End Game Arti Gear Suggestions

[happybaby]

Suppose you had an Arti on Argo name Wrette.

Further suppose he is a standard pure build WF.

What would you trick him out with?


Suppose you already had the following...

Stone Heart (+8 Int ) - http://ddowiki.com/page/Stone_Heart
Lenses of The Woodsman - http://ddowiki.com/page/Lenses_of_the_Woodsman
Boots of the Woodsman - http://ddowiki.com/page/Boots_of_the_Woodsman
Epic Hill Fire xBow - http://ddowiki.com/page/Epic_Hellfire_Crossbow
Lucid Dreams - http://ddowiki.com/page/Lucid_Dreams
Green Steel - HP Helm

Deep Wood TOD Set (Not Upgraded)
Ring - http://ddowiki.com/page/Connor's_Band
Necklace - http://ddowiki.com/page/Connor%27s_Pendant



Open Slots
Other Ring
Cloak
Belt
Wrist

**Suppose you could also craft a 2nd Green Steel item because you were bored enough to get 20 Shroud Completions.

[Valiance]

To me the hands down most powerful way to equip an end game arti right now is to go with the level 24 Corruption of Nature (Acid) rune arm, combine it with maxed out Rock Boots, and finish it up with Draconic Incarnation ED with Acid Focus.

The results are just unbelievable dps wise.

Not only is Corruption of Nature the most powerful rune arm in the game dmg wise, (tied with the other 5 shot Acid rune arm) but it also gets you your +3 int. Get the superior acid lore from Rock Boots and your rune arm and Energy bursts are devastating.

With this set up I actually focus more on spell power than for x-bow damage although cross bow damage is still good.

I'm shooting to get Needle and add the trinket which gives the +15 psionic spell power bonus as well as Wizardry 10. Maxing out the Dragon cloak will give another I think +18 to spell power from an implement bonus. With all of these things I think I can get my acid spell power up to around 300.

Here are some numbers.

For Energy Burst even with only the first level the base damage is 1d10+10 per level, or 387.5 base damage. Multiply by 4 for your 300 acid spell power and you're getting 1550 per shot every 30 seconds before crits.

As for the rune arm you're looking at 156.5 dmg per "shot" just from the rune arm. Assuming worst case scenario that you're only getting 50% of the effect of spell power you would still multiply each "shot" by 2.5 for average dmg per shot of 391. Multiply that by 5 for the full charge and you're looking at 2,000 pts of dmg ever 6 seconds, before taking any crits into account. After taking crits into account your average rune arm shot will do about ~2800 dmg.

Add in energy vortex and dragon breath and it gets pretty nice.

V

[khangharu]

Gotta agree with Val, full acid has got to be the most powerful arti build for dps. What he didn't mention is that on top of your rune arm blasts you'll have approximately 1000-2000 worth of aoe acid damage from your energy bursts, and that's non-critical (I've seen 5-6k worth of acid damage on criticals).

With that said, acid has its limitations and I've found a few instances where acid isn't probably the best way to go.
One limitation of draconic incarnation is that all the spells are basically extended melee range. You'll have to be brushing elbows with most of your targets for any of the damage to take effect which might be deadly in some situations. Also, when you find a mob that's immune to acid (yugoloths, green dragons and some others) most of your dps becomes nulll and void.

Like all builds, the traditional acid build has its limitations and depends on your own play style. For me, what I like to do is use upgraded toven's hammer, epic darkstorm helm with shiradi champion and energy burst twisted in (although I'm still working on the latter).

In my glove and wrist slot I've got the two pieces of the fabricator set (+2 damage/hit and +25% to fortification) which puts me at a standing 160% fortification. With that, I can easily pop a yugo pot for +2 int and still be at 110% fort. While the reflex saves against toven's hammer are EXTREMELY common (trust me, it happens a lot in menace of the underdark quests and most dungeons on EE), you still end up putting out a respectable amount of dps with the lightning mote spell (which adds 15% to all lightning damage). Also, I've found that even though the extra shot from CoN and lucid dreams would make ti do more damage in theory than toven's, obstacles like walls and other mobs usually reduce the chances of this happening all the time.

For cloak slot, adamantine cloak of the dragon looks pretty awesome. +18 universal spell damage and +2 to dc's? Yes please. Not to mention +15 threat from ranged/spells

Belt slot could be easily used for a second GS (at least I can't think of anything good here unless you really can't find anywhere else to put greater false life or heavy fort)

trinket slot I've got a +3 insightful dexterity planar focus of prowess. Together with needle that'll give a +4 stacking damage/to-hit and +15 physical resistance.

For your second ring I'd say Ring of Master Artifice. The extra 200 spell points can help if you find yourself typically running low during critical questing moments or just need a buffer so you can quicken your reconstructs and blade barriers. Plus the +90 recon/rust SP and +12 to crit on your heals can be useful (although I usually find reconstruct sufficient). If you upgrade this to an epic ring, you'll have a colorless+green augment slot which is always nice.

For me, I'd replace the deepwood set (+6 dex is kinda meh and +1 exceptional can be put on a colorless slot) Just make sure you've got a +8 item for dexterity and enough con to not die. If you can, use some other slot as your +8 con item so you can fit a torc/epic torc on your neck. I'm not a huge fan of the torc myself but from what I hear it's pretty nice to have (unless you can get toven's hammer fully upgraded).

[Wernerus]

Any tips on how to get the Level 24 Corruption of Nature? I tried the quest once on Epic Elite, and it was an ugly mess (soloing). I'm not sure what the drop rate is, but it seems pretty low. I've ransacked the chest on Epic Hard and it has not dropped for me yet.