What use the Artificer capstone?

[Djeserit]

I've been capped for about a week. I run a bunch of quests: BOB, tides, DA, VON6, etc.

Not sure what I'm supposed to be using my capstone for. Is there some clicky I should be using during these quests/raids?

Just seems like I am expected to pass out deadly weapons and then pew pew.
(note: the dps doesn't seem very good either, using GS bow and lucid dreams with kinetic maxxed out)
I did traps in VOD and a little kiting in bb in VON to get rid of excess eles.

Haven't figured out any purpose to the capstone.

Am I missing something?

[karl_k0ch]

Haste & Rage clickies, Ring of Spell Storing, Resist Energy Clickies and Divine Power are the first things which come to my mind. I am sure that an actual Arty player can come up with a more comprehensive list.

[Dandonk]

Haste & Rage clickies, Ring of Spell Storing, Resist Energy Clickies and Divine Power are the first things which come to my mind. I am sure that an actual Arty player can come up with a more comprehensive list.

Divine Favor, too. Visors of the Fleshrender are nice with capstone, too. Haven't tried with the named items with Fire Shield clickies, but would think they're nice too. Shield/Nshield clickies.

Probably several more I don't recall atm.

[Pank]

When playing solo, you can self-buff better than any toon.
When in a group, just consider what is more efficient for the group: Have an arcane casting haste, rage, blur, etc. a divine with bless, mass protection from evil, etc. or you using clickies and cheap wands?

[sirgog]

Mask of Comedy (classic or Epic version) is an extremely good CL20 clickie in bardless groups.

[Infant]

Displacement scrolls would give you 2 minute Displacement, if I understand the capstone correctly.

EDIT: Recon and Heal scrolls should heal for 150 instead of 110 base. Just to have these things on my bard, I would sell my soul.

[Miahoo]

Are you asking about your capstone enhancement, or about artis at endgame?

The first has been already answered.

About the second I can tell you:
I've yet seen a good arti that worth his spot beside deadly, silver and armor haste on ToD (bypass boots). And lots of them dont even get a raise by the divine when they die.

At early levels, artis pwns. I run my TR and feal like piking while 4 artis kill everything in sight.

But at end game, most of them have like 300-400 hp, do lame DPS and die in a second. I've only met ONE arti, who had >600HP, I cant tell too much about his DPS, as he was taking the orthons in ToD.

Now, maybe, just maybe I have bad luck with artis, or maybe its all due to lack with good repeaters at end game.

I just wait for this arti to prove me wrong and show me he can DPS (boss - not trash!). And I'm about to roll one myself (30 favor to unlock it).

[Mrmorphling]

IF you are WF (And i personally don't see any reason not to) you should be at 500hp mark by lvl 20 with minimal gear and with a respectable self heal you should be really hard to kill.

What can a Arti offer:
300ish DPS from a Toven with maxxed out AP and a sup clicky vs non evasion plus the lightning strike; a negligible amount from ranged unless during fusillade.
Weapon buffs (self explanatory)
Best blade barrriers in game but that's more for personal use, less usefull in raids.
Best scroll healer and an ok all around healer even if with limited SP pool (2x AoE plus heal scrolls plus wands)
Assorted utilities like haste and rage in arcaneless group, good hope and other situational clickies powered by capstone.

[Pank]

If you run an Arty and you only do deadly weapons, pewpewpew and use your Rune Arm you are doing it wrong. period.
If on top of that you raise, heal and rebuff dead people in raids so that divines can keep doing thier stuff, if you buff the party with clickies and wands so arcanes and divines save SP, if you try no to get aggro whern you use fusillade + rune arm, if you debuff bosses (lightning motes, deconstruct), you are doing it better.

BTW, when I use fusillade and lightninig motes on raid bosses I see their HP bar go down faster than when I am on cooldown (using litII heavy repeater), and my Lucid Dreams does an average 600-1000 HP (aprox., 5 bolts) damage when fully chgarged (every 6 seconds), so DPS from an Arty is sensible, probaly not the best DPS class but able to pull their share.

[Deathdefy]

On the OP: Expeditious Retreat clickies are also hot for a full 20mins - functionally it just covers the brief downtimes between hastes, but it's nice. Recitation wands are nice, as are Magic Circle against Evil or whatever it's called, although that's now encroaching on territory the best casters will auto-handle anyway.

On Miahoo: It really is just bad luck. There are plenty of great artificers on Khyber at least. I have seen very few with sub 400HP - artificers can even rock Con Yugo pots scot-free for 40HP since the 5% melee speed is neither here nor there.

Excluding the contribution one arti makes to a raid through the class exclusive buffs, they contribute significant personal dps such that taking more as standard dps is wholly reasonable. I'm genuinely surprised by your negative end-game experiences since just a Lit II and Toven's/Lucid Dreams using auto-attack/auto-runearm will earn their spot in most pugs.