think about UMD for my lowbie bard and what I should be working towards for her so she can use the high UMD scrolls. Cheers!

1 level of rogue can get you max UMD, if its taken at the first level.

also, i am pretty sure as a fighter your max umd is 12 ranks. not 100% tho

not sure if you got one, but the epic cove trinket has +3 umd that will stack with competence bonus (cartouche, seven finger, bunny hat), and you can slot good luck +2 on it which essentially makes it add +5 to umd in the trinket slot.

i wouldnt slot a tod ring but you can if you wanted.

just for example my toon, with no charisma item but a 5 min splendor wand (rarely use it)
10 base charisma = +0
level of rogue = 23 ranks in umd
+5 chr skills item
+4 GH clicky and scrolls

So right now I keep a running 32, will be 33 when we get +2 chr shrines. 32 is 80% chance on raise dead and 60% chance on heal.

When shit hits the fan tho, I wand 5 mins of splendor (+4 chr) for +2, and switch to seven finger (+5) and epic cove trinket (+2) for +10 total, which puts me at 42 which is 110% chance on heal scrolls and 90% chance on resurrection and greater restoration.
if i slot +2 good luck into the trinket, will add another +2 to UMD with only switching 2 items, i've found that 2 items on the fly are doable but anything more is taxing..


List of some common spells scrolled and their UMD needed:

Arcane Spells Scrolls

Scroll of Banishment.................... 40
Scroll of Flesh To Stone................ 40
Scroll of Greater Heroism............... 40
Scroll of Mass Invisibility............. 44
Scroll of Reconstruct................... 40
Scroll of Summon Monster VII............ 44
Scroll of Symbol of Stunning............ 44
Scroll of Tenser's Transformation....... 40
Scroll of Waves of Exhaustion........... 44

Divine Spell Scrolls

Scroll of Resurrection.................. 44
Scroll of Cure Critical Wounds.......... 32
Scroll of Cure Serious Wounds........... 28
Scroll of Divine Power.................. 32
Scroll of Greater Restoration........... 44
Scroll of Heal.......................... 40
Scroll of Heroes' Feast................. 40
Scroll of Mass Cure Light Wounds........ 36
Scroll of Mass Cure Moderate Wounds..... 40
Scroll of Mass Restoration.............. 44
Scroll of Mass Shield of Faith.......... 44
Scroll of Mass Spell Resistance......... 44
Scroll of Neutralize Poison............. 32
Scroll of Prayer........................ 28
Scroll of Raise Dead.................... 36
Scroll of Recitation.................... 32
Scroll of Remove Disease................ 28
Scroll of Restoration................... 32



This is also good:

http://ddowiki.com/page/Use_magic_device#Benchmarks

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=272128

Max UMD ranks for anyone without UMD as a class skill is 11.5, which rounds down. Bottom line: if you're not in a class where chr is a major skill, and UMD is uber important, splash rogue at first level

Unfortunately I only have the spyglass at tier 2. Still thinking about this though. I think I can slot +2 goodluck onto my armour (also from the cove). Having just done my 40th shroud (took the +3 strength tome), I'm fancying a bit of a break from it before going back to more pug fun runs so there's going to be a pause in the collection of GS mats that would be needed for the cha skills item and the weapon for the offhand.

Something cool to think about if taking dragonmarks: the epic chimera fang. Its a bastard sword, but you wont need the feat!

Its being upgraded, along with many epic items:

Base item: +6, 2d10 base damage, Incite 20%, Silver, Keen, Shocking Burst, Disintegration, Destruction, Shatter +10, Red Augment Slot. 1 or more Dragonmarks: bastard sword proficiency, +7. 2 or more Dragonmarks: Greater Parrying, +8. 3 Dragonmarks (non-Sentinel): Sup. Parrying, +8. 3 Dragonmarks (all Sentinel): +10, Fortified Defenses 50%.

Is mainly for sword and board, but something to think about.