Early Look: Artificer Changes & Renegade Mastermaker

[CeltEireson]

I like the idea of this adding new options to what I can do in a party. Staying in the back and throwing out some heals and party buffs could be an interesting way to play. Not sure I would ever go "all in" on this path, but enough of a splash to increase my Repairs/Pot Throwing would be nice. I'll just have to figure out where pull the points from...

Will anyone be taking a look at Flame Turret in this pass? I miss that spell, since it's pretty unusable after level 15 with no real way to scale it's damage.

Not just the damage - in higher level content it basically dies with one hit from a mob so it needs its hitpoints to scale. its classed as a summons so not sure if all the related feats/enhancements like augment summons get applied which would help a little.

[jakeelala]

beef up all of these abilities

but take away the ability to do good damage at range with a Crossbow for this build. Make them casters, melee tanks, or healers, but not also ranged damage dealers.

[PsychoBlonde]

Does any other class have 20 seconds of invulnerability? Or even 10?

Uh, yes, it's called Uncanny Dodge getting you up to 100% dodge. There are ways to pull off this kind of panic button in the game.

[CSQ]

Some of the bonuses in this tree are based on medium/heavy armor. While Artificers are proficient in medium armor, they are not typically proficient in heavy armor. Is this like some of the Warlock enhancements that require armor proficiency, or can you benefit from the heavy armor bonuses while not proficient?

[Jasparion]

Uh, yes, it's called Uncanny Dodge getting you up to 100% dodge. There are ways to pull off this kind of panic button in the game.

That requires an already insane amount of Dodge, plus it doesnt stop all damage (which really is what 95% damage reduction does). Plenty of things can still damage you.

BTW: the temp HP are doubled for levels 20+.

20*25*2 = ?

[PsychoBlonde]

You can wear heavy armor even while not proficient, your armor check penalty just applies to your attack rolls.

[PsychoBlonde]

beef up all of these abilities

but take away the ability to do good damage at range with a Crossbow for this build. Make them casters, melee tanks, or healers, but not also ranged damage dealers.

Since the really valuable stuff is Tier 5, they kinda did, since you pretty well need the tier 5 abilities (and capstone, for preference) from Battle Engineer to do a really solid crossbow build.

It's actually a tough trade-off, which is a good thing.

[UurlockYgmeov]

Yes.

Undead Robots; what will you think of next? Undead Space Pirate Roberts (oops - Robots)?

[GramercyRiff]

You can wear heavy armor even while not proficient, your armor check penalty just applies to your attack rolls.

Unless there is some trick I am not aware of, I am under the impression that you don't get PRR from armor unless you are proficient with that armor. That's a pretty big deal.


I think I might really like this tree, but I also think some stuff needs some power up adjustments.

[PsychoBlonde]

Critical Admixture goes away (it's moving to the new tree), gets replaced with Passive: +2 to Caster Level and Max Caster Level of Electric Spells, +2 Rune Arm DCs

Is the +1 evocation dc's also staying on Arcanotechnician? Even so, that's kind of feeble. Suggest Chain Lightning maybe?

[PsychoBlonde]

Unless there is some trick I am not aware of, I am under the impression that you don't get PRR from armor unless you are proficient with that armor. That's a pretty big deal.


I think I might really like this tree, but I also think some stuff needs some power up adjustments.

It certainly has a lot of interesting potential. It does look like you need to be proficient to get PRR from armor, but it's ONE FEAT on a class that gets a TON of bonus feats to wear heavy armor, since they're already proficient with Medium.

I would kind of suggest that Paragon Body needs to be dependent upon medium or heavy armor the way the defensive stances are on Fighter and Paladin.

[Fnordian]

Will anyone be taking a look at Flame Turret in this pass? I miss that spell, since it's pretty unusable after level 15 with no real way to scale it's damage.

Awhile back (last Arti pass I think), one of the devs said they'd like to improve Flame Turret, but (if I recall correctly), because it's basically a monster summoning it would take a lot of work and require creating one for each level and statting them, or developing some sort of auto-leveling system to auto-stat them.

Personally, if it's feasible to do it, I'd like to see it done at some point. It's a terrifically fun spell with its own unique flavor, but as you say, pretty much useless at higher levels because of the fixed damage and hit points.

[Fnordian]

FAQ:
Steel, what about fixes for Arti pets?
While we hope to make large-scale adjustments to Arti and Druid dogs in the future, that would be a large-scale project, and will not be a part of this pass.

I wasn't looking for a new Arti tree but it's cooler than I thought it would be. Good job.

What's the likelihood that we'll see the pet fix/enhancement before the end of 2018?

[UurlockYgmeov]

Awhile back (last Arti pass I think), one of the devs said they'd like to improve Flame Turret, but (if I recall correctly), because it's basically a monster summoning it would take a lot of work and require creating one for each level and statting them, or developing some sort of auto-leveling system to auto-stat them.

Personally, if it's feasible to do it, I'd like to see it done at some point. It's a terrifically fun spell with its own unique flavor, but as you say, pretty much useless at higher levels because of the fixed damage and hit points.

agree.

Such memories of casting repair spells/defensive buffs on your summoned turret. Good Little Turret!

[Krelar]

I would kind of suggest that Paragon Body needs to be dependent upon medium or heavy armor the way the defensive stances are on Fighter and Paladin.

Since the prerequisite enhancement to Paragon Body, "Embed Component", disables Evasion, Druid Wild Shape feats, or Primal Avatar's Tree form there is already pretty heavy incentive to use medium or heavy armor. And it requires a feat already (or being warforged)

[Ziindarax]

Awhile back (last Arti pass I think), one of the devs said they'd like to improve Flame Turret, but (if I recall correctly), because it's basically a monster summoning it would take a lot of work and require creating one for each level and statting them, or developing some sort of auto-leveling system to auto-stat them.

Personally, if it's feasible to do it, I'd like to see it done at some point. It's a terrifically fun spell with its own unique flavor, but as you say, pretty much useless at higher levels because of the fixed damage and hit points.

What would also be ideal is the ability to choose the damage type of the turret. This way, the turret remains viable even against mobs with fire resistance / immunity.

Since we're talking about previews - I have seen no mention of the Player Council this year. Has SSG decided to disband the Player council altogether If not, when may the community start applying?

Edit 1: As for the subject at hand, here are my thoughts:

a) Renegade Master Maker needs more of a defensive boost. What it has is nice, but it can get better defenses by splashing paladin or Fighter. Perhaps a mechanist-themed defensive stance?

b) I'd like to a constructible pet that works similarly to the undead skeleton. Pets should also have more abilities than what they do. Rather than making them assume a hireling system, why not let them have abilities that are unlocked while they are out (and are "equipped" to your character's pet bar - this way, they'd work like certain abilities that require certain weapon types)?

c) Concerning over-all changes - when will battle masters get a bonus to threat and range of equipped weapons? At a minimum, Battle Engineers should have gotten this change (as just about every other class that fights with weapons of some kind now have them - including Clerics!).

d) I like that Artificers can get negative energy immunity at level 12 rather than waiting until epics.

e) So let me get this straight, Warlocks get their Shining Through ability nerfed many times over, and it was a single target ability that affected only warlocks. Not only that, but it also required Warlocks to have a high amount of Constitution in order to get the most out of it. Yet, here, Artificers get an AOE version of this ability that has a cool-down equal to 2 minutes (not long when you consider how much time goes by in a duel, and you're trying to live), AND refreshes those hitpoints every 2 seconds for 20 seconds. In a rough fire fight, or in a group of artificers carefully timing their abilities, this would make groups insanely difficult to kill - except in Legendary Elite where despite having over 75% damage mitigation (or HIGHER!) you would get still get one or two-shotted despite having over 1k temporary hitpoints. This would be okay in Reaper or Legendary content, but for regular play... I am calling it now - this is gonna get nerfed into the ground.

Why is this temp Hp ability going to get nerfed so badly? Because all the trolls will complain that it's OP - especially with the Juggernaut builds in play. (yes, I really think this tree has the potential to bring back the Juggernaut builds - to some extent).

[HastyPudding]

I'm liking this, although I think that instead of a radiant forcefield SLA (which has an absurd cooldown, anyway), how about a targeted forcefield or shield? Sort of like the cleric's positive energy shield but....you know, useful. Say, give an ally 10 temporary HP per artificer level plus an additional 20 per epic level (400 at level 30) for 30 seconds, having a 30 second cooldown. I LOVE the idea of having a defensive buffbot, tossing around shields and temporary buffs, taking on not a tank role but a support role, focused on damage mitigation.

Some of the temporary area buffs do seem to have a rather large cooldown, though (3 minutes is a long time in DDO). Maybe do something in the capstone that reduces the cooldown of those temporary buffs by 25% or something.

I'm wondering how this would work with actual shields, though. Would mastermakers use runearms at all? Would they take up a shield and a bastard sword? I'm not sure. Lots of interesting things, here.

[Hilltrot]

Haste SLA is weaksauce. First, Artificers already get a form of haste. Second, haste is obtained permanently through items as soon as one hits level 20.

I'm sorry, but replacing the battery with a Haste SLA is a nerf!

Quickening curatives is important if you want artificers to be able to heal.

Warding construct is not that interesting.

[Hilltrot]

Unbreakable Forcefield SLA: For 6 seconds

Just make it 100% damage. It is just for 6 seconds. It will make it easier to test.

[SilentRunning]

All this looks good, but my question is, Why don't we have a sonic based rune-arm at this point and are there any plans to add one ?