Experiencing Difficulty Bump

[The Narc]

I run first life reaper 2-4 with no hires solo with out loot running, heck sometimes i even run it naked(just weapons and a deathblock belt) for the fun of it!!

When i run with like minded players in groups we utterly destroy the content on reaper 4 on first life toons with no twinked gear.

Look me up on argo when hardcore is not on, i run in mortal voyage permadeath guild, you will find me with “narc” in my name. I am always looking to grow our group of like minded, friendly synergetic play fast and hard type players.

The Narc

 

[Archest]

nothing wrong with banking a few levels at korthos. keeping a level banked gives you the supplies needed for r1 in harbor. doing keep on elite and getting some supplies as well before doing reaper in a group of others doing reaper. making sure to use the most of the buff's your character can use ( will set you at a disadvantage if you dont have reaper points and need the buffs if others are zerging the quest. ( yes it happens on hardcore server too). everyone on HC doesn't have reaper points with the 1st life character they start with. so doing HC on r1 is more team friendly , use a healing hire . stay out of multi reaper groups unless your comfortable in the case of the HC server in live servers hope someone raises you or run reaper with a person you know. less surprises that way. its a matter of slowing down waiting for Trappers and or doing trapping yourself. knowing what happens when you multiclass because of that...Reapers are not undead. they are incorporeal, you need ghost touch or the like to bypass this defense and even hit them I use incorporeal bane items and make sure to have ethereal or ghost touch item or set in your enhancements to prepare for reaper.

 

[DBZ]

Evasion splash is that easy rogue or monk traps are not a problem

 

[Col Kurtz]

I'd also recommend just leveling up with whatever gear you find on lower difficulty rather than trying to farm the best gear and sets on a first life. XP comes pretty quick. First life is more about learning. Get to cap, if you want stay there a bit and group with folks willing to carry you to get you some RXP great, then TR (epic then heroic or racial so 2 PL feats). Do that a couple times. Maybe by third life start trying leveling R1.

this is pretty good advice...you dont need to conquer elite or reaper 1st life... especially w a caster (besides mobs..you'll struggle with the red named bosses 1 shotting you for a while)

if you can stick it out in epic, when you get there ...the epic past lives are faster to farm out and have tremendous power creep in heroic(as you can slot them at lvl 1 after reincarnating) May be a good idea to cycle a few epic TR's before going back to heroic.
One in particular is arcane...even though you're force based> the +9% elemental spell crit chance boost if phenomenal and will help w your dragon breath up in epic(draconic epic destiny)

good luck!

 

[vryxnr]

Another thing that is often overlooked when talking about survivability (we got people talking about the stats, and we got people talking about movement/running/kiting/keeping distance)... is DCs. Crowd Control spells, even as a blaster-caster, are IMO vital. Not just so they don't save for half damage on your damaging attacks, but when you CC enemies (and gather them together for AoE CCs so one cast hits more enemies), you lock them in place, they can't fight back, they can't hit you, and depending on the method (soundburst, mass hold monster) they will take 50%+ more damage from your attacks.

Bumping up your CC DCs even at the cost of some blasting damage - and knowing how to use them efficiently - allows one to bump up the difficulty a few levels (at least, it did for me once I learned this lesson and started investing in CC DCs even on my blasters). Bosses still might require kiting and raw stats, but everything else leading up to them becomes much more manageable.

 

[The Narc]

Another thing that is often overlooked when talking about survivability (we got people talking about the stats, and we got people talking about movement/running/kiting/keeping distance)... is DCs. Crowd Control spells, even as a blaster-caster, are IMO vital. Not just so they don't save for half damage on your damaging attacks, but when you CC enemies (and gather them together for AoE CCs so one cast hits more enemies), you lock them in place, they can't fight back, they can't hit you, and depending on the method (soundburst, mass hold monster) they will take 50%+ more damage from your attacks.

Bumping up your CC DCs even at the cost of some blasting damage - and knowing how to use them efficiently - allows one to bump up the difficulty a few levels (at least, it did for me once I learned this lesson and started investing in CC DCs even on my blasters). Bosses still might require kiting and raw stats, but everything else leading up to them becomes much more manageable.

Yep this is by game design, this is how they sell chest rerolls and can channel everyone into a single minded build direction where they can focus the gear and quest design and profit in the highest reaper settings because even the slowest of incapable players can hit and kill inactive immobile statues. The exact opposite of what is great about active combat in this game, i have said it before i wanted to pay everquest or some other turn based mmo it would not be this one.

 

[festasha]

Thinking smart and learning how to make life easier is another approach. Many players don't use old-school approaches within quests as the game has become zergy when people run in packs, but for solo try some new approaches if the content is becoming challenging.

Opening a door or running around a corner and saying hi while running back out of harm's way is the simplest approach for pulling the caster/'s over and grouping mobs for cc.

The bluff skill can be very useful on a charisma-based character and gives you an opportunity to pull reapers out of packs. If you can find an item with bluff you maybe able to sneak and spam bluff as you are getting closer to a pack and then just backup to deal with the reaper on its own. Bluff can be a worthwhile investment if you have the skill points to spare and you are planning to carry on soloing.

The warlock chain attack is very useful for hitting multiple mobs around corners and on ledges if you are not using it.

Crowd control DC's will be your savior and knowing quests and exactly where mobs are will make things a whole lot easier for you over time.

Apologies if any of the information given is like telling you how to suck eggs.

 

[Archest]

draw the mob into a door way as to limit the ability to surround you.

 

[Col Kurtz]

draw the mob into a door way as to limit the ability to surround you.

& if you move slightly to side of that doorway the casters and archers wont follow you in that room or hall>they will shoot at the wall between you and them

ie...standing right in the doorway still allows the archers and casters to nuke you while the melee enemy engage> you want to avoid that on elite or reaper.

+ a little more advanced > theres circle of death maneuver too (timing the turn/ sidestep simultaneously lets you circle the mob and pick them off while avoiding many enemy hits)

 

[Reifee - Orien]

Some Adventures are much harder then you would expect. knowing them, and selecting the easier ones for your build helps quite a bit. Lives come over time as does gear. Enjoy the ride, stick to difficulties that work for you. For the longest time I would do just hard, then I would just do elite, then R1 etc. once gear/knowledge of quests and past lives happened it got much easier.

 

[Zandafolf]

I'd also recommend just leveling up with whatever gear you find on lower difficulty rather than trying to farm the best gear and sets on a first life. XP comes pretty quick. First life is more about learning. Get to cap, if you want stay there a bit and group with folks willing to carry you to get you some RXP great, then TR (epic then heroic or racial so 2 PL feats). Do that a couple times. Maybe by third life start trying leveling R1.

I ended up doing this and switching to enlightened spirit and now I'm blasting through legendary content and almost to 30. Trying to bang out enough seeds for two hearts and double incarnate back to 20 then back to 1 and do a sorcerer playthrough and try to do reaper as I'm leveling for some points on the way. Even now certain quests just kinda neuter my character in specific being immune or straight up healing from fire damage. Have to turn off my mantle and pact to slowly poke something down is extremely lame

I feel like that little point around 16 when you don't quite have a real setup yet for enhancements or gear was pretty painful compared to what it feels like now with epic destinies. The big power increase, tankiness, access to healing and temp health etc since quests around that point tend to be long, full of traps, and the mobs are particularly annoying

 

[Scrag]

Farm the crap out of dread and fey with rerolls for expediency, on elite. The cost of rerolls are very tiny, 3 shards and 5 shards if i recall.

Fey and dread can get you a full set of 2 x5 bonuses. That junk will last a long time. My first lives when I started playing ran fey/dread all the way to 20. Not all the parts, but on plain elite you can patch in some rloft here, some sharn there, some eyes for the caster sticks, and do just fine.

For sure my first and second lives lived off that junk like candy for a 6 year old.

 

[The Narc]

Farm the crap out of dread and fey with rerolls for expediency, on elite. The cost of rerolls are very tiny, 3 shards and 5 shards if i recall.

Fey and dread can get you a full set of 2 x5 bonuses. That junk will last a long time. My first lives when I started playing ran fey/dread all the way to 20. Not all the parts, but on plain elite you can patch in some rloft here, some sharn there, some eyes for the caster sticks, and do just fine.

For sure my first and second lives lived off that junk like candy for a 6 year old.

No need to spend anything in game, just get your voice, your mantle, a five piece heroic slavers set(including one of the helm and symbol of the slave lords), a ravenloft weapon, a tourney armor and fire greaves boots from sands, that leaves a goggle and gloves and one ring free to craft or wear as rng and wear a deathblock belt of any sort, that easily carries me thru to legendary.

And literally the only things there that are drop related are the helm and symbol from slavers, but technically you can move on with a 3 piece set if you ransack and go back over level to zerg the end chests in part 1 and 3 for those later in your levelling life, once you have those pieces of gear there is nothing left to farm just go life after life bam bam bam!

And in case you havent noticed drop rates of loot have steadily been getting worse, these is by design and another bad decision at the main table of decisions, doesnt effect me i just use most named loot as sentient food at best.

 

[Col Kurtz]

No need to spend anything in game, just get your voice, your mantle, a five piece heroic slavers set(including one of the helm and symbol of the slave lords), a ravenloft weapon, a tourney armor and fire greaves boots from sands, that leaves a goggle and gloves and one ring free to craft or wear as rng and wear a deathblock belt of any sort, that easily carries me thru to legendary.

And literally the only things there that are drop related are the helm and symbol from slavers, but technically you can move on with a 3 piece set if you ransack and go back over level to zerg the end chests in part 1 and 3 for those later in your levelling life, once you have those pieces of gear there is nothing left to farm just go life after life bam bam bam!

And in case you havent noticed drop rates of loot have steadily been getting worse, these is by design and another bad decision at the main table of decisions, doesnt effect me i just use most named loot as sentient food at best.

Narc is right on with the Slavers idea, but that dungeon is a long boring slog to farm. Really should have a trapper too if dabbling into elite. Pt 3 boss fight in not easy solo. I guess you can just hit it overleveled too. I've done fine ripping through heroics without slavers stuff, though it can fill some sorely needed stats more simply and is certainly an option

 

[l_remmie]

As veterans of ghouls and ghosts know, allways carry a throwing knife. Luring enemies is quite useful.

You want mobs to move to you so they can get in each others way and mess up their pathing and shot angles. Also you won't get spotted by nearby groups if you lure them.

In many situations where mobs are posed for the quest, like sleeping, kneeling etc. They do NOT have buddy aggro. You can lure those all 1 by 1. They only activate on proximity.

 

[Br4d]

I ended up doing this and switching to enlightened spirit and now I'm blasting through legendary content and almost to 30. Trying to bang out enough seeds for two hearts and double incarnate back to 20 then back to 1 and do a sorcerer playthrough and try to do reaper as I'm leveling for some points on the way. Even now certain quests just kinda neuter my character in specific being immune or straight up healing from fire damage. Have to turn off my mantle and pact to slowly poke something down is extremely lame

I feel like that little point around 16 when you don't quite have a real setup yet for enhancements or gear was pretty painful compared to what it feels like now with epic destinies. The big power increase, tankiness, access to healing and temp health etc since quests around that point tend to be long, full of traps, and the mobs are particularly annoying

Seeds will not get you a Heroic heart. Farm Tokens of the Twelve from select Eberron content for that. 20 Tokens gets you a heroic heart.

 

[Kryxal]

As veterans of ghouls and ghosts know, allways carry a throwing knife. Luring enemies is quite useful.

You want mobs to move to you so they can get in each others way and mess up their pathing and shot angles. Also you won't get spotted by nearby groups if you lure them.

In many situations where mobs are posed for the quest, like sleeping, kneeling etc. They do NOT have buddy aggro. You can lure those all 1 by 1. They only activate on proximity.

Also, it helps with ranged switches to have a throwing weapon on-hand.

 

[DarthBUNBUN]

I ended up doing this and switching to enlightened spirit and now I'm blasting through legendary content and almost to 30. Trying to bang out enough seeds for two hearts and double incarnate back to 20 then back to 1 and do a sorcerer playthrough and try to do reaper as I'm leveling for some points on the way. Even now certain quests just kinda neuter my character in specific being immune or straight up healing from fire damage. Have to turn off my mantle and pact to slowly poke something down is extremely lame

I feel like that little point around 16 when you don't quite have a real setup yet for enhancements or gear was pretty painful compared to what it feels like now with epic destinies. The big power increase, tankiness, access to healing and temp health etc since quests around that point tend to be long, full of traps, and the mobs are particularly annoying

I missed the chance to let you know that switching over to ES is probably the single easiest move if your having problems with defense, fortunately someone else already pointed it out. Your totally on the right track in that quests get much more difficult around lvl 16, the real break point is the level 18/19 quests. Getting through these can be extremely difficult solo.

On the note of ES WLK, there are few class/builds that glide through the game with minimal investment as a ES WLK. If you were having problems with defense on a WLK, those problems are likely to be much, much worse on a sorc.

If you liked ES WLK, you may enjoy Paladin. Paladin has a nice mixture of offense and defense like ES WLK has and can be rebuilt for more defense or more offense just by changing enhancements. Paladin is a great class for an introduction to melee combat. You probably want to start out with THF so you can deal some aoe damage.

If you want to play something very similar to sorc but that's slightly more forgiving to a lack of knowledge and gear - Stormsinger bard is a great choice. Sorc gets immunity strip at level 20, which means you will be dealing with immunities from lvl 1-19. Sonic damage on the other hand pretty much works on everything to varying degrees, caster bards can also heal themselves quite well. Fascinate is one the easiest CC abilities to get to a working level, and it's quite nice for soloing. Sorc is super popular right now becuase it has a higher ceiling in damage output than most classes, I would not call it a good beginning caster class, although they do have very strong offensive capability.

For the divine classes, they are likely to feel somewhat weak offensively, Druid is probably the exception to this.

 

[dur]

First difficulty bump, after Korthos IMHO, is Waterworks. Second, after learning to target casters, is Swiped Signet, etc. Wiki. Learn monsters. Do N/H/E to learn quest n monsters.

Armed with all that knowledge, carry on as fast as I can to 20 n TR. Rinse n repeat or try another class/combo.

Reminds me of why I came here.. (to post, not to the game.) I hear all this murmuring about a catch-up mechanism.. what is that? Or what would it look like? This game is complicated cause DnD has many rulez.

 

[GrayJedi AntiProPaladin]

yeuuuup first difficulty bump is the quest level + difficulty level that Champions show up. can go in on Normal tho to Not have Champs if those hit too hard

it seems that the Actual Real Catch-Up Mechanism is Learning the Game, and how your characters functions and what gear, skills, enhancements, and also techniques, Group Tactics, etc.etc....and that "Actual Catch-up Mechanism" is Free to all players, just requires time to learn it

watch how the Veterans play on 1st-life HardCore through all the content without any tomes or anything PLs, equipment, etc... Learning the Game is a Major Vital Difference which is above all much more valuable than other possible "catch-up mechanisms"
(just like how chess players who want to play better (AKA "Catch-Up" to) study the Grandmasters, the sports athletes who want to get better have coaches and they watch how other athletes do those sports and break-down how they execute those moves...)

Or alternatively to watching and learning, and Equally Valuable is to join up and learn from a Veteran in real-time in the game as posted several posts back say on Argo, someone Expert can take u under their wing as a mentor-mentee to Learn How to Play it Better/Optimally (Not necessarily "right or wrong" but Optimally)