Artificer : Race for construct...

[the_floyd]

Laugh if you want to, but two other races to consider, for different reasons:

1. Dhampir (or iconic version) for vampiric bite for healing...even if you take the construct feats, there doesn't seem to be a 50% penalty to healing from the bite...I don't know if that's as intended. Description says it's 20 HP + character level * Constitution modifier from positive healing. I have a level 18 artificer (can't remember Con modifier at the moment, but it's in the low teens I believe) and he gets over 300 healing from a bite. You don't even have to spend any racial points for that.

2. Chaosmancer for the Spring Storm SLA to strip lightning immunity. If you're going electric you're going to need something to strip immunity at some point, and Lightning Motes does not strip immunity. Charged Recoil (T5 Arcanotech tree) does, but if you're going melee, you probably want to go T5 in Battle Engineer. Going this route DOES require racial points...quite a few. 17 for the SLA, 19 if you want to eliminate all possibility of bad effects from wild magic.

Once you get into epics, Mending Blast in the Macrotech tree is your best friend, and further up that tree adding the stun effect to the blast is pretty good as well.

 

[unbongwah]

Charged Recoil (T5 Arcanotech tree) does, but if you're going melee, you probably want to go T5 in Battle Engineer.

Not that DDO is particularly kind to hybrids, but another option is a melee/caster hybrid with T5 Arcanotechnician for Charged Recoil while using kukris + Vistani Knife Fighter. Something like 41 ArcTech / 24 VKF / 6 Harper Agent gets the must-haves, with 9-11 APs left for other trees.

 

[Chiefvisigoth]

Thinking of doing an Artificer and using Construct feats to make it living construct. rather then starting warforged. was thinking Drow at 1st till I saw the effects of losing the race abilities in place of the new construct which are similar to Drow pale master undead ( water breathing) with repair being the reason for the change in race. to compliment with a pale master like self healing skill .

looking to use melee and rune arm , with electrical and force spell powers.
thinking human for the extra feat : would it still be available once I reached living construct state?

not familiar with the living construct aspect and the changes that actually take place from the change in race.

Question: what actually changes from the human race to living construct race?
does it open the warforged enhancement tree ?

You have to remember that if you take both of the construct feats, you can no longer be healed by anything but repair spells. I have a Human Artificer at cap and did exactly that. I can use repair spells to heal myself when running solo, and a party member can heal me when I am in a raid or running reapers.
Just remember some monsters are immune to electrical damage like the final boss in Demon Queen and some of those in Chronoscope. So plan for a back up damage type

 

[l_remmie]

You have to remember that if you take both of the construct feats, you can no longer be healed by anything but repair spells. I have a Human Artificer at cap and did exactly that. I can use repair spells to heal myself when running solo, and a party member can heal me when I am in a raid or running reapers.
Just remember some monsters are immune to electrical damage like the final boss in Demon Queen and some of those in Chronoscope. So plan for a back up damage type

Thats not true.
If you take both construct feats you will have a base 75% positive healing factor. Warforged and bladeforged have 50/45.
Your party healer wont even notice it.

Human is always better than robot unless you are brand new, dirtpoor, and equipment starved. Then robot immunities get a lot more attractive.

 

[eartheyes]

i have a gnome arti at cap with construct essence and improved construct essence; for reference: when i throw cure critical wounds on myself in town its like 6oo compared to about 1000 from repair critical...sure one is better, but both work.

 

[Archest]

thinking about racial tr at 20 to 1/2 elf / Dilettante: Rogue : pure artificer as I have additional rogue past life feat available for sneak attack dice. this way I can get Tanglefoot as additional crowd control while respecking to melee / ranged combination, still looking at the dc for castor and damage from spell power and lore vs ranged and melee power seems the damage I'm getting from quarrels is from ranged power even though there's a spell power attribute to them. for instance I have force rune arm and force spell power and force lore I hit with pierce damage normal around 175hp rune arm = 2 to 12 force damage per hit scaling with ranged power and impactful in the crossbow for 4d6 scaling with ranged power I would assume also they both hit around the same number 50 hp each at this point the only thing that uses the spell power and lore is arcane tempest. so my force spell power is 300 with a 21% critical which doesn't do anything for my crossbow nor would it do anything for a sword and only acts on arcane tempest.. so crafting Force spell power an lore into the rune really doesn't help and I could of chosen other effects that could have benefited this toon over all. banes and such. incorporeal bane in the rune arm would it effect the quarrels as well else the weapons' would need it in both or ghost touch only effect the rune arm blast ? Rune arm blast scales with spell power. aka (600 +/- hp damage).

 

[Archest]

tactical D is amazing spell!!!

yes it works well for stopping mob asult.

 

[Archest]

issue with arti spells level 4. there are 5 spell slots. I have all the spells that are available in scrolls for level 4 leaving a remaining slot were no scrolls are purchasable to fill this slot and the only way i would ever fill it would be to find a particular arti scroll on the ah that maybe listed as rare or to find one in a chest. i think there should be enough spells for sale that would fill the 5 available slots with having to wait for those instances to occur. there are no remaining available spell selection opportunities level 22, because I didn't select rare scroll spells as choices while leveling.

 

[eartheyes]

issue with arti spells level 4. there are 5 spell slots. I have all the spells that are available in scrolls for level 4 leaving a remaining slot were no scrolls are purchasable to fill this slot and the only way i would ever fill it would be to find a particular arti scroll on the ah that maybe listed as rare or to find one in a chest. i think there should be enough spells for sale that would fill the 5 available slots with having to wait for those instances to occur. there are no remaining available spell selection opportunities level 22, because I didn't select rare scroll spells as choices while leveling.

as an arti, a good life hack is buy the scrolls at level one and learn them, you can buy a handful in house C, featherfall apothicary in house J has inscription mats, portable hole has a bunch more scrolls when you have access...learn all the ones you can buy early, then you are in a position where you have to take the rare ones and dont have to remember them, as you will already have the non rares in your spellbook.

another life hack that is more costly, lesser tr...you will keep all your spells and get to learn new ones.

 

[the_floyd]

Rune Arms have two types of damage (depending on the rune arm).

One is an imbue (if the rune arm has it) that imbues your main hand weapon with whatever damage the rune arm has (fire, force, electric, etc.). The amount of additional imbue damage depends on the imbue level of the rune arm and scales with melee or ranged power...200% I believe. Spell power / crit damage does nothing to this.

The other damage is from the rune arm shot, which scales off spell power (100% I believe) and does benefit from spell crit chance and damage...maximize and empower metamagics work on rune arms as well.

Also, both Tactical Detonation AND Arcane Tempest deal force damage. TD does both fire and force, but there's no save for the force part of damage so even with crappy DCs you can do decent damage with that with a high force spell power. Arcane Tempest only gives a save when a monster first enters the AOE...after that it's full damage, which again can be pretty decent with a high force spell power. Crit chance and damage apply to these as well.

I play a melee artificer and these are pretty much the only two offensive spells I use...walk into a room, TD a mob, follow that up with Arcane Tempest and anything still alive gets a good smack with a bastard sword...and then I move on.

 

[droid327]

maximize and empower metamagics work on rune arms as well.

To be thorough - only if you have the Machrotechnic enhancement that enables it