Warforged Artificer Runic Champion

[OGSlapnutz]

This is a melee artificer build.

I'm wondering if this artificer build would be similar in role as a Warforged Paladin ? or would it be closer to a dual weilding ranger or a barbarian or maybe a fighter.

I was thinking of making it a tank if it fits that role, and having my pet be a secondary tank.

I was imagining a Sword and board type build

[Gorbadoc]

Are you referring to the in-game path?

Here's a rough template for a different interpretation of "melee artificer":

Warforged
16 Str
8 Dex
16 Con
18 Int +levelups
6 Wis
6 Cha

Non-bonus Feats:

• Toughness
• Power Attack
• THF, ITHF, GTHF
• Improved Critical: Slashing
• Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Bastard Sword (optional)
• Quick Draw (optional)
• Dwarf Version: Use Dwarven Axes with Master's Touch; no need for EWP: Bastard Sword; optionally take Construct Essence

Bonus Feats:

• Augment Summoning
• Metamagics (Maximize, Quicken, maybe Extend, maybe Heighten)

Strategy:
You're a bit like a melee bard: focus the build on melee, and you should be able to unload your share of whoopass without dying horribly. You'll never be on par with the fighters you're buffing, though, and you justify that difference with your versatility.

Tactics:

• Make economical use of your buffs, obviously.
• You have so-so ranged DPS with a repeater by default, but it's not your primary focus. Abuse ranged attacks situationally.
• Plan A is to charge at the enemy while casting Tactical Detonation. Wield either a two-hander or a bastard sword + rune arm. Knock 'em over and hack 'em to pieces.
• Plan B is to kite through Blade Barriers.
• Chuck cure pots, repair spells, and fresh buffs as needed.

How this is different from the Runic Champion
First of all, don't follow the Runic Champion exactly; I only looked at the dwarf version, but it has at least one mistake in its feats (selected Dwarven Axe as a feat even though dwarves can just Master's Touch their axes).

The big difference of philosophy, though, is strength versus intelligence.

Max strength (like the game suggests), and you will have better melee DPS in a routine hack'n'slash encounter.

Max intelligence (like I suggest), and you will gain considerable versatility:

• Insightful Strikes or Damage is a bit better. Trouble hitting? Insightful Strikes (great when you pull out a crossbow). No problem hitting? Insightful Damage.
• Spell DCs that are actually competitive-- i.e. you can actually expect Tactical Detonation and Blade Barrier to do their jobs effectively. Same goes for offensive clickies at level 20.
• The benefits of intelligence that seem minor when you're trying to kill an orthon (more skill points; more spell points; higher Search and Disable).

Both builds make sense. Added strength does make a big difference for DPS (even if Insightful Strikes and Damage shrink make up some of that difference for the Intelligence build). But, of course, being able to land nukes--especially nukes with knockdown-- can make up for a lot of DPS gap.

[Gorbadoc]

To answer the OP's questions:
No, I don't recommend thinking of a melee artificer as a tank. Tank Junior, maybe. But not a tank.

Think of it like this: If you build it right, you can solo tank quests on normal at-level. And in a group, you'll be right behind or to the side of the barbarian, tanking and killing one or two monsters at a time while the barbarian is tanking five monsters. You yourself do NOT want to be absorbing lots of hits when you're in a full party. If you have lots of aggro, you had better be kiting it through a blade barrier.

At least, that's how it will be in high-level quests. At low levels, even a sorcerer can tank if he's built well and has fancy hand-me-down gear. At mid levels, the d6 hp classes can still tank, though it's not the preferred situation.

[OGSlapnutz]

Thanks for the info guys.

According to what I read, you can build your animal companion into a rogue like build or a tank like build. I was thinking of taking this toon and making it a as much a tank as possible. At one time I created a warforged paladin, who was basically an up front self healing tank. however, the heals were only so, so because well, warforged only get about 1/2 or 3/4 of what other races recieve from heal spells. When I saw this option for the artificer, I was thinking that I could try to recreate my big robot smash build only using artificer ( cause it heals Warforged better) instead of paladin. Now, I know it's not gonna be as damaging as say a paladin, but I figured with the adamantium skin, weilding a khopesh and a Tower Shield ( can the magic bracer on the left arm still work when weilding a shield ? what about a big shield like a tower shieldd ? ) and the animal pet built with the tank build, I could somewhat get close to what I had before even if it taskes me two toons ( the character and the dog ) to equal it. Or am I way off on my thinking ?

[richieelias27]

No, you cannot use a rune arm and a shield at the same time. The rune arm fits on the offhand slot. You cannot fit two things into that slot at once. This means you also cannot dual wield or use 2handed weapons while wearing a rune arm (xbows are 1handed with rune arms).

[wolfy42]

Melee Artificers are quite doable. If you don't mind multiclassing a bit this becomes even more true (although you lose out on the great capstone and your pet is a bit weaker).

For soloing though....a WF melee focused Artificer is pretty awesome. Concentrate on strength for your character (32 point build probably goes with 16 strength, 16 con, 14 int).

I suggest going with a tank based pet though as it gives you a ton more versatility and it's very hard to keep your AC up etc long term (the pet though is very buffable).

Two handed melee combat will get you through the whole game solo easily even in the higher levels but your repeater damage is quite decent as backup (with your rune arm added in) or you could grab 1 more feat (brutal throw) and use thrown weapons instead ( a bit less average damage but WAY higher attack bonus).

Grabbing a barbarian level sure helps alot, as does a couple fighter levels. Not sure if it's worth losing the capstone, 3 pet levels etc though.

Early game you can pump your AC through the roof by grabbing adamantium armor, the AC boosting spells (imbue armor at 1 and plate construct or whatever it's called at 2). Both also work on your pet btw which can make you both almost impossible to damage through gianthold pretty much (with melee attacks at least...and since you have resist eneregy as well.....your pretty hard to damage).

If you do go with brutal throw you pretty much won't miss with your thrown weapons at all......and since you can use your rune arm with them....it's a pretty decent amount of ranged damage output in a pinch (not nearly as high as melee damage though so it's just for special occasions).

Long term of course you'd be better going with an int build and focusing on repeaters etc....but it's a great build for new characters (at least so far)....although it obviously gains a ton from having good equipment handed down as well.

1 Barbarian level really helps a ton though as a big weakness of the artificer is no movement speed boosts (although you can use exp retreat wands with boosted durations (or even the korthos boosts etc) to help a bit. Still having the 10% bonus from barbarian naturally...and sprint boost in a pinch is great. That is especially true for circle strafing specific dangerous enemies with your returning thrown weapons (rust musters I'm talking about you hehe).

As a solo character you can really rock hard with that combination especially if you grab a wizard hireling for the more difficult quests.

The increase to wand caster level (and especially the capstone bonus!!) allows you to use things like shield with a decent duration much earlier then other classes. That combined with the excellent natural ac bonuses (from spells etc) can allow your character to keep a decent level AC much longer then most hybrid melee classes (wizard/sorc/Cleric/Bard/FvS WF's). Without extreme measures you can keep a consistant 50+ AC going through the mid levels which gets you through gianthold etc fairly well at least (you can always swap out your adamantium armor later once it stops making a difference).

Main thing I'm not 100% about is the thrown weapons. I find they work fairly well on my repeating xbow focused Artificer (they count as 1 handed weapons btw...so you can get your int bonus to them)....but I'm not sure how useful they will be end game (my experience with thrown weapons is basically only as backup damage when enemies can't hit you back from range etc...or emergency ranged damage if you have nothing else available. With your runic arm adding damage in though.....it might be worth the extra feat to take brutal throw.

I can say this. Early on lvl 3 + (might have been 4) when you can hit tier 2 on your rune arm...a thrown weapon + rune arm takes out mob enemies quite well at range. Quick draw lets you both throw faster AND switch instantly to your melee damage when enemies get close.......but thats not as much of a problem with a taunt based pet (since you'll often kill 2-3 enemies and then the others get taunted by the pet while you take them out.

Doing Butchers Path on elite at level 4 that way is pretty easy over all. Not quite as easy as some other builds.....but not bad for a semi-squishy character...and certainly better then most ranged based builds at that level. If you snag precise shot at 8...you can start taking out the spellcasters VERY fast with your runic arm + thrown weapons, allowing you to just switch and focus on melee/ranged enemies with your axe etc after they are dead. It's a nice combo that works quite well.

Then again everything works quite well in early game......especially with so much high end equipment handed down. It's starting to get hard to really tell if a combo will work anymore because equipment etc gives so many huge boosts...you could almost take a base character with no spells, feats or enhancements and still demolish everything.