Help for a totally new player

[48ralenwol]

Hi all.
I discovered only now this great game after 2 decads of d&d at the table and Neverwinter Nights (not Neverwinter!) online shards. Shame on me!

I want to do a paladin tank that can dish out more dps he can. A self solo sustenable force in the easiest contents that can be the main tank in the endgame contents. Can anyone help me to getting started to this? I've seen that the progression to endgame is HUGE and pretty long so i want to avoid to do crap things that can ruin the character at long term.

Starting race? i started a dragonborne paladin (lv 4 actually so i can restart easy) with 16-10-14-8-14-16. I've warhammer as favourite weap (Onatar).
Is better the sword one?. Is this any good? A tank need some more cost? and less... what?
I read somewhere that is better dwarf as race for a tank because of the dwarven axe that with 2 handed fighting can do area damage and help for aggro (is this true?).

As you can see i'm pretty confused about everything Any advice that can give me a good start is well accepted!

Ty in advance!

 

[Requiet]

Hey so Im leader of the Vel Raptors on Cormyr, we have a really active Discord if you ever want to come join us for quicker responses but here's my advice from my experience trying too build a Tank -

Don't build a tank from level one, Build something with DPS and high HP/AC/etc that will allow you too farm and actually play the game, end game tanks need to be super specialized so youre much better respecing once youre at level cap.

Have a great team to play with, playing end game content can be a solo thing, but thats beyond me personally, but playing a proper end game tank means sacrificing something, usually DPS so that you can eat the damage. Spreading yourself too thin will mean youre decent at a bunch of things, but not filling any specific role that a team needs. Great for PUGs but if you want to do regular raids with a group having a highly specialized tank will be much more important.

Hope this helps a little, trying to be more active on the forums, but we have a couple people in the Vel Raptors Discord that are really smart when it comes to builds that could answer a lot better than myself.

 

[Draco]

My advice if you want a tanky paladin first lifer, you'd probably be looking at a vanguard build, something like:
https://forums.ddo.com/index.php?threads/reaper-endgame-paladin-vanguard.3963/
A little outdated and more aimed at endgame, but likely close to what you're looking for. I wouldn't wish leveling a tank on anyone. But a vanguard will be pretty defensive/survivable with good dps.

My suggestion is to play a slightly easier thf paladin to start with, then reincarnate into a vanguard or tank build later, Axel has a great post/guide including a video of a thf paladin build for new players:

https://forums.ddo.com/index.php?threads/paladin-for-new-players-starting-build-and-guide-free-to-play.14646/

Hope you enjoy!

 

[48ralenwol]

First thing first tnx to everyone for response and advices!
I'm so noob that can't neither understand what you say xD What you mean with "first lifer"? You speack about to "reincarnate" too but i've no idea to what this mean
Can i do a character and later rebuild it from level one keeping the race and initial stats? Or i can change them too?

 

[Fenryn]

So one of the standout features of DDO is that when you get to a certain level, your character gets the ability to Reincarnate. The level you need to reach varies based on the type of reincarnation, but it's essentially a way to New Game+ your character!

For now, just focus on learning how the game works and having fun. Don't worry about Reincarnating until you reach at LEAST level 20, and ideally wait until you hit level 30 for the first time.

If you do want to know what goes on with Reincarnation, here is the wiki article: DDO Wiki - Reincarnation

The wiki is an excellent source of information, most all your new player questions can be answered there.

 

[Requiet]

First thing first tnx to everyone for response and advices!
I'm so noob that can't neither understand what you say xD What you mean with "first lifer"? You speack about to "reincarnate" too but i've no idea to what this mean
Can i do a character and later rebuild it from level one keeping the race and initial stats? Or i can change them too?

Sorry its easy to get lost in the sauce when youve been playing for awhile. First lifer and reincarnation are tied together, as Fenryn said focus on learning the game for now and learning end game later, if you want to really be able to solo end game as a tank youll want to learn a lot more about the game and hopefully we can help, if you have any specific questions after reading through the wiki a bit feel free to ask and we'll try to answer

 

[48ralenwol]

Ty ty ty lot
I'd like to give a thumbs up to both of you but can't understand how the hell it can be done xD
I'm using DDO builder to try to build something. You guys know if there's a way to watch the final stats of the character after i've completed all? (example: i've all the 2h fighting feats and enhancement. There's a way to see the total %?)

 

[SpartanKiller13]

Ty ty ty lot
I'd like to give a thumbs up to both of you but can't understand how the hell it can be done xD
I'm using DDO builder to try to build something. You guys know if there's a way to watch the final stats of the character after i've completed all? (example: i've all the 2h fighting feats and enhancement. There's a way to see the total %?)

Stats and Breakdowns window (defaults to right side I believe). You can click on each stat (some are in categories/subcategories like Defensive or Magical) and see the breakdown below, showing flat bonuses, percent bonuses, and non-stacking bonuses.

Make sure to include temporary buffs and spells if you expect to be running them constantly (any prepared buff spells will be factored in your stat lines) as well as use the "Stance" window to turn on stances like Sacred Defender and your Destiny mantle

As far as endgame DPS on a tank, try to load up on Melee Power & Doublestrike and grab Quick Cutter from Fury of the Wild. It'll give you passable melee DPS (and the tree is fine as a secondary tree for tanks, particularly T4 Unquenchable Rage gives you a reasonable self-heal every 30s as well as 15% damage absorb for 6s). You'll be mainly in Unyielding Sentinel (the mantle and tree give a lot of defensive stats, and Renewal is an excellent sustain tool). On a new character I wouldn't put too much effort into DPS though, you'll need to focus most of your effort on survivability (Quick Cutter has a really good Damage over Time effect which does a lot of damage with low investment, so it's great for tanks - and as a DoT it's great for maintaining boss aggro when they phase shift/reset aggro/teleport etc); it's also AoE so you can clear your way through quests slowly.

 

[48ralenwol]

Stats and Breakdowns window (defaults to right side I believe). You can click on each stat (some are in categories/subcategories like Defensive or Magical) and see the breakdown below, showing flat bonuses, percent bonuses, and non-stacking bonuses.

Make sure to include temporary buffs and spells if you expect to be running them constantly (any prepared buff spells will be factored in your stat lines) as well as use the "Stance" window to turn on stances like Sacred Defender and your Destiny mantle

Can't find it... i'm so blind lol



(anyway tnx lot for all )

 

[SpartanKiller13]

Can't find it... i'm so blind lol
(anyway tnx lot for all )

Looks like your Breakdowns are in a tab on the bottom right, sharing a window with Self & Party buffs.

You can drag tabs out of each other (click and drag the tab header) or combine tabs by dropping them in the center of another window; this is both bad and good, like you can adjust layout very easily but sometimes too easily.

It's also possible to close windows, and re-open via I think the View dropdown at the top (I'll check later when I get home).

Personally I group tabs, like Enhancements/Destiny Trees/Reaper Trees are tabs in one window for me.

 

[unbongwah]

I read somewhere that is better dwarf as race for a tank because of the dwarven axe that with 2 handed fighting can do area damage and help for aggro (is this true?).

Hand-and-a-half weapons (dwarven axe, bastard sword) have two big advantages vs other 1H weapons for S&B builds: higher damage modifier and Strikethrough from the THF feats. If you pick a dwarf, they treat dwarven axes as martial weapons and have a racial Enhancement which makes them Favored weapons; that's particularly helpful because of all the bonuses in the Knight of the Chalice (KotC) Enhancement tree and Divine Crusader Epic Destiny.

The usual advice to someone who says they want to play a first-life tank is...don't bother with a first-life tank. You give up a lot of DPS as S&B vs other combat styles for a relatively modest increase in survivability. That said, it's not a hard build to make, even with limited resources on a first lifer; and you can squeeze decent DPS from a S&B paladin.