Warming up

After just over 4 hours it's time to say farewell to Korthos Island. The sun is shining and Stormreach awaits.

My favourite of the Korthos dungeons is probably the first one encountered upon leaving the village itself. There is combat, but not a great deal of it, with the emphasis being on exploration, trap avoidance and puzzle solving. The exploration, in this and other dungeons, is enhanced by DDO's use of vertical environments. Multi-layered rooms are common, and while there is ultimately one true path through each dungeon it's not a straight line to get there, and there's more to find off that path.

Running as a rogue I'm honestly wondering how anyone can solo in this game without the ability to pick locks and deactivate traps. It's unusual in my experience for an MMO to really make non-combat skills like this useful on a regular basis, and it's one of the things I like most in DDO. It really adds to the feeling of this being Dungeons & Dragons, rather than a standard hack 'n slash with the name.

I also like that I can switch from a ranged weapon to melee weapon(s) in combat. I've been using my bow a lot.

That said, I've ran all of Korthos once before, and I don't remember the combat being this easy. I took virtually no damage in the Cannith Manufactory or Misery Peak – even coming back from an impromptu /afk to find two ice spiders flailing ineffectually at my character. Since Korthos is essentially an extended tutorial zone I assume things will get tougher once I'm in Stormreach. I've yet to use a single healing potion.