I've been playing DR for less than a week so there's a lot I don't yet. Also, my current character is a Ranger/Mage so I know nothing about melee combat or the skills that go with it. Which is why I'm posting this thread to seek help with a new build I'm thinking of trying.

** Concept **
Tank that uses melee AOEs and physical attacks to wade through swarms of enemies.

** Equipment **
Wields a one-handed weapon and a shield to increase defense. Other equipment focuses on maximizing defense and HP. I'm not a member so that poses some limitations on my equipment.

** Possible Skills **
L - Attack or Butcher (adds attack and damage and a chance at knockdown)
R - Shadow Lightning (deals shadow damage; arcs to multiple enemies; has a short cooldown)

== Melee AOEs ==
Cleave (hits multiple adjacent enemies for reduced damage)
Righteous Stomp (deals minor divine damage and knocks back)
Gaseous Blast (deals poison damage over time)
Ring of Fire (deals fire fire damage)
Unnerving Shout (lowers enemies' attack speed and movement speed)

== Passives ==
Gym Freak (+50% HP/END, +5 STR & AGI, -25% MP/END, -5 END & INT)
Bookworm (+100% MP/INT, +5 END & INT, -5% HP/END, -5 STR & AGI)
Mental Prowess (+20% to All Magic Damage, -7% attack speed)
Way of the Roo (+25% Melee Attack Speed, -7% Ranged Attack Speed, -5% to all Magic damage)

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I'm not sure if I want to start out as a Fighter or a Mage. I need starter skills from both so it boils down to which skills are more important in the early game.

If I use either Mental Prowess or Way of the Roo then I'm probably going to want to use both. The question then is should I use either one?

I'm thinking of either leaving the LMB open or setting it to Butcher. Either will make the build more useful against single enemies.

EDIT: It occured to me that I'm not sure how to go about raising my stats.

Now for the big question: is this build viable? I'm not normally a melee player so are there other skills I should consider or anything else I should know?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Edited by kitsunegami (11/04/07 02:35 PM)

I decided to start as a Fighter simply because my other character started as a Mage.

Thus far I've been levelling like this:
even levels: 3 STR, 2 END
odd levels: 2 STR, 2 AGI, 1 INT

So at level 5 my stats are:
STR 20 + 6 = 26
AGI 14 + 12 = 26
END 14 + 4 = 18
INT 12 - 1 = 11

I have purchased Shadow Lightning and Gaseous Blast and they make fairly short work of swarms in Dew Valley. Now I'm saving up for Bookworm.

We have a similar build I've been messing with. This is is how I have it set up.

Equipment
Two Hander (Reasoning - Max damage for cleaves, a mana drain on it would be nice too)

The 1h & shield is a good idea two, more life / def or kill faster.. hmmm. lol

Gear focused on endurance, +magic dmg (fire, shadow, poison)

Talents

Left Mouse Button - Soul Rend (High Damage Single Target Attack)
Right Mouse Button - Shadow Lightning (Chain Lightning)

Bar Talents (put these in whatever order you feel comfortable)

Acidic Blight (AoE Curse, reducing Armor of enemies)
Gaseous Blast (AoE Poison DoT)
Ring of Fire (AoE Fire, with possible DoT)
Cleave (AoE Melee Attack)

Couch Potato (+20% MP/Int, +5 Str, +5 Int, -5HP/End, -5 Agi, -5 End
Gym Freak (+50% HP/End, +5 Str, +5 Agi, -25% MP/End, -5 End, -5 Int)
Way of the Roo (+25% Melee Attack Speed, -7% Ranged Attack Speed, -5% to all Magic damage)
Bookworm (+100% MP/Int, +5 End, +5 Int, -5% HP/End, -5 Str, +5 Agi)
Mental Prowess (+20% to All Magic Damage, -7% attack speed)

Stats are roughly as follows:

40% Strength (Melee Damage and Defense)
20% Agility (Melee Attack Rating)
10% Endurance (Health, Lower because gear will be focused on Endurance)
30% Intellect (Spell Damage and Intellect)

The way this is achieved is by distributing your points as follows (every 2 levels)

First Level
2 Strength
1 Agility
2 Intellect

Next Level]
2 Strength
1 Agility
1 Endurance
1 Intellect

A lot of people will say the stats are spread too thin, but it seems to work out fine. We started as a warrior, but either way is probably viable.

Feel free to make comments or what not.

- Heart & Soul

Note: Edited due to button issues and timing. LoL My other half decided the way the buttons were on the original post was unsatisfactory.

Edited by AnthonyK (11/05/07 03:25 AM)

I was a fighter for exactly 42 levels. I thought it was normal to spend an hour+ clearing every dungeon level, 1 monster at a time. Then I grouped with a shadow mage who could clear a mob single-handedly in about 20 seconds. I loved being a fighter, so I tried to hybridize his shadow mage build with my crushing fighter build. The results were less than impressive.

I found that in order to be able to do enough damage as a fighter, you can't spare enough points on intellect to have enough mana to run any good AOE spells before you mana crash. I also found that in order to do enough spell damage, you really can't spare any of your int points into strength. I suddenly had a hybrid of all the skills I wanted, but the inability to kill anything. It was quite disappointing.

The problem with hybrids is you lose the hidden bonus you get on a straight build. Mages with high int get extra unseen spell damage, fighters with high strength also seem to benefit from some sort of bonus, although I'd need confirmation on this part. When you hybridize you're left without the bonus of any class.

Eventually I respecced to pure int shadow mage and found most of what I was looking for. I run blue screen for the HP shortage, and clear dungeon levels in minutes. I avoid HDOL like the plague though, because my build struggles against bosses. While not exactly what I'm looking for in a build, it's what I have come to accept due to the limitations of the game. Until there can be some sort of hybrid bonus to DPS I suspect hybrids will continue to be mediocre units, clearing very slowly, and having a bit of a struggle with bosses as well.

I seem to be doing pretty well with my mage that I've been hybridizing into fighter with a sprinkling of ranger. The secret is to focus on keeping your strengths consolidated. Rather than taking the attacks that focus on melee attack powers, use the ones that do skill damage. They recieve 100% of the benefit from all of your intelligence and the 20% damage from Mental prowess. Gym Freak can make you sturdier, you can SMASH things with Soul Rend and Holy Roller, and you can stay alive a bit longer with Righteous Stomp. Gasous Blast is also fantastic, and don't underestimate Monster Bait.

Thanks for your input everyone.

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I realized that I was grievously low on mana so starting at level 8 I spent my stats points like this:

STR 2, AGI 1, END 1, INT 1

So at Level 10 I have:

STR 31 + 17 = 48
AGI 19 + 17 = 36
END 19 + 11 = 30
INT 16 + 12 = 28

HP 1097
MP 883

I'm going to give it a few more levels to see if this gives me enough MP before trying anything else.

Once I get to the point where I can keep my MP up with the occasional potion then I'll stop raising my INT and use that point wherever it's needed.

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My current skills are:
L - Soul Rend (Thanx for the tip, AnthonyK; SR works quite well)
R - Shadow Lightning
Gaseous Blast, Righteous Stomp, Cleave
Mental Prowess, Way of the Roo, Bookworm, Gym Freak

Next purchase is Ring of Fire.

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So far, except for occasionally running out of MP, it does the job beautifully. There's nothing quite like watching two blademasters and three wargs drop simultaneously. Even when I do run out of MP I can still beat things quite thoroughly to death.

At level 14 I had a base 20 INT and had mostly ceased running out of MP but was having signifiacnt difficulty hitting things with physical attacks. So at level 15 I added: STR 2, AGI 2, END 1.

Thus at level 15 I have:
STR 41 + 44 = 85
AGI 25 + 42 = 67
END 24 + 13 = 37
INT 20 + 9 = 29

HP 1397
MP 937

I got lucky and found some blue armor with +25 AGI so I miss a lot less but still more often than I'd like to.

I almost never run out of MP anymore but potions take care of that easily enough. At level 18 several of my skills upgrade and will thus cost more MP so I will need more MP eventually but for now I need more AGI. So I think I will start levelling like this:

even levels: STR 2, AGI 2, INT 1
odd levels: STR 2, AGI 2, END 1

I'll try this stat growth for a few levels, but I may end up respecing and give up some END to gain more AGI.

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My current skills are:
L - Soul Rend
R - Shadow Lightning
Gaseous Blast, Ring of Fire, Cleave, Righteous Stomp
Mental Prowess, Way of the Roo, Bookworm, Gym Freak

This skill set seems to work pretty well but the only time I ever use Righteous Stomp is as an emergency escape. I may want something in that slot that's useful more often.

I have fairly decent damage bonuses which are helping a good bit: +17 Divine and +15 Poison. Since my DOTs are either poison or divine I've been focusing on those for my bonuses.

When you say your full int mage struggles with bosses, do you mean insane bosses specifically? I have a full int mage who mainly just clears the small groups out with aoe and switches to a bolt spell for big guys.I havent found anything i have really struggled with on normal, but i can definitely see what you mean if you are talking about insane. Forgive my noobness, maybe you guys never even play on normal..i dont know.

Been there, done this, just check out my link in my signature folks.

Easy way to do bosses with the mage, even though this is a hybrid discussion. Use AoE's to clear all minions but the boss. While in combat you can then open up skill window and equip a bolt spell to finish the job. Works good for me.

Except that quite a few bosses summons mobs.

I've only been playing for 3 days, but my first character's a hybrid. Seems to be working pretty well. I've been assigning attribute points fairly evenly, with a slight bias to endurance and agility for more HP and higher hit probability.

Current skill setup at L15:
LMB: Soul rend
RMB: Shadow lightning
Passives: Gym freak, Way of the roo
Others in tray: Stomp, 1H swivel, assorted resist buffs

Gear: 1h + shield. I lucked out and found a purple pick with some decent stat bonii, and ludicrous attack speed. Soul rends every 2.9 sec, which is one reason I lean to agility, since all the DPS potential in the world is wasted if I miss. The rest of my gear is heavy armor barring a medium body with a nice high agility mod, and rings/ammy with a spread of stat enhancements. Non-membership has its handicaps, though. I've managed to get a LOT of endurance and fair intel/magic dps bonii.

Strategy is pretty much the dumb like a bag of hammers variety: Waltz in, pick something big, and hit it with soul reave and regular attacks, dumping out a stomp if I need a breather, or dark lightning if I'm getting swarmed by little goomers.

I'll be picking up heal self, spontaneous regen, fear of gosh (is that the name?) and ring of fire as I move on. Might toss in some ranger skills, particularly the fart of doom (tm) and acid curse. So far, though, the combo of high-rate, high accuracy soul reave with decent intel behind it plus magic crowd control looks like a winner.