I was thinking of doing some Tempest lives, but the main problem with leveling a Tempest is that you don't get dance of death till level 12.

An iconic solves this problem by letting you start at level 15, but I don't have Aasimar Scourge yet and I have no idea when it will go on sale.

I could use PDK or Shadar Kai, and I think Shadar Kai would probably be better. Fighter levels don't seem to work well with Tempest given that you are forced to do t5 Tempest for dance of death, which doesn't leave you much AP for the Kensei tree. You don't need the extra fighter feats either. Rogue would let you trap, which means faster leveling.

You also need to get 100% off hand proc chance, and there are very few ways to get 100% off hand proc chance without at least 18 levels of ranger. Off the top of my head, you need to either spend 2 AP in Vistani or 4 AP in Shintao (including the core) to get the last 10%.

That means that you need to either take at least 18 levels of ranger, do vistani or fit some monk levels in there.

Option 1 : 18 ranger/1 rogue/1 something else (probably barb for 10% run speed)

Pretty much like a normal tempest, except losing the 20th capstone for some run speed and the ability to do traps. Probably a huge loss of DPS due to missing the 25% off hand doublestrike.

Option 2 : Vistani, probably 13 ranger/6 monk/1 rogue, dex based

This option is very AP starved as you need 44 AP in Tempest and at least 29 AP in Vistani for the good stuff, or at least 31 AP for Vistani Fortune (10 PRR/MRR and a random buff that you have to spend every 60s).

Vistani gets you +5 to hit and +8 to damage with daggers, but they are daggers, which dont have a good base damage dice or crit profile. You get 30% main hand double strike and 10% off hand double strike (assuming you spam rapid attack all the time).

On the plus side you do get +6 AC and +6 dodge from the monk levels, 10% run speed and grand master of wind gets you 12% main hand doublestrike and +15% attack speed.

This option also seems like a DPS loss compared to full ranger as you are missing 20% off hand doublestrike and can't use scimitars which have a much better crit profile.

Option 3 : Probably still 13 ranger/6 monk/1 rogue, wis based

6 levels of monk seems to be the sweet spot here, as you get the most benefits from it combined with ranger.

Going WIS based lets you use longswords while being centered, which have a much nice base damage dice and crit profile compared to daggers, but you lose all the double strike, damage and other goodies in the Vistani tree.

WIS based also forces you to put at least 26 points in Falconry for Deadly Instinct + No Mercy. On the plus side, you do get much higher AC because you are monk + wis based. But the lack of double strike still seems like a DPS loss.

Anyone have any other suggestions?

Or just bite the bullet and buy Scourge now.  FFS, it's been out for nearly 20 months already. You could be waiting another 20 months before it goes on sale.   It's got excellent racial enhancements and desirable past lives.

Buying scourge is going to be easiest. Tempest does not lend itself to splits. Alternatively you could use +1 hearts, but each of those costs about as much as Scourge.

Havent seen it happen yet. The DDO team is stupid lazy with the sales though, barely ever put adventure packs on sale, and when they do races/classes its like the same ones on a rotation. I don't pay that close attention but Bladeforged hit the scene in 2013 and I've never seen them go on sale.

ManyCookies wrote on Apr 26^th, 2019 at 6:29pm:

Depends on what you're trying to do and what character power you have. Dex based is better for low lives due to better dodge on Elaborate Parry and easier time getting Reflex saves to no fail in most content. Str based gets to do huge deeps with SoulWhelm combo, provided that the target is debuffed with LGS effects and has ton of HP for that to matter ( raids or high skulls ). And Soulrazor gets tremendous on trash with its own stacks, which also can be used in boss fights with spawns.

Scourge with full racial AP and using dual Beacons is a high dps set up as well, as long as the same requirements of debuffs on high hp target are met, but they are worse on trash than Soulrazor. Still the dps outpaces any other set up on long fights due to the extra offhand doublestrike chance and critical multiplier from Scourge tree.

Rubbinns wrote on Apr 26^th, 2019 at 6:40pm:


So no reason for a tempest to go Vistani either? Hmm...so is vistani ever a good choice for anything other than an assassin rogue? Even if doing swashbuckler, hand axe or PDK shortsword seems a better choice...

ManyCookies wrote on Apr 26^th, 2019 at 6:29pm:


You can also go Wis based. With Knight's Training to give you lots of options for what to swing .

Go Vistani and splash 6 lock for temp hp.
It's the best.

yardarm_ wrote on Apr 27^th, 2019 at 1:05pm:


I was talking about other classes, not just ranger.

Rubbinns wrote on Apr 27^th, 2019 at 7:47am:


Thought the highest swash DPS was with barb + handaxe to get a really good crit profile? I took a look at swash vistani before, but unless you are using something like Pain, it just doesn't seem very good. Cant use the PDK cha to hit/damage with daggers and you don't get cha to hit AND damage in the swash tree so your CC is going to suck.

Wonder if full ranger tempest would be better off using vistani to level instead of doing DWS...

ManyCookies wrote on Apr 28^th, 2019 at 3:07am:


Str based for max dps due to knights feat will be the best choice and wisdom is still nice for LOH + Frogs

5 Foot Step wrote on Apr 28^th, 2019 at 10:36am:


Why DI?

With a x4 crit multiplier, isnt an additional 5% crit chance effectively 15% more damage on average? That should be much more than what DI gets you.

Rubbinns wrote on Apr 28^th, 2019 at 5:00am:


OK, for leveling you mentioned that VKF is probably the most powerful option.

So for example, full 20 ranger, is VKF still the best option? You do get 30% doublestrike and 10% off hand doublestrike, along with some flat damage. How does that compare to the DWS tree for leveling, and something like dual scimitars which will be 14-20/x3?

The extra crit range seems like it would do much more damage in general.