rune arm DC increase?

[cru121]

• NEW: Evocation feat bonuses now work on Rune Arms.

Interesting. Here's what the wiki says about the topic:

Increasing Rune Arm damage

• Items and enhancements that increase spell damage or create spell criticals also affect rune arm damage.
• Runearms don't benefit from items with a bonus to caster level on Evocation (Infused Chaosrobe, Might of the Abishai).
• Runearms don't benefit from Prestige Bonuses to caster level (Radiant Servant will not boost Candlelight/Coronach/Tira's Splendor, for instance).
• Runearms do benefit from the Spellsinger's Song of Arcane Might.
• The DC of Rune Arm blasts is: 10 + (Charge Tier + 1) + (INT modifier) + (Max Charge Tier - 1) + (Evocation Feat Bonuses)
• Items that increase Evocation DC do not seem to modify Rune Arm DC.
• Different Rune Arms can be resisted with different saves (Fortitude/Reflex/Will).

So do Rune Arms now benefits for evocation focus items?

[CThruTheEgo]

AFAIK no actual testing has been done on evocation DCs on rune arms since EDs were introduced. But my in game experience on my arti shortly after MotU release led me to believe that ED evocation bonuses (magister's evocation specialist and draconic's precise evocation) were not applying as well. I thought this was the case because the difference in saves between my evocation spells and my rune arm seemed to be about what you would expect without the EDs bonuses and item affecting the rune arm. Back then, the best evocation item we had was only +2, and while my spells were rarely saved against, the rune arm seemed to be saved against about half the time which would indicate that the difference was much more than just the +2 item.

That's the best info I've got for ya.

[Steelstar]

Feat-based bonuses to Evocation were supposed to affect Rune Arm DCs. They didn't, and that's fixed for Update 22.

[CThruTheEgo]

Feat-based bonuses to Evocation were supposed to affect Rune Arm DCs. They didn't, and that's fixed for Update 22.

This very old thread seems to indicate that the evocation spell focus feats were being applied. Was that testing inaccurate, or did this change at some point?

What about items and epic destiny abilities, do these affect rune arm DCs? Are they supposed to if they're not?

Can we get an official formula for how rune arm DCs are calculated, including all relevant bonuses (e.g. feats, items, augments, enhancements, EDs, charge tier, max charge tier, etc.), so we don't have to guess or test ourselves?

Thanks for the info Steelstar.

[Steelstar]

This very old thread seems to indicate that the evocation spell focus feats were being applied. Was that testing inaccurate, or did this change at some point?

What about items and epic destiny abilities, do these affect rune arm DCs? Are they supposed to if they're not?

Can we get an official formula for how rune arm DCs are calculated, including all relevant bonuses (e.g. feats, items, augments, enhancements, EDs, charge tier, max charge tier, etc.), so we don't have to guess or test ourselves?

Thanks for the info Steelstar.

The DC of Rune Arm spells is suppsed to be 10 + (Charge Tier + 1) + (INT modifier) + (Max Charge Tier - 1) + (Evocation Feat Bonuses). The Evocation Bonuses were not applying.

With this fix, bonuses from abilities like the Spell Focus: Evocation feat, Arcanotechnician's Evocation Focus enhancement, and the Evocation Specialist ability from the Magister destiny should all contribute to a Rune Arm's DC.

At the moment, item/augment based sources of Evocation DC bonuses do not affect the DC of Rune Arm shots.

[CThruTheEgo]

The DC of Rune Arm spells is suppsed to be 10 + (Charge Tier + 1) + (INT modifier) + (Max Charge Tier - 1) + (Evocation Feat Bonuses). The Evocation Bonuses were not applying.

With this fix, bonuses from abilities like the Spell Focus: Evocation feat, Arcanotechnician's Evocation Focus enhancement, and the Evocation Specialist ability from the Magister destiny should all contribute to a Rune Arm's DC.

At the moment, item/augment based sources of Evocation DC bonuses do not affect the DC of Rune Arm shots.

Excellent. Thank you very much for the clarification

[patang01]

The DC of Rune Arm spells is suppsed to be 10 + (Charge Tier + 1) + (INT modifier) + (Max Charge Tier - 1) + (Evocation Feat Bonuses). The Evocation Bonuses were not applying.

With this fix, bonuses from abilities like the Spell Focus: Evocation feat, Arcanotechnician's Evocation Focus enhancement, and the Evocation Specialist ability from the Magister destiny should all contribute to a Rune Arm's DC.

At the moment, item/augment based sources of Evocation DC bonuses do not affect the DC of Rune Arm shots.

Can't wait to see if that actually makes a difference on AOE based rune arms.

[slarden]

The DC of Rune Arm spells is suppsed to be 10 + (Charge Tier + 1) + (INT modifier) + (Max Charge Tier - 1) + (Evocation Feat Bonuses). The Evocation Bonuses were not applying.

With this fix, bonuses from abilities like the Spell Focus: Evocation feat, Arcanotechnician's Evocation Focus enhancement, and the Evocation Specialist ability from the Magister destiny should all contribute to a Rune Arm's DC.

At the moment, item/augment based sources of Evocation DC bonuses do not affect the DC of Rune Arm shots.

Great change. Thank you.

[CeltEireson]

The DC of Rune Arm spells is suppsed to be 10 + (Charge Tier + 1) + (INT modifier) + (Max Charge Tier - 1) + (Evocation Feat Bonuses). The Evocation Bonuses were not applying.

With this fix, bonuses from abilities like the Spell Focus: Evocation feat, Arcanotechnician's Evocation Focus enhancement, and the Evocation Specialist ability from the Magister destiny should all contribute to a Rune Arm's DC.

At the moment, item/augment based sources of Evocation DC bonuses do not affect the DC of Rune Arm shots.

Thanks for the clarification Steelstar.

But assuming you take magister destinry, 3 levels of evocation focus (unlikely a dedicated runearm user would be taking tier 5 from arcanotechnician) and have about 52 int (which would be towards the top end of int for an artificer I'd think) that means you're getting:

10 + 6 + 21 + 4 + 6 = 47

and 47 just doesn't cut it in either epic elites or even epic hards. Even if you get another +2 from sorcerer epic destiny as a twist and +3 from sorcerer past lives (assuming these contribute) that's still only 52 DC which still doesn't cut it in epic elite. We really do need either some other way of improving runearms DCs or allow evocation items to work with them.

[Steelstar]

Thanks for the clarification Steelstar.

But assuming you take magister destinry, 3 levels of evocation focus (unlikely a dedicated runearm user would be taking tier 5 from arcanotechnician) and have about 52 int (which would be towards the top end of int for an artificer I'd think) that means you're getting:

10 + 6 + 21 + 4 + 6 = 47

and 47 just doesn't cut it in either epic elites or even epic hards. Even if you get another +2 from sorcerer epic destiny as a twist and +3 from sorcerer past lives (assuming these contribute) that's still only 52 DC which still doesn't cut it in epic elite. We really do need either some other way of improving runearms DCs or allow evocation items to work with them.

There may still need to be some balancing of Rune Arm DC's in the future; this bug fix is the first step toward being able to do that. Thanks for the feedback!

[CeltEireson]

There may still need to be some balancing of Rune Arm DC's in the future; this bug fix is the first step toward being able to do that. Thanks for the feedback!

Sorry Steelstar didn't mean to grumble! Thanks for fixing the feat problems, and I know only so much gets done at one time, just trying to keep discussion of it going so that its not forgotten about. I do like playing my arty but its frustrating to see mobs save so often, especially on reflex runearms.

[G_Lich]

Tovens type shot (lightning storm) still blinks out of existence on short races unless you jump on any sort of uneven ground/heightmap. 0 hits is a pretty big reason to not fire and just leave charged for the spellpower bonus. I think this is a step in the right direction but its not worth building around until you can take full advantage of gear based DC as well. I think the reason it ****es me off as an arti is that I invest Soooo much in the runearm tree, 3 sorc pl's, and fire on a group of level 24 slayer trash and still see SAVE SAVE SAVE SAVE, (TRANSLATION: You suck, you suck yousuck, quit trying, and if you try this in EE, DDO will laugh at you harder). I understand its already a source of unlimited damage (if you have the time to charge 30 seconds worth of shots per non-evading trashmob).


Runearms still need help vs. the competition and I'm not even talking vs monkchers.

Please fix the height issue, short races are best for using ranged weps vs dwarf skellies, spiders, and wolves, but ****poor at firing non-shot runearms. This was "fixed" 2 years ago, but I guess that bandaid got crusty and fell off.

Mu'Ray really should have been a weaker blue dragon bolt, I think the bus really got missed there, plenty of posts in octo's loot thread about it. The charge is great though, it's a shame.

[G_Lich]

There may still need to be some balancing of Rune Arm DC's in the future; this bug fix is the first step toward being able to do that. Thanks for the feedback!

posted while i was crying about my hurt arti-ficial heart... +1 +1 +1 fight the good fight.

[bbqzor]

Feat-based bonuses to Evocation were supposed to affect Rune Arm DCs. They didn't, and that's fixed for Update 22.

At one point they did, this was tested by several people and I also tested it myself. The most recent my test could have been was 2012, so plenty of time for it to become bugged. But it is nice that the bug was found and is being fixed. Rune Arm DCs are critical to artificer class identity, and any support is good support.

With this fix, bonuses from abilities like the Spell Focus: Evocation feat, Arcanotechnician's Evocation Focus enhancement, and the Evocation Specialist ability from the Magister destiny should all contribute to a Rune Arm's DC.

Can we assume this also includes the Precise Casting in Draconic and Transcendental Magic in Exalted? The epic destinies never did apply, I tested that as well, so it would be a nice boost to have those three (including the magister one) begin applying.

At the moment, item/augment based sources of Evocation DC bonuses do not affect the DC of Rune Arm shots.

This is unfortunate, but I can understand wanting to move in incremental steps. And I want to say very plainly that I appreciate an exact, definitive statement on how the game should be working. It is statements like these which greatly aid us in finding issues with the game. Knowing is half the battle, and if I observe otherwise I will report it.

There may still need to be some balancing of Rune Arm DC's in the future; this bug fix is the first step toward being able to do that. Thanks for the feedback!

Consider me another one to point out that Artificer Rune Arm DCs (and spell DCs for that matter but we can stick to rune arms for now) need help. They need to be able to hit 50 for EH at a minimum. There are many rune arms which are not evadeable and do half damage on a save for times like EE, given that for the short term suddenly seeing DC70 arms isnt in the cards. But we do need EH to be reliable. Artificers struggle to keep their identity in epic already, with the pet being less useful, and rune arms being less useful, and finally many of their spells become too easy to resist. Maintaining the most visible and unique portion of that (the rune arm) in epic hard would go a long ways I think.

Thank you for the responses. Also, while your attention is here, any chance of getting any action on this finally?

Q. Is it difficult to put the actual percentage that an effect is reduced/increased by Spell Power? One of my reasons for asking this is due to how you stated Rune Arms have a variable reduction based on what type of Rune Arm, but we have no way of knowing which Rune Arms have which degree of reduced Spell Power gains. Is Force Shot 50%, 65%, 80%? Is Exploding Cannonball Shot 50%, 60%, 70%, 80%? And the other Rune Arm shots? Actually giving the percentage would be helpful in the tooltip noting that the effect has reduced/increased Spell Power gains.

A. No this isn’t that difficult and we will pursue it.

It would help to see this plainly for the different rune arms, so that we can manage what we are using not only by save type, elemental type, and save DC... but by spellpower for DPS concerns. Thank you.

[Satyriasys]

There may still need to be some balancing of Rune Arm DC's in the future; this bug fix is the first step toward being able to do that. Thanks for the feedback!

and for your next step you could increase the DC by+10 and these Rune Arms would still be useless.

[JonD]

The DC of Rune Arm spells is suppsed to be 10 + (Charge Tier + 1) + (INT modifier) + (Max Charge Tier - 1) + (Evocation Feat Bonuses).

This may be a stupid question, but for these terms: "...(Charge Tier + 1)... + ...(Max Charge Tier - 1)...", the '+1' and '-1' would cancel each other out, so why not just use 'Charge Tier' and 'Max Charge Tier'?

[CThruTheEgo]

This may be a stupid question, but for these terms: "...(Charge Tier + 1)... + ...(Max Charge Tier - 1)...", the '+1' and '-1' would cancel each other out, so why not just use 'Charge Tier' and 'Max Charge Tier'?

LOL! I can't believe I never noticed this, but you're absolutely right. They are completely pointless.

[G_Lich]

If charge tier means "This is what the runearm is currently charged to" and the max charge tier means "This is what the runearm's max tier is" then it comes down to this:

An artificer running with a Max tier 4 has 3 charges up and fires also while running, it never got to tier 4, so the DC would be 3+1=4 plus 4-1= 3 = Total 7

An artificer running with a Max tier 5 has 3 charges up and fires also while running, it never got to tier 5, so the DC would be 3+1=4 plus 5-1=4 = Total 8

I guess it's supposed to be an incentive to use a higher tier runearm instead of say, the disruptor, if you never plan on charging to max tier.

THAT BEING SAID - It's useless, I agree. If you can remove this to make the game think less about the math, and maybe reduce some lag, +1 - Arti's don't have a problem in heroic, they're still good, because BB still works.

[SirValentine]

At the moment, item/augment based sources of Evocation DC bonuses do not affect the DC of Rune Arm shots.

Is that an additional bug, or is that intended?

[CeltEireson]

Steelstar, whilst youre in a runearm answering mood a couple of questions?

Runearms specifically state the damage is per artificer level, and I assume that means that the damage caps out at level 20. I take it epic levels aren't counted in that calculation?

If they don't count would it be possible, when looking at runearm balance, to look at the possibility its based on arty caster levels so that should an artificer take say the magister destiny the additional caster levels would increase the damage from the runearm, and that if you take tier 5 'Master of evocation' in the destiny this would likewise increase the damage?

Ideally of course there should be a destiny for artificers specifically in the arcane sphere - artificer is in many ways a 'jack of all trades master of none' class and I think it really does needs its own destiny to reflect that. In essence it combines ranged or melee, with buffing/offensive spell casting, runearms, rogue skills and pet - and by choosing any of the current destinies you are effectively being forced to focus on only one of those aspects.