Whats the currently OP builds?

[Terranigma]

Draconic Mantle scales via the CL of the spell it's applied from (note Ki Bolt is a Force spell), and MP with Monk Ki Bolt (SF doesn't scale the same FYI). That's why there's WM 4+ splits with Mixed Magics or heavy Monk splits, but you don't see /3 Monk everywhere just for it.

Split above would be at CL10-13 vs CL27+, which will not give you the results you're looking for.
Most of my builds started with the premise of /4 WM /3 Monk, costing 7 levels and 28 AP - it's not locked, but it's hard to go differently.

Give it a try, it's a bit harder than it seems at first theorycraft XD

Yeah, I was under the impression that Draconic Incarnation's Mantle was based on Character Level, but you are right. I just tested it out to myself using some very low level spells.

 

[SpartanKiller13]

I like bear myself. It's tanky, has decent enough DPS for questing*, can heal a bit, and has a great dance. What's not to like?

It did take a couple of hours looking at gearing, and then a few weeks of grinding for it, before I was satisfied.


*though its sustained dps in boss fights are not too great for raids.... but hey, I only pug raids, so most are on LH anyway, and it's more than fine for that

Bear's fine for LH and even low skull raiding; and you usually end up fairly tanky so you can off-tank briefly for like picking up some adds.

Being able to throw Heal, Mass Regen, & Reincarnate is pretty great in raids though (for heavy Druid splits)

It just kinda has everything decently, which I think is really good. Not nerf-worthy, but very good.

Yeah, I was under the impression that Draconic Incarnation's Mantle was based on Character Level, but you are right. I just tested it out to myself using some very low level spells.

That does seem reasonable, doesn't it? Would make Ki Bolt OP then if you could just /3 Monk on like a DC Wizard and suddenly have boss DPS. But it's a bit harder than that, so Ki Bolt becomes niche XD

I'm currently trying to build a 17/3 Wiz/Bard w/T5 VKF so I can have reasonable DC's (113 Necro, 109 Enchant currently) and a ton of burst DPS but I'm not happy with it yet. Ki Bolt would be a ton easier if it worked (although likely less DPS b/c of no Melee Power lol).

 

[songswrath]

well they got the “player’s council” to try and understand those synergies.

But I doubt anyone sitting on that council is going to divulge some of the truly OP crap that goes on in the game lest they become ostracized in-game.

The p..c lol. You mean the marry band of yes men.

 

[IanMoon8]

The p..c

We still have a player's council? I thought they gave up on that years ago...

 

[Anuulified]

Current META is playing something you have fun with. If a build sucks, most people would not have fun. So keep switching until you find your groove .

 

[Marshal_Lannes]

And you know it, nerfs always hit the less developed toons/less resourceful players. The top players simply move on to the next meta build.

That's fine. I have no problem with the top 1% of players putting out more DPS. I do have a problem with anyone picking up two Xbows and leading kill counts because Inquisitive is head and shoulders above everything else right now.

They're on par. It wasn't immediately visible because the devs didn't seem to have done a good job with Ninja Spy, but it's been showing. This game relies heavily on synergies that aren't always immediately visible. Don't believe me? Wait until they destroy Inquisitive, and you'll see what happens. As always, the ones who are going to lose are the players with fewer resources.

Mmmm, they aren't on par, and no, I don't believe you. Should Inquisitive actually be properly adjusted, and there is a wave of shuriken throwers, then I'll admit you were right and I was wrong. But I don't see that happening. Shuriken has always been a high skill build, which Inquisitive is not. And therefore, it will remain the small domain of those willing to hit the metrics, skill, and leveling to run it.

I can never understand why some of you guys want someone elses build. Go get off your backside and make your own

Because some people just want to grab a build and play the game. Would you rather they do that or play some broken build performing at 25% because they aren't invested in the ever-changing meta? You must also consider that DDO is constantly changing game mechanics. If you're gone for even 6 months, you can come back and be confused about what is working and what isn't.

 

[LurkingVeteran]

...

IME EK T5 is a lot better DPS (since it scales with MP), although you can probably get a slightly better screenshot with AM T5.

XBow & Shuri both deal more single-target DPS, more easily & safely. Best case benches put it about 2/3 the DPS of Inquis (Stonejaw, Ithilid Commander). Ki Bolt is top DPS for Rudus (by a lot) but otherwise there's a reason it's a niche build.
...

Thanks for the input. This is all theory crafting on my side, but what kind of DPS did you end up with for Inq in these tests? My back on the napkin math indicates that you can get 70-80k+ DPS (before debuffs) with Ki-bolt. That is 100-150k+ with debuffs. More with Arcane Supremacy or Time Stop.

I don't think EK T5 is better because it's just 20 MP and you should have some 200+ already (<10% increase). T5 AM is probably a 20% damage increase even without arcane supremacy, by making it viable to run with max stacks of Master of Knowledge via arcane blast. Been some time since I tested this though.

I still suspect Sorc 17 is easier and about as good for bosses as you also get Awaken Elemental Weakness.

 

[Fisto Mk I]

And you know it, nerfs always hit the less developed toons/less resourceful players.

That's fine.

Check. 8)

 

[SpartanKiller13]

Thanks for the input. This is all theory crafting on my side, but what kind of DPS did you end up with for Inq in these tests? My back on the napkin math indicates that you can get 70-80k+ DPS (before debuffs) with Ki-bolt. That is 100-150k+ with debuffs. More with Arcane Supremacy or Time Stop.

I don't think EK T5 is better because it's just 20 MP and you should have some 200+ already (<10% increase). T5 AM is probably a 20% damage increase even without arcane supremacy, by making it viable to run with max stacks of Master of Knowledge via arcane blast. Been some time since I tested this though.

I still suspect Sorc 17 is easier and about as good for bosses as you also get Awaken Elemental Weakness.

Stonejaw in 10s by Inquis, 15s for Ki Bolt. R1 Giant in 48s on Inquis, 76 for EK Ki Bolt. 2024 benchmarks.

Napkin math is hard unless you managed to figure out the formula for scaling; I haven't despite a lot of testing. I have an estimator that's pretty accurate but couldn't derive a formula that seems correct from it.

With 1100 spellpower and 274 MP at CL28 I'd expect 30.7k; 69% ice crit + 2.83x spell crit average 69.5k.
Henshin + Vuln + Ooze + SD + Ash = 71% debuff = 119k avg/tic
You get 4 tics every idk 6s, so ~80k DPS
Poison might come out a bunch ahead if you can stack Ninja Poison and keep it stripped; we were running ice for 1) pushing THTH, 2) lots of immunity strippers in our group, and 3) Frozen Wanderer.

If you have 80 attacks/minute with a SWF shortsword (swinging 2/3 of the time?) with T5 AM you'll have 17-20 threat range (1/5 swings, probs 1/6 after confirm) = ballpark 1.5 minutes to stack Ninja Poison? It's not bad, but that's a long time esp if the boss has phases.

I haven't run these since last year, so idk current stats you could push.

EK offers 20 SP (C3), 30 SP (Siphon), 30 MP/SP action boost (ideal for Ki Bolt), 30 SP (Knight's Transform), 20 SP (Force Point), 20 MP (Knight's Arcanum), and 5% crit chance (Force Edge) - total 130/50 SP/MP while boosting (and EK has a lot of nice incidental perks like auto-RF, Arcane Tempest for auto-knockdown, etc). Also between imbue and melee stats you end up with passable melee DPS with only a bit of work, which helps a ton for both Ki gen and not standing around AFK for the other 4s between mantle tics. Also went wraps b/c tons of attack speed and less offhand work. Finally it works great with Arcane Warrior which you would like to be using lol.

Archmage is basically 32 SP (1/AP) and Arcane Supremacy (no crit if poison). Maybe worth trying a Master of Knowledge split with it for +90 SP and +60% spell crit damage, but that mostly only works for slog raiding? Might be worth with like ToN lol. Stack MoK & Ninja Poison, after two minutes or so you can get both online and start slapping. Use Time Stop whenever Supremacy procs XD

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Anyway, this is very off-topic XD
I find it hard to list the above build as OP, and after 2 minutes of stacking buffs and debuffing I'm not convinced it's better boss DPS than just rolling Inquis (esp if the boss phases or there's adds lol), and that's in the one niche that this build would be good at. You'd get some great screenshots though! Post them on the ki bolt thread with the rest XD

 

[Tilomere]

I think play what you enjoy, and there is a difficulty for that build!

DPS isn't really a calc, as much as a feeling, as it derives from teamwork, not an individual build.

 

[Kimbere]

The players council is a joke.

Worse, it's basically an echo chamber.

 

[Kimbere]

Surely such things would happen on regular mobs which dont have the buffs to begin with ?

You (and others) vastly underestimate the value that fully stacking every possible debuff on a raid boss adds to the DPS equation. Every ranged's and melee's DPS (and casters if there are any non-cc casters left in high end raids these days?) numbers get huge on fully debuffed mobs. That's part of why SSG makes bosses with massive HP bloat these days.

On the flip side, a lot of people overestimate how strong Quick Cutter is because all they ever see are comments about big, shiny eyecandy numbers like "110k tics!11!!".

It's a DoT. It suffers from the same downside all DoTs do in DDO - i.e. they don't stack so it doesn't scale with multiple players in the group/raid using it, you have to put effort into timing and maintaining the stacks before they expire, etc.

Assuming you had multiple DPS builds in the group/raid, optimally, you'd want 1, maybe 2, people using QC with the rest using Adrenalines or some other form of high DPS burst abilities.

 

[Tilomere]

You (and others) vastly underestimate the value that fully stacking every possible debuff on a raid boss adds to the DPS equation.

++
Time for a debuff stat squish? You know how they are always saying to bring down the cap. Cursed Maelstrom feels lonely.

Hmm, I think everyone get's their own QQ stacks. Otherwise trash in dungeons would evaporate as melee chain it, which ironically would make every melee and tank use it.

 

[Elminster]

You (and others) vastly underestimate the value that fully stacking every possible debuff on a raid boss adds to the DPS equation. Every ranged's and melee's DPS (and casters if there are any non-cc casters left in high end raids these days?) numbers get huge on fully debuffed mobs. That's part of why SSG makes bosses with massive HP bloat these days.

On the flip side of that, a lot of people overestimate how strong Quick Cutter is because all they ever see are comments about big, shiny eyecandy numbers like "110k tics!11!!".

It's a DoT. It suffers from the same downside all DoTs do in DDO - i.e. they don't stack so it doesn't scale with multiple players in the group/raid using it, you have to put effort into timing and maintaining the stacks before they expire, etc.

Assuming you had multiple DPS builds in the group/raid, optimally, you'd want 1, maybe 2, people using QC with the rest using Adrenalines or some other form of high DPS burst abilities.

This is correct.

DoT’s are meaningless after maybe 2 or 3 people all have the same DoT to keep it up continuously.

Same goes for debuffs.

This is all in raids btw.

In quests, it’s almost the opposite. Everyone should have a set with debuffs/DoTs, never know when you’re going to split up or get seperated.

 

[Elminster]

Also, the failing of a lot of raids is the fact that there is ONE boss that everyone beats on in the raid.

The Hydra raid with one boss and several mini-bosses are a good way to remedy this.

 

[Finngon]

The best builds are the Torc and Exploiter builds.

...Oh wait I'm 15 years late to this topic

 

[Pilgrim]

Eldritch Aura (and specifically the aura) is tagged as nearly all types of spells like [Fire], [Cold], [Lightning], [Acid], [Sonic], [Force], [Light], [Poison], [Breath], [Ki], [Runearm], and possibly others. Because it is a Ki Spell, the Henshin Mystic Imbue works with it.

I have not been able to get this to work at all, can you provide details on how you get imbue imbue to trigger from the aura?
I have tried monk, dragon disciple, and SF imbues. All should work with ki spells, none work with eldritch arua that i can see. The light imbue in ES works.

 

[Terranigma]

For getting the Henshin Mystic Elemental Soul imbue to work with Eldritch Aura:

• Active Eldritch Aura and one of the 4 Elemental Soul Imbues
• Go near a foe
• Perform an offensive action such that the Eldritch Aura pulses while the offensive action's animation is playing. Offensive actions include melee attacks, ranged attacks, and spells that are not considered healing/buffing
• Note you get an extra line item of damage as the Henshin Mystic Elemental Soul Imbue got added to the Eldritch Aura

The Imbue only rides on the Eldritch Aura when you are actively offensive (of which holding down the attack button is the easiest way to get this to occur). Eldritch Aura is kinda wierd like that.

The other imbues you mentioned (Dragon Disciple, Sacred Fist) work in different ways. Sacred Fist's modifies a Ki spell such that enemies get a debuff that immediately resolves stating "take extra light damage from the effect you were just hit with", and for whatever reason Eldritch Aura doesn't resolve that effect. Dragon Disciple's Imbue Power In Practice Imbue doesn't do anything special with Ki Spells.

 

[Sylvanush]

I would really love to see 11 inquiz and a raid healer in action. Ok I guess they can also have a tank...

Healer tank?

 

[Marshal_Lannes]

Also, the failing of a lot of raids is the fact that there is ONE boss that everyone beats on in the raid.

The Hydra raid with one boss and several mini-bosses are a good way to remedy this.

The only reason raids ever fail is a lack of DPS. Inserting random damage mechanics (skulls, dots) forces higher HPs (can't DPS when you're dead), and as you state, by inserting red names since red-named DPS is usually where most players struggle.