Ben No.3

Because they'd be underpreformimg... Don't get me wrong, they're great tanks, but so are other classes like paladin and chanter. And while they tank+something else, a fighter would be a pure tank.

Sadly not... Only note on that is that "the juggernaut" monk works with zahua... Which companions do you specifically mean? Maybe we can help...

What do you guys think? What class would make more sense to solo rather than to party from a lore point of view?

From a roleplay point of view, a bear might be fitting as well. It is also quite useful for pet tanking.

Can do pretty good with high damage weapons due to +2 mig; racial accuracy is so good when applied and by now, poison and disease defense is pretty valuable ... So yeah they might actually suit your crossbow ranger pretty well

Slacker... Haha, we're there again? "My hunter was from a small wild orlan village in the Ixamitl Plains. Very proud of their freedom from the larger kith races (unlike their hearth orlan cousins), they lived almost as wild as a pride of lions out there in the fertile savanna. They stayed away from larger kith villages (like human settlements), and mostly hunted and foraged for food instead of farming. As she told Caliscia, my orlan was largely responsible for hunting for her village. She stalked wild antelope by blending into the tall dry grass with her golden fur, inching just close enough to loose arrows. She eventually bonded with a wild warthog, who helped her hunt by circling, herding, and keeping prey closer to her bow. Ora loved her family and village, so nothing could have driven her out just short of exile. Which is exactly what happened: a hard season drove the hunters to search farther and take greater risks. A less seasoned hunter wanted to seek out an elephant graveyard (a river ford where elderly elephants whose last row of teeth have worn down go to eat softer river plants until those teeth wear out and they slowly die of hunger, leaving a lot of elephant skeletons in their wake) since a whole elephant could feed their whole village for a season. He gambled on the meat, lost to the tusks. Since he was beloved by the community, everyone blamed her for the accident (since, as the senior hunter, she should have known better than to try to take on a desperate elephant with nothing but a few bows and spears), and Ora was all but driven out." -Faerunner, on the backstory thread, 9th of May 2015 I find it pretty interesting.... Otherwise, "hunter" background also offers (besides "in my village I was responsible for hunting" and "actually I'm a fisherman and I think another one, but I forgot) that you used to hunt down monsters, which is always interesting Also, thanks Loren! Numbers offer a lot of insight...

About my attack speed comment... I figured speed penalties would hurt us the least of all reload weapons with crossbows since their base animation/recovery durations are the lowest, and because the penalties work by %

Sorry Ben, don't fully understand your statement. Does it mean that I must drop res in order to get...say... per? or dex? I have still not decided the race and bg also... dunno for now... elf is kinda obvious...Yes, basically. For damage dealers, Res is always a dump stat

Isn't the longest an arquebus?Also shouldn't speed penalties hurt the least with a crossbow since they only apply tithe recovery time and that time has the lowest base?

Be aware though that any non melee ranger will drop Res (and even some melee ones)! Not necessarily bad, just something to keep in mind when talking about mental stats. Generally speaking, all dedicated DD and spellcasters have... You can build around if with some classes though (shameless self promotion )

Please do check the artist out, she's a friend of mine and has so much talent Sry for the shameless promotion , but I promised her to do so if she'd illustrate my build EDIT I am happy to Report that this build works exactly the way it was supposed to. Just remind to always keep a priest nearby to help out if you are attacked on fortitude

One thing to consider... Do you want to use a "actual" crossbow or a aralbest (bigger but slower crossbow)? For example, for a cipher I'd recommend a aralbest because of the higher focus gain since they have higher base damage... But they all have lower crit damage, so as boeroer said, a ranger or rouge is better of with a crossbow

There's a crossbow called "twin sting", it's a soulbound weapon and binds with cipher, rouge and ranger. There are two builds around here for that, a double-cipher build "ditchomos soulbenders" http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/86049-class-build-the-dichotomous-soulbenders-twisted-twin-ccdps-mophers/ and a ranger "storm and plague caller" http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/85513-class-build-storm-plague-caller/ But nice to have you back

Manila's boots added

"Chance"? What do you mean? When you crit with the initial attack then you will roll another die with the same ACC against fortitude. When you graze/hit/crit the target falls on it's buttocks. All weapons with overbearing or stunning work this way. You can look that up in the combat log. It will be listet under "additional effect", like "XY crits for x damage.. and grazes with additional effect (prone) for y sec". You may then hover over the text to see the actual rolls that happened. There is no fixed chance. You have chances with other items which have something called "spell chance: xy" - like Wodewys or Redeemer or some other weapons. Those work differently. They have a certain chance to trigger their spells with every hit or crit. However, We Toki only works on crit, but then it rolls a die for prone every time. With high ACC you will nearly alway cause prone after a crit because a graze is enough to cause prone. Exceptions may happen if the target has low deflection and very high fortitude - then it may be that you land a crit but the target will not fall. But even against ogres this seldomly happens. I would say in 90% of times if you crit you will cause prone also. That's nice That obviously makes We Toki a very strong choice Edit: We Toki added as secondary weapon, seems like a good option and finally added all defense bonuses. Thanks for your patience guys

Does anyone know how high we toki's chance to prone is? I thought it was 10%, but I can't confirm it... If it's especially higher it might be worth it (although we need people to hit us to quickly hit back... Not sure what option is best)

I'll look into what gloves to use then, the cape is to awesome

By CC I meant the debuff, sry for the confusion. And I would have recommended we toki, but it only has a 10% as well, and I'd rather have nature's mark then. Correct me if I'm wrong. Due to riposte, i don't see the use in high speed IF we need to sacrifice damage. The missiles update will be added, thanks.

Aaaand another update! Also corrected not counting the cape for defense bonus...

Frenzy could be interesting from a roleplay standpoint though...

I'd rather use the plate with the frenzy spellbind... (Sanguine plate) and go dual wielding. +50% from dual wielding to compensate for plate, +20% from talent, +33% from frenzy and also considerable bonuses to might/constitution. It obviously also offers better protection and frenzy is per encounter rather than DAoM's per rest So at least from gameplay, dual wielding makes sense... If you don't want to use that for roleplay simply don't

Thank you, option added as well

Because.... The barbarian is using the not fully upgraded unlaboured blade?

Thanks post has been modified

ATTENTION: Again, it's not tested... My PC is still down (which apparently makes me more creative... Good thing I'm using it in a useful way rather than wasting it on real-world problems). Again, testing will start as soon as possible "No a Bier, und dann gengan mia a boh Drachn platt machn." [rough translation: "One more bear, and then we'll go kill some dragons."] -Seppel, enjoying some beer just before facing off the alpine dragon This build is an attempt to create dedicated riposte rouge (with nice mentals). Besides spellcasters, dedicated damage dealers always are the ones to have poor mentals (Res mainly), hence this build. A riposte rouge seemed ideal. He will drop dex (whaaaaat?) to push up Res. But most heavily we will invest into accuracy, thus the highest stat will be perception. See, this build is all about only hitting back (Seppel is a sort of peaceful guy), so when we do hit, we want to hit hard. This raises the question, what might be the ideal weapon for our lovley seppel. And the answer is: a battleaxe! This is because we are aiming to crit if riposte finally triggers, and the battleaxe adds a straight +50% to the crit damage bonus. That is insane! So let's build around it. Also, we'll try to fit some nice debuff/CC into it. Race Heart Orlan Initial stats: Mig 14 (15 base -1 Orlan) Con 10 Dex 3 Per 20 (18 +2 Orlan) Int 12 (11 +1 Old valia) Res 18 (17 +1 Orlan) You may want to switch Dex and Res until you get riposte to get something out of seppel. Endgame stats: Mig 17 (15 base -1 Orlan +3 Sentiel's Girdlei) Con 14 (10 base +4 Iron circle) Dex 3 Per 20 (18 base +2 Orlan) Int 16 (11 base +1 Old Valia +4 Gwyn's Band) Res 20 (17 base +1 Orlan +2 Coat of III Payment) As you may notice, this build also was created with mental stats in mind, I'm into mental stats . I like good talkers as mains. Equipment: -Armour: Coat of III Payment (Retaliation, +2 Res) -Weapon: Wodewys (put the best enchantment you're willing to spend on it, +0.5 crit damage (!), 10% to cast Nature's Mark on hit (our CC), +10 defense against Posions and disease, spellbind purge of toxins) or resolution or purgatory (sabers with annihilation (+0.5 crit damage)), however, you'll loose the debuff effect. If you use Bittercut together with spirit of decay, you will have the least dependence on critting since your damage output is very high, but again, no debuff. -secondary weapon: We Toki (has a chance to inflict prone on crit, a good way to get an enemy proned if necessary) -Shield: Badgrad's Barricade (bash, 10% to cast Thrust of tattered veils on crit) -secondary shield: Supra's supper plate (no accuracy loss, so We Toki's prone is more likely. Also adds to retaliation) -Head: Executioner's hood (+20 max endurance/kill, +5 melee accuracy for 5s when you get missed, terrifying presence) -Feet:Manila's boots (+1 move speed, +50 defense while stunned/prone), late game you can consider viettro's formal footwear for the extra reflex -Hands: Ryona's vembraces (3 DR bypass) -Neck: Cloak of comfort (+5 to all defenses, +30 max endurance, +3 DR to slash/pierce/crush) -Waist: Sentiel's girdel (+3 mig, +20 defense against push, spellbind watchful presence) Abilities: Auto (a), recommended ®, important (!), central (!!!) -sneak attack (a) -blinding or crippling strike -dirty fighting (!) -riposte (!!!) -deep wounds ® -adept evasion ® or escape ® -deathblows (!) -sap -withering strike Talents: Same symbols -weapon and shield style (!!!) -veteran's recovery (!) -cautious attack ® -vicious fighting (!) -vurnable attack ® -WF: knight (!) -superior deflection or penetrating shot Be sure to invest some points into lore... Besides the terrible casting speed he's quite a good scroll user, and the high DR bypass has a wonderful synergy with all kinds of missile spells. Take penetration shot. If you want to heavily invest into scrolls through (which would make sense, they work beautifully with sneak attack/deathblows), there is a build for this already around here called the sorcerer's apprentice, scrolls aren't the main focus of this build. So, we will be really slow! Which is why one one side, we are very dependent in riposte being triggered. On the other hand, that makes us not care about speed penalties, so cautious and vurnable attack are instant takes. We also need to stack accuracy or find other ways of triggering crits, hence vicious fighting, WF, high per. With the axe (+0.5 crit), the 8 DR bypass (3 DR bypass from gloves, 5 DR bypass from talent) and the bash shield (and maybe ToTV), we will have a very nice damage output when we crit. Additionally, a crit might trigger Nature's mark, which is a nice thing to have. The coat of III payment will be our main source of constant damage output, while also offering quite some protection, especially with the +3DR on pierce/slash/crush from the cape. So, let's talk synergies: We get into battle and open with a blinding strike and thus lower their accuracy, making grazes/misses more likely. If we are very lucky, we crit and also triggered nature's mark, lowering deflection and making crits with riposte much more likely.The enemy tries to hit us and hopefully either grazes or, best of all, misses (in which case we get a accuracy bonus from the hood BEFORE riposte-hit is calculated, also the coat hits with high DR bypass, regardless of hit/miss/graze); not hitting is also not unlikely with the many defense bonuses from stats and equipment). Let's say riposte triggers. So we crit (we probably will-we have a lot of accuracy, vicious fighting and lowered deflection on the enemy) and if we set up for example a chill fog and a tanglefoot or of our first blinding strike is still active we crit with deathblows. That combined with the battleaxe's crit damage bonus is a lot of bonuses being applied. If we are lucky, nature's mark hits again (did I mention it goes against fortitude? Since we wear the Executioner's hood that stat is lowered, and our accuracy is higher). Now the bash of the shield gets applied, with the high DR bypass and the damage bonuses it'll even be noticeable. If ToTV hits against the already lowered defense with all the damage bonuses, that'd be nice as well. By the way, penetrating shot works with that one. Deep wounds then applies additional damage. If you feel the need to switch to a different enemy (for example if your casters get engaged in melee), switch to we Toki, you'll most probably prone your enemy and can then move on. To make this "panic button" more likely, we'll use the supper plate, which not only has no accuracy penalty, but also retaliation that stacks with that of the coat. And even if none of that happens, you'll still get the retaliation with deathblows, sneak attack, DR bypass and triggering deep wounds Well, that's chaotic... Sry bout that Let's clear things up with some numbers: Note: I have not included enchantments applyed by the player, since it's your character not mine. Every time you see (nonenchanted)/(nonenchanted non durganised), I highly recommend enchanting and/or durganising. -Lvl 16 deflection: 111 (15 base, +3*16 level, +10 Res, +12 (nonenchanted) Barricade, +6 weapon and shield style, +5 cape of comfort, +10 cautious attack, +5 superior deflection) -Lvl 16 deflection with escape: 136 (same as above, +25 escape) -Lvl 16 accuracy, non enchanted weapon: 91 (30 base, +10 per, +3*15 level, -4 barricade, +5 WF, +5 Hood) -all damage multipliers on crit, (non enchanted/durganised weapon): 251% (+3%*17 mig, +50% crit, +50% battleaxe/annihilation, +100% Sneak attack and deathblows) -DR (nonenchanted): frost/burn 18 (coat of III payment), corrode 15 (coat), slash/pierce 21 (+18 coat, +3 gear), crush 25 (+22 coat, +3 gear) -Speed malus (nondurganised): 111% (7*3% Dex, +50% coat of III payment, 2*20% talents) Why Bavarian? Because of the shield You are obviously required to drink beer before every major battle. So, here is my passive riposte rouge with high mentals. Feedback welcome... I've still got to learn HUGE thanks to Boeroer, Jojobobo and GuyNice for all the support Special thanks to Boeroer for the shield recommendation.