Keeping a character at cap

[Ellsee]

Looking for some advice!

I've been thinking that I should keep one of my characters at cap so I can join in guild events and also farm out legendary gear. Currently I'm on my third life on my main character and had been planning to keep on reincarnating for epic and racial lives. My current second character is a level 4 first lifer that I made because I was curious about the dark ranger class, and I rarely play.

I think I have three options here.

1) Keep on with reincarnating my main character, and take my secondary to cap. Not sure about this as my secondary is a first life 28pt build and I may not enjoy playing what might be a gimpy character in higher content - also I'm not really sold on playing a ranger, so really I might start afresh with a different secondary to keep at cap - although it would again just be a 28 point build.

2) Keep my current main character at cap (when I get there again) and then start my secondary on the reincarnation path. This would probably be the more sensible option as my current character is a 36 point build (so would be more solid in higher content) and I already have started gathering tomes and gear for her.

3) Play both equally but rotate who stays at cap while I TR the other. This would be the slow game - but it may be the best outcome in that both characters would eventually become stronger and more viable at end game.

I'd appreciate hearing your thoughts/suggestions.

 

[Summoner]

I'd go for option 3.

Having one at cap at all times is a good way to join guild raids and high reaper.

Depending on how many reaper points you have i'd aim for getting 2 to 4 reaper points each life while at cap.

And enjoy the journey.

 

[Vish]

most players have an alt or 2 at 32 to do raids and such

being a new player it takes time to level up toons. make sure youre lvl4 dark ranger is what you want.

but always put most your time into your main. personally i just play my main only anymore and just raid when i get to cap. stay for a week or more then tr or rebuild or whatever you want to do next.

it is more difficult getting the gear for the build than it is to build and level a toon. also, most ppl get their RXP at cap.
just realize playing this game and TRs are long term projects that take years, but you can enjoy your build/journey as you go.

 

[Refutor]

keep your secondary character at cap and play them not quite equally, but probably 3/4 primary 1/4 seconday. trade BTA account gear to your primary character for weapon food. farm gear if necessary with secondary character. raid with secondary character. it's a big game there is lots to do and there is (of course) no right answer. this is bascially what i do, i run two characters but one is always at cap

 

[woq]

My suggestion would be to level up your second character as a leveling build but with a plan in mind for staying at cap, while saving all your epic saga rewards and biggest slayer cap counts for after you have epic reincarnated it once.

Example builds that are known to perform even as a 28-32pt build:
18b/1fvs/1warlock barb - i quite enjoyed a frenzied vistani kukri/dagger build on a low lifer, but i've heard others enjoy a falchion 2hander. barb gets you flat hp, durability, dr, str and melee power even with a lack of lives and vistani gets you that doublestrike you're missing from lives
17 fvs 3 fighter/paladin healer (bad for soloing tokens/farming gear, but good for enabling raids and nice for contributing in r10 groups even without being fully put together; this rxp will help any future toon you might want to replace it with, and you'll get reaper boosted items for your main over time)
20 dragon lord
20 paladin

Level up on a nice leveling build in heroics to 20. Then in epic levels we still play on this same nice leveling build, but we prioritize getting flagging quests, doing sagas and prepping those saga rewards and slayers without taking them anticipating a future epic TR (but not heroic - we don't wanna go all the way to 1).

Once at 32 for the first time, we do one epic TR to hit 20, and reroll to the actual build you wanna play at cap that's gonna be staying there. This ETR gets us from 28 to 32 points and lets us play something that would be horrible to level in heroics but manageable at cap, like a healer - or going from a 2h leveling build to a build that uses the best weapon you found on your first time passing through - maybe you found a bludgeoning dino weapon but no slashing, => tr to that and keep that one at cap, etc.

Healer is better for farming runes from raids (imo); swf or twf barb/pala/dlord/... is not bad for getting enough dps for a raid to get going while also being able to solofarm legendary gear, slayer areas and such while performing well on a low life character. Other styles have seen success but I have not personally confirmed their success.

Either way, I'd just set up a "first lifer" or a once epic reincarnated for more build points. A clean good first life build, and invest enough to it to make it not feel bad i.e don't just leve lit to 32; also make sure you work towards a decent sentient weapon and a basic starter set setup before you start passing everything to your main. Those are fairly low hanging fruit that affect the power of your character more than even a number of lives would. There's a soft cap on that but it'll take time to hit it.

Regardless, whatever you end up doing do try to follow the rule of "what is most fun is best for me" rather than "what is most efficient is best for me". Sometimes this game has such big distant goals to gaze at that people miss the fun in front of them.

 

[Shear-buckler]

Focus on your main and forget your alt. You can farm legendary gear and join guild events while at cap on your main farming RXP.

 

[eartheyes]

Keep your eyes on the prize, play your main, get the lives you want on that toon, then when you finish that, leave them at cap and work on an alt.

another option is buy a plus 5 heart, re roll alt as a healer and leave them at cap as a raid healer, you will get plenty of end game action on the alt, and still be able to build your main toon the way you want...

 

[rabidfox]

although it would again just be a 28 point build

I don't know how much content you own, but if you hit 1750 favor you unlock 32 point builds on a server. I'd aim for doing that on your main then you can make a new character on 32 point build for leveling to cap and parking there. There's a lot of builds that will work great as a farming alt/running raids; what to go with will depend on what you find fun playstyle wise and then setting up a build/gearset that works to maximize that potential.

 

[Jellytelly]

You can park a 1st life toon at level 32 for guild raids, farming gear, etc. Check out https://forums.ddo.com/index.php?threads/lava-divers-presents-first-life-raid-push-challenge.10267/ for great first life build ideas .

 

[Ellsee]

I totally forgot that I could make 32 point builds now! Okay so I like the suggestion of starting my second character off again - which will not be a hardship now I know it will be a 32 point build. I also like the suggestion of playing them both but not quite equally, so the emphasis is on the main with a little love towards the secondary. I appreciate the advice to get the secondary appropriately geared too. I'll take a look at some build ideas for a melee character as that is what I'm currently comfortable with. Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts.

 

[saekee]

A fourth option is to have toons parked at different level ranges for grouping with guildies, farming gear at reaper difficulty, running challenges, etc.

 

[RangerOne]

I have them spread out from 6 to cap so there is always someone in a range to help or run. Some classes appeal to me more than others so I have several capped that I don't play often. I use them to farm tokens for reincarnations on my main. Been using a cold druid to pick up guild renown from sagas. About to hit that level 70 airship.

 

[Sarlona Raiding]

I totally forgot that I could make 32 point builds now! Okay so I like the suggestion of starting my second character off again - which will not be a hardship now I know it will be a 32 point build. I also like the suggestion of playing them both but not quite equally, so the emphasis is on the main with a little love towards the secondary. I appreciate the advice to get the secondary appropriately geared too. I'll take a look at some build ideas for a melee character as that is what I'm currently comfortable with. Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts.

A good first life build I stumbled across is a gnome 20 artificer. 17 points in the gnome tree boosts your light repeating crossbow damage and gives you +1 threat range. You can then take reconstructed arms from battle engineer for the 20% hp bonus (as you already have the crossbow bonus from gnome). You are limited to light repeating crossbow, but those 20% hp is really helpful for a first lifer and gnome buffs your light crossbow attack/damage.

17 points in gnome tree, 41 in battle engineer, 12 in harper tree and the rest can be spent based on your priorities. I like vistani for favored enemy and deflect arrows for 6 of those points. You can actually spend less on harper tree if you use insightful damage.

Anyhow I am happy with both the survivaiblity and dps on a first-life character. It's decent for solo leveling and epic solo leveling. It's highly useful for raids with solid dps, buffs to party member weapons, trapping, ranged dps for some quests like lob. And I slot globe of invulnerbility for hunt or be hunted 2nd boss which seems to help.

If you want to stick with your ranger you should have a lesser heart unless you used it. That would get you to 32 point build. The great thing about ranger is when you decided to tr it gives +2 damage to any other ranged build.

Anyhow, I think keeping one character at cap is a good thing. It gives you options if you just want a break from tr and in the middle of one.

 

[Ellsee]

This looks really interesting, thanks! I have harper and vistani unlocked and I bought the artificer class a while ago when it was on sale - so this is very possible. Feeling excited to try out this class sooner than I thought I would!

 

[Contessor]

I'd go for option 3.

Having one at cap at all times is a good way to join guild raids and high reaper.

Depending on how many reaper points you have i'd aim for getting 2 to 4 reaper points each life while at cap.

And enjoy the journey.

Agree. I keep my TRs between my 2 most playable characters. But not just to join raids, etc. You can maximize rXP and do about 1mil + per life very easily by doing first time legendary quests. It takes a lot of the rXP grind out of the equation, which in my opinion is way less fun than levelling. My main even has every past life and still TRs for this reason.