Aren't artificers a bit over-powered?

[Wulverine]

I have to jump in here for a sec - Loriac is like the final word on arties. He's an encyclopedia of tested abilities on arties.

You are invited to show how I'm incorrect here - or how I can improve my damage out put! That would be nice

We are talking about EE endgame, not level 12.
And like i mentioned in my post, nothing against Loriac, he's a very knowledgeable poster, but he is definitely off on a pure artificers DPS output *at endgame*.

[Strider1963]

Any str-focused melee cleaving/great cleaving with carnifex is putting out a lot of damage at low levels, easily enough to mow down groups of trash without any issue. An arty can hit similar group damage at these levels only through maximised blast rod (which requires a level 6 arty), which very few artys seem to do. A repeater volley will 1-shot a trash mob, but it takes at least 1.5seconds per volley (when I tested fire rates on my level 20 pure arty, I was seeing 120 bolts per minute when twitch firing i.e. 40 volleys per minute). It surprises me that you believe that arty dps is that much higher at these levels.

Carnifex is doing 120-150 damage on crits to groups of mobs at those levels, and even the normal hits are 40-50 (assuming here decent strength, and improved power attack via enhancements).

Yes, Carniflex is doing great on crits, I have one in my acct, and I've used it on a barb and a fighter. However, there still is no comparison at these levels, I can just run through most quests in less than 5 min taking little or no damage. Can a barb with a carniflex do the same with no heals?? .I'm only using xbows and rune arms that drop in quests, nothing great. Also you're forgetting about the doggie (which IS part of the Arty package). if iwanted to take more time to do a quest, I could just let him solo it and keep him repaired, hes got plenty of aggro, along with trip, way more hp and ac than me and a lacerating collar...

[Loriac]

I'm beginning to really doubt you ever played a well built, well geared max destiny Arti, Loriac And then I can understand your point of view.
But "maybe 250dps with repeater"? It is now very clear you never ran a proper Arti with at least Needle.

Artificers power is incredible while leveling up to 18. Then it begins to taper off. And this is what most people know and remember. But then they gain a huge boost again when geared up and destiny'd up. And this is what, by far, the most people have not experienced.

Again, like I said earlier, I'm not saying they're ubah dps, when you compare to furyshot and blitz. But your above statement reinforces my point about most people (even knowledgeable forumfolk like yourself) not knowing what an artificer is capable of.

I recall seeing a poster talk about his damage output per shot with Needle a few months ago, and on that basis at the time, I suggested to him that he was doing about 350dps. In retrospect, I think that is off (too high), based on some more recent analysis I've seen/done on monkchers. I think that poster overestimated his damage per shot, but I'm not going to bother searching out what was written, instead I'll put together some quick analysis here.

If we were to put together some ballpark numbers:

Pinion upgraded to +8, Phlebotomizing and good comes to:

2.5[d12] +8, + 3-24 to mobs vuln to bleeding, 19-20x3

So adjusted with deadly weapons, IC:R, and battle-engineer, we have 3.5[d12]+10, 17-20x3, 3-24 post crit

Assume seeker +12 (+8 item, +4exceptional), Int 54 (so damage mod +22), dream vision +5,

Damage per shot non-crit = 22.75 + 10 + 22 +5 = 59.75 (say 60) + 14 post crit = 74

On crits we have (60+12)x3 + 14 = 230

Blended damage per shot = 75%x74 + 20%x230 = 102

Shots per second = 2 (assuming 120 shots per minute, which was what I observed as twitch fire rates for my old pure arty)

=> dps of 204

With PBS, we have an additional d12 base, and 1.35x crit profile, so we have an additional 8.8 damage per shot, or 17.5 dps, bringing us up to 221 dps.

Now, these numbers can be made higher with past lives, relevant shiradi abilities etc, but hopefully you can understand where I was coming from with my statement of 250dps.

Perhaps its 300dps top end for Needle rather than my suggested 250dps. But to suggest that I've no idea what I'm talking about is baseless unless you can provide different numbers that support much, much higher damage (as implied by your post).

Even things like endless fusilade don't add that much damage; my testing showed that it allows one to fire 30 shots in 8 seconds (6 sec + 2 secs activation time, shots fired determined by seeing how many bolts were used up by the activation).

In a 60 second window, this means your rate of fire goes from 120 shots to (44x2+60) = 148 shots

148/120 x 221 = 273dps

I.e. during the 3 minute window that EF is available, you can break 250dps.

But either way, its not even close to melee weapons damage.


Edit: Thinking about it, archer's focus will add a lot to this base damage - 221 becomes 287dps under archer's focus. On my old arty, I would only really switch to archers focus on boss mobs, but it is valid to assume AF full time I guess for this type of analysis.

As such, it looks like my dps number was around 20-25% off, i.e. it looks like 300dps is probably a better estimate than 250.

I didn't factor PLs into the above, so assuming a best case of 3xRanger PL, 3xMonk PL, being in the EF 3minute window, and having AF, you have 371dps. Outside of the EF window, you have 303dps.

However, I'm wary of including the 6 past lives in the damage here, as this thread was originally talking about artys being overpowered from first life onward.

Even then, in a best case scenario, we're looking at 300dps with Needle, going to 370 when EF is available, which is 3 mins between shrines.


Edit 2: but then on further reflection, I think you can't have precision and archer's focus on at the same time? If so, then medium-high fort mobs are going to hurt Needle damage output a lot, as you have to balance the 30% damage and fewer crits vs. normal damage and more crits. Which again will tend to bring dps back closer to my ballpark 250dps value...

[Loriac]

On my 25th level artie, I'm pretty sure I reach around or over 700 dps - but that adds in boulder toss, adrenaline, primal scream, rune arm - more if you count spells. And I'm using a tier 3 alchemical, which produces a ridiculous amount of damage.

700dps is good for a capped arty imo, based on what I've seen. I would guess that probably 60% of that is from non-runearm damage, with the runearm providing 300 or so dps, boulder toss another 80 or so (1200-1500 every 20seconds iirc), primal scream 40 (600 every 15 secs, but in fairness this is not how its normally used), leaving 250 for the repeater (which is boosted up by adrenaline usage every 30 seconds or so).

Its this type of set up that I was alluding to in fact when I suggested 250dps on the repeater, but I could certainly accept that the numbers can be pushed up to a sustained 300-325dps using Needle and archer's focus.

If you want to increase your damage further, I think Needle is definitely the way to go. Further, twisting in energy burst will give you a 3.5k nuke every 30 secs. Grim precision and the precision feat are also very useful in keeping your repeater damage consistent even on medium-fort mobs (well worth taking in fact if you're using adrenaline and unbridled fury a lot), but unfortunately you can't take both Energy burst and grim precision. Extra action boost from the LD tree is also quite useful to extend the time that you can keep endless fusilade up.

Having said that, I think that at 700dps you're fairly close to max dps currently achieveable by pure artificers.

[Loriac]

Yes, Carniflex is doing great on crits, I have one in my acct, and I've used it on a barb and a fighter. However, there still is no comparison at these levels, I can just run through most quests in less than 5 min taking little or no damage. Can a barb with a carniflex do the same with no heals?? .I'm only using xbows and rune arms that drop in quests, nothing great. Also you're forgetting about the doggie (which IS part of the Arty package). if iwanted to take more time to do a quest, I could just let him solo it and keep him repaired, hes got plenty of aggro, along with trip, way more hp and ac than me and a lacerating collar...

Can a barb with a carnifex do the same with no heals? Yes.

I'm basing a lot of my comments about early game on my juggernaut. Bear in mind that heroic juggernauts are quite gimped damage wise vs. specialised melee toons, and that at early levels you're drinking pots on those too rather than blue bar healing.

The only mobs you take real damage from in the early game are casters, which were trivial on my jugg due to taking both monk levels early on (once you have evasion, you can ignore 90%+ of mob casts). This is the one area that would cause a barb or other non-evasion melee a problem in early levels, but with the prevalence of ship buffs, you can shrug off most spells anyway (at those levels). If you're playing without such buffs, then it will slow down the barb, maybe back to arty speed levels lol.

I would say that running around as a melee is quicker than playing as a ranged/caster arty, simply because you don't have the runearm charging (I like using flicker at low levels). I certainly found it enjoyable to be able to run around properly rather than the limping jog that the arty with a runearm has to endure.

In fact, my top dislike of the pure arty class/playstyle is the drop in running speed from charging the runearm. This one thing is frustrating enough to make the class undesirable in my view, and I really wish there was a way to reduce the penalty (e.g. via the runearm enhancements).

[Wulverine]

I would put my own total dps added per second over 1k.
You're missing archers focus on all the time & can be combined with Precision. Your shots per second is too low, you can twitch faster than that.
Ofcourse i added 3 ranger and monk lives and I'm a completionist. Also add shiradi procs.
Also add Stand and deliver for +10 every shot on boss fights.

Will calc your numbers in a bit when i have more time.
At least i hope you can see now why 250 dps for your repeater is horribad.

Quick Edit:
Missing Divine Favor for +3 per shot
Missing +4 artifact bonus (conflux set or claw)
Keep in mind that archers focus multiplies all of that, i believe.

My BASE repeater damage is about 110dmg per shot on bossfights or when my stand and deliver starts to build up. I havent broken that down yet but that is what it is. Add in the bleeding dmg, sneakdmg, etc and the shiradi procs and the crits... Every fully runearm shot adds about 1k dmg assuming nothing crits and all saved against for half damage. So you can add a lot there as well (the crits and the occasional non-save).
When not dealing with bosses, the helpless added from pin and otto improve your and party dps a lot as well and dont forget about energy burst.

Maybe Blacksteel can weigh in here as well as for what kind of dmg he is getting on his arti

Anyway, all im saying is, and i've said this many times before, it is not uber dps but it is a lot higher than people think it is. I hope the above explains that. Add in the fact that is is ranged and you start dps'ing before the melee's close in. Would be fun to see total dps output per party member in a quest

The reason i mentioned artificer being overpowered has not so much to do with dps at all, but more with the base abilities the class gets: skills, bonus feats, the spell selection. All the class perks basically. A similar reason why some people consider monks OP.

P.S. I never said you had no idea what you were talking about, Loriac But did your arti have all the above? Did he have a needle with ranger pastlives and good twists, i.e. energy burst and boulder toss, and all the good gear? *That* is what I was doubting. I don't think you gave your ranged arti a good chance At first i thought Shadowdancer was best as well, but there is no better destiny right now for an Arti than Shiradi. By far. At least until Arti's get their own Destiny.
Building an Arti for DC's is a trap. Focus on max dps instead and you can be surprised.

[Loriac]

I would put my own dps per second over 1k.
You're missing archers focus on all the time & can be combined with Precision. Your shots per second is too low, you can twitch faster than that.

I did fairly extensive testing of rates of fire a while back, and what I found was that twitching obviated the need for haste, but either way I never saw fire rates that exceeded 125 shots per minute. 120 shots per minute is a fairly accurate number in my opinion, but feel free to test yourself and provide methodology so that your findings can be corroborated if they differ significantly. And btw, ime 120 shots per minute twitch firing on an arty takes skill if you want to do it at the same time as using the runearm effectively and casting spells, so even though I assumed that rate of fire, in real life situations I suspect its about 10% lower.

Ofcourse i added 3 ranger and monk lives and I'm a completionist. Also add shiradi procs.
Also add Stand and deliver for +10 every shot on boss fights.

Stand and deliver doesn't stack with dream vision (both competence bonuses), and afaik the stack is cleared immediately on moving (unlike archer's focus). As I noted in my numbers, even with the 6 past lives added, the dps still doesn't break 300 without archer's focus.

Will calc your numbers in a bit when i have more time.
At least i hope you can see now why 250 dps for your repeater is horribad.

No, I really don't - my numbers indicate 300dps sustainable with archer's focus, and all the + damage you mentioned except for the very highly situational additional +5 from stand and deliver. For the average endgame arty using Needle, 250dps is more or less spot on.

Throwing in EF over the 3 minutes its up, you'll hit about 370dps, but this is very short term. To give an analogous comparison, I would never include a psionic str bonus on any melee except a kensai II/III because the titan's gloves only provide 3 minutes of the buff between shrines.

I suggest you break down your 1000 dps precisely, because I suspect you've overestimated it significantly.

Edit:

Quick Edit:
Missing Divine Favor for +3 per shot
Missing +4 artifact bonus (conflux set or claw)
Keep in mind that archers focus multiplies all of that, i believe.

My BASE repeater damage is about 110dmg per shot on bossfights or when my stand and deliver starts to build up. I havent broken that down yet but that is what it is. Add in the bleeding dmg etc and the shiradi procs and the crits... Every fully runearm shot adds about 1k dmg assuming nothing crits and all saved against for half damage. So you can add a lot there as well (the crits and the occasional non-save)
Maybe Blacksteel can weigh in here as well as for what kind of dmg he is getting on his arti

The base damage I suggested was 60 (+14). Adding in PBS, +9 from PLs, +3 from DF (which I dispute btw, I don't think most people keep DF up constantly), +4 from artefact, +5 from Stand and Deliver, you get 87.5(+14). 87.5x1.3 = 114 damage per bolt, which I guess is where you are seeing your 110 damage per bolt.

With all this, your (non EF) dps is: 278 with AF off, 361 with it on. That is significantly better than the 250dps I threw out, and in fairness I think I missed archer's focus from my original number which is where the key difference lies.

Interestingly, that is pretty close to what the poster a few months ago would have got to, so I guess my intuition about real dps being much lower was wrong.

Some caveats however on the 361 number - this represents pretty much the best case non EF dps an arty can get to, and is highly situational (particularly the no moving aspect of stand and deliver, plus the divine favor buff). Its also based on a having a 7th life + (!) character, so fair comparision to melee would have to include that many past lives / ideal gear / ideal ED for those too.


Btw, re: runearm - as I suggested in my response to Singular, I normally assume 300dps from a runearm. This is 1800 damage per shot every 6 seconds. This number seems to tie into what you're saying you get on your runearm, with 300dps being 'best case' when the mob doesn't save.

Even if we take 300, and add it to your repeater dps of 360, we're only at 660dps. I don't think you can get to 1000dps without being in a different destiny tbh (twists will, at best, add a further 150dps or so to your total, and spamming tac det will lower your other dps and be quite sp intensive). If you were in draconic, then your repeater dps would go down, so it ends up being a wash. As I noted in the response to Singular, I think 700dps is actually quite high for pure arty, and I suspect your dps is probably about 800 in practice (i.e. you're picking up an extra 100 vs. Singular's arty as you're using Needle rather than an alchemical repeater).

[Wulverine]

Add shiradi procs. Boulder toss. Shiradi procs add really a lot of dps. Even if it is not influenced by spellpower.
Add sneak dmg as well. There's still some stuff missing. And yes Divine favor is a 2min buff, I do keep it on. Capstone ftw. I really tried to max my dmg per bolt.

Edit: Factor in crits from acid runearm. Max enhancements, max item (rock boots). You can assume all saved against, by a boss, for instance. But definitely count crits. And i've seen Acid bolt crits over 1k.

Second Edit: Also add in my good hope clicky. +2 dmg every bolt which gets modified by crits and Archers Focus. Lasts for 20mins on my Arti
As for pastlives, I would argue that they (at least the damage related ones) are more important and add more to an ranged dps Arti, than a melee.

[Loriac]

Add shiradi procs. Boulder toss. Shiradi procs add really a lot of dps. Even if it is not influenced by spellpower.

The 150 or so I mentioned from twists would be energy burst + boulder toss, and even together they're struggling to get to that number (I was usually seeing 1500 damage per boulder and around 3600 on energy burst if the mob didn't save, but at EE they usually do save, so 150 seems more than fair if not an overestimate). Shiradi procs have nice effects but they don't add much direct damage as such, at least from how they worked when I used them on my arty a few months ago. They also don't proc off the runearm, which is apparently a bug but hasn't been fixed.

Add sneak dmg as well. There's still some stuff missing. And yes Divine favor is a 2min buff, I do keep it on. Capstone ftw. I really tried to max my dmg per bolt.

Sneak damage if you're in shiradi is coming only from items and possibly from HElf enhancements (however, this is a wash as those enhancements have a huge opportunity cost for you in terms of runearm or spell damage). They also apply after crits, so are 'flat' from a dps perspective.

Edit: Factor in crits from acid runearm. Max enhancements, max item (rock boots). You can assume all saved against, by a boss, for instance. But definitely count crits. And i've seen Acid bolt crits over 1k.

All of that is included in the 300dps figure. If anything, 300dps is being generous, particularly on EE where mobs will save against most of the individual bolts.

Second Edit: Also add in my good hope clicky. +2 dmg every bolt which gets modified by crits and Archers Focus. Lasts for 20mins on my Arti
As for pastlives, I would argue that they are more important and add more to an ranged dps Arti, than a melee.

Re: past lives, yes I agree they're more important for ranged (particularly 3xranger).


Summary / conclusion:

I think I was out by about 100-200dps on what a fully spec'd capstone arty can do damage wise; I thought it was around 600dps when I suggested 250dps for the repeater alone, but I can see that 700-800dps is achieveable with a lot of PL investment.

This is higher than I gave the arty credit for, and it moves its dps from 'mediocre' to 'average' in my view. Any properly spec'd melee / focused ranged toon (monkchers etc) would be expected to hit at least that benchmark, but in fairness almost all of them would burst for far higher damage than the arty can (unless he's in draconic).

So I'll revise my judgement on a capped arty at endgame to the following:

Good contributor to a party, with an excellent melee buff (deadly weapons), mediocre to average damage depending on number of PLs and gear, unreliable blue bar cc but often spec'd for good ED cc (such as pin and otto's). Versatile character in that he can umd and cast 20 min buffs from items, but bettered by any other build in every individual area of strength (buffs -> bard, damage -> any good melee/monkcher, cc -> bards or arcanes, spell damage -> arcanes, trapskills -> rogue or any trapper with evasion).

Makes the arty a good build even into EE, but by no means an overpowered beast that is completely outside the norm (that distinction is reseved for shiradi arcanes, melee FotW, LD, or possibly Primal Avatar, 10k monkcher in FotW).

[Wulverine]

Shiradi procs have nice effects but they don't add much direct damage as such, at least from how they worked when I used them on my arty a few months ago. They also don't proc off the runearm, which is apparently a bug but hasn't been fixed.

Sneak damage if you're in shiradi is coming only from items

But these do apply on a per bolt basis. The sonic and force proc from the base Shiradi autogrants really up your dps. I can see from 100 to 300 damage sonic and force procs. And when you're attacking with a fast proccer, like a repeating crossbow, it does add up.

Same for Sneakdmg. think it was around 15 extra dps per bolt.
Also did you factor in the extra added elemental dmg per bolt from the runearm?
I might make a followup post to take your earlier calculation and really lay it all out, if I'm not too lazy

Makes the arty a good build even into EE, but by no means an overpowered beast that is completely outside the norm (that distinction is reseved for shiradi arcanes, melee FotW, LD, or possibly Primal Avatar, 10k monkcher in FotW).

Definitely agree with this.

Don't entirely agree with your summary, (evasion for traps?, arcanes better cc in EE with these high DC's? You realize Otto's and Pin make a mob helpless as well right?) but oh well. At least you know that ranged Arti's can be a lot higher dps than people generally give them credit for, which was my original message anyway.

[Singular]

We are talking about EE endgame, not level 12.
And like i mentioned in my post, nothing against Loriac, he's a very knowledgeable poster, but he is definitely off on a pure artificers DPS output *at endgame*.

Oh, sorry. I thought the discussion was about heroic levels. Yes, at endgame, I'm guessing well done arties, with good gear choices, do around 700 dps.

[Loriac]

But these do apply on a per bolt basis. The sonic and force proc from the base Shiradi autogrants really up your dps. I can see from 100 to 300 damage sonic and force procs. And when you're attacking with a fast proccer, like a repeating crossbow, it does add up.

Same for Sneakdmg. think it was around 15 extra dps per bolt.
Also did you factor in the extra added elemental dmg per bolt from the runearm?
I might make a followup post to take your earlier calculation and really lay it all out, if I'm not too lazy

7% proc chances, and the damage is multiples of d100, so mean is 3.5 'per' d100. Its not a huge boost to overall dps on an aggregate basis. Sneak damage in theory gets +13 from items, but the big question is whether you have the equipment slots for everything you need ime.

Tbh, it would be good to get a 'max'd dps arti' do a standard dps test using just the repeater, to see what the real life number is. From the numbers being thrown around in the last few posts, it looks like the repeater may well hit 400dps consistently, and more on EF. Thats actually a lot a higher than I gave it credit for (my old arty was multi-tr, but I had no ranger past lives and was mostly in IPS mode, so I didn't see the numbers you're talking about in your post). I do still have some reservations about things like fire rate however, as I'm a bit wary of the 120 shots per minute number - its possible to hit this in testing, but when things get hectic it can get difficult to maintain the steady firing rhythm on an xbow.

I found this to be very much an issue for any activated ranged proc effects (e.g. pin, ottos etc) as you have to be certain that you're at the right part of the animation before activating those otherwise you lose them on reloading.

Don't entirely agree with your summary, (evasion for traps?, arcanes better cc in EE with these high DC's? You realize Otto's and Pin make a mob helpless as well right?) but oh well. At least you know that ranged Arti's can be a lot higher dps than people generally give them credit for, which was my original message anyway.

My point on evasion for traps is that objectively speaking, a trapper with evasion > a trapper w/o evasion (given the same search / dd). I was tempted to put in that an arty is top for trapping, but whilst thats true for most situations, evasion can be extremely helpful in some scenarios so all other things being equal, I'd prefer my trapper to have evasion.

I consider arcanes better on cc mainly for range of effects and that they have mass holds etc; also, as they tend to be in magister, draconic or fatesinger (bards), they will have much higher dcs. It is possible however that we're close to the point now where class driven DC abilities are simply not sufficient for the top EE content, in which case any build that has no-save abilities from their ED will be capable.

Also, the otto's and pin thing is an interesting example of the theoretical basis of the max dps stuff we're discussing; in order to get the best use out of them, you need to be in IPS mode, in which case you've just lost the +30% AF damage and dropped your dps significantly.

[BlackSteel]

quick post as I just got my wife home from the delivery room.

11oish a bolt is a fair estimate of base damage on bosses. but its a large range with a 1d12 weapon. I know I dont see anything below 1oo, and I sometimes see things in the low 14os. But I also spam pin/whistler for the heck of it.

add to that:

mid 20s sneak damage (23)
flaming burst or +5% damage (dragon armor) (5)
1d1o quiver (5.5)
2d8 + 2d1o rune arm (2o)
3d8 phlebot. (13.5)
1 force

~65 per bolt

tack on random shiradi fun to any bolt


trash is more fun tho, as pretty much everything is pinned or whistled. for +5o% damage. typical base here is 17o-2oo plus another 1oo from effects.

with the crit profile and watching with monster manual unlocked. Most volleys tend to take off ~1k damage. this is just the xbow damage alone.

baby crying

[Singular]

700dps is good for a capped arty imo, based on what I've seen. I would guess that probably 60% of that is from non-runearm damage, with the runearm providing 300 or so dps, boulder toss another 80 or so (1200-1500 every 20seconds iirc), primal scream 40 (600 every 15 secs, but in fairness this is not how its normally used), leaving 250 for the repeater (which is boosted up by adrenaline usage every 30 seconds or so).

Its this type of set up that I was alluding to in fact when I suggested 250dps on the repeater, but I could certainly accept that the numbers can be pushed up to a sustained 300-325dps using Needle and archer's focus.

If you want to increase your damage further, I think Needle is definitely the way to go. Further, twisting in energy burst will give you a 3.5k nuke every 30 secs. Grim precision and the precision feat are also very useful in keeping your repeater damage consistent even on medium-fort mobs (well worth taking in fact if you're using adrenaline and unbridled fury a lot), but unfortunately you can't take both Energy burst and grim precision. Extra action boost from the LD tree is also quite useful to extend the time that you can keep endless fusilade up.

Having said that, I think that at 700dps you're fairly close to max dps currently achieveable by pure artificers.

If I recall correctly, you weren't full force line, but I am. So my Bouder Toss (BT) and Primal Scream are, on average, higher than the numbers you listed. I have only seen Primal Scream do 700-800 damage once; usually I see around 900-1200. I just got the final tier of the restored blue dragon armor, so on BT I'm now seeing 1500 - 4500 as normal, with the occasional 8000 crit. And I try to hit it every time it's off timer - 15 secs - but mobs move around, so you can't always get it. Bosses always get it though

Never thought about Grim Precision - it's good? I'll try it. Right now I've twisted in Pin (which I don't find useful), Healing Cocoon, and Boulder Toss. Just made it to level 3 in Draconic - and, wow, you were right about increasing your DC's! I'm actually starting to see some mobs fail my spell DCs in EE content (which makes Pin even more disposable).

I actually stopped going into Fury for EE content b/c I constantly steal the aggro, even from hate tanks. I found Legendary Dreadnaught a nice choice - it gives you higher crit profiles and extra EF's. In LD, my Xbow often crits for 200-300 on its base damage, providing a more constant stream of damage output and less burst damage, making aggro manageable. Once I get my DC's higher through twists, though, probably Fury will offer the best dps.

The xbow I'm using is Alchemical fire-acid-fire for: Flaming Burst, Flaming Blast, Seeker +10, Acid Blast, Disintigration, Fiery Detonation, Red slot (of which I have 1-8 cold, will be changing to fire soonish).

Flaming Burst: 1d6, crit=+1-10
Flaming Blast: crit+1d10, 20=4-24
Acid Blast: crit+1d10, 20=4-24
Disintigration: 9.15 ave (in non-EE, it just finishes mobs off, in EE it contributes to damage)
Fiery Det: 20 = 15d6 = 53, save for half = 27
Seeker +10

PBS, Combat Archery (will ignore, as it's likely broken), Deadly, Insightful:

4[1-12]+17

And, I'm wearing EH stuff that gives +4 competence and +4 exceptional seeker. 3 past lives as a ranger. In EN-EH, I use IPS. In EE, I generally switch that to Precision for increased single target damage (as they are super tough).

So that would be, on normal hits:
Bow Magical bonus+Fire+Comp+PL+Mechanic+Bow+Int+Good Hope+Disint+rune arm+cold
6+3.5+4+6+2+28+17+2+9.15+7+4.5= 89.15

Crits:

(the above-(disint+flaming+rune arm)+seeker+mechanic)*2+flaming+disint+flaming burst+blast+acid blast+RA+cold:
(65+14+2)*2 + (3.5+9.15+5.5+5.5+5.5+7+4.5)= 162 + 40.65 = 203.15

20's: (the above swapping out 5.5 for 14 in the blasts) +27 (assume save)+Ring of the Stalker+above)

[(65+14+2)*2]+ (3.5+9.15+14+14+5.5+7+4.5)+27+100=346.65

So [(346.65)+(3*203.65)+(15*89.15)+(0)]/20 = 114.74*2 (two bolts/sec)=229.49

Unless I'm missing something, ouch! You're right, Loriac, my repeater damage needs some help! I better get a Needle. In ED's that number goes up by quite a lot, though - in Fury, the crits will be 400% higher for 7 shots + 1 every 3 seconds for 30secs/5 min+1 every 10 secs:

That means, over a 5 min period, you'll get
7+10+30 = 47 shots of (with each shot being 3 bolts):

(346.65*4)+(203.65*4) as Adrenaline crits=1386.6 and 814.6

You have 400 shots in a 5 minute period if you were shooting constantly, to put that in perspective. Clearly, you won't be and there will likely be shrines in between - so those benefits will increase in relevance with shorter duration between shrines and decrease with longer quest times.

In Legendary:

You'll get Critical Damage (+6 crit damage) + Advancing Blows (stacking up to +5)+Devastating Critical (+1 Crit mult from 19-20) making for:

(65+14+2+6)*2 + (3.5+9.15+5.5+5.5+5.5+7+4.5)= 174 + 40.65 =214.65 times 2
(87)*3 + (40.65)= + 261+40.15 = 301.15 times 1
(87)*3 + (57.65) = 318.65 times 1
Plus 89.15 times 15

= 119.34*2 = 238.69 dps from the Xbow in Legendary (plus a variable advancing blows of 1-5, which I didn't add in; that could add from 1-5 dps on non-crits and up to 15 on crits).

Then you can add Archer's Focus, and so on. In other words, my calculations on the best non-needle rune arm you can get are roughly the same as what you pegged for what arties can hope for dps-wise.

For a force specked artie, you're somewhat underestimating the dps output of the force-based ED stuff, but otherwise, spot on, I think.

[Wulverine]

DPS is a tricky thing to calculate and most often does not translate to ingame experience. Being Ranged by itself, for instance, can allow for DPS to start sooner on every mob. Not really having to retreat for heals causes much less downtime in dps output compared to a lot of melee's. Even really specific things like increased runspeed by monks and barbarians influence dps output. There a *lot* of factors in determining the total dps output during a quest by a specific character, most of which are never mentioned in these kind of dps breakdowns (at least i don't see it).

That being said, I found it interesting to calculate Repeater DPS while fighting a boss mob, while standing still.

Some stuff copy-pasted from Loriac's earlier dps breakdown, hope he doesn't mind

I retested my twitching speed again and i came to 42 salvos in 60secs = 126bolts over 60secs.
I will drop this 120bolts in 60secs to make it a nice round number and to account for maybe some concentration loss
This is also the same number that Loriac found was a decent number to assume.
This is maintainable during a bossfights when all you are doing is this and firing fully charged runearm shots.

Weapon: Needle, Quill Slinger upgraded to +8, Phlebotomizing and slotted with "good" dr breaking.
Runearm: EE Corruption of Nature

Let's calculate Base bolt dmg first.

2.5[d12] +8, 19-20x3 -> becomes 4.5[d12]+10, 17-20x3
when adjusted with deadly weapons, IC:R, battle-engineer, and Point Blank Shot

I will assume seeker +17 (+10item, +5exceptional, +2Battle Engineer), Int 48 (so damage mod +19), dream vision +5, + Stand and Deliver stack of +5 (even though i'm not sure at this time it does not stack with visor. Epic Destiny abilities are typed the same as item bonuses sometimes but still stack since it's a destiny. We'll stick to +5 for now, instead of +10).

The other base bolt dmg modifiers then are:

Insightful damage: +19
Past Lives bonuses: +9dmg per bolt (3ranger, 3monk)
Enhancements: +2dmg per bolt (Artificer Crossbow Damage II)
Divine Favor: +3dmg per bolt (lasts for 2mins and 12secs each charge)
Artifact Bonus: +4dmg per bolt (either claw set or planar conflux)
Good Hope: +2dmg per bolt (20min clicky)
Shiradi AutoGrants: +3dmg per bolt

Added all up becomes:
Damage per shot non-crit = 29.25 +10 +19 +5 +9 +2 +3 +4 +2 +3 = 86.25
Modified by a Fully charged Archers Focus stance becomes 86.25 x 1.3 = 112.1 dmg base (say 112)

On crits we have (112+17)x3 = 387 (i've seen much much higher crits than this which helpless doesnt cover by itself, might be pin/otto crits)

Blended damage per shot = 75% x 112 + 20% x 387 = 82.5 + 77.4 = 159.9 (say 159) base damage per bolt.

So far the base dmg per bolt.
Additional post-crit dmg sources are:
+13 bleeding dmg (rounded down)
+11 acid dmg
+15 sneak dmg per hit (+5 regular sneakbonus item and a +3 exceptional +rogue pastlife)
+5 from quiver of poison
+1 force ritual

That's 45 additional dmg per bolt.

So now we're looking at 159 + 45 = 204 per bolt.

120x 204= 24480 per minute = 408 Damage per second. Repeater only. And this is not including boosts to repeater dmg like:
-shots like pin and otto's (for extra [w])
-abilities like Endless Fusilage, Damage Boost, Human Versatility,
-Shiradi Stance (double rainbow) and Shiradi autogrant procs (force and sonic)

Add on top of *that* the the runearm charges, Destiny twists like, Bouldertoss, Energy burst etc.


Having a bard in fatesinger in the group *really* boosts my dmg per bolt number And i'm sure I'm still missing some stuff in the above breakdown.

Adding all that stuff in, yes, i believe i am topping 1k dps per second. Pretty sustainable as well. (i always summon a couple thousand bolts in longer quests to remove that dps downtime )

So yeah, Loriac, when you mentioned 250dps for a repeater, that felt really low to me. I hope the above breakdown improves your opinion regarding max ranged Arti dps even further.
I'll have to do some more testing in Fury and Legendary and Shadowdancer to see how the above numbers really change. For general EE questing and especially solo'ing, I'll stick with Shiradi. A blitzing ranged arti is very very nice I can tell you that though Easy to solo 6star Eveningstar challanges for instance.
Needle was a game changer for Arti ranged dps in my opinion.

[Loriac]

So yeah, Loriac, when you mentioned 250dps for a repeater, that felt really low to me. I hope the above breakdown improves your opinion regarding max Arti dps even further.
I'll have to do some more testing in Fury and Legendary and Shadowdancer to see how the above numbers really change. For general EE questing and especially solo'ing, I'll stick with Shiradi. A blitzing ranged arti is very very nice I can tell you that though Easy to solo 6star Eveningstar challanges for instance.
Needle was a game changer for Arti ranged dps in my opinion.

I have to say that I'm surprised by the numbers after all the maths thats been done in the last few posts; I've not played pure arty for a while now, having been focused on TR'ing my main into juggernaut, so I've been doing number crunching on archery set ups rather than repeaters. After doing the numbers that got me to 360dps, and then seeing what you wrote about the additional damage from procs / SA, I was expecting the overall numbers to come in just north of 400, which your breakdown above confirms. I'm also a bit rusty it seems, e.g. I missed the fact that battle engineer adds 2 seeker to the numbers.

These numbers are almost shockingly high tbh; if you compare 400dps to the damage calculated in the AA damage thread, 400dps = 48,000 over 120 seconds. This is close enough to what a 10k monkcher is spitting out, but without factoring in the runearm (!). I suspect that manyshot unbridled fury will still allow that build to outdamage the arty, but its certainly a lot closer than I gave it credit for in my post in this thread a while back.

Archer's focus is huge in all of this (but the same is true for sustained monkcher damage), which is interesting for a couple of reasons.

i. arguably the current mechanics are bugged vs. the description, as the stack doesn't clear. If this is kept (i.e. devs believe it to be wai) then it seems that stopping at precise shot and not bothering with IPS is an entirely valid strategy. however;

ii. shiradi cc is best effected under IPS to allow multiple mobs to be hit; this costs the arty some dps (vs. using precise shot and archers focus) but conversely helpless mobs will suffer much more damage. I suspect that if you're able to pin / dance mobs effectively, sense weakness will be a much better twist than energy burst with these numbers.

iii. my original benchmark of 250dps isn't actually that far off if you take archer's focus out of the picture (my main doesn't have any ranger, monk, or rogue past lives, so the damage I see when ranged is significantly lower than yours, but I didn't appreciate the difference those 9 lives make until seeing the numbers fully crunched). The fact that its adding almost 100dps, or 25% of your total damage output, makes me concerned that the current mechanic will get nerfed once it becomes more widely understood.

A couple of other things:

Dream vision and stand and deliver are both competence bonuses so if they're stacking its a bug. I'm pretty sure I've read other posters stating that they don't stack (in AA threads rather than arty ones).

I think you're correct about LD; when I was running my arty I never capped that destiny as it was completely worthless to level 4 (when I could jump across to the primal sphere), but master's blitz on an arti could be very effective - the runearm, plus the ability to engage early, makes it easier to keep arcanes from stealing the kill in EE, and so you have an easier time maintaining the blitz.

Shadowdancer may be similar or even higher dps compared to shiradi - 6d6 sneak attack damage vs. 13.5 mean damage per shot from shiradi procs. Upsides to this ED are evasion, better ability to crit, and the massive increases to defence. If you're still able to twist in the cc you need from shiradi, it may well be the best 'all-rounded' choice of the EDs for the arty.

[Loriac]

If I recall correctly, you weren't full force line, but I am.

Correct.

For a force specked artie, you're somewhat underestimating the dps output of the force-based ED stuff,

Yes, and by quite a lot it seems. I suspect that this is a combination of 7/6/6 vs. 7/1/1, plus the fact that I never bothered to use anything beyond the adamantine dragon cloak for force spellpower.

The numbers you stated for boulder toss are much higher than I recall seeing, and tbh would make me reconsider the utility of twisting in energy burst (particularly for EE content, where aggro'ing a bunch of trash mobs may not be smartest move).

I'm coming round to the idea of a pure dps focused arty based on this thread tbh. You'd still max Int, but the key difference to the build ideas in CThru's version are that you'd drop all twists and whatever feats you could that raised evoc dc, and put them into damage instead.

This is an entirely logical progression tbh, its exactly what happened to sorcs and DC casting, and more recently even wizards are dropping DC casting. Artys dropping DC casting makes perfect sense, particularly as they start off worse than sorcs and wizards at this anyway (due to only having level 6 spells).

[Wulverine]

I have to say that I'm surprised by the numbers after all the maths thats been done in the last few posts; I've not played pure arty for a while now, having been focused on TR'ing my main into juggernaut, so I've been doing number crunching on archery set ups rather than repeaters. After doing the numbers that got me to 360dps, and then seeing what you wrote about the additional damage from procs / SA, I was expecting the overall numbers to come in just north of 400, which your breakdown above confirms. I'm also a bit rusty it seems, e.g. I missed the fact that battle engineer adds 2 seeker to the numbers.

These numbers are almost shockingly high tbh; if you compare 400dps to the damage calculated in the AA damage thread, 400dps = 48,000 over 120 seconds. This is close enough to what a 10k monkcher is spitting out, but without factoring in the runearm (!). I suspect that manyshot unbridled fury will still allow that build to outdamage the arty, but its certainly a lot closer than I gave it credit for in my post in this thread a while back.

Archer's focus is huge in all of this (but the same is true for sustained monkcher damage), which is interesting for a couple of reasons.

i. arguably the current mechanics are bugged vs. the description, as the stack doesn't clear. If this is kept (i.e. devs believe it to be wai) then it seems that stopping at precise shot and not bothering with IPS is an entirely valid strategy. however;

ii. shiradi cc is best effected under IPS to allow multiple mobs to be hit; this costs the arty some dps (vs. using precise shot and archers focus) but conversely helpless mobs will suffer much more damage. I suspect that if you're able to pin / dance mobs effectively, sense weakness will be a much better twist than energy burst with these numbers.

iii. my original benchmark of 250dps isn't actually that far off if you take archer's focus out of the picture (my main doesn't have any ranger, monk, or rogue past lives, so the damage I see when ranged is significantly lower than yours, but I didn't appreciate the difference those 9 lives make until seeing the numbers fully crunched). The fact that its adding almost 100dps, or 25% of your total damage output, makes me concerned that the current mechanic will get nerfed once it becomes more widely understood.

A couple of other things:

Dream vision and stand and deliver are both competence bonuses so if they're stacking its a bug. I'm pretty sure I've read other posters stating that they don't stack (in AA threads rather than arty ones).

I think you're correct about LD; when I was running my arty I never capped that destiny as it was completely worthless to level 4 (when I could jump across to the primal sphere), but master's blitz on an arti could be very effective - the runearm, plus the ability to engage early, makes it easier to keep arcanes from stealing the kill in EE, and so you have an easier time maintaining the blitz.

Shadowdancer may be similar or even higher dps compared to shiradi - 6d6 sneak attack damage vs. 13.5 mean damage per shot from shiradi procs. Upsides to this ED are evasion, better ability to crit, and the massive increases to defence. If you're still able to twist in the cc you need from shiradi, it may well be the best 'all-rounded' choice of the EDs for the arty.

There you go. Well I'm glad you see it now, and i could enlighten you, and most probably a lot of other people reading this.
There aren't many Artificers who play like this and have the gear, pastlives and experience/skill to pull it off. That might explain why there aren't many EE solos being posted. And obviously because there are other builds much more popular and higher dps that can do it faster (but not necessarily easier).

My original planned Destiny was Shadowdancer but I was disappointed with the extra DPS it gave. The extra INT was nice, but sneakattack isn't there all the time, especially when solo'ing and the buggy abilities really turned me off.

Most importantly, I learned fast that building for DC's was a trap and it's better to focus on DPS. Was very obvious in the making and U16 cemented it. U17 makes it all the more clearer and for the other classes as well. Casting spells just lowers the time I can dps with my xbow and runearms.

I've kept track of CThru's thread and the developments/conclusions reached there kind of mirror my experiences, except a couple weeks/months later
Force/Acid specced all the way, ever since U15 and the Corruption of Nature combined with Rock boots.

We will have to see where the new enhancement update will take us (which should be hitting Lamannia pretty soon now in it's early versions, if they still want to launch it with the expansion) and if a specific Artificer destiny is coming as well. But the class itself has a lot to gain from both these things (only tier1 of 1 prestige available now).

[Singular]

quick post as I just got my wife home from the delivery room.

Congratulations!!!

[BlackSteel]

I went into the ED's thinking shadowdancer would be my destiny of choice as well. But ended up hating the destiny. the best part's are evasion and the sneak dice. And the sneak dice are a wash compared to the damage granted from shiradi, pretty much even. and practicilly all the offensive clickables in shadowdancer are buggy or are not 1oo% effective.

I prefer to pack bouldar toss for 15oo-6ooo k hits, energy burst for 15oo-1oooo crits, and healing cocoon to cover pretty much all my healing needs or to provide a 15o HP buffer when jumping thru traps. Like Cry for Help possible fire trap locations when I'm too lazy to search, but can more quickly hit fire shield + cocoon.

Its pretty easy to pin/whistle a few mobs with one salvo, then finish them off with an energy burst. The next few get cc'd as well and plinked down, which doesnt take too long when you're looking at 3ooish a bolt and 6oo-8oo on a crit plus if they're cc'd you're able to easily rock them with the rune arm for another 3oo x 5.


the only thing I will say is that I find myself using the handcannon ALOT, I'll pop out CoN for the times its safe. But if I have to keep moving its the handcannon plus blade barrier. The damage comes out pretty much equal, as the cannon + 5o% helplessness damage is about on par with no bonus damage + rune arm every six seconds. Its nice to get both on orange named mobs; but those are fairly rare now with most bosses being red.

I've kept an eye out for an obscenity xbow. But honestly I dont think I could bring myself to use it over needle. I just love the crits too much, and TBH even EE mobs die to fast to bother with neg lvl'ing unless you want to help out a caster trying to instakill. Theres a few exceptions like those huge freaking bebeliths, but otherwise, especially in gianthold atleast, most non-named mobs have a reasonable amount of HP