How does gear progression work named items vs raid items

[therealwayman]

Hello,

Finally did some HTR and starting to do everstar and get gear from that. But I looked at some things and honestly I am a little confused what gear do I go for?
I can do chronocope on 3 different tiers for raids and other raids, is it worth it to do epic, do I wait for legendary, whats the point if a named set is easier to get and have. What legendaries do I want to go for as a main wep, which ones are better, do I just craft stuff on Isles of the Dread and forget about raid gear, is that even how it works? The lack of information and the wiki just listing items is not great. In other games it is so easy to just find an item for your build at the level, and what the next step is. I guess you can just say "a higher level staff is better" well not really in DDO. I have tried to read about the 100 different staffs I can get level 20+ and its like what the heck am I suppose to do. WHICH ONE do you get and in what order. I know the raids are different levels but man come on there has to be an easier chart or something that someone has made to help someone new to the game learn gear progression.

Thanks!

 

[rabidfox]

Raid item doesn't always equal better; it can be better or it could be junk. You have to look at the big picture of how all the gear comes together to tetris in all the stuff you need with a mix of non-raid named items, raid items, and sometimes even a crafted item may wind up being used; all of that to maximize stats on the gear, set bonuses, moon/sun slots, etc.. There's no simple straight forward answer for the most part.

 

[ForeverZero]

There is no set path for gear progression, there are some minor guidelines that can maximize your setup. But its all tetris in the end. Finding whqat works. I assume you're melee. If melee the weapon you typically choose is based off crit profile. On the wiki i usually look at an item type. For example greataxes. And then filter by special chsracteristics. Everything else is basically just a base of that weapon providing no boosts to crit profile, or damage type. Just with named gear effects.

For gear sets, i keep it kind of simple. Level 3 i use some gate keeper things ( not a set, but i run the stuff every life and its good xp thr gear just came with it ).

5 is feywild
10 is ravenloft
15 is sharn

There are some things in between you can do to min msx it, but just these alone is plenty for most content. And easier to manage.

 

[Bjond]

DDO is very unlike other MMOs for gear: no tiers, no progression, zero rhyme or reason for anything. It's a giant mish-mash of individual items that you can grab to get the stats you need.

The general learning curve is

• learn which stats you need
• construct personal "sets" that covers all stats
• learn how to stack stat types (or channels)
• stack it all up for maximum effect (including multiple set-bonuses)

At some point in that list people start to use either an excel sheet or a build tool; I use Maetrim's Builder. Building your gear while standing at the bank is much more frustrating than using a tool.

It's fairly easy to slap things together for leveling. The pressure to fully optimize/maximize doesn't come until cap for raids & high reaper or (perhaps) for building long-term sets that can be used with very slight tweaks over and over and over for TR cycle leveling. It can take a fair bit of effort to "tetris" gear into a set; it makes a HUGE difference, but (imho) it's not worth it unless you can use it for at least a year.

Oh, and to answer the title: raid items are no better or worse than regular items. Raid weapons are almost always better, but item utility depends far more on what YOU need and what the item gives rather than it being from a raid or not. The win for raid items come from lack of farming. If you run raids regularly, you build up a stack of runes and simply buy what you need when you need it without any item farming.

 

[therealwayman]

Thanks everyone! I will take this and work with it. I agree DDO is kind of all over the place with gear. I don't see the real difference in gear besides just going for 1 specific bonus on one set. Weapons are still decently straight forward. It also seems it doesn't really matter what gear I go for as it isn't that important until cap.

 

[dozensnakes]

To add to this

For the most part sufficiently old gear is not worth using due to the frankly rampant power creep. One exception is weapons, which can have effects or expanded crit profiles which make them competitive with other options.

 

[therealwayman]

I found the true response.
1. Feywild set is number 1. Salt marsh is fine as well but Feywild is ran a lot more.
2. Go for some Raven Loft items/get the trinket from "An inventation to Dinner".
3. Master minds of sharn hands down, you will use this up to 30 mixing it with other sets.
4. Once you get the 3 cores above you can focus on running Keep of the Boardlands when going into epics. A lot of good items, farm rare encounters to get the 21 trinket.
5. With MMoS set, and some KotBL items in place you should be able to progress into Everstar.
Optional: I am still doing HTR's and stuff to play other builds and get past lifes, so these next few things are optional but help.
6. Farm Chronoscope, Red Fins, Vault of the Night(if you want I don't run VoN those quest suck). Upgrade the Heroic items to EPIC through EPIC Crafting. If you own saltmarsh it is great to have the epic sets working hybrid and even getting a gem of many facits to get 2 sets!
7. You can farm Gainhold for some great weapons the raid is very popular and everyone runs it. I don't run it TOO often.
(back to if you want a more linear progression)
8. Caught in the web Raid, fantastic items.
After that it is not what I know how to progress. I mostly only know 1-25, as it was very confusing to me that there is zero guides on how to progress, but infact there is a method to go from 1 set to another. Also, no, it isn't a simple as 1 set to another as you have so much from epic crafting and what build you want to focus on. DDO is unique and just... different but that is good. Stick to the steps above and you will round out your character 1-25 very easily as spending the extra time to get these items caused my damage and defense to sky rocket.

 

[Gwydion Telcontar]

Uhhh, Vault of Night quests are awesome. What are you on about?

 

[therealwayman]

Uhhh, Vault of Night quests are awesome. What are you on about?

Highly your opinion, like I said they are horrible, I will run other quest packs. Just heavily dislike them. LoD is way better and a lot more fun.

 

[Gwydion Telcontar]

Highly your opinion, like I said they are horrible, I will run other quest packs. Just heavily dislike them. LoD is way better and a lot more fun.

Now I know you are crazy!

 

[Drachmor]

(if you want I don't run VoN those quest suck).

Blasphemy!

 

[norriskwondo]

There is no set path for gear progression, there are some minor guidelines that can maximize your setup. But its all tetris in the end. Finding whqat works. I assume you're melee. If melee the weapon you typically choose is based off crit profile. On the wiki i usually look at an item type. For example greataxes. And then filter by special chsracteristics. Everything else is basically just a base of that weapon providing no boosts to crit profile, or damage type. Just with named gear effects.

For gear sets, i keep it kind of simple. Level 3 i use some gate keeper things ( not a set, but i run the stuff every life and its good xp thr gear just came with it ).

5 is feywild
10 is ravenloft
15 is sharn

There are some things in between you can do to min msx it, but just these alone is plenty for most content. And easier to manage.

For mediocre 20 gear, you can farm level 3 saltmarsh and upgrade it to 20 also. And again to level 30 if desired, but Isle of dread at 31 is better than saltmarsh