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Post by erevan on Feb 21, 2013 17:12:37 GMT
Hello all 1st: Sorry for my english (I am not a native speaker) 2nd: What is this thread about: I want to keep that exact class build, and I would appreciate having some opinions from players that are good at buildling stuff, concerning some points like... - ...can I improve it tank-wise (AC, AB, HP.. you know.. tank stuff^^) by taking / not taking / switching the order of any feats?
- ...will this be viable in late game?
- ...etc.
3rd: Here we go I wanted to make a Dragon with max BAB. I went for Ranger there, because it adds to the polymorph Level and it gets some favored enemies, as well as Bane of Enemies at 21. I was thinking about Fighter, because of this wiki stuff: "Epic Dodge: At Fighter 30, characters receive the Epic Dodge feat for free. Once they have gained this feat they cannot delevel. ", but I didn't know if that works by getting 21 Fighter levels and +9 Fighter in Legendary Levels. So Id didn't do that. Although if that works, it was worth a shot I think. So, what I did, created as follows: Gender: Female Race: Half-Elf Subrace: Dryadkin (Str: -1 / Con: -1 / Wis: +2 / FC: Druid) Alignment: Lawful neutral (Lawful for monk, Neutral for druid.. any other won't work) Stats: (Stat -> Creation -> After Subrace applied -> Lvl 40 STR | 8 | 7 | 7 | DEX | 8 | 8 | 8 | CON | 16 | 15 | 17 | INT | 14 | 14 | 14 | WIS | 18 | 20 | 30 | CHA | 8 | 8 | 8 |
Breakdown (so far).. -> "feat" (taken at lvl) Level 1-21 RangerSkills: Animal Empathy 24, Discipline 24, Listen 24 Feats: Toughness (1), Zen-Archery (3), Called Shot (6), WF unarmed strike (9), GWF unarmed strike (12), Improved crit unarmed (15), Power crit unarmed (18), Bane of Enemies (21) Level 22-39 DruidSkills: Animal Empathy 42, Discipline 24, Listen 24 Feats: Great Wis I (24), Great Wis II (27), EWF unarmed (30), Epic Prowess (33), Armor Skin (36), Dragon Shape (39) Level 40 Monk.. for cheeseSkills: Animal Empathy 42, Discipline 43, Craft Armor 43, Craft Weapon 43, Tumble 40 Legendary Levels - 49 so far... LFF Dragon 1 (42), LFF Dragon 2 (45), LFF Dragon 3 (48) So, this is what I did by now. Stats naked: Stats with equipment (equip information on screenshot) Some thoughts I did: - Maybe Drop Zen Archery.. it's useful early, gets useless late
- Pick Expertise / Improved Expertise?
- Pick feat to get LSA tumble? Dunno if that's of any use
- Does Craft Weapon affect unarmed?
- Would I need to pick any Claw Focus or sth to get more than CRAPPY 1-6 +xx dmg
- Why are ppl walking away while I am still talking?
Thanks guys..
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Post by chirality on Feb 21, 2013 21:31:47 GMT
Well I'm really not comfortable to give much, if any advice on such a build's particulars. That said I have a couple thoughts that hopefully you could find helpful. I wanted to make a Dragon with max BAB. I went for Ranger there, because it adds to the polymorph Level and it gets some favored enemies, as well as Bane of Enemies at 21. I was thinking about Fighter, because of this wiki stuff: "Epic Dodge: At Fighter 30, characters receive the Epic Dodge feat for free. Once they have gained this feat they cannot delevel. ", but I didn't know if that works by getting 21 Fighter levels and +9 Fighter in Legendary Levels. So Id didn't do that. Although if that works, it was worth a shot I think. --Well, first off I would probably not advise focusing on max AB with an open sub build, especially with a build type such as this which can require balancing more factors than, say, a simple fighter/WM tank (just an example). --I'm not saying to give up on the idea, or your build will suck, or anything like that --Again I'm no shifter pro so maybe I'm wrong and it's not as hard as I think to pull off while maintaining adequate defense --I'm not sure to be honest if fighter free Epic Dodge requires 30 levels before LLs, or includes LLs --I would imagine it's pre-LL, but regardless, the only way to get fighter levels in LLs is to have that be your CC (control class), which means you would need more fighter levels than any other class before 41 --To understand this, make sure you read the rules regarding LLs and Control Class. --The point anyway thought is that fighter CC does not really let you make a dragon tank as far as I understand --And even if that is not correct, I would never recommend fighter CC for any build because it sucks (open for debate but that's my opinion anyway) --For "dragon" tank builds, you probably should start off by looking at some existing builds, in order to understand what sorts of class levels and feats you should take (I'd link some but it should be easy enough to find by looking at the builds subforums). It looks like your current one is on the right track, but I don't think fighter would work very well at all for what you want. Even if it does, Epic Dodge is nice but not really worth investment of 30 fighter levels for a non-fighter build Well once again I am not very knowledgeable about these sorts of builds, so that's about all I think I should say. But there are others here who I'm sure have some good advice for you once they read your questions .
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Post by simpetar on Feb 21, 2013 22:08:11 GMT
Where to begin... 1. Dragon tanks are definitely doable, even with open subby. I dare say, the subrace matters little, because physical stats (str, dex and con) have their own scaling and dragon tanks usually rely little on wisdom (full/half damage from breath, and leave wing buffet for specialists). 2. Casters in your group WILL hate you for your size, once you Form Focus feats in LLs. As long as you solo (for instance in Hades), it is not an issue. But if you go with a group... that is a major reason why you see few draggies running around. Cope with it 3. I suggest that you take a look at some spell and class edits: specifically Storm of Vengeance of Stormlords, Epic Mage Armor and druid epic spells. In other words, you might consider something like 35 druid / 4 ranger (pre-epic for 16 BAB) / 1 monk (for attack progression). If you have 30 base wisdom (and qualify for dragon shape) and 31 base dex (qualify for druid "divine power"), make good use of druid epic and paragon spells (Veil of Mists, Weaponspren, EMA giving Epic Dodge at CL 50), you can have quite a death machine. 4. Keep in mind that when you are shape shifted, you cannot get ANY form of wisdom AC. Monk splash gives you monk unarmed attacks, evasion, discipline and tumble bump, but not wis AC. 5. Last but not least, you stopped designing the build at lvl 40. It is after that, when it gets funny: last 40 you will be able to pick feats such as Legendary and Paragon Form Focus, Legendary and Paragon Form Defense and other goodies. Take a look at HG druid (and possible shifter) edits, they will help you imagine what is possible and what is not. simpetar
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Post by Paradoom on Feb 21, 2013 22:13:47 GMT
Zen archery and Called shot might have been useful on leveling up but are a waste on that build. Drop em. 2 free feats. (Blindfight comest to mind to pick up) and maybe a saves feat if u need it.
What does animal empathy grant you on that build? Need it for the dragon shifting? If not drop it also and get concentration up. (ull need it in lategame runs to make certain checks) or drop the listen for it if you take blindfight.
Craft weapon grants general +1 ab per 40 skill points including from items up to +3 at 120 and more. Likewise with craft armor. Level 20 to 40 seems to be a bit too few feats. Are you missing some in there?
For progression purposes I recommand to take a look into the locatha (loca) run later after you hit the 55+ mark. There by chance you can find a book to improve your dragonshape further.
For the Fighter idea: That has nothing to do with what you want to build. Those feats are for fighter control classes and you have to hit 30 levels pre legendary.
For a better class spread: DO NOT go with more then 29 levels of druid at this point. There is a bug atm that aint fixed, that will make you loose all your spells when unshift, which I recently red here in the forums.
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Post by simpetar on Feb 21, 2013 22:44:37 GMT
What does animal empathy grant you on that build? Need it for the dragon shifting? AE increases the damage of draggy breath the same way as lore increases damage for casters Loca books require LFFW3 before you can read them. This build cannot qualify, need to take LFFD3 manually. You only lose spells that come from bonus spell slots on gear; they do not merge with shifting. It does not matter how many druid levels are present.
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Post by Paradoom on Feb 21, 2013 23:44:20 GMT
ok ok convinced ill just shut my trap when it comes to shifters.
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Post by erevan on Feb 22, 2013 0:00:20 GMT
Thank you really for your hints and comments and tips .. I will have a look at it! Still, more opinions are welcome
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Post by desocupado on Feb 22, 2013 15:20:24 GMT
Why don't you make a true shifter instead of Ranger CC? As far as having Ranger as CC goes you get: +2 HP per level +4/5 BAB (Very important for Disarming) +3 LBAB (And great potential AB - pointless if you wear a glove dropped at Uro) 5 Favored enemies Weak buffs that don't merge with Dragon Claws Iron Chimera - Ranger CC shifter - Conceptual build Focus on Ranger's HP and AB Advantage forsaking Wisdom Heavy Claws - Full Wisdom Shifter Reasonable melee capabilities with unarmed shapes and monk progression - could use Dragon + Undead for an Open subrace build Cunning Shifter - Humanoid + Other This one is focused in battling with Maximum Wisdom as well- Most of the times Drow Shape offers a near-uni tanking performance - not to mention the other humanoid shapes (Lizard-Str, kenku-archer, Sauhigian-Two-hander and Kobold-dexter). You could pick dragon instead of undead. Dragon Druid (Druid 38 / Pal 1 / Mnk 1) This build is a regular druid with Dragon Morphing - Every so often it's mildly useful since dragon breath bypass SR and do very good damage, but having another spell focus - Conjuration/Necromancy - would be more useful in most circumstances - not to mention every time you morph you lose all your bonus spell slots. Animal EmpathyIt's useless for this build except for charming enemies, Ranger Levels don't increase dragon breath damage (CL). So your CL for breath is just 18 - instead of nearly 60 like a shifter or druid would have
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Post by desocupado on Feb 22, 2013 18:24:34 GMT
Some thoughts I did: - 1 Maybe Drop Zen Archery.. it's useful early, gets useless late
- 2 Pick Expertise / Improved Expertise?
- 3 Pick feat to get LSA tumble? Dunno if that's of any use
- 4 Does Craft Weapon affect unarmed?
- 5 Would I need to pick any Claw Focus or sth to get more than CRAPPY 1-6 +xx dmg
- 6 Why are ppl walking away while I am still talking?
Thanks guys.. 1 Drop it for Knockdown or Disarm (and get their improved version later) 2 Expertise and improved expertise are very useful with 100 and 105 AB 3 You need Blooded to enable LSA tumble 4 CW doesn't work with unarmed attacks - get craft armor instead 5 Only weapon specialization can increase Unarmed damage - your build doesn't qualify I think (if you want to do heavy unnamed dmg try a monk or a construct shifter) 6 Because people have their own priorities and are not your slaves (i'm not 100% sure what's your question)
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Post by Yojimbo on Feb 22, 2013 19:18:13 GMT
For Question #6 if you mean other players most people don't stand around and chat much except maybe after a run or while waiting for a run to finish and even then it is mostly in party chat. The rest of the chating and questions and answers is done through the cross server meta channels: !chat, !newbie, and !guild are the 3 for that while !runmsg is to call a run and !bazaar is for sale/trade of good within HG.
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Post by chirality on Feb 22, 2013 19:29:35 GMT
lol
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Post by erevan on Feb 24, 2013 10:18:29 GMT
Thanks for your replys.. I think I will reincarnate and go for either the heavy Druid or even a Shifter build. As for Question 6.. this is what Cogs asks when one gets the quests from him I just wanted to throw it in here as well - lol.
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Post by desocupado on Feb 24, 2013 12:28:50 GMT
Dragon shape doesn't do much damage due weapon buffs not merging and not getting an extra attack with LFF 1. Also the following shapes get an extra attack with LFF 1 - Leonal (outsider) - Highest AC and AB Flesh golem (construct) - Highest AB and highest base damage (add's wisdom mod to physical attacks) - Mediocre AC (but passable with Expertise or Paragon Form Defense) Humanoid (all) - Medium AB and good/amazing AC - versatile types Risen Lord (Undead) - Highest AB - Mediocre AC (but passable with Expertise or Paragon Form Defense) - Highest damage with high Str, Two handed Mod and scythe critical hits
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Post by simpetar on Feb 25, 2013 15:51:58 GMT
Humanoid (all) - Medium AB and good/amazing AC - versatile types It is worth noting that the lizard whipmaster inflictions can greatly help party. You can even go crazy and get all weapon related feats (maybe except specialization) even with open subby.
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Post by chirality on Feb 25, 2013 20:03:08 GMT
Yep, lizard lash is awesome!
If you don't mind the risk of bugging your toon when using it, Whirlwind + lash inflict is pretty cool for pulling/massing and then inflict a bunch at once.
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