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Post by drunkenboastor on Jun 30, 2020 17:27:29 GMT
I have had different experience with smiters than other posters. I have found both pure paladins and 10/30 blackguard builds to be effective and fun to play.
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Post by desocupado on Jun 30, 2020 18:29:18 GMT
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Post by johannhowitzer on Aug 13, 2020 12:30:30 GMT
I'm gonna toss my hat in the ring in favor of the Dragon Disciples. I'll grant they can't compete with the damage output of the garden variety twohanders out there, but they still have a lot going for them.
- Very respectable survivability, between high AC for a STR build thanks to draconic and higher than normal DEX, immune to every Hells check except Malebranches without sacrificing AB, great saves if paladin/BG based, huge HP. Picking an element that can't ever be inflicted may not be as powerful as it used to be, thanks to extra rolling sources of restoration, but it's still strong. Conceal is what you'd get with most other STR tank classes, nothing special.
- Fear aura is fantastic, if I remember, doesn't it stack with everything? That means stuff near the XDD dies faster, which converts to better survival when casters are on their game.
- I am a fan of the huge collision box... and I've actually never had anyone complain about it in all the years I've played, because people seem to appreciate the safety. Smaller chokepoints are common, but almost nothing can block as wide a passage as a dragon. You can swap sizes any time you like, yet I've seen most dragons stick to the dragonkin or tiny appearances. The big one seems regrettably under-utilized, when it could fairly often prevent or help reverse bad situations.
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Post by woqued on Aug 16, 2020 8:29:22 GMT
I'm gonna toss my hat in the ring in favor of the Dragon Disciples. I'll grant they can't compete with the damage output of the garden variety twohanders out there, but they still have a lot going for them. - Very respectable survivability, between high AC for a STR build thanks to draconic and higher than normal DEX, immune to every Hells check except Malebranches without sacrificing AB, great saves if paladin/BG based, huge HP. Picking an element that can't ever be inflicted may not be as powerful as it used to be, thanks to extra rolling sources of restoration, but it's still strong. Conceal is what you'd get with most other STR tank classes, nothing special. - Fear aura is fantastic, if I remember, doesn't it stack with everything? That means stuff near the XDD dies faster, which converts to better survival when casters are on their game. - I am a fan of the huge collision box... and I've actually never had anyone complain about it in all the years I've played, because people seem to appreciate the safety. Smaller chokepoints are common, but almost nothing can block as wide a passage as a dragon. You can swap sizes any time you like, yet I've seen most dragons stick to the dragonkin or tiny appearances. The big one seems regrettably under-utilized, when it could fairly often prevent or help reverse bad situations. Gonna grab your hat on this. Their DEX isn't higher than normal. Their AC isn't high for a STR build (tumble maxed out on every toon always means XDD grants you +4 assuming you're pure, but they're a crap 3/4 AB type with only access to limited splashes, this drains a significant portion of their STR chunk AB + Sorc/Bard levels hurt on top - this means they can't use their +20 str chunk to put more points in dex - they actually need to put a significant amount of points in str with lvls anyways to have relevant dmg/ab) - their fear aura is -2, -3 if pure; they are restricted to basically always being pala/bg cuz they simply can not remedy saves without being divine (majority of epic feats are spent on epic toughness - so much for free stats). Their damage doesn't compare even to other 1handers, don't need to bring 2handers into the conversation. They have no damage enhancing properties whatsoever, no crit/dmg/attack amount increases and they lack splashes to do anything about it. +20 str and fear aura is their entire arsenal and that costs them 10 feats and almost requires being pure. Their breaths and other class abilities are horribly outdated and don't need a mention, unless to bash on them. Edit: fear aura does indeed stack with everything except barb fear aura, afaik. Absolute immunity is still great though. Absolute acid is a really cool feature, but claiming "very respectable survivability" with non-stellar AC, no conceal sources, no crit imm, no edodge, no evasion, dex relies on levelup stat investment and/or LL feats... Yeah, they're sturdy and durable until ~~60. Lategame, they aren't sturdy compared to competition. We can go to the paragon toons in non-paragon content and sure a 80 xdd will survive hell content... but so will literally everything else. Same applies to any 1hander in 40-60 content. Then we talk about what else is on the table and it is very little. You could try to fit in LSA:Hide in, but its expensive for this type of build. I would attempt it if I had Dracotaur. Type down the build, type down any of the more popular classes and when you pit them up next to each other XDDs look really sad. You might be looking back fondly upon days of past when classes weren't receiving free stats on 40-60, we didn't have good subs and sources of hide, builds were crap etc etc. None of the cool stuff we run these days with big crits, bigger damage and cool caster utilities - just a sad stat stick hoping someone utilizes the fear aura while doing very poor damage. Everyone I saw bring a RDD to harder runs eventually stopped bringing them, and it's not (at least completely, hopefully >.>) because they were bullied out of it by peers. Size utility is interesting yeah. Sometimes it could be used to some benefit, but just as often it is a detriment. Being able to swap it at will is possibly a quite underused feature. That being said, I -have- heard people complain about it - a lot, both by the player driving and others, including myself in both positions. |
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Post by simpetar on Aug 16, 2020 11:36:51 GMT
I'm gonna toss my hat in the ring in favor of the Dragon Disciples. I'll grant they can't compete with the damage output of the garden variety twohanders out there, but they still have a lot going for them. - Very respectable survivability, between high AC for a STR build thanks to draconic and higher than normal DEX, immune to every Hells check except Malebranches without sacrificing AB, great saves if paladin/BG based, huge HP. Picking an element that can't ever be inflicted may not be as powerful as it used to be, thanks to extra rolling sources of restoration, but it's still strong. Conceal is what you'd get with most other STR tank classes, nothing special. - Fear aura is fantastic, if I remember, doesn't it stack with everything? That means stuff near the XDD dies faster, which converts to better survival when casters are on their game. - I am a fan of the huge collision box... and I've actually never had anyone complain about it in all the years I've played, because people seem to appreciate the safety. Smaller chokepoints are common, but almost nothing can block as wide a passage as a dragon. You can swap sizes any time you like, yet I've seen most dragons stick to the dragonkin or tiny appearances. The big one seems regrettably under-utilized, when it could fairly often prevent or help reverse bad situations. Gonna grab your hat on this. Their DEX isn't higher than normal. Their AC isn't high for a STR build (tumble maxed out on every toon always means XDD grants you +4 assuming you're pure, but they're a crap 3/4 AB type with only access to limited splashes, this drains a significant portion of their STR chunk AB + Sorc/Bard levels hurt on top - this means they can't use their +20 str chunk to put more points in dex - they actually need to put a significant amount of points in str with lvls anyways to have relevant dmg/ab) - their fear aura is -2, -3 if pure; they are restricted to basically always being pala/bg cuz they simply can not remedy saves without being divine (majority of epic feats are spent on epic toughness - so much for free stats). Their damage doesn't compare even to other 1handers, don't need to bring 2handers into the conversation. They have no damage enhancing properties whatsoever, no crit/dmg/attack amount increases and they lack splashes to do anything about it. +20 str and fear aura is their entire arsenal and that costs them 10 feats and almost requires being pure. Their breaths and other class abilities are horribly outdated and don't need a mention, unless to bash on them. Edit: fear aura does indeed stack with everything except barb fear aura, afaik. Absolute immunity is still great though. Absolute acid is a really cool feature, but claiming "very respectable survivability" with non-stellar AC, no conceal sources, no crit imm, no edodge, no evasion, dex relies on levelup stat investment and/or LL feats... Yeah, they're sturdy and durable until ~~60. Lategame, they aren't sturdy compared to competition. We can go to the paragon toons in non-paragon content and sure a 80 xdd will survive hell content... but so will literally everything else. Same applies to any 1hander in 40-60 content. Then we talk about what else is on the table and it is very little. You could try to fit in LSA:Hide in, but its expensive for this type of build. I would attempt it if I had Dracotaur. Type down the build, type down any of the more popular classes and when you pit them up next to each other XDDs look really sad. You might be looking back fondly upon days of past when classes weren't receiving free stats on 40-60, we didn't have good subs and sources of hide, builds were crap etc etc. None of the cool stuff we run these days with big crits, bigger damage and cool caster utilities - just a sad stat stick hoping someone utilizes the fear aura while doing very poor damage. Everyone I saw bring a RDD to harder runs eventually stopped bringing them, and it's not (at least completely, hopefully >.>) because they were bullied out of it by peers. Size utility is interesting yeah. Sometimes it could be used to some benefit, but just as often it is a detriment. Being able to swap it at will is possibly a quite underused feature. That being said, I -have- heard people complain about it - a lot, both by the player driving and others, including myself in both positions. Saves can get decent even without divine splash. XDD benefits from discipline being class skill and tumble / dragon skin cap is reached easily with cross-class (and helped by 23 splash on bard lvl), both of which mean you don't need any LSA and can take a save feat at lvl 1 (probably slippery soul, but really any you fancy). Also both XDD and bard have 2 high saves. Other than that, I agree on all the points you are making. XDD defensive capabilities are subpar for a str tank. Damage suffers quite a bit; the only source of extra punch come from external sources, like divine might or better crits (if you have 3 bard / 7 wm / 30 rdd build that is dubious on its own and available only to couple subraces) - no source of extra damage comes from XDD itself and there is very little build versatility. Fear aura is useful, but it has engine-based stacking issues (Raj and I ran some extensive testing), and is only good as long as monsters are not immune to the penalties it imposes. I would not recommend a XDD to a new player, except a tank BFM when they are absolutely dead set on making a tank, because can be easily reincarnated into something more useful. I would not recommend XDD to a veteran player either and they should know better  |
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Post by johannhowitzer on Aug 17, 2020 10:34:33 GMT
I've certainly been doing other things for a long time, and the metagame has shifted, but I do have one point I can speak to:
We don't need to get into paragon at all, let's just talk 60 for a second. Has XDD been nerfed in the past ten years, in a way that hurt its survivability in hells? Because I ran a white dragon all the way to Nessus in both normal and Hardcore play, without any noticeable issues, tanking bosses and large groups, no paragon levels, plenty of demi count. It even did fine in deep hells with the old school single demi penalties.
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Post by woqued on Aug 17, 2020 11:47:14 GMT
I've certainly been doing other things for a long time, and the metagame has shifted, but I do have one point I can speak to: We don't need to get into paragon at all, let's just talk 60 for a second. Has XDD been nerfed in the past ten years, in a way that hurt its survivability in hells? Because I ran a white dragon all the way to Nessus in both normal and Hardcore play, without any noticeable issues, tanking bosses and large groups, no paragon levels, plenty of demi count. It even did fine in deep hells with the old school single demi penalties. Not really, no. More like offensive/supportive potential has become more relevant when comparing different classes as well as many other classes have been buffed, while RDD's are just the same as they ever were. Consider, Nessus has been done in the past when Sorcs were spamming Ice Dagger. Those sorcs did fine in deep hells too, but nobody in their right mind would ever play it anymore. |
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Post by chainlink on Aug 17, 2020 13:32:58 GMT
The nerf stick has been waved around a fair bit too, however just because something got demi (add whatever tag here) status does not mean it pulled its weight or in fact brought anything to a party that was not better achieved by another character in play.
In fact it you add in a few high level very well geared characters the others tend to become background noise.
I'm not saying the an XDD is bad (back off on the trolling here folks!) just that it doesn't really bring anything necessary to a run that cannot be done better by other characters.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Aug 18, 2020 2:20:27 GMT
That's why I said the rest of what I said.
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