Requesting an Artificer build

[undercover69]

Ah...I don't really know how to raise your crafting level other than that - but you beat me! I only went up to 38-40, 'cause I can't stand clicking buttons like that

Uhm, I don't play warforged, but would recommend this:

http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Beholder_Plate_Docent

http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Livewood_Core_(Level_15)

or

http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Blue_Dragonscale_Docent

With the Beholder Plate, you can add effects onto it, like +10 reflex save and so on - plus, it sometimes tosses attackers away from you. I personally like to wear armor of fear at levels below 14 since melee attackers will run from you after one or two hits - and you can shoot them as they go.

Thank you for your suggestions! Too bad the forum doesn't allows me to spread rep as I like.

I was never as big a fan of IPS for soloing as others that swear by it...as long as Archers Focus is working like it currently does, you're going to be doing a lot of damage. You usually dont want to have a whole chain of mobs aggro on you at once, anyway. Smart artis are good pullers

As far as gear at 20, the cheap "entry level" xbow is a L20 Cormyrian....2[w] die IIRC, plus 3 potentially useful mods.

The next step up would be a T3 Calomel repeater....two good Shroud procs, temporary HPs on vorpals, and you can stick in a Red augment for 1d10 extra elemental damage. A little more investment time than a Calomel, but not as much Alchemical or GS by a longshot.

You ultimately would be shooting for Needle or an Acid/Water/Air Alchemical (too many Fire immunes, and that gives you the best balance of DPS and CC), though. Needle's probably easier between the two, and it offers better base/crit damage by a longshot, but there's something to be said for all the useful mods you can stick on an Alchemical too. Acid Burst, Earthgrab, Greater Stone Prison, Crushing Wave, Corrosive Salt, Electric Storm gives you almost 27 extra elemental damage per shot and an almost 10% chance-on-hit for one of two good CC effects.

For Crafting, its just a matter of grinding out a LOOOT of gear to break down. Wait until you have like ~100 Greater Essences of a bunch of different types, buy a 5% Elixir from the Cannith challenge vendor, and spend 15 mins grinding everything out. Here's how I do my grinding:

1) Select the Essence type you want to grind with
2) Insert the Essence into the crafting station, and sort the list by XP.
3) Pick whatever gives you the best XP per Greater Essence spent. Ie, 6 Greaters for 50 XP is better than 12 Greaters for 75. Shoot for ones in the 65%-80% success chance range, that usually gives you the most XP without wasting too many Essences on failures.
4) If there's no worthwhile recipes on the Bound terminal for a given essence type, go over to the Unbound terminal, those recipes are all different and you can usually find good options on one if they're not on the other
5) When you get a buttload of Lesser essences, use them to craft Shards of Potential in whatever school you need to grind. Again, Shards of Potential on the Unbound terminal give you really good XP for a really low cost in Lesser Essences, once you can craft them.

Also, look up which Collectables are used in Cannith Crafting and make sure to keep those in your bag for grinding. Recipes with Collectable components usually give you good XP.



I usually just put a Spell Power booster of the appropriate element in my runearms. Saves me from having to slot it somewhere else, and lets you swap between runearms without having to swap out a separate spell power item too.

Other useful options will become available at higher crafting levels....if you havent taken Mobility as a feat already, then Mobility gives you 2% Dodge that stacks with everything else. Much easier at crafting L20 than Dodge 2% at crafting L100 which doesnt stack with other Insight sources of Dodge (like Bracers of Wind) anyway.

You probably already have Attack Bonus from goggles, and Blindness Immunity from a yellow augment, , and False Life from something else too, but those could all be options for LD if you dont. Ranged Alacrity doesnt stack with Armor of Speed, if you were thinking about that...

For your docent - Giantcraft Docent from GH. Ideally you arent getting hit enough for the Guard procs to matter, but it gives you a 5% extra damage buff on most kills that stacks with Archers Focus.

Wow, great stuff here! Again missing the opportunity to add more rep as the forums says I must spread more.
Thank you!

[Singular]

I was never as big a fan of IPS for soloing as others that swear by it...as long as Archers Focus is working like it currently does, you're going to be doing a lot of damage. You usually dont want to have a whole chain of mobs aggro on you at once, anyway. Smart artis are good pullers

As far as gear at 20, the cheap "entry level" xbow is a L20 Cormyrian....2[w] die IIRC, plus 3 potentially useful mods.

The next step up would be a T3 Calomel repeater....two good Shroud procs, temporary HPs on vorpals, and you can stick in a Red augment for 1d10 extra elemental damage. A little more investment time than a Calomel, but not as much Alchemical or GS by a longshot.

You ultimately would be shooting for Needle or an Acid/Water/Air Alchemical (too many Fire immunes, and that gives you the best balance of DPS and CC), though. Needle's probably easier between the two, and it offers better base/crit damage by a longshot, but there's something to be said for all the useful mods you can stick on an Alchemical too. Acid Burst, Earthgrab, Greater Stone Prison, Crushing Wave, Corrosive Salt, Electric Storm gives you almost 27 extra elemental damage per shot and an almost 10% chance-on-hit for one of two good CC effects.

Excellent points - especially on the CC.

I have two comments - in Evenstar, there's not many fire immune mobs. There's lots of lightning immune and resistant ones, though. In Epic GH, only the fire giants are immune to fire (maybe some other mob I'm forgetting about), and the Jarilith are immune to lightning (are air eles immune to electricity?). So I find my fire-acid-fire alchemical very useful and usable in Epic content.

Second, I would worry about doing three different elements. On the one hand, it's a great catch-all: if a mob is immune to one elemental, it's unlikely to be immune to the other two - so you'll be switching less. But on the other, you won't be maxing your damage in such cases. So I'd recommend going acid-water-water or acid-water-acid if you're going for those CC plus damage.

My personal goal for alchemicals are acid-acid-acid, water-water-water and fire-acid-fire (made). I've already got the Lit II, so no need to duplicate that through an alchemical (and the air-air-air are better melee weapons anyways). One thing I really, really like about the f-a-f one is it's +2 staking con and it's +10 seeker (making it the most damage-output alchemical combo).

I have a question, though: what metal property do you think the alchemical weapons are best with? On my f-a-f one I went flame-touched for good, but on my w-w-w I went metaline (since cold affects the greatest number of constructs and heals none of them while many good-requiring DR creatures are resistant or immune to it). But sometimes I second guess that and think I should have gone flame-touched for all of them.

Anyways @Undercover69, here's the link:

http://ddowiki.com/page/Alchemical_Crafting

[droid327]

I have a question, though: what metal property do you think the alchemical weapons are best with? On my f-a-f one I went flame-touched for good, but on my w-w-w I went metaline (since cold affects the greatest number of constructs and heals none of them while many good-requiring DR creatures are resistant or immune to it). But sometimes I second guess that and think I should have gone flame-touched for all of them.

Anyways @Undercover69, here's the link:

http://ddowiki.com/page/Alchemical_Crafting

There's only three metal types worth mentioning...Flametouched for Good, Adamantine (think thats what you meant by Metalline), or Cold Iron.

Of course it depends where you're playing, and what they may add in the future, but generally Good would be the most cosmopolitan choice, since that's probably the most common DR. If you're going Acid, though, you might go Adamantine...its only really useful against Constructs otherwise (so if you're doing a lot of SotA its nice?), but with Greater Stone Prison, you'll be Flesh to Stoning mobs, which makes them helpless but gives them Adamantine DR...having an Adamantine weapon with Stone Prison ensures you're taking full advantage of the helpless bonus damage when it procs.

Not sure how far a DC33 save gets you in EE, though. Since its only on vorpals you're only guaranteed a 0.25% success rate, one proc in every 400 hits...if Stone Prison Guard never successfully procs, then you're probably better off with Good.

Artis can always buff with any metal or alignment type to bypass DR if a mob's DR is really high, too, or pick up some DR-breaking bolts...which, again, makes Flametouched worthwhile since, when a mob has a double DR, one of the two is almost always Good - so you can just get some Cold Iron or Silver bolts and break DR/Cold Iron, Good or DR/Silver, Good while keeping your Deadly Weapons up and not having to trade it for a Metal Weapon enchantment.

[Singular]

There's only three metal types worth mentioning...Flametouched for Good, Adamantine (think thats what you meant by Metalline), or Cold Iron.

Of course it depends where you're playing, and what they may add in the future, but generally Good would be the most cosmopolitan choice, since that's probably the most common DR. If you're going Acid, though, you might go Adamantine...its only really useful against Constructs otherwise (so if you're doing a lot of SotA its nice?), but with Greater Stone Prison, you'll be Flesh to Stoning mobs, which makes them helpless but gives them Adamantine DR...having an Adamantine weapon with Stone Prison ensures you're taking full advantage of the helpless bonus damage when it procs.

Not sure how far a DC33 save gets you in EE, though. Since its only on vorpals you're only guaranteed a 0.25% success rate, one proc in every 400 hits...if Stone Prison Guard never successfully procs, then you're probably better off with Good.

Artis can always buff with any metal or alignment type to bypass DR if a mob's DR is really high, too, or pick up some DR-breaking bolts...which, again, makes Flametouched worthwhile since, when a mob has a double DR, one of the two is almost always Good - so you can just get some Cold Iron or Silver bolts and break DR/Cold Iron, Good or DR/Silver, Good while keeping your Deadly Weapons up and not having to trade it for a Metal Weapon enchantment.

Good advice! After looking over the DR table here:

http://ddowiki.com/page/Monster_DR_and_weaknesses

there's not a lot that would compel me to make an earth-earth-earth one out of good. Adamantium would do just as well (you're correct about my mistake, btw - thanks. I meant ada when I wrote metaline above). And, as you point out, it'll break the stone to flesh dr that you create when holding mobs!

I think it's a better idea to slot good on Needle than try to craft elemental weapons for every situation.

[Khatzhas]

The next step up would be a T3 Calomel repeater....two good Shroud procs, temporary HPs on vorpals, and you can stick in a Red augment for 1d10 extra elemental damage. A little more investment time than a Calomel, but not as much Alchemical or GS by a longshot.

What is the Temporary HP on Vorpal effect?

[droid327]

What is the Temporary HP on Vorpal effect?

Lifedrinker on T3 Calomel....25 temp HP and 25-45 damage to target. It does stack with other temp HP procs, like Life Shield, Demonic Something Something, and Bodyfeeder (but Bodyfeeder doesnt occur on ranged), though its the only way to proc temp HPs on hit and not when hit, which obviously is better for Artis

25 temp HP on ~15% chance (to have at least one of three hits vorpal) means its essentially just a stacking DR 3.25/-...itd be a lot more awesome if it was on crit instead of on vorpal

[Khatzhas]

Lifedrinker on T3 Calomel....25 temp HP and 25-45 damage to target. It does stack with other temp HP procs, like Life Shield, Demonic Something Something, and Bodyfeeder (but Bodyfeeder doesnt occur on ranged), though its the only way to proc temp HPs on hit and not when hit, which obviously is better for Artis

25 temp HP on ~15% chance (to have at least one of three hits vorpal) means its essentially just a stacking DR 3.25/-...itd be a lot more awesome if it was on crit instead of on vorpal

I was fairly sure that the Lifedrinker on the T3 Calomel repeater was a Guard effect, not an on-vorpal effect.
Has this changed recently?

[Dreadmaster1993]

Spell focus Evoc helps with your rune arm dcs, if you intend to use the runearm try and fit them in.


Most importantly do not take repair spells on levelups. These you can go buy at a vendor (perhaps not the 6th level one) and inscribe to get the bonus slot for. You won't lose a slot by taking them on levelups, but you won't find most of the spells previously mentioned on vendors.

as ive noticed lvling my arti : YOU DO LOST A SLOT if you dont take repair at lvl up, so unles they fixet that , make shure u do take them on lvlup

[Khatzhas]

as ive noticed lvling my arti : YOU DO LOST A SLOT if you dont take repair at lvl up, so unles they fixet that , make shure u do take them on lvlup

Are you sure about that? What happened?