Friggin Bolts!

[BoBo2020]

Mechanic line really needs some sort of construct trap bolts, with all these useless trap parts.

Trap parts are a lot more useful now that mechanical trap parts are needed to create homonculus modules.
They fly off the auction house at surprisingly high prices.

[Vellrad]

Go to harbor, buy 10 quivers, set them to auto-gather, then go buy 4k bolts, when you will get another inventory tab, buy another 10 quivers, and fill them with 4k bolts.
Remember to equip quiver when you'll get out of ammo message (takes 2 seconds).
After couple of quests, remember to refill quivers.
Enjoy having enough ammo without this terrible, taking forever to create ammo for 5 minutes of quest spell.
And if you wand flaming bolts, don't bother with spell, just buy a wand.

[jonqrandom]

if you have the SP but not the inv. space: create between 3 and 5 stacks of bolts outside the quest. when you notice the reload message, conjure another stack when you're done shooting (like, say, while you're running to the next encounter). soon enough, you'll always notice the message, and you'll only need two stacks of bolts - one in your ammo slot, and one to load and remind you to cast another stack.

if you have the space but not the SP (not OPs situation, i know), then much like kaeper said: conjure half to a page of bolts outside the quest, and restock before you use each shrine - if you even need to. a full page of bolt stacks is 2000 bolts, so even with a repeater and endless fusillade you should be very much ok there. you'll soon get the hang of figuring out how many stacks you need to conjure beforehand to not have use SP in quest on it, but still run out of bolts fast enough to regain loot space.

and yes, i have an AA, and yes, i wish conjure bolts made returning ones too. SP cost would be as irrelevant for arti as it is for AA, 'cos the stack persists 'till logout and can be conjured in town, so it's effectively free. unless i'm just logging in to craft, i usually conjure when i log in.

[dunklezhan]

I think they should up the sp cost to 25 and just make them returning bolts that vanish when you leave an instance, like any buff. I mean I only say up the sp cost because people will scream OP if heaven forbid a class gets returning bolts for only 5sp. Or at least 25% returning at lvl 1 then every 5 lvls increase.

lvl 1 25% returning
lvl 5 50%
lvl 10 75%
lvl 15 100%
lvl 20 Enjoy your 100% returning arrows for the last past 5 levels.

I posted something very similar to this a while back, and I agree in princple that adding returning to the summoned bolts is more or less a necessity. AA's get 100% returners at L6 - though admittedly that's a prestige investment, Artificers are supposed to use repeaters - they use triple the ammunition that a ranger does (manyshot notwithstanding).

I wouldn't put the curve in such large chunks as you have. I'd simply add 5% per caster level starting at 5% at caster L1, meaning that you get your 100% returners at L20, but are at 75% by L15, and 50% by L10. However you shouldn't be able to use them as the spell component for a flame arrow spell/wand, so if you want the flame bolts, you still have to buy bolts, at least nominally.

Alternatively, what about an additional spell (e.g. L3): 'Imbue Returning' which allows you to imbue returning at 5% per caster level onto consumable bolts of any variety (including your conjured ones, or bane arrows or whatever). This could last until dungeon entrance/exit, but would fit with the idea of artificers imbuing existing items with special abilities quite nicely.

Either way, they need to stack, they need to go in quivers, and like an AA's summoned arrows, they need to last till logout and not just till dungeon exit/entrance.

[Chauncey1]

My arti is lvl 5, and I bought a very large, wide quiver, assuming I could stockpile bolts for later use...after clearing out the AH of all +1 bolts (of various types) that I could afford, I tried to "gather" them all in my shiny, new and entirely too expensive quiver, (which is supposed to carry 20 stacks of 300).
I could only get 2 types of arrows to stack in the quiver, and after a while of running around in dungeons, the quiver froze up on me, I could still use conjured bolts, but not the ones in the quiver, I could neither remove, nor add bolts to the quiver.
Also, considering that I will be going through a butt-load of bolts, is that the right quiver for this application?

[PestWulf]

Put your bolts on one of your bars. They will auto refill with the same thing when it runs out. As for inventory space, good luck.

There is an unfortunate caveat to this. If you have a quiver, make sure you don't loot any bolts from chests. When you run out of your current summoned bolts, it will not pull bolts from your inventory of the same type if you have bolts in a quiver. It will try to pull them instead.

**** near killed me in quest the other night, lvl 5 doing elite tangleroot and pulled a +4 bolt out of a chest that I couldn't use. Just looted "all" like always and next fight I ran out of bolts and got the message that "you are not high enough level", etc.

Totally confused me as to what was going on since I had about 1k bolts in my inventory until I realized I had looted those +4 bolts. So if you plan on using summoned, better to not have a quiver at all. :/

[gloopygloop]

Fire, water, air, dirt
Friggen bolts, How do they work?

[Therigar]

So if you plan on using summoned, better to not have a quiver at all. :/

Good advice.

Personally, I don't use the spell. I have it for emergencies, but haven't used it since testing it and finding it isn't like the AA conjure arrows (ie, not returning).

Instead I make frequent stops at the vendor and buy normal bolts. I keep a full stack in the quiver. I use the thin quiver to increase stack size and reduce the chance of picking up extras that fubar the reload.

If I could find someplace selling masterwork bolts I'd load up a full stack of those as well. Seems to me that there use to be a vendor that sold them a long time ago, but I can't find them now. Probably old age (or maybe Turbine took that out).

Honestly, creating +1 bolts seems pointless since the bolt value doesn't stack with the crossbow value. Anyone rocking a crossbow that doesn't have at least +1 on it?

Spell itself would be much more useful if it conjured a single returning, +0 arrow.

Otherwise, it is almost entirely worthless as soon as you pick up your first +1 crossbow. Let's see, that would be after finishing Korthos for most artificers....

[Therigar]

Fire, water, air, dirt
Friggen bolts, How do they work?

I don't know and I don't care,
<Insert something about underwear!>

[Therigar]

My arti is lvl 5, and I bought a very large, wide quiver, assuming I could stockpile bolts for later use...after clearing out the AH of all +1 bolts (of various types) that I could afford, I tried to "gather" them all in my shiny, new and entirely too expensive quiver, (which is supposed to carry 20 stacks of 300).
I could only get 2 types of arrows to stack in the quiver, and after a while of running around in dungeons, the quiver froze up on me, I could still use conjured bolts, but not the ones in the quiver, I could neither remove, nor add bolts to the quiver.
Also, considering that I will be going through a butt-load of bolts, is that the right quiver for this application?

There is a display issue with bags and such. It may be affecting your quiver as well.

However, wide is wrong.

You want the biggest stack possible because you will go thru them very fast. That means thin is in.

There are very few cases where you absolutely need/want specialized bolts. Most of what you want you'll put onto your crossbow. So the bolts don't need to be special in any way.

If buying the Turbine quivers go for the maximum sized thin quiver that holds stacks of 1500. Otherwise take the thin quivers you buy from the vendors.

You could stockpile slayers for the future. But, you'll probably find you really only need regular, everyday, unenchanted bolts from the general vendors for most things.

[Chauncey1]

Much appreciated.

[Chauncey1]

Where can I buy decent bolts, other than the AH?
Are there ANY vendors available to a lvl 5 toon that sell anything other than plain jane bolts?

[mystafyi]

simple. use house D 75% returning.

[Cauthey]

I was considering dragging one of the many stacks of bolts to my hotbar. Then, when I started depleting the presumably "last stack" that I linked to my hotbar, I would then know I need to conjure some more.

Haven't tried this yet, but it seems like it ought to work. I know there's some new U11 code for the hotbar to make it "smarter" so that you don't have to re-link expendable stuffs.

[Therigar]

Where can I buy decent bolts, other than the AH?
Are there ANY vendors available to a lvl 5 toon that sell anything other than plain jane bolts?

House D sells +1 bolts.

Otherwise, no, not until you earn enough House D favor.

[TempestAlphaOmega]

House D sells +1 bolts.

Otherwise, no, not until you earn enough House D favor.

Can't you buy +1 bolts at the Sands of M area vendors?

[Vellrad]

House D sells +1 bolts.

Otherwise, no, not until you earn enough House D favor.

+1 bolts are not decent, they're as good as +0, masterworks or -1.

Bolts you need are just simple bolts from each 'general vendor' in game, 10 plat for 1k shots.

[Chauncey1]

Conjure +1 Bolts wasn't really meant to last the entire game. You'll eventually want to switch to a narrow deneith quiver filled with sturdy bolts.

I'm already envisioning the time where I'll be carrying multiple narrow quivers A quiver holding silver ammunition for devils and vamps. One holding Cold iron ammunition for demons. Etc. All to be fired by a holy light repeating crossbow with as high an enhancement bonus that I can muster.

Great idea actually.