A little past life advice please

[Phoenicis]

So, my wife and I are about to finish up completionist (only 1 life of each class, but hey, it's a step in the right direction) and are about to embark on the grind for racial completionist.

The plan is to run 1-30, at least until we reach epic completionist (12 lives).

There are 4 characters involved, 1 warlock (kinda tanky and extra dps), 1 druid (main dps), 1 ranger (traps) and 1 bard (buffer), all archtype characters.

Racially, it's pretty easy, pick the races that boost the main stat initially, then do con races, then the others. What I'm looking for is epic past life advice. Which 12 should each character go for first?

 

[PaleFox]

For all four of those, either have the ED lign up with the main spell type from heroics or go for the tanky EDs.
Warlock and Druid have choices for spell type, Bard not so much and will become complicated very fast.
Ranger has choices if you go Arcane Archer, I have not played one since forever.

Druid and Bard can also do some consecrated ground for healing.
Ranger depends on which type of ranger you picked at start, but if you can't do group healing with vials, don't bother really as you're prob running all over the place.

 

[C-Dog]

Normally I'd write up more, but I'm on the way out the door. :(

The "Passive" Bonuses all stack, but you can activate only 1 ACTIVE Stance per Sphere, so 4 total. Some specific choices, and the overall selections of some Spheres, are clearly superior to others (ymmv). Also note that some bonuses are relatively more powerful for early game than for end game, so help Heroic TR'ing more than Epic/Iconics.

If you haven't seen this Wiki page, it lists the options compactly: https://ddowiki.com/page/Epic_Past_Life_Feats

 

[Phoenicis]

Thanks for the replies guys, while helpful I am looking for past life suggestions to make progress as easy as possible as quickly as possible.

I, literally, blow chunks at making builds and matching things together. Thus the question.

 

[Hoccleve]

First, just in case you are not clear, epic past lives you can choose any one which you like when ETRing - free choice, unconnected to class, EDs used or anything else.

Up to you of course, but if you are planning 12 epic past lives, I wouldn't go for one of each. Much better to pick one in each sphere and do each three times. This is because each different past life gives you a different stance, and you can stack that up to three times, but you can only have one stance active per sphere. Of course, if you very specifically want epic completionist, you will need to do one of each.

Also worth bearing in mind that all the bonuses start from L1 (as long as you remember to toggle them on - stances are not automatic). This makes some of them pretty powerful at low levels (much better than most HPLs).

I'm not any kind of completionist, but FWIW, your tank might want to start with the Fortifcation EPL, and your DPS melee with doublestrike EPL, both also getting AC bonuses. Ranger probably doubleshot + HP, unless they find trap DCs hard, in which case there is a skills option in the martial tree. Bard could be any, depending on what they do other than buff. Fast healing, particularly with three stacks, is very nice for any character if you are running elites, but rapidly weakened by reaper mode. Arcane has some nice goodies for casters, but for everyone else the passive element is very slow increment, so I'd put that last after martial, divine and primal spheres.

Hope that helps. Someone with more ETRs may know more.

 

[QuantumFX]

Here's my 2 coppers. The decision kind of depends on what you like playing. Also, be sure to take one set from each sphere first as you can have one stance from each sphere active.
Divine Sphere: Brace x3
Martial Sphere: Doublestrike x3 if you're a melee, otherwise Skill Mastery x3
Primal Sphere: Ancient Power x3 if you're all about THF, Doubleshot x3 if you're ranged, Colors of the Queen x3 if you're a caster.
Arcane Sphere: Enchant Weapons x3 if Ranged or Melee, Energy Criticals x3 if an elemental or sonic caster.

 

[CBDunk]

Of course, if you very specifically want epic completionist, you will need to do one of each.

Actually, epic completionist now just requires ANY combination of twelve epic past lives... and can be acquired multiple times.

I'd agree that you generally want to max out one stance in each of the four spheres first... that gives you four stances that can be active at all times.

Arcane: Energy Criticals or Arcane Alacrity
Divine: All four are good, though Block Energy is very build specific
Martial: Skill Mastery, Doublestrike, or Fortification. Fun fact, maxing out all 5 is a hilarious +30 AC at 1st level.
Primal: Doubleshot or Ancient Power

 

[Contessor]

So, my wife and I are about to finish up completionist (only 1 life of each class, but hey, it's a step in the right direction) and are about to embark on the grind for racial completionist.

The plan is to run 1-30, at least until we reach epic completionist (12 lives).

There are 4 characters involved, 1 warlock (kinda tanky and extra dps), 1 druid (main dps), 1 ranger (traps) and 1 bard (buffer), all archtype characters.

Racially, it's pretty easy, pick the races that boost the main stat initially, then do con races, then the others. What I'm looking for is epic past life advice. Which 12 should each character go for first?

So epic completionist can be stacked as well x4 for even more Fate Points.

My advice is do not stop at 12. It seems easiest to do your EPLs with Racials just because you can hand pick the class you like playing the most. And the casters with good AoEs clear mobs fast.

So as others mentioned start with x3 of a single EPL that makes the most sense for what you plan to play the most. Example of you want to play sorc, go Energy Criticalx3, Brace or Ancient Blessingsx3, Skill Mastery or Fortificationx3 and Colors of the Queen.

After those 12, if you like your choices, I would suggest getting the rest of all primal EPLs for the passive benefits, then divine EPLs, then Arcane EPLs and lastly the rest of the martial EPLs. Of course if you change from caster to melee, you can work on other active stances that work better for that playstyle out of this order.

 

[QuantumFX]

It seems easiest to do your EPLs with Racials just because you can hand pick the class you like playing the most. And the casters with good AoEs clear mobs fast.

It's also nice for racking up reaper points in Legendary content. You can rack up 100K rXP just by doing a loop through all the Level 30+ quests on R1. Where am I pulling that magic number from? There are currently 145 quests (Not counting raids) at 1,000 rXP on a first time completion for each, and I'm being generous at dropping the absurdly long or hard quests.

 

[Contessor]

It's also nice for racking up reaper points in Legendary content. You can rack up 100K rXP just by doing a loop through all the Level 30+ quests on R1. Where am I pulling that magic number from? There are currently 145 quests (Not counting raids) at 1,000 rXP on a first time completion for each, and I'm being generous at dropping the absurdly long or hard quests.

Or do r10 for 1.5mil rXP or r6 for 750k per tour. Yep.

 

[mbartol]

Here's my 2 coppers. The decision kind of depends on what you like playing. Also, be sure to take one set from each sphere first as you can have one stance from each sphere active.
Divine Sphere: Brace x3
Martial Sphere: Doublestrike x3 if you're a melee, otherwise Skill Mastery x3
Primal Sphere: Ancient Power x3 if you're all about THF, Doubleshot x3 if you're ranged, Colors of the Queen x3 if you're a caster.
Arcane Sphere: Enchant Weapons x3 if Ranged or Melee, Energy Criticals x3 if an elemental or sonic caster.

This is the way.

 

[Phoenicis]

Awesome advice everyone! Thanks for taking the time

 

[Kyrr]

Thanks for the replies guys, while helpful I am looking for past life suggestions to make progress as easy as possible as quickly as possible.

I, literally, blow chunks at making builds and matching things together. Thus the question.

Most builds should be using Ancient Blessings (Divine) (you actually might prefer Brace for earlier levels..) & Colors of the Queen (Primal)

For casters, you'd probably want Skill Mastery (Martial) & Energy Criticals (Arcane)

For melee, you'd probably want Doublestrike (Martial) & Enchant Weapon (Arcane)

 

[droid327]

If you're already close to heroic completionist then you're halfway there

Racial and Epic PL loops can be done with the same build (more or less) so you can focus on the most relevant PLs for that, and then just whatever for fate points and racial comp.

Doing 1-30, ETR, 20-30, ETR HTR is still an optimized strategy, I think. Maximizes first time bonuses and banking saga xp.

 

[erethizon1]

When picking epic past lives, I went for the ones that would be good on any class I was playing. I'd start with 3 Fast Healing in the Primal Sphere, because absolutely everyone benefits from having their health regenerate over time. Then I went with Brace in the Divine Sphere for better saving throws (though they since added healing amp, which may be more valuable depending on who you ask, but I still run Brace 99.9% of the time). For Martial I went with Skill Mastery because having higher skills is useful for all classes (some classes more than others), though they have since added Trap Damage Absorption, which could be better if you usually play with no trapper around. Finally, with Arcane I would probably go with Ancient Knowledge, because more MRR is useful to most classes most of the time (this is the only Arcane past life that benefits both spellcasters and weapon users at the same time).

If you know for certain that your character will only play one type of class then you can be more refined in your epic past life choices, but I tend to favor picking the lives that will benefit all classes so you can switch between classes freely as you chase past lives.

 

[PaleFox]

Ah, for past life feats.
Yes, sticking to 3 of one sphere is way better than getting one of each.

If all of the characters in the party are spellcasters of some sort, I'd stick with fort from the martial sphere as that greatly enhances your survivability in the early levels where you don't have access to 100% fort yet.
But don't start on those spheres before you've got 3* arcane: energy criticals.
For Divine, get 3* ancient blessings.
For Primal, colors of the queen is really nice, tho I don't think it's still a 7% chance once every 10 seconds.

 

[Hoccleve]

Actually, epic completionist now just requires ANY combination of twelve epic past lives... and can be acquired multiple times.

Didn't know that - thanks!

 

[mikarddo]

As others have posted - do 3 of the same type in each sphere first.

But - dont stop at 12 - do yourself the favor to run 1-30 every time to get every epic past live while doing racials. If you want doing some quests at cap for double reaper xp with first time bonus is also a very good idea to stack up rxp. Even if you only do R4 it adds up much faster than what you get from leveling.

 

[Driaza]

To re-iterate what has mostly been said.

Recommend you take 3 of the same kind from each "sphere".

Arcane
Caster - Energy Criticals
Melee /Ranged - Enchant Weapon

Divine
Healer - Power over Life and Death
Others - Ancient Blessings +15 Positive Healing Amp helps everyone
Extreme Tank builds - Block Energy

Martial
Melee - Doublestike
Skill Monkeys - Consider Skill Mastery but Doublestrike might servce rogues better
Tank builds / Others - Fortification

Primal
Ranged - Doubleshot
Casters - Colours of the Queen
2 Hander melee - consider Ancient Power
Tanks / Others - Fast Healing

To be honest from Primal i take Fast Healing over everything else unless i am on a ranged dps

 

[Mand O'Lin]

I did the majority of my racial lives as a rogue/monk stick build. Then I added sacred fist to the blend. You can do traps, have some heals and you will likely outkill everybody else in the party. Frequently by a wide margin. It was not uncommon for me to have well over half the kills of the entire party (especially when I was soloing!). It is quite tough and does crazy damage (best defense and all that). Just get a good staff (or 4).

Class split is not super critical (12/6/2 is what I ran the most).
10 Rogue is nice for improved Evasion (5 minimum for tier 5)
6 Sacred Fist is nice for Soothe the Suffering (4 minimum for tier 4)
2 Monk is all you need (for free feats and Monk Wind Stance)

For Epics:
Primal - Ancient Power (x3)
Martial - Doublestrike (x3)
Divine - Brace (x3)
Arcane - Enchant Weapon (x3)

Iconic:
Aasimar Scourge - Doublestrike (x3)

2-3 Nicked Quarterstaff
4-6 Chieftain's Spear
7-22 Elemental Bloom
23+ Sireth

It is a lot of work getting through the racials, but the enhancement points are REALLY nice!