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  1. #41
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ladislaio View Post
    Seskie
    I am well antiquated with this style of tank. I was the first to post it on the forums. I've tried it with several different races and several different varations on the split, and it is by far the most durable of the options. The way Aasmimar protector stacks with it, and the amazing hands they get, amps the build up further.
    The problem is that this build provides nothing EXCEPT being a tank. It has **** for heals, no party buffs, no damage, almost no threat, no extra added utility. His choices in his US tree make this even worse, no rez SLA, no renewal, no light the dark. Makes for some lovely screenshots of your PRR / MRR / HP / AC, but not actually an amazing build.

    Tanking is like DC casting - it is a pass/fail type situation. Either you have enough tankyness that you can be healed at a faster rate than you soak up the damage, or you do not. Once you clear particular threshold numbers the particular numbers become less important. This is why you see a lot of cleric tanks - you can hit the numbers quite well on 14 clr / 5 paladin / 1 flavor and still be able provide more party utility.

    Ignoring the utility difference (which is huge) here are some comparasons for why I would say the arti split is better:
    Tensers - Yes, you can scroll it on the FTR tank, but this is unreliable. Duration is short, the scroll can be interrupted, Arcane spell failure is a thing, in order to use a scroll you have to put down your sent weapon (which will cost you a LOT of durability, usually over 200 hp now) and if you have a DoT on you already good luck getting it to work!. In theory you can have 100% uptime with scrolling it, in practice you don't. Deep arti tank does have 100% tensers uptime.
    Mixed Healing Support - The arti tank can be healed and recon'd. While a FTR tank has better hamp(given same gear; Seskie's gear layout actually has worse hamp than my arti test did), the arti tank's flexibility allows for it to more easily fit into a party, and in some cases not have to worry as much about some debuffs (healing curses). Only have one healer? have the DC wizard recon the tank, let the healer heal the party. This also gives thoes poor DC wizards something to do during boss fights.
    Displacment - Your displacement clickies last longer on the arti version and you can scroll it without hating your life quite as much. Most things don't have true seeing, you should displace your tank.
    Instant Fix - A resto effect you can use while helpless, which can happen more than one would think on reaper when you can take 300 points of cha damage form some mobs. There is also always the possibility of getting hit by no-save CC(otto's) or CC while you have a debuffed save, and another clicky makes this much less threatening. While you may not die durring a short CC, you are also unable to grab trash off of others.
    Damage - Because of the easy tensers, because of the easy access to int:damage, arti buffs, and not having to use a shield to get high AC, the arti split (given same gear) is able to do more actual damage, and thus can have more threat. Likely enough extra damage to make up for the loss of the threat from t1 fighter. You can go THF with the new trinket for some impressive stats or SWF with a rune arm for some unexpected amounts of dps. Just because you do this doesn't mean you sacrifice the ability to turtle up with a Mirrorplate shield at times either.
    HP % - the Arti tank gets more of its effective HP from hp % improvements. This is important because of how this interacts with the hp % debuff in baba. (My 4.5k hp was with only a 3pc shroud set, Seskie uses a 5pc set for his 5k hp)
    Neg level Immunity - Deadward doesn't quite cut it in some raids anymore. Shadowdragon, Mark of Death, and Strahd all have things that will strip your death ward and then neg you.
    Dodge Cap / AC - Because you can get a much higher AC while not using a shield, you can also get a much higher dodge cap. Tower shields kill MDB.

    ... I'll get some SS of the different builds on the same toon and same gear when lammy opens up for the new quests (and hopefully I can re-import my toon with all his tanking gear). I'm thinking that for pure tanking purposes 13 arti / 6 paladin / 1 wizard is going to come out as the best effective HP with the current gear.
    Here's the problem though, seskie's build is a better tank. It's aimed at the skill/difficulty ceiling where you'll ideally have a like minded party with you. If utility is your goal then warlock or warlock/paladin hybrid is the clear winner. Your build is caught halfway, lacking the dps/cc of a warlock and the pure tanking ability of the top tank. Not saying it's bad, just saying for absolute endgame there is better and up to R5 the warlock is better. And actually considering the CC a warlock tank is likely just better overall at any difficulty. So it's a little different and opens up an option between the existing tanks but that doesn' do anyone any favors unless they just need something, ANYTHING, new to keep playing.

    Quote Originally Posted by PsychoBlonde View Post
    Is it an ultra-strong tree by itself? No, but arti is ALREADY a very strong class. It opens up some options without a lot of power bloat to a class that *really doesn't need it*.
    But they aren't a very strong class, they're a versatile class. There's one build, a caster, that stands out a little but has very severe limitations. Limitations that are being made worse by moving the strong heal to a new tree and therefore lessening the power of existing builds. Having played a caster myself I can tell you beyond doubt it was only strong due to a plethora of past lives and years of game knowledge. In comparison to others it's merely average and other arti's are just simply even farther down the list.

  2. #42
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    Quote Originally Posted by zehnvhex View Post

    Melee

    Final Thoughts: It was even harder to justify splashing into RM on melee. The cleave just isn't enough by itself and there's really nothing else in the tree that's attractive. I kept trying to convince myself that 'free' self heals are awesome but early game I simply don't need them, mid-game scrolls outperformed it and late game i have better options.



    Tank

    Final Thoughts: I could possibly see Arti being a thing for tanking simply to break up the monotony that is fighter/paladin/wizard, warlock or cleric/x. However, tank builds are kinda uncommon as is and if you're going to go that route, most people try to pick the best one anyways. There's slightly more HP and MRR to be had with Arti as primary so I could see that being a thing on content that promotes it (Baba for example).

    Healer

    [/COLOR]

    Final Thoughts: There's nothing in RM that makes you a better healer unless you currently have significant spellpoint issues. I'll be honest, I don't group with pure healers that often and the 'I have healing by default' ones never seem to have spellpoint issues currently.

    I think this is one of those things where in content where Artificer healing is good enough you don't really need it in the first place and in content where you need significant healing Artificer healing isn't going to be good enough.
    [/COLOR]
    Your builds are not satisfying to you because you are trying to force a top tier healer/tank/dps out of a hybrid class that isn't top tier at anything. This is why you have best success with the highest multi-classed builds, with fewest hybrid levels.

    My build embraces the hybrid "do a bit of everything" as a support to a top tier class, and doesn't attempt to be one, which is why I am completely satisfied with it.
    Last edited by Tilomere; 03-16-2018 at 03:27 PM.

  3. #43
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tilomere View Post
    Your builds are failing at top end content because you are trying to force a top tier healer/tank/dps out of a hybrid class.
    His builds are failing because the class doesn't excel at anything and in content where poor classes do well there's much better on the table as far as builds are concerned.

    RM is purely flavor and would struggle to get a sentient nympho excited.

  4. #44
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    Quote Originally Posted by zehnvhex View Post
    So here is what I would propose. It removes a lot of the bloat, adds some more versatility/uniqueness, keeps the focus on tanking/healing -but- makes it more along the lines of the 'Renegade Mastermaker' and less 'Here's 9 healing SLA's'. Feels more cyborgy to me and allows for it to be a melee augment tree as well to make melee artificers possibly more of a thing.

    Numbers obviously can be tweaked so ignore them mostly in favor of what the abilities offer.

    SLA modify T5 Melee Passive Embed Comp 5 Construct 4 Mastermaker
    Reconstitute SLA Melee Activated Embed Comp 4 Construct 3 Stat
    SLA modify 2 Melee Activated Embed Comp 3 Construct 2 Stat
    SLA modify 1 Melee Activated Embed Comp 2 Construct 1 Action Boost
    Cure/Repair SLA Melee Passive Embed Comp 1 Skills Toughness
    Core 1 Core 2 Core 3 Core 4 Core 5 Cap

    Cores

    Core 1 - (Renegade Defender) While in med/heavy/adamintine every core grants 10 hp, 7 repair amp, 1 max dex bonus and 10 repair spellpower

    Core 2 - (Alchemical Shield) +4 alc AC bonus, immunity to magic missiles

    Core 3 - (Flesh integration) +15 heal amp, +5 mrr, +5 prr, +15 positive spell power

    Core 4 - (Reactive Conduit) Every time you are attacked (hit, dodge, miss, etc...) applies a stacking buff. +1% attack speed, +1 AC, +1 PRR. Max 10 stacks, lose 1 stack every 15 seconds.

    Core 5 - (Auto Repair Systems) When you would take fatal damage you are instead instantly healed to full and rendered helpless for 4 seconds. This effect cannot occur more than once every 3 minutes. In addition, you now gain the die hard feat and your unconscious range is extended by 50.

    Core 6 - (Unbreakable Forcefield) Activate to reduce damage taken by 95% (except force/untyped) for 6 seconds. 3 minute cooldown. Can be used while helpless.

    Passive: grants +2 int, 2 con, 10 prr, 10 mrr, +2 dodge, +2 dodge cap, +2 max dex bonus

    Column 1 (Healer column)

    T1 - Grants Cure Wounds Admixture (2d6+2 plus 1 per CL, no CL limit) and repair wounds (repair 2d6+1 plus 1 per CL, no CL limit) SLA's. 12/10/8 second cooldown, 15/10/5 sp cost.

    T2 - Admixture now has 'quickened' animation and travel speed increased by 20%. Repair wounds now also scales at +2 per CL.

    T3 - Admixture now casts cure curse/disease/poison when it hits. Repair wounds also grants 10% elemental absorb for 20 seconds.

    T4 - Reconstitute SLA. Heals target for 15xCL (max 150) regardless of type (negative, positive, repair). 15/13/10 second cooldown, 25/20/15 sp cost. Only quicken meta.

    T5 - Admixture now heals for 4d6+8 plus 1 per CL and casts restoration when it hits. Repair wounds has a small chance to restore 1d8+1 spell points on target. Reconstitute applies a buff on the target that grants +20 hamp/ramp/namp for 1 minute.

    Column 2 (Combat column)

    T1 - (Combat Upgrade) - You are able to upgrade your combat arm with your knowledge of arcane crafting. +3 Melee Power per rank of Artificer Craft Mastery.

    T2 - (Kinetic Discharge) - Cleave attack, deals +3[W] and 1d6 force damage per rank of Artificer Craft Mastery. Scales with 200% melee power.

    T3 - (Potential Charge) - Attacks grant +1 per 3 arti levels to shield bonus (max 5 stacks). Lose 1 stack per 15 seconds. Equipping a ranged weapon clears stacks.

    Can be activated to stun all targets for 1 second per stack. 20 second cooldown. Save is (insert standard stun DC saves).

    T4 - (Slam) - Upgrade your left arm to be able to deliver a quick, powerful blow. Deals 1d6 bludgeon per rank of Artificer Craft Mastery + greater of str or int bonus. Scales with melee power. Knocks target down on failed reflex save for 4 seconds. Targets immune to this effect (Bosses) instead deal 10% less damage for duration. 10 second cooldown.

    T5 - (Combat Optics) - Replace one of your eyes with enhanced waforged components. Grants True Sight, Ghost Touch, 20% fort bypass and your attacks no longer miss on a 1.

    Column 3 (Embed Column)

    T1 - (Cyber Agility) - Replace part of your leg with enhanced warforged components. Grants +10 jump, +10 jump cap, 2% run speed per rank of Artificer Crafting Mastery, +5 balance and +2 max dex bonus.

    T2 - (Reinforce Structure) - While in heavy/medium/admantine, grants +6 PRR and +15% shield AC. Auto-grants construct essence feat. If you have/take construct essence feat at level up or are warforged, gain +20 repair amp and +5 AC.

    T3 - (Magitech Armor) - Infuse your armor with magical components and integrate it with your construct frame. Gain 50% AC from armor and +6 MRR.

    T4 - (Embed Components) - Fully integrate your warforged components. Auto-grants Improved Construct Essence. You can no longer use druid forms, tree form or evasion. +1 prr, +1 mrr per rank of Artificer Craft Mastery. If you are warforged or take improved construct feat, gain an additional +6 con.

    T5 - (Paragon Body) - Grants 20% racial HP bonus and +4 fort saves. No longer suffer ASF. Can be activated to clear crowd control effects and cast grater restoration on self. 1 minute cooldown. While on cooldown, do not benefit from 20% HP bonus.

    Column 4 (Construct Column)

    T1 - Grants 1/2/3 Heal, Repair and Intimidate

    T2 - Select One of the following:

    Warding Construct - Grants you and your allies +7 alchemical bonus to PRR/MRR, +3 alchemical bonus to saves and +4 alchemical bonus to elemental absorb. 10 second cooldown. Only one drone can be active at a time. 20sp cast cost.

    Support Construct - Grants you and your allies 1xArtificer level DR/- and 10 hamp/ramp/namp. 10 second cooldown. Only one drone can be active at a time. 20sp cast cost.

    Offensive Construct - Grants you and your allies 10% fort bypass, +5 hit, +2 dmg. Also every 30 seconds it will attempt to cast a web trap, launch a lightning grenade or drop an acid mine. DC/damage based on Artificer disable device level. 10 second cooldown. Only one drone can be active at a time. 20sp cast cost.

    T3 - Pick another

    T4 - Pick another

    T5 - Regeneration Construct - Active drone will now also repair nearby targets for 1 hp per 4 artificer levels.

    Column 5 (Mastermaker)

    T1 - Toughness. +5/10/15 HP.

    T2 - Action Boost - Pick from Defense (+5/10/15 AC and PRR) or Saves (+2/4/6 to saves, don't fail on a 1)

    T3 - Stat, Con or Int

    T4 - Stat, Con or INt

    T5 - (Mastermaker) - Pick one of 3

    Aggression Matrix - Infuses your combat abilities to their maximum potential. Your attacks have a chance to apply vulnerability

    Reaction Coil - Upgrades your defensive abilities to their maximum potential. If an attack would do more than 10% of your health in damage, reduce its damage to 10% of your health. This effect has a 40 second cooldown.

    Alteration Engine - Augments your support abilities to their maximum potential. Your heals also grant 10% of their value in temp hp. Lasts 6 seconds.
    Numbers are a bit high in places, but the theme is nice.

    Some highlights:

    Reaction Coil - Perhaps make this a Fort Save based Defensive Roll. As you have it it is waaaaay too strong. (Remember how broken Poppy's old passive in League of Legends was? Not that I would know anything about that)
    "per rank of Artificer Craft Mastery" - I *love* the flavor of this for RMM and how it tweaks the scaling of abilities. I'll be sad if they don't make use of this suggestion somewhere.
    (Cyber Agility) - Improving jump cap is WAY too strong and game breaking. In general this is far too strong for a t1 also... Maybe just 1% (stacking) run speed per rank of Artificer Craft Mastery while in medium armor, heavy armor, or addy body.
    (Paragon Body) - I like that this rolls the instant fix into the same enhancement and that using it reduces the 20% hp. Makes using the clickie much more interesting.
    Reconstitute SLA. - I like... but considering how tricky LoH is with targets that have Ramp and Hamp it may not work so well. Then again, they have it working with vamp weapons currently so... in general I think the healer column is better and more funz than what they currently have.
    (Auto Repair Systems) - Far too strong. Have it grant diehard, expand bleed out range, and give temp hp equal to your arti level * 10 (25 if you are epic) when you are reduced below 0 hp, 5 min cooldown (pretty much the barb enhancement)
    Poppytop of Khyber; I have no alts. Sodapoppy, Poppydieslot, and Poppytart may never be seen in the same party as me but, I assure you, that is because of reasons other than their being alts.
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  5. #45
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    Quote Originally Posted by Emerge2012 View Post
    Here's the problem though, seskie's build is a better tank. It's aimed at the skill/difficulty ceiling where you'll ideally have a like minded party with you. If utility is your goal then warlock or warlock/paladin hybrid is the clear winner. Your build is caught halfway, lacking the dps/cc of a warlock and the pure tanking ability of the top tank.
    How much tanking at this skill/difficulty ceiling have you done? That is my preferred environment when I can get the people together to do it. Pure warlock tanks are jokes there, stuff just chews them up and spits them out, and while a Duriblity Defined style build works nicely, it doesn't offer as much as some other tank splits.

    Seskie in particular is taking too many DPS feats on his build for me to take it seriously as an optimized tank.
    Poppytop of Khyber; I have no alts. Sodapoppy, Poppydieslot, and Poppytart may never be seen in the same party as me but, I assure you, that is because of reasons other than their being alts.
    Come party with the Poppy! Join the BrattyTop flight!

  6. #46
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    Quote Originally Posted by Ladislaio View Post
    How much tanking at this skill/difficulty ceiling have you done? That is my preferred environment when I can get the people together to do it. Pure warlock tanks are jokes there, stuff just chews them up and spits them out, and while a Duriblity Defined style build works nicely, it doesn't offer as much as some other tank splits.

    Seskie in particular is taking too many DPS feats on his build for me to take it seriously as an optimized tank.
    Enough to know what I'm talking about.

    And I don't see taking DPS feats on a tank with the best tanking stats while using fighter bonus feats as a bad thing. In fact it would clearly help to hold aggro on mobs that can't be influenced whereas the lesser tanks (non-warlocks at least) will absolutely have to fall back on "versatility" to keep the party up because they'll likely be failing to do a whole lot of tanking. Squeezing DPS out of a tank shouldn't only be taken seriously, but it's also ideal, especially if it still has the best tanking stats.

    The idea of a Arti-based tank is neat, and it's viable. But it doesn't improve upon anything which means it's flavor.

    Don't get me wrong though, I think you're doing good work and clearly showing great aptitude for building. I hope you, or anyone else, can come up with something new and better as that's what keeps the game alive.

  7. #47
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    Default Artificer Tree and Observations

    Being a pure artificer, I can say this tree is truly lackluster. Might be OK for a melee toaster build, but that's where the usefulness ends.

    Admixtures still unaffected by quicken makes tham alot less useful for support healing.

    In DnD, admixtures don't require a material component. You added them to the game way back, and it required a potion. Seriously. Arti's made them with materials onhand. Now, not only do they STILL require a potion, you've added something to make them summon potions, to summon a potion.... Bueller, Bueller? We can conjure a 50-LB rotating turret, without a wagonload of turret parts, but not something the size of a Redbull can.

    The construct is useless. Partial uptime, with a bonus worse than an aura. Anyone spending points on this, let me know, so we can refill that raid slot.

    Multiple admixture healing/SLA's. Actual Artificers only ever had one, that scaled by level, as a class ability.

    Still only one turret choice (fire), which doesn't scale properly by level, so it has the health of a one-legged Kobold, and the damage output of a BIC lighter. It's OK for hitting stuff though a door, if you feel like doing some damage while you go get a drink or something.

    Overall, I can see maybe spending 6-7 points in this tree for some core, but it's got a serious multiple-personality disorder to waste anything else in it.
    Last edited by Nubom70; 03-17-2018 at 09:01 PM.

  8. #48
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    Quote Originally Posted by zehnvhex View Post
    So here is what I would propose. It removes a lot of the bloat, adds some more versatility/uniqueness, keeps the focus on tanking/healing -but- makes it more along the lines of the 'Renegade Mastermaker' and less 'Here's 9 healing SLA's'. Feels more cyborgy to me and allows for it to be a melee augment tree as well to make melee artificers possibly more of a thing....

    -Snip of Great Tree-
    Please, please take a good look at this tree. It's a great idea, a bit powerful in some spots but it is far better than what we currently have on the table. I'm starting to have a strong feeling that both Renegade Mastermaker and the Druid pass should both be pushed back to post U38's initial release as both need far more time baking than they've gotten so far.

  9. #49
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    I think this tree will have it's place for the simple reason hp and cheap sla self healing provide so much self-sufficiency which is important for this game. My first thought was that without the 40 repair amp from bf/wf you really wouldn't want to spend 2 feats for repair vs. fleshy healing, but as long as you have 12 levels of artificer you get 30 repair amp and with 40 I am repairing for 900 at 30 and nearly 2000 crits R3. If I lose a little from the 10 repair amp it's no big deal.

    The biggest weakness is lack of crits in artificer in general for a martial build. Artificer has always been subpar as a pure caster so it's either pure martial or arcane warrior type build as an artificer - both will want a better crit profile. From a crit profile perspective you have a few interesting splashing options:
    - 3 levels of Swashbuckler which also benefits from preferred improved critical treatment
    - Vistani
    - 6 fighter + gnome with light crossbows (3rd kensai core + tier 4 gnome giving +1 crit range and +1 crit multiplier)
    - 3 levels of swashbuckler + tier 4 aasimar scourge with light mace which gives +1 stacking multiplier, but you need 3 ranger instead of 3 fighter or must use a heart.

    So for example 14 artificer 3 fighter 3 bard with the following ap spend

    32 renegade master
    13 stalwart defender
    13 swashbuckler (int to damage)
    8 harper tree (int to hit and kta)
    14 vistani knife fighter

    If you think daggers are weak with only 14 pt in vistani go 11 arti / 6 fighter / 3 bard handaxe instead to get the kensai stacking +1 multiplier along with the +2 range from swashbuckler that doubles with improved critical.

    32 renegade master
    13 stalwart defender
    13 swashbuckler (int to damage)
    8 harper tree (int to hit and kta)
    14 kensai

    If you happen to have 4 racial points go warforged for the 40 extra amp, immunities and extra fort or if you have 12 racial points you can consider a throw your weight around build for even more hp.

    So you get 20% hp from renegade master, a stacking 20% from fighter (untested stacking but I assume so since RM is typed as racial bonus) on top of 90 hp from the RM cores. With the ED changes I would go light armor with a buckler and shadowdancer for evasion, 25% incorporeal and some sneak damage. Or go LD for the extra +2 crit multiplier on a 19-20 for more dps.

    It may not be the top dps build, but it won't be bad dps and between hp bonuses, evasion, 25% incorporeal, displacement clickies that last longer, you have a very hardy character - and I think it would be a good entry point into reaper.

    Anyhow it should be fun and I suspect some strong builds will come from the tree.
    Last edited by slarden; 03-19-2018 at 08:35 AM.
    DC Warlock Reaper Build (U48)
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  10. #50
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    Quote Originally Posted by slarden View Post

    Anyhow it should be fun and I suspect some strong builds will come from the tree.
    RM defensive bonuses including %HP requires embed component, which specifically disables evasion and shape shifting.

    BE requires runearm use, which disables VKF single dagger.

    Arti casters are being propped up in low reaper by the fact that blast rod is bugged and has no save. They aren't as bad in game play as they should be on paper due to being propped up.
    Last edited by Tilomere; 03-19-2018 at 01:14 PM.

  11. #51
    Bounty Hunter slarden's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tilomere View Post
    RM defensive bonuses including %HP requires embed component, which specifically disables evasion and shape shifting.

    BE requires runearm use, which disables VKF single dagger.

    Arti casters are being propped up in low reaper by the fact that blast rod is bugged and has no save. They aren't as bad in game play as they should be on paper due to being propped up.
    If it has no save it benefits martial and arcane warrior builds even more.

    thank you for the info I guess I will need to understand the restrictions before theory crafting, That rules out swashbuckling as an option. Maybe 14/6 gnome with light crossbow.
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    Quote Originally Posted by slarden View Post
    Maybe 14/6 gnome with light crossbow.
    So lets say you want to make a weaponized arti. In heroics one of the highest physical base damage hand and a half BE weapons is the level 13 2d8 +5 Axe of Famine, that hits for 14 base damage plus modifiers. Yay!

    If you swap that Axe of Famine with a stack of 1 damage scrolls of blast rod, you lose 13 base damage. The scroll is usable at level 4.

    The scroll is base caster level 6, but artis get bonuses to caster level, with +5 scroll level by level 13 (level of Axe of Famine). This gives a final caster level of 11 by level 13.

    Blast rod does 6.5 damage per caster level, uses your lightning spell crit chance of around 30%, and W&S Mastery spell power of 75.

    This does a total of 6.5 x 11 x 1.3 x 1.75 = 162 damage (large cone AoE).

    You lose 13 base melee damage per hit from an Axe of Famine, but scroll cast AoE for 162, which commonly will hit for over 1k total in the large mob groups SSG makes in dungeons. As a result, the humorous outcome is that for a weaponized artificer, the best weapon in heroics is a scroll of blast rod. Take the crit penalty. Take the base damage penalty. There should always be a scroll main hand in heroics from 4 to cap. It takes ~80 attacks in six seconds at 13 additional base damage per attack using the Axe of Famine to make up the difference with scroll hitting for ~1k. You are never going to make ~80 attacks in six seconds, even on a full exploit wolf.

    Of even more amusement, is that they nerfed scrolls as weapons in the past. They used to be 5 damage bludgeoning and centering and swashbuckling weapons. However, even post-nerf, they are still the best weapon for an artificer in heroics.
    Last edited by Tilomere; 03-19-2018 at 02:59 PM.

  13. #53
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tilomere View Post
    So lets say you want to make a weaponized arti. In heroics one of the highest physical base damage hand and a half BE weapons is the level 13 2d8 +5 Axe of Famine, that hits for 14 base damage plus modifiers. Yay!

    If you swap that Axe of Famine with a stack of 1 damage scrolls of blast rod, you lose 13 base damage. The scroll is usable at level 4.

    The scroll is base caster level 6, but artis get bonuses to caster level, with +5 scroll level by level 13 (level of Axe of Famine). This gives a final caster level of 11 by level 13.

    Blast rod does 6.5 damage per caster level, uses your lightning spell crit chance of around 30%, and W&S Mastery spell power of 75.

    This does a total of 6.5 x 11 x 1.3 x 1.75 = 162 damage (large cone AoE).

    You lose 13 base melee damage per hit from an Axe of Famine, but scroll cast AoE for 162, which commonly will hit for over 1k total in the large mob groups SSG makes in dungeons. As a result, the humorous outcome is that for a weaponized artificer, the best weapon in heroics is a scroll of blast rod. Take the crit penalty. Take the base damage penalty. There should always be a scroll main hand in heroics from 4 to cap. It takes ~80 attacks in six seconds at 13 additional base damage per attack using the Axe of Famine to make up the difference with scroll hitting for ~1k. You are never going to make ~80 attacks in six seconds.

    Of even more amusement, is that they nerfed scrolls as weapons in the past. They used to be 5 damage bludgeoning and centering and swashbuckling weapons. However, even post-nerf, they are still the best weapon for an artificer in heroics.
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  14. #54
    Community Member zehnvhex's Avatar
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    I think what really sums up the issues with RenM for me is the conjure potions enhancement. The admixture SLA's don't have a material component and you won't be using the regular casts over the SLA's which means the only reason to get the enhancement is so you don't have to carry around poison/disease potions. But everyone has those anyways so...uh...why is this a thing?

    It's still early in the year but I'm pretty sure that enhancement is the winner of 2018's "Most useless enhancement" award. It makes me question the level of QA Steelstar did when that enhancement got on the tree.

    Quote Originally Posted by Ladislaio View Post
    Numbers are a bit high in places, but the theme is nice.
    Yeah, numbers can always be adjusted. Mostly I just wanted to hammer home "This is about turning yourself into an awesome cyborg". The theme behind RenM in PnP is using your Artificer knowledge to enhance yourself so the craft mastery I felt fit in perfectly.

    Right now the theme is "Here's tons of SLA's and uh...oh yeah, one enhancement requires that you have -already- turned yourself into a cyborg via feats so it's not really the RenM doing that."

    Quote Originally Posted by slarden View Post
    I think this tree will have it's place for the simple reason hp and cheap sla self
    Usually when I theorycraft builds I try to do it one level at a time. When you sit down with your level 20/30 in mind and go "okay it'll be awesome and have this and this and this..." oftentimes you can overlook the "yeah but does it suck to play until then?" factor.

    One of my favorite leveling builds is 8 fighter, 5 artificer, 5~7 rogue. The 8 fighter isn't technically better in terms of DPS over 6 fighter and more arti/rogue levels, -however-, the reason I do it is because I'm leveling with it and getting IPS at 12 instead of 15 or later is night and day. 10~11 feels like a sloggish nightmare compared to the zip that is 12+.

    So when I look at the Arti healing and whatnot it's like, "Oh hey it wouldn't be bad to have mm immunity, some SLA heals and..."

    But then I sit down and plot it out and I'm like, "Okay...well first I want EF as soon as possible, then after that I get KTA and int to damage, then after that is fighter +crit, then after that is Arti T5's....okay now I can finally get that healing/mm immunity! Now that I'm level 16, my scroll healing heals for significantly more than the SLA's will so it's really just for MM and do I want to give up the extra dps I can get from rogue enhancements so I can be lazy about wands?"

    That's ultimately what had me turned off when I was making builds on PTR. I'd go level by level but at no point was I like, "Okay this is a good time to get some Arti heals in." Early on you tend to want to go ham on offensive stuff and by the time you have room/freedom to dabble in RenM you have much better options anyways.

    Part of the problem is that RenM doesn't really offer to let you do anything that an Artificer can't currently do anyways. All those SLA heals look pretty tasty sure if I wanted the option to off heal while DPSing but...I can already cast those now on live and I'm not exactly hurting for spellpoints so if I want to heal I already can. RenM doesn't make me better at it by enough to justify the point investment. 31 points and locking myself out of other T5's and getting absolutely nothing that ups my damage just for some AC and 20% more HP doesn't make sense on anything outside of a tank build.

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    Quote Originally Posted by zehnvhex View Post
    That's ultimately what had me turned off when I was making builds on PTR. I'd go level by level but at no point was I like, "Okay this is a good time to get some Arti heals in."
    Just max dps, and lower the difficulty to what available heals can do for max xp/min.
    Last edited by Tilomere; 03-19-2018 at 06:26 PM.

  16. #56
    Community Member edrein's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tilomere View Post
    BE requires runearm use, which disables VKF single dagger.
    You're wrong on this portion. Right now Runearms are the only offhand item working with VKF single dagger.

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    So you can do 41 ap in VKF T4C6, and 36 AP in RM for T5C5 tankyness, and 3 AP in harper for int to hit.

    When you get to stronger epic daggers, that wouldn't be so bad. I still prefer the advantages of a 1 damage scroll in heroics over a 1.5(1d4) paragon dagger.
    Last edited by Tilomere; 03-19-2018 at 11:44 PM.

  18. #58
    Community Member zehnvhex's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tilomere View Post
    Just max dps, and lower the difficulty to what available heals can do for max xp/min.
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    They didn't do Battlefist because they didn't want to do another weapon. They have access to everything.

    Without quicken, healing sucks unless all you are healing are warforged and artificers.

    I will agree that this doesn't really seem like RM.

    Replace the +5 PRR ability with Quicken?

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    Quote Originally Posted by slarden View Post
    i am not opposed to using favorable bugs, but I don’t like to design build around those. it just doesn’t feel right to me.
    So use acid rain or ice storm scrolls. They also have no save, and do the same damage.

    I'm just pointing out that there are no weapons better than scrolls in heroics. Even using the new VKF tree, you get to choose between using a paragon dagger at 1.5(1d4) + 6d6 non-scaling damage single target effects or a scroll of say acid rain that does 1 single damage + 48d4 AoE damage scaling with 75 spell power from W&S mastery.

    One weapon hits for 25 damage single target, the other hits 1 damage single target plus a 200 damage AoE.

    It's almost like we are playing real D&D. Hahahahahah!
    Last edited by Tilomere; 03-21-2018 at 01:38 PM.

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