Repeaters, where arst thou?

[kmoustakas]

So here I was all excited finally getting to my wf artie life and I go check the ah for 'kewl' repeaters. And uhm, there aren't any. Obviously I'm only worried about low level ones because at level 12 you get your green steel and nothing really compares but come on Sarlonians. Where are all those riptide, chaotic(the 'kewl one' with true chaos and cursespewing', pandemonium repeaters?

Best I could come up with was an old korthos beater with it's minimum level borked (had icy on it so instead of transforming from level 1 to 6 it went to 2) and a desert sand which is nice enough but minimum level 10

[Livmo]

Per the Cannith Crafting Planner you can make an Icy Burst and Pure Good heavy repeater with red augment slot that is level 12 and +2 with a Shard of Masterful Craftmenship.

You can do a different burst if you want.

If I make something like this I would take it to the Stone of Change after crafting the weapon and put Force Damage Ritual on it for added value.

Lastly, I would slot a level 12 red augment of Adamantine Damage Flag into it. Even better if you had a Ruby Eye Augment to slot in the repeater.

--

Find a repeating heavy crossbow on the AH with a red augment slot on it and take it to the crafting hall and disjunct it for your blank.

EDIT ~ it would be fun to make on a silver bank as well if you had one.

[kmoustakas]

Thanks for the input man but the I'm looking for low level repeaters, not level 12 ones. I have 2 gs repeaters already: tripple earth (for the summon and general troll smacking) and ooze (for the ammount of lols is too **** high). I also have 3 repeaters in the works: radiance (with insightful intelligence), min2 because sometimes I'm just annoyed with dr and trap the soul because I craft a lot. Preferably something I could festival burst as well.

[Munkenmo]

I use a screaming of bleeding cannith crafted repeater until level 6.

From 6 till greensteel i use the Scoundrels Repeating Heavy Crossbow

[achitophel]

Dont forget the lack of high end runearms.

[Mathermune]

Levels 1-7

Screaming Bleeding RXBow is a great choice. Your rune arm choice is flavour at this point. Artificers slay it at low levels.


Levels 8-11

It lost a lot of benefits when 0 CON no longer meant instant death but I have had a lot of success with Wounding of Puncturing in the 8-12 level range. I pair it up with Recoyle, It's a major, major pain to get, but Recoyle is my favourite Rune Arm.

Vs undead I switch to a Holy/Pure Good Cannith crafted, cast quickened flame turret and let it take ALL the aggro.


As a general reminder to anyone who needs it when crafting your repeater don't bother with the +1/+2 etc enchantment bonuses as it doesn't stack with your enchantment bonus from your conjured bolts.

[kmoustakas]

I tend to ignore runearms because I've already set my mind to on which I will be using at which levels.

Best high level one is the one from cove.

[CThruTheEgo]

Crafted screaming of bleed or holy of bleed will be effective until you get your greensteel.

Also, Corruption of Nature is the highest dps rune arm with Archaic Device being second. Glass Cannon is weak. Glass Cannon does give you the highest additional repeater damage, but the shot doesn't even come close to what Corruption, or even Archaic Device, will do. The damage from the shot far outweighs the additional repeater damage.

[Shaka808]

Leveling to 12 I just used crafted repeaters , wounding of punctuering, wounding of pure good, holy of pure good, etc

Add in red slots when your level can afford it (never botherd with +'s on bow since conjured bolts did a good enough job)


As for rune arms I found hand of the tombs was the most useful

[kmoustakas]

Corruption of nature? Really? Where do you base your oppinion? I always largely ignored it because of the rough hide ability being mostly irrelevant but I'll have to test it I guess. Any particular version that makes more sense or should I just use the highest level I find?

[CThruTheEgo]

Corruption of nature? Really? Where do you base your oppinion? I always largely ignored it because of the rough hide ability being mostly irrelevant but I'll have to test it I guess. Any particular version that makes more sense or should I just use the highest level I find?

I would not choose a rune arm based on it's secondary abilities. The primary reason to choose a rune arm should be the damage you do with the shot, since that is the primary purpose of the rune arm. At higher levels the rune arm will contribute a significant portion of your overall dps so maximizing that should be the primary concern.

With that in mind, the five projectile rune arms will far outdps any of the other types. With an AoE rune arm (such as Glass Cannon), you'd need to use it against 5+ mobs to be doing more damage. And even in that situation, you're better off using a 5 projectile rune arm so that you can take down single targets much more quickly, because with the AoE you are just whittling away at them slowly. For survivability purposes it's better to drop single targets than to slowly bring down an entire group, even if it takes the same amount of time to kill all of them with either method.

When the changes to spell were implemented, it was stated in the release notes that rune arms would utilize a variable percentage of their respective spell power (50-80% iirc). It has never been tested by players, nor stated by a dev, what percentage of spell power each rune arm utilizes. However, it has been the general consensus based on the experience of players that higher level rune arms use more spell power, or at least epic rune arms use more than heroic (for example, it has been noticed by many that Archaic Device seems to do more damage than Lucid Dreams), and that force uses a smaller percentage than the elemental rune arms (probably because force is more versatile and targets a weaker save - will).

Only force and acid rune arms offer the five projectile shot, so that basically leaves Corruption of Nature or Archaic Device. If you use both, it is quite obvious that Corruption is using more spell power because it clearly does more damage. Looking at gearing options, however, it is likely that you'll end up with a higher force spell power and lore than acid spell power and lore. Slotting 138 force in the repeater's red slot and using Sage's Cuffs for 20% force lore, along with the 4% lore from arcanotechnician, will provide a total of 138 force and 24% lore. EE corruption of Nature comes with 114 acid spell power and you can wear the Epic Rock Boots from Cannith Challenges to get 16% acid lore. You're not likely to get higher acid spell power since artis will only have one red slot, and you'd have to dump force spell power if you use it for acid.

I haven't done so yet, but I intend to do some testing to compare Archaic Device with 138 force spell power and 24% lore to Corruption of Nature with 114 acid spell power and 16% lore. Even though Corruption uses more spell power, I'm curious if the higher spell power and lore will allow Archaic to pull ahead.

[Dalsheel]

Corruption of Nature deals more damage because the base damage of the runearm is higher. % of spell power used has nothing to do with this.

Corruption of Nature: Charge Tier V: 8 to 30 + 1d10 per Artificer Level
Archaic Device: Charge Tier V: 8 to 26 + 1d8 per Artificer Level

But, as mentioned by others, Archaic Device deals a much harder to resist type of damage (Force) and targets a -generally- weaker save (Will). This is probably the reason for the damage difference.

[CThruTheEgo]

% of spell power used has nothing to do with this.

It's obvious that spell power plays a role when you compare Archaic Device with Lucid Dreams. Archaic does higher damage, but both list the same damage in the description.

And while you are correct that Corruption has higher base damage, the difference between them seems much larger than this. Assuming 80% (the max that any rune arm can use) of 400 spell power is applied to each, the average damage per projectile is 412.8 for Corruption and 342.4 for Archaic, which is only a difference of 70.4. I assume 80% spell power as a "best case scenario" and to compare them equally, but this is obviously not the case. In actual gameplay, an average projectile from Corruption seems to do a lot more than 70.4 points of damage above Archaic. Without any actual testing though, no one can say for sure. All we have to go on at this point are people's in-game perceptions and assumptions based off of them. So I acknowledge that Corruption seems to be affected by more spell power with the recognition that this is merely a perception and subject to flaws, but without testing no one is going to have any more certainty than this.

We don't know exactly what role spell power plays since the percentage applied to each rune arm has never been confirmed by a dev or tested by players. So there is definitely some speculation, but my post above summarizes the assumptions that seem prevalent among players. Until there is definitive testing done by players, no one can say for sure what role spell power plays in the damage output of different rune arms.

[CThruTheEgo]

To add to the example in my post above, here is a worst case scenario. Assuming Corruption uses 80% of 400 spell power and Archaic uses 50% of 400 spell power, Corruption does 412.8 average damage per projectile while Archaic does 214, for a difference of 198.8. This seems closer to actual in-game experience.

My guess would be that Archaic uses around 60% spell power.

[Shaka808]

I use corruption once I hit epics but in heroics things die so fast to repeaters I found going with the best secondary properties (ala dsiruption!) were more overall useful for heroics. On epics its no doubt corruption is awesome

[kmoustakas]

Forgive me, but I seem to be missing something. How is corruption of nature better than an upgraded toven's hammer? They both have five projectiles flying out that appear to be doing the same damage. Epic corruption takes more % of spellpower?

[CThruTheEgo]

Forgive me, but I seem to be missing something. How is corruption of nature better than an upgraded toven's hammer? They both have five projectiles flying out that appear to be doing the same damage. Epic corruption takes more % of spellpower?

Toven's only shoots four projectiles.

As far as what percentage of spell power any rune arm uses, no one really knows since there has been no testing by players or confirmation by devs. Which rune arm is better is largely based on in-game experience and there are really only two that the vast majority of arti players consider viable for upper level EE content - Corruption of Nature and Archaic Device. A small minority advocate electric specced using Toven's, but imo, the things they excel at can be done better through other means.

Have you tried the various rune arms in upper level EE content? If you haven't, then there's nothing I can say to convince you. But give different ones a try and you'll likely come to the same conclusion. I was a die hard fan of the force rune arms, in spite of the accounts of others about Corruption, then I got a Corruption of Nature and never looked back.

It's worth noting that if you're only looking to do EN or EH content, then you can use whatever gear and build you want and be just as successful. But if you're interested in EE, then you're going to want to optimize and Corruption and Archaic Device are the options for that.

[Livmo]

Have you tried the various rune arms in upper level EE content? If you haven't, then there's nothing I can say to convince you. But give different ones a try and you'll likely come to the same conclusion. I was a die hard fan of the force rune arms, in spite of the accounts of others about Corruption, then I got a Corruption of Nature and never looked back.

Yep, I use these rune arms in EE, Corruption (main), Toven's (main and can craft on), Hand of Tombs (disrupter and craftable), and Glass Cannon (situationally and not often). I have them all but the Disciplinator from VON. My Anarchic and Lucid are in the bank collecting dust. The only ones I carry are Corruption, Toven's, Hand, and Glass.

Seriously, a bunch of folks should get together on Sarlona and go on an EE Outbreak ransack for Corruptions! EE Outbreak is no walk the park. STR in numbers!

[CThruTheEgo]

Seriously, a bunch of folks should get together on Sarlona and go on an EE Outbreak ransack for Corruptions! EE Outbreak is no walk the park. STR in numbers!

Bring a druid with a solid earthquake DC in there, it's a piece of cake then. My druid just got to epic levels, so when she's ready I'd be glad to help you farm out a Corruption.

[Livmo]

Bring a druid with a solid earthquake DC in there, it's a piece of cake then. My druid just got to epic levels, so when she's ready I'd be glad to help you farm out a Corruption.

Sweet!

Heh, I never thought of that. I guess I'm a headbanger too. I kept trying to run arties thru EE Outbreak : ))

Excellent, look up Livmo when ready and we should form a hunting party. I have one arty that needs an EE. Would like to pull 2 so I have one in the bank for a future arty, but would prefer to make sure everyone in group gets a EE Corruption before grabbing a 2nd.