Best two archery feats for an artificer splash?

[jsaving]

Hi all, I am making a melee character who plans to splash artificer for a variety of reasons including UMD, locks, and the pet. Since repeater proficiency is part of the splash, I thought it might be interesting to burn a feat or two on improving the character's ranged prowess. My question is, what are the most valuable 1-2 ranged feats that a repeater character can take? I have plenty of siberys shards so I can easily erase those choices and go back to a standard all-melee build if I discover I'm sacrificing too much melee DPS to give this a try.

Several guildies have suggested point blank shot and rapid shot. Would those be more useful from a ranged DPS point of view than improved critical (ranged)? What about zen archery (for a high-wisdom melee) or precise shot? I could use some help here and would appreciate advice from those more familiar than I with ranged combat.

[rimble]

If you're primarily melee, I think just Improved Critical should be sufficient. You're not going to have Insightful Damage to pump up damage, so you might just be doing some minor pew-pewing, or laying out with a WoP or Cursespewer or some other kind of non-damaging support repeater.

[Hellllboy]

Hi all, I am making a melee character who plans to splash artificer for a variety of reasons including UMD, locks, and the pet. Since repeater proficiency is part of the splash, I thought it might be interesting to burn a feat or two on improving the character's ranged prowess. My question is, what are the most valuable 1-2 ranged feats that a repeater character can take? I have plenty of siberys shards so I can easily erase those choices and go back to a standard all-melee build if I discover I'm sacrificing too much melee DPS to give this a try.

Several guildies have suggested point blank shot and rapid shot. Would those be more useful from a ranged DPS point of view than improved critical (ranged)? What about zen archery (for a high-wisdom melee) or precise shot? I could use some help here and would appreciate advice from those more familiar than I with ranged combat.

Point Bank may be the best choice-given you are a Melee character-this increases your damage for little investment. Improved Crit may also be a viable choice at higher levels.

[rimble]

Point Bank may be the best choice-given you are a Melee character-this increases your damage for little investment.

If he's close enough for Point Blank to be working, he should probably be meleeing...unless he's trying to avoid some retributive damage...Fire Shield or something, I dunno...

[Hellllboy]

If he's close enough for Point Blank to be working, he should probably be meleeing...unless he's trying to avoid some retributive damage...Fire Shield or something, I dunno...

While I don't disagree with you-He asked for the best bang for buck with little investment-PBS is the logical choice.

[smeggy1384]

Hi all, I am making a melee character who plans to splash artificer for a variety of reasons including UMD, locks, and the pet. Since repeater proficiency is part of the splash, I thought it might be interesting to burn a feat or two on improving the character's ranged prowess. My question is, what are the most valuable 1-2 ranged feats that a repeater character can take? I have plenty of siberys shards so I can easily erase those choices and go back to a standard all-melee build if I discover I'm sacrificing too much melee DPS to give this a try.

Several guildies have suggested point blank shot and rapid shot. Would those be more useful from a ranged DPS point of view than improved critical (ranged)? What about zen archery (for a high-wisdom melee) or precise shot? I could use some help here and would appreciate advice from those more familiar than I with ranged combat.

Go for level 6 arti, get the prestige for when you need to use ranged, as well as point blank shot and improved crit ranged. The arti pet is based on arti levels, not at all a good reason to splash arti, unless you need a non combat lever puller.. but you'd have to hide it way back. Ranged works for artis in part due to the int to hit or int to damage self buffs, plus higher level rune arms, not to mention blade barrier.

If you won't go for lvl 6 arti with the prestige then perhaps 2 ranger for bow strength as well as picking up improved crit ranged and point blank shot. At least the bow str path would let you do some decent ranged damage, though you'd be lacking improved precise shot, which helps a lot.

[jsaving]

While I don't disagree with you-He asked for the best bang for buck with little investment-PBS is the logical choice.

"Little investment" is definitely the key here. All of my previous melee characters were focused solely on hand-to-hand combat, with only an occasional chill shard or dwarven thrower for those unusual occasions where ranged was absolutely required. Just to try something different, I'm willing to lose a little bit of melee power with this new character, but no more than 2 feats (and am willing to consider 1 or even 0 if there is no single feat that would significantly raise my ranged DPS).

[Alternative]

Point blank shot and improved crit ranged is what I'd take IF I had either endless fussilade or manyshot (does not work with xbows I know, not the point here) Without either of these switching to a ranged weapon makes sense only if you can't reach your target with melee weapons, which at end game applies to DQ raid and LoB pillars - both too far for pbs to work.

Imp crit ranged would make some sense on dq, but the crossbow damage is so negligible that is really not worth spending a feat on. Artificers can add their int mod to xbow damage, on a 2 levels splash you won't be able to do that, and no other ability mod works.

[Postumus]

If he's close enough for Point Blank to be working, he should probably be meleeing...unless he's trying to avoid some retributive damage...Fire Shield or something, I dunno...

Yeah, if he actually plans to melee I'm not sure how valuable Point Blank Shot will be. Precise Shot might be a good choice depending on how you plan to play.

It is very nice for locking on to a boss or caster and firing through the other critters. You can choose it as an arti feat at L4 if you splash that deeply. If you splash to L6, it compliments fusillade VERY well.

[BladeTricks]

Point Blank Shot is unfortunately a pre-req for a bunch of other ranged feats, like Rapid Shot. I think 2 feats is too much for a minimal increase in ranged DPS for you.

If anything, take Improved Critical and go to town with a WoP repeater. Your dmg will then principally be coming from reducing the target's CON to 0 and finish it off while it is dazed (for 6 seconds or something).

One good thread about repeater fire rates:
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=341522