Powergaming Group

OBS! This page is just a "stub". Made to show how you could avoid thinking in the terms of Tank - damage dealer - healer. As this would be to oversimplify DDO roles.



Party from a powergamer point of view
In almost any party comprising of powergamers, the goal is to be able to complete the quest or raid in the shortest possible time, using minimal resources. There are many ways with which this may be achieve but it is important to note that powergamers can do it easily due to their knowledge of the game as well as knowing the strengths and limitations of the character they are using. To put it simply, a successful quest can come down to a handful of factors: In a powergaming group, a larger importance is placed on inflicting and avoiding damage but this does not mean they are unable to cure damage. In fact most of them must have be rather good at curing before they start avoiding damage. In a group comprising of newer players, the emphasis is usually on inflicting and curing damage. This is due to them not having a solid understanding of the game but with time, most improve.
 * Inflicting Damage - Almost all of the quests involves the slaughtering of foes. To kill stuff, one must be able to inflict damage. The more damage one can deal means the faster one can take down a mob.
 * Avoiding Damage - Being able to kill stuff is not the sole factor of success. The enemies will not be just standing there like a sitting duck for you to attack. They have a host of abilities that they will use to try to damage and thus kill you. By avoiding the incoming damage, one can prolong the amount of time in combat and thus remain effective.
 * Curing Damage - There is no absolute defense which can protect against all incoming damage. This is especially true in raids where many bosses are simply unstoppable. It is therefore important that there is some way for one to keep up the combat effectiveness through the removal of status effects or restoration of hit points.

Inflicting Damage
Damage can be broadly classified into two main categories, sustained or burst damage. Sustained damage is damage which comes from a constant source at a steady rate while burst damage is usually evidenced by a tremedous amount of damage at an instant. That said, even in the individual categories, one may find instances of the other category.

Sustained Damage
Sustained damage can come from a few sources: The above information is a brief summary of sustained damage. The beauty of DDO is nothing can be fully pigeonholed into a narrow category. Burst damage can exist in sustained damage as well. A fighter using haste boost, an archer using multishot, a caster spamming multiple firewalls side by side can generate a sudden increase of damage within a short duration. Many players take advantage of these abilities to raise their combat effectiveness. The smart player will reserve these abilities for the right moment and it is a way can be used to distiguish a powergamer from a less experienced player.
 * Physical Damage - This sub-category describe the damage inflicted by physical means such as melee or ranged damage. Physical damage is almost always considered "unlimited" so long as the character has positive health. This is a very important factor as most raids are likely six or more physical damage dealers supported by two or three healers. In fact, most of the damage done in most raids are through physical damage.
 * Melee Damage - This refers to damage done by hand-to-hand combat. In the most traditional concepts, fighters, barbarians, paladins are considered the "heavy" melee combatants while rogues, rangers and monks are considered "light". Unfortunately, many people still maintain the "tank" concept, that started with other MMOs, in DDO. In recent times, due to the near limitless character building possibilities, there have been an increase in rogue and ranger builds that can out-perform some of the traditional "heavy" melees. Rogues get access to sneak attack which gives extra die of damage when a foe, vulnerable to critical hits, is not "aggroed" on the rogue. Rangers rely on their fury towards favored enemies to deal massive damage.
 * Ranged Damage - This refers to damage done by ranged weapons. In DDO, ranged damage usually refers to damage dealt with either bows, with the aid of the bow strength feat, or with repeating crossbows, using their higher standard rate of fire. While going ranged offers some benefits, the damage dealt by a ranged character is often far lesser than that of melee.
 * Spell Damage - Many players have the misconception that spell damage is considered burst damage. In some cases, it is true but certain spells may also be used as sustained damage. Most of the sustained damage can be attributed to two spells, namely firewall and blade barrier. These two spells are not just damage over time (DOT) but also area of effect (AOE). In combining these two aspects, an arcane or divine caster can easily pull a group of enemies into either of the spells and inflict large damage for as long as the spell last.

Burst damage
Burst damage almost always referred to a caster unloading all of the available spell points on one or a single group of foes. One can compare that to a MLRS firing all its rockets in a single salvo. The purpose of burst damage is to take the enemy down as fast as possible. Due to the faster cool down of spells on a sorceror, they are therefore the best in this role. Burst damage is never achieved by just using one single spell but rather a combination of spells. For example, an arcane caster may rotate among scorching ray, fireball and delayed blast fireball and stabbing at the short cut keys as quickly as possible to generate as many spells in as short a time as possible. Simlarly, a divine caster may rotate using cometfall, searing light, nimbus of light combo. Burst damage is important in several situations such as a boss capable of dealing massive damage, a regenerating enemy or when facing a huge group of foes. Burst damage can also be in a sense sustained if one has a sufficiently large pool of spell points. Just imagine a caster setting a room with firewalls and kiting the enemies into them. However, in most cases, the casters will not be just contented and will also use remaining spell points to nuke the mobs.

Increasing Your Damage Output
There are many buffs to increase a character's damage output apart from the standard route of improving the character via gear or build design. The most common way of increasing physical damage is the use of haste. This increases the speed of the character thus allowing it to attack faster. The rage spell increases strength by 2 and thus allowing and extra +1 to damage on weapons using the strength modifier for damage calculation. When a friendly divine caster is around, prayer is a useful buff as it provides a +1 luck bonus to damage. A friendly bard can also use the inspire courage spell for a huge bonus to damage. In a weak group, the focus is on increasing the attack bonus. Poorly equpped or built groups often find it hard to hit stuff. In such a group, inceasing the attack bonus allows the players to hit the enemies more often and thus indirectly increasing the damage done. Spell damage increments are usually tactical based rather than buffs. A divine caster using a blade barrier will have to kite the enemies in and out of the spell radius. Each time the enemy goes through the blades, it will take damage. Thus, the key is to allow the enemies a free path through the blades. In addition, party members can run up ahead to pull more mobs into the blades. In terms of firewall, the trick is to keep the enemies more or less within the fire. What many casters do is to run a tight circle around the fire. Due to the pathing AI of DDO, the mobs will keep rotating about a spot as it tries to face you. In doing so, it unwittingly stays in the firewall and gets roasted. In such cases, moment affecting spells are a good companion to firewall. There is nothing worst off than a monster commanded in a firewall. You can even laugh at the enemy as it lays in the fire slowly dying.

Avoiding Damage
As the old adage goes, prevention is better than cure. What cannot hit you will not be able to damage you and thus does not require healing. Do take note that this refers to most senarios and with the unique d20 system of DDO, there are always exceptions. Many players refers damage to the reduction of hit points. In DDO, we can further expand it to include other effects that have a negative effect on the character. Saving throws is also an important aspect of damage avoidance. In many situations, such as a fireball or traps, passing a saving throw can reduce the damage by 50%. Characters with evasion get the damage with reflex saves reduced by 100%. Those with improved evasion have regular incoming damage reduced by 50% and a save reduces the damage to zero. Spells such as prayer, greater heroism can help increase the saves of a character. Similarly, a paladin's aura or a bard's song can also help.
 * Hit Point Damage - This is damage done to the health of a character. There are different sources of hit point damage and for each source, different ways of mitigating the damage.
 * Physical Damage - A cut from a monster's claws or a arrow fired by an enemy are examples of physical damage. In DDO, there are several ways to avoid physical damage:
 * Attack Distance - A mob that cannot reach you cannot hit you. This approach is usually adopted by casters and ranged toons. Buffs such as jump, haste and tumble is very useful for a character to move about just out of range of the enemy.
 * Crowd Control - This is a very advanced way of mitigating damage. A party of low armor class, non-buffed barbarians can get through a quest with minimal healing by rendering the mobs dead or immobile. Spells such as web, greater command, halt undead, to name a few, can stop an enemy in its tracks, rendering it incapable of action. No action equals no attacks equals no damage taken. At the higher levels, it gets more interesting with instant kill spells such as phantasmal killer, destruction, wail of banshee. Dead enemy, 'nuff said. Other spells such as charm monster, dominate can even turn an enemy against their allies. Correctly used, charm spells are very effective, think about it, 50 trolls as your allies.
 * Concealment - Concealment are usually magical means to cause a monster to miss you. The two most important concealment buffs are blur and displacement. The two spells causes an enemy to miss 20% and 50% of their attacks on you respectively. Alternatively, for stationary fights, an area of effect spell such as cloudkill can also provide some concealment to the melees within the radius of the spell.
 * Armor Class - An attack that reaches a player, bypasses the concealment will be checked by the armor class of the player. Having a high armor is a good defense against attack but in DDO, "good" is relative to the level and difficulty of the quest or raid. Unlike other MMOs, rmor class is not total protection against damage. A natural 20 rolled by a monster is still a hit and will deal damage but if you can get your armor class to that range, it can be considered that you have avoided 18 other attacks. Sources to increase armor class includes spells like barkskin, shield of faith, haste and recitation. Paladins have auras which can increase armor class of friendly players and bards have the inspire heroics songs which gives a friendly target a +4 to armor class.
 * Damage reduction - Physical damage recieved by a character may be reduced by damage reduction from various sourced. A stoneskin spell provides DR10/adamantine for up to 160 points absorbed in a set duration. Any damage that are not from an adamantine weapon will be reduced by 10. Warchanters are able to sing the ironskin chant which provides DR5/-.
 * Spell Damage - Spell damage covers a wide range of damage types.
 * Elemental Spells - Elemental damage can be reduced through the use of elemental resists (up to 30 damage reduction per hit), elemental protection (up to 160 damage total) or elemental absorption (fire or cold damage reduced by a fixed percentage).
 * Missile Spells - Damage from force spell staples such as magic missile or force missiles can be stopped by the nightshield or shield.
 * Ability Damage -
 * Status Damage -
 * Trap Damage -

Stealth and disarming traps
The Rogue is that class that is best prepared to help the group avoid taking damage. This is done by stealth and scouting so you don't get into fights that you can avoid, and being better informed/prepared for the ones you can't. He can also find hidden doors so that you can take short cuts. But the key feature for the Rogue is to find and disarm traps. Much damage will hit the party without someone looking for the terrible traps.

Getting back lost hitpoints:
Everbody loves the healer. For non-Warforged Cleric is the best healer closely followed by Favored Soul and Bard. But even Paladin and Ranger have healing capacity at later levels. For Warfored a Wizard can heal (eg repair) as good as the Cleric heals a non-Warforged. (NOTE: That is not true. For the same amount of spellpoints, a cleric can heal a dwarf nearly twice as much as a wizard can repair a Warforged)  Sorcerors can learn repair spells as well, although it's unusual for them to use their limmitted known spell slots on such spells. But a Sorcerer in a party full of Warforged with be the best healer in the game before Cleric gets his heal spell. Relying too much on the healer will make them run out of spell points fast. Carry heal pots with you at all times and use them to top of your hp between fights. Remove curse, lesser restoration, and remove disease pots are also useful. Or get clickies with them.

Making your friends stronger
Bard has the ability to "sing" so his friends become stronger. Bard and other spellcasters have also ordinary buffs; Buffs that for example can make the Warrior inflict more damage by raising his strength, or getting hit less by raising his Dexterity. The same Dexterity buff would also increase the Rogue ability to stealth and open locks.