"The Maverick Hunter" a guide to melee Artificer

[Strimtom]

Updated for U55

Prologue

“You get home from work after a long day and log into DDO to do some quick quests. 'I just got the fatal flaw', you think to yourself as you excitedly type in your password. Time to take it for a test drive. You log into your rogue/artificer and see a gianthold group just forming up. You jump right in, and head to out to the orc lair. You have a pretty good party; a wizard, a monkcher, a bard, and another artificer. You get to the quest and get started. The other artificer was a bit faster than you and got the trap at the first door. 'If he wants to get the traps, I don't mind saving on tools', you remark. You get about halfway through the quest, but you realize you can't find the artificer. He did the other trap, right? You check the experience screen. The other artificer is top kills. How is that possible? Nobody else is using a crossbow, the only person making a harsh ticking sound is you. You thoroughly scan the party, and find the other artificer shoot their rune arm. 'I don't understand, is he only using the rune arm? I haven't even heard a single crossbow shot' you muse quietly. Then you see it. The warforged artificer charges ahead of you, sword in hand, and clears a room with a wicked 360 cleave combined with a rune arm blast. He must be an artificer/fighter, or an artificer barbarian. You examine the robot, but it's a pure artificer. Fifteen levels to be exact. How is he doing that? Are you even able to remove your crossbow? Truthfully, you had never tried. In your mind it was a permanent fixture of your character. You didn't even know they were proficient in melee weapons. This can't be true, artificers use crossbows. You crack open your inventory panel and try to un-equip your crossbow. Internal server error: You lack the willpower to remove this weapon. Your mind shattered, your perception of reality flung open to a new possibility; playing artificer without turning off game sounds to mute the horrid ticking of the crossbow. You have to know, how did they do it? You send a tell.

'What are you?'

'The Maverick Hunter.'”

Intoduction

Hello everyone and welcome to my legendary and world renowned artificer build. Ever since I started playing DDO, I have loved the warforged race. What other game lets you play as a sick robot with magic, even holy magic? From their humble beginning in Cyre to their expansion all over Stormreach, the warforged are cool as ice cubes. Working with that concept, the maverick hunter build was designed with these goals in mind:

1. Make a character that looks and plays like Megaman X
2. Being able to play artificer with the sound turned on and not hearing the constant ticking sound of a crossbow while wishing for the sweet release of death.

With the release of the artificer class, this was made possible. Rune arms let you have a swapping arm cannon weapon, just like from the megaman series of video games. You acquire new rune arms (and in essence, new arm shots) from doing long quest chains and defeating the mavericks that protect them.

This build is not free to play and requires certain store purchases to work. The required items are as follows:

• Warforged Race
• Artificer Class
• Harper Agent Enhancement Tree (not required for leveling, required to be able to hit EE and LE monsters)
• Cosmetic that looks like the Z-Saber. Treason works fairly well but the blade is a bit small. I used a Green Steel Bastard Sword, with a chaos glamoured weapon effect.
• A lot of raid bypass timers to accommodate how fast you will solo legendary elite raids

For this build to work, this character assumes the role of Megaman X from X6, in which he carries the Z-saber in remembrance of his dead friend, Zero. This also lets us use a sword and an arm cannon to fully live the fantasy.

The only thing missing from this build is that when you change rune arms, your body colour doesn't change. I'm sure Standing Stone Games will fix this obvious flaw, since it would be way cool to change colour when you change your power up.

The Circuitry

Let's talk about how to make a super fighting robot.

First, the design. Your plate colour has to be blue, you eye colour must be green with a Base Colour 1, Cranium 3, Facial Detail 20, Eyes 3, Nose 6, and Mouth 8 to look the most like X.

Once you have the body down, lets talk about stats. What do they do for you?
Strength – You use your smarts to fight the evil mavericks out there, so you don't need this stat. This has to be a 13 to get bastard sword proficiency, then drop it.
Dexterity – This also does nothing for you since you take insightful reflexes. Get a 13 for precision then dump this stat in the dumpster.
Constitution – This stat gives you life. It's imperative, since after making this character you will have so much fun that you will lose life IRL, and need your character to have lots of life to compensate.
Intelligence – This is the most important stat. Mana, To-hit and Damage, KtA, winning spelling bee's, trap skills, Dcs for rune arms and blade barrier, extensive knowledge of Seinfeld references, and languages.
Wisdom – lol
Charisma – You can put points here to add to umd, or you can put the points you would put here into con for more life. You know how I feel about life.


If you do have strength/dex tomes, you can start with a 10 on each if you have +3 tomes, which means you can get more con earlier etc.

Skills:

• Disable Device - Max this or you won't make any friends. This also helps the DCs of traps you set ROFL.
• Search - You need to find traps. Unfortunately, it doesn't make /LFH or /LFB any better.
• Spot - Great ability for people who don't have the location of every trap in the game memorized. If you know where all the traps are, disregard this skill.
• Balance - Max this or you can't take single weapon fighting and you need that for super fighting robot action
• Use Magic Device - This will let you use raise dead scrolls which will make you lots of friends!
• Spellcraft – Gives you rad spell damage. Think of this like your gun powerups.
• Repair – Think of increasing your repair skill like getting more Sub Tanks. The more sub tanks you have, more back up healing.
• Swim – Robots are amazing at swimming, there are so many underwater Megaman X levels.

You'll have extra skill points. Spend them wherever, it doesn't matter too much.

Feat Order:
1 Single Weapon Fighting
3 Insightful Reflexes
4 Exotic Weapon Proficiency Bastard Sword
6 Precision
8 Adamantine Plating
9 Improved Single Weapon Fighting
12 Improved Critical Slashing, Offhand Versatility
15 Greater Single Weapon Fighting
16 Quicken Spell
18 Toughness (Or completionist if you have it, or evocation focus if you want more rune arm stats)
20 Maximize Spell
21 Epic Overwhelming Critical
22 Perfect Two Handed Fighting
24 Toughness (Or greater evocation focus or past life wizard if you have it)
25 Perfect Single Weapon Fighting
27 Epic Damage Reduction
28 Tactician
31 Two Handed Fighting Speciality

Enhancements

The enhancements really make this character what it is. The battle engineer tree keeps your rune arm half charged at all time, gives you haste boost, and a lot of extra damage with your melee weapon. As well, the Harper tree lets you take easy abilities to enhance your damage, like extra intelligence, know the angles, and intelligence to hit and damage. This character will attain a monstrous intelligence, so know the angles is extremely useful. Finally, the warforged tree will make you tanky as all hell, giving life, fortification, and more life.



Battle Engineer (41 Points)
This tree is good because it empowers your rune arms heavily and also grants you a large amount of melee damage. Then hand and a half bonuses give you extra hit and damage with your bastard sword, as well as Haste Boost to up the damage. Your Cores enhance the damage of your weapon as well, making your base damage extremely high. The tree also makes your rune arms have a stable charge of tier 3. This means that you always have a good amount of damage out of your rune arm when fired, and if you are in melee combat standing still you can easily reach tier 5 for very high single target burst damage. The trip from thundershock weapon is your main crowd control and will always be useful.

Renegade Mastermaker (10 Points)
Renegade provides this build with some much needed crowd control in the form of mighty slam, as well as a cleave attack for some actual melee based AOE instead of just rune arms. Not only this, it grants magic missile immunity and the ability to pass that immunity to allies in a pinch. Lots of life too, it's a great tree to splash in.

Harper Agent (13 points)
Harper Agent grants this build some Int, as well as intelligence to hit and know the angles. Know the angles will pump damage by about 20 points at end game as well as giving 20 points for thundershock weapon and mighty slam making it invaluable to this build. Go get it!

Warforged (16 points)
Consitution. Fortification.The warforged tree is way better than it was before, giving you 20 PRR, 8 AC, and 15 melee power. This tree is super good. LIFE

If you have more racial points, spend up the renegade master maker tree as you get massively tanky from doing so.

Epic destinies



Legendary Dreadnaught (35 points)
This tree is the bread and butter of artificer. It has more action boosts, it has more hit chance, it has the amazing super mega stun dire charge that is also a trip so it works on basically every single enemy in the entire game. Beyond that it also grants your sunder the ability to reduce fortification by 100% on enemies, which lets all your allies critically hit and sneak attack even on pesky big champions! This tree also has good defenses and the attack lay waste allows you to not only freely critically strike whole packs of monsters, but also allows you to break any form on crowd control on you every 30 seconds, making your will save not be as important as it normally would be.

Grandmaster of Flowers (11 points)
This tree provides stunning DCs for dire charge, as well as more melee power, health, strikethrough, and damage reduction bypass. Chose a metal from Adamantine/Cold Iron/Silver that you don't current use as your main hand, and choose good if you don't have it. If you have it then chose lawful. And if you have THAT then choose evil, you never need chaos damage.

Primal Avatar (14 Points)
This one might seem strange, but the primal avatar mantle is extremely strong and good and all you need to make it work is some lightning spellpower, cold spellpower, and sonic spellpower. You will be able to easily gear these out, and if not you can simply get some augments to fill up the games. Additionally you get spell DCs and evocation DCs which is useful for your rune arms and also belting out some free auto crit tactical detonations.

Powerups - Rune Arms

Before we talk about the different rune arms, lets talk about why you should use them and why they should never be overlooked. First, they look cool amazing. Second, they scale off spellpower and spell crit. It is very important that you keep your spell power high and to try to add in spell crit for your prominent rune arms (lightning/fire/force in early levels, Acid/Fire/Force in late levels). Finally, using the rune arm will not interrupt any of your other actions, so as long as you are able to tap the button to fire your rune arm you can do it as 100% bonus damage. Firing the rune arm will not interrupt ANY action. You can use it mid swing, you can use it while dancing and still be dancing; hell you can even use it underwater!

Rune arms are not made equal. Some are significantly better than others. The ones that stand out are as follows:
(Level 5) Chimera's Breath: This rune arm is the standard for rune arms. Frontal AOE that gets bigger with a bigger charge, good damage, charge tier of three and it has good stats. It even gives bastard sword proficiency! A great pick up that isn't too hard to get, you can find this bad boy as the end reward of The Sentinal's of Stormreach chain. BtA

(Level 5) Strinati's Hand Cannon: The best rune arm in the game, this hand cannon boasts double dipping on damage. This hand cannon deals equal parts fire and bludgeoning damage. As a result, it scales off both fire spellpower and physical spellpower. It also deals double the damage that it says, since it applies as two damage types. Insanely strong, it also comes with a price. You can find this item from the chest of Strinati the pirate in Three barrel Cove. He always spawns just outside of two toed tobias, but the drop rate is so low I ransacked 13 characters and still didn't get one. I did watch the entire show “Stranger Things” during that time, so it wasn't a total loss. You can sometimes find this on the shard auction house, but it's rare. This item is bind to character on equip.

(Level 9) Hand of the Tomb's: This handcannon will not do as much damage as Strinati's, but if you are unable to get strinati's than this will be your undead slaying handcannon. The imbues will let you 1 shot undead with melee attacks, which is useful. Regardless of whether you need it or not, the exploding fire shot hand cannons are useful for lighting torches or setting tents on fire in quests, so make sure you dive into The Chamber of Raiyum to snag yourself one. It is BoE and can sometimes be found on the shard auction house.

(Level 10) Blight Inferno: Fantastic levelling handcannon. Grants spellpower and spell crit for maximum damage while being a cone shot for what you want as a melee. This is the first T4 hand cannon you can acquire and it curses as well! Being a will save, most monsters will end up failing at this level.

(Level 13) Arcing Sky: A direct upgrade from chimera's breath and definitly a go to while leveling. This drops from the blue dragon in Gianthold Tor but it's BoE and is one of the more popular rune arms on the AH.

(Level 13) Arm of the Archon's: This force shot rune arm is amazing. First, it gives you spellpower so you can save an item slot on that. Second, shot abilities are great in melee since all 5 shots (if charged to max) can shotgun a target for hilarious burst damage. Finally, this rune arm is only supposed to charge up to tier 4 but is bugged and charges up to tier 5. this lets you get some crazy 2500 damage burst from this weapon, liquifying basically any boss you run up against. Get one of these out of The Archon's Trial as fast as you can. BtA

(Level 14) Corruption of Nature: This hand arm cannon gives you access to acid damage for whenever the need arises. The epic version also gives insightful intelligence which is useful for boosting your melee strength. A Diamond in the rough, this badboy can be found from Outbreak, but is very easy to aquire from the chain reward of Druids Deep.

(Level 15) The Arc Welder: Lightning Storm, the highest damage shot in the game. This bad boy shoots 3 balls of lightning that travel through targets and do unreal amounts of damage. At max charge tier this can hit for over 8k easily, and that's to an entire group. A truly amazing weapon, it even has a unique shot animation. Easily one of the best, and if you can get it it is amazing in legendary as well.

(Level 24) Glass Cannon: A direct upgrade to Strinati's handcannon, except this bad boy can charge up to tier 5. Insane damage potential, but it has the downside of coming from the Crystal Cove event. You also need to be high level to acquire this one, so if you can't get it while the event is around get ready to wait 4 months to get another chance.

(Level 29) Machination of Madness Extremely high physical damage, incredible effects, and it shoots bees. It works like how you wished the Bee's in Bioshock worked after watching the trailer. This only drops from Legendary Hound of Xoriat, but it's the best single target gun in the game. The recharge time combined with the impulse and repair amp make it the best one out there. BtCoA

(Level 29) Legendary Supressive Fire
Super strong, very high base fire damage, gives fire spellpower so you don't need it on gear, just a good shot. this item also doesn't require a super high save due to being a will save and not a reflex save. Very strong, do recommend.

If you are worried about rune arms, I got to 30 using Arm of the Archon's, Corruption of Nature, and Arcing Sky without any issues. You don't need to best rune arms, but having Toven's Hammer/Glass cannon/Machination of Madness are required to top tier LE performance.

Rune arms are awesome and will be a great part of your Maverick Hunter Kit. Let's talk aobut how they work and how to maximize the damage.

Understanding Rune Arms

For starters, lets look at the damage they deal.

• Rune arms Scale 100% with Spellpower
• Rune arms can crit, and their crit is based of your spell critical chance
• The DC of Rune Arm blasts is: 10 + Current Charge Tier + INT modifier + Max Charge Tier + Evocation Feat Bonuses

As you can see spell modifiers are important, as well as Evocation DCs. This means that to maximize damage, you want to have the spellpower of your currently equipped rune arm and anything to add evocation DCs.

To use them in combat, you need two components. First, take the feat Rune Arm Use ad put it on your action bar. When this feat is toggled on (which it should be at all times once you hit level 12 and take the enhancement tactical mobility) it will cause your rune arm to be charging at all times. To fire it, you just need to press the fire rune arm key. Rebind this key to something easy to press because you will be pressing this button a lot. I bind mind on my mouse so I can constantly hit it with my thumb. You will constantly be hitting this button because firing a rune arm will not interrupt ANY ACTION. Casting a spell, melee attacking, dancing, swimming, doesn't matter. This means the rune arm is 100% free damage and should be used as such. Arm of the Archon's will be adding 2-3k DPS on a single target, with Machination of Madness adding about 6-7K DPS. It's free damage, it just requires practice to use and keep active. Practice this skill as it is the most important skill this character has. If you just melee, you won't have as much fun and your damage will not be even remotely close to the potential damage.

How to play

This character is a melee and as such doesn't have an issue keeping damage high during the leveling process. As well, having access to rune arms can help with picking of ranged targets and getting past monster immunities.

Low levels (1-8)
The early levels will be easy street. Your melee attacks won't be fully optimized since you won't be able to start using bastard swords until level 4. Until then, simply use the spell Master's Touch to be able to use all martial weapons and then just use whatever the best 1-hander you can get your hand on. Make sure to keep a Muckbane handy so you aren't constantly breaking weapons. On korthos and when running harbor quests, your damage will be more than enough to clear those quests easily on elite. Access to easy self healing with repair spells and having adamantine plating will let you shrug off most damage. Once you have access to bastard swords you will want to start investing in the battle engineer tree and the hand and a half weapons enhancements. If you can get strinati's hand cannon, once you hit 5 you will notice full groups just melting to your assault.

Mid levels (9-14)
This level range does get harder but you also get access to better weapons and better tools for doing damage. Your rune arm damage increases with every level you go up as well as your melee damage. You will be able to keep your rune arm at charge tier 3 at all times starting at level 12, giving you easy bust damage for groups.

High levels (15-20)
This is where the rune arm use will make or break a player. With access to Arcing Sky and Arm of the Archon's will keep your damage high enough to handle harder quests like the Vale of twilight and the inspired Quarter. This level range gives access to amazing spells, like Reconstruction for healing, Blade barrier for fast zerging damage, and deadly weapons to up your damage. Bastard swords giving a base D10 damage is really good when you get up it by a full [W].

Epics (20-30)
For playing in epics, Legendary Dreadnought will provide the most damage possible. A lot of melee power, increase damage on crits, more action boosts and uses of action boosts, and blitz. With the attack speed available in this build, keeping blitz up should be a breeze. As for twists, Sense weakness will give you the most damage overall when combined with dire charge and/or burst of glacial wrath, where as energy burst will give much more burst damage. Your burst won't be quite as high as a fully specced sorcerer, but you should be able to still hit 12k crits at level 30.

Dire charge makes the game a joke. Use Dire Charge.

Alternate builds

There are two alternate builds I can see.

1. 18 Artificer/2 Rogue for evasion.
Taking rogue lets you have evasion, but that also means you cannot use adamantine plating. This build is for those who really want evasion, although with adamantine plating and heartwood you will take very little magic damage in the first place and will be much tankier against physical attacks. Doing this also loses you the Battle Engineer capstone, which gives +2 to hit and damage along with the added spellpower from making your mainhand a spellcasting implement.

2. 18 Artificer/2 fighter for 2 free feats.
This gives you access to two extra feats such as power attack and cleave or weapon focus slashing and ???. Again, you lose the Battle Engineer capstone, which gives +2 to hit and damage along with the added spellpower from making your mainhand a spellcasting implement.

Keep in mind that rune arm damage scales off ARTIFICER LEVEL, not character level. As a result, since rune ams are a large chunk of your damage it is a bad idea to multi-class with this type of build.

Cool Powerups

As you play through the game, you will be able to get cool items for your maverick hunter. Here are some you can get along the way, so make sure to find the items in each level.

Leveling:
Level 5 - Voice of the Master, Mantle of the Worldshaper
Level 7 - Spinal Tap
Level 13 - Pansophic Circlet, Armband's of the Silenced Ones
Level 16 - Templar's Retribution

Frequently Asked Questions

I haven't played Megaman X, I don't get it.

It's a good game, I highly recommend it. One of the best platformers out there. X1-X6 are fantastic.

How does this compare, DPS wise? Can I play this at endgame?

This build is C tier DPS. Decent melee damage, but it can't capitalize on critical hit damage as well as the good melee builds. As well, since some of the damage is elemental (from rune arms) or it won't always work against things like shroud portals or immune monsters. However, it is tanky, can heal itself and other warforged, disable traps no problem and is really fun to play. On the same DPS tier as Feydark Melee Cleric and War Soul. It outperforms repeater artificer.

You can play this at end game! This build will get a DC for tactical detonation to be high enough that you can still provide crowd control and your damage at the same time. Then you are using all of the sets listed, you should actually have a sizable amount of damage potential with this build (10k single target).

This is my new favourite character. When's your next guide coming out?

Later. Some point.

Conclusion

Thank you for reading. I hope you have fun hunting your own mavericks and collecting a set of power unlike any other. Melee artificer is a lot of fun and is a very different way to play the game since it lets you use your own skill and micro to maximize damage, instead of some melee classes which just require you to hold down the mouse button. Sadly, there is no way to get an air dash into this build, and Standing Stone Games doesn't allow wall climbing (yet). Still, hunt those mavericks and some day we might finally stop Sigma.

[szkuwa]

Logged in to my old forgotten forum account just to reply to this thread which IMO is not getting enough attention!

Few days ago I've LR'ed my old lvl 11 Arti to this build and I'm having a blast.
I'm don't have best items (most of them are from before random loot update) and gameplay is not as easy as doing pew-pew-pew from distance but it sure is refreshing, not to mention I can, too, play with sound now.

I don't have lv12 yet so no stable tier3 or running with full movement speed which can frustrate especially when playing with group but the most difficult atm for me is shooting runearm while in melee range.
I have chimera breath, hands of the tomb and a few more lvl1-7 runearms and the easiest is the pea shooter due to its homing missiles the rest is just clipping thru groups of mobs flying far away not hitting anything.

Do you have any hints? Do you shoot with auto-targeting off and at your feet or do you step back and reposition every time you shoot or something else?

[Rykka]

Just saw this thread and decided to bump it. It's well written and entertainingly hyperbolic. As everyone knows hyperbole is the mark of any excellent build.

Cheers.

[domnslave]

I'm currently leveling this build to round out the last of my artificer lives. It does fairly solid in the melee dps, though has numerous issues in the defense area. Even with displacement clickies and perma blur, i'm almost always losing 1/2 - 3/4 of my health each combat engagement with multiple mobs.

* It would seem that adamantine body + docent doesn't provide the same PRR / MRR as heavy armor on a fleshie.
* Effective use of runearms in melee combat has been a laughing stock. To get the handcannon to damage enemies i'm in melee with, i have to jump and shoot under my feet and even then it's a 50/50 chance of actually hurting mobs. On that note, using the arcing sky type of runearm has horrible range and doesn't hit nearly as many mobs as say the Scorch Spell or even Burning Hands.
* Artificer dog with 3x druid lives, harper boosts, ship boosts, and augment summoning still gets his metal arse handed to it constantly ... thus being shelved as a high-stat lever pulled and to carry my stone when i die.

Other than these issues.... it's been refreshing so far to not need to turn off the audio due to the plink plink plink of the repeater! I'm closing in on 14th and have a Toven's Hammer waiting at 19, hoping the runearm dps will be better in melee at that point. Blade Barrier will make up for some of that soon as we all know.

Cheers!

[TheWalruss]

Adding 3 paladin levels for survivability could easen things up?

[adrian69]

I'm currently leveling this build to round out the last of my artificer lives. It does fairly solid in the melee dps, though has numerous issues in the defense area. Even with displacement clickies and perma blur, i'm almost always losing 1/2 - 3/4 of my health each combat engagement with multiple mobs.

* It would seem that adamantine body + docent doesn't provide the same PRR / MRR as heavy armor on a fleshie.
* Effective use of runearms in melee combat has been a laughing stock. To get the handcannon to damage enemies i'm in melee with, i have to jump and shoot under my feet and even then it's a 50/50 chance of actually hurting mobs. On that note, using the arcing sky type of runearm has horrible range and doesn't hit nearly as many mobs as say the Scorch Spell or even Burning Hands.
* Artificer dog with 3x druid lives, harper boosts, ship boosts, and augment summoning still gets his metal arse handed to it constantly ... thus being shelved as a high-stat lever pulled and to carry my stone when i die.

Other than these issues.... it's been refreshing so far to not need to turn off the audio due to the plink plink plink of the repeater! I'm closing in on 14th and have a Toven's Hammer waiting at 19, hoping the runearm dps will be better in melee at that point. Blade Barrier will make up for some of that soon as we all know.

Cheers!

The types of Rune Arms make a difference. Using one that blast in cone shape instead of shoot shots help make a difference in melee and more effective, thought they do less damage. It's true that Docents lack 10 PRR, but that is due to Bladeforge immunities and becomes less of an issue when you peak around a 100. The only way to make up MRR is to find an insight item and wear mysterious cloak or bracers. Lastly, Heartwood should be the only docent being worn now until level 29 when Celestial Docent becomes available, then it's a choice between it, slaver's docent, and L Heartwood.

[Kragon]

I levelled up my first Artificer, and TRed him last night and decided to try this build out and see how it performs.
so far I am enjoying it.

I have a question on the choice of feats at level 4, why Precision instead of Weapon Focus:Slashing?
Does the Precision allow you to always hit your target when locked on in melee combat? Or am I missing something, and does it effect Runearms that is not listed on the Wiki?

[KomradKillMachine]

if they add +1 to crit threat, +1 to crit multiplier in the enhancements somwhere this build can be an A-lister.
They could limit weapons to B.Swords, and All X-bows. It'd be nice.

[Fecerak]

TRed to something similar to this yesterday. Had a strinati that I found cheap on the AH (150k plat or smth I think). Doesn't actually seem to be dealing double damage, just regular damage split into 2 parts basically. So each invidual damage number is half as big, but overall damage is the same as other rune arms. Also has been pretty annoying to fire rune arms in melee because when mobs are close to you the shots often just go in random directions hitting nothing, which is why I've started using the house D chain rune arm for now, as the cone is fairly reliable and hits most nearby mobs in melee.

Anyone know what affects caster level for rune arms? Says x damage per artificer level, so obviously more levels means more damage. But what about epic destinies or bonus caster levels from draconic elemental bonuses, etc.? Do these also increase rune arm damage? Any other bonuses? Was planning on trying to find out this life how much damage a build optimized for a rune arm can output with the rune arm itself.

[domnslave]

TRed to something similar to this yesterday. Had a strinati that I found cheap on the AH (150k plat or smth I think). Doesn't actually seem to be dealing double damage, just regular damage split into 2 parts basically. So each invidual damage number is half as big, but overall damage is the same as other rune arms. Also has been pretty annoying to fire rune arms in melee because when mobs are close to you the shots often just go in random directions hitting nothing, which is why I've started using the house D chain rune arm for now, as the cone is fairly reliable and hits most nearby mobs in melee.

Anyone know what affects caster level for rune arms? Says x damage per artificer level, so obviously more levels means more damage. But what about epic destinies or bonus caster levels from draconic elemental bonuses, etc.? Do these also increase rune arm damage? Any other bonuses? Was planning on trying to find out this life how much damage a build optimized for a rune arm can output with the rune arm itself.

Firing cone / fireball type runearms in melee takes practice, I'm level 20 in this build now and with cones you need to do a quick 1 stepbackward and boom. With the fireball types just jump and shoot down. As for you runearm caster level, nothing boosts it. The damage output is based on charge tier and total artificer levels. Epic levels and ED's that boost arti caster level do not boost this as it's tied directly to the number of arti levels you have, not the effective arti caster level.

Level 20 Epic Templar's Retribution is nice, Level 23 Nightmare from CitW is useful until Epic Spinal Tap / TF / LGS. Once I got to 19 I equipped my Toven's Hammer which when combined with Lightning motes (quickened) makes for some nice big purple numbers.. 4-5 balls hitting for 800-1200 per ball.

[Fecerak]

Wiki says at least song of arcane might from bard boosts the rune arm, suggesting that there should be some ways to increase the damage?

[Bob_SonOfBob]

Thanks for posting and, what's more, recently updating this build. I've been running an (admittedly laughably sub-optimal) Artificer-15/Paladin-5 32pt 1st life SWF toon for a while; the recent artificer pass and elements from this build have greatly improved it.

I've yet to make the move to a full Artificer-20 build - I'm finishing up some arcane epic xp to get Arcane Pulse during the LR - but I'm planning something like the build below.

I've cut out THF (should that still be there? Doesn't SWF prevent you taking THF?) and a few things to take Power Attack and Cleave-y things instead. and added things to increase effects for glancing blows, to improve aoe melee. I've also shifted feats to optimise use of the bonus artificer feats, which likely makes it harder to level with, but then I'm intending LR'ing into this. Also I'm limited on Twist points for now, so no Sense Weakness.

Any comments? Any obvious issues?


UnnamedMeleeArtificerToaster
Artificer 20
Neutral Good Warforged


Stats
. . . . . . . .32pt . . Tome . . Level Up
. . . . . . . .---- . . ----. . .--------
Strength. . . . 12. . . .+3. . . .4: INT
Dexterity . . . 10. . . .+3. . . .8: INT
Constitution. . 18. . . .+3. . . 12: INT
Intelligence. . 18. . . .+3. . . 16: INT
Wisdom. . . . . .6. . . .+3. . . 20: INT
Charisma. . . . .6. . . .+3. . . 24: INT
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28: INT

Skills
. . . . . 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 . 4. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 23
Disable . 2. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 2. 2. 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
Balance . 2. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. ½. . .11
Jump. . . . . . . .½ .½ .½ .½ .½ .½ .½ .½ .½ .½ .1 .1 .1 .1 .1 .1 . . 11
Swim. . . . .½ .½ .½ .½ .½ .½ .½ .½ .½ .½ .½ .½ .½ .½ .½ .½ .½ .½ .2 .11
Tumble. . 1. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
. . . . .------------------------------------------------------------
. . . . .32. 9. 9 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11
. . . . .32. 9. 9 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 12


Feats

.1. . . . : Insightful Reflexes
.3. . . . : Power Attack
.4 Arti . : Single Weapon Fighting
.6. . . . : Cleave
.8 Arti . : Exotic Weapon: Bastard Sword
.9. . . . : Improved Single Weapon Fighting
12. . . . : Great Cleave
12 Arti . : Adamantine Body
15. . . . : Greater Single Weapon Fighting
16 Arti . : Improved Critical: Slashing
18. . . . : Quicken Spell
20 Arti . : Maximise Spell
21 Epic . : Overwhelming Critical
24 Epic . : Burst of Glacial Wrath
26 Destiny: Perfect Single Weapon Fighting
27 Epic . : Epic Damage Reduction
28 Destiny: Perfect Two Handed Fighting
29 Destiny: Arcane Pulse
30 Epic . : Epic Reflexes
30 Legend : Scion of: Plane of Fire

Enhancements (80 AP)

Battle Engineer (41 AP)

• Battle Engineer, Infused Weapons, Infused Armor, Infused Weapons II, Infused Armor II, Master Engineer
  1. Hand and a Half Training, Field Engineer I, Field Scrapper III, Thaumaturgical Conduits III
  2. Hand and a Half Training, Caustic Strike III
  3. Hand and a Half Training, Shatter Defenses III, Intelligence
  4. Hand and a Half Training, Haste Boost, Agility Engine III, Intelligence
  5. Reconstructed Edges, Weapon Attachment, Thunder-Shock: Melee, Unlock Potential, Tactical Mobility

Harper Agent (20 AP)

• Agent of Good I, Intelligence, Agent of Good II
  1. Harper Enchantment, Strategic Combat, Awareness II
  2. Know the Angles III
  3. Highly Skilled III, Strategic Combat, Intelligence

Warforged (19 AP)

• Improved Fortification, Warforged Constitution, Improved Fortification II, Warforged Constitution II
  1. Mechanist III, Inscribed Armor III
  2. Warforged Tactics III
  3. Improved Power Attack III, +15 Melee and Range Power

Destiny (24 AP)

Legendary Dreadnought

1. Legendary Tactics III, Extra Action Boost I, Constitution
2. Momentum Swing III, Imp. Power Attack, Constitution
3. Lay Waste, Critical Damage III
4. (none)
5. Advancing Blows, Devastating Critical
6. Master's Blitz

Twists of Fate (15 fate points)

1. Malicious Weapons (Tier 3 Fury)
2. Technician (Tier 1 Shadowdancer)
3. Unearthly Reactions (Tier 1 Magister)
4. Purge the Wicked (Tier 1 Crusader)

[unbongwah]

Doesn't SWF prevent you taking THF?

Correct.

Something which was just pointed out to me that I had missed in the latest patch: the devs revamped the tome progression table so they now kick in at lower levels.

• Ability Stat Tomes have new Minimum Levels in which they apply:
  
  • Level 1: Up to +2
  • Level 3: +3
  • Level 7: +4
  • Level 11: +5
  • Level 15: +6
  • Level 19: +7
  • Level 22: +8 (the +7 to +8 Upgrade Tome is currently available as a reward in the new Ravenloft raids.)
  • NOTE: The benefit is not applied until a character first logs into the game world, so the stat benefit is not available during initial character creation or reincarnation, but will apply when the character first logs into the world.

So if I'm reading that right, you could start STR 10 and still be able to take Power Atk at lvl 3 with a +3 tome now. Nice!

Uhh, mind you, I'm not sure what to suggest you do with those 2 extra stat pts you free up. But at least it's an option!

[Bob_SonOfBob]

Re. SWF/THF: Cool, so I'm not going completely mad thinking that then.

Re. Stats: Nice. That'll teach me for not keeping up with Patch Notes. I don't think there's anything that uses Dex anymore, moving from Precision to Power Attack (and those tasty extra dice, damage, and various cleaves ) and being Int-based, so I guess I could take some off that for an extra point of Con. Maybe that'd allow freeing up 2 more AP; instead of taking a Con enhancement I could take Memories of the Last War T4 for the extra Spell Power or AC/PRR, and/or something else.

[Maelodic]

Sadly, there is no way to get an air dash into this build.

Technically you could use Dragonborn to get an air dash, but then you aren't a robot...

Dragonborn tree would be neat for some of the rune arms.
But also a pretty bad choice of race for this build =P

[unbongwah]

Pretty simple, slightly gimped flavor build: melee arty also focused on summoning. 3 druid past lives for the stacking summons buffs is highly recommended.

A Robot and Its Dog
Artificer 20
True Neutral Warforged


Stats
               36pt     Tome     Level Up
               ----     ----     --------
Strength        10       +3       4: INT
Dexterity       10       +3       8: INT
Constitution    20       +3      12: INT
Intelligence    18       +3      16: INT
Wisdom           6       +3      20: INT
Charisma         6       +3      24: INT
                                 28: INT

Skills
          1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
         ------------------------------------------------------------
Concent   4  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  23
Repair    4  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  1  23
Spellcr         2  1  3  1  3  1  1  1  1  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                            2     2  1  3  3  3  3  1  1  1  2  22
Balance   2        1     1     1     1     1              1  1  1  1  11
Tumble       1                                                         1
         ------------------------------------------------------------
         32  9  9 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 10 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 12


Feats

 1        : Insightful Reflexes
 3        : Power Attack
 4 Arti   : Single Weapon Fighting
 6        : Cleave
 8 Arti   : Adamantine Body
 9        : Improved Single Weapon Fighting
12        : Great Cleave
12 Arti   : Improved Critical: Bludgeoning
15        : Greater Single Weapon Fighting
16 Arti   : Quicken Spell
18        : Precision
20 Arti   : Augment Summoning
21 Epic   : Overwhelming Critical
24 Epic   : Improved Augment Summoning
26 Destiny: Perfect Two Weapon Fighting
27 Epic   : Ruin OR Epic Damage Reduction
28 Destiny: Hellball OR Perfect Single Weapon Fighting OR Elusive Target
29 Destiny: Arcane Warrior OR Dire Charge OR Deific Warding
30 Epic   : Greater Ruin OR Epic Reflexes OR Completionist
30 Legend : Scion of: Elysium


Enhancements (80 AP)

Battle Engineer (41 AP)
Battle Engineer, Infused Weapons, Infused Armor, Infused Weapons II, Infused Armor II, Master Engineer
Hammer and Morningstar Training, Thaumaturgical Conduits III
Hammer and Morningstar Training, Wracking Strike I, Caustic Strike I, Extra Action Boost III, Action Boost: Power III
Hammer and Morningstar Training, Shatter Defenses I, Intelligence
Hammer and Morningstar Training, Haste Boost, Agility Engine III
Reconstructed Arms, Weapon Attachment, Thunder-Shock: Melee, Unlock Potential, Tactical Mobility

Warforged (16 AP)
Improved Fortification, Warforged Constitution, Improved Fortification II, Warforged Constitution II, Improved Fortification III
Mechanist III, Construct Stability I
(none)
Adamantine Durability III, +15 Melee and Range Power
Warforged Resolve

Harper Agent (14 AP)
Agent of Good I
Harper Enchantment, Strategic Combat
Versatile Adept III, Know the Angles III, Harper Leadership III

Arcanotechnician (9 AP)
Arcanotechnician, Palliative Admixture
Uncaring Master, Spell Critical
Imbue Defender III

Leveling Guide
Hrp0 Agent of Good I; Hrp1 Strategic Combat; BE0 Battle Engineer
Hrp1 Harper Enchantment; Hrp2 Know the Angles I, II
Hrp2 Know the Angles III; Hrp2 Harper Leadership I, II, III
BE1 Thaumaturgical Conduits I, II, III; Arc0 Arcanotechnician
Arc1 Uncaring Master; Arc1 Spell Critical
Arc0 Palliative Admixture; Arc2 Imbue Defender I, II, III
BE1 Hammer and Morningstar Training; BE2 Hammer and Morningstar Training
BE0 Infused Weapons; BE2 Action Boost: Power I, II, III
BE3 Hammer and Morningstar Training; BE2 Caustic Strike I; BE3 Shatter Defenses I
BE0 Infused Armor; BE2 Wracking Strike I; BE3 Intelligence
BE4 Agility Engine I, II, III; War0 Improved Fortification
Reset Arcanotechnician
Warforged
Mechanist II

Battle Engineer
(none)
Extra Action Boost II
(none)
Hammer and Morningstar Training, Haste Boost
Reconstructed Arms, Unlock Potential, Tactical Mobility
BE5 Weapon Attachment; BE5 Thunder-Shock: Melee; War1 Mechanist III; Arc0 Arcanotechnician
Arc1 Uncaring Master; Arc1 Spell Critical
Arc2 Imbue Defender I, II, III; Arc0 Palliative Admixture
War0 Warforged Constitution; War0 Improved Fortification II; War1 Construct Stability I
War0 Warforged Constitution II; War3 +15 Melee and Range Power; War0 Improved Fortification III
BE0 Infused Weapons II; BE0 Infused Armor II; BE2 Extra Action Boost III
Hrp2 Versatile Adept I, II, III; War3 Adamantine Durability I
BE0 Master Engineer; War3 Adamantine Durability II, III; War4 Warforged Resolve


Destiny (24 AP)

Legendary Dreadnought
Legendary Tactics III, Extra Action Boost III
Momentum Swing III, Imp. Power Attack
Lay Waste, Critical Damage I
Anvil of Thunder
Advancing Blows, Devastating Critical
Master's Blitz, Pulverizer

Twists of Fate (35 fate points)
Summon Dryad Elder (Tier 4 Primal)
Grim Precision (Tier 3 Shadowdancer)
Natural Shielding (Tier 2 Primal)
Hail of Blows (Tier 2 Flowers)

I think the consensus is still that Dryad Elder is the best of the epic summons. I had thought about running in Magister just for Grand Summoner, but it is otherwise a crummy ED for a melee build. Maybe for a caster / pet Arty build someday instead.

[unbongwah]

Third preview of the third arty tree has me thinking of dusting off a WF melee arty alt, as some of the new abilities look cool. Particularly Mighty Slam+Battlefist, because who doesn't want to scream, "Mighty Slam! BATTLEFIST!" into chat every 10 seconds?

I mean I do that already, but now it actually does something!

Not sure about AP split: maybe 41 Battle Engineer / 31 Renegade Mastermaker / 8 Harper? Or 41 BE / 28 RM / 7 Harper / 4 Warforged for more Repair amp.

[frimil]

Why don't you use strategic combat II to get int to damage out of the Harper tree

[unbongwah]

Why don't you use strategic combat II to get int to damage out of the Harper tree

There's no reason not to cast Insightful Damage, so it's 2 more APs you can spend on e.g. +1 INT instead.

[frimil]

There's no reason not to cast Insightful Damage, so it's 2 more APs you can spend on e.g. +1 INT instead.

ok, didn't think of that, and out of curiosity have you looked at the new renegade master tree coming out? If so, would it be a viable option to use to increase dps and ac, instead of the construct tree? also what benefit did you get from 2-handed fighting since you are using a one handed weapon?