Gearing and feats for Dragon Disciple end-game, how would you even do this?

ChickenMobile

ChickenMobile

Well-known member
I'm having huge trouble trying to fit in all the stats and feats needed. The idea of DD seems to be a hybrid of melee & elemental casting but trying to balance this is more difficult than I thought. With the extra Dragon Arts feats only giving 1 useful choice (perhaps 2 with Swords to Plow for specific weapons), it feels like I have to focus on either Melee OR Spellcasting or the character will be severely lacking in both.

In order to be a Hybrid like the tree would suggest, they need:
  • Spells: Power, Critical Chance and Critical Damage (potentially for multiple elements because no strip). Crit damage could work with swaps of Dino Bone or Legendary Greensteel
    • Spellcasting Implement bonus (this isn't given to Dragon Disciple anywhere like EK or War Soul, orbs work or a Spellcasting Aug however).
  • Melee Stats: Attack/Damage/Seeker/Armor Piercing/Melee Power/Ki Gen item/+[W] bonuses
  • Ghost Touch/True Seeing
  • Physical Defences - especially PRR, Dodge, Absorptions, bonuses to AC & reflex saves
  • A good physical weapon. Strikethrough would be nice for ki gen.
  • Spell DCs - will probably have to focus on Evocation here - Fire/Lightning or maybe Cold/Fire. Acid damage is nice, but have limited places on gear as it is. Having a Reflex for all breaths means evasion is a huge problem here. There is no easy way to make mobs helpless either (paralyze & afraid doesn't count - helplessness removes evasion/reflex bonuses and therefore helps hitting with Reflex DC spells) - option here could be freezing or goldcurse procs / Burst of Glacial Wrath.
    • Breath DCs only appear on 2 items. Scarlet Scale Cloak & Dragon Eyes - ok choices, but not fantastic
  • Feats:
    • Melee: Improved Critical/Fighting Styles (4). Knight's Training if using Battleaxe or Warhammer (5)
    • Spellcasting: DC Focus / Greater Focus / Empower / Maximize / Quicken (5)
    • Epic: Overwhelming Critical / Epic Spell Power / Improved Martial Arts / Perfect Fighting / Intensify / Burst of Glacial Wrath
The breath attacks are unique in that the Max caster level is 30 so thought could make use of Elemental Augmentation items (Red Dragon Helm, The Cold of Night or Alchemical Crafted weapons etc.) but there isn't any other easy way to raise caster levels other than multiclassing Wild Mage (max +4 with 4 levels, add +2-3 from a Augmentation item for +6-7 caster levels total).
Plus the damage of the biggest breath is only 1d6+6 (at CL 34 = avg 323 dmg) whereas the big sorc spells like Acid Well is 1d6+18 (with CL 32 = avg 688 dmg) AND the cooldown is way too long. At least Shout and Horn of Thunder get double their damage in Fatesinger. I feel the spellcasting side is gonna totally fizzle end-game.

Does anyone else have ideas on this?
 
Vox

Vox

Well-known member
Even if you could fit in all the melee + DC + SP stats, I think you already found one of the big problems - the spell damage is just to low.

Honestly, if you want to play DD at endgame you might have a better time ignoring the spell damage, or hit reset all on your enhancements & pick up a crossbow.
 
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Tilomere

Well-known member
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Blerkington

Well-known member
I've been wondering about this too, especially since you would want multiple sources of the most important effects like spellpower, spell crit chance, seeker, deception, doublestrike, etc. Itemisation in DDO is really poorly set up for hybrid builds that want do well at more than one thing.

My guess is we'll see a couple of items added to the game in the near future as a token effort to support this archetype and then it will be abandoned in favour of the next new thing.

I feel like this idea was doomed from the start, but when I get back to playing at cap it would be nice to see someone making it work well. Just not sure that is going to happen outside of low to mid difficulty content.
 
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Kimbere

Kimbere

Well-known member
ChickenMobile said:
I'm having huge trouble trying to fit in all the stats and feats needed. The idea of DD seems to be a hybrid of melee & elemental casting but trying to balance this is more difficult than I thought. With the extra Dragon Arts feats only giving 1 useful choice (perhaps 2 with Swords to Plow for specific weapons), it feels like I have to focus on either Melee OR Spellcasting or the character will be severely lacking in both.

/snip

Plus the damage of the biggest breath is only 1d6+6 (at CL 34 = avg 323 dmg) whereas the big sorc spells like Acid Well is 1d6+18 (with CL 32 = avg 688 dmg) AND the cooldown is way too long. At least Shout and Horn of Thunder get double their damage in Fatesinger. I feel the spellcasting side is gonna totally fizzle end-game.

Does anyone else have ideas on this?
Click to expand...
Several people, including myself, predicted this in the first Lammania discussion thread. As usual though, the feedback was largely ignored.

Kimbere said:
Also, I'll reserve judgement for when it actually goes live but at a glance, this Dragon Disciple looks like a mediocre caster combined with mediocre melee and topped off with the bitter cherry of requiring Ki to use the SLAs which are the primary trait of the archetype.

/snip

What that means (if I'm not wrong) is that this frakenstein will probably have about 5 levels where it's fun/good (15-20ish). It will struggle on the front end to generate enough Ki to consistently use the SLAs that make it unique and then it will struggle on the back end due to mediocre melee DPS combined with mediocre SLA DPS.

There's a risk here that the best way to run a Dragon Disciple for the PLs is to not run it like a Dragon Disciple and just go with a full melee DPS build instead.
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Nickodeamous

Nickodeamous

Well-known member
Blerkington said:
I've been wondering about this too, especially since you would want multiple sources of the most important effects like spellpower, spell crit chance, seeker, deception, doublestrike, etc. Itemisation in DDO is really poorly set up for hybrid builds that want do well at more than one thing.

My guess is we'll see a couple of items added to the game in the near future as a token effort to support this archetype and then it will be abandoned in favour of the next new thing.

I feel like this idea was doomed from the start, but when I get back to playing at cap it would be nice to see someone making it work well. Just not sure that is going to happen outside of low to mid difficulty content.
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on my 3rd DD life. won't bother taking it into epics. It's like SSG created a jack of all trades/master of none. It does lots of cool things, but it's a trap. It doesn't excel at one particular thing, but it does many things. I think they messed up. This would have been the perfect time to do samurai or something cooler.

Even the PL bonus is meh...i guess the (1) to Maximize is nice...if you have a ton of TRs to do, so this might be good for new players to get before rolling through racials.
 
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Blerkington

Well-known member
Nickodeamous said:
on my 3rd DD life. won't bother taking it into epics. It's like SSG created a jack of all trades/master of none. It does lots of cool things, but it's a trap. It doesn't excel at one particular thing, but it does many things. I think they messed up. This would have been the perfect time to do samurai or something cooler.

Even the PL bonus is meh...i guess the (1) to Maximize is nice...if you have a ton of TRs to do, so this might be good for new players to get before rolling through racials.
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Yeah, I just finished my main's three DD lives, but I did them all as a 10 DD/9 rogue/1 paladin dagger build while also getting bladeforged lives.

The exercise of gearing to support a pure build to be played as intended seemed like far too much effort to be worth doing. I just used my usual rogue gear instead and the only casting I did was a couple of defensive buffs.

It wasn't the most imaginative way to get those past lives but it was quick and painless. The past life seems much more useful for casters than melees, and I've been hearing some grizzling in game from people who usually play casters but don't really want to run melee lives for the PLs, and I feel for them.
 
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Wini

Wini

Well-known member
I tested it on Lammania and my brain exploded only trying to fit the feats, so... yes, this is only a past life or a flavour heroic build. If you were trying another thing, this archetype is just dead on arrival as a lot of people said at the feedback...
 
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Aaumini

Well-known member
Thinking I’ll be runnning the DD past lives as some kind of melee multiclass really. Perhaps 9 dd, 3 rog, 8 kensai iconic q-staff build. Would not use it at cap and iconic just because 15-30 is faster than 1-20
 
Broken Old Monk

Broken Old Monk

Keep All Void and Elemental Finishers Please?
Waterboy-You-Can-Do-It.gif
 
Broken Old Monk

Broken Old Monk

Keep All Void and Elemental Finishers Please?
To me it seems the problem moreso lies in the shared cooldowns and kind of long for as fast a pace combat in DDO is but they had to put some kind of breaks on all yall metas.......

Wish more people used DDO to recreate roleplaying and D&D, quests should take a long time and be enjoyed not run with that Arcade gotta beat it and get the High Score type mentality of Min/Max Meta Gamer, Zerganthius Ruined Our Tumble Upicus with his Acolyte's Poison Breath cause he not allowed to brush his teeth.......
iu
 
Broken Old Monk

Broken Old Monk

Keep All Void and Elemental Finishers Please?
My Feets:

Power attack, 2WF, Maximize, DOdGE, Mobility, Whirlwind, Spring Attack( mostly for double jumps and a free hit on my escape, etc, etc.......

giphy.gif

Oh! Wait....isn't it Wednesday Toe?
 
Mokune

Mokune

Well-known member
Low to mid suits me just fine as "end-game".

Rolling up a Deep Gnome 1Wiz/1Ftr/18DDM

3x SWF w/Orb, Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack, WWA
Quicken, Maximize, Empower, PL: Wiz, IC Blunt

Pick up a Cleave in EK and Haste Boost in Kensai
18 RAP some of the gnomish weapons can centered now if desired and other goodies to support spell casting.

12 pt Shintao for Hands of Healing,
11 pt Feydark for GCS, etc.
4 pt EK for Eldritch Strike and Arcane Siphon
4 pt Kensai for Haste Boost
36 pt DDM all T5s and 5th Core

The remaining 14 probably go deeper into Shintao.

Primal Avatar (Mantle) with some Fury of the Wild (QQ) and Unyielding Sentinel
 
ChickenMobile

ChickenMobile

Well-known member
Tilomere said:
Can you test if the fear lands without DCs?
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I don't think they will. Necromancy or Enchantment DCs, even with as many DC bonuses possible will still only be around 80 DC. They really need that extra Breath Weapon DCs or all caster past lives to even hit a reasonable number.

Vox said:
Even if you could fit in all the melee + DC + SP stats, I think you already found one of the big problems - the spell damage is just to low.
Click to expand...
The only time Dragon Disciple breaths for damage would be competitive is the 20 captsone clicky. But with the long cooldowns of the breath, your preferred element will only get 1 Draconic Devastation cast out. It should've just been double damage all the time in epic levels tbh.

I think the general consensus is not play a DD as it was meant to.
In order to get these past lives I feel like ignoring the DD tree altogether except for the trance and Wis to hit/dmg then going top of Shintao or Ninja Spy is the way to do it.
Having Displacement on a melee character is always nice however.

Broken Old Monk said:
Waterboy-You-Can-Do-It.gif
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I did end up making a joke build multiclass of Druid 3/Wild Mage 4/Dragon Disciple 13 - "Kung Fu Panda" which I'll probably play eventually on R1 diff to get both a DD and Chaosmancer life (once on the store).
If anyone is interested in this, I can share the DDO Builder file through discord or post it on the Builds > Monk subforum.
 
Geezer

Geezer

Well-known member
Playing a hybrid class is never going to satisfy anyone who wants to do high difficulty endgame content so dont bother trying. I think its a fun class to level and I dont care about maxing out the difficulty setting. Just have fun with it and get the past lives and done!
 
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DBZ

Well-known member
Mine didnt last time i tested are you 34 capped

And whats your mcl at that just says caster level 16 if you get it over 30 let us know
 
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