DDO Newb with Art build questions

[TreborDeMay]

Hello all and thanks for your time to read this and respond.
I am a true newb at ddo but not to mmog in general. Also a true old fart with almost 40 years of paper and pen d&d fun.
I have played a couple of test toons to get a handle on some of the basics and now want to build a toon that I can play for a while to really dig in.
This is my first go around with DDO so I am working with minimal improvements
I have 32 skill points to play with and have unlocked drow plus artificer

Likes from other gaming experience:
-fairly capable at solo since I have kids and can't play like I did years ago
-like casting and ranged attacks but also need to do a little close combat when needed
-love playing a caster/rogue type
-pets that are useful are good for meat shields at low levels
-not looking for a true nuker or straight up rogue
-want something that is useful in groups when I do get a chance but do not want to be the main healer ever again

My idea is to play a half elf (also considered elf drow or halfling but not sure about the 28 point build on a drow)
10 str
16 dex to start maybe buy a tomb if I can to bump it once I test the build a bit
14 con
16 int
10 wis
10 chr
or 8 wis 12 chr

Racial bonus feat at rogue
then I am not sure about the other feat but thinking
Point Blank Shot -seems to be a good starting one
or
Discipline
Mental Toughness
quicken spell for the shortened cast time and no interrupt
self sufficient
toughness
luck of heroes
sap

skill points
concentration 2
Disable device 3
open lock 3
repair 2
search 2
spell craft 2
spot 2
UMD 4
hide 1
jump 1
listen 1
move silently 1

spells
conjure bolts
cure light wounds
repair light damage
static shock
?enchant armor
?enchant weapon
?grease
?resistance

Question on what I have read, what is splash?

not sure how much alignment counts but I usually played a neutral good character
Also, how much of a difference do servers make? I am in the mountain time USA with usually morning and some afternoon play time, based on nap times for my little girl

Please give me feedback and any insight you have into artificer and this particular build idea.
I am not set on anything but this seems to be a good combo of the things I know I like to play and hopefully useful in a group also.

Thanks in advance
Robert

[unbongwah]

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...used-artificer
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...=1#post5793766

Warforged has the advantage of self-Repairability without messing with the Construct Essence feats. But if you don't own WF, drow makes a good F2P(ish) alternative thanks to the +2 base DEX & INT. Another option is a halfling with the Dragonmark feat to grant some limited self-heals.

[TreborDeMay]

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...used-artificer
https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...=1#post5793766

Warforged has the advantage of self-Repairability without messing with the Construct Essence feats. But if you don't own WF, drow makes a good F2P(ish) alternative thanks to the +2 base DEX & INT. Another option is a halfling with the Dragonmark feat to grant some limited self-heals.

¥. Ty for the response. I have WF but I've read that they have suseptabilities to common monsters in the early and mid game. Primarily oozes and rust monsters. Also harder to be healed in groups but I made a WF monk to see and they are interesting.
I like drow but it starts with 4 less stat points I can use but I saw it has better bonuses so maybe it balances out. In DDO are races KOS in some places?
Without the dill ante feat from half elf can I be as good at the rouge skills if I take a WF or drow?
What is splash? I've seen it mentioned in build comments but don't know what it is.
Thanks

[Sunnie]

Don't worry about the 28-pt build for Drow. They can easily end up ahead of other races when you go for a combination of any two or three of dex, Int, and Cha.

I took a look at your proposed stat spread, for comparison, here's how it could look for a Drow with 28 points available.
str - 10
dex - 16
con - 14
int - 16
wis - 10
cha - 12
You end up 2 ability points ahead (here in charisma) despite having 4 fewer build points, that's because every ability increase only cost one point each.
Personally I'd leave wisdom and charisma at their base stats, and raise dex or int by another 2.

The additional case for Halflings (beside Dragonmark of Healing) is that they're short. Why's that important, you ask? Because being short means it's a lot easier to line up enemies for Improved Precise Shot. Taller races will often enough fire above some enemies, or hit one only to find that their arrows/bolts are now stuck in the ground and the rest of the enemies that were so carefull lined up aare completely unharmed. On a first-life Drow this won't be an issue, though, your character only starts getting taller once you reincarnate them.


Rule of thumb is that you can get away with doing two things well, but if you try to do ranged damage AND melee damage AND casting, you'll overextend and end up doing none of them well. There just aren't enough feats for all of it. Ranged damage and supporting casting was how I played as an Arti the last time, that worked pretty well.


To answer your question, a "splash" means taking a few levels in another class to gain some benefit or to augment some area where your main class is weak. Like, in your case, you could splash two rogue levels for evasion, that's the most common splash in the game anyway. You could also go for a "deep dip" and take 5 or 6 levels of rogue to gain access to the full mechanic tree and the first 3 core abilities there, the downside of deep dip would be that you get access to at most one level 6 spell.


And while we're on the topic of downsides, the downside of playing a half-elf is that they're the ugliest race in the game.


As for what feats to take. First you need to figure out what you want to mainly play as. Do you want to be a caster? Ranged damage dealer? Melee?


And as for Skills, I can tell you're overextending. There are some skills you will want to max out.
Firstly: Search, Disable Device, Open Lock. Those are the most useful skills whether you're soloing or playing in a group.
Secondly: Spot, UMD. You can skip Spot if you know the game extremely well and remember where all traps are, if that's not the case, definitely take it. UMD will let you use Wands and scrolls, especially useful for healing.
Everything else is pretty much a matter of preferences. But try to play to your class' strengths, you're paying double for hide, move silently, and Jump, and will always be lagging at least 50% behind a class that gets those skills. Artis may be able to disable traps, but they're no sneaky rogues, they have other strengths instead.
Also, Concentration is not all that important unless you're a Monk. Most of the time you either don't get hit and cast that spell, or you get hit for so much damage that you fail the check anyway. Furthermore, quickened spells always succeed (unless you get tripped/stunned while casting), so if you take that you won't need Concentration anyway.


Your initial spell selection looks good. Artificers can also permanently learn every spell in their book from scrolls and switch them around in taverns and at shrines, so you can play around with your setup and see what works there.


All players are KOS in all quests and Wildernesses, no exceptions.


The Dilettante feat does not improve any skills, it only gives you 1d6 sneak attack damage. Your skills can be equally high no matter what race you take.

[TreborDeMay]

Don't worry about the 28-pt build for Drow. They can easily end up ahead of other races when you go for a combination of any two or three of dex, Int, and Cha.

I took a look at your proposed stat spread, for comparison, here's how it could look for a Drow with 28 points available.
str - 10
dex - 16
con - 14
int - 16
wis - 10
cha - 12
You end up 2 ability points ahead (here in charisma) despite having 4 fewer build points, that's because every ability increase only cost one point each.
Personally I'd leave wisdom and charisma at their base stats, and raise dex or int by another 2.

The additional case for Halflings (beside Dragonmark of Healing) is that they're short. Why's that important, you ask? Because being short means it's a lot easier to line up enemies for Improved Precise Shot. Taller races will often enough fire above some enemies, or hit one only to find that their arrows/bolts are now stuck in the ground and the rest of the enemies that were so carefull lined up aare completely unharmed. On a first-life Drow this won't be an issue, though, your character only starts getting taller once you reincarnate them.


Rule of thumb is that you can get away with doing two things well, but if you try to do ranged damage AND melee damage AND casting, you'll overextend and end up doing none of them well. There just aren't enough feats for all of it. Ranged damage and supporting casting was how I played as an Arti the last time, that worked pretty well.


To answer your question, a "splash" means taking a few levels in another class to gain some benefit or to augment some area where your main class is weak. Like, in your case, you could splash two rogue levels for evasion, that's the most common splash in the game anyway. You could also go for a "deep dip" and take 5 or 6 levels of rogue to gain access to the full mechanic tree and the first 3 core abilities there, the downside of deep dip would be that you get access to at most one level 6 spell.


And while we're on the topic of downsides, the downside of playing a half-elf is that they're the ugliest race in the game.


As for what feats to take. First you need to figure out what you want to mainly play as. Do you want to be a caster? Ranged damage dealer? Melee?


And as for Skills, I can tell you're overextending. There are some skills you will want to max out.
Firstly: Search, Disable Device, Open Lock. Those are the most useful skills whether you're soloing or playing in a group.
Secondly: Spot, UMD. You can skip Spot if you know the game extremely well and remember where all traps are, if that's not the case, definitely take it. UMD will let you use Wands and scrolls, especially useful for healing.
Everything else is pretty much a matter of preferences. But try to play to your class' strengths, you're paying double for hide, move silently, and Jump, and will always be lagging at least 50% behind a class that gets those skills. Artis may be able to disable traps, but they're no sneaky rogues, they have other strengths instead.
Also, Concentration is not all that important unless you're a Monk. Most of the time you either don't get hit and cast that spell, or you get hit for so much damage that you fail the check anyway. Furthermore, quickened spells always succeed (unless you get tripped/stunned while casting), so if you take that you won't need Concentration anyway.


Your initial spell selection looks good. Artificers can also permanently learn every spell in their book from scrolls and switch them around in taverns and at shrines, so you can play around with your setup and see what works there.


All players are KOS in all quests and Wildernesses, no exceptions.


The Dilettante feat does not improve any skills, it only gives you 1d6 sneak attack damage. Your skills can be equally high no matter what race you take.

Very cool, thank you.
So I am leaning towards halfling since that was always my paper and pen build.
I want to be better at ranged and casting so I will start with point blank shot I think,
I will dump my points into dex, int and con with a couple points in str to get it to 10.
I wind up with
11 str
17 dex
14 con
17 int
8 wis
8 chr
and torn between mark of healing and point blank. Seems healing is better early on but how often do I get more feats? I maxed disable device, open locks, search, spot, UMD and had a couple points left so I took repair and heal. Not sure if heal is worth it but it seems I will need to be able to fix my pet and heal might help me staying upright. maybe a couple of points into spell craft?
Big question about the pets arti's get. Are they just an animation or do the serve a purpose?
Also, any real difference in servers?
Thank you very much for the input.

[Sunnie]

A few things.

You'll want to have 19 dexterity by level 15 to take the feat Improved Precise Shot. By level 21 you'll want 21 Dexterity to take Combat Archery. Luckily you get a free +2 Tome of Dexterity for 1750 favour.

Generally speaking, odd bility numbers (especially at character creation) are a bad thing since they (mostly) don't give you any extras. If you already have a tome of Intelligence it CAN make sense to start with an odd number of int, otherwise not so much. Strength is pretty much the only exception since your carrying capacity increases with every point of it.


I came up with the following very basic build for a ranged artificer with supportive casting. There're probably a lot of things that can be improved or changed about it.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Halfling Arti
Artificer 20
Halfling


Stats
. . . . . . . .32pt . . Level Up
. . . . . . . .---- . . --------
Strength. . . . 10. . . .4: DEX
Dexterity . . . 18. . . .8: INT
Constitution. . 14. . . 12: INT
Intelligence. . 16. . . 16: INT
Wisdom. . . . . .8. . . 20: INT
Charisma. . . . 10. . .


Skills (Errors)
. . . . . 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
. . . . .------------------------------------------------------------
Repair. . 4. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 23
Spellcr . . .1 .1 .1 .1 .1 .1 .2 .2 .2 .2 .1 .1 .1 .1 .1 .1 .1 .1 .1 .23
Disable . 4. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 23
Open Lo . 4. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 23
Search. . 4. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 23
Spot. . . 4. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 23
UMD . . . 4. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 23
Haggle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 .1 .1 .1 .1 .1 .1 .1 .2 .10
Perform . 1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Tumble. . 1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
. . . . .------------------------------------------------------------
. . . . .28. 7. 7. 7. 7. 7. 7. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 9
. . . . .28. 7. 7. 7. 7. 7. 7. 7. 7. 7. 7. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 8. 9


Feats

.1. . . . : Least Dragonmark: Healing
.3. . . . : Point Blank Shot
.4 Arti . : Rapid Shot
.6. . . . : Precise Shot
.8 Arti . : Maximize Spell
.9. . . . : Precision
12. . . . : Improved Critical: Ranged
12 Arti . : Quicken Spell
15. . . . : Improved Precise Shot
16 Arti . : Empower Spell
18. . . . : Weapon Focus: Ranged
20 Arti . : Extend Spell


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I put in Empower and Maximise because you can apply metamagics to the least and lesser dragonmarks (as well as any Spell-Like Abilities (SLAs) from your enhancement trees) for free. 225 additional spellpower is pretty nifty no matter what you're doing. Unfortunately they don't work on the Greater Dragonmark, but you can't have everything I suppose.

The single ranks in Tumble and Perform are so you can gain bonuses to those skills from stats and skill bonuses.
The points I put in Haggle can go wherever really, I just didn't know where else to put them.

One thing that will ALWAYS be true however: The level 2 spell "Lightning Sphere" is one of the most awesome spells in the game and will daze just about anyting. Get it ASAP.

[kmoustakas]

Ranged toons, especially if you plan to keep them for epics really benefit from epic archery* that requires you have a dexterity of 21. You also need a high number for improved precise shot, 19 I think. So keep that in mind when deciding about where to put points or buy tomes.

Also note that artificers have a pet and with augment summoning feat the puppy is a beast at lower levels and can activate all sort of runes (wisdom, charisma, etc) at later levels with a very minor investment.

Quicken is an auto include. You definatelly want it, although I would aim to grab it right about the level you get the 'summon turret' spell which is a really slow spell but amazingly powerful at low levels.

[Saekee]

You can give a name to your arti dog. If you choose it to be the same as one of your kids, don't let them know.

[RD2play]

Hello all and thanks for your time to read this and respond.
I am a true newb at ddo but not to mmog in general. Also a true old fart with almost 40 years of paper and pen d&d fun.
I have played a couple of test toons to get a handle on some of the basics and now want to build a toon that I can play for a while to really dig in.
This is my first go around with DDO so I am working with minimal improvements
I have 32 skill points to play with and have unlocked drow plus artificer

Likes from other gaming experience:
-fairly capable at solo since I have kids and can't play like I did years ago
-like casting and ranged attacks but also need to do a little close combat when needed
-love playing a caster/rogue type
-pets that are useful are good for meat shields at low levels
-not looking for a true nuker or straight up rogue
-want something that is useful in groups when I do get a chance but do not want to be the main healer ever again

<snip>

Please give me feedback and any insight you have into artificer and this particular build idea.
I am not set on anything but this seems to be a good combo of the things I know I like to play and hopefully useful in a group also.

Thanks in advance
Robert

Arti is a fun class to play, I would recommend WF for first life because of ease of self healing and the immunities you get for being a machine, but Drow will be fine as it gives boost to you 2 main stats DEX and INT (mostly ranged/casting but can do melee if access to harper). It is a great solo class due its inherent self healing and trap skills.

One thing to keep in mind is that the arti, is not a jack of all trades when it comes to combat. Though it can do all, you will have to pick one of casting/ranged/melee to focus on, if you want to play at end game also, or you are going to be lacking. Personally I like ranged with casting support, But I do see full casters out there (especially after the Arcanotech updates) and there are still a few melee Arti's out there (mostly flavour but they can keep up, usually with some multi-classing).

To be able to find and disable traps you want to max out your trap skills Search & Disable , and you want to get hold of best @ level skill items for these 2 skills. as a first lifer you might want to take spot to get a notice that there is a trap near. (also nice if you choose ranged for seeing hidden monsters). Most veterans will skip this skill as they "know" where the traps/boxes are. Last is Open Lock, unless you want to be sure to be able to open every and all doors/chests you only really need to spend 4 pts in here at level 1, the rest you can make up with gear/buffs. There are very few locked things that require you to max this skill. Then for you Pet healing, you mentioned Heal, but your pet is a construct so Repair is the skill you would want for pet healing boost. The skill itself is never used but the passive benefit to spellpower is why you would take it. other skill that are useful are UMD, max this one out if you can especially on a fleshy it will alow you to scroll Heal, and restoration scrolls to get rid of negative effects and to heal up full. Balance to get up faster after being tripped, and I always put one point into tumble to activate it. If you have low STR jump might be a good pick also. It caps at 40 and it does come on gear, I usually go for at least 10pts into jump so with a helpful cast from someone (+30) or a pot (+10/20) I can get up to most ledges. Also even if STR is my dump stat I try to get it to about 16-20 at level 20 for Debuff reasons and encumbrance.

Now for feats, you picked up a whole bunch of useless. Like I said above you will need to choose one of Ranged/Melee/Caster for your main focus, and spend the feats that are most useful for that line. Then if you have room you might want to pick a secondary focus, which is going to be hard to fit in on a first life. Most lines will pretty much fill your feat slots, and as a new player you will have little grasp on trade-offs and what they mean in the game. Lot of things that are a good choice in PnP would be a waste in DDO, because of the translation from turn-based to real time. I use a planner to make my builds before hand, so I can figure out if what I want to do is possible (but then I enjoy multi-classing, for pure builds it is a lot easier to wing it).

In the end it is best to figure these things out for your self, I cannot tell you what you are going to enjoy more. I have rerolled many a character before they hit 12, so just go out there and try some stuff.