Artificer Multiclassing

[Calebro]

Your really not listening to me or still are you

I am, and I completely disagree.
Can your x-bow clear an entire room full of mobs from red alert in a matter of seconds?
Blade Barrier can.
I don't care how much Int you can get, and I don't care how many buffs you can add to it, Blade Barrier is and will always be better than a x-bow.
Period.
I don't care how cool you can make your x-bow, Blade Barrier is still better, so giving up BB to make your x-bow a little cooler is a huge mistake.

[Stillwaters]

nvm stills said it better

I Edited some laymans math to my post above Failedlegend - a 6 splash is better for damage if you are using repeaters hands down on a 30 INT(or less) rogue.
(it gets better the higher you raise INT tho)

While I cant knock Bladebarrier being strong DPS I still like the boost this gives a DPS repeater build.

Calebro - BB would totally suck if Arty didnt get an enhancement to it, or if they are denied maximise+empower, or if you cant cast cause you are in antimagic fields, or simply out of SP... There will always be a reason for standard DPS. By your reasoning any non caster that cant clear a room full of RA in 10 secs isnt worth playing

[Calebro]

Calebro - BB would totally suck if Arty didnt get an enhancement to it, or if they are denied maximise+empower, or if you cant cast cause you are in antimagic fields, or simply out of SP... There will always be a reason for standard DPS. By your reasoning any non caster that cant clear a room full of RA in 10 secs isnt worth playing

Well, first of all, no casters other than AoV get an enhancement line that affects BB. And the AoV line isn't a BB enhancement line in and of itself. So that's a moot point.
Secondly, Artys will likely get free metamagic feats, because they didn in PnP, and the classes mirror their PnP counterparts as much as they can in every case. So that's a moot point.

Yes, there will always be a reason for standard DPS, but those times are the exception, not the rule. And the standard Arty x-bow usage will be enough for those times.

I never said that any caster that can't clear a room in seconds wasn't worth playing. But there's also something else that I didn't say. I'll say it now.
Any caster (that is primarily a caster) that has access to BB and doesn't get to the point where they can take it.... is not worth playing.
There. I said it.

[Aerendil]

Calebro - BB would totally suck if Arty didnt get an enhancement to it, or if they are denied maximise+empower, or if you cant cast cause you are in antimagic fields, or simply out of SP... There will always be a reason for standard DPS. By your reasoning any non caster that cant clear a room full of RA in 10 secs isnt worth playing

Just out of curiosity, why would they be denied maximise + empower? I'm sure they can pick it up just like anyone else.
The better question is - how many Artificers will save the feats for it for their one and only big offensive spell? Especially considering Eladrin has mentioned that metamagics will not affect the rune arm's damage (at least not at this point). I can see some players feeling it's just not worth it. Or, at most, just picking up maximise and going with that.

/shrug.
I'm kinda with Calebro on this one. As attractive as x-bows are seeming right now with all the neat little toys Artificers get, the upgrade of point-blank shot damage, and even possible sneak damage if /Rogue splashed or half-elf: Rogue dile, Blade Barrier still wins hands down for 90% of situations.
And for those other 10%, such as archers who refuse to kite through a BB - well, that's why you have a rune arm and a mechanical dog, right?

That said, Blade Barrier is what... level 15 for Artificer? So for 75% of your levelling path, BB is a moot point - you won't have it.
At which point I can see the X-bow being a very useful tool for those first 15 or so levels until you get BB.
Pet dog tanks - you wait till it has aggro, then "clink, clink, clink" with your x-bow from point-blank range. If you have sneak attack damage possibility, then even better.

So I guess it depends what level Artificer we're discussing here

[Aerendil]

One further comment - and the factor most are forgetting here, is the rune arm. Your Artificer level affects your damage for all rune arms we've seen so far.

We also know that at level 20, some of these will be doing 8-30 + 20d6 damage with a fully charged tier5 shot. And that is *not* including your spell enhancements, which if it follows the standard enhancement bonuses and are implemented as we assume they will be, will boost your rune arm elemental damage:
- base damage by up to 50%
- crit damage bonus by 125%
- crit chance by 9%

I'm not sure I'd want to give up 6+ levels to up my x-bow damage a little :/

But hey, to each their own.
Just throwing this out there for some more thought.

PS - Cal : with regards to the /1 Bard splash, I've tried it before. It's not as great as one would assume, since your # of bard songs per day is mostly based on Bard level. Having a mere 2 Bard songs to play with (level 1 Bard + Extra Song I) goes really quickly. *Really* quickly. That's 2 "get of out jail free" cards via Fascinate, or simply 1 if you use the other for Inspire Courage (which will be at +1/+1/+1 bonus).

[Calebro]

One further comment - and the factor most are forgetting here, is the rune arm. Your Artificer level affects your damage for all rune arms we've seen so far.

I think you're misreading that.
There is nothing to indicate that your Arty level improves the Runearms in any way (aside from the elemental enhancement lines*). Runearms have varying damage for varying charge levels. We are under the impression that you charge the Runearm by holding the Block button.
Each Runearm also has a max charge tier, which is one higher than it's enchantment level (if I'm remembering that correctly). So the level 1 Thought Spike from Redemption has a +1 enhancement modifier (in the top right of the item examination), so even though it lists charge tier 5, it's max charge tier is actually 2.

By this logic, even an Arty 1 / 19 xXx can use any Runearm to it's fullest potential (elemental enhancement lines notwithstanding*).

[Aesop]

As a note BB may not be the only offensive spell Art gets... I'm unsure how it will work really but they have what I'll assume is a series of "Turret" summons. We've seen the Flame Turret already. Its not BB, and BB would stack with it but it is another effect that causes AoE damage.

Heck for all we know Art may get a bonus to the effective caster level of Wands and Scrolls as well as adding Maximize and Empower to them, meaning that they could cast BB scrolls at a little less than full casters. Definitely wouldn't add up to the massive damage of say a spec'd FvS, but it could be pretty good along with going full out Repeater.


There is so much that is unknown at this point that I don't think we can sell any (serious) build short yet...

Just a thought

Aesop

[Aesop]

I think you're misreading that.
There is nothing to indicate that your Arty level improves the Runearms in any way. Runearms have varying damage for varying charge levels. We are under the impression that you charge the Runearm by holding the Block button.
Each Runearm also has a max charge tier, which is one higher than it's enchantment level (if I'm remembering that correctly). So the level 1 Thought Spike from Redemption has a +1 enhancement modifier (in the top right of the item examination), so even though it lists charge tier 5, it's max charge tier is actually 2.

By this logic, even an Arty 1 / 19 xXx can use any Runearm to it's fullest potential.

well it doesn't get the bonus damage for Art Level.

ie after the Charge code it say +xdy per Art level

of course that is only a problem for the charge effect of Rune Arm

Aesop

[Calebro]

well it doesn't get the bonus damage for Art Level.

ie after the Charge code it say +xdy per Art level

of course that is only a problem for the charge effect of Rune Arm

Aesop

Ah, you now what, you're right. I thought it just said "per level" but I went back to check a moment ago and it is indeed "per artificer level."

[fatherpirate]

There will be no doubt some will splash a lvl of fighter for BAB and weapon choices.

Other than that it really depends on the particulars we don't know about.

Lets say....Arts are treated like bards...and having a lvl of Art allows arcane spell casting with
no spell failure with light AND medium armor......then you might see a lot of arcane casters
splashing Art.

What if thier wrist weapon is considered a monk weapon...well, there is a lot of monk/art possibilities

Somewhere in the PnP version I read Art's can copy regular arcane and divine spells in their spell books
(with great difficulty) ..if they can that changes alot.

The upshot is, until we know the nitty gritty about the class it is hard to calculate good multi-class
combos.

[honkuimushi]

Why do people keep saying level 15 for Blade Barrier? In the ECS, Artificers get level 5 infusions at level 11 and level 6 at level 14. I suppose the devs could have changed it, but every other class has gained spell levels at the same time as PnP. And it's not like gaining it at level 14 woulod be particularily overpowered. Clerics would have had the spell for 3 levels already.

[Isolani]

Why do people keep sayiong level 15 for Blade Barrier? In the ECS, Artificers get level 5 infusions at level 11 and level 6 at level 14. I suppose the devs could have changed it, but every other class has gained spell levels at the same time as PnP. And it's not like gaining it at level 14 woulod be particularily overpowered. Clerics would have had the spell for 3 levels already.

Because somebody posted a pic of a blade barrier scroll and it says artifcer 15 on it. L14 would be even better, then people could do their 14 arti/6 mechanic repeater builds and still have BB. Who knows, maybe it will be L14 before it goes live.

[Failedlegend]

What if thier wrist weapon is considered a monk weapon...well, there is a lot of monk/art possibilities

Sadly no

Rune arms are non-ki items. Spinning, loud, distracting, magical vortex generators damage my calm.

You still get the AC bonus, Evasion and Feats though

[Calebro]

Honestly, after toying with a few possible combos and thinking them through, my expectation is that Arty will be best as a pure class. Maybe consider tossing evasion into the mix, but I think they'll be better pure for the moment.... at least for x-bow users.
I suppose it will all depend on the enhancements and capstone though.

But after a few sample builds I've found that splashes don't seem to offer enough (for me) to put BB off until 17 and lose another free metamagic feat.
If they get a free meta every 4 levels starting at 4 like in PnP, we're looking at the following as an example:
1 Toughness
3 PBS
4 Extend
6 Rapid Shot
8 Maximize
9 Rapid Reload
12 Empower & Precise Shot
15 IPS
16 Empower Healing
18 Augment Summoning
20 Quicken

I considered a half-elf monk splash with rogue dilly, using the two feats on toughness and weapon finesse, freeing up another feat for Insightful Reflexes if I wanted it, but truth be told he probably won't need it badly. Dex being a secondary stat means his reflex won't be horrible without it.
The hold on BB until 17 was the real kicker that lead me to pure being the way to go.

I doubt I'll be multiclassing my first one.

[Ertay]

Why do people keep sayiong level 15 for Blade Barrier? In the ECS, Artificers get level 5 infusions at level 11 and level 6 at level 14. I suppose the devs could have changed it, but every other class has gained spell levels at the same time as PnP. And it's not like gaining it at level 14 woulod be particularily overpowered. Clerics would have had the spell for 3 levels already.

this is because the scrolls on lama say "no umd check for Art15"
Screenshots of art scrolls seem to indicate a spell progression of lvl1 spells at char level 1, with a step up every 3 levels beginning at 3 (fire turret probably wrongly uses the icon of fire trap). I've only seen a few of them though so I'm only guessing here as well.

[Aashrym]

Why do people keep saying level 15 for Blade Barrier? In the ECS, Artificers get level 5 infusions at level 11 and level 6 at level 14. I suppose the devs could have changed it, but every other class has gained spell levels at the same time as PnP. And it's not like gaining it at level 14 woulod be particularily overpowered. Clerics would have had the spell for 3 levels already.

It's been mentioned, but I'll confirm. Going to the scroll vendors let us view the level artificers don't require a check so we can get an idea of the progression table. It doesn't look like DDO quite follows the 1,3,5,8,11,14 progression and goes with 1,3,6,9,12,15 iirc to give them slightly better progression than bards.

[Neouni]

It's been mentioned, but I'll confirm. Going to the scroll vendors let us view the level artificers don't require a check so we can get an idea of the progression table. It doesn't look like DDO quite follows the 1,3,5,8,11,14 progression and goes with 1,3,6,9,12,15 iirc to give them slightly better progression than bards.

Strange my table for 3.5 bards says they should get the higher spelllevels later

[Aashrym]

Strange my table for 3.5 bards says they should get the higher spelllevels later

Bards get 1,4,7,10,13,16

Arti's look like they are getting 1,3,6,9,12,15 so slightly better than bards.
Arti's normally get them a little bit better in PnP than it looks like DDO is implementing.

Does that clear it up?

[KajaGrae]

They should just give Arti's Mechanic as a PrE. Then, who needs to multiclass. Unless you want evasion. Win.

[Ssmooth]

They should just give Arti's Mechanic as a PrE. Then, who needs to multiclass. Unless you want evasion. Win.

I'm thinking an 18/2 split for evasion, or a 16/2/2 for art/paly/monk for saves+evasion. It will also depend on the capstone. If it's sweet, I wouldn't be afraid of a pure.