A guide for present and former WoW players that are starting DDO

[sirgog]

I'm posting this as a person that plays both WoW and DDO to help people that are experienced WoW players get used to this game. This will be most useful to people that have played WoW's endgame - i.e. completed at least 10-player Naxxramas (if playing now), Karazhan (if playing when the cap was 70) or Onyxia (when it was 60).

The first thing to say is, that while both games are fantasy-themed MMOs, that's about the end of the similarity. DDO is a very different game to WoW, and in many ways a far more fun one.

The following are a few of the major differences. It's not an exhaustive list at all, just something to give you an idea of the differences. As I'm tired when I'm typing this, I've probably missed important things and added unimportant stuff - if so, bite me.


Levelling:

In WoW, levelling is nothing like endgame at all. It's just a string of 'do quest solo, kill twenty mobs that don't threaten me at all, turn in two quests, rinse, grind, repeat'. Most players remain solo for most of the 1-80 grind.
In DDO, by contrast, levelling is done by completing quests in instances. Unlike WoW, you don't get XP for killing random foes - you only get XP for completing quest objectives. (For example, imagine if in the Nexus instance, you recieved no XP for killing the trash mobs, but got 20000 per miniboss and 60000 for killing Keristraza. You could then kill as many or as few Crystalline Protectors as you wanted en route to the key encounters).
This makes levelling much less of a grind than in WoW. One, you'll nearly always be grouped, and two, the quests are varied. It's also quicker - experienced players can get from level 1 to 20 in about 30 hours playtime.



Instances:

In WoW, while the endgame content all takes place in instances, most of the pre-endgame content is in an enormous world where you can interact with other players, who might buff you, help you kill a mob, kill you, fear you into a big pack of monsters, or ignore you.
In DDO, in all zones where you fight, you will be in an instance with only you and your party members (and you will generally be grouped). This is true at low level as well as high.
You don't recieve loot for random kills (except for collectibles). Instead, at set points in each instance you recieve chests, which contain loot for each party member. Higher level quests generally have better loot, but some chests have a chance to drop items you cannot get anywhere else in the game.
Whether you have a raid party of twelve, or you are solo, chests will always offer you the same amount of loot. (Think Badges of Conquest - each boss drops a set number per party member - all chests work like this in DDO).
Quests are also very varied. In WoW instances, most quests involve either 'kill XXX boss, loot its corpse' or 'collect XXX, YYY and ZZZ then bring them to me', with the Halls of Stone escort event being one of the rare exceptions. DDO is totally different. To complete an instance (here my example is the Crucible) you may need to navigate a maze full of enemies to collect several items needed to open the way forward, then run through a tunnel filled with lethal traps, then cross a collapsing platform while being harried by archers, then solve a riddle to determine which of six doors hides a key (the others all explode), then climb over the roof of the first maze while using teamwork to pass a combination lock, then survive another trap gauntlet, this time underwater, then finally fight your way through to the gladitorial arena where the four final bosses are, or potentially just three if you have convinced one of them to stab another in the back earlier.



Party Roles and Character Customisation:

In WoW's endgame, every player is forced to choose whether they will tank, heal or deal DPS. Some classes can do more than one, but never more than one of them at once. Noone other than a tank can survive having aggro from any boss for more than a couple of seconds, noone other than a dedicated healer can put out the heals per second (HPS) required to keep tanks alive, and noone other than a dedicated DPS can do the quick damage required to prevent bosses from enraging.
In DDO, this is not the case. No encounters at all require a tank (although many are far easier with one). All builds can easily gain sufficient damage mitigation to survive having aggro from even the toughest raid bosses, although this will rapidly deplete healer mana. Many DPS builds can throw a heal or two when needed. And almost no encounters have strict time limits in the way most WoW endgame bosses do.
As such, almost all DPS builds sacrifice some DPS potential for defence. Almost every player at endgame will, for instance, use an item slot to wear a Heavy Fortification item (grants immunity to critical hits, like a 540 defense rating in WoW), even though such items take up an item slot that cannot be used to enhance DPS. Likewise, healers will generally use offensive spells or maybe even melee far, far more than any WoW healer will.
In short, many characters can make small sacrifices to their strongest area of specialty (DPS, Healing, Tanking) in order to become quite a lot better at the others, and this is generally a good idea, whereas in WoW, spending talent points in healing talents on a tanking paladin is never, ever a good idea.

Summary of party roles and correlation to classes:
These are the key roles in DDO. Most classes can do 2 or more of these, and in most content, you will not need every single one of these covered:

- Healer - keeps everyone alive, cures debuffs.
- Persistent DPS - any melee build or any archer build, archer builds are so far behind in DPS that it isn't even remotely funny. These are needed to kill foes with extremely high HP, as the next category don't have the SP to sustain their DPS. Persistent DPS is the most important type at present endgame, this may change (in previous mods, burst DPS was the most important, prior to that, crowd controllers were)
- Burst and/or AoE DPS - these classes (Cleric, Favored Soul, Wizard, Sorc) can put out incredible burst DPS on one or more targets, but cannot sustain it. In WoW, AoE spells do very little damage compared to single-target; generally 60%-65% less. In DDO, some AoE spells do so much damage that they are often the best single-target spells as well. I'm thinking of you, Firewall, in particular.
- Crowd Controller - these classes handle packs of foes, turning them against each other, making them dance, one-shot killing them one by one, stunning them or (in the case of an Intimi-tank) forcing them to attack only the crowd controller. Think Polymorph in WoW, but CC is much, much stronger in this game
- Buffer. This game has many exceptional buffs. Think of a Shaman's Heroism - we're talking that good and better.
- Trapsmith. Traps in this game can be deadly, disabling them prevents a lot of damage.

Classes can do the following:

Barbarian: Persistent DPS. Very rare builds can crowd control through the intimidate skill and high damage reduction (think of this as a 'taunt tank', but these barbs aren't common)
Bard: Best Buffer in the game, some can heal, some can CC, some can dish out persistent DPS.
Cleric: Best healer in the game pre Mod 9 (Favored Souls may outdo them). Excellent AoE burst DPS (including the best burst AoE DPS in the game against foes with high elemental resistances and weak to good saves), mediocre buffing. Some can CC, some can do persistent DPS through melee.
Favored Soul: Very similar to the Cleric. Looks to be better at healing, weaker at CC and buffing (due to more SP and less spell selection), but can be customized differently.
Fighter: Persistent DPS through melee, can CC through both taunt tanking (called Intimitanking in this game, unlike WoW it is viable as your taunt cooldown is exactly equal to its duration) and WoW-style threat tanking.
Paladin: As Fighter, but lower DPS and harder to kill due to better saves
Monk: As Paladin, but significantly lower DPS and significantly harder to kill. Some multiclass builds can Intimitank.
Rogue: Best melee DPS in the game when they do not have threat. Through the Use Magic Device skill, they can heal and buff, but aren't very good at it. Like Barbarians, a few can intimitank. Characters without levels in Rogue cannot disable traps at all, but even one rogue level is enough to become excellent at trapsmithing for many builds.
Ranger: Persistent DPS through melee or situationally ranged. Reasonably good single-target burst ranged DPS, but can only sustain it for 20 seconds at a time. Rangers choose 'favored enemies' - types of enemies that they get massive combat bonuses against - a ranger with Favored Enemy: Evil Outsider but not Undead will out-DPS a fighter against Evil Outsiders but fall behind against the undead.
Wizard/Sorcerer: Best burst and AoE DPS in the game against foes without large elemental resistances. Good buffers (not as good as a Bard but good). Good to excellent crowd control (depends on build and spell selection). Can heal Warforged better than a Cleric can.

As well as this overview, there's literally millions of possible multiclass builds, which can have very varied strengths. For instance, you can build a Cleric17/Monk2/Fighter1 that's an Intimitank (taunt tank) that can also heal, a Sorc16/Paladin2/Monk2 that's a self-healing, self-buffing melee who can throw the odd spell when needed, or a huge range of other possibilities.



The Community

In WoW, if you ask for constructive advice in the main chat channel (the trade channel) the result will be something like this:

You - "How do I improve my retribution paladin's DPS?"
Player1 - "learn to play noob"
Player2 - "OMG retardins are so easy to play, if you can't do 3500 DPS you should just kill yourself and quit WoW"
Player3 - "gear up, get a good two-handed weapon, Str is your best stat, Armor Penetration second"
Player4 - "Chuck Norris deals two million DPS in Ret without even enchanting his gear"
Player5 - "want epic T9 gear? we'll run you through top raids to get you the best gear. 4 piece T8 only $75, 4 piece T9 only $160. visit somegoldsellerwebsitedotcom and enter code love for 10% discount!"
Player2 - "lol @ lame Chuck Norris joke"
Player1 - FAIL Chuck Norris joke is fail

DDO will have more people like Player 3, a LOT less of players 1 and 2, none of Player 4 at all, and about the same number of player 5.



Gear

Gear in DDO is totally different to in WoW. In WoW, the power of gear is based almost entirely on the level of the foe that dropped it - for instance, a sword dropped by a level 75 instance boss will be better than one dropped by a level 62 trash mob in pretty much every possible way. It will deal more damage, provide more stat buffs, and provide more ways to overcome enemy defenses, than the trash mob's sword.
On the other hand, in DDO, it's different. Just because that Cloudburst sword is raid loot doesn't make it better than the +3 Holy Silver Greatsword of Greater Evil Outsider Bane that drops (extremely rarely) in regular chests.
Items can give a boost to stats as in WoW, but bonuses from items do not stack with other items. So if you have +4 to Strength on your belt and +5 on your gloves, you only get the +5. (Some raid loot explicitly breaks this rule, the items will tell you so if this is the case).
In addition, many items have powerful abilities you can use a set number of times per rest (players call these 'clickies'). For instance, a cloak might allow you to cast the powerful party buff Haste three times per day. It's up to you whether you wear that cloak all the time (forgoing other passive bonuses you might have on other cloaks) to get maximum use out of the clickie, or whether you keep an item with a passive bonus equipped and switch to the clickie when you need it.
In addition, you'll change gear mid-quest in a way you just don't do in WoW. In WoW, your Betrayer of Humanity axe might be your best weapon for every foe - in DDO a (very) well equiped toon might have a pair of Mineral 2 rapiers for some bosses, a triple positive quarterstaff for others, greater elemental bane weapons for elementals, and, getting into DDO lingo you won't pick up until you gain a dozen levels, a "con damage set", "vorpals", "banishers", "smiters" and a couple of other specialty weapons.
Very little gear in DDO binds until endgame, meaning that veteran players often have astounding gear at each level as they level up, although they aren't as far ahead of untwinked characters as WoW's PvP twinks are.


Consumables
WoW imposes a hard limit on how many consumables you can use per encounter - one potion per encounter, one bandage per minute, etc. DDO has none of these limits except for cooldowns - as such, heavy consumable use is a common tactic, particularly in what WoW players would term 'progression content'. You won't be able to afford this early on, but by endgame expect to be carrying dozens of Heal scrolls and stacks of 100 Haste and Cure potions at least.


Key resources
In WoW, your character's key resource is generally time - abilities have cooldowns, sometimes long ones, and your damage output is limited by how rapidly you can cast your spells (1 per 1.5 second global cooldown (GCD) unless you reduce the GCD through items or buffs).
In DDO, the key limiting resource is rest points (Shrines). Lost HP, mana and activated 'X times per rest' abilities like clickies do not automatically restore until you rest at a Rest Shrine, or leave the dungeon to rest in a tavern (and if you leave, while you can reenter most quests, you will suffer penalties to XP for doing so). This makes conservation of resources important. HP can be recovered by using cheap consumables, mana by using rare and valuable ones, and charges on clickies or class abilities cannot be recovered by any consumables.



Progression and gear checks
In WoW, most instances at endgame require a certain level of gear. For example, you wouldn't be able to beat Naxxramas unless your party are in at least mostly rare-quality gear, and you wouldn't set foot in Ulduar unless wearing almost all epic gear. As such, there's a concept of 'progression' - you milk one instance or raid tier for loot, then you become strong enough to 'graduate' to the next tier. Some encounters (notoriously Patchwerk, Thaddius, XT-002, Northrend Beasts for healers and Algalon and others) are designed to simply be mathmatically impossible to beat without a certain minimum of gear - if you don't have the gear, no amount of playskill will take the boss down, you just have to farm better gear from other content first and try again.
DDO works differently. Gear checks are extremely few and far between, as there are (almost) no enrage timers and the few hard enrages that do exist (like the Stormreaver's bomb in the Reaver raid) have incredibly lenient timers. Instead all content is (reasonably) accessible on Normal difficulty. Elite difficulty tests playskill more than it tests gear - for example, the Shroud raid was downed on Elite before any player had obtained any raid loot from it at all.
In addition, Elite generally drops the same raid loot as Normal, just with higher drop rates. Players generally run it for fun as much as they do for loot, which is quite different to WoW's hard modes which are usually run more for the unique loot and bragging rights.



Death and Party Wipes
In WoW, dying usually means you cannot be raised until the end of the encounter. In DDO, this is not the case: in almost all content, you can be 'battle-rezzed', as such character death is less serious than it is in WoW, where losing a character often results in a party wipe.
In DDO, however, the consequences of a party wipe are more severe than in WoW. Mostly in endgame content, you may be forced to start your entire instance over (this is true of the Shroud, Black Abbot and Vision of Destruction raids, plus the harder parts of the Black Mausoleum and several other endgame instances). Even if you aren't forced to restart, you will suffer an XP penalty on completing your quest for exiting the instance and returning.


Character Defenses

This is a list of DDO character defenses, and the closest equivalent in WoW.

Armor Class (AC) - Avoidance (Dodge, Parry). AC reduces the chance you get hit at all by enemy attacks, but not how hard the attacks land. Once you hit a certain minimum (which varies from monster to monster), each point of AC is worth a full 5% avoidance until you hit the cap for that monster, which is 95% avoidance. Attacks that miss due to AC still deal 10% damage (approximately), this is a very new change.
Fortification - Defense Rating. Fortification reduces your chance to be critically hit. Most monsters have a 5% chance to critically hit you (some have 10% or 15%). Crits do double, triple or even sometimes quadruple damage.
Damage Reduction (DR) - Armor. DR reduces the damage you take from physical attacks that do connect. Some types of DR work against all attacks, others can be bypassed.
Fortitude save - No real match. Fort saves reduce the likeliehood that you are fully affected by many harmful spells and abilities, generally those that affect the integrity of the body (e.g. poisons, disintegration, most stuns, diseases, death spells). Some spells will have a chance to be completely resisted with a sufficiently high Fort save, others will have a partial effect. Example - the Black Abbot's Disintegrate spell deals about 400 damage on a failed Fort save, and about 70 on a successful one.
Will save - No real match, maybe PvP trinkets. Will saves reduce the likeliehood that you are fully affected by many harmful spells and abilities, generally those that affect the mind (e.g. most paralysis spells, mind control effects (which are weaker when cast on players than by players), fear and a fair few others).
Reflex save - Closer to Nature Resistance (or other resists) than anything. Increases the chance that you take only half damage from many harmful effects including dragon breath, fireballs, and more. The Evasion ability makes this significantly better, preventing you taking any damage at all when you would have taken half damage.
Elemental resists - Again like Nature Resistance and other resists. Reduces the damage taken from sources of a particular element by a fixed amount (e.g. if you have Resist Fire 20 and are hit by three Scorching Rays for 27 damage a piece, you take 7 damage from each ray instead).
Deathblock - No match. Makes you immune to instant death spells (without this, you have between a 5 and 95% chance, dependant upon your Fort save, to survive).
Spell Resistance - No real match. Reduces the chance of you being affected by non-damaging spells.

[Angelus_dead]

It would probably be helpful to describe what the word "tank" means, because it had an older meaning in D&D before being redefined in MMORPGs. If a DDO group says "Need tank for VON", they probably mean something completely different from what a WOW player would expect.

The "damage square" hardly ever happens in DDO battles.

[Lorichie]

Well done.

R

[Angelus_dead]

It's also highly important to warn new players that there's a harsh limit on the choices which can be respecced. That's something the DDO devs intend to change in the near future, but who knows how long it will actually take them?

It's a double problem:
1. The DDO character-building rules are confusing and poorly documented.
2. Many DDO character-building choices are permanent.

That means a new player is fairly likely to make a mistake he'll be stuck with forever. That's totally different from WOW, where a character who made a bad talent choice can be fixed up simply by paying a few gold.

The following DDO choices can be respecced, often with a 3 day cooldown:
Feats
AP enhancements
Spells (3 days for sorc/bard/fvs, while resting for others)

But these choices cannot:
Race
Class levels
Starting ability scores
Ability score advancement
Skill Ranks
FVS Religion

Also, note that although WOW doesn't allow class switching either, that's not as big a deal as it is in DDO. A WOW character chooses his class only one time, at creation, but a DDO character must decide at each level if he'll stay with his previous class or try some levels from a new one.

[Angelus_dead]

WOW is a game with a serious PVP component, which consumes real attention from the game designers to make it balanced and fun.

DDO is a game with a tiny PVP afterthought, which is completely unbalanced and that the devs barely even acknowledge.

Whereas WOW's PVP is a whole alternative path to advance your character's gear, DDO's PVP can be most useful as a testing ground for PVE items to measure exactly what they do. This isn't to say that you can't have some fun screwing around fighting players in DDO PVP, but after a little while you'll find out that some characters and attacks are so much more powerful there's no point to anyone making a serious effort.

For example, if the WOW devs found that one class was 30% likely to win against another, they'd view that as a big problem they need to solve. The balance isn't perfect, but they continually try to make it better. But in DDO some classes have under a 1% chance of beating another, and there's no indication the devs have the ability or desire to change it.

(Yes, the 1% chance to win is basically just to cover the possibility that your opponent drops his mouse on the floor and can't find it until you've beaten him)

[Vordax]

Originally Posted by sirgog

Attacks that miss due to AC still deal 10% damage (approximately), this is a very new change.

Actually this would be more accurate to say: Attacks that missed may still do damage if the mob rolled high enough (based on difficulty setting).

Vordax

[Ariakhis]

Originally Posted by Angelus_dead

(Yes, the 1% chance to win is basically just to cover the possibility that your opponent drops his mouse on the floor and can't find it until you've beaten him)

That was awesome lol

and great post Gog!

[Sharzade]

A++ for the OP's document on DDO for WoW players.

I hope this thread isn't getting derailed.

Sharz

[Vordax]

Originally Posted by Sharzade

A++ for the OP's document on DDO for WoW players.

I hope this thread isn't getting derailed.

Sharz

I agree +1 rep!

Vordax

[sirgog]

Good points A_D. A few responses.

Originally Posted by Angelus_dead

It would probably be helpful to describe what the word "tank" means, because it had an older meaning in D&D before being redefined in MMORPGs. If a DDO group says "Need tank for VON", they probably mean something completely different from what a WOW player would expect.

The "damage square" hardly ever happens in DDO battles.

Yeah, that's a good idea.

In WoW, a tank is a character whose job is to have sufficient defenses that they cannot be killed by the foes they are engaging (as long as they get sufficient healing) and who, through 'threat-increasing' abilities and 'taunts' tricks the boss into attacking them instead of the damage dealers and healers.

In DDO, while 'threat tanks' (called Hate Tanks) and 'taunt tanks' (called Intimitanks) are now (with mod 9) both viable, most groups do not use either. Instead, when most people say 'want tank for XXX quest', what they usually mean is the WoW equivalent of saying 'want hard-to-kill physical melee DPS' or 'want plate DPS'. In short they want a high HP and high Strength character that deals persistent melee DPS.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'damage square' - this isn't a term presently in use in WoW as far as I know.

Originally Posted by Angelus_dead

It's also highly important to warn new players that there's a harsh limit on the choices which can be respecced. That's something the DDO devs intend to change in the near future, but who knows how long it will actually take them?

It's a double problem:
1. The DDO character-building rules are confusing and poorly documented.
2. Many DDO character-building choices are permanent.

That means a new player is fairly likely to make a mistake he'll be stuck with forever. That's totally different from WOW, where a character who made a bad talent choice can be fixed up simply by paying a few gold.

The following DDO choices can be respecced, often with a 3 day cooldown:
Feats
AP enhancements
Spells (3 days for sorc/bard/fvs, while resting for others)

But these choices cannot:
Race
Class levels
Starting ability scores
Ability score advancement
Skill Ranks
FVS Religion

Also, note that although WOW doesn't allow class switching either, that's not as big a deal as it is in DDO. A WOW character chooses his class only one time, at creation, but a DDO character must decide at each level if he'll stay with his previous class or try some levels from a new one.

I recommend that players create one 'throwaway' character to get a feel for the game. This character will still be a contributer at endgame, they just won't be uber there. Consider one of the pregenerated paths in-game, or look up a thread on the forums by a poster named Aranticus, which details about thirty prebuilt characters suited for newer players.

Then, once you've gotten a feel for the (literally) trillions of character customisation options, look into making an advanced build which will likely become your main.

Originally Posted by Angelus_dead

WOW is a game with a serious PVP component, which consumes real attention from the game designers to make it balanced and fun.

DDO is a game with a tiny PVP afterthought, which is completely unbalanced and that the devs barely even acknowledge.

Whereas WOW's PVP is a whole alternative path to advance your character's gear, DDO's PVP can be most useful as a testing ground for PVE items to measure exactly what they do. This isn't to say that you can't have some fun screwing around fighting players in DDO PVP, but after a little while you'll find out that some characters and attacks are so much more powerful there's no point to anyone making a serious effort.

For example, if the WOW devs found that one class was 30% likely to win against another, they'd view that as a big problem they need to solve. The balance isn't perfect, but they continually try to make it better. But in DDO some classes have under a 1% chance of beating another, and there's no indication the devs have the ability or desire to change it.

(Yes, the 1% chance to win is basically just to cover the possibility that your opponent drops his mouse on the floor and can't find it until you've beaten him)

WoW's PvP isn't quite that balanced (for instance a frost mage is more than 70% to beat a Ret paladin of equivalent gear and skill). It's more like a scissors-paper-rock metagame in which skilled or geared scissors can beat rock, etc.

But yeah, where WoW is a PvE-focused game with large amounts of PvP available, DDO is a PvE game with little bits of PvP thrown in as a minor distraction. A Fighter with amazing gear and a top player piloting them will not be able to defeat a Cleric with a semi-competent player behind them, and I think I've only ever stepped into the PvP pits a couple of times, though I do intend to at least try out the newly introduced system that's like WoW's arenas.

[Angelus_dead]

Originally Posted by sirgog

I'm not sure what you mean by 'damage square' - this isn't a term presently in use in WoW as far as I know.

It's not from WOW, but is exhibited there. It means that damage is exchanged between four kinds of entity in a square shape: DPS -> mob -> Tank and Healer -> Tank. DDO rarely maintains separation between the four points, and instead has single characters occupy multiple of those positions.

Originally Posted by sirgog

WoW's PvP isn't quite that balanced (for instance a frost mage is more than 70% to beat a Ret paladin of equivalent gear and skill).

And the devs consider that a problem needing fixing.

Originally Posted by sirgog

I do intend to at least try out the newly introduced system that's like WoW's arenas.

DDO's new duel feature doesn't look like it has the defining traits of WOW's arena: teams, ranking, matchmaking, and rewards. All it does is let you walk up to someone and give him a dialog box to teleport into a deathmatch with you. That's hardly any different from what you could already do with the NPC in taverns. (WOW has a Duel feature, but you fight right in the normal terrain, not in a separate instance)

[kkobold]

great post.

the bits i have to add.. (and im a new palyer from wow)

Items
There are alot of itens used by twinks (actually wed call alts). i mean between level 1 and 3 you can find like 50+ to sell with good prices.
At first the AH will look pretty expensive for your quest money... but most of this itens are pretty common like a shield charged item that you can sell for something over 100k.
Second is that ALOT of the itens good items aint bind on pick and alot (with no caps here) aint bind on equip.
If you come up with a gold framed item it might be a good thing to check its price on AH.
And another detail. The brokers. Some npc vendors are brokers, they pay a lil more for the itens you sell (from my experience around 15%, 5% more than the regulars) and the items you sell em become availble for other players to buy.

[Aranticus]

look into Aranticus' newbie template thread for builds that are more effective than the paths offered by turbine

[Nyvn]

Originally Posted by Aranticus

look into Aranticus' newbie template thread for builds that are more effective than the paths offered by turbine

That's so true. Perhaps they could use some of those templates instead of the ones currently offered.

[Mhykke]

Great post, but I would add something to the leveling portion of it. I'd mention that you can go into areas (still instances) and simply kill X number of mobs, as well as find explorer points and rare encounters, and that you'd get a certain bit of XP when you reach different number thresholds of kills. Considering that you could cap simply sticking to explorer areas, this may be an alternative way to level for some people instead of doing the more traditional questing.

[FluffyCalico]

Originally Posted by sirgog

I'm posting this as a person that plays both WoW and DDO

Well having played both and having read what you said...I am not sure you have played either one...

[MissErres]

Originally Posted by sirgog

Ranger: Persistent DPS through melee or situationally ranged. Reasonably good single-target burst ranged DPS, but can only sustain it for 20 seconds at a time. Rangers choose 'favored enemies' - types of enemies that they get massive combat bonuses against - a ranger with Favored Enemy: Evil Outsider but not Undead will out-DPS a fighter against Evil Outsiders but fall behind against the undead.

Wizard/Sorcerer: Best burst and AoE DPS in the game against foes without large elemental resistances. Good buffers (not as good as a Bard but good). Good to excellent crowd control (depends on build and spell selection). Can heal Warforged better than a Cleric can.

Just a couple points.

Rangers using precise shot can hit multiple targets at once. Rangers with precise shot and manyshot can do some serious damage.

There is also a big difference between Wizards and Sorcs. Although both get the same spell selection, Sorcs can only change a spell every 3 days with a little money, Wizards can change spells at shrines or in taverns. Sorcs also get significantly more SP than Wizards. Both are effective casters, but often play different roles.

[winsom]

Originally Posted by MissErres

Rangers using precise shot can hit multiple targets at once. Rangers with precise shot and manyshot can do some serious damage..

Indeed. I'd call the ranger's 20 seconds of Manyshot Feat the highest damage possible in the game. This depends on a lot of variables in magical items and character build though --- and that is what many people enjoy about DDO compared to other MMOs.

For instance, my ranger does not specialize in ranged combat and I do not collect the best possible bow weapons. She still did over 1000 damage in 8-9 seconds to a Chaos Hound raid boss. This includes favored enemy (10th level) damage, bard damage buffs (I think), and a simple +3 holy bow (holy damage isn't adding to my DPS).

If my ranger had an optimal bow for killing a "neutral aberration" and was base attack +16 rather than my +15, then the many shot damage would deal at least 33% more damage and realistically closer to 50% or better damage compared to what my ranger does. This is how different one ranger in DDO can be compared to another Ranger, and how your choice of attacking certain monsters with certain weapons and tactics make a large difference in the game's outcome.

Wizards in DDO are very unlikely to be able to deal this amount of damage to very-resistant creatures like this raid boss. A sorcerer class is also unlikely although his spells refresh faster than a wizard so he has a better chance. Some melee builds can deal very high damage on critical hits, but situations like a giant chaos hound that will knock you on your back for a few seconds tend to limit the effectiveness of melee-DPS.

[sirgog]

Originally Posted by winsom

Indeed. I'd call the ranger's 20 seconds of Manyshot Feat the highest damage possible in the game. This depends on a lot of variables in magical items and character build though --- and that is what many people enjoy about DDO compared to other MMOs.

For instance, my ranger does not specialize in ranged combat and I do not collect the best possible bow weapons. She still did over 1000 damage in 8-9 seconds to a Chaos Hound raid boss. This includes favored enemy (10th level) damage, bard damage buffs (I think), and a simple +3 holy bow (holy damage isn't adding to my DPS).

1000 damage in 8 seconds represents 125 DPS. Even if you could double this by gearing up with ranged combat against Xy'zzy in mind (say for instance creating a triple positive Shroud bow, using Greater Aberration Bane arrows, popping a Divine Power clicky for 16 BAB, and respeccing slightly), you'd still be doing only 250 DPS - good in that particular phase of that fight (which is very hard for melees to put out much damage due to being tripped over and over) but still well behind what the top melee builds can consistently dish out.

To put this into WoW-talk, despite the ranger burning all their offensive long cooldowns at once, they still cannot keep up with the DPS of a melee that's using no long cooldowns, except in fights where melee DPS is severely undermined by enemy actions.

[sirgog]

One more general point: Binds-on-equip items.

In WoW, pretty much every item worth equipping is either Binds-on-Equip or Binds-on-Pickup.

In DDO, almost all items do not bind. Some (mostly raid loot) binds on pickup. The only items that bind on equipping are greensteel blanks (which are crafting ingredients that can be used as very mediocre weapons while you gather ingredients to upgrade them into raid loot), and Tomes, which are books that you read in order to gain a stat point boost that stacks with everything except other tomes (so if you have a Strength of 16, equip a +4 Str item and read a +1 Str tome, you'll have a 21 Str, get a +2 tome and that will become 22.

You can also voluntarily bind items to your character for a small fee (1-400 Khyber Dragonshard Fragments, which are very common loot items) - this makes items immune to permanent damage and allows you to put enhancements on them, similar to WoW's Enchanting profession (except all characters can do it, you don't need to learn recipes in-game).