Fast 1-20 builds

[Bardy]

Hi,
I've decided to run a toon on each new server, mostly for the favor rewards but also to get a feel for each server. I'm looking for suggestions on builds to get me to 20 quickly/easily. The toons all predate reaper (0 rxp), will have a little bit of gear, and maybe a few +2 or +3 tomes, but nothing special. I'm not sure if I'll keep going past 20, or stop there and plan to TR and transfer over to whichever server becomes my favorite. Probably depends how fun the build ends up being.

I will probably run solo with a bard bot, so builds reliant on sneak attack dice are less interesting. My general preference for leveling has been to run a nuker.

My main has run a couple of blightcaster lives, which have been fast and painless and I'm hoping to try other things on these servers. I will probably reroll my main and do 1 more blightcaster life with my main on a new server.

I already made a 2hf paladin on Moonsea, which has been somewhat slow, but she's hard to kill. I'm hoping for higher DPS.

So that leaves 2 servers to try new things...

Builds I'm curious about:
- wild mage (I bought that chaosmancer bundle and think I unlocked an archetype?)
- stormsinger, maybe with 2 rogue splash so I can trap
- cleric (fire domain for leveling?? Open to suggestions)
- dragon lord, though maybe too repetitive with already running a paladin. I'm not loving melee
- inquisitive of some sort. I ran one on a hc season and didn't love it, but also wasn't optimized.
- anything else that folks consider super fun and fast.

 

[Abiding Dude]

i'm recently back and have been looking for a good PL/TR build reposiotry and also struggling to find it. I just did a 4 Rogue/16 Monk stick life that was the easiest/fastest I've ever done. I really enjoyed it. Took WW to pair with thief acrobat AoE Trip, cauldron for boss fights, THF feats, and used an elemental bloom I looted at level when doing TOEE (some people have trouble pulling this from earth node I think but I didnt). 4 rogue gets you free swords to plowshares and uncanny dodge, rest in Monk for all of the good stuff Monk gives. there's some overlap between TA and Henshin now, but TA still offers enough unqiue stuff that I went with the splash. I'm sure pure monk or rogue is almost as good

 

[Seppi Pearlsmith]

Catman monk.

 

[Sturmbb]

Hi,
I've decided to run a toon on each new server, mostly for the favor rewards but also to get a feel for each server. I'm looking for suggestions on builds to get me to 20 quickly/easily. The toons all predate reaper (0 rxp), will have a little bit of gear, and maybe a few +2 or +3 tomes, but nothing special. I'm not sure if I'll keep going past 20, or stop there and plan to TR and transfer over to whichever server becomes my favorite. Probably depends how fun the build ends up being.

I will probably run solo with a bard bot, so builds reliant on sneak attack dice are less interesting. My general preference for leveling has been to run a nuker.

My main has run a couple of blightcaster lives, which have been fast and painless and I'm hoping to try other things on these servers. I will probably reroll my main and do 1 more blightcaster life with my main on a new server.

I already made a 2hf paladin on Moonsea, which has been somewhat slow, but she's hard to kill. I'm hoping for higher DPS.

So that leaves 2 servers to try new things...

Builds I'm curious about:
- wild mage (I bought that chaosmancer bundle and think I unlocked an archetype?)
- stormsinger, maybe with 2 rogue splash so I can trap
- cleric (fire domain for leveling?? Open to suggestions)
- dragon lord, though maybe too repetitive with already running a paladin. I'm not loving melee
- inquisitive of some sort. I ran one on a hc season and didn't love it, but also wasn't optimized.
- anything else that folks consider super fun and fast.

Im making a post, as id be interested in this too.

 

[ozmarddo]

1st level Rogue, 2 levels of Barbarian (for the Blood Tribute) and the rest in Warlock. you can't lose. Can get traps, and easy-kill everything with eldritch blasts. Its the easiest build for surviving and soloing.

-Ozmar the Hard Core

 

[Jasparius]

Stick Monk. Having Elemental Bloom makes it insane, but it is brilliant anyway. And the Monk speed is great. Anything which boosts running speed is great. So Rogue (also stick) and Barb (THF) give this as well. I was going to say Swash, but youre unlikely to have VKF on a 1st life. Hand axe is great but takes a while to get good.

1st life needs hardly any XP. Can just solo run Elite or join groups doing R1. I have horrible builds with terrible gear which can solo Elite. So really, focus on running speed.

 

[Bardy]

Fascinating seeing all the votes for stick monk. I had no idea some variant of this was viable. I've tried twice to give monk a go, but didn't like it. Both attempts were fist monks, so maybe this would be different enough to enjoy.

@ozmarddo I was wondering about a warlock build also. Thanks for the idea.

@Jasparius These are actually really old toons I used to play before switching servers. I'd estimate they're covered in at least 10 years of disuse dust. Both will be 3rd life toons, but you're correct they probably lack VKF (though... maybe I had ravenloft back then...)

 

[Shear-buckler]

Untwinked stick monk is not going to be better than THF paladin.

 

[The Narc2]

Pure barbarian or pure dark apostate, easy to smash favor out on these, especially if you can use ship buffs and hirelings.

 

[Jasparius]

Untwinked stick monk is not going to be better than THF paladin.

1% speed increase per level is a huge thing.

 

[Shear-buckler]

1% speed increase per level is a huge thing.

Sure, monks are really fast and are fantastic for characters with good gear and past lives. But if a THF paladin is too low DPS they are going to be disappointed by stick monk.

 

[Jhml]

Pure sorc is fast and fun. Maybe a hireling for heals. Halfling can take the racial tree for heals and skip the hireling if running under reaper.

 

[Jasparius]

Sure, monks are really fast and are fantastic for characters with good gear and past lives. But if a THF paladin is too low DPS they are going to be disappointed by stick monk.

I have a 1st life fighter paladin monk using dual battle axes and it solos elite just fine with gear I got from quests and the AH.

Id be looking at the paladin as the issue.

For fun I tried the tabaxi trailblazer with a fresh toon and it obliterated mobs.

 

[Shear-buckler]

I have a 1st life fighter paladin monk using dual battle axes and it solos elite just fine with gear I got from quests and the AH.

Id be looking at the paladin as the issue.

For fun I tried the tabaxi trailblazer with a fresh toon and it obliterated mobs.

Im sure you do. I am not saying THF paladin is bad. In fact I just leveled a THF first life paladin with gear only from quests and it was great. But if one consideres that "low DPS" a stick monk will most likely be even worse.

 

[Jasparius]

Im sure you do. I am not saying THF paladin is bad. In fact I just leveled a THF first life paladin with gear only from quests and it was great. But if one consideres that "low DPS" a stick monk will most likely be even worse.

Okay I get your point. I wouldnt say it is low DPS. But if you were to consider DPS as a whole of dungeon rather than just a per combat then it would be - simply because it moves so much slower than other builds.

Cheers.

 

[Shear-buckler]

Okay I get your point. I wouldnt say it is low DPS. But if you were to consider DPS as a whole of dungeon rather than just a per combat then it would be - simply because it moves so much slower than other builds.

Cheers.

I am just going by this quote from the OP:

I already made a 2hf paladin on Moonsea, which has been somewhat slow, but she's hard to kill. I'm hoping for higher DPS.

Otherwise I would recommend pure barb. It is easy mode.

 

[Dendrix Deathblade]

Alchemist is pretty good, use the Apothecary tree. The negative energy attacks from that are awesome against everything except undead - avoid undead heavy quests.
At 12 switch to the Bombadier tree. Pick the one element you have best equipped stuff to boost for (or plan to get) and take the immunity stripper. Re-buy stuff from Apothecary as enhancement points permit as the 2 negative AoE's are still damn handy, SP efficient killers

Dhampire/Alchemist + the 2 negative energy Apothecary AOE attacks is AWSESOME. Damage the monsters while healing yourself? yes please.

 

[Bardy]

Id be looking at the paladin as the issue.

For fun I tried the tabaxi trailblazer with a fresh toon and it obliterated mobs.

It's probably my expectations. As a geared up multi life blightcaster I can basically look at the mobs and they all just die. With the pally it takes at least a few swings per mob and can't kill huge groups nearly as fast.

My paladin doesn't have much gear, but is sporting an SoS at level 11 right now and otherwise is dependent on what I loot. *Edit to add:* I'm also running R1 despite having basically no rxp (started with 0 and now I think I have earned 3 reaper points as I go), so some of the slowness is self-inflicted.

I think you're right about move speed as part of the problem. Even though blightcaster is slow too, I have a quiver of alacrity on him.

 

[Abiding Dude]

something i find lacking with a lot of leveling builds is consideration of PROGRESSION. Building a build that levels smoothly/front loads a lot of power through low tier enhancements and low req feats is completely different than making a build that trucks at lvl 18 but is patchwork and crappy up until then (extreme example: shuri build).

I really like 4 Rogue/16 Monk stick for this on anything but a Tabaxi Trailblazer (because Tabaxi gets some of the rogue TA stuff in racials and so you could probablty just drop the rogue). I needed some Eladrin lives for example, and this build worked great.

The idea is going 4 rogue to start which gives you by level 4:
Swords to plowshares free feat
15% attack speed
25% Morale DS active attack
Aoe Trip
haste Boost
THF
Some SA Dice
Uncanny dodge for red named/reapers

By level 5-6 you start putting points in Henshin for as you level up Monk:
Unbalancing Strike for SA damage on red named/reapers
Qstaff damage
and eventually Wisdom trance
and Cauldron for reapers and red named as needed
Whirlwind Attack
Power Attack

Depending on how you want to play and it you would generally go T5 Henshin. If you have racial AP take goodies in Eldarin (or whatever racial you're doing). Each level after this you get more incremental power, but you're VERY frontloaded in the first 4-6 levels which I find makes it really nice to play. I would definietly take the time to farm the dragon cehst in Earth node for an elemental bloom if you plan to do a few stick lives, it's a great piece of gear.

This build ends up having A LOT of AOE damage (whirlwind, AOE Trip, + Strikethrough from THF feats, plus more avilable if you want), attack and moving very quickly, and very dodge tanky with uncanny dodge, monk water stance, cauldron, etc.

I was shocked how strong this build was to level through reapers the last life I did. Would defeintely do something similar again in the future.

All of that being said this is a basically a race to lvl 20 and TR build, I have no idea how it would perform in Epics/Legendary content and dont recommend that

if you dont have any tomes, you will need to juice your Strength of course to qualify for higher tiers of THF

 

[Sturmbb]

Pure barbarian or pure dark apostate, easy to smash favor out on these, especially if you can use ship buffs and hirelings.

Were does Pure Dark apostate get their extra run speed, is it one of the enhancement trees. I know Barbarian get the run speed automatically, but i couldnt seem to find it on the Pure Dark Apostate.

I must admit, when i did play as the pure dark apostate, i wasnt very impressed. i think the tree tries to do too much and ends up being sub par at everything.