Pure Artificer Build Advice

[Shrimpboy]

Hi, I've spent many hours researching the Dubbell O' Seven build, wax_on_wax_off's and Singular's posts for various information on artificers and came up with this build over many of hours of planning.

Reelode WF Build
WF, True Neutral, 20 Artificer

Str: 8
Dex: 17 (+4 tome +8 item +1 exceptional +2 ship = 32)
Con: 16 (+3 tome +1 enhancement +8 item +2 insightful +1 exceptional +5 primal scream +4 ED +2 yugo pot +2 ship = 44)
Int: 18 (+5 tome +4 enhancement +1 feat +7 level up +11 item +3 insightful +1 exceptional +2 capstone +2 yugo pot +2 ship = 56)
Wis: 7 (+2 tome +6 item +1 exceptional +2 acute senses = 18)
Cha: 6

Skills: Concentration, Repair, Spellcraft, UMD, DD, Spot, Search, OL, Balance, Rest in Jump, 1 rank in Tumble, 1 rank in Perform

Feats:
1: PBS
3: Rapid Shot
4: Precise Shot
6: Precision
8: Maximize
9: Wizard Past Life
12: IC: Ranged
12: SF: Evo
15: GSF: Evo
16: IPS
18: Insightful Reflexes
20: Quicken
21: Combat Archery
24: ESF: Evo
26: Epic Spell Power: Force
27: Great Int
28: Doubleshot/Epic Spell Power: Electric

Spells:
1: Conjure Bolts, Enchant Weapons, Ablative Armor, Resist Energy, Enchant Armor
2: Byeshk Weapons, Insightful Strikes, Elemental Weapons, Toughen Construct, Reinforce Construct
3: Adamantine Weapons, Insightful Damage, Flame Turret, PEI, Shield of Faith Mass
4: Cold Iron Weapons, Armor of Speed, Protection from Elements, Lightning Motes, Thundering Armor
5: Silver Weapons, Planar Weapons, Prismatic Strike, Radiant Forcefield
6: Blade Barrier, Reconstruct, Tactical Detonation, Deadly Weapons

Spell DC: 10 Base + 6 Spell Level + 23 Modifier +4 Feats +3 PL +5 Evo Item +2 Augment + 5 ED = 58 DC

Saves: (May be missing things and didn't bother trying to calculate HP or SP)
Fortitude: 10 Base + 17 Modifier +8 Resistance +2 Good Luck +4 GH = 41
Reflex: 10 Base +23 Modifier +8 Resistance +2 Good Luck +1 Profane +1 Armor of Speed +4 GH = 49
Will: 16 Base +4 Modifier +8 Resistance +2 Good Luck +4 GH = 34

Enhancements:
Battle Engineer tree: 49 total
Core: 6 total
battle engineer 1
infused weapons 1
infused armor 1
infused weapons 1
infused armor 1
master engineer 1
Tier1: 5 total
weapon training - crossbow 2
thermal venting 3
Tier2: 11 total
weapon training - crossbow 2
damage boost 6
thaumaturgical conduits 3
Tier3: 12 total
weapon training - crossbow 2
extra action boost 6
arcane capacitors 2
int 2
Tier4: 10 total
weapon training - crossbow 2
battle mastery - endless fusilade 2
rune arm overcharge 2
arcane capacitors 2
int 2
Tier5: 5 total
weapon attachment 1
rune arm overcharge 2
tactical mobility 2

Arcanotechnician tree: 27 total
Core: 1 total
arcanotechnician 1
Tier1: 7 total
uncaring master 2
spell critical 2
wand and scroll mastery 3
Tier2: 5 total
imbued defender 3
spell critical 2
Tier3: 7 total
repair systems 3
spell critical 2
int 2
Tier4: 7 total
arcane engine 3
spell critical 2
int 2

WF tree: 4 total
Core: 3 total
improved fortification 1
constitution 1
improved fortification II

Epic Destiny: Fury of the Wild
3 Boulder Toss/3 Damage Reduction
3 Primal Scream
1 Constitution
1 Constitution
1 Constitution
1 Constitution
3 Acute Senses
3 Sense Weakness
1 Fury Eternal
1 Unbridled Fury

Twists:
Energy Burst (Electric)/Stay Good (DR Breaking Twist)
Spell School Specialist: Evocation
Precise Casting: Evocation
Extra Action Boost (Energy Sheathe: Electric for Tor and FoT)

Pet Enhancements: (Not sure if updated from level 25)
Homunculus Evasion II
Homunculus Adamantine Plating IV
Homunculus Distraction IV
Homunculus Menacing Growl IV
Homunculus Takedown IV
Homunculus Fearsome Tactics IV
Homunculus Dexterity II
Homunculus Strength II
Homunculus Reinforced Armor IV
Homunculus Danger Avoidance IV

Dog Gear:
Grave Wrappings
Epic Bladesmark Docent (Heavy Fort, Str +8)

Gear:
Weapons:Needle, Quill-Slinger (Impulse +138), Archaic Device
Armor: Flawless Shadow Dragonscale Docent (PRR +16/Good Luck +2)
Helm: Dragon Masque (Globe of True Imperial Blood/Striding 30%)
Necklace: Iron Beads (Spellcraft +15/FF) or Sage's Locket (Switch for Energy Burst)
Goggles: Intricate Field Optics (Ins Int +3/Repair +15/Ins Con +2)
Cloak: Adamantine Cloak of the Wolf
Belt: GS HP Item (Min/Pos/Min. Stoneskin clicky, +12 Concentration, Heavy Fort, Protection +5) (Not going to make another one)
Bracers: Sage's Cuffs
Gloves: Gloves of the Master Illusionist (Evo DC +2)
Boots: GS SP Item (Blind Immunity Neg/Cha +4 Pos/Cha +6 Pos/Conc Opp) (Not going to bother making a +12 int skills one...)
Ring 1: Epic Ring of Master Artifice (Con +8/+40 HP)
Ring 2: Consuming Darkness (Resistance +8)
Trinket: Planar Focus of Prowess (Dex +8)

I only have a few questions.
1) Now that Boulder Toss is getting nerfed, how well would this build do in EE content DPS wise?
2) How well will 58 DC function for CC on EE?
3) Gear is a pain, do you guys have any suggestions to improve upon it?
4) Is Doubleshot worth working for on a repeater? So it's asking which is better, ESP: Electric or doubleshot for level 28 feat? And which is better, Doubleshot Stance or Colors of the Queen stance?

And of course, any other advice and discussion would be great! Thank you for your time to read this. :)

[Livmo]

Word on the street is that you're still in jail. How were you able to make this post?

Play styles vary and I play a pure arty. The only end game rune arms I use are Toven's Hammer, Corruption of Nature, Hand of Tombs, and sometimes the Glass Cannon. I have all the rune arms but 1. A completely upgraded Toven's Hammer will alter your gear choices. I recommend one for EE.

Also I recommend an EE Jeweled Cloak.

I would not take these spells based on my play style, Lightning Motes, Prismatic Strike, and Radiant Forcefield. I find Ligthening Sphere more uselful than Ligthening Motes. I would take Ligthening Bolt.

I twist Stay Frosty, Stormrage, and Healing Spring.

Doubleshot only works on the first bolt when firing repeating xbows.

[Shrimpboy]

Word on the street is that you're still in jail. How were you able to make this post?

Play styles vary and I play a pure arty. The only end game rune arms I use are Toven's Hammer, Corruption of Nature, Hand of Tombs, and sometimes the Glass Cannon. I have all the rune arms but 1. A completely upgraded Toven's Hammer will alter your gear choices. I recommend one for EE.

Also I recommend an EE Jeweled Cloak.

I would not take these spells based on my play style, Lightning Motes, Prismatic Strike, and Radiant Forcefield. I find Ligthening Sphere more uselful than Ligthening Motes. I would take Ligthening Bolt.

I twist Stay Frosty, Stormrage, and Healing Spring.

Doubleshot only works on the first bolt when firing repeating xbows.

So that's what they are saying about me on Sarlona? :P

Anyway, thanks for the info. I've never got a Toven's yet, want to try it out. The doubleshot information is helpful, but hmmm... Still torn. Doubleshot might be better with Furyshot, possibly proccing two Furyshots? No idea. Hope to get more feedback! :D

[Livmo]

So that's what they are saying about me on Sarlona? :P

Anyway, thanks for the info. I've never got a Toven's yet, want to try it out. The doubleshot information is helpful, but hmmm... Still torn. Doubleshot might be better with Furyshot, possibly proccing two Furyshots? No idea. Hope to get more feedback! :D

Toven's
http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Toven%27s_Hammer

Drops on all difficulties. More frequently on higher difficulties.

This can be upgraded in two ways:

Alchemical Crafting: Can add Insightful Intelligence +2, and Transform Kinetic Energy
Upgrade 1: The Cerebral Distillation Unit needed for the upgrade drops from the master artificer "Destroy Soul-Cleansing Device" optional chest.
Upgrade 2: The Elemental Motion Fixation Device needed drops from The Lord of Blades "Grudge Maker" optional chest.
Cannith Crafting: Can add any effect which normally goes onto a craftable +5 trinket.

--

With Shadow armor it increases my fort. to 180%

Also, there are some neat things you can craft onto Toven's. For example, 33% Electrical or Fire Absorbtion (suffix), Evocation II (stackable prefix), etc. What you craft on the rune arm will alter your gear choices.

Here is the link to the Cannith Crafting Planner (use trinket):

http://cannith.cubicleninja.com/

[Livmo]

So that's what they are saying about me on Sarlona? :P


Where I live he was just arrested:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Chow_Kwok_Cheung

Leland Yee and Shrimpgate. San Francisco asks: Who are these people? (http://blog.sfgate.com/cwnevius/2014/04/04/shrimpgate-san-francisco-asks-who-are-these-people/)

[Singular]

Word on the street is that you're still in jail. How were you able to make this post?

Play styles vary and I play a pure arty. The only end game rune arms I use are Toven's Hammer, Corruption of Nature, Hand of Tombs, and sometimes the Glass Cannon. I have all the rune arms but 1. A completely upgraded Toven's Hammer will alter your gear choices. I recommend one for EE.

Also I recommend an EE Jeweled Cloak.

I would not take these spells based on my play style, Lightning Motes, Prismatic Strike, and Radiant Forcefield. I find Ligthening Sphere more uselful than Ligthening Motes. I would take Ligthening Bolt.

I twist Stay Frosty, Stormrage, and Healing Spring.

Doubleshot only works on the first bolt when firing repeating xbows.

How much damage are you producing with Tovens?

[Singular]

So that's what they are saying about me on Sarlona? :P

Anyway, thanks for the info. I've never got a Toven's yet, want to try it out. The doubleshot information is helpful, but hmmm... Still torn. Doubleshot might be better with Furyshot, possibly proccing two Furyshots? No idea. Hope to get more feedback! :D

Your build looks great.

I don't recommend bothering with Tovens, but test it yourself. One will drop for you in probably your first run. The heroic level rune arms only add 50% of your spell power to their damage; the epic ones add 80%. On my artie, Tovens hits for something like 400-800 damage while AD hits for 1200-2200. It's possible a fully electric specced artie could make use of it w/lightning motes and perhaps some kind of vulnerable inducing weapon.

As per the above poster, I recommend Jeweled Cloak and other spell absorption items (it can be used only when needed - just swap your Adamantine cloak in and out, depending on the casters present). Our saves aren't great, it really helps to bolster them with spell absorption (plis is a nice swap-in).

If you can fit Deadly into there (maybe a ring swap with your Ring of the Master Artificer) Needle will do a lot more damage. If you go the ring swap method, try to get +10/11 deadly +10 resistance. I know +2 to saves doesn't seem like a lot, but it will help in EE. Then you could put the Ring of MA on a hot bar, press it before reconstructing, press another button to re-equip your Deadly.

Since BT is going away, I'm starting to toy with building in other sources of damage, like the Battle Rager's harness. I pulled one by accident and it turns out to add 10-60 per shot. I'm also thinking of completely respeccing around the xbow (and spells only for CC)...but more on that later.

Doubleshot only works on the first bolt from the repeater - but it's great! I fired a 4 shot volley of adrenaline bolts the other day, doing 7500 damage - first time I'd seen that. So, if you have it on it and procs when you adrenaline, you're doing ridiculous damage. (I'm also toying w/the idea of making a Thunderholme great Xbow and maxing doubleshot...)

I'd recommend Doubleshot over Colors, especially right now b/c COQ is buffing mobs via radiant forcefield and adrenaline. I'd still recommend it over CoQ when that gets fixed b/c DS works all the time, b/c CoQ is only going to be added something every 10 seconds. I suppose we could hot bar these, and switch them every 10 seconds, to maximize their dps, but that seems like too much work :)

Additionally, I have to disagree with the other poster about Radiant Forcefield - it blocks 25% of all incoming damage for 20 seconds or so. It's extremely useful in tight situations. It will give you enough breathing room to cast recon when in real trouble and it can be used to run through traps to get the box on the other side. Granted in the highest level content - Haunted Halls - the traps still killed me :) but in all other content, RF worked out well.

Finally, you'll want to build one or two Thunderholme repeaters. They can be specced out to produce massive fire damage, negative energy damage, CC and probably the best negative leveling in the game (which helps our spell DCs). Probably Needle will remain the highest base damage repeater - especially if you can bring a lot of multipliable damage - but the Thunderholme ones offer some good choices, too.

[Livmo]

How much damage are you producing with Tovens?

Purple woot woot!

[Shrimpboy]

Your build looks great.

I don't recommend bothering with Tovens, but test it yourself. One will drop for you in probably your first run. The heroic level rune arms only add 50% of your spell power to their damage; the epic ones add 80%. On my artie, Tovens hits for something like 400-800 damage while AD hits for 1200-2200. It's possible a fully electric specced artie could make use of it w/lightning motes and perhaps some kind of vulnerable inducing weapon.

As per the above poster, I recommend Jeweled Cloak and other spell absorption items (it can be used only when needed - just swap your Adamantine cloak in and out, depending on the casters present). Our saves aren't great, it really helps to bolster them with spell absorption (plis is a nice swap-in).

If you can fit Deadly into there (maybe a ring swap with your Ring of the Master Artificer) Needle will do a lot more damage. If you go the ring swap method, try to get +10/11 deadly +10 resistance. I know +2 to saves doesn't seem like a lot, but it will help in EE. Then you could put the Ring of MA on a hot bar, press it before reconstructing, press another button to re-equip your Deadly.

Since BT is going away, I'm starting to toy with building in other sources of damage, like the Battle Rager's harness. I pulled one by accident and it turns out to add 10-60 per shot. I'm also thinking of completely respeccing around the xbow (and spells only for CC)...but more on that later.

Doubleshot only works on the first bolt from the repeater - but it's great! I fired a 4 shot volley of adrenaline bolts the other day, doing 7500 damage - first time I'd seen that. So, if you have it on it and procs when you adrenaline, you're doing ridiculous damage. (I'm also toying w/the idea of making a Thunderholme great Xbow and maxing doubleshot...)

I'd recommend Doubleshot over Colors, especially right now b/c COQ is buffing mobs via radiant forcefield and adrenaline. I'd still recommend it over CoQ when that gets fixed b/c DS works all the time, b/c CoQ is only going to be added something every 10 seconds. I suppose we could hot bar these, and switch them every 10 seconds, to maximize their dps, but that seems like too much work :)

Additionally, I have to disagree with the other poster about Radiant Forcefield - it blocks 25% of all incoming damage for 20 seconds or so. It's extremely useful in tight situations. It will give you enough breathing room to cast recon when in real trouble and it can be used to run through traps to get the box on the other side. Granted in the highest level content - Haunted Halls - the traps still killed me :) but in all other content, RF worked out well.

Finally, you'll want to build one or two Thunderholme repeaters. They can be specced out to produce massive fire damage, negative energy damage, CC and probably the best negative leveling in the game (which helps our spell DCs). Probably Needle will remain the highest base damage repeater - especially if you can bring a lot of multipliable damage - but the Thunderholme ones offer some good choices, too.

First off, thank you for replying to my thread Singular. I find you to be one of the expert buildmakers on artificers and all of your posts about our class has really given me a lot of inspiration on this build.

I will definitely look towards getting an EE cloak. I also have a PLIS that I use from time to time but I think I would rather swap out the seeker and dodge than the con, PRR and +4 to damage.

Deadly +11 is on the Dragon Masque, so I'm not sure if the +2 to saves alone is worth swapping out the Ring of Master Artifice. I love those extra powerful heals and it can save me during those "oh ****!" moment heals. I feel like I'd panic and not get the spell off in time while swapping beforehand. XD

Hmm... Battlerager's Harness, never thought of that. We may have to build around on damage procs seeing how we lost one of our most powerful SLAs. :/ Seeing how fast the ROF of a Repeater is, I'd hate to see us pigeonholed into that style...

Thank you for the information on Doubleshot! I will probably choose that option over the ESP: Electric and CoQ now. :)

And yes, the Thunderholme repeaters look AMAZING. Not sure if I'd wanna give up my Needle though, gotta love them beefy crits and adrenaline. But hey, maybe Shiradi CC abilties with the Thunderholme Xbows are going to pull ahead more, making us support characters. We shall see how the game plays out and what the devs have in store for us.

[Singular]

First off, thank you for replying to my thread Singular. I find you to be one of the expert buildmakers on artificers and all of your posts about our class has really given me a lot of inspiration on this build.

I will definitely look towards getting an EE cloak. I also have a PLIS that I use from time to time but I think I would rather swap out the seeker and dodge than the con, PRR and +4 to damage.

Deadly +11 is on the Dragon Masque, so I'm not sure if the +2 to saves alone is worth swapping out the Ring of Master Artifice. I love those extra powerful heals and it can save me during those "oh ****!" moment heals. I feel like I'd panic and not get the spell off in time while swapping beforehand. XD

Hmm... Battlerager's Harness, never thought of that. We may have to build around on damage procs seeing how we lost one of our most powerful SLAs. :/ Seeing how fast the ROF of a Repeater is, I'd hate to see us pigeonholed into that style...

Thank you for the information on Doubleshot! I will probably choose that option over the ESP: Electric and CoQ now. :)

And yes, the Thunderholme repeaters look AMAZING. Not sure if I'd wanna give up my Needle though, gotta love them beefy crits and adrenaline. But hey, maybe Shiradi CC abilties with the Thunderholme Xbows are going to pull ahead more, making us support characters. We shall see how the game plays out and what the devs have in store for us.

Right back at you :)

Wow, yeah, I wasn't thinking. If you've already got deadly +11, you're good to go. Since our saves are so low anyways, I'm not sure a +2 would be worth the extra swapping during panic times, especially since buttons sometimes seem to take more than one press these days. Alternatively, you could put a max (fire) resist/aborb ring + 11 resist as a swap item (for the Double dragon raid). On my sorc, I swap to the Lantern Ring, for extra light damage with every spell - probably not so useful on arties, unless it also went off on our rune arms (mind you, if you're tossing slas constantly, it's a good choice) - and it would buff our light rune arm. Sadly, only lvl 15. The Devs need to give us more rune arm choices!

Yeah, Doubleshot is good, no doubt. It's worth doing what you can for it and might be worth thinking about min/maxing around it at least for repeater builds. If we give up on kinetic, then we've got a free bracers slot that can be 9% more...

Anyways, if you are having fun running through etrs, it's worth getting 3Xdoubleshot and 3X spell crits. CoQ is really fun if you're doing regular TRs - about every 10 seconds, you'll just annihilate a bunch of mobs or a box. But if you're not doing TRs, I'd totally ignore this one on an artie. If you're doing the full 3Xpast lives of each, I would guess saving throws and fort for the other two, but whatever suits your purpose.

[Shrimpboy]

Right back at you :)

Wow, yeah, I wasn't thinking. If you've already got deadly +11, you're good to go. Since our saves are so low anyways, I'm not sure a +2 would be worth the extra swapping during panic times, especially since buttons sometimes seem to take more than one press these days. Alternatively, you could put a max (fire) resist/aborb ring + 11 resist as a swap item (for the Double dragon raid). On my sorc, I swap to the Lantern Ring, for extra light damage with every spell - probably not so useful on arties, unless it also went off on our rune arms (mind you, if you're tossing slas constantly, it's a good choice) - and it would buff our light rune arm. Sadly, only lvl 15. The Devs need to give us more rune arm choices!

Yeah, Doubleshot is good, no doubt. It's worth doing what you can for it and might be worth thinking about min/maxing around it at least for repeater builds. If we give up on kinetic, then we've got a free bracers slot that can be 9% more...

Anyways, if you are having fun running through etrs, it's worth getting 3Xdoubleshot and 3X spell crits. CoQ is really fun if you're doing regular TRs - about every 10 seconds, you'll just annihilate a bunch of mobs or a box. But if you're not doing TRs, I'd totally ignore this one on an artie. If you're doing the full 3Xpast lives of each, I would guess saving throws and fort for the other two, but whatever suits your purpose.

Good idea on the fire absorb ring! I haven't played the new content yet and heard the fire damage was crazy. I was concerned about that considering my energy sheathe twist would be electric. I'll get one for that raid :)

About the etrs, I was thinking double shot x3, enchant weapon x3, saving throws x3 and skill mastery x3. I figured repeaters are just fine during heroic. The effort for CoQ for regular TRs isn't necessary IMO. Double shot for endgame obviously. Enchant vs Crit is a tough one. Since Crit only effects the elements and sonic, would the 9% extra chance to Crit with energy burst and the occasional primal scream be more than the dps boost of +3 to dam and +9 spell power? Saving throws is obviously the best divine past life for Arties. And I decided skill mastery for the +3 spellpower and trap skills because I figured a +130% fort item +75% racial fort and 3 blade forged past lives (gonna be my sorc lives) would be plenty for EE with an int yugo pot, but correct me if I am wrong.

[CThruTheEgo]

The build looks solid. I would second Singular's comment that Toven's isn't worth it. There are only three rune arms that are worth considering for an endgame arti: Archaic Device, Corruption of Nature (comes with 114 acid spell power), and Turmoil Within (if you happen to have acid spell power slotted somewhere).

I don't know if you've been following it, but there's been a thread going in the arti section about Optimizing a Pure Arti for EE (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/439717-Optimizing-a-pure-arti-for-EE). Some good thoughts in there about the current state of artis as well as gear ideas.


The heroic level rune arms only add 50% of your spell power to their damage; the epic ones add 80%.

I'm curious where you get these numbers from. Did I miss some testing on rune arms and spell power?

[Shrimpboy]

The build looks solid. I would second Singular's comment that Toven's isn't worth it. There are only three rune arms that are worth considering for an endgame arti: Archaic Device, Corruption of Nature (comes with 114 acid spell power), and Turmoil Within (if you happen to have acid spell power slotted somewhere).

I don't know if you've been following it, but there's been a thread going in the arti section about Optimizing a Pure Arti for EE (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/439717-Optimizing-a-pure-arti-for-EE). Some good thoughts in there about the current state of artis as well as gear ideas.

Thank you so much for the comment on the build, CThru. Your Dubbell O' Seven build has been a great inspiration to me. I've been following both your thread and Singular's build thread almost religiously for comments and suggestions and ideas. I'm curious to see how artys will adapt to EE without Boulder Toss and our gear restraints.

[Shrimpboy]

Finally, you'll want to build one or two Thunderholme repeaters. They can be specced out to produce massive fire damage, negative energy damage, CC and probably the best negative leveling in the game (which helps our spell DCs). Probably Needle will remain the highest base damage repeater - especially if you can bring a lot of multipliable damage - but the Thunderholme ones offer some good choices, too.

So for the Thunderforged Xbows, what effects do you think are best? (For CC, DPS or Debuffs?) All of them look pretty nice, so I'm undecided. And about Boulder Toss, is it even worth keeping in the rotation? And if not, what would you replace it with in Fury AP wise? Thanks. :)

[Singular]

The build looks solid. I would second Singular's comment that Toven's isn't worth it. There are only three rune arms that are worth considering for an endgame arti: Archaic Device, Corruption of Nature (comes with 114 acid spell power), and Turmoil Within (if you happen to have acid spell power slotted somewhere).
I'm curious where you get these numbers from. Did I miss some testing on rune arms and spell power?

RE: rune arms: I sometimes use the snow one from TOR, and use Glass Cannon to break boxes :) I also seldomly switch to a fire one when my force one is healing enemies.

RE: rune arms and spell power. A dev commented that rune arms give 50-80% of spell power. I've noticed that whenever I slot a heroic one, the damage is miserable - and roughly 2/3rds of what my epic rune arms give. So, no, not serious testing - but it's really easy to test yourself. Slot Lucid Dreams, go shoot stuff. Then slot Archaic Device - the damage goes up by about 30-50%. It's quite obvious b/c AD almost always hits for over 200 (usually 3-800 for mine) and LD is usually in the 100-200 range. Toven's is about the same as AD - around 1-200 per shot, making it miserable in epic levels (I sometimes get into arguments with other arties over this - no idea why they are using Tovens at lvl 25! But if they want to be mediocre dps, more power to them).

I think it's reasonable to concluded that heroic rune arms give 50% and epic ones 80%, though I haven't tried every rune arm and don't know if the percentage actually scales with level. It could be that AD, being only lvl 20, only gets 70% and the lvl 25 ones get 80%. However, if that were true, you'd expect my Turmoil within to do match or do more than my AD, regardless of my spell power commitments (all into force). It doesn't; on my build, AD does more.

[Singular]

So for the Thunderforged Xbows, what effects do you think are best? (For CC, DPS or Debuffs?) All of them look pretty nice, so I'm undecided. And about Boulder Toss, is it even worth keeping in the rotation? And if not, what would you replace it with in Fury AP wise? Thanks. :)

I think it really depends upon what you are building. I think the best one to get at first is First Degree Burns (as that vulnerable will work on all your magic, and the fire damage from your xbow), then Dragon's Edge, then Crippling Flames. For me, that's a great boss and trash beater.

However, for those arties running in not-Fury, I'd recommend getting a CC xbow. If you're going to be running these raids a lot, build the above 'fire' one, then a negative damage one, a CC one and consider building a Spellpower/Lore one for whatever your Energy Burst is.

[Wipey]

Since BT is going away, I'm starting to toy with building in other sources of damage, like the Battle Rager's harness. I pulled one by accident and it turns out to add 10-60 per shot.
Still few runs from 20 on my gimpranger so does it even work on ranged ?

Even then it's still like 3.5 dmg per shot ?

[Livmo]

I read the above comments and I want to return to play style here and rune arms.

Singluar and CThruTheEgo both have great builds. I think of the them as the Yin and Yang of the arty world (human and bladeforged). However, going back to play style you may find the need to use your run arms like rings or other pieces of equipment that you swap out based on the baddies you're facing, the quest you're running, or the aim your are trying to achieve.

I reset and move around my Enhancements, EDs, and sometimes feats depending on the style I want to play or quest/raid particulars. I like the arty, because its about flexability and options.

Both Toven's Hammer and Lucid Dreams are the only 2 higher level rune arms you can craft on. Both are L19. Rune arms can also be wiped clean and re-crafted on depending on your needs, wants, desires, moods, etc. These arms provide many options for game play. You can craft on them to fill in part of your set-up after making gear changes for a particluar quest/raid you want to run. The key point I want to make is flexability and options.

For instance, CThruTheEgo will not really need the 10% Exceptional Fort on Toven's, because he is using bladeforged. My L18 bladeforgered arty has 210% fort un-buffed. My cyborg Livmo needs that 10% Exceptional Fort in some of the new content to get higher than 150%. Like switching rings I will switch rune arms when I need the additional fort.

A chief complaint about Toven's in EE content is that baddies have high reflex saves. However, there are things you can do to make the baddies more suceptable to lightening damage. Sometimes you will land a monster hit for massive electrical damage that is purple with out these tricks. Even better when you can make the baddies moar prone to Toven damage by way of ED or something on all your attacks.

In general arty rune arms could use some love. The Toven's could be improved for sure! For starters an orange and green augment slot would be nice.

[Livmo]

I did not see it in this this thread and I can't find the exact post I'm thinking of, but Singular mentioned in another thread why doubleshot is gr8 with Adrenealine. I run in Fury of the Wild allot. Perhaps he can link it here. I'm not sure if the same post or not, but he also mentions why he uses the human race. You can stack the human and arty action boosts. It might be the Boulder Toss thread. You can stack effects and doubleshot is still great for repeater with Adrenaline, even tho the doublshot only applies to the first bolt.

[Singular]

Still few runs from 20 on my gimpranger so does it even work on ranged ?

Even then it's still like 3.5 dmg per shot ?

I don't know if it works on ranged, but it doesn't say that it doesn't :)

It would be an additional 35 dmg/shot, not 3.5. It's not a lot, but its more than I have for sneak attack damage.

[Singular]

A chief complaint about Toven's in EE content is that baddies have high reflex saves. However, there are things you can do to make the baddies more suceptable to lightening damage. Sometimes you will land a monster hit for massive electrical damage that is purple with out these tricks. Even better when you can make the baddies moar prone to Toven damage by way of ED or something on all your attacks.

How much damage do you see when you build for that? How much how much how much??? :)


I did not see it in this this thread and I can't find the exact post I'm thinking of, but Singular mentioned in another thread why doubleshot is gr8 with Adrenealine. I run in Fury of the Wild allot. Perhaps he can link it here. I'm not sure if the same post or not, but he also mentions why he uses the human race. You can stack the human and arty action boosts. It might be the Boulder Toss thread. You can stack effects and doubleshot is still great for repeater with Adrenaline, even tho the doublshot only applies to the first bolt.

Yeah. I'll repeat it here: doubleshot only procs on the first bolt. But, if it does proc on an adrenaline shot, it adds that extra massive damage (base damage around 1500-2500 on Needle and 800-1700 on Thunderholme). So I've seen 4 adrenaline shots in a row once. Just once! But I didn't build for doubleshot - you can, if you do the 3 etrs of Primal (+9%), wear the Skirmisher's bracers (+9%), take the Epic Feat (10%), giving you +28% (or if you go rogue/fighter, you can increase that a bit - up to +20 maybe).

That would double roughly 1/3rd of your first shot. You get something like 2 shots/sec (if you're perfect or have great BAB - something that will happen when level 30 comes along, or if you use Tensor's Transformation). That means every six seconds, you'll fire 3 rounds of 3 shots, one of which will be doubled. To calculate your added dps, do this:

(dps of your xbow over 6 seconds)+(dps of xbow over 6 secs/dps of xbow over 6 secs)= dps of xbow using maxed doubleshot.

Uhm...in other words, full doubleshot on a pure artie will add roughly 1/6th of your current xbow damage to your damage output. I think that's worth it - it's better than, say, wearing black dragon armor (only adds 5% dps to you) and it's better than Lightning Strike. But to make that happen, you've got to give up the only kinetic lore item. Unless you can find a doubleshot item that is not a bracers.

If I switch from Force to something else - say, fire and electricity - I'd definitely go for maxing double shot. Since you use Toven's, I'm assuming your electric specked, it might be an idea, especially if you're not wearing Bracers of the Wind.

[Livmo]

How much damage do you see when you build for that? How much how much how much??? :)


Are you crazy?

I don't want Toven's to get BT'ed : ) )

I'm gonna beat a dead horse here and say arties lost spell power in the Enhancement pass again. I can still repesc as I desire too, but it sure was allot easier to do it by just resetting enhancements for the most part. Although I support the new enhancment system, it has caused me rely more on rune arms (and gear) to fill in gaps and ED SLAs like Boulder Toss.

It's great DDO helped our fellow barbarian players, but it's another stick in the other arty eye, even if unintentional. Yeah it stinks about BT, but it was the right thing to do. I doubt Toven's would get BT'ed, because that would be total tone deafness on Turbine's part : ) )

Rune arms need to be scaled up for post L20+ game play or new arms introduced. Due to game changes like the Enhacement Pass and others, the augment slots on rune arms need to revisited. Rune arms need the ability to slot red augments for things like repair spell power. Blue slots would be good too, which is why I advocate for orange and green slots on rune arms. It's getting more and more difficult to play an arty when we have to spread ourselves thin with skill points, feats, EDs, etc. to make up for the intentional and unintentional game changes.

Now that I've climbed down from soap box, I want to mention I'm not fully spec. electric at the moment, because I'm geeked on Light the Dark (boost with posiitve spell power) from Unyielding Sentinel to kill undead in the new content. I got it critting now for 1703 to 1970 (not a common occurance tho), but most waves deal 598-601 damage to all surrounding undead in range. A fun tactic is get Buddy to pull the aggro and when he gets dog piled I will jump or wade into the mob of undead and pop Light the Dark to heal Buddy and break off some hurt for those undead (HH and Thunderholm) en masse!

Regarding Toven's Hammer its doing purple damage un-maxed and I'm not fully speced electric at 633 per photon torpedo on the low side. As you know you get 4 lightening balls. In the new content (i.e. kobolds in and necro casters in HH) I'm using it as shotgun when the baddies get up in my grill when I'm standing still blasting with the repeater and TD and LS. Since I'm not optimized at the moment (because I'm rocking Light the Dark) my TD damage is down since I'm not pumping fire and force.

Heh even with my current set-up my crits are in 3300 and 3900 ranges with the torperdos. I know we used to get 6k+ on each BT and 12k+ with doubleshot, but if the 1st 3 balls hit on high side it can be up to 9k+. The pattern with this set up is usually 1 or 2 torpedoes for big damage and the others for 633. Usually 633 on all, or 633 for 1-3 and big hit on 4 over 3k. Or 1-3 are big hits for 3k+ and 4th is 633. This damage is purple and I'm not using and gimmicks at the moment, so it's good amount of damage.

In end game I'm running Toven's and Corruption for the Insightful INT until I get a +2 Insightful Augment or another piece of gear. I got doubleshot and swapping in and out Skirmisher for dodge when I need it.

I'm using the Hand of Tombs for the disruption in HH and Thunderholm allot. I got a nice compliment last week because of it. Estel had a 1/3 of life left and another party member said, "What happened? She had a 1/3 of life left and disappeared!" I flashed them in chat the Hand of Tombs. I got repair spell power crafted on it and I forget the other at moment, but it's ML is 17 instead of 9. I have several of these with various things crafted on them for various set-ups. I'm sure you have one, but if you want to toy around with one in the new content I may have and unbound one on my arty bank toon.

Hand of Tombs
http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Hand_of_the_Tombs


DDO/Turbine folk reading this please show us arties love by adding orange and green augment slots on rune arms like a Toven's and make some of Lokeal's arms a reality (also play melee arty). Since I'm asking, I'm gonna push the envelope and also ask for our own arty ED and a 3rd Enhacement Tree as well :cool: Please and thank you.


o-[=======>

I got mo to say as if I'm not chatty enough already : ) )

Since I'm not pumping fire and force at the moment I put these on 2 of my repeaters to add a pintch of force damage to my arty gumbo:

Force Damage Ritual (http://ddowiki.com/page/Force_Damage_Ritual)

Force Critical Ritual (http://ddowiki.com/page/Force_Critical_Ritual)

[Livmo]

Upon reflection with all the game changes I wonder if arties will cleave into human (extra feats) and bladeforged (just awesomeness), and there will be less cyborgs like me that take Construct Essence?

EDIT ~ or moar peeps go cyborg for heal/repair?

[Singular]

Wow! Those are fantastic numbers with Toven's! I've honestly never seen anything close to that - will have to give it a go. Thanks :)

And thanks for talking about Light the Dark - pretty cool. Do you have the Lantern Ring? I use that on my sorc. Pretty nice.

[Livmo]

Wow! Those are fantastic numbers with Toven's! I've honestly never seen anything close to that - will have to give it a go. Thanks :)

And thanks for talking about Light the Dark - pretty cool. Do you have the Lantern Ring? I use that on my sorc. Pretty nice.

You not gonna believe this.

I was almost on chest ransack for Haunted Halls. No joke on 4 back to back runs I pulled a Libram on each run from the Miior chest, while every one else was pulling all the other goodies every place else. Since I already had a Libram, I passed the others in chest due to the BtCoA bug. A fella in the group ona subsequent run passed me a Lantern Ring in the giant skeli chest. I was so stoked, but I did not get a chance to try out the ring till the next night.

It seemed like one thing after another delayed me from getting to try the ring with Light the Dark. I finally got the ring on my hot bar and hustled over to HH to try it out. I hung a left right after going thru the door with the trap box and statues to smack the ghosts at the top of the stairs with the ring. The results did not turn out how I planned.

I was doing 598 without the ring. The ring boosted the average damage to, drum roll please...601. I pined for that ring so hard and I used all 4 Light the Dark SLAs and could not wrap my brain around it. I hit a shrine and found more ghosts to light up and sure enough the non-crits only went from 598 to 601! Granted I don't have it upgraded yet, but the results burnt my cookies.

I haven't had the time to troubleshoot the results yet, so I'm not sure why I'm not seeing a bigger boost in damage?

[Shrimpboy]

I don't know if it works on ranged, but it doesn't say that it doesn't :)

It would be an additional 35 dmg/shot, not 3.5. It's not a lot, but its more than I have for sneak attack damage.

Thank you for the answer to my Thunderholme Xbow question. The neg levels and armor piercing and vulnerability are all very beefy options. :)

About the Battlerager's Harness, it says only 10% chance on damage to do 10d6 damage, so if I am doing this right, [10d6 (3.5x100=35) 35 x 10% (35x.1=3.5)] I may be mistaken, but that's what I think it really is, no taking into account the massive guard damage.

Battlerager's Harness http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Battlerager%27s_Harness

[Shrimpboy]

DDO/Turbine folk reading this please show us arties love by adding orange and green augment slots on rune arms like a Toven's and make some of Lokeal's arms a reality (also play melee arty). Since I'm asking, I'm gonna push the envelope and also ask for our own arty ED and a 3rd Enhacement Tree as well :cool: Please and thank you.

Please Devs? I wants a replacement for Boulder Toss at the very least. :3

[Shrimpboy]

You not gonna believe this.

I was almost on chest ransack for Haunted Halls. No joke on 4 back to back runs I pulled a Libram on each run from the Miior chest, while every one else was pulling all the other goodies every place else. Since I already had a Libram, I passed the others in chest due to the BtCoA bug. A fella in the group ona subsequent run passed me a Lantern Ring in the giant skeli chest. I was so stoked, but I did not get a chance to try out the ring till the next night.

It seemed like one thing after another delayed me from getting to try the ring with Light the Dark. I finally got the ring on my hot bar and hustled over to HH to try it out. I hung a left right after going thru the door with the trap box and statues to smack the ghosts at the top of the stairs with the ring. The results did not turn out how I planned.

I was doing 598 without the ring. The ring boosted the average damage to, drum roll please...601. I pined for that ring so hard and I used all 4 Light the Dark SLAs and could not wrap my brain around it. I hit a shrine and found more ghosts to light up and sure enough the non-crits only went from 598 to 601! Granted I don't have it upgraded yet, but the results burnt my cookies.

I haven't had the time to troubleshoot the results yet, so I'm not sure why I'm not seeing a bigger boost in damage?

This is probably because Light in the Dark is boosted by positive spellpower, not radiant or alignment. So the +144 doesn't affect it, only the 4d6 or 6d6 light damage added on harmful spellcasts, if it even counts as a harmful spell. *shrugs*

And how do you get purple damage on Toven's? Lightning motes? Xbow with Vulnerability? Shocking Vulnerability? Air Savant following you around?

[Livmo]

This is probably because Light in the Dark is boosted by positive spellpower, not radiant or alignment. So the +144 doesn't affect it, only the 4d6 or 6d6 light damage added on harmful spellcasts, if it even counts as a harmful spell. *shrugs*


That is true, but I was expecting to get more than 3 points of light damage. I thought the light damage would be added value. That is part I'm struggling with. OK I should not complain, because I am getting an extra 3 points of damage.

Drat, if my rune arm had an orange augment slot, I would slot a red augment of devotion in there and call it a day!

That is bummer part about about the new arty enhanacements and loss of spell power and spell power flexability. I feel that red or orange augment slots on rune arms will bring back some flexability. I have way to much gear now to offset the changes and I still don't see the damage numbers I used to.


Air Savant following you around?

Nothing gets past you all does it : ) )

You can increase your purple damage even more.

In light of game changes and forum content I've grown an appreciation for the anxiety that people have talking about game play here. Talk about innocence lost : ) )


EDIT ~ I mean this in good fun of course. I will adapt and overcome the changes one way or another. I'm confident that DDO will circle back at some point and address some of the various issues arties are having with changes made to other aspects of the game that affect us.

However, I feel as arties we should use every opportunity in a collegial way to get some much needed help from folks at DDO. They helped out the barbarians with Boulder Toss, so I remain optimistic. Spread the word!

[Singular]

Still few runs from 20 on my gimpranger so does it even work on ranged ?

Even then it's still like 3.5 dmg per shot ?

Whoa! You are correct - it's only 3.5 dmg/shot. The belt only gives a 10% chance to add 6d10 damage. Booooo!

Sorry for 'correcting' you incorrectly!


Thank you for the answer to my Thunderholme Xbow question. The neg levels and armor piercing and vulnerability are all very beefy options. :)

About the Battlerager's Harness, it says only 10% chance on damage to do 10d6 damage, so if I am doing this right, [10d6 (3.5x100=35) 35 x 10% (35x.1=3.5)] I may be mistaken, but that's what I think it really is, no taking into account the massive guard damage.

Battlerager's Harness http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Battlerager%27s_Harness

Yup, I was mistaken. So the Battlerager's Harness may not be worth wearing over a dodge belt.

[Singular]

You not gonna believe this.

I was almost on chest ransack for Haunted Halls. No joke on 4 back to back runs I pulled a Libram on each run from the Miior chest, while every one else was pulling all the other goodies every place else. Since I already had a Libram, I passed the others in chest due to the BtCoA bug. A fella in the group ona subsequent run passed me a Lantern Ring in the giant skeli chest. I was so stoked, but I did not get a chance to try out the ring till the next night.

It seemed like one thing after another delayed me from getting to try the ring with Light the Dark. I finally got the ring on my hot bar and hustled over to HH to try it out. I hung a left right after going thru the door with the trap box and statues to smack the ghosts at the top of the stairs with the ring. The results did not turn out how I planned.

I was doing 598 without the ring. The ring boosted the average damage to, drum roll please...601. I pined for that ring so hard and I used all 4 Light the Dark SLAs and could not wrap my brain around it. I hit a shrine and found more ghosts to light up and sure enough the non-crits only went from 598 to 601! Granted I don't have it upgraded yet, but the results burnt my cookies.

I haven't had the time to troubleshoot the results yet, so I'm not sure why I'm not seeing a bigger boost in damage?

Ah, rats. I think Shrimpboy is right - you probably need Devotion. So, here is just the thing:

http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Gauntlets_of_Immortality

On my casting fleshies, I wear those. I find they're better than wearing the pdk gloves for healing amp. Otherwise...you could use some one handed item slotted with devotion when you cast Light spells, then switch back to your regular xbow, but that might be too annoying for you.

[Singular]

That is true, but I was expecting to get more than 3 points of light damage. I thought the light damage would be added value. That is part I'm struggling with. OK I should not complain, because I am getting an extra 3 points of damage.

Drat, if my rune arm had an orange augment slot, I would slot a red augment of devotion in there and call it a day!

That is bummer part about about the new arty enhanacements and loss of spell power and spell power flexability. I feel that red or orange augment slots on rune arms will bring back some flexability. I have way to much gear now to offset the changes and I still don't see the damage numbers I used to.



Nothing gets past you all does it : ) )

You can increase your purple damage even more.

In light of game changes and forum content I've grown an appreciation for the anxiety that people have talking about game play here. Talk about innocence lost : ) )


EDIT ~ I mean this in good fun of course. I will adapt and overcome the changes one way or another. I'm confident that DDO will circle back at some point and address some of the various issues arties are having with changes made to other aspects of the game that affect us.

However, I feel as arties we should use every opportunity in a collegial way to get some much needed help from folks at DDO. They helped out the barbarians with Boulder Toss, so I remain optimistic. Spread the word!

Have you ever tried Stormrage? That might be synergistic with your electric build.

[Shrimpboy]

What's the opinion on Enchant Weapons Epic Past Life Stance compared to Spell crits? Does +9% chance to crit on Acid, Fire, Electric, Cold and Sonic outweigh the +3 Damage boost to all xbow hits and +9 Spellpower to everything? The only DPS spells affected by the crit stance is energy burst and the occasional primal scream, which is really more of a buff. I'm sure I would use the spell crits if I was going to use an elemental rune arm, but since it doesn't affect AD, what's your opinions?

[Singular]

What's the opinion on Enchant Weapons Epic Past Life Stance compared to Spell crits? Does +9% chance to crit on Acid, Fire, Electric, Cold and Sonic outweigh the +3 Damage boost to all xbow hits and +9 Spellpower to everything? The only DPS spells affected by the crit stance is energy burst and the occasional primal scream, which is really more of a buff. I'm sure I would use the spell crits if I was going to use an elemental rune arm, but since it doesn't affect AD, what's your opinions?

That crit chance will affect most artie spells, since many of them have overlapping damage types. But, yeah, the +3 enchant might be more useful - you can also cast it on other players (or, at least, you could - don't know if you still can). I was thinking the 10% speed up to casting might be useful, too. On my sorc I find +9% crit invaluable - so I can imagine it would be good for arties who are not using AD.

[Nodoze]

...Singluar and CThruTheEgo both have great builds. I think of the them as the Yin and Yang of the arty world (human and bladeforged). ...I concur and have followed both of their inputs for a while now and I am liking everyone's contributions on these more recent Artificer threads... One minor correction is that if I followed his thread correctly CttE's Artie is actually WarForged and not BF because it WF already have quickened Reconstructs, BF get a racial -2 on Dex, & overall more value spending AP's in Artificer trees than in either BF or WF (among maybe other things but that is what I remember without going back and re-reading the thread). Personally I play a 32-point version of CttE's WF and it is my trapper and buffer when I 6box and/or my goto when I want to explore new content and don't know what to expect due to it's versatility and power on EH and below (I don't focus on EE that much).


Have you ever tried Stormrage? That might be synergistic with your electric build.If I followed the thread correctly I think he mentioned he twisted it in post #2:

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/440101-Pure-Artificer-Build-Advice?p=5303425&viewfull=1#post5303425

I would think an Electric speced Energy Burst would maybe be better with many mobs but maybe not if you are more focused on single target damage and don't want to chance running up in the middle of a bunch of EE stuff and getting aggro.

Speaking of Electric specced alternatives, I would like to see a full Electric specced build posted (including ED,Enhancements,gear,etc) and some secondary confirmation of the numbers and how they are achieved. I am not sure I want to grind out all the upgrades and crafting for Toven's and the other swaps mentioned but maybe.

[CThruTheEgo]

What's the opinion on Enchant Weapons Epic Past Life Stance compared to Spell crits? Does +9% chance to crit on Acid, Fire, Electric, Cold and Sonic outweigh the +3 Damage boost to all xbow hits and +9 Spellpower to everything? The only DPS spells affected by the crit stance is energy burst and the occasional primal scream, which is really more of a buff. I'm sure I would use the spell crits if I was going to use an elemental rune arm, but since it doesn't affect AD, what's your opinions?

9% spell crit is way better than 9 spell power for sure. But that 9% won't apply to blade barrier, although it will affect all other arti spells as well as energy burst and an elemental rune arm, if you use those. As far as the +3 damage, its value really depends on what crossbow and ED you're using. You'll get more value out of it with Needle in Fury of the Wild, less value with a Thunderforge crossbow and in another ED.

I guess it depends on whether you want to emphasize casting or ranged dps.


One minor correction is that if I followed his thread correctly CttE's Artie is actually WarForged and not BF because it WF already have quickened Reconstructs, BF get a racial -2 on Dex, & overall more value spending AP's in Artificer trees than in either BF or WF (among maybe other things but that is what I remember without going back and re-reading the thread).

That is correct.


Speaking of Electric specced alternatives, I would like to see a full Electric specced build posted (including ED,Enhancements,gear,etc) and some secondary confirmation of the numbers and how they are achieved. I am not sure I want to grind out all the upgrades and crafting for Toven's and the other swaps mentioned but maybe.

Toven's states that the blast does 8-30 + 1-10 per arti level. Assuming a pure artificer, that's going to be 19+110 average base damage per bolt or 129 average. Assuming 400 electric spell power, that's going to be an average of 556 average per bolt. Add 15% (about 83) for lightning motes and it'll be 639 average. Since nearly everything will save for half damage on EE, Toven's will hit for an average of 320 per bolt and 0 against mobs with evasion. Since it gives four shots that's 1280 average damage on every mob hit.

It might work just fine in EN and EH (although when I used Toven's I remember still seeing mostly saves in EH), but a single energy burst is going to one shot most trash in EN and EH anyway, doing at least 2k per mob. And consider blade barrier which is a persistant AoE. If you get 500 non crit saved damage on blade barrier you only need it to hit a mob three times and its already done more damage than Toven's. But since it is a persistant AoE you can kite them through it as long as it lasts, doing far more damage than you could with Toven's. All of this applies to the SLAs as well.

Everything that electric specced does well just doesn't cut it in EE and simply isn't needed in EN or EH. This is why I don't consider electric spec optimal.

[Singular]

Have you ever tried Stormrage? That might be synergistic with your electric build.


If I followed the thread correctly I think he mentioned he twisted it in post #2:

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/440101-Pure-Artificer-Build-Advice?p=5303425&viewfull=1#post5303425

I have to stop posting while drinking...


I would think an Electric speced Energy Burst would maybe be better with many mobs but maybe not if you are more focused on single target damage and don't want to chance running up in the middle of a bunch of EE stuff and getting aggro.

Speaking of Electric specced alternatives, I would like to see a full Electric specced build posted (including ED,Enhancements,gear,etc) and some secondary confirmation of the numbers and how they are achieved. I am not sure I want to grind out all the upgrades and crafting for Toven's and the other swaps mentioned but maybe.

I kind of agree about the EB, but haven't tried Stormrage yet. I wonder if they both could be fit in if you had enough etrs and all EDs (I'm pretty stoked that the new ED effectively gives us 2 more fate points! Unless in my drunken state I counted incorrectly...).

Yeah, Livmo seems to have an electric build. Maybe he'll post it for us :) The numbers he wrote getting from Tovens are amazing. I'd like those numbers!

[Livmo]

Yeah, Livmo seems to have an electric build. Maybe he'll post it for us :) The numbers he wrote getting from Tovens are amazing. I'd like those numbers!

: ) ) My current build was full electric, but I tore it down a bit for HH and Thunderholm. I'm more of mash up at the moment. You probably already know that Livmo is my main PUG and treasure hunter toon, which is why I don't typically test with him. However, I went to solo EH Haunted Halls the first time and I got my butt handed to me (esp in Miior's room). It took 3 1/2 hours to complete. I already knew about Light the Dark on shadows from farming other quests, but it was still a VERY difficult choice to switch out Fury of the Wild for Unyielding Sentinel.

It's my busy season with work and its in full swing. You will notice I'm somewhat sleep deprived ;) I won't have time at this part of the year to test more with Energy Burst from Draconic, but I've used in the past prior to cap going up and new content. Even though busy season hit at the same time as the new content, I have been re-working Draconic for L28+ play, and from my notes I keep coming back to needing/wanting that 4th twist. Gee whiz that is allot of grind for that additional twist. Hindsight is always 20/20 and I should have been more focused on ETR during the off season. I just have to suck it up and wait til busy season is over to get my 4th twist on Livmo. The changes to BT altered my plans as well.


Energy Burst : Active Ability: (Cooldown 30 seconds, cost 20 sp, metamagic: quicken) A pulse of of [fire/ice/electricity/corrosion] emanate from your body dealing [1d10+10/1d12+12/1d15+15] [fire/cold/electric/acid] damage per character level (reflex save DC 20 + 1/2 character level + INT/CHA modifier for half damage).

The numbers I posted above for Toven's are mostly from EH Haunted Halls, because I'm running allot of that right now. I did the Deathwyrm raid last night for the first time. The folks from Pay if Forward on Sarlona put on some great PUGs last weekend for the new raids. I should have watched my Toven's numbers to see how it did in Deathwym in comparison to acid (Corruption).

0-[==========>

If you really want to drop jaws in PUGs take CThruTheEgo's build and put it into a bladeforged container, which is what I did.

CThruTheEgo's Dubbell O'Seven
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/386775-Dubbell-O-Seven-casting-ranged-focused-artificer?p=4619310&viewfull=1#post4619310

I prefer BF for this Enhancement and I know it's on Turbine's radar to modify in another thread.


Communion of Scribing: Spell Like Ability: Reconstruct. (Cooldown: 30/15/6 seconds. Cost: 35/30/25 SP)

--

If you want to use BF with sorc or make and arty/sorc mix, then this is a key spell in my opinion to have:


Eladar's Electric Surge Evocation
(Electricity) The target's body is wracked with powerful electric shocks, dealing 1 to 6 electric damage + 1 per caster level every 2 seconds for a duration of 16 seconds. This spell can stack on the target up to 3 times, increasing the damage with each stack.

EDIT ~ I run mostly EE content and have no problems with Toven's, even tho I gimped my toon a bit for Light the Dark.

[Livmo]

Speaking of Electric specced alternatives, I would like to see a full Electric specced build posted (including ED,Enhancements,gear,etc) and some secondary confirmation of the numbers and how they are achieved. I am not sure I want to grind out all the upgrades and crafting for Toven's and the other swaps mentioned but maybe.

It was a pain to get all the materials to upgrade Toven's. You can do just as well, if not better in some EE content with the Corruption of Nature. We haven't talked much here about gear, but gear is going to influence the final damage output allot. Its unfortunate that Toven's and Lucid Dreams are the highest level rune arms that you can Cannith Craft on (both are L19).

Here is some gear I use with an electric set-up. Instead of the Spyglass for my insightful INT, I'm getting it from the rune arms. I have a planar of CON in my trinket slot right now for the Planar Conflux:

Some of Livmo's gear
https://i.imgur.com/Tev6n6I.jpg

EDIT ~ I'm not using them right now but you can get the EE Iron Beads (http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Iron_Beads_%28Level_25%29) form Return to Madstone Crater (http://ddowiki.com/page/Return_to_Madstone_Crater).

[Livmo]

Ah, rats. I think Shrimpboy is right - you probably need Devotion. So, here is just the thing:

http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Gauntlets_of_Immortality

On my casting fleshies, I wear those. I find they're better than wearing the pdk gloves for healing amp. Otherwise...you could use some one handed item slotted with devotion when you cast Light spells, then switch back to your regular xbow, but that might be too annoying for you.

TY very much for turning me onto this Singular!!!

I've never seen these before and I don't know of anyone that has them. I now want them for Livmo. I'm glad I got raid bypass timers with the anniv. cards :) )

[Livmo]

I would think an Electric speced Energy Burst would maybe be better with many mobs but maybe not if you are more focused on single target damage and don't want to chance running up in the middle of a bunch of EE stuff and getting aggro.


So true about about watching out for EE aggro!

I still use other rune arms. I switched to Corruption of Nature last night during my 1st run of Deathwym. I switch rings, rune arms, and weapons around allot in game and in quest to match up better against what I'm facing. I try to create mismatches in my favor. Knowing monster DR is good for this. I'm always watching for yellow and purple damage. I try to wiki DR when I can. Here is a link I reference allot:

Monster DR and weaknesses
http://ddowiki.com/page/Monster_DR_and_weaknesses

Sometimes you can keep on your current set up if you can break the DR with an item. I have more that one xbow set-up with each rune arm that I use. Sometimes I may just switch repeaters and use same rune arm to break a DR.

On a side note, I'm getting my Doubbleshot and Adamantine Weapons from Epic feats with my current rig.

--

With Toven's you do risk biting off moar than you can chew sometimes. However, when you jump and move (rotate slightly) you can get the photon torpedos form Toven's to hit multiple targets with a scatter effect (spreads the balls out horizontally).

Like Lightening Motes Toven's can seem unruly to weild, but once you get used to it there are subtle advatnages like the shotgun approach. I still don't like Lightening Motes, but I grew to love my Toven's.

[Shrimpboy]

9% spell crit is way better than 9 spell power for sure. But that 9% won't apply to blade barrier, although it will affect all other arti spells as well as energy burst and an elemental rune arm, if you use those. As far as the +3 damage, its value really depends on what crossbow and ED you're using. You'll get more value out of it with Needle in Fury of the Wild, less value with a Thunderforge crossbow and in another ED.

I guess it depends on whether you want to emphasize casting or ranged dps.

Well, at the moment I'm planning on Needle and Fury still, and using AD as my rune arm. That's why I'm having such a tough time choosing... Essentially it's 9% chance to crit on energy burst vs +9 spellpower and +3 to damage (more potent with Needle and Fury). So let me know what you think on this one, cause I'm undecided myself. :/

[Shrimpboy]

TY very much for turning me onto this Singular!!!

I've never seen these before and I don't know of anyone that has them. I now want them for Livmo. I'm glad I got raid bypass timers with the anniv. cards :) )

Been questing in FoT and other places with Livmo recently. He was doing great damage with Corruption on the Truthful One, linked a Glass Cannon in Tor, so I believe he is a generalist when it comes to rune arms. Hope to quest with ya more, Livmo. Seeing your numbers are nice goals for me to get while I'm still on my fairly undergeared arty, getting ready for the TR train. Good luck on the Gauntlets, and I'll definitely pass them if I pull them with ya. ;)

[CThruTheEgo]

Well, at the moment I'm planning on Needle and Fury still, and using AD as my rune arm. That's why I'm having such a tough time choosing... Essentially it's 9% chance to crit on energy burst vs +9 spellpower and +3 to damage (more potent with Needle and Fury). So let me know what you think on this one, cause I'm undecided myself. :/

I personally tend to favor casting just because it seems to be a larger contribution to overall dps than ranged damage.

[Shrimpboy]

I personally tend to favor casting just because it seems to be a larger contribution to overall dps than ranged damage.

Thanks :) Sounds good.

[Singular]

Well, at the moment I'm planning on Needle and Fury still, and using AD as my rune arm. That's why I'm having such a tough time choosing... Essentially it's 9% chance to crit on energy burst vs +9 spellpower and +3 to damage (more potent with Needle and Fury). So let me know what you think on this one, cause I'm undecided myself. :/

The +3 enchant weapon will give you something like +27-45 extra damage per volley of AD (very rough guess based on a damage of 1200-2400 and spell power of 400; basically take your damage output of your rune arm, divide by your spell power and multiply by 9 to figure out your added dps b/c of 9 spell power - or take the stated damage and multiply by 0.09. That's your added damage).

For Ruin, it would add something like 45 damage (and 90 when it crits). The Epic Feat claims to add a straight up 500 damage - but, if that were true, we'd always see the same numbers and they would always be based on our spell power. They aren't, the damage varries and looks suspiciously like the old Boulder Toss.

For Needle, it's going to add:

regular shot: 3
regular crit: 9
adrenaline shot: 45

So that's an additional 6 dps at minimum - kind of nice :)

The 9% crit is a bit harder to figure out. It's roughly an increase of 1/22 of your current spell damage output. You'll get one extra crit for every 11 spells you fire off, and that crit is a doubling of your regular damage. So you get a full extra spell's worth of damage every 11 spells. It's totally worth it on a sorc, but on an artie I'm not so sure. If spell crit also applies to rune arms, and you use a non-force rune arm, then it's probably worth it.

For ex., if the rune arm fired 5 shots/volley, you'd be getting an extra crit roughly once every 2 volleys.

Cthru is probably right on this one if you use Energy Burst a lot. I haven't really made that change, am still force speced and, were I to keep this build, I might go with the Enchant weapon (although...does Enchant Weapon the past life stack with Deadly Weapons?). But I'd change to crit chance were I to switch to an elemental rune arm (and if I did so, and gave up on force spec, I'd use BB a lot less).

[Loriac]

9% additional crit chance assuming x2 damage on a crit adds 9% damage over time.

The formula for additional damage is crit chance x (crit multiplier - 1)

[Shrimpboy]

The +3 enchant weapon will give you something like +27-45 extra damage per volley of AD (very rough guess based on a damage of 1200-2400 and spell power of 400; basically take your damage output of your rune arm, divide by your spell power and multiply by 9 to figure out your added dps b/c of 9 spell power - or take the stated damage and multiply by 0.09. That's your added damage).

For Ruin, it would add something like 45 damage (and 90 when it crits). The Epic Feat claims to add a straight up 500 damage - but, if that were true, we'd always see the same numbers and they would always be based on our spell power. They aren't, the damage varries and looks suspiciously like the old Boulder Toss.

For Needle, it's going to add:

regular shot: 3
regular crit: 9
adrenaline shot: 45

So that's an additional 6 dps at minimum - kind of nice :)

The 9% crit is a bit harder to figure out. It's roughly an increase of 1/22 of your current spell damage output. You'll get one extra crit for every 11 spells you fire off, and that crit is a doubling of your regular damage. So you get a full extra spell's worth of damage every 11 spells. It's totally worth it on a sorc, but on an artie I'm not so sure. If spell crit also applies to rune arms, and you use a non-force rune arm, then it's probably worth it.

For ex., if the rune arm fired 5 shots/volley, you'd be getting an extra crit roughly once every 2 volleys.

Cthru is probably right on this one if you use Energy Burst a lot. I haven't really made that change, am still force speced and, were I to keep this build, I might go with the Enchant weapon (although...does Enchant Weapon the past life stack with Deadly Weapons?). But I'd change to crit chance were I to switch to an elemental rune arm (and if I did so, and gave up on force spec, I'd use BB a lot less).

WOW! Awesome post, thanks. :) It seems Enchant Weapon (if stacks with deadly) would be more useful overall as it affects many things while the only thing the energy criticals affects on my build is energy burst. I loved energy burst when I used it in draconic (leveling EDs now, almost done though :D) so I can't say how often it will be used just yet. So I'll see afterwards... I'll have to calculate what my spellpower will be with the gear I have planned and do the calculations.

BTW, can you guys list what gets you to 400 spellpower? That's crazy high! I want that! :)

[Cardtrick]

9% additional crit chance assuming x2 damage on a crit adds 9% damage over time.

The formula for additional damage is crit chance x (crit multiplier - 1)

Well . . . that's a little misleading.

Just for the sake of having some nice round numbers, let's say I do 1000 damage on the average spell cast and my critical chance is 30%. If I cast 100 times, I expect (on average) 70 normal spells and 30 criticals. So over those 100 casts, I would do 1000 * 70 + 2000 * 30 = 130,000 damage.

Now, say that I add 3 Energy Criticals past lives, bringing my critical chance to 39%. Now, if I cast 100 times, I expect 61 normal spells and 39 criticals. Over the same 100 casts, I would now do 1000 * 61 + 2000 * 39 = 139000 damage.

139000 / 130000 = 1.069, which means Energy Criticals is adding 6.9% to my damage.

The only case when Energy Criticals would add 9% damage over time is if I started out with 0 base critical chance.

[Loriac]

Well . . . that's a little misleading.

Just for the sake of having some nice round numbers, let's say I do 1000 damage on the average spell cast and my critical chance is 30%. If I cast 100 times, I expect (on average) 70 normal spells and 30 criticals. So over those 100 casts, I would do 1000 * 70 + 2000 * 30 = 130,000 damage.

Now, say that I add 3 Energy Criticals past lives, bringing my critical chance to 39%. Now, if I cast 100 times, I expect 61 normal spells and 39 criticals. Over the same 100 casts, I would now do 1000 * 61 + 2000 * 39 = 139000 damage.

139000 / 130000 = 1.069, which means Energy Criticals is adding 6.9% to my damage.

The only case when Energy Criticals would add 9% damage over time is if I started out with 0 base critical chance.

Good catch. You're right, I was considering purely the base damage pre-crits.

I guess the formula gets adjusted then to (1+current crit rate + 9%)x(crit mult-1)/(1+current crit rate)

In words, it offers diminishing returns the higher your crit chance is. Arguably you should apply the same logic to the flat damage increases for weapons and spellpower, which also run into similar diminishing returns problems.

Fundamentally I think that the extra 9% crit chance will almost always beat out the flat damage increase, but I should have taken more care over the formula lol.

[Shrimpboy]

The +3 enchant weapon will give you something like +27-45 extra damage per volley of AD (very rough guess based on a damage of 1200-2400 and spell power of 400; basically take your damage output of your rune arm, divide by your spell power and multiply by 9 to figure out your added dps b/c of 9 spell power - or take the stated damage and multiply by 0.09. That's your added damage).

Whoa, 400 spellpower? Could you help me understand how you get that? On my current (admittedly undergeared) helf arty, I have about 260 Force Spellpower. If you could list what gets you that much, it would be greatly appreciated.

I also ran EE in Fury with Needle the first time today but was only seeing 1400-1800 damage on non-helpless mobs with a +8 deadly item and +12 seeker in items. (EN Consuming Darkness and Tinker Gloves). I have one ranger past life, so you may have more but how do you get 2500 hits?

Lastly, does anyone know if Enchant Weapon (Epic Past Life Stance) works with Deadly Weapons?

Thanks, and sorry for all the questions.

[CThruTheEgo]

Whoa, 400 spellpower? Could you help me understand how you get that? On my current (admittedly undergeared) helf arty, I have about 260 Force Spellpower. If you could list what gets you that much, it would be greatly appreciated.

400 is just an estimate since it's easier to do calculations with a nice round number. I'll use the stats from my own build but some of these numbers can change based on your build.

Spell power:
23 ranks
8 epic
22 int55 (breakdown below)
15 spellcraft item
4 GH
2 good luck
33 implement (assuming upgraded Needle + battle engineer capstone)
40 full rune arm charge (from battle engineer core enhancements)
10 arcane engine (dog enhancement from arcanotechnician tree)
28 arcanotechnician tree AP
15 fey form
15 planar focus set
15 blue dragon set
138 slotted
20 alchemical pot
388 TOTAL

22 int55 (18base, 5tome, 7levels, 2capstone, 2battle engineer, 2arcanotechnician, 11item, 3insight, 1exceptional, 2yugo, 2ship)

A human/helf can get 1 more int and 1 more spell power as a result, a drow/morninglord can get 4 more int and 2 more spell power as a result.

Assuming you still go for the battle engineer capstone, you can spend up to 11 more AP in the arcanotechnician tree. I actually intend to readjust my enhancements to put a bit more into arcanotechnician, but I haven't yet.

A fully upgraded thunderforged repeater will have an enhancement value of 12 versus Needle's 8, and so will provide 12 more implement bonus. You could also craft 150 spell power on a thunderforged repeater to get 12 more than what you can slot.

You can also get 10 more psionic for 3 minutes from an eardweller.

So adding all those up, it looks like the max would be 435.

I think that's everything, although I'm sure I'm missing some short term, hard to obtain buffs like abashai cookies and such.


Lastly, does anyone know if Enchant Weapon (Epic Past Life Stance) works with Deadly Weapons?

It should, since one is a feat and the other a spell, although I have not actually confirmed this in game. If it doesn't stack, I would say it's bugged.

[Shrimpboy]

400 is just an estimate since it's easier to do calculations with a nice round number. I'll use the stats from my own build but some of these numbers can change based on your build.

Spell power:
23 ranks
8 epic
22 int55 (breakdown below)
15 spellcraft item
4 GH
2 good luck
33 implement (assuming upgraded Needle + battle engineer capstone)
40 full rune arm charge (from battle engineer core enhancements)
10 arcane engine (dog enhancement from arcanotechnician tree)
28 arcanotechnician tree AP
15 fey form
15 planar focus set
15 blue dragon set
138 slotted
20 alchemical pot
388 TOTAL

22 int55 (18base, 5tome, 7levels, 2capstone, 2battle engineer, 2arcanotechnician, 11item, 3insight, 1exceptional, 2yugo, 2ship)

A human/helf can get 1 more int and 1 more spell power as a result, a drow/morninglord can get 4 more int and 2 more spell power as a result.

Assuming you still go for the battle engineer capstone, you can spend up to 11 more AP in the arcanotechnician tree. I actually intend to readjust my enhancements to put a bit more into arcanotechnician, but I haven't yet.

A fully upgraded thunderforged repeater will have an enhancement value of 12 versus Needle's 8, and so will provide 12 more implement bonus. You could also craft 150 spell power on a thunderforged repeater to get 12 more than what you can slot.

You can also get 10 more psionic for 3 minutes from an eardweller.

So adding all those up, it looks like the max would be 435.

I think that's everything, although I'm sure I'm missing some short term, hard to obtain buffs like abashai cookies and such.


Thank you kindly! What potions are you using, may I ask? Ones from Meridia with a 3 minute duration? Or the comm of valor ones?

[Livmo]

Been questing in FoT and other places with Livmo recently. He was doing great damage with Corruption on the Truthful One, linked a Glass Cannon in Tor, so I believe he is a generalist when it comes to rune arms. Hope to quest with ya more, Livmo. Seeing your numbers are nice goals for me to get while I'm still on my fairly undergeared arty, getting ready for the TR train. Good luck on the Gauntlets, and I'll definitely pass them if I pull them with ya. ;)

That would be fun.

Daydreaming of course, an all arty static party with the flavors here would put the hurt on the baddies in DDO for sure. Roll that doomtrain from Korthos to Thunderholm!

2nd EDIT ~ If you want to do some gear runs I have arties at various levels. For example, Irestone Inlet for Hobble's Crossbow or EE Spiner of Shadow for shards, etc. Also, I may have extra rune arms you can have :)

3rd Edit ~ Would be fun to get an EE farmin' party for Outbreak to get some EE Corruptions.

I'm somewhat distracted today. I'm in the middle of 10 hours of Neon Pegasus (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5xy5wkFyiM) :D

BTW I was at the Battle for Cupcake Mountain (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POHrpq7S-0Y). Makes the new raids seem like child's play!

[CThruTheEgo]

Thank you kindly! What potions are you using, may I ask? Ones from Meridia with a 3 minute duration? Or the comm of valor ones?

The 3 minute ones. I get mine from the Portable Hole.

[Shrimpboy]

The 3 minute ones. I get mine from the Portable Hole.

Thanks :) I'll check em out.

[great_max]

whats the best race for arty

[CThruTheEgo]

whats the best race for arty

Warforged, by far, for the self healing. Quickened reconstructs offer a great deal of survivability. Other races can take the construct essence feat but then they get reduced healing from both positive and repair spells.

Bladeforged get the recon SLA, but start with a lower dex which is not ideal for a ranged build. They can be a good option for a splashed melee arti though, since splashing will reduce the number of level 6 spell slots and they can use their recon SLA instead of the spell.

The main advantages of human (extra feat and skill point) are not needed on an arti since they get plenty of both. They do, however, get access to damage boost which can be used simultaneously with haste boost or endless fusillade. They can also get 1 more int than most other races.

Any race with higher starting dex can be useful for reaching the dex requirements of ranged feats, but this is generally only necessary for a brand new player.

Drow and morninglord elf can get 4 more int than most other races, giving them an advantage for DCs.

All of the advantages of other races are minimal compared to the self healing that warforged get. So WF for a ranged arti, bladeforged for a splashed melee arti.