New TR and Arty

[Sonos]

Thanks for the tip! I'll get to Draconic when I can. B/c of my ranger past lives, I started in Shiradi, thinking that would be the most fun for an artie. Now I'm thoroughly enjoying Fury of the Wild. It's great to see up to 850 damage using adrenaline on an X-bow!

Sweet ideas. That boulder toss is a one shot too, and is really just for fun but it is hilarious fun.

[Loriac]

As a side note, at level 7 what should be my "most-common" spells? I have Stoneskin, Mass Shield of Faith, Insight Strike, Elemental Weapon, Master's Touch, Conjure Bolts, Enchant Armor, and all the repairs obviously. I probably have other spells too, but I don't use them. Master's Touch is only for my Ghost Touch G-Sword. Shield of Faith and Enchant Armor don't give my character any boost, but they might be helping my pet (never looked actually).

Just wondering if Flame Turret is something I should be using. Also, does my Flame enhancement line affect the turret damage?

I expect there will be more questions popping up as I play...I've noticed that it takes more than a single life to figure out "the right way" for each class.

*Edit: Resist Energy is another spell I believe I have that is a staple buff...

On a ranged/caster arti, I would slot the following at L7:

L1: Conjure bolts, Resist energy, Shield of Faith or Resistance [resistance is bugged atm and adds stacking +1 to reflex save]
L2: Elemental weapons, Toughen construct (assuming WF), or lightning sphere (if you have quicken)
L3: Insightful Damage, Flame Turret (blast rod is also a very good nuke at this level, but flame turret is more useful due to the prevalence of undead heavy quests)

Insightful strikes is not worth memorising once you can cast insightful damage. You should never be using insightful strikes, its a significant loss of dps. Insightful damage is what keeps your repeater competitive going into mid-levels.

Flame turret is a summons, so things like augment summons helps it, but not the fire spellpower line.

Stoneskin can be cast from wands (buy them at the Twelve); pricing is a non issue, because wands are about the same price as the spell's material component iirc. Also, as a 7th level arti, your wand stoneskin is better than the one you cast(!).

If you're able to cannith craft, then its easy to put ghost touch onto a repeater, saving you having to switch to a greatsword.

Also, don't forget to swap in situationally useful spells in quests. As an arti, you should aim to have all the spells in your spellbook, so that you have the flexibility to pick and choose what you need at shrines.

At lowish levels, the key damage line is electric. If you raise electric spellpower as much as you can, and slot in an electric item such as the bracers of wind from the cannith challenges, then you'll find a maximised blast rod will clear a room on most quests up to about level 12. I suspect many artificer players don't realise that blast rod is as powerful a nuke as anything a sorc or wizard has at that level (in fact, with mean damage of 65, its like a level 13 fireball rather than a level 10 one).

[Sonos]

On a ranged/caster arti, I would slot the following at L7:

L1: Conjure bolts, Resist energy, Shield of Faith or Resistance [resistance is bugged atm and adds stacking +1 to reflex save]
L2: Elemental weapons, Toughen construct (assuming WF), or lightning sphere (if you have quicken)
L3: Insightful Damage, Flame Turret (blast rod is also a very good nuke at this level, but flame turret is more useful due to the prevalence of undead heavy quests)

Insightful strikes is not worth memorising once you can cast insightful damage. You should never be using insightful strikes, its a significant loss of dps. Insightful damage is what keeps your repeater competitive going into mid-levels.

Flame turret is a summons, so things like augment summons helps it, but not the fire spellpower line.

Stoneskin can be cast from wands (buy them at the Twelve); pricing is a non issue, because wands are about the same price as the spell's material component iirc. Also, as a 7th level arti, your wand stoneskin is better than the one you cast(!).

If you're able to cannith craft, then its easy to put ghost touch onto a repeater, saving you having to switch to a greatsword.

Also, don't forget to swap in situationally useful spells in quests. As an arti, you should aim to have all the spells in your spellbook, so that you have the flexibility to pick and choose what you need at shrines.

At lowish levels, the key damage line is electric. If you raise electric spellpower as much as you can, and slot in an electric item such as the bracers of wind from the cannith challenges, then you'll find a maximised blast rod will clear a room on most quests up to about level 12. I suspect many artificer players don't realise that blast rod is as powerful a nuke as anything a sorc or wizard has at that level (in fact, with mean damage of 65, its like a level 13 fireball rather than a level 10 one).

Good tips here, once I got prismatic strike I took points out of electric and went fire, force, and repair.

The first time I leveled turret I was under the impression that as said above, was enhanced by aug. summon, but I notice that my druid PL does not show up on examination like other summons do on the current arti life I am leveling. Would like clarification on aug. summon, since it has been awhile since I capped my level 25 arti(who no longer uses turret).

[kyleann]

Awesome information there. Will definitely be redoing my spellbook tonight. Didn't even think about Toughen Construct working on myself I just figured it would be useful on my pup. I also never thought of Stoneskin wands instead of casting it...

Yeah flexibility with my spellbook would be nice. Been in a few situations where switching spells would have made a quest easier. i.e. Elite Lair of Summoning and my ship buffs wore off just as I started fighting the fire elemental and no Resist Energy...beat it, but it took FOREVER!

For whatever reason I had it in my head that STR was the roll for hitting with the Repeater, so since STR was a dump stat I thought Insightful Strikes was more useful. Now I realize I'm an idiot and need to read the spell descriptions when I level up...Had I read more closely I'm moderately sure I would have made the right call and picked up Insightful Damage. At least I was smart enough to take it as a spell choice since it's on the rare list! 1 for 2 isn't bad!

Never tried Blast Rod so I'll definitely be giving that a shot too. Guess I have a lot of shuffling to do!

I would probably never figure this stuff out on my own so thank you all for bringing all this excellent info to light for me!

Loriac, if you haven't already, you should compile some of your knowledge for the benefit of the Arty community. You seem to have a lot of answers and insights that a simple google search doesn't pop up. You've been a great help, as usual.

[droid327]

If you're able to cannith craft, then its easy to put ghost touch onto a repeater, saving you having to switch to a greatsword.

I dont see why you'd be switching to a Ghost Touch GS in the first place. You dont have PA or high STR, so your base damage isnt going to be anything great on it. Its a 2H sword so you lose your Runearm bonus damage. You gain 50% extra hits, but I think you'd give up more than 50% DPS between runearm, lower base damage, and no weapon mods (at least, no prefix).

If you can craft, craft yourself a Ghost Touch Repeater of Undead Bane for a Wraith-beater...or else I'd just stick with my high-DPS repeater, suck up the Incorporeal penalty, and maybe cast a Blast Rod instead of Master's Touch to supplement your DPS.

[Singular]

There are ghost touch repeaters, and there are many ways of enabling ghost touch damage, such as the spectral gloves and the ring of the stalker.

[Sonos]

I dont see why you'd be switching to a Ghost Touch GS in the first place. You dont have PA or high STR, so your base damage isnt going to be anything great on it. Its a 2H sword so you lose your Runearm bonus damage. You gain 50% extra hits, but I think you'd give up more than 50% DPS between runearm, lower base damage, and no weapon mods (at least, no prefix).

If you can craft, craft yourself a Ghost Touch Repeater of Undead Bane for a Wraith-beater...or else I'd just stick with my high-DPS repeater, suck up the Incorporeal penalty, and maybe cast a Blast Rod instead of Master's Touch to supplement your DPS.

I have Ghost touch repeaters and until maybe Necro 4, you won't even need ghost touch if your fire enhancements are high and you use a turret. Arcanes are rarely bothered by Ghosts. That turret is your firewall, let 'em bake and shoot em with your runearm and pew pewer(you'll get incorporeal message now and again but the rest will make short order of those spookies).