When does Reaper become important (and other questions)?

[Oliphant]

The whole message of "more about player than da toon" is taking their ego yardstick to the next level, but the people doing it think it's a humble and important message.

 

[rabidfox]

The whole message of "more about player than da toon" is taking their ego yardstick to the next level, but the people doing it think it's a humble and important message.

It is an important message. Learn the games mechanics and things become way easier (which can be hard as the game has an insane learning curve). Most people learn them over months/years of playing and TRing over and over. I got smacked by reapers like gnat when I came back to the game a few years ago. I build badly, made poor gear choices, didn't CC or focus fire the mobs I should. If tell new players that they need all the past lives to function, I'm doing them a disservice because they don't. If I tell them to flowersniff any quest they've never done before, explorer and learn quest layouts, learn their classes mechanics and what gear works with them then they'll be able to rock those builds.

 

[saekee]

I don't have Saltmarsh or Feywild yet, but the wiki said there's a trinket in Housekeeping - Book of Spirits - which has ethereal on it that I could try for. I may look into investing in some of these expansion packs. I haven't so far as I wanted to see what the game was like - money is tight right now and I need to be able to justify the purchase in my head. I'm currently saving up the points I get from favor to unlock the shared bank.

Ohh that is a tough one to pull. You would be better off with one of the trinkets from Home of Memory—bring Bull and Bear potions to skip the Altars and head straight through, very fast! Not ethereal but great in low levels.

Do you have Keep on the Borderlands? Just make an ethereal weapon from there for now. There are other weapons too with Ghost touch or Ghost bane. Some enhancement trees offer it to on weapons like Eldritch knight.

I have opened a can of worms here.

If you really want to farm something, the most direct is the Cloak from Tempest Spine—you don’t need to do the whole raid—just run to the place where the guy spawns, beat him up and loot his chest. There is a video on this somewhere if you are interested.

 

[Br4d]

It's the person behind the keyboard that's the biggest difference. Game knowledge is huge; new players don't know what mobs to focus fire on, what CC works with their build, etc. Knowing how to build and what gear choices to make is massive. I've been actively out zerging and out killing people with my no-tomes 1st lifer in meh gear the past few days (I was going to say no reaper points, but I've gotten a few so far while leveling). One needs the stats/setup to function in the difficulty chosen, but that's about all. And there's other players I know that'll put me to shame with what they can do; always a bigger fish out there that can do more with less.

It's easy to say this.

Try playing a 1st life fighter with no tomes in R1.

 

[rabidfox]

It's easy to say this.

Try playing a 1st life fighter with no tomes in R1.

The answer I gave doesn't change because of that. Knowing what builds perform well with limited resources (tomes, gear, etc.) matters. Not all builds perform the same, that loops entirely back to the person behind the keyboard being a huge factor for making choices on what to play for the difficulties they're running.

 

[Br4d]

The answer I gave doesn't change because of that. Knowing what builds perform well with limited resources (tomes, gear, etc.) matters. Not all builds perform the same, that loops entirely back to the person behind the keyboard being a huge factor for making choices on what to play for the difficulties they're running.

This is true, however R1 is like a playground for casters and a tough grind for melees.

The lost souls should be heals for characters that have no mana points to refill.

 

[Br4d]

Seriously, the lost souls just make no sense. Well-built casters don't run out of spell points even early on and why exactly do we want to promote the glass cannon builds in reaper?

 

[rabidfox]

Seriously, the lost souls just make no sense. Well-built casters don't run out of spell points even early on and why exactly do we want to promote the glass cannon builds in reaper?

Casters still run out mana. You might not, but I've met plenty who do (depending on what I'm on, I do too). If you never run out of mana, then congrats, you've won the perk of skipping shrines.

 

[Br4d]

Casters still run out mana. You might not, but I've met plenty who do (depending on what I'm on, I do too). If you never run out of mana, then congrats, you've won the perk of skipping shrines.

My pure melees use almost every shrine they see due to hirelings running out of mana.

My casters and hybrid melees/casters never use shrines or hirelings.

 

[Jasparius]

Its never important and always optional and based on what level of difficulty you want.

 

[Guntango]

Reported.

 

[PraetorPlato]

It's easy to say this.

Try playing a 1st life fighter with no tomes in R1.

Currently playing a first life Paladin with no tomes in a mix of r1 solo leveling and r1 group leveling. I’m at 14 and have died ywice (while grouping, funnily enough): once bc I got impatient and forgot my shield clickie, and got a face ful of magic missiles from a champ, and once bc I forgot I was on a first lifer and aggro’d the entire top floor of wizard of wines. Feels pretty good other than that so far, tbh-everything just dies.

 

[Oolou]

Ohh that is a tough one to pull. You would be better off with one of the trinkets from Home of Memory—bring Bull and Bear potions to skip the Altars and head straight through, very fast! Not ethereal but great in low levels.

Do you have Keep on the Borderlands? Just make an ethereal weapon from there for now. There are other weapons too with Ghost touch or Ghost bane. Some enhancement trees offer it to on weapons like Eldritch knight.

I have opened a can of worms here.

If you really want to farm something, the most direct is the Cloak from Tempest Spine—you don’t need to do the whole raid—just run to the place where the guy spawns, beat him up and loot his chest. There is a video on this somewhere if you are interested.

Thanks for the additional suggestions. I do have Keep on the Borderlands as when I joined earlier this year there was that amazing coupon to get a load of adventure packs, so I'll check it out the weapons. I ran the quests but never bothered with crafting a weapon. Silly me! I'm not too worried about it all though as I really am thinking I'll wait until my 3rd life. Still learning quests and am finding hard difficulty is enough for me.

Have found the discussion on how to approach reaper funny (and instructive) as I was that new player who was a first life fighter with no tomes. Now, of course, I'm a second life fighter with no tomes, but with a bit more knowledge about some of the quests

 

[vryxnr]

A part of "player knowledge" is how to build well. But a lot of people seem to be disregarding knowledge. Being successful is more than just standing toe-to-toe where my big numbers outscale their big numbers. DDO is, contrary to some claims, more complex and nuanced than that. Yes, that is one way to go about it, but with good knowledge (of not just builds, but the quests, enemy stats, enemy behavior, layout, etc) one can take a "less than super optimized" character and succeed. It's not easy, but it is doable.

And yes, I find player knowledge much more valuable than "just" the build. I've seen new people follow a build exactly and still suck, and I've seen plenty of very knowledgeable vets start a new character with no twink gear (mostly on the hardcore servers, but sometimes on softcore as well) and perform amazingly well.

ALL of it matters, but I would also put my voice into the pile saying "personal player knowledge" is weighed higher on the importance scale.

 

[rabidfox]

Have found the discussion on how to approach reaper funny (and instructive) as I was that new player who was a first life fighter with no tomes. Now, of course, I'm a second life fighter with no tomes, but with a bit more knowledge about some of the quests

If you hit 1750 favor each life, that's a +2 stat tome each TR and that adds up a bunch (by life 6 you can have +2 to all stats that way). (5k favor is a +5 tome, 7.5k is +8 but both those are harder to do and I wouldn't recommend it as a constant grind). Epic sagas also offer +3 skill tomes and those are nice to grab; I'll take any as my rewards for ones I don't have on a character yet and XP if there's no unknown tomes offered.

 

[Oolou]

If you hit 1750 favor each life, that's a +2 stat tome each TR and that adds up a bunch (by life 6 you can have +2 to all stats that way). (5k favor is a +5 tome, 7.5k is +8 but both those are harder to do and I wouldn't recommend it as a constant grind). Epic sagas also offer +3 skill tomes and those are nice to grab; I'll take any as my rewards for ones I don't have on a character yet and XP if there's no unknown tomes offered.

Thanks for this info. I found out about the sagas by doing them in my first life but did not know about the 1750 favor reward as I only got up to about 1600 favor. Nuts! I'll be sure to get that favor each time from now on.

 

[Lazuli]

My pure melees use almost every shrine they see due to hirelings running out of mana.

My casters and hybrid melees/casters never use shrines or hirelings.

Correction, from your words it is the hires that use the shrines, not your melees (and at epic levels you should have self healing options and not need shrines if you have built well). You don't need to stop to rest with the hire, put the hire to rest and continue with your melee.

Although nowadays the meeles do not have much dependence on hires either, even in heroics. Fighters have second wind, barbarians heal too just fine... crying as if the melees haven't received great help in this department is biased.

 

[paddymaxson]

I'm still trying to understand reaper, so bear with me please. I've just started my second life (yay!) and didn't try reaper difficulty in my first life. What I've noticed from the LFM board, is that R1 difficulty is generally typical. I'm getting the impression that reaper is more important at end game. I'm thinking it was probably introduced to challenge the players who were DDO experts with amazing builds.

Should I bother with trying reaper in my second life?
Or should I wait until I have more lives under my belt?
Is it possible to enjoy the game without ever doing reaper?
Do you find it fun?

As others have said, play on the difficulty you find endjoyable, BUT most people play R1 when levelling as it's the most efficient XP. There is more XP in doing Reaper 1 slightly slower than Elite (if R1 is even slower for them, for many builds it isn't)

Should I bother with trying reaper in my second life?
Yes if you're finding Elite trivial. A strong 1st life build does not struggle on Reaper
Or should I wait until I have more lives under my belt?
Entirely up to you, but reaper points become a bit of a grind later one so it can't hurt to start on them sooner
Is it possible to enjoy the game without ever doing reaper?
Yes! Raid Pick up groups are usually on Elite or lower, so even the endgame is doable without reaper
Do you find it fun?
Yes. I enjoy levelling a new life on higher reapers solo sometimes, it's a fun way to test your build and if you're not in a rush it adds a bit more meat to some quests.

 

[Br4d]

Correction, from your words it is the hires that use the shrines, not your melees (and at epic levels you should have self healing options and not need shrines if you have built well). You don't need to stop to rest with the hire, put the hire to rest and continue with your melee.

Although nowadays the meeles do not have much dependence on hires either, even in heroics. Fighters have second wind, barbarians heal too just fine... crying as if the melees haven't received great help in this department is biased.

A pack of ghouls that includes a champ or two can take down my Fighter pretty easily without a hire present. The biggest challenge in that kind of encounter is protecting the hireling so they can heal properly. Sometimes the global cool down on Second Wind is enough to drop the Fighter.

The point is that when I am DPS casting those ghouls all die before they get a swing in.

Reaper has exposed the flaws in the games systems much more than earlier difficulties did.

 

[DBZ]

Dragonlord has roarrs try them

Park hires never use them in combat get umd and scroll heal yourself if u must