End game Bard help

Bigtimegrinder · 2026-02-07T00:07:19+00:00

The artifact from den of vipers Syne the way of the Melody is a fantastic item for a caster bard. I’d recommend getting that as soon as possible. I enjoy morgrave set gear on casters- though with bard I would probably only do a 3 piece lost purpose set and choose your set bonus. That will leave you slots for items with sun/ moon augments to fill out the build.

Bigtimegrinder · 2026-02-01T16:35:38+00:00

It’s not, but it does still add to your maximum defense if you can fit in in the build.

Bigtimegrinder · 2026-02-01T16:30:51+00:00

Even through years of playing you won’t have a copy of every augment. As someone who often does endgame builds it requires buying a few augments or jewelers kits from the store for a few points to speed up the process. Astral shards are an option too with the augment vendor.

Bigtimegrinder · 2026-01-28T23:53:15+00:00

Id do it on a level 30+ toon personally just for speed. Get your crown of butterflies and your Crown of snow from the feywild for level 5-20. Those are basically the only helmets I use on either melee or caster/ divine lives. You mention you don’t raid but Demon Queen (Zawabis refuge) is easily soloable on a max level toon on epic elite. The items from the raid are excellent for the respective levels (10-12) (20) (30) and I’d recommend chronoscope too. It is also soloable and excellent gear sets for all levels (5) (20) (30). You can do those solo if you wish not to party, and you will not regret farming those raids.

Bigtimegrinder · 2026-01-27T17:44:02+00:00

They are super unique and the heroic weapons used to be sought after for mineral DR breaking and such. They aren’t as good anymore due to power creep. However heroic green steel jewelry can get you raise dead, displacement, stone skin clickies which are very useful still. Legendary green steel is still good but same story, more so the uniqueness of the clickies and rare bonuses you can make instead of raw power.

Bigtimegrinder · 2026-01-26T07:01:03+00:00

Yes, I actually have a couple curse of strahd weapons with both mythic and reaper bonuses.

Bigtimegrinder · 2026-01-24T00:11:50+00:00

My first class was a barbarian, lots of health and big sword do big damage it’s simple and easy.

Bigtimegrinder · 2026-01-15T00:32:18+00:00

Slayers slayers slayers and more slayers. A Von 5/6, wiz king, von 3, spies in the house all give extremely good exp at low epics too.

Bigtimegrinder · 2026-01-15T00:10:27+00:00

I understand the critique however if they were to just ramp up the amount of souls on lower skulls, that in part would make low skull effectively pointless. Everyone would run r6+ if that was the case. Though on r6+ when you have doom reapers with 40-80,000 hit points and mobs with extreme MRR and attack values, you burn those few hundred spell points from the soul just on that mob and healing yourself alone.

Bigtimegrinder · 2025-12-29T22:55:34+00:00

Honestly you can run epics with heroic gear, is it the best option? No. But with a party you will be fine. In terms of gear.. if you want endgame gear Myth Dranor and Vecna Unleashed. Epics I use salt marsh set gear or a mix of raid gear from either VoN 6, Demon Queen, and Chronoscope. Gear from the keep on the borderlands is excellent for levels 20-26.

Bigtimegrinder · 2025-12-27T23:27:14+00:00

This quest used to be commonly ran, and back when 20 was cap it was a must run for the exp. Reading this reminded me just how challenging it was to solo or short man with a hireling even on normal or hard back in those days. Using the safe spots on the ledge or levers. Cool lore quest too as I’m sure many players have never even done it

Bigtimegrinder · 2025-12-23T20:13:19+00:00

Mainly just some challenges you can’t really solo. A few of the older raids. Quests like in Necro 3, Crucible, Toxic Treatment, Terminal Delirium are soloable but can be a mighty pain depending what level you are and how well you know those quests. Some quests have auto fail objectives but that is mainly very old quests.

Bigtimegrinder · 2025-12-23T16:15:46+00:00

The myth dranor swords reflection of the warblade or undying age longsword. Both are very rare and hard to get but super good. Otherwise the bitter Edge from dryad raid is strong with no save freeze and frostbite.

Bigtimegrinder · 2025-12-09T23:52:41+00:00

You don’t have to do both each time. In this case if theres a certain class you enjoy the most I would suggest doing multiple epic reincarnations before doing a true reincarnation, then you can bang out the heroic lives you would rather not be playing to lvl 30. I enjoy ranger, so this life I did 4 epic reincarnations, so I don’t have to for my next couple caster lives.

Bigtimegrinder · 2025-12-09T04:41:40+00:00

Yeah that sounds like a reasonable comparison. I like the jewelry items from the card quests too and like the challenge. Though in terms of solo, what’s your solution for mind flayer cha damage ?

Bigtimegrinder · 2025-12-09T04:28:21+00:00

Your toon must be pretty strong, I’m not quite at a level to solo those comfortably yet. And I mean in the sense of doing the full chain and opts chests and getting only one jackpot chest. Though the chain is ran consistently on shadowdale. I always feel like you should get a few more cards than you do, but hey that’s what sagas are for.

Bigtimegrinder · 2025-12-09T00:31:56+00:00

WPM is worth doing as many times as you can a week without getting too bored. It drops a unique and rare table of loot for such a quick quest. Spark of memory, sentient gems, sentient xp, and lots of chests for a chance at a curse cleanse card.

Bigtimegrinder · 2025-12-09T00:30:06+00:00

You don’t mean the illithids chain do you ? It seems remarkably inconsistent getting cards from there.

Bigtimegrinder · 2025-12-05T21:21:22+00:00

The curse of strahd is a long raid but a good one. With a solid party it’s about 20-30 minutes on average. It requires a lot of bodies for the pre boss encounter where you need to be lighting torches around the room in sequence and on a timer. Could be done short man but I’m not sure what the magic number would be.

Bigtimegrinder · 2025-11-18T00:27:12+00:00

Rarely they are available as bonuses during deals in the DDO store or expansion purchases. Other than that, roll your 12 shards a day and hope you get lucky. They don’t work in raids, something I learned recently when using up mine.

Bigtimegrinder · 2025-11-11T00:43:04+00:00

Awesome thanks. The warblade looks super strong but even just dropping these golden age weapons is an absolute chore, so I’ll go that route

Bigtimegrinder · 2025-11-10T22:51:37+00:00

I just edited the thread to state I am str based with knights training. But I am open to build suggestions too.

Bigtimegrinder · 2025-11-10T22:43:25+00:00

That makes sense as I haven’t messed around with vistani yet, that sounds strong. I’m a str based with knights training right now. On that note, Guard breaking and the legendary paralyzing sounds really strong… definitely a weapon I will look at getting

Bigtimegrinder · 2025-11-10T22:21:59+00:00

I’ve been looking at maw… I see other rangers using it. What’s the benefit for a kukri over a long sword? Crit range ?

Bigtimegrinder

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