What's really needed in DDO now that lots of new players are arriving are completely redoing the paths at character creation to one that are easy to play and survive with, and making it easier for experienced players to be able to help and advise new players in game. Let's face it, DDO is a complicated game and very different from the standard MMO, especially for wizards and other spellcasters. I also think as a community we should could up with some new player friendly f2p builds based around typical mmo archtypes that can help new players get a feel for the game. But if a new player unfamiliar with the game creates a level 1 wizard with a path and expects to spam spells left and right, they're going to have problems and might just give up.
The paths are really bad. The devs have answered questions about possibly updating them and their answer iirc was basically it is not worth the time in their opinion. But yeah they are particularly bad newbie traps.
@@AxelAlexK it definetly was not worth the time when they said that, but I wonder how many more "Covid-19 related new players" would have stayed in the game if the paths were redone right a couple of years ago..
@@AxelAlexK Let's leave newbie landmines in the game. NOT WORTH OUR TIME TO FIX! ... Also, gonna subscribe now. You've made changes based on my feedback. Cheers.
For humans, I like having the skill boost from racial tree, since it can be a great way to get that extra bonus to UMD for scroll use. Elves work well for anything that needs dex - they also make good rogues with their ability to make search checks (abeit at a penalty) passively, it can help keep the pace up in a fast group. The displacement dragonmark if you're able to fit it in the build also means they can be more durable than you might expect in melee. Dwarves are very solid.. if they're a martial class they don't need to spend a feat on dwarven axe proficiency, meaning they can use that plus a shield for extra defensive boost while getting the ability to hit multiple enemies at once, albeit for less damage than a proper 2hander. Iron stomach, a low hanging fruit in the racial tree also makes *any* potion you use also give remove disease, remove poison & heroism effects for 2 minutes, great if you're short on resources. Aasimar are good to the point of being overpowered on certain classes - their healing hands ability is great with even a moderate wisdom investment & on a class with access to high healing amp too it's amazing - they make great monks in particular but also are excellent barbarians since healing hands also works fine while raged :) Any class that needs INT is great for gnomes - their colour spray spell forces 3 different saves on enemies to disable them in some way & one of those is blindness, which naturally synergises very well with a rogue's sneak attacks Half elf dilettante feat is useful & you don't need to invest in the racial line at all to benefit from the proficiencies (not scrolls though, you need to count as having X number of class levels & that takes quite a lot of tree investment) so you can get eg. a pure fighter or wizard who's able to use healing wands, or a casting class with proficiency in all weapons. Half orcs are big & hit hard. Great melees, caster-wise wisdom ones are fine so melee clerics, favoured souls & druids are all solid choices. Tieflings aren't just good with fire, they can actually remove an enemy's immunity to it - meaning yes, you can apply "kill it with fire" even to enemies that are actually *MADE OF FIRE* (or healed by it like iron golems) - as such, if you're making a character who uses spell damage, investing in the racial tree will typically be a core feature of those builds rather than just a side benefit. Warforged are one of my favourite races because of those immunities, it's just a whole raft of hostile effects that you can simply not even think about, though they do have a number of other limitations that you need to take into account. I highly recommend trying out a warforged eldritch knight, they're a lot of fun - just watch out for arcane spell failure chance if you go with adamantine body for the extra armour & remember to cast your defensive buffs, they're still a wizard with the smaller HP pool after all
warforged are also especially good for hardcore, ignoring so much stuff, also ignoring poison damage of some traps (each one, but still), not needing death ward (just deathblock), not being held until like lv12 or such, etc. As for the body: I actully start with mithral (4 AP gets chance to 0, so at lv2 your are good to go), then at later level, when I get enhacements in EK which reduce the penalty, I use the free swap from fred and put on adamantine
Aside from the bonus feat, humans get bonus skill points at Level 1 and every level. That's BIG for customizing for cross class skills like UMD, Heal, Jump, Tumble, etc. And/or for maximizing class skills.
Thank you for providing excellent content, advice and commentary. Very professional approach to your analysis and an excellent speaking voice which helps.
I love humans for the Orien dragonmark so that any character I make can use expeditious retreat, dimension door, and teleport, all of which are darn handy at times. Great video Axel.
@@AxelAlexK There are some seriously beneficial dragonmarks out there. For non-healer characters, going halfling and taking the Jorasco dragonmark is almost essential for soloing. The Orien one I mentioned before has been extraordinarily useful no matter what character I have it on. It has been my go-to for solo running the Kobold Island Cannith Challenges as the dimension door gives me an almost instantaneous way or returning to the central location on the island when processors are under attack and the expeditious retreat lets me move quickly to where I need to be. The Sentinel and Finding dragonmarks are valuable too, if not as useful as the previously mentioned ones. The Dwarven dragonmark is a good one for emergencies but I almost never use it. The higher level spells of the elven mark are nice, but invisibility isn't very useful in DDO. The Cannith mark is almost pointless in my opinion. If Warforged had access to this dragonmark it would be a lot more useful but, unless they've changed it to where it is a warforged dragonmark, it isn't worth the expenditure. :-\
For new players, who don't have access to the locked races: 1) If in confusion go Human, the extra feat helps out a lot, also no penalty to an ability stat. 2) In addition to dex based rogues (assassins) Halflings make good dex based bow rangers (arcane archer/deepwood sniper) and are more durable than elves. They are also played as dex based monks if you have monk. A strength item can overcome the stat penalty. 3) The Dwarf tree is the only thing allows you to use constituition to damage but its a heavy investment requiring 18 action points. They however can use this to make con based builds for barbarian (one of the best in the game, only second to the half orc barb) and fighters. Dwarves do not make good paladins as some of the other classes due to the penalty to charisma which affects many of the paladin's abilities. 4) Its a good idea to try a Drow as the second character on your free slots as soon as you hit 400 favor as they do not have 34 or 36 point builds and you would want more points for your ability stats on 2nd and 3rd lives and therefore other races. Drows make good ranged, caster and melee classes for char, dex and int based classes, though I'd stay away from melee due to the penalty to constitution they get. 5) Elves for me are pretty meh, you could make dex bow rangers out of them and hope mobs don’t get to you, or just make a cleric out of them - heavy armor, bunch of heals will make sure they last longer.
Half Elf with Cleric Dilettante was a great Monk that I ran up. I understand Aasimar with healing hands is good, but that cannot cast restoration and other highly useful cleric wands and scrolls.
Hi Axel. I've made an Alt character I'm keeping on Korthos (never finishing Misery's Peak) to help new players, and I've noticed a lot of level 1 players Dual Wielding medium sized weapons. Two Weapon fighting is looking to be popular with new players but I think they might need video advise on how to make the best of it. I think many of them wouldn't even have the Two Weapon Fighting feat and will have huge attack penalties wield 2 medium weapons at level one.
true, many of them are unaware of weapon feats, not to mention to-hit and to-damage and that by default its their strength modifier that applies to the latter ones.
I agree that for 1st lifers, humans a good idea. I however can't agree regarding Con. Yea its important, but if I'm a ranged type toon most of your targets are dead before they get close.
Great vid! what about making a video showing like idk, 1 of each race playing as a free class build? something like arcane, divine, melee and ranged, with maybe a swap on one 1 those for a trapper build? going just a bit into enhances and feats would be cool.
6 secs per caster level & can be doubled via extend spell, same as any class that can cast it, but it uses character level rather than class level for determining duration. if you can spare the feat & APs, it can make elves a surprisingly good choice for melees.
So I get a FAiled to launch client, failed to queue for server (0x80004005) any idea how to fix this? I'm on windows 10, did a google search and checked out the forums. Don't see a way to fix this....
I played a Warforged once for a short while, really disliked it on the fact that 9/10 chests I would open I would get armors that cannot be used by the class because they use docents.
The Warpriest tree (melee/ranged fighting) is mostly damage. Radiant Servant tree (healing) is for heals. I am not sure if pure Cleric has tanking options. If you multi class, you can take Paladin’s Sacred Vanguard tree or Fighter’s Stalwart Defender tree which are what many tanks in the game often use. Both human and dwarf racial trees have options to help you tank.
starting your toon having a high con is only important if your playing like an idiot, con is a dump stat( as in you have to put this points somewhere that is useful but not a waste and i have no wear else to put them that really matters), i have NEVER been in a spot were i would have been saved if i only put more points into con ( even with my tanks) having a -2 to your con means your going to have 30 less health at max level ( at this time in game) and since you can get over 1000 health before you hit max level that -2 to con is laughable, and i have yet to see anything that gives you bonus health based of the Constitution you have so take care of the stats you need for your feats that you going to want because feats go off your main base stat not off any bonuses you may get for that stat, and like axel said any stat could get over 100 the feats go by your base stats and not from any bonuses you can get to raise those stats like being a Halfling if you want to wield 2 handed weapons and get the feats to do so that -2 to strength really hurts because you need 15 str to get the basic 2 handed weapon but need 17 for the next level ( not imposable but makes it harder). some feats need dex , int, wis or str but none need con.
Race isn't all that important if you have lots of hirelings or play with groups. Race is MASSIVELY important otherwise and gets even more important depending on the class and build you are playing. For instance...WF sorcs and wizards can heal themselves--KINDA NICE WHEN SOLOING...Aasimars get some REALLY POWERFUL self heals....I mean, they are HUGE and some races really add a ton to the class you are looking to play. -2 to a STAT? I'm not sure why this guy makes videos when he's so clueless (make a char of every race, look at their Enhancement trees if you want to know what each race is strong in).
I said it normally doesn't make or break viability, with some exceptions. Did you watch the video all the way through? Because I specifically talked about aasimar Healing Hands and warforged repair self-healing with sorcs and wizards in the video and how good that is. Those are instances where race can be a big deal, which is why I highlighted them in the video. But mostly, race choice doesn't drastically affect a characters viability in DDO.
What's really needed in DDO now that lots of new players are arriving are completely redoing the paths at character creation to one that are easy to play and survive with, and making it easier for experienced players to be able to help and advise new players in game. Let's face it, DDO is a complicated game and very different from the standard MMO, especially for wizards and other spellcasters. I also think as a community we should could up with some new player friendly f2p builds based around typical mmo archtypes that can help new players get a feel for the game. But if a new player unfamiliar with the game creates a level 1 wizard with a path and expects to spam spells left and right, they're going to have problems and might just give up.
The paths are really bad. The devs have answered questions about possibly updating them and their answer iirc was basically it is not worth the time in their opinion. But yeah they are particularly bad newbie traps.
@@AxelAlexK it definetly was not worth the time when they said that, but I wonder how many more "Covid-19 related new players" would have stayed in the game if the paths were redone right a couple of years ago..
@@AxelAlexK Let's leave newbie landmines in the game. NOT WORTH OUR TIME TO FIX!
...
Also, gonna subscribe now. You've made changes based on my feedback. Cheers.
For humans, I like having the skill boost from racial tree, since it can be a great way to get that extra bonus to UMD for scroll use.
Elves work well for anything that needs dex - they also make good rogues with their ability to make search checks (abeit at a penalty) passively, it can help keep the pace up in a fast group. The displacement dragonmark if you're able to fit it in the build also means they can be more durable than you might expect in melee.
Dwarves are very solid.. if they're a martial class they don't need to spend a feat on dwarven axe proficiency, meaning they can use that plus a shield for extra defensive boost while getting the ability to hit multiple enemies at once, albeit for less damage than a proper 2hander. Iron stomach, a low hanging fruit in the racial tree also makes *any* potion you use also give remove disease, remove poison & heroism effects for 2 minutes, great if you're short on resources.
Aasimar are good to the point of being overpowered on certain classes - their healing hands ability is great with even a moderate wisdom investment & on a class with access to high healing amp too it's amazing - they make great monks in particular but also are excellent barbarians since healing hands also works fine while raged :)
Any class that needs INT is great for gnomes - their colour spray spell forces 3 different saves on enemies to disable them in some way & one of those is blindness, which naturally synergises very well with a rogue's sneak attacks
Half elf dilettante feat is useful & you don't need to invest in the racial line at all to benefit from the proficiencies (not scrolls though, you need to count as having X number of class levels & that takes quite a lot of tree investment) so you can get eg. a pure fighter or wizard who's able to use healing wands, or a casting class with proficiency in all weapons.
Half orcs are big & hit hard. Great melees, caster-wise wisdom ones are fine so melee clerics, favoured souls & druids are all solid choices.
Tieflings aren't just good with fire, they can actually remove an enemy's immunity to it - meaning yes, you can apply "kill it with fire" even to enemies that are actually *MADE OF FIRE* (or healed by it like iron golems) - as such, if you're making a character who uses spell damage, investing in the racial tree will typically be a core feature of those builds rather than just a side benefit.
Warforged are one of my favourite races because of those immunities, it's just a whole raft of hostile effects that you can simply not even think about, though they do have a number of other limitations that you need to take into account. I highly recommend trying out a warforged eldritch knight, they're a lot of fun - just watch out for arcane spell failure chance if you go with adamantine body for the extra armour & remember to cast your defensive buffs, they're still a wizard with the smaller HP pool after all
warforged are also especially good for hardcore, ignoring so much stuff, also ignoring poison damage of some traps (each one, but still), not needing death ward (just deathblock), not being held until like lv12 or such, etc.
As for the body: I actully start with mithral (4 AP gets chance to 0, so at lv2 your are good to go), then at later level, when I get enhacements in EK which reduce the penalty, I use the free swap from fred and put on adamantine
Hey what's going on Axel, DDO players here
Aside from the bonus feat, humans get bonus skill points at Level 1 and every level. That's BIG for customizing for cross class skills like UMD, Heal, Jump, Tumble, etc. And/or for maximizing class skills.
I would be interested in seeing a video on iconic races as well. Thanks again!
Thank you for providing excellent content, advice and commentary. Very professional approach to your analysis and an excellent speaking voice which helps.
I love humans for the Orien dragonmark so that any character I make can use expeditious retreat, dimension door, and teleport, all of which are darn handy at times.
Great video Axel.
Thanks. And I maybe should have mentioned human dragonmarks. Access to those spells are quite good.
@@AxelAlexK There are some seriously beneficial dragonmarks out there. For non-healer characters, going halfling and taking the Jorasco dragonmark is almost essential for soloing. The Orien one I mentioned before has been extraordinarily useful no matter what character I have it on. It has been my go-to for solo running the Kobold Island Cannith Challenges as the dimension door gives me an almost instantaneous way or returning to the central location on the island when processors are under attack and the expeditious retreat lets me move quickly to where I need to be.
The Sentinel and Finding dragonmarks are valuable too, if not as useful as the previously mentioned ones. The Dwarven dragonmark is a good one for emergencies but I almost never use it. The higher level spells of the elven mark are nice, but invisibility isn't very useful in DDO. The Cannith mark is almost pointless in my opinion. If Warforged had access to this dragonmark it would be a lot more useful but, unless they've changed it to where it is a warforged dragonmark, it isn't worth the expenditure. :-\
For new players, who don't have access to the locked races:
1) If in confusion go Human, the extra feat helps out a lot, also no penalty to an ability stat.
2) In addition to dex based rogues (assassins) Halflings make good dex based bow rangers (arcane archer/deepwood sniper) and are more durable than elves. They are also played as dex based monks if you have monk. A strength item can overcome the stat penalty.
3) The Dwarf tree is the only thing allows you to use constituition to damage but its a heavy investment requiring 18 action points. They however can use this to make con based builds for barbarian (one of the best in the game, only second to the half orc barb) and fighters. Dwarves do not make good paladins as some of the other classes due to the penalty to charisma which affects many of the paladin's abilities.
4) Its a good idea to try a Drow as the second character on your free slots as soon as you hit 400 favor as they do not have 34 or 36 point builds and you would want more points for your ability stats on 2nd and 3rd lives and therefore other races. Drows make good ranged, caster and melee classes for char, dex and int based classes, though I'd stay away from melee due to the penalty to constitution they get.
5) Elves for me are pretty meh, you could make dex bow rangers out of them and hope mobs don’t get to you, or just make a cleric out of them - heavy armor, bunch of heals will make sure they last longer.
Aasimar Monk is a really good combo. The extra wisdom helps the class.
as well intimate will come in some cases in-game quests to use to convince mpc to do an action as well as buff and diplomacy
Thanks. Personally I would like to see something on the icons. Have a couple of them and would like to get some perspective on them.
I wish they would add some of the Fae races, I would love to play a Satyr.
Half Elf with Cleric Dilettante was a great Monk that I ran up. I understand Aasimar with healing hands is good, but that cannot cast restoration and other highly useful cleric wands and scrolls.
Hi Axel. I've made an Alt character I'm keeping on Korthos (never finishing Misery's Peak) to help new players, and I've noticed a lot of level 1 players Dual Wielding medium sized weapons. Two Weapon fighting is looking to be popular with new players but I think they might need video advise on how to make the best of it. I think many of them wouldn't even have the Two Weapon Fighting feat and will have huge attack penalties wield 2 medium weapons at level one.
true, many of them are unaware of weapon feats, not to mention to-hit and to-damage and that by default its their strength modifier that applies to the latter ones.
How do you chose your draconic ancestry for dragonborns???
I would be interested in an Iconic video. Mostly just curious of how they sit in the meta.
You should try shadarkai chain users easily one of the best builds in the game
@@Gawain_7 lol
@@Gawain_7 did someone say "chains!" czcams.com/video/JH2dE1ZcUmY/video.html
Hi can you make a video explaining the diffrent spell schools?
I agree that for 1st lifers, humans a good idea.
I however can't agree regarding Con. Yea its important, but if I'm a ranged type toon most of your targets are dead before they get close.
It would be cool to see a guide of what to buy from the DDO Store if the player already got all the adventure packs that are now free.
Ravenloft and sharn
Great vid!
what about making a video showing like idk, 1 of each race playing as a free class build? something like arcane, divine, melee and ranged, with maybe a swap on one 1 those for a trapper build?
going just a bit into enhances and feats would be cool.
I am considering doing a video on skills and feats. And I was thinking of maybe doing some basic, simple f2p builds.
Hmmm i never knew elf got displacement, what is the duration???
I'm not sure.
6 secs per caster level & can be doubled via extend spell, same as any class that can cast it, but it uses character level rather than class level for determining duration. if you can spare the feat & APs, it can make elves a surprisingly good choice for melees.
6 secs/ character level. Really good on Eldritch Knight builds.
@@ServantRules eldritch knight builds already can cast it... better for ranger, fighter, clerics, etc
So do you have to buy the races or can you work for them, if you can work for them; how do you do that?
Some can be unlocked by completing a certain amount of quests, others are only available through purchase.
What do you do when you’re stuck on installing pre reqs?
So I get a FAiled to launch client, failed to queue for server (0x80004005) any idea how to fix this? I'm on windows 10, did a google search and checked out the forums. Don't see a way to fix this....
I don't know how to fix that. Did you try contacting support? www.ddo.com/forums/forumdisplay.php/105-Service-and-Support
and smaller races get bouns for being being small hitting bigger targets
I played a Warforged once for a short while, really disliked it on the fact that 9/10 chests I would open I would get armors that cannot be used by the class because they use docents.
true, one of the sad things is that warforged and bladeforged have their own special gear that cannot be used by any other races
no tortle?
nope, there is dragonborn though so atleast there's a reptilian race of some kind.
@@AxelAlexK sadness ;-;
como puedo hace warpriest tank /heal
The Warpriest tree (melee/ranged fighting) is mostly damage. Radiant Servant tree (healing) is for heals. I am not sure if pure Cleric has tanking options. If you multi class, you can take Paladin’s Sacred Vanguard tree or Fighter’s Stalwart Defender tree which are what many tanks in the game often use. Both human and dwarf racial trees have options to help you tank.
starting your toon having a high con is only important if your playing like an idiot, con is a dump stat( as in you have to put this points somewhere that is useful but not a waste and i have no wear else to put them that really matters), i have NEVER been in a spot were i would have been saved if i only put more points into con ( even with my tanks)
having a -2 to your con means your going to have 30 less health at max level ( at this time in game) and since you can get over 1000 health before you hit max level that -2 to con is laughable, and i have yet to see anything that gives you bonus health based of the Constitution you have
so take care of the stats you need for your feats that you going to want because feats go off your main base stat not off any bonuses you may get for that stat, and like axel said any stat could get over 100 the feats go by your base stats and not from any bonuses you can get to raise those stats
like being a Halfling if you want to wield 2 handed weapons and get the feats to do so that -2 to strength really hurts because you need 15 str to get the basic 2 handed weapon but need 17 for the next level ( not imposable but makes it harder). some feats need dex , int, wis or str but none need con.
: )
Race isn't all that important if you have lots of hirelings or play with groups. Race is MASSIVELY important otherwise and gets even more important depending on the class and build you are playing. For instance...WF sorcs and wizards can heal themselves--KINDA NICE WHEN SOLOING...Aasimars get some REALLY POWERFUL self heals....I mean, they are HUGE and some races really add a ton to the class you are looking to play. -2 to a STAT? I'm not sure why this guy makes videos when he's so clueless (make a char of every race, look at their Enhancement trees if you want to know what each race is strong in).
I said it normally doesn't make or break viability, with some exceptions. Did you watch the video all the way through? Because I specifically talked about aasimar Healing Hands and warforged repair self-healing with sorcs and wizards in the video and how good that is. Those are instances where race can be a big deal, which is why I highlighted them in the video. But mostly, race choice doesn't drastically affect a characters viability in DDO.
@@AxelAlexK Appreciate your efforts, do not let rude people put you off, thanks!