Strimtom's Hardcore Build Guides, Season 8

Aaabbbcccddd · May 17, 2023

Scrag said:
@Strimtom how are you casting spells with the sacred fist? dodging traps? With a 10 wis, you will never be able to cast your spells! or does equipment work for being able to cast?

The bonus does not matter, the only important thing is that you somehow get your casting ability score above 10 + level of the spell, to cast it

Strimtom · May 17, 2023

Scrag said:
@Strimtom how are you casting spells with the sacred fist? dodging traps? With a 10 wis, you will never be able to cast your spells! or does equipment work for being able to cast?

Equipment and ship buffs and potions of owls wisdom take care of this.

ash · May 17, 2023

Great builds, and super nice video. Thank you!

GrumpyOlBear · May 17, 2023

2 Levels of Acolyte of the Skin Wlk on the Stormbringer build makes for a quicker early leveler as well as a little more beefy. Feigned Health is nice early on. Extra 20 hp for me and my freinds at 3/3 as well as the Fiend Patron Eldritch Blasts killing faster than rapier or Sonic Blast while costing 0 sp. Will also be a great filler cast while Main Bard SLAs are on cool down.

DeathTitan · May 19, 2023

Scrag said:
@Strimtom how are you casting spells with the sacred fist? dodging traps? With a 10 wis, you will never be able to cast your spells! or does equipment work for being able to cast?

equipment works to be able to cast

Kiany · May 23, 2023

Strimtom said:
Goooooooooooooooood morning everybody. I'm Strimtom and I am bringing you new builds for the hardcore season. Normally I would be recommending old builds from old hardcore seasons to go along with the current one, but with the old forums down and no date for it's return, I'm going to be reuploading a few of the old ones here as well as the new ones.

Important notes about these builds:

These new builds all use the archetypes added to the game. Many of the archetypes don't have the best place in R10 or reaper raid content, but the are MONSTERS for heroics and low reaper, making them perfect for hardcore.

These builds linked below are ALL free to play! If you happen to have a 32 point build instead of a 28, or have access to universal trees (specifically feydark illusionist) you can probably do some tweaking to improve them once you get started.

In many of these builds I randomly took combat style feats; this is because combat style feats give more HP than toughness, and in a few cases shield mastery is also useful for defense.

The item lists here will work for endgame, but are only relevant if you are going for the reaper points at level cap.

All of last seasons builds still work super well, but they are on the old forums. However, I managed to get them onto a google doc ahead of time, so if you want non-f2p builds that are very strong, check the google doc! Link to S7 Build Guides

The list is as follows:

1. Tiefling Acolyte of the Skin
2. Human Blightcaster
3. Human Dark Apostate
4. Drow Dark Hunter
5. Drow Sacred Fist
6. Tiefling Stormsinger

Strim, I am currently level 8 om hardcore and am loving the blightcaster build. I'm really struggling finding gear to farm for this level range though and what works with the build. I ran 2 rotations of Fey and barely got anything useful. Any tips on what gear to use up until level 20 for a blightcaster? I don't mind farming, but I don't know what I'm farming for lol

DeathTitan · May 23, 2023

Kiany said:
Strim, I am currently level 8 om hardcore and am loving the blightcaster build. I'm really struggling finding gear to farm for this level range though and what works with the build. I ran 2 rotations of Fey and barely got anything useful. Any tips on what gear to use up until level 20 for a blightcaster? I don't mind farming, but I don't know what I'm farming for lol

it's a work in progress for a cold druid and it's very very easy to acquire, you can adapt it for a blightcaster:

Equipment:
- Armor: vitality

- Belt ml 1: rugged belt with false life +5 (the storehouse’s secret quest end reward)
- Belt: false life
- Belt ml 15: guardian’s girdle with false life +40 (a lesson in deception quest end reward)
- Belt ml 26: guardian’s girdle with false life +50 (a lesson in deception quest end reward)

- Boots ML 1: anger’s step with jump +3, expeditious retreat clickies x2 (sacrifices quest end reward)
- Boots ML 7: boots of the mire with balance +10, underwater action, marshwalker set that gives +30% striding and +15 competence bonus to jump (fathom the depths quest end reward)

- Bracers: of constitution
- Bracers ml 7: bracers of the claw with constitution +5, fortification +70% (into the deep end reward)
- Bracers ml 15: of constitution
- Bracers ml 20: of spellsight

- Cloak: willful (wisdom + will saves) or prudent (wisdom)

- Gloves ml 7: combustive (fire spell power)
- Gloves ml 15: glaciated (cold spell power)
- Gloves ml 20: invigorating (wizardry) of potency (universal spell power)

- Goggles ml 1: archivist’s goggles with power I, concentration +3, archivist set that gives power II (sacrifices quest end reward)
- Goggles ml 5: necromantic goggles of evocation

- Helm ml 5: of spell focus (spell focus mastery)

- Necklace: archivist’s necklace with 2 charges of mnemonic aid devoted necklace with wisdom +1, resistance +1, archivist set that gives power II (the salvation of korthos chain end reward)
- Necklace: necromantic necklace of physical and magical sheltering

- Ring left: of feather falling
- Ring left ml 7: ring of the mire with spearblock III, feather falling, fortitude save +5, marshwalker set that gives +30% striding and +15 competence bonus to jump (into the deep quest end reward)

- Ring right: dire impulsive (kinetic lore)
- Ring right ml 20: hardy (constitution)

- Trinket ml 5: bottle of shadows with profane well rounded +1
- Trinket ml 20: epic voice of the master

- Weapon primary ml 2: sceptre of impulse with impulse +43, kinetic lore +6% (borderlands)
- Weapon primaray: impulsive
- Weapon primary ml 20: epic sceptre of impulse with ice lore +16%, impulse +111, insightful glaciation +55 (red slot: ruby of devotion +97 got with gianthold relics, and ruby of impulse +139 got from ddo store)

- Weapon primary ml 2: sceptre of devotion with devotion +43, healing lore +6% (borderlands)
- Weapon primary ml 5: the queen’s sceptre with potency +33, insightful potency +16, spellsight +7, insightful spellsight +3 (turn in 20 ferrocrystal obtained by farming the djinni rare outside the castle, the optional chest in make believe, 10 from chain end reward)
- Weapon primary ml 10: barovian’s sceptre with potency +46, insightful potency +23, spellsight +12, insightful spellsight +6
- Weapon secondary ml 20: epic sceptre of glaciation with ice lore +16%, glaciation +111, insightful glaciation +55 (red slot: ruby of glaciation +139 got from ddo store)

Strimtom · May 24, 2023

Kiany said:
Strim, I am currently level 8 om hardcore and am loving the blightcaster build. I'm really struggling finding gear to farm for this level range though and what works with the build. I ran 2 rotations of Fey and barely got anything useful. Any tips on what gear to use up until level 20 for a blightcaster? I don't mind farming, but I don't know what I'm farming for lol

I didn't really use items, since maximize and empower and quicken give you spell damage and most of the thorn spells dont have saves so you don't need DCs or wisdom. Really anything you find that makes you tankier should work, I really only got a spellpower item at 10 from the barovian scepter in ravenloft, everything else was just what I could find while levelling.

C-Dog · May 24, 2023

Scrag said:
@Strimtom how are you casting spells with the sacred fist? dodging traps? With a 10 wis, you will never be able to cast your spells! or does equipment work for being able to cast?

EVERYTHING works for being able to cast. Enhancements, gear, spells/potions/wands (Owl's Wisdom/etc), in-party buffs and boosts, Guild buffs - if you can get your casting Ability to the required value, by any means, you can cast.

Swap gear is a pain (and doubly so for combat casting), but quite a common solution.

DeathTitan · Jun 2, 2023

not bad, thanks for sharing your build

Ying · Jun 4, 2023

Blightcaster: Currently at level 24. At first level I went with Mark of Passage which is great quality of life with Expeditious Retreat. I eventually went 7 AP into human for Dimension Door. Totally worth ditching 1 Conjuration DC for it since you're already 5 AP into the tree. Also, not sure why medium armor is recommended in epics/level cap rather than light armor to maintain Improved Evasion in hive form. Legendary Leaf Mail at level cap works just fine to maintain the Autumn set bonus.

I wore 7pc Feywild and 5pc Dread all the way to Epic Borderlands. Even after BL gearing, I'm still wearing 4pc Feywild because there's no Sharn gearing option. Hopefully that gets remedied with the forthcoming mini-xpac.

I also leveled a Blightcaster to 17 with zero named gear on a different account. It did fine solo until I died in Best Laid Plans elite. It's an excellent choice for any hardcore season.

Dark Hunter: Made it to level 22 and died to Velah's breath in VON 6. I don't understand why Quicken Spell is taken, since admixtures are not affected. I swapped it out for Empower Heal. It was a fantastic trapper and would do again, though the auto-finding traps via the pet is buggy like every other feat/class ability that does the same. Zero concern with trap damage once I got the DH 3rd core ability.

Dark Hunter Sharn+ gearing:

Prior to Sharn, 5pc Dread and 7pc Feywild is optimal though I didn't farm that out this season. Aside from a Keylock Ring and Barovian Scimitars, I just used AH random generated gear and it worked out fine.

Endarire · Jun 18, 2023

What's the best 32 point buy Bladeforged Paladin (likely 2H) build for Hardcore? Bladeforged Sacred Fist is also an option.

The point of this request is to go melee but have Bladeforged immunities and reconstruct.

What about multiclassing it with Favored Soul or Warlock for CHA synergy?

Thankee!

Bossman · Jul 7, 2023

Strimtom said:
Goooooooooooooooood morning everybody. I'm Strimtom and I am bringing you new builds for the hardcore season. Normally I would be recommending old builds from old hardcore seasons to go along with the current one, but with the old forums down and no date for it's return, I'm going to be reuploading a few of the old ones here as well as the new ones.

Important notes about these builds:

These new builds all use the archetypes added to the game. Many of the archetypes don't have the best place in R10 or reaper raid content, but the are MONSTERS for heroics and low reaper, making them perfect for hardcore.

These builds linked below are ALL free to play! If you happen to have a 32 point build instead of a 28, or have access to universal trees (specifically feydark illusionist) you can probably do some tweaking to improve them once you get started.

In many of these builds I randomly took combat style feats; this is because combat style feats give more HP than toughness, and in a few cases shield mastery is also useful for defense.

The item lists here will work for endgame, but are only relevant if you are going for the reaper points at level cap.

All of last seasons builds still work super well, but they are on the old forums. However, I managed to get them onto a google doc ahead of time, so if you want non-f2p builds that are very strong, check the google doc! Link to S7 Build Guides

The list is as follows:

1. Tiefling Acolyte of the Skin
2. Human Blightcaster
3. Human Dark Apostate
4. Drow Dark Hunter
5. Drow Sacred Fist
6. Tiefling Stormsinger

For Blightcaster, do you recommend respec all blightcaster tree and spells at 20?

GrayJedi AntiProPaladin · Jul 7, 2023

> For Blightcaster, do you recommend respec all blightcaster tree and spells at 20?

I think he talked about this at around ~12min45sec mark

huntdawumpus · Aug 16, 2023

@Strimtom Thank you for these builds. I especially enjoyed Blight Caster and was able to reach all of my goals.
Well done!

Strimtom's Hardcore Build Guides, Season 8

Aaabbbcccddd

Well-known member

Strimtom

Well-known member

ash

New member

GrumpyOlBear

New member

DeathTitan

Well-known member

Kiany

Active member

DeathTitan

Well-known member

Strimtom

Well-known member

C-Dog

Well-known member

DeathTitan

Well-known member

Ying

5000+ hours played

Endarire

Member

Bossman

Member

GrayJedi AntiProPaladin

Well-known member

huntdawumpus

New member