Droidnaught - The Arcano Battering Ram

[Xianio]

Spiffy title eh?

Well, I set out to create a hard hitting, full plate wearing, self-buffing one man melee. I have chosen to do this by leveraging the power in the newly fixed and/or created shield feats/enhancements/epic destinies. This is NOT a tank and should not be thought of as one. It is an offensive build that uses the shield as a weapon.

Summary: This build can be used at any point total and any number of tomes but becomes MUCH stronger with more points/tomes as you leverage nearly every stat. This build will be using 36 points with +5 tomes. Only minor adjustments need to be made if you have less than this.

Race: Dwarf
Classes: Artificer 16 / Fighter 2 / Paladin 2
HP: 625 without items = 1000 with
Saves: Low 60's for reflex, low 70's for Fort and Will
Armor: 100
Dodge: 5-10% (More on this later)
PRR: 87-95 depending on the ring you use
Doublestrike: 31%

Abilities:

Str: 16 - 30
Dex: 12 - 17
Con: 14 - 19
Int: 15 - 20
Wis: 8 - 13 (dump stat)
Cha: 14 - 19

Enhancements
blarg it ate my pictures

Dwarf 24
- All Pre-reqs for Dwarf Fortress (3 levels in Fortress)
- All racial weapon damage improvement: Dwarven Axe
- 4 AP (2 points) into Dwarven Armor Mastery
- First core

31 BE
- All Hand and a half weapon damage improvements
- Attach Weapon (tier 5)
- All core available for level (12)
- 2 extras in field engineering (for meeting AP reqs)
- Damage boost
- Extra Action boosts
- Strength ability boost
- Action boost haste

9 KotC
- First core
- Bonus turns
- 1 smite for 5 ap
- 2 levels of Divine Might

8 ScD (for dodge bonus)
- First core
- One extra doesn't matter (I picked item durability)
- Max Armor Mastery
- Max Shield Mastery

8 StD
- First core
- 2 levels of Armor Mastery
- Max shield striking


Skills:
Concentration
UMD
Open Lock
Disable Device
Repair
Search
Spot

Feats: 18 Feat choices - Full Two Handed, full Shield feats
2xPast Life (Pick whatever you've got)

Improved Critical: Slashing Weapons
Power Attack, Cleave, Great Cleave

Improved Shield Bash, Shield Mastery, Improved Shield Mastery
Two Handed Fighting, Improved Two Handed Fighting, Greater Two Handed Fighting

Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot,
Quicken Spell, Construct Essence

Overwhelming Critical, Blinding Speed, Elusive, Epic Two weapon fighting

Spells of Note:
Deadly Weapons, Tenser's, Armor of Speed, Lucky Cape, Stoneskin, Protection from Elements

Epic Destiny:
Legendary Dreadnaught: All expected choices here, with Headmans chop.

Twists:
Bane of Undeath
Legendary Shield Mastery
Cocoon

Defenses:
Total miss chance with displacement clicky and 5% dodge: 62%
AC in EH: Good enough for some miss chance (not included above).
AC in EE: Does nothing: 0% improvement to dodge (as seen above).
PRR:87 or 38% damage reduction + 10 flat for stoneskin
Saves: From low 60's to low 70's.

*Note: If you choose to go with a Mithral shield you can adjust the armor traits to gain up to 9-10% dodge. This provides a lot more defense than you may initially think.

Offenses:
Strength: 60 with Yugo pots and Rage
Bonuses to flat damage from Enhancements: 11
Deadly bonus: 11
Bonuses to Weapon dice: +3 (Deadly Weapons, BE tier 5, LD Power attack, LD Capstone)
Increases to Crit: +3 (Overwhelming, Dev and Headmans)
Weapon: Dreugar Waraxe 3[1d10] + 6 17-18x3 19-20x6
Shield: Madstone Aegis 2[2d10] + 8


Why did I pick a shield?

I picked shield for 3 primary reasons. Shields give +15% doublestrike, with Madstone has a 55% chance to proc on 3 attacks per chain and they allow for Glancing Blows with a D. Axe. This gives an enormous boast to DPS as shields have a number of bonuses over two weapons.

Shields give full strength bonus, can be attached via BE and take full advantage of Power attack. Madstone Aegis also has one of the HIGHEST base damages in the game.

So, the question you're probably curious about: How could shield POSSIBLY give more DPS than 2 weapons? I'm going to go through it but it basically amounts to this:

Shield damage*0.44 + Glancing Blow damage*3 then /4 + Total Weapon Damage per swing*0.15.

That is what the shield is offering for damage per swing, and oh boy, is it a lot.


** More to come! ** (This takes a while! )

[voodoogroves]

Aside from casting deadly yourself, how much better is this that an arti 6 fighter 12 split?

[Xianio]

arg, dude you're the first post you don't need to quote the thing lol.

The difference is fairly substantial as it helps make up for the weakness to elemental that lower levels of arti. allow. Further, it significantly improves skills (a section I haven't written yet) allowing them to be more wide spread for a more solo-friendly, do everything build. For instance, this build can open just about any lock, disable any trap, have full no fail scrolls and sees a noticable increase in the effectiveness of scrolls, wands and potions.

Deadly weapons is of course a nice addition, bringing yet more damage. Alternatively, you could also select DR breaking spells (that the 6 arti. cannot do) which, in specific instances, provides a very significant increase in average damage per hit.

-----
Caveat:

I know that going Arti/Fighter/Monk is a flat-out better option as Monks are extremely OP/p2w as a splash right now. The goal though was to create a Dwarf Fortress character which requires fullplate and Tower shield, so I"m locked in to no monk.

[voodoogroves]

I'll blame that first reply on my phone ;-)

I'm at the PC now, so will edit out the quote.

No, wasn't thinking monk - was thinking Arti 6 / Fighter 12 / Pal 2. Still fortressy - wondering what the additional arti levels are getting.

[Xianio]

Ah I see I see.

Well, with Deadly I'm getting 5.5 damage, on average so that covers what 12 levels of fighter adds to flat damage.

Arti also gets "immunity" to an element until X amount of damage is done which is dictated by levels. That's a fairly big deal as this doesn't come with Evasion. Stoneskin gives a solid 10/Ad. reduction so you don't need to slot for DR. Then you get DR breaking weapon buffs if you want them for those enemies with a nasty amount of DR.

Arti also comes with a handful of extra feats meaning that 12 fighter really only gets 3 more feats than 16 arti does.

Then there's the skills, the +3 more to potions, scrolls and wands. Lastly I'd say that, at least for Heroics having 16 pet levels doesn't hurt either.

I think that's the laundry list.

Oh derp - and tenser's. That's kind of a big deal.

[Hilltrot]

People still use Yugo pots?

[Choopak]

Spiffy title eh?

Well, I set out to create a hard hitting, full plate wearing, self-buffing one man melee. I have chosen to do this by leveraging the power in the newly fixed and/or created shield feats/enhancements/epic destinies. This is NOT a tank and should not be thought of as one. It is an offensive build that uses the shield as a weapon.

Summary: This build can be used at any point total and any number of tomes but becomes MUCH stronger with more points/tomes as you leverage nearly every stat. This build will be using 36 points with +5 tomes. Only minor adjustments need to be made if you have less than this.

Race: Dwarf
Classes: Artificer 16 / Fighter 2 / Paladin 2
HP: 625 without items = 1000 with
Saves: Low 60's for reflex, low 70's for Fort and Will
Armor: 100
Dodge: 5-10% (More on this later)
PRR: 87-95 depending on the ring you use
Doublestrike: 31%

Abilities:

Str: 16 - 30
Dex: 12 - 17
Con: 14 - 19
Int: 15 - 20
Wis: 8 - 13 (dump stat)
Cha: 14 - 19

Enhancements
blarg it ate my pictures:
24 Dwarf
31 BE
9 KotC
8 ScD (for dodge bonus)
8 StD (bonus dodge and shield striking)
*more later!*

Skills:
Concentration
UMD
Open Lock
Disable Device
Repair
Search
Spot

Feats: 18 Feat choices - Full Two Handed, full Shield feats
2xPast Life (Pick whatever you've got)

Improved Critical: Slashing Weapons
Power Attack, Cleave, Great Cleave

Improved Shield Bash, Shield Mastery, Improved Shield Mastery
Two Handed Fighting, Improved Two Handed Fighting, Greater Two Handed Fighting

Point Blank Shot, Precise Shot,
Quicken Spell, Construct Essence

Overwhelming Critical, Blinding Speed, Elusive, Epic Two weapon fighting

Spells of Note:
Deadly Weapons, Tenser's, Armor of Speed, Lucky Cape, Stoneskin, Protection from Elements

Epic Destiny:
Legendary Dreadnaught: All expected choices here, with Headmans chop.

Twists:
Bane of Undeath
Legendary Shield Mastery
Cocoon

Defenses:
Total miss chance with displacement clicky and 5% dodge: 62%
AC in EH: Good enough for some miss chance (not included above).
AC in EE: Does nothing: 0% improvement to dodge (as seen above).
PRR:87 or 38% damage reduction + 10 flat for stoneskin
Saves: From low 60's to low 70's.

Offenses:
Strength: 60 with Yugo pots and Rage
Bonuses to flat damage from Enhancements: 11
Deadly bonus: 11
Bonuses to Weapon dice: +3 (Deadly Weapons, BE tier 5, LD Power attack, LD Capstone)
Increases to Crit: +3 (Overwhelming, Dev and Headmans)
Weapon: Dreugar Waraxe 3[1d10] + 6 17-18x3 19-20x6
Shield: Madstone Aegis 2[2d10] + 8


Why did I pick a shield?

I picked shield for 3 primary reasons. Shields give +15% doublestrike, with Madstone has a 55% chance to proc on 3 attacks per chain and they allow for Glancing Blows with a D. Axe. This gives an enormous boast to DPS as shields have a number of bonuses over two weapons.

Shields give full strength bonus, can be attached via BE and take full advantage of Power attack. Madstone Aegis also has one of the HIGHEST base damages in the game.

So, the question you're probably curious about: How could shield POSSIBLY give more DPS than 2 weapons? I'm going to go through it but it basically amounts to this:

Shield damage*0.44 + Glancing Blow damage*3 then /4 + Total Weapon Damage per swing*0.15.

That is what the shield is offering for damage per swing, and oh boy, is it a lot.


** More to come! ** (This takes a while! )

Nice build man, love it! different than Jugg... Was wandering how good it wuold become if you go bladeforged instead of dwarf.
Synergy wise it's better! can use repair, SLA recon, immunities and adamantine body. Still is a melee heavy armored guy, and bladeforged look freaking bad ass!!!

[aristarchus1000]

Nice build man, love it! different than Jugg... Was wandering how good it wuold become if you go bladeforged instead of dwarf.
Synergy wise it's better! can use repair, SLA recon, immunities and adamantine body. Still is a melee heavy armored guy, and bladeforged look freaking bad ass!!!

I'd like to see the enhancements, but I have to agree that Bladeforged version would appear to have better synergy, especially with Reconstruct. You lose the Dwarf Fortress (+7% when in full plate and shield) but the Improved Power Attack and the Forge boosts should make for it from the DPS standpoint.

Sounds like a fun idea for a build, regardless!

[Xianio]

Dwarf adds 5 to-hit and 5 damage along with 2-3 (EH setup vs EE setup) dodge bonus and 4% more hp (not that big a deal but there you have it).

So yeah, Bladeforge definitely adds a fair amount but it's not in the DPS department. It'll add to your self-healing nicely, at the cost of DPS. However, I'm not willing to drop the dollar bills required for bladeforged :P I'll try to add to this later on this evening to flush it out a bit more!

** Updated the Enhancements ** Still can't figure out why the code breaks in this thread. Oh well

[emptysands]

I have an old 36pt Dwarf 12 Fighter/6 Artificer/2 Ranger, that I'm wondering what to do with. Some useful ideas to inspire me to stick with the idea.

...

Race: Dwarf
Classes: Artificer 16 / Fighter 2 / Paladin 2
HP: 625 without items = 1000 with
Saves: Low 60's for reflex, low 70's for Fort and Will
Armor: 100
Dodge: 5-10% (More on this later)
PRR: 87-95 depending on the ring you use
Doublestrike: 31%

Doublestike breakdown?

08 Improved Shield Mastery
07 Legendary Shield Mastery (twist)
= 15%

Where is the other 16%?

Enhancements
...

8 ScD (for dodge bonus)
- First core
- One extra doesn't matter (I picked item durability)
- Max Armor Mastery
- Max Shield Mastery

8 StD
- First core
- 2 levels of Armor Mastery

Does the Mastery from Paladin and Fighter Defender enhancements stack?

- Max shield striking
...

Feats:
...
Improved Shield Bash, Shield Mastery, Improved Shield Mastery

Is Improved Shield Bash stacking/working with Bashing - 20% from the Aegis? Is SD/Shield Striking stacking with these?

Why did I pick a shield?

I picked shield for 3 primary reasons. Shields give +15% doublestrike, with Madstone has a 55% chance to proc on 3 attacks per chain and they allow for Glancing Blows with a D. Axe. This gives an enormous boast to DPS as shields have a number of bonuses over two weapons.

Shields give full strength bonus, can be attached via BE and take full advantage of Power attack. Madstone Aegis also has one of the HIGHEST base damages in the game.

Have you considered if Block and Cut would be a better tier 5 choice? It would mean taking at least 5 (might as well 6) fighter levels. Stance seems like a useful thing to think about. It does change you concept quite a bit.

Shield damage*0.44 + Glancing Blow damage*3 then /4 + Total Weapon Damage per swing*0.15.

Can you give us a breakdown of these numbers. By that I mean the percentages - .44 and .15.

[Red_Knight]

Looking over the build, I have a few questions.

1. You have a lot of feats centering on 2 handed weapons. But your intention is going sword and board. Why is this? I'm wondering since 2 handed weapons require, well, 2 hands to wield. Which I would think precludes using a shield.

2. I'm not sure if having wisdom as a dump stat is a good idea when it comes to traps. What's your total Spot looking like? I ask because unless you memorized the exact location of every trap in every dungeon you may not get notification of a trap being nearby. And as I recall they made traps in some dungeons a little random for their locations a while back. I've ran into problems with my artificer where I could find a trap with Search, could disable said trap, but my spot wasn't high enough to get the notification a trap is nearby.

3. Did you consider the Construct Essence feat? For a soloing non-warforged artificer this can IMO be helpful since it lets your repair spells heal you. Yes, it's at half effectiveness. But I feel this still can be helpful. It also would save you space from having to carry as many healing wands and pots.

[emptysands]

Looking over the build, I have a few questions.

1. You have a lot of feats centering on 2 handed weapons. But your intention is going sword and board. Why is this? I'm wondering since 2 handed weapons require, well, 2 hands to wield. Which I would think precludes using a shield.

Dwarf Axes and Bastard Swords get glancing blows when paired with a shield. That change was made way back in U5.

[Xianio]

Sorry for taking a while to reply. I didn't notice that people had asked more questions.

Doublestike breakdown?

08 Improved Shield Mastery
07 Legendary Shield Mastery (twist)
= 15%

Where is the other 16%?

5% for epic two weapon fighting
3% for black dragon armor
8% from an item.
---- If you want to go nuts you can get another 9% from epic past lives now too for a 40% doublestrike option.

Does the Mastery from Paladin and Fighter Defender enhancements stack?

A few. The pluses to shield AC and max dex do. I don't actually know if stance-based ones do or not (never tested) but basically everyone says they don't.

Have you considered if Block and Cut would be a better tier 5 choice? It would mean taking at least 5 (might as well 6) fighter levels. Stance seems like a useful thing to think about. It does change you concept quite a bit.

I can't take Block and Cut without 5 levels of Fighter. To reach 5 Fighter levels means that I need to give up 1.5 additional weapon dice (Arti. tier 5 and Deadly Weapons). This affects both my mainhand and the shields total weapon dice, which ends up hurting DPS quite a lot.

Finally, to really accomplish that meaningfully you'll still need the 2 paladin. That means you're down to only 13 levels of Arti. which hurts your spell options and total duration on clickies.

Can you give us a breakdown of these numbers. By that I mean the percentages - .44 and .15.

The 44% comes from multiplying the probabilities of getting a shield bash together.
3 out of 4 attacks can bash (75%) * 55% bash rate = 44% chance of bashing "on any given swing."

The 0.15 multiplier is a typo. It should read 1.15 - it's representative of the doublestrike gained from using a shield.

The whole formula is rather sloppy and needs to be built out more. That comes mostly from my intention of returning to this thread to fill it out more. Unfortunately, I kind of forgot about it. I'll have to find some time to flush it out.

3. Did you consider the Construct Essence feat?

I have it.

2. I'm not sure if having wisdom as a dump stat is a good idea when it comes to traps.

Something has to be the dump stat. Which would you suggest instead? Dex? For a build without evasion, making reflex saves consistently is extremely important. While I may not be able to trap well in EE I think gear will get me through all the other levels.

[Panzermeyer]

1. You have a lot of feats centering on 2 handed weapons. But your intention is going sword and board. Why is this? I'm wondering since 2 handed weapons require, well, 2 hands to wield. Which I would think precludes using a shield.

Dwarven Axes (and Bastard Swords) get the bonuses on fighting with THF if you use them one handed (ie with a shield). If you were going deul wielding DA you would want the TWF line, but with axes and board, you get the bonuses of the THF line.

3. Did you consider the Construct Essence feat? For a soloing non-warforged artificer this can IMO be helpful since it lets your repair spells heal you. Yes, it's at half effectiveness. But I feel this still can be helpful. It also would save you space from having to carry as many healing wands and pots.

I saw construct essence in the original post

[emptysands]

A few. The pluses to shield AC and max dex do. I don't actually know if stance-based ones do or not (never tested) but basically everyone says they don't.

Previously you could not take both at the same time. Now, they both say Defensive Stance. I'm guess you can't have both active at the same time.
[/quote]

I can't take Block and Cut without 5 levels of Fighter. To reach 5 Fighter levels means that I need to give up 1.5 additional weapon dice (Arti. tier 5 and Deadly Weapons). This affects both my mainhand and the shields total weapon dice, which ends up hurting DPS quite a lot.

Finally, to really accomplish that meaningfully you'll still need the 2 paladin. That means you're down to only 13 levels of Arti. which hurts your spell options and total duration on clickies.

You can get deadly from another artificer so it is not an entirely true to say there is a 1.5W difference. Personally I think there is a big advantage to 12 fighter, especially now you can have power surge (+3 dmg/hit/dcs) and defensive stance.

I've considered something like 12 Fighter/4 Paladin/4 Artificer. This gets you the divine might without a twist, artificer bonus feat, empower heal option for cocoon version, plus a few other things.

That's a completely different build. I'd need to work the numbers before I determined if it would work.

The 44% comes from multiplying the probabilities of getting a shield bash together.
3 out of 4 attacks can bash (75%) * 55% bash rate = 44% chance of bashing "on any given swing."

The 0.15 multiplier is a typo. It should read 1.15 - it's representative of the doublestrike gained from using a shield.

The whole formula is rather sloppy and needs to be built out more. That comes mostly from my intention of returning to this thread to fill it out more. Unfortunately, I kind of forgot about it. I'll have to find some time to flush it out.

Where does the "3 out of 4 attacks can bash" come from?

I suggest a breakdown before your equation. Makes it easier for other people to keep your working.

[Xianio]

You can get deadly from another artificer so it is not an entirely true to say there is a 1.5W difference. Personally I think there is a big advantage to 12 fighter, especially now you can have power surge (+3 dmg/hit/dcs) and defensive stance.

While I like the defensive stances, they're going to eat heavily into your DPS for not that much defense. I understand the value of Block and Cut (I have a pure Fighter that's built to leverage it) but this build has a stronger flat damage focus and B/C takes far to many Fighter levels and AP's for not enough gain (for this guy).

PS: Power Surge gives +8 strength, not +6. That means +4 dmg/hit/dc's. However, you're really only giving up +1 in all those categories. You can get Titan's Grip, which gives +6 psionic and is a clicky (which 16 levels of Arti. helps a lot).

So really, power surge is only a net +2 strength.

12 Fighter/4 Paladin/4 Artificer.
That's a completely different build. I'd need to work the numbers before I determined if it would work.

The problem you may run into with this build is that you're investing a TON of points into the Fighter tree. If the goal was to leverage the S&B Fullplate idea (which is what my build is built around), then you're committing 21 Dwarf, 21 Kensai, 33 StD = 75 points. Which unfortunately means that "somethings got to give" because you need 7 points for Divine Might.

The obvious choice being losing the Dwarf Fortress points, but then you're not just working on a new build but a completely different Arti. concept than I am. :P

Where does the "3 out of 4 attacks can bash" come from?

I don't think the shield bash can occur on the 3rd attack in a 4 attack sequence.

[emptysands]

While I like the defensive stances, they're going to eat heavily into your DPS for not that much defense. I understand the value of Block and Cut (I have a pure Fighter that's built to leverage it) but this build has a stronger flat damage focus and B/C takes far to many Fighter levels and AP's for not enough gain (for this guy).

PS: Power Surge gives +8 strength, not +6. That means +4 dmg/hit/dc's. However, you're really only giving up +1 in all those categories. You can get Titan's Grip, which gives +6 psionic and is a clicky (which 16 levels of Arti. helps a lot).

So really, power surge is only a net +2 strength.

It's funny, after playing for 4+ years I still don't have a pair of titan gloves.

How much extra time does the Wondrous Items bonus give you? +4 CL on CL 18? 60s/18*22 = 73s x3?

The problem you may run into with this build is that you're investing a TON of points into the Fighter tree. If the goal was to leverage the S&B Fullplate idea (which is what my build is built around), then you're committing 21 Dwarf, 21 Kensai, 33 StD = 75 points. Which unfortunately means that "somethings got to give" because you need 7 points for Divine Might.

The obvious choice being losing the Dwarf Fortress points, but then you're not just working on a new build but a completely different Arti. concept than I am. :P

Don't know, haven't really looked at it yet. I'd probably drop Kensei points if I need too.

I'd need to work the numbers before I committed to it and it's hard to make a clear judgement on dps effect without this analysis.

Anyway different build, I start a new thread if and when I focus on it. Mostly working out TWF+manyshot paladin past life build at the moment.

I don't think the shield bash can occur on the 3rd attack in a 4 attack sequence.

Can you quote a source on that? You've tested this?

[Xianio]

Just me testing it and it's not extensive testing. It just seems as though one animation never fires (2nd or 3rd). But I don't have a reasonable test dummy to work with so it's difficult to test with any accuracy.

[Xianio]

While still in its infancy, I'm solo'ing through content at (only) level 6. I'm still at the "do everything" stage where I can trap, buff, heal and melee.

There's still a lot more leveling up to do before I can provide some videos and/or showcase how heavy-hitting the build gets but I level 4-5 toons at a time, so it takes a LONG time.

** I made a small update to the OP noting the value of mithral shields.

[TromboneFireTurtle]

Hey, I've been looking at this build for awhile, so I made one on something like my 25th life completionist. I love it, though I used a +8 Keen Dwarven Waraxe of Rapid Strikes (4d12 damage die and an additional 18% to doublestrike. Solo ability at high levels is a breeze. I also tried the bladeforged idea, easier time on Defense and the full self-healing is great. In addition, I made my own spin on this using an Epic Antique Greataxe and a Bladeforged, I'll post the build in the next few days.

Shining Light/Dusttan Brightflame