Quote Originally Posted by Marshal_Lannes View Post
I'm pulling together some ideas for an artificer PL and was wondering if anyone had tried running one using both the inquisitive tree and arcanotechnician giving you access to both strong spellcasting and ranged DPS? You'd want at least 30 APs in each tree and both the T5s are good so you're forced to make a difficult choice. AT gives Lightning Motes SLA, 20 electric spell power, +3 evo DCs, and charged recoil. All are fairly essential for an arty caster. T5 Inq gives No Holds Barred, 10 ranged power, and 30% alacrity. Those take your xbows to submachine gun level. Still, I would lean toward AT. Pick up INT to hit from Harper and that's about all your APs.

In comparison, if I went pure AT I'd splash in Feydark so I'd have greater color spray but then you're sitting around with a lot of excess APs with not much to spend them on. Pure Inquisitive I'd go Battle Engineer and that does increase your xbow DPS but for the price of giving up all your viable casting? Doesn't seem worth it to me.

Feats might get a bit compressed. Having to fit in both casting and xbow feats might be tough. For those used to building artys, could they be squeezed in?

In terms of gear, obviously, both hands are taken up by xbows but the Ravenloft belt comes in handy here giving you electric spell power and lore. I'm sure this hybrid would work just fine in heroics but I'm uncertain what would happen in epics. What ED would I run in? Epics tend to reward an all-or-nothing approach and would I have spread myself a bit too thin?
i would argue against using Inqusitive. I recently did an Artificer life on my main, who mostly playes Artificer Shooter lives, and did a Dragonborn Arcanotechnician. I stayed using a repeater until level 12, just to make things easier and quick. At 12 I switched to AT and never looked back. At cap, fully buffed, AT wrecks mobs at an alarming rate. Maybe not Sorc/Alchemist level, but room clearing with out much difficulty. Started each fight off with a Tach Det, just to knock stuff down, then hit them with Lightning motes SLA, and then Chain Lightning and Blast Rod if needed. Had my Evocation DC"s over 130, and was pleased at how well the build worked in both Reaper or EE content. I am not now, nor will I ever be one of those players who is always trying to be that R10 guy, but for EE content or R1 AT was easy to play and fun.