Eldritch Knight potential is not epic significant. EK makes your toon WORSE!

[Twinkly]

Taking EK on a melee makes your melee worse (If you don't pretend that those EK levels don't otherwise exist).
Taking EK on a caster makes your caster worse.
Eldritch Knight offensive potential is not epic significant.
Discuss.




Considerations:

• EK ranks give only half as much spellpower as Archmage ranks. Spellpower potential => Reduced.
• Equipping a spellpower weapon instead of a dps weapon makes your overall dps much worse.
• Eldritch strike does just a bit over 100 damage every 15 seconds (about 7 dps), including spellsword element. Not scalable by critting.
• Eldritch strike costs 10sp.
• Spellsword is not amplified by spellpower, damage boosts, master's blitz, spell crit, or weapon crit. It does not crit. Again, does not scale effectively.
• Spellsword does not work with ranged weapons. No you can't multi-spellsword-shot something.
• Average melee hit under master's blitz: 200 base physical damage + 10 spellsword damage. Total spellsword damage contribution is 5% and required investing the 18 arcane levels.
• If you make 2.5 attacks per second, and spellsword costs 1sp/6s => 150 damage per spell point. Efficiency will probably be worse unless you're continuosly beating on the same target for ages (likely).
• Eldritch strike (compared to a cleave), assuming 100 ES damage / 10 sp = 10 damage (per target) per spell point. I'm sure you can think of better ways of spending spellpoints.
• Eldritch Tempest is not crowd control. 1s of KD every 40 seconds is not useful CC.
• Eldritch Tempest (compared to a cleave)does about 150 additional damage for 30sp. Efficency: 150/30= only 5 damage (per target) per spell point. Ewwwww?
• Eldritch Tempest does about (150 damage / 30s) = 5 damage per second if spammed. How long does it take to kill an EE/EH/EN monster with 5 dps?
• Severely restricted damage amplification potential => No real synergy with any Epic Destinies. No synergies make for poor builds. (contrast: abilities that increase average base damage via crits synergizes with everything)
• EK offensive potential does not hold its own, and is not in any way competitive with the synergized results of other offensive build strategies.
• What could levels of kensei have offered instead?

Tested on a 18 wizard(EK/PM)/2 rogue (acrobat) with 140spellpower. Character has just average gear and numbers can be a bit improved, but consider points #1 and #2.

[Vellrad]

EK's purpose is not to be for primary casters.
Its designed to be place where splashers spends few AP.

[Lonnbeimnech]

5 wiz levels for permanent tensors, +6% double strike and +10 PRR might be interesting on a melee build that doesn't get full bab.

[voodoogroves]

EK gets me another INT option on my pure wizard. SP is less important than DCs for him.

[DaSawks]

I am currently working on a pure Warforged Wizard designed from the groud up to be an Eldritch Knight. I agree with the OP that there are some draw backs of having AP spent in the EK tree. Archmage and Pale Master are far and away superior for casters. If someone were to look to splash some Wizard for the EK enhancement line and some melee bonus there again I would say there are other superior options.

I took my Melee Wizard into normal eDA. With a Torque (sp) and 1 ConOp item I never fell to 50% spell points. The pure DPS is less than my Pure Fighter but very respectable. Without using a single SP to cast anything other than buffs or Reconstruct I was able to complete without any worries.

I know that normal eDA is not EE anything. This build is a work in progress. I think after some time and tinkering I will be able to sustain above average DPS. I just have to look at the toon as melee and forget about DC's and magic DPS. Until I max out Shiradi. Then I will try to add in the cheap Archmage spells.

[AtomicMew]

Some thigns you may have missed:

1) tensor's transformation toggle and extended quickened displacement are approx 1-2% DPS boosts. Extended haste is as well, or at least saves an epic feat.
2) DDoor
3) Ice storm/acid fog for CC

Of course it won't be top DPS by any measure, but neither was juggernaut, an outdated build. A proper EK build is basically better.

[DrNuegebauer]

Of course it won't be top DPS by any measure, but neither was juggernaut, an outdated build. A proper EK build is basically better.

How is Juggernaut outdated?

How is EK better than a Jugg?

I got lost somewhere, fill me in!

[Xormax]

Here is a terrible video that I made on lammania showing how good EK can be. Currently running this build on Khyber with great success on my toon Tvux. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9FsGEZMmGA. At about the two minute mark is when I start winning?

I don't think it is terrible at all. I have tons of play room with the build too.

[AtomicMew]

How is Juggernaut outdated?

How is EK better than a Jugg?

I got lost somewhere, fill me in!

Pretty much the only reason for the juggernaut 16 arti levels was quickened reconstruct as self healing. However, you can get quickened reconstruct through bladeforged, so taking 16 arti is obviously no longer optimal. Most common optimized U19 melee builds will be taking 8 fighter/2 monk as a baseline because of centered THF.

[era42]

Taking EK on a melee makes your melee worse (If you don't pretend that those EK levels don't otherwise exist).
Taking EK on a caster makes your caster worse.
Eldritch Knight offensive potential is not epic significant.

Agreed. EK tree just isn't sexy at all.

I made a displaced acrobat from Bladeforged, pure melee. 10 sorcerer, 6monk, 4 paladin. Awesomely fun toon to play. OK DPS, though the lack of rogue attack-speed hurts a bit. Nice saves from paladin, and awesome survivability (displacement, monk incorp, reconstruct SLA), with some nice spells in the spellbook (haste, displacement, shield, pfe, invis, ddoor).

I debated whether to spend 0, 1 or 8 points in EK, I ended up with 1. Single point for 1% doublestrike, it was pretty much wash with other similar low-gain points with the last spare points. I couldn't justify spending 7 more for 10PRR, the toon is already survivable, I'll rather take DPS from race.

And the core strike, 10sp for that, no thank you. I have it, but I won't use it. I tested it for a short while, ended up using more spell points to it than everything else combined. Without, I can keep haste/displacement permanently up, reconstruct carelessly whenever I take a bit of damage, it's way more carefree when I don't have to watch the manabar closely for a marginal damage gain. If I want to use sps for damage, I'll pop Ice-storm, even unboosted it does better bang for the buck and some CC to top it.

So, pure melee (no damage spells), 10 levels of sorcerer, total of 1 (one) point spent in EK.

[AbyssalMage]

Here is a terrible video that I made on lammania showing how good EK can be. Currently running this build on Khyber with great success on my toon Tvux. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9FsGEZMmGA. At about the two minute mark is when I start winning?

I don't think it is terrible at all. I have tons of play room with the build too.

Thanks, I will have to direct a guildy over here. He's been thinking about a similar build.

[Twinkly]

EK's purpose is not to be for primary casters.
Its designed to be place where splashers spends few AP.

Your perspective is backwards. Let's have a look. Why do people splash? A splash is advantageous when A: a class does not hold its own and B: the class is front loaded.

If B is true and A is not true, it will still be fully invested in.
If A is true then arguably B does not matter, because it is already a fail on its own. EK is a fail on its own. Therefore it is fail.

Intentionally designing something that does not hold its own is like making a leaky bucket with a hole on the bottom, to carry water somewhere. Perhaps if you dinged up your bucket by smashing a rock through the bottom, then you might be inclined to patch it back up. But buckets getting damaged is the wrong analogy here. If you were to design a bucket for carrying water, why the hell would you design one with a hole in the bottom (EK), so that it would HAVE to be patched/combined with something else (another class) before it is serviceable?

Paths should hold their own AND provide synergy with other paths. There should be a point to being 100% EK, as well as a point to being EK+whatever. What you basically said is that the point of there being a the [EK] bucket is the handle. That we should just make off with the handle; screw the bucket.

The fact that it is splashable effectively, has merit. The fact that it is only effective when lightly splashed, is a serious flaw.

[Teh_Ghoul]

Your perspective is backwards. Let's have a look. Why do people splash? A splash is advantageous when A: a class does not hold its own and B: the class is front loaded.

If B is true and A is not true, it will still be fully invested in.
If A is true then arguably B does not matter, because it is already a fail on its own. EK is a fail on its own. Therefore it is fail.

Intentionally designing something that does not hold its own is like making a leaky bucket with a hole on the bottom, to carry water somewhere. Perhaps if you dinged up your bucket by smashing a rock through the bottom, then you might be inclined to patch it back up. But buckets getting damaged is the wrong analogy here. If you were to design a bucket for carrying water, why the hell would you design one with a hole in the bottom (EK), so that it would HAVE to be patched/combined with something else (another class) before it is serviceable?

Paths should hold their own AND provide synergy with other paths. There should be a point to being 100% EK, as well as a point to being EK+whatever. What you basically said is that the point of there being a the [EK] bucket is the handle. That we should just make off with the handle; screw the bucket.

The fact that it is splashable effectively, has merit. The fact that it is only effective when lightly splashed, is a serious flaw.

You just described paladins.

[Twinkly]

Here is a terrible video that I made on lammania showing how good EK can be. Currently running this build on Khyber with great success on my toon Tvux. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9FsGEZMmGA. At about the two minute mark is when I start winning?

I don't think it is terrible at all. I have tons of play room with the build too.

Looks effective. But that build does not look like it is effective because of EK... and the nice 'ton of play room' is not because of EK, it is because of the arcane class! I know because I've been playing this sort of character for a while. That build looks effective because of the stacked Masters Blitz you've got going there from the LD destiny. EK is doing hardly anything.. this is exactly my point #4, go back up and read it. The offensiveness effectiveness of what you have going there is >95% due to dreadnought+falchion (+amplified by crits), and <5% EK (amplified by nothing).

Moreover, your build is a high damage per hit, low hit rate (compared to twf), which marginalizes the effect of EK's core abilities even more.
All you've shown is that master's blitz is very effective. And an arcane with master's blitz works great... and I could have told you that too. I've been playing a palemaster arcane melee for a couple years, and it has worked great. Then Legendary Dreadnought showed up on the scene, and all of a sudden it worked awesome. EK showed up on a scene, and honestly did not make much difference. I still have to rely on everything else, and so do you.

Your build is sweet, but not because of EK.

1) tensor's transformation toggle and extended quickened displacement are approx 1-2% DPS boosts. Extended haste is as well, or at least saves an epic feat.
2) DDoor
3) Ice storm/acid fog for CC

An arcane melee without EK will have those as well. Therefore, these have nothing to do with EK. You may have a point about saving a feat, if you don't care about casting extended spells, but that hardly has to do with EK either. In my experience, the most effective place to cast tensor's transformation is in between monsters while featherfalling in mid air.. you're running and hitting nothing thus losing no dps - problem solved. If your build is so bad that you can start AND end a tensor's spell on the same mob, then you may have bigger issues :/

I agree though, the toggle is quite convenient, and does save [a mostly insignificant amount of] sp, and is probably of most benefit to arcane splashes which are either too low level to cast TT or have a very short TT, but many builds like that will also not have 2) and 3).

[Twinkly]

I am currently working on a pure Warforged Wizard designed from the groud up to be an Eldritch Knight. I agree with the OP that there are some draw backs of having AP spent in the EK tree. Archmage and Pale Master are far and away superior for casters. If someone were to look to splash some Wizard for the EK enhancement line and some melee bonus there again I would say there are other superior options.

I took my Melee Wizard into normal eDA. With a Torque (sp) and 1 ConOp item I never fell to 50% spell points. The pure DPS is less than my Pure Fighter but very respectable. Without using a single SP to cast anything other than buffs or Reconstruct I was able to complete without any worries.

I know that normal eDA is not EE anything. This build is a work in progress. I think after some time and tinkering I will be able to sustain above average DPS. I just have to look at the toon as melee and forget about DC's and magic DPS. Until I max out Shiradi. Then I will try to add in the cheap Archmage spells.

I agree, arcane melee with torc and concopp is a match made in heaven . If you have good DC's, may I suggest taking enchantment archmage, and combining the hold person/hold monster SLAs with your meleeing, and twist Sense Weakness from fury, and be in either LD or Magister. That is some good fun ! EK not required (and probably won't make a huge difference either).

You just described paladins.

Sadly . I'm sure you don't need me to join the chorus of people who have already mentioned that paladins is unsatisfactory as a class. There's no need to present the current state paladins as a desired goal for EK.

[Teh_Ghoul]

I agree, arcane melee with torc and concopp is a match made in heaven . If you have good DC's, may I suggest taking enchantment archmage, and combining the hold person/hold monster SLAs with your meleeing, and twist Sense Weakness from fury, and be in either LD or Magister. That is some good fun ! EK not required (and probably won't make a huge difference either).


Sadly . I'm sure you don't need me to join the chorus of people who have already mentioned that paladins is unsatisfactory as a class. There's no need to present the current state paladins as a desired goal for EK.

Why would they take enchantment sla's on a non max int full spell focused toon, they're not going to land on a melee build in any content that needs cc.

[DrNuegebauer]

Pretty much the only reason for the juggernaut 16 arti levels was quickened reconstruct as self healing. However, you can get quickened reconstruct through bladeforged, so taking 16 arti is obviously no longer optimal. Most common optimized U19 melee builds will be taking 8 fighter/2 monk as a baseline because of centered THF.

I think I'd disagree with that basic premise (only reason = quickened reconstruct). 16 Arti levels allowed the archery stuff to be put in. You get the +1W from deadly, damage boost, etc.

I would of course agree that the 8+fig 2+mnk builds are superior DPS wise, albeit not quite as survivable? But surely the Jugg >>> arcane melee options, so not so much "outdated"?

Anyway - it's off topic!

[Twinkly]

Why would they take enchantment sla's on a non max int full spell focused toon, they're not going to land on a melee build in any content that needs cc.

You are correct, yes, don't do this if you dump int and spell focus.

[Phaeton_Seraph]

From the thread title, I was expecting something very different. Assuming that the statistics given are true, then the OP is correct. And much more lucid than I expected.

[Memnir]

My biggest complaint with the EK tree is, after playing one for a while and leveling up a bit, that the tree just feels half finished. Like there was more work to be done, a good deal more, but time ran out and it had to be rushed out the door and onto the servers. It feels to me like it was added as filler - a "Look, we're adding stuff!" sort of deal, that was only included for the sake of being able to crow that stuff was added. The tree has a bit going for it, but a lot more not going for it.


I'm hoping that EK will be like Pale Master, a PrE the Devs admitted was put out in a feature incomplete state, and it will get better over time as it gets tweaks. But, a big part of me is resigned to the fact that it'll be minor tweaks to the tree as it exists now, if anything, and the tree will become yet another forgotten bit of roadkill that litters the landscape that is DDO's added features.