I'm going to try to be as constructive as I can here. Just for you Steelstar.

[zehnvhex]

After testing RM for a few hours I was ready to come to the forum and do my regular shtick of vitriol and angst but Lynn keeps harping on me to be a bit more jovial in my criticisms.

Because Artificer is probably my second favorite class in DDO, possibly my most favorite in PnP, and I -really- want to see Renegade Mastermaker be awesome, I'm going to give the best feedback a boy can possibly give.

Ready?

I'm not a fan. It feels like robbing Peter to pay Paul.

It's just...I get the intention behind the tree but it doesn't do any of the things it needs to do in any capacity that can be considered well done. I'm disappointed because I've seen the work Steelstar can do with classes and abilities and this just falls far short of what could be.

RM is not ready for release. (Keep the orb graphics though, they're awesome. More on that later.)

So, here are the problems:

----------

This tree has a -serious- identity crisis. As I'm going down it I'm thinking, "Is this a tanking tree? Melee? Healer? Caster? What?!" Stuff is just kinda all over the place. With the way this tree is designed it feels like it would have been better made as a generic tree like Harper that everybody can have access to. This would make more sense as a warforged racial tree than artificer-specific.

There's simply no focus here and the tree suffers for it. Eldritch Knight suffers from the same crisis and is generally regarded as a trash tree outside of the one splash build that grabs it for the AC bonus.

-----------

If this tree is meant to be a healing tree it needs to be a healing tree. Admixtures aren't affected by quicken. They're slow to cast, have a travel time, lag when exploding, can be blocked by enemies/terrain/other players, and will whiff completely if your target is moving.

This makes it unreliable for normal healing duty. There's -one- enhancement in the entire tree that makes you a better party healer (+MCL on admixtures). An extra 30 seconds of Radiant Forcefield is also nice. That's...about it.

31 AP to save yourself some spellpoints seems a bit steep. At the very least we could use some spellpower, crit chance, maybe crit multiplier? Get rid of some of the tanking stuff that will never see the light of day.

-----------

The constructs are all just bad. The construct visually are pretty neat mind you. Combined with my elemental victory I now have 7 things floating around my head. But that's about it. It bears rehashing. You took bolstering construct which was a pretty OP ability and turned it into something that will never be taken. Please tell me you understand just how flat out bad +5 prr for 1 minute on a 3 min cooldown that doesn't stack with warlock bonus is bad, right?

The healing construct is, again, bad. The saves one is also pretty much awful. I'd like to know the balance design around making it a 1/3rd uptime. And not "We made the decision for balance reasons." The -actual- balance reasons. Like in internal testing did +3 saves when we have 100+ saves at end game make or break a raid? What encounter was made significantly easier for the presence of +2 more PRR 33% of the time considering warlock can give +3 with 100% uptime?

-----------

There is a ton of useless bloat in the tree. Why do we need 3 different abilities to make admixture/repairs slightly less terrible? Why are mastermaker, stronger admixture and conjure component three different abilities? They really should be one, at most.

Why do we need 7 healing SLA's? You have two entire columns devoted to this plus a core plus an additional T5. It's insane.

-----------

Thematically, and I'm speaking as someone who -loves- RM in PnP, this feels nothing like RM. I mean, absolutely nothing like it. The only thing remotely Renegade Mastermaker about the entire tree is Embed Component. Other than that it's a hodgepodge of random abilities that don't really fit. Too much bloat, no unifying theme.

I get that you probably can't do Battlefist (which is kind of the core thing about RM) for licensing reasons or you would have been all over that. But the constructs are all weak to the point of being useless, there are simply far too many heals that all do too little, there's too much bloat to be a tanking tree and not enough incentive to dip on a DPS build.

----------

Thank you for your time.

[zehnvhex]

Also, while I'm at it:

- Palliative Admixture is still bugged (grants only base 20 temp hp/10 sp, no bonus for arti levels).

- Somebody needs to fix the wording for Core 5 battle engineer (s/assist/assists)

[Dunklerlindwurm]

You forgot one important thing in your "usefulness list"

Pure artificer.

They will use this tree 100%

[zehnvhex]

You forgot one important thing in your "usefulness list"

Pure artificer.

They will use this tree 100%

Which build?

Ranged build - Will go harper, racial, even vistani offers better points usage. There is nothing in RM worth grabbing. I mean if you're sooooper lazy you could maybe grab the perma-shield at the cost of some DPS.

Melee build - Again, harper is better for your backup deep splash and depending on the race you pick points would be better spent there. Part of the problem is that building a pure melee artificer is already gimping yourself and RM isn't going to make it not gimp.

Caster build - Nobody does pure lightning arti. Even if they did, again...what exactly are they getting in this tree? There's no spellpower, no spell crit. You'll get more out of harper/battle engineer. So this is a bust again.

Tank/healer build - Are about as viable now as they will be after the change goes live. Going pure arti tank would be like making a pure FvS tank. You can do it because DDO is flexible in that you can do just about anything and make it work, but it's not exactly gonna be meta.

I would recommend actually sitting down on Lamma and testing builds. I tried my hardest to come up with a build that was made -better- by Renegade Mastermaker and just couldn't think of one. I tried to make a build with RM as the focus and it was just...ugh. I mean admixtures are -fun- but also -awful- for healing and the repair stuff is too niche. Going T5/capstone gimps your melee dps even more than it was already was so that wrecks tanking/melee builds.

[SerPounce]

Completely agree regarding admixtures and quicken. Healing spells that you can't use while taking damage and take forever to cast just aren't very useful. I see all the stuff beefing them up and just see bloat unless you can quicken them.

Also agree that T5 is lackluster. Radiant aura was nice in 2010 with 1/10 the damage we take today and muliplying healing amp. With low reconstruct amp and massive damage we take now you're ****ing in the ocean. The whole T5 basically comes down to some extra HP. It needs... something... a big party buff, some solid CC, something interesting.

[cru121]

Caster build - Nobody does pure lightning arti. Even if they did, again...what exactly are they getting in this tree? There's no spellpower, no spell crit. You'll get more out of harper/battle engineer. So this is a bust again.

Currently on a gnome arcanotechnician caster life. Gonna copy that character to lama in a few hours and check it out. I was eyeing the early healing SLAs and maybe the Cleave - I am often in melee range as Blast Rod is fairly short range. The cores for hp. Maybe if the cores granted 5 universal spell power instead of just devotion/recon. I already have Shield from dragonmark so I don't care much about the second core. But it does free a hotbar position.

Maybe 14 AP for 3 cores, 2 healing SLAs, 1 Int and the Cleave thing. I'd have to swap the caster stick for something else I guess.

Embed Component is unfortunately a no-go unless you're a warforged. Not a fan of construct essence. I understand the flavor but it prevents most artificers from taking a fairly strong ability. Discouraging to go that far in the tree for non-forged.

Warding Construct/Bolstering Construct - no thanks

T5 needs something. As I suggested earlier, combine the healing SLA with some repair effect (multiselector) and offer some crowd control or big damage in the free spot.

[zehnvhex]

I tried to find a way to fit it into the critzilla build but everywhere I looked I'd have to give up DC's, damage or crit for an SLA heal that does less than heal scrolls. I ran a quick R2 Running with the Devils and every occasion that I found myself needing a heal I preferred to scroll heal.

I figured "okay maybe the heal SLA's would be nice for leveling" but then you have to delay getting something else and Artificer is one of those builds that always has something nice coming up to get.

----

Anyways...

I played around a bit with 14 cleric/6 artificer going into T5 Renegade Mastermaker. A fully meta'd Cure Critical Wound admixture does about the same healing as an un-meta'd mass cure light wounds for about 1/4th the spell cost. This has all the downsides of being an admixture though (can miss your target if it's moving, moves slow, has a long cast time, etc...).

So you can drop 31 points into Renegade Master maker to save 19 spell points per cast of Mass Cure Light Wounds.

Yay?

[cru121]

Anyways...

I played around a bit with 14 cleric/6 artificer going into T5 Renegade Mastermaker. A fully meta'd Cure Critical Wound admixture does about the same healing as an un-meta'd mass cure light wounds for about 1/4th the spell cost. This has all the downsides of being an admixture though (can miss your target if it's moving, moves slow, has a long cast time, etc...).

So you can drop 31 points into Renegade Master maker to save 19 spell points per cast of Mass Cure Light Wounds.

Yay?

well the test is flawed, you're casting your artificer spells at CL6, no wonder they are underperforming.


Anyway, now on Lama, I can see that Embed Component T4 is a prerequisite for the racial +20% hp. So basically all the (rare) best parts of the tree are locked to warforged or fleshies who intentionally gimp their healing. So basically it's only for forged and flavor builds.

[zehnvhex]

Good point. I'm going to reroll another pure arti and try some pure arti healing after lunch.

So far splashing it doesn't seem to be worth it. Will see what a 100% pure heal build can do.

[gwonbush]

Anyway, now on Lama, I can see that Embed Component T4 is a prerequisite for the racial +20% hp. So basically all the (rare) best parts of the tree are locked to warforged or fleshies who intentionally gimp their healing. So basically it's only for forged and flavor builds.

The now 2-feat line of construct essence is not bad at all as long as you don't play high-reaper. You get better base positive healing amp than a warforged (75% vs 50% with 0 AP spent) with all of the warforged immunties while still wearing the better named armors (compared to docents) as well as the ability to throw quickened reconstructs on yourself. Quickened reconstruct is far superior to any other artificer form of self-healing, hitting my artificer on live for an uninterruptable 1600 hp in LE content, which is still a respectable heal in low-reaper.

[Phoenicis]

8<snip>8
- Thunder-shock weapon (ranged version) is still bugged and doesn't proc the trip effect

Ummmmm, gonna disagree here.

I use thundershock and mobs fall down fairly frequently. Not as often as I'd like, but they do fall down.

[zehnvhex]

I use thundershock and mobs fall down fairly frequently. Not as often as I'd like, but they do fall down.

You're right, it does occasionally work. Something strange is going on though. My tactical detonation says I have a DC of 50, my thunder-shock is at 74 and yet Tact Det is hitting significantly more often.

I'd say "Oh well it's because one is reflex and one is str"

But I main a warlock and I can say with absolute 100% certainty that evard's is a Str check as well and lands far more reliably than thundershock.

So it will land and if I attack one of those CR 0 kobolds in the dojo it lands 100% of the time.

Huh.

[hit_fido]

You forgot one important thing in your "usefulness list"

Pure artificer.

They will use this tree 100%

Well I think some pure artificers will go deep, some will just take a small bite. Others may not dip at all. The funny thing is they removed the two enhancements with +repair and replaced them with some melee stuff so that actually devalues the tree for a lot of pure builds.

I think it's a big disappointment and that replacement tier 4 ability is pathetic. People fantasized about groups of six or twelve artificers running around spamming some temp hp, it could have just been toned down some. The tier 3 construct is way too weak as well. Unlike OP I actually think the tier 2 construct is a cool and different idea - designating one other character you could target and then heal using repair spells. The melee cleave with slow effect is different too so if you want to play a melee artificer that is probably a reason to dip into the tree.

In practice maybe admixture healing will become more viable/popular in reaper? But we aren't supposed to be designing with reaper in mind right?

It's niche, but the change I appreciate most is the construct essence tax goes from three feats to two.

[PsychoBlonde]

Caster build - Nobody does pure lightning arti. Even if they did, again...what exactly are they getting in this tree? There's no spellpower, no spell crit. You'll get more out of harper/battle engineer. So this is a bust again.

Actually, I've seen people playing a pure lightning caster arti. It's disgusting. Lightning-immune mobs are problematic (and weirdly common), but you can always swap to a crossbow even if it's not tricked out with all the bells and whistles. And use your runearm. Plus, if you're epic there's always ruin, greater ruin, and hellball.

But it's a surprisingly effective build.

I plan to invest in mastermaker simply because I wind up healing raids far too often on my arti. I tested it out and the build lets me get a lot out of construct essence while not losing value from my admixture party heals. I like it.

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*.

[zehnvhex]

So, I gave it a serious, -serious- try.

----

Healing/Caster build

The good: Admixtures do allow pretty much for indefinite healing. I don't see it being viable for high tier reaper, you simply don't have the throughput and the emergency healing options are non-existent. That being said, on elite/R1 you can basically just toss out a critical admixture on cooldown spam arcano SLA's while it's on cooldown.

The bad: We can already do that on live without a 31 AP and T5 tax. They're removing critical admixture from arcano and making it a T5 in the new tree. All you really gain is a raise in the max caster level. From a healing standpoint the rest of the tree is...meh? Converter + reconstruct wasn't all that impressive. Admixture use is clunky at best and not something I would rely on for emergency healing. Between cast time, travel time and the lag when it lands before it explodes even under ideal circumstances that's a long wait time.

The bottom line: I wouldn't consider this a reliable healing build. On faceroll content it'll be fine but as soon as you get into anything that challenges your party it's going to fall apart. They simply aren't adding enough to really justify removing an ability from one tree and building a whole new enhancement tree around it.

----

I also messed around some more with melee/tanking hybrids and I just don't see much potential here. It's one of those things where it's like, "Yeah you can do it....but...this is DDO you can do anything." Not long ago I did a monk/favored soul build based on duel-wielding long swords. I wouldn't exactly declare it the next DDO melee meta.

That being said 2.5 minutes of radiant forcefield on my dwarven artificer tank attempt was kinda hilarious. I did less DPS then an afk cleric but I at least looked cool.

[zehnvhex]

In practice maybe admixture healing will become more viable/popular in reaper? But we aren't supposed to be designing with reaper in mind right?

The nice thing about it is that it's basically free (5 sp I think for critical?). The biggest issue I feel, and what keeps me from being willing to bank on it, is there's lag involved.

I did an R2 slavers run with my brother for one test and it wasn't the best nor was it the worst. I'd say 1 out of every 5 or 6 heals wouldn't land for whatever reason. Sometimes it hit the ceiling because I was too far back. Other times a mob got in the way. Sometimes it was because he was moving. A couple times it landed but lagged out and his HP never moved. One time my potion just curved through the wall and I imagine is still on it's way as we speak circling all of Eberron and will hit him the next time he logs into live.

I think what really is sticking in my craw here is that I can already pretty much do this on live with Critical Admixture in Arcano. I now have to spend 31 AP to get back what I already have and they didn't really make it any better.

[Rush007]

I'm a lightning artificer. Have zero problems soloing R3-R4 at 30 with construct essence healing people keep bashing. Have to run in Sentinel for defense and hopefully Renegade can provide some so I can switch to the epic destiny of draconic for a major increase of casting power. Bigger energy bursts, better electric spells, dragon breath! It's not looking good however, just basically 200 hp and some repair SLA's that won't be used over reconstruct which I could have the SLA and a memmed copy of. Potion healing still quirky so not use able. Nice repair amp however.

Upcoming changes -

20 repair amp and 10 mrr from construct exemplar, expendable feat now but will likely keep
2 dc and caster level to electric from core change arcanotech

31 in renegade would give:

about 100 hp from cores
about 10 AC
radiant forcefield SLA - this is actually more solid than people give credit for, can be cast on others, nice duration, big effect
30 repair amp core
repair SLAs (gaining lvl 6 spot)
converter with awful 3 minute cooldown
25 positive and repair spellpower
15 mrr
6 CON, 90 hp and 3 fort save

vs 31 in engineer which most points are a waste for casting except for cores. Do switch to crossbow and deadly/accuracy/ranged power ring for fusillades but it isn't a big thing but does cover lightning immune when needed. What is nice is the 25 PRR and 15 MRR and the better runearm speed and universal power of 24-40 from runearm charge which will be lost going renegade.

Renegade also tied to medium or heavy armor which poses a problems as I run with a robe for beacon of magic. It is possible that medium armor + draconic would be better than robe + sentinel but it isn't very clear cut. Likely not with the current gearset at 30. So not too excited for the tree as it is not doing as advertised and the exciting ability it had was scrapped before numbers were even adjusted or tested.

[Tilomere]

Which build?

A support build to help (warlocks) doing racial reincarnations would be incredible:

Charisma based Non-lawful
2 cleric 15 AP (divine healing/divine vitality/chaos domain)
6 bard 34 AP (spell song vigor/sustaining song/mass Hold sla),
12 arti 22 AP (converter/reconstruct SLA)

You could mass hold/soundburst AoE stun for the warlocks to kill everything, regenerate the warlocks' health with 2 long duration HoTs, regenerate the warlocks' mana with 2 different effects, splash AoE heal the warlocks with potions to counter enemy AoE, trap for the warlocks for more xp and safety so the squishier DC ones don't die to traps, and converter/reconstruct the tank ES warlock that is tanking most of the damage, break boxes with an AoE runearm for even more xp, and toss out charms on champions and reapers.

One of these in a (warlock) group in heroics would be game-breakingly amazing.

[Paladin_of_Power]

The nice thing about it is that it's basically free (5 sp I think for critical?). The biggest issue I feel, and what keeps me from being willing to bank on it, is there's lag involved.

I did an R2 slavers run with my brother for one test and it wasn't the best nor was it the worst. I'd say 1 out of every 5 or 6 heals wouldn't land for whatever reason. Sometimes it hit the ceiling because I was too far back. Other times a mob got in the way. Sometimes it was because he was moving. A couple times it landed but lagged out and his HP never moved. One time my potion just curved through the wall and I imagine is still on it's way as we speak circling all of Eberron and will hit him the next time he logs into live.

I think what really is sticking in my craw here is that I can already pretty much do this on live with Critical Admixture in Arcano. I now have to spend 31 AP to get back what I already have and they didn't really make it any better.

Why not just spend the ap on scroll mastery... use heal, repair and raise scrolls, and call it a day . Does a good job repairing the dog and costs no spell points

[zehnvhex]

A support build to help (warlocks) doing racial reincarnations would be incredible:

Charisma based Non-lawful
2 cleric 15 AP (divine healing/divine vitality/chaos domain)
6 bard 34 AP (spell song vigor/sustaining song/mass Hold sla),
12 arti 22 AP (converter/reconstruct SLA)

You could mass hold/soundburst AoE stun for the warlocks to kill everything, regenerate the warlocks' health with 2 long duration HoTs, regenerate the warlocks' mana with 2 different effects, splash AoE heal the warlocks with potions to counter enemy AoE, trap for the warlocks for more xp and safety so the squishier DC ones don't die to traps, and converter/reconstruct the tank ES warlock that is tanking most of the damage, break boxes with an AoE runearm for even more xp, and toss out charms on champions and reapers.

One of these in a (warlock) group in heroics would be game-breakingly amazing.

So here's my issue with this:

- No warlock worth his salt is taking HP damage. Between feigned health, stanch and evaard's if you take HP damage you were afk picking a new show after binge watching the Office for the 90th time.

- Even if you were scroll healing is, during heroic leveling at least, going to be more effective then converter/reconstruct. I have ~170 heal amp at level 12 combined with scroll mastery trucks reconstruct.

- Breaking boxes...really? There's a warlock in the group. Pretty sure all boxes in the dungeon auto-break when a warlock zones in. Check u32 pretty sure it was in the patch notes.

- Spellpoint regen is nice, sure, but by playing a splash healing artificer instead of something useful is going to extend the length of the dungeon significantly.

- For example the weakness of Warlock is single target boss damage which is something a battle engineer Artificer excels at.

So the question then becomes, what is the non-warlocks goal? Do they absolutely want to play a healer? Then why not play a 14 cleric/6 bard? If they insist on trapping then 12 cleric/6 bard/2 rogue will do just as well.

Do they want to play an Artificer? Then the Slarden build or any variation of 8 arti/6 fighter/ 6 X will be superior.

Do they want to play a healing Arti? If we want to play objectively inferior build archtypes for the sake of flavor then we can justify just about anything. I mean Shriadi EK builds exist. They're awful, but they exist because DDO is built such that you can make anything kinda work.

Does the fact that improved mage armor is amazing and shiradi EK builds exist mean EK is in a good place?

Of course not.

That's basically the problem with RM right now as proposed. Having access to a 5 sp critical wound AE heal at level 12 does not justify the rest of the tree being questionable and/or bad. If someone makes a healing Arti because they want to enjoy the flavor of it does not mean the rest of the enhancement tree is not worthy of being better designed.

Honestly I feel this stems partially from most MMO devs simply not understanding what makes healing fun. Too often all we see are them going, "I dunno...healing rotations lol?" As someone who has been playing healers in MMO's for nearly 20 years now (someone please shoot me) I can honestly say that admixture while frustrating are fun to use but literally nothing else in this tree excites me or makes me want to build a healing artificer.