DDO Expansion and Adventure Pack Buying Guide for New Players
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- čas přidán 16. 07. 2024
- Links to all my stuff (Twitch, Twitter, Patreon, etc.): linktr.ee/axelalexk
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Other DDO New Player Videos/Guides: • DDO Class Guide for Ne...
0:00 Intro
1:05 On Free Coupon Code Giveaways
1:48 On VIP
2:30 Sales
4:02 DDO.com Market
5:10 On Free Content
5:47 Earning DDO Points by playing
7:16 Level types
8:06 Low level content isn't as essential to buy
8:31 Isle of Dread - EXPANSION
10:45 Saltmarsh - EXPANSION
11:55 On sagas
12:43 Feywild - EXPANSION
14:06 Lost Gatekeepers
15:11 Keep on the Borderlands
16:52 White Plume Mountain
18:29 Devil Assault
19:20 On reincarnation
20:20 Tangleroot Gorge
21:20 Sorrowdusk Isle
21:56 Shan to Kor
22:33 Necropolis Parts 1, 2 and 3
23:21 Delera's Tomb
25:06 Sharn Syndicate
25:26 Catacombs
26:25 House Philarian Carnival
27:07 Three Barrel Cove
28:32 Hunter and Hunted
29:32 Peril of the Planar Eyes
30:08 Shadowfell Conspiracy - EXPANSION
30:58 Trials of the Archons
31:39 Temple of Elemental Evil
32:48 Demon Sands
34:58 Attack on Stormreach
35:45 Necropolis Parts 2 and 3 (more comments)
36:34 Restless Isles
37:03 Ruins of Gianthold
38:26 Ruins of Threnal
40:18 Sentinels of Stormreach
41:42 Red Fens
42:13 Vault of Night
43:26 Dragonblood Prophecy
44:20 Grip of the Hidden Hand
45:58 The Soul Splitter
46:41 Masterminds of Sharn - EXPANSION
48:40 Mines of Tethyamar
49:43 Mists of Ravenloft - EXPANSION
51:42 Menace of the Underdark
53:36 Disciples of Rage
54:11 Devils Gambit
55:01 Against the Slave Lords
55:42 Reign of Madness
56:08 Vale of Twilight
58:22 Harbinger of Madness
58:41 Devils of Shavarath
59:37 Reaver's Reach
1:00:09 Path of Inspiration
1:00:23 Necropolis Part 4
1:01:37 Dreaming Dark
1:01:48 Secrets of the Artificers
1:02:46 Druid's Deep
1:03:26 High Road of Shadows
1:04:11 Heart of Madness
1:04:55 Outro - Hry
Some follow up comments/corrections -
Somehow I missed Haunted Halls and Shadow Under Thunderholme so I'll give my thoughts here. Neither is all that essential although the the 12 player max slayer zone in Thunderholme is great XP per minute in a large group and is used a lot for that reason. Thunderholme has 2 raids which still have some decent gear but the gear in the Deathwyrm raid is too much grind to be worth it. The Dragon Masque helm in Fire on Thunderpeak however is desirable as it can be turned into a nice augment via Soulforge crafting so that one is run ocassionally. Haunted Halls is not necessary at all as it is epic only and the gear isn't relevant. However, it's a highly regarded quest in terms of immersion/fun/etc.
20:20 I should have mentioned Tangleroot does not have reaper modes. Also, there is a minimum level 3 deathward clicky available in the Saltmarsh expansion which I forgot about. So this isn't the lowest minimum level deathward clicky item anymore.
59:43 I forgot to mention that the Devil's of Shavarath Pack contains Yugo potions, which give +2 stat bonuses that stack with everything else in the game. So you'll want to get this pack eventually, just for that.
Haunted Halls is definitely fun to run and there are a few items that are worth grabbing for the mid epic levels. Thunderholme with Thunderforged weapons are also a great option from L22 and up. You can upgrade them with extra effects in the forge with a bit of farming which extends their useful life quite a bit with the only drawback being that they don't have sentience.
When you do the next update of this, sort your store by price, lowest to highest. That way if theres REALLY good value stuff at the bottom people have the option to pick that up early and get started on SOMETHING right. Also, there is ONE single lv 9 quest for F2ps. So packs that are 8-9. Theres another disheartening xp void up at level 13. Solve those. And maybe mention that players should focus on adventure packs over really anythign else because you get xp/gear/favor and therefore some points BACK. Because we literally dont give a fuck about gear we need to be able to level in the first place. GET your F2p players to 20.
If you run with a group you may want to discover what they typically run. I love the new content but I run with folks who love the “older/original” content. That being said as. New player starting with that content is sort of great despite the gear values etc. because that is how the game began. The newer stuff is amazing for sure but I still value how I started with the basics and grew from there sort of like the OG players I am lucky to run with 🤍
As a player that has casually played for many years on and off, I really enjoy Red Fens, Gianthold, Vale of Twilight. Honorable mention for Catacombs, Sorrowdusk Isle and Sentinels of Stormreach.
Ok, Shan-to-Kor. You are right loot wise. That said this is the ONE quest line I always do. It was the pack that sold me on DDO. I like the whole deep dungon crawl its has got going. So much classic D&D vibes. And the XP is pretty good...
always appreciated! love your no-nonsense straight talk take on things
Epic Voice of the Master can also be taken as chain end reward in heroics as well, so you can run Delera’s twice at heroics to get a normal and epic VoM. Epic VoM is also a lvl 20 minor artifact which you can slot with a filigree (stacking) for epic leveling. Highly recommended to have both. 👍
This content review was really helpful!
It was good to mention that you will always want to compare what you get on the DDO website versus buying content with points. Sharn Ultimate Bundle was 85% off recently and is currently still 75% off which gets you a few things worth picking up. Dimensional Augment Bag Holds 500 unique items and holds all the augments and filigree's for sentient weapons that would otherwise completely overwhelm your inventory.
The Legendary Shield Guardian is quite tanky and can help with harder quests or even just be parked at the entrance for emergencies. I use it in higher Reaper modes as a backup plan in case I get killed as you can summon him to your corpse, grab your soulstone and then run towards a resurrection shrine while continuously summoning him to evade agro. While the Augment Summoning feat doesn't boost him for some odd reason, The Cry of Battle Filigrees I stacked in a spare minor artifact give a nice set bonus for 3 Pieces: Your minions gain +8 to all ability scores and +40 Melee Power, PRR and MRR.
The DDO Expansion Trove is also finally 75% off and dropped to $15 on the DDO website so I finally picked up Ravenloft even though I already had Shadowfell and Underdark from way back. I figured it will give me more sentient jewel options besides White Plume Mountain and it's content I still wanted to go through.
Legendary Saltmarsh with Slavelords crafted gear actually works quite well for my 15 Ranger/5 Rogue where I needed somewhat customized spellpower gear and other stats to fill in what I was missing without too many wasted overlaps. The mob density in the Slavelords content is high but with improved precise shot and lotus blossom each pack can be quickly cleared if you have the right setup. With Shiradi/Exhalted Angel/Grandmaster of Flowers destinies it gives extremely powerful crowd control, Healing and AOE options that are very good for even a first life character.
Glad you found the video helpful 🙂
Vault of Night, Ruins of Gianthold, Vale of Twilight are still the good solid valid choice for a new player on 1st life character. 😇
Keep on the Borderlands is a good first choice for a new player nowadays. Better starting gear & mount are always good.
And everyone would need Mists of Ravenloft eventually, since it's the base pack for the Sentient Weapons mechanic.
HARD disagree on Vale of Twilight. The fact that all 5 quests have weird complicating gimmicks makes the quests SUCH a slog for new players... and old ones.
I've always loved the hidden lore of Threnal, I think its big downfall is definitely the escort missions which are pretty much impossible to solo. Even with two people, someone has to stay back and slowly proceed forward with Coyle or whoever is being escorted. Luckily, there are only 2 quests where you can fail if Coyle (or Deward in one of the first quests) die. Although there is another quest where you have to protect Coyle; its not as bad since he can't actually die.
I've solo'ed Threnal and it was hell.
Lore was cool though.
My own very short version of this is:
if you want to spend money the expansions feywild + sharn will give good overall gear for all lvls in ddo, lvl 5 to 32.
For f2p its tougher because expansions are expensive. The Demon Sands have good gear options for lvl 10+ and is a solid first buy. Ruins of gianthold is also very high on the list. With this 2 packs and another pack with high lvl quests you can lvl a toon from 1-20 without that much of an issue.
If you dont buy demon sands you should prolly buy some other pack that drops tokens of 12 (material required to reincarnate characters).
You problably want to own either white plume mountain or ravenloft expansion if you want to play at endgame otherwise you dont have access to sentient gems.
The anniversary party has offered sentient gems previously 💎
You’re the best man thank you for this. I’m in a slump on my level 21 barb because I know I have to rerun content but every once in awhile I make progress and remind myself how great this game is
Thanks! I'll save way more than that because of your help.
Dude thank you so much! If you have any other questions feel free to hit me up on Twitter, Twitch, Discord or the DDO.com forums.
As a new player I watched first 8:30 minutes and I find it very helpful. +the outro
There are so many throughtful guides out there I am looking for something brief, on point.
Just some feedback for your channel and also thank you for the upload :) 👍👍
Yeah, I get that. The vast majority of my videos are like 15 mins or less. I did put a bunch of timestamps in this one so hopefully you found that helpful. Also, welcome to DDO.
As a subscriber I wonder how this missed my CZcams feed for 11 days 🤔 thank you for this helpful guide!
You're welcome :) And yeah CZcams sadly doesn't always put new videos in your sub feed for channels you are subbed to. You can click the bell for email notifications though. I also tweet out my videos if you use Twitter and want to follow me over there.
@@AxelAlexK man I wish I had been able to buy Ravenloft as an ultimate bundle! When I started it wasn’t available any longer…
ty
If you really like this game and are little on the strapped side of spending cash on content ... my two cents would be to save your money for sales in the market place .. don’t go VIP .. save maybe a month or 3 for the perks you get from that .. they will have Market sales again .. I haven’t even seen a point sale on content since I been back lately.... much better to OWN expansions now in my humble opinion on they have Heroic levels and Epic levels and great set gear ... great video .. and great f you can afford stuff .. a lot of good advice here ..this is my favorite game to come back too in between ventures to other worlds .. and I’m glad I OWN content .. and not just rent out packs .. even tho you can earn points that way and buy them too .. only on sale .. you see a point sale lately ? ... I haven’t .. the code for packs , should be a permenant thing
Please make more build content with follow through guide for new players like me.
If you're doing heroic TRs I'd rate the dreaming dark just for level 5 trinkets, 2 in particular being vibrant purple ioun stone for casters and pale lavender for spell block especially against beholers
It may be outdated, but Mines of Tethyamar had some very attractive gear for artificers specifically, and it's fun conceptually, esp. the finale, otherwise, probably yea, not the best.
What's your favorite quest and/or saga of quests?
thanks good video, i am playing free to play, I am only level 8 but I am looking ahead a bit, I figure i just want to do the heroic levels for now, and do the reincarnating, devil assault looking good to get the tokens! also i want to get enough content to get 1750 favor to get the +2 tomes.....
Lords of dust quest is free to play and I think is an even better token farm. Put up an LFM, ask people to pass tokens. You'll have enough to TR in no time. And yeah 1750 for a +2 tome is a big one, especially if you are looking to do builds like TWF that need 3 stats.
@@AxelAlexK cool, thx I play on argo
@@AxelAlexK I am running Lords of Dust on epic difficulty but no tokens are dropping.
@@jorisgarcia6927 They definitely drop in Lords of Dust. They have since forever. Either it's bugged, you stepped in on heroic difficulty by mistake or you have ransacked the chest. I don't know of any other possibility. Don't know what difficulty you are running it on but don't think it matters. Pretty sure all difficulties in that quest drop tokens though am not 100% on that.
@@AxelAlexK Okay, my bad Alex. I was lvl 18 and confused between Elite (difficulty) and Epic (quest lvl between 20 and 29). I thought I would get a headstart with the tokens collection prior level 20, turns out it is not possible. Noob life...
I dont run Tangleroot anymore. No reaper, and you get a lvl 3 deathward clicky helm in Saltmarsh. I like Shan to Kor for quick xp but I wouldnt recommend buying it.
Good points. I forgot about the deathward clicky in Saltmarsh. And yeah, I do realize Tangleroot doesn't have reaper modes. Maybe I should have mentioned that.
I am thinking of getting back into DDO....what's a good server to go to for guilds and grouping?
Thelanis is my main server so it's clearly the best choice 😎 But to seriously answer your question, they are all about the same except for Wayfinder which is by far the lowest. Every so often they cycle the default server, I believe it is currently Orien so there may be more new players there right now. Playeraudit.com has detailed population data if you are interested in checking it out. Also the Hardcore server runs in seasons so is not always available, and is a permadeath server so as a returning player I wouldn't advise going there.
@@AxelAlexK All right tyvm :D
I disagree with necro. Necro 3 is never played, yes. Necro 1 quests are good and the blood crypt is good xp/min. Necro 2 is also good except shadow guard. The Shadow crypt is a mandatory farm for anyone running past lives the xp is simply too good to miss. Shadow crypt is that good you should flag an alt for the quest just so you can farm it.
I want to know if I get this enhancement Feydark Illusionist from the store as I am free to play having just started, and I have the pet out, does that take up the slot for a hireling.
No, it doesn't take up a party slot if you're referring to the companion from the feydark enhancement tree. It's not a hireling. It functions more like a cosmetic pet that you need summoned for certain feydark abilities. You might want to consider buying the Feywild expansion instead, since you can also unlock the feydark enhancement tree by getting favor from the Feywild quests.
@@AxelAlexK I just want the pet dragon for my lvl 1 and 2 toons as I have yet to get a sub because Im just cking out the game.
@@AxelAlexK Also, I just checked the store and bought some coins but there was hardly anything for sale. No cosmetics, companions, nada. Just some high priced expansions. Where are the cosmetics! No sales or specials.
@@Hellfurian1972 unfortunately you just missed a bunch of holiday sales. I don't know of much that's on sale at the moment. They do sales regularly though, DDOs social media or the DDO.com forums are the best places to keep up to date on sales. I think they also put them on the game launcher.
JEEE OMG! 3995 DDOP the Isle of Dread Pack! is more of the Fable of Feywild and Sharn for sure but wye?!
They would rather people buy it in the DDO market for real money...which is why I imagine it's priced so high for points. Isle of Dread has less content than Sharn and about the same amount as Feywild.
@@AxelAlexK But sorry dear... so if they want more people to buy in the DDO market they had to do the same thing with the previous expansions... however I find it a bit unfair ... SSG has always given the choice after 3 months to buy or less with real money or DDOP expansions it is not fair that right now they are changing this policy.
@@FenixWindail It has always been 6 months after release when they first offer expansions for points, not 3, as far as I know. Pretty sure they did 6 months with Feywild and Saltmarsh previously. I don't recall what they did before that.
@@AxelAlexK In any case, the price of the past expansions in points was not that high... I noticed this thing a lot also in LOTRO with the latest expansion... I have no idea if it's a strategy I have what but this scares me a lot and always less desire to play both LOTRO and DDO obviously both games have a different reason each why I don't play them anymore but Btw I think basically they should do a bit the same treatment they did on LOTRO in DDO some of the old content from the level 1 until 20-25? it must be made Free or maybe until the 28th then until Shadowfell Free so as to be able to give the opportunity to try the game better. And then I believe that DDO's biggest problem is accessibility... DDO is not an MMO like the others and it's not easy to get into the ruleset dynamics of the game, in addition many don't want to look for builds or find friends to play with... so investing in something that you are not sure to play continuously is not easy, for this and at least SSG must make permanently part of the old content Free to give more chances at least to possible new players to try the game , then the fact of finding parties or people to play with well...ho boy... that's another story.The reason why I say this is that there is still too much to buy (yes ok there are packs that are played more and others not but that's no excuse not to make Free happy almost 25 years ago free) and a new player is he sees already nipped from the start.
@@FenixWindail You're right they did bump up the points price. A business decision, surely. I agree that there's too much to buy for a new player. I'd like to see them make more of the really old content free to play.
Where are the White Plume Mountain quest givers? I'm guessing I have access to most of this being hardly anything you have here is in my DDO store version. I bought the Underdark expansion when that came out and I picked up Sharn a couple days back. Those were easy enough to find but everything else is an ongoing mystery. It's a quest just trying to find a quest.
They are in the twelve, a completely different place than the title quest, which is in the gatekeepers grove. The game does not really explain this stuff clearly though you can check your quest log for these details or use the ddowiki.
@@AxelAlexK Not knowing the quest names or patrons is a problem. I don't know what I'm looking for is the thing.
@@vinniethefinger7781 Gotcha. Understandable. DDOwiki it is then. It has really good articles on these types of details for every adventure pack.
@@AxelAlexK I found WPM and looked at the gear and my current toon doesn't need any of it. So off to find a longsword for my lvl 12 on the cusp of 13 wizard. I think I found a quest out of house D that has one at the end supposedly good for 12-20. Can't remember the name and too lazy to look again 🤠
I started playing DDO for the first time a few weeks ago. I had a buddy if mine join me. I have to say, the game is awesome, but the lack of content for F2P players is the absolute worst I've seen in any MMO. We played maybe 15 hours and have just about seen everything available. Ridiculous, especially compared to LOTRO which gives you content practically up to level 100.
I hope Standing Stones has plans in the works to address this. Almost makes me not want to pay anything if they are this stingy up front.
There's over 100 free quests and raids in DDO. You sure you've seen all the free content? That should take a new player way more than 15 hours to complete. I do wish more of the old packs would be made free permanently though.
There are 85 free quests from level 1-12 you can run on normal, then hard, then elite for extra exp, rewards, favor and ddo points, only then you should get stuck with a good half of the points to buy demon sands for example. Go to the ddo wiki - free to play quests not to miss any, but right now I would suggest to run the Night Revels event quests for exp and great loot. After that run the House Cannith challenges for some good equip once per day with free tokens.
Now you can do the same quests with two more characters on the same server or one on another server for favor = points, but no matter what, around level 12 as free to play you will grind.
Where are all these quests? I've done most in Harbor and the Marketplace. Didn't feel anywhere close to 85 quests. Another problem is that you out level several and its just monotony to do them on normal.
@@fightingfortruth9806 Here's a full list of the free quests, you can sort by level and the locations are on this page too. ddowiki.com/page/Guide_to_Free_to_Play#Quest_list
Thanks. That definitely helps. Looks like I missed quite a few.
I appreciate this video, but I know I will quickly forget each review. It would really help if you put this DLC list in a document somewhere, ranked from first to last based on the adventure packs you think are the best value for new players.
It's really hard to do that, since there's so many of them and also what each new player values in a pack can vary so wildly. So I'm not sure ranking adds a lot of value. I did add timestamps, so people can skip around to packs they may be interested in. I sorta did what you suggested in my packs to buy video I did 3 or so years ago where I only discussed certain picks I thought would be best overall. But in this video I wanted to discuss every pack/expansion.
I do NOT get why the Vale of Twilight is so popular, outside player nostalgia. Each of the five quests has a "gimmick" mechanic in it, and all of them are suuuuper annoying. I have an Alt at cap that's flagged to run the Shroud, but I otherwise avoid the hell out of this pack whenever possible. (Especially now that much more fun and easier Dino Bone Crafting equals/outclasses greensteel crafting.)
It's not as popular as it once was with plenty of other, lower effort XP options existing in it's level range now but heroic shroud tier 2 stuff is still extremely good for raise dead and displacement clickies.
deserves more subs..
ddo is such a narrow market
Feywild. Get it. The quests are in a good zone of not as much else there you would want to run, and the gear is really good. You can find something there for most of your slots and you might end up using it for 5 or more levels. Plus the quests are really quick for the most part, and there aren't a lot of traps at all.
I agree on Borderlands, especially since it gives you some good level 1 quests outside of Korthos. A lot of people skip Korthos all together, but this gives some buffer exp before you hit Harbor quests for level 2-4.
Catacombs. Lots of people don't like it. It has a LOT of Undead early on and some people have trouble with that early. The gear helps your toon at level 2 or so but won't last long. What I can say is that there are like 7 or 8 quests and all but the last one is level 3. Basically anywhere from level 3 to 5, you can do a lot or most of that level in that one area.
STK is something I would agree isn't necessary, but it is run on every life, and every group at that level is going to be doing STK at some point, so it's not needed, but you should buy it.
Necro 1, unneeded but they are decent exp for the level, and the final quest is always fun to see who can manage alone :D
Necro 2, is amazing. The swim quest is not fun for most people but Shadow Crypt alone for the exp is just disgusting. Just have an opener for it and it alone makes that pack worth it for the long haul
Necro 3, hah, you talk about the rat quest like you should hate it, and you SHOULD, but I can run that quest in like 10 minutes or less, and the exp for that quest is Bananas! I used to do TR groups and I would take them in and run them E/H/N, while they all basically piked killing endless zombies. Once you memorize how to dot he rat, it's almost boring, but not hard.
But yes, don't get Necro 3 really.
Gianthold. Get it. There is a LOT of exp, heroic and epic. The gear is okay, but it's just in a great spot for where you want to run it, and everyone runs it all the time.