Master Maker Tree

[Abilbo]

Just trying to provide feedback here on this new tree. For informational purposes, all i play is an Artificer. All my lives were played as 9/11 arti/whatever i needed to get a class life, all racial past lives were played as an arti, their isnt any other class that fits my play style. I am a repeater user, that when given the opportunity plays a WF Arti as IMHO they make the best ones, as im not really trying to debate which race/build is the best, just providing context as to my play style, to show why i did or did not like some of the new proposed changes.

Before I get into the enhancement line, I wanted to ask about the new feats that Artificers are supposed to be have access to and are they WAI? Empower Healing feat gives +75 Spell power when casting heal spells. This doesn't work on the repair spells, or the SLA repairs. It does work on the SLA curative admixture but to be honest, im not going to take a feat to use that only works on the curative admixture. Will Empower Healing be changed to work on the Repair SLA line?

Combat Expertise. When active this increases the amount of AC you get while decreasing your attack. It adds time to the increase of your spells, but does not effect SLA repairs, allowing an artificer who is not a spell caster to increase his defense. When the proposed changes came out there was a mention that Artificers could use this feat, while not suffering the penalty, currently that is not the case, will the new tree have changes made to allow Artificers to use Combat Expertise without suffering the penalty to spell timers? The reason i ask, is because in the ED Legendary Dreadnought their is a tier 2 ED that you can twist in to grab an additional +20 AC while combat expertise is active. A ED I would twist in except it causes all of my spells to suffer a longer cool down which i wont accept, therefore making the Feat as it currently is, not worth taking.

Getting to the enhancements

Cores -- I like the core abilities. passive HP and Repair is handy. I like the immunity to Magic Missles ( yes i know there are all kinds of way around this, but I always seem to get hit with a magic missle attack about 2 seconds after my buff runs out. Permanent immunity is handy, and I look forward to it being in play. Core 3 is ok, nothing great, but nothing bad either. Having the abilty to toss potions on a player who is incapacitated just to be able to get them back in the fight is handy, not game changing but again, its an ability I would use. Core 4 is huge, +30 repair Amplification which seemed to stack with all other Repair Amp that I had on me was very nice. Standing in a R3 Epic VON 1, I was able to reconstruct myself for about 420 average, non critical. The last 2 cores are simple damage reduction cores that are nice to have when you get bum rushed by a group of champions all hitting you with DOT's.

tier 1 - This level is good, at low levels it allows me to self heal without using a lot of SP and to gain PRR, HP and repair spell power. Any points i put into the Admixture CLW will be removed once I can use either the higher ones, or the core 3. The only reason to spend points into the Admixture is to be able to help incapacitated players out.

Tier 2 - I don't much care for the Melee only attack, but as I dont need to spend points into this to get to the higher tree, It doesn't bother me much. Not every enhancement in every tree is designed to suit every player, so I just live with it.
Converter, this I love. Being able to run dungeons with someone who is not a self healing character, and to be able to help them out is huge. The 3 minute cool down needs to be lowered. Casting this on a player just to have them die 30 seconds later, and then not being able to recast it on them for another 2 minutes and 30 seconds seems unreasonable.
Armor Mastery is good. More AC is never a bad thing.
Stronger admixture isn't something I would use.
The action boost defense or saves is again something I wouldn't put points into, but as I can get to tier 3 without them, i just ignore them, it falls under the "not my play style".
Tier 3 - Conjure component isnt something I would use, potions are cheap and enhancement points are to valuable.
repair Moderate SLA, again, very handy at lower levels to heal and save SP, but will remove the points from it once Im higher in the tree.
Reinforced Armor is like a bacon sandwich with awesome sauce added on, dont change this.
Warding Construct I wouldn't ever use.
The ability score is good.
Tier 4 - Kinetic charge, not my play style, but doesn't hurt me either.
Reconstruct SLA, more bacon added to my earlier sandwich, making this just perfect, cheap SP good heal, don't change this.
Embedded Component. This i like. Raising MRR is very hard to do as a pure artificer. I can live without the evasion as I typically take adamantine body as I favor PRR over evasion. I would like to see the proposed combat expertise added back to this enhancement.
Bolstering Construct inst something I would use. The benefit vs the enhancement cost just inst worth it to me.
The ability score is good.
Tier 5 - Curative Admixture isn't something I would spend points on. I already have the Core 3 SLA and that's enough to get incapacitated people up and moving, and if I need to, I can scroll heal people much better, or use Converter from the Tier 2 line.
InstaFix isn't something I would use. Greater Harper's pin solves most of that and drinking a restoration potion or casting the scroll works just as well.
Paragon Body is good, but not great. Artificers don't suffer arcane spell failure from the artificer spells they cast even while wearing HA or AP. The +4 fortitude saves are nice and the +20% racial HP is nice, but as it comes from a tier 5 it's a costly decision.
Regeneration Construct isn't something I would run at this time. On a R3 Epic quest, I was getting about 20 health once every 4 seconds. Not enough to keep me alive, while in combat, and when I am out of combat Reconstruct SLA is simply much more efficient. If your not running reaper, this is a handy self regeneration, but I would rather have the extra DPS from battle engineer.
Master Maker isn't any good at all. Your repair wounds spells have no maximum caster level. Taking this enhancement i stepped into a R3 Von 1 and tried to use Repair Critical with Maximize on myself and was only able to heal for about 150 average. Significantly lower than the Reconstruct SLA, its not worth the points for what you get out of it.

So my overall impression from this tree? I would give this a solid B. I split my enhancement points up to using 41 in the battle engineer, 3 in the harper tree, to get Strategic Combat, I added 4 points to the WF Racial tree to combine with the 12 I got from PL and Racial Enhancement tome, and then the last 32 points went into the MasterMaker tree. I was able to gain the passive benefits that I wanted out of the tree up to tier 4, while not having to spend points into the things I didnt want to take, like the lower level Repair SLA's or the admixtures.

So how did this affect my character overall? I was level 14 when I transferred to Lamania, and did not have anything with me that was higher than level 14, and those two items were my repeater and runearm. Taking my character to level 20 and standing in the Draconic ED mostly for the added INT and Energy Burst, I checked my character to see how his stats changed.

Level 14 Level 20
AC 72 AC 121
PRR 99 PRR 161
MRR 59 MRR 89
HP 537 HP 879
MP 1334 MP 2313
repair 239 Repair 306

I have to say that I am pleased with how the enhancements worked out. The SLA Repairs and Admixtures are not my play style, but that doesn't mean they are not somebody else's. If you had to play an artificer for 3 lives to get the benefits, you could easily play in the MM tree, stay back using a repeater, and help heal those that are out in front taking the brunt of the damage. The best thing about the SLA's was that you could work around them, and still get access to the higher level tiers without having to waste points into abilities that you wont ever use.

Would I make changes to this tree? Sure. Change SLA Repair's to be affected by Empower Healing feat. It was added to the feats artificers can take, but it only seems to affect the SLA admixtures, and lets be honest, most groups don't slow down long enough for you to try and heal a group of people with an SLA that has an 8 second cooldown. Put the Combat Expertise change into the tree, so that Arificers could use the feat without suffering the penalty. Get rid of warding construct and bolstering construct. Clearly the over all opinion about these is that they are not worth the points. Change them so something that adds AC/PRR/MRR either passive or clickies, for example, Tier 3 Defender, gain +1 PRR and MRR for each Artificer level while wearing a runearm X3, and then Tier 4, Master Defender, Gain +1 AC for each Artificer level while wearing a runearm, X3, prerequisite Defender.

I look forward to this tree going live in the next update. All I play is my artificer and at this point, I have to admit, that the tree as is currently helps my build out.