Caster Arti? Never tried this before.....

[wolfy42]

So um, I was just playing around because I wanted to get my doggo to heal me asap, so I went all into the arcano arti tree.

Started my character at level 7 and got the first 3 SLAs (shock/blast/polar). They do pretty serious damage, and with the enhancement that gives you 1 temp sp each time you cast, they are extremely cheap. Grabbed enhance/maximize and hieghten as well and have them all using them.

Seems totally viable early on at least, but.....does it stop being decent damage later on? I have always focused/gone with repeating xbow damage on my artificers....never even considered going for high spell damage...but the SLA's are actually great (seem much better then archmage for instance).

Once I got to 12, I would get lightning bolt as well, giving me 3 AoE SlA's, and then lightning motes once I can get tier 5....for 4 of them.

That seems......insanely awesome!!!

What if I reshaped my whole concept of an Artificer around casting spells (especially SLA's) instead of wasting feats/time/enhancements on repeating/great xbows?

Don't even know what I would switch out....maybe get spell DC boosts (already get a bunch from the tree). Already got max/empower/heighten. Is it worth it to get augment summon if you are already boosting your doggo so much with enhancements?

Gotta play around with this some more....I could maybe go for more defenses or something, maybe even use shields etc (since I can cast in full armor). Ditch Battle Engineer all together and go pure caster with renegade mastermaker for more defense/tankiness.

[wolfy42]

Hmmm, I'll need to choose between Arcano and RM for tier 5.....one makes using a rune arm the best bet, the other could work with a shield.

Have to check and see which I would get the most out of. Looks like rune arm might be better for maxing out my spell damage, and not sure how much the shield will really help.

If I go tier 5 in RM that gives even more Regen (on top of the doggo's regen). and 20% more max hp which is pretty nice.

Still all of the Tier 5 abilities for Arcano seem yummalicious....so hard to pass up.

Going to be hard to choose, but at least I'll have some time before then to decide which I really want:)

Probably will still go gnome, but gonna look at other races and see if any pops out as better. Think I remember the dragonborn possibly getting bonus damage for 1 elemental type etc.

[wolfy42]

Ok, after looking at the rune arms, totally going to go with one of the electrical ones. They seem amazing.

Also I was right about Dragon, seems like the obvious choice. I lose out on 2 int from gnome, but get a free pretty strong dragon breathe, more hp, more resists, higher max caster level of my spells, 30% more damage in my element type (Electrical), Same amount of spell point bonus as a gnome, but I get 3 spell penetration as well, 3 more evocation DC and the ability to fly!!

Seems seriously awesome, only worried a bit about enemies that are immune to lightning damage.

[cru121]

Artificers have the strongest evocation SLAs for heroics.
Check out https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/475654-Electric-Critzilla
Yes, lightning immune mobs are a pain.

[wolfy42]

Thanks, hmm I wanted to go pure artificer, but I could look into multiclassing if it adds alot. I'll relook at everything and decide. Pretty sure I'm gonna go with Dragon though for my race.

Gotta decide if I wanna go with more defenses or even evasion (and maybe pally levels for very high saves as well), more spellcaster levels (of other types) for higher damage/bonuses, or stay pure artificer!!

So hard to choose!

[Sageki]

Do you think a 2 cleric splash would work for air domain to turn lightning spells into light damage?

If it worked would it be worth it?

[unbongwah]

The two major downsides to a caster-specced Artificer IMO are the heavy reliance on electric spells (which puts you at a disadvantage vs lightning-immune/-resistant mobs) and the relatively low max caster level (MCL) on a lot of arty spells (most cap at MCL 10). [An Air Savant has similar problems, of course, but can choose Water or Fire as their backup Savant and has a lot more SPs to burn.] A traditional arty works around the former problem by using spells like Blade Barrier - or firing xbows, of course; although melee is now a stronger option than it used to be too. Tilomere's build works around the latter problem by dipping into other classes like sorc (Air Savant) or druid (Season's Herald) for the CL/MCL and crit bonuses to lightning spells plus running in Magister for tier-5 CL/MCL bonuses. [This seems to be his latest prototype (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/498449-(Theorycrafting)-Heroic-AoE-bburst-damage-(Electric-Gibzilla)).]

That said, a pure caster arty should be no harder to heroic-level than most casters. And apart from extra INT, gnome Artificer can get good mileage from Color Spray SLA which is also INT-based.