Force Knight (advice)

[WolfsGoRawr]

I've been running an 18 AT/1 Barb/1 Wiz, and it plays just fine - primarily because it's faster than anything which isn't a monk, and those who get there first get the kill You also get another magic missile SLA. Pure is no doubt better DPS, but I wouldn't rule out all MC possibilities.

wait why the wizard? since you get magic missle and the likes on AT already

 

[Kimbere]

wait why the wizard? since you get magic missle and the likes on AT already

For the bonus feat most likely.

 

[unbongwah]

Yeah, the damage output on the base Force spells is garbage. Magical Ambush is the only thing that makes a force-centric damage casting even remotely fun. It's a shame SSG chose Magical Ambush as the band-aid to fix force spell damage.

The only other time I can recall Force casters being relevant is the old Shiradi spammers before the ED changes nerfed them into oblivion.

And it's not just Force spells, of course. The devs struggle to figure out how to keep all lower-level spells / SLAs relevant past level 20. We've gotten jury-rigged bandaids like the Master of <X> feats and now Magical Ambush, but what's needed is a comprehensive overhaul IMO.

 

[Marshal_Lannes]

wait why the wizard? since you get magic missle and the likes on AT already

MM SLA from Archmage tree. It scales to full level 20 with Mixed Magics. You also get Sonic Blast box breaking. Generally, you need 6 spells/strikes to cycle through as an AT. Having another fully metamagic'd MM SLA is quite nice. Again, almost certainly not as much DPS as the capstone, but it does offer other tangible benefits, and as Kimbere said, you also get another feat.

 

[ChickenMobile]

IMHO Blightcaster is a better force caster than Archmage wizard. Thorn Knight's count right?
Season's Herald get caster levels for force spells in their cores, so a Feydark / Thorn blightcaster could work.

 

[Br4d]

This bears repeating.

Yeah, the damage output on the base Force spells is garbage. Magical Ambush is the only thing that makes a force-centric damage casting even remotely fun. It's a shame SSG chose Magical Ambush as the band-aid to fix force spell damage.

They have effectively coded themselves into a corner regarding baseline force spells now. If they ever try to properly buff/fix force damage spells for non-Arcane Tricksters, it will make ATr's stupidly overpowered.

Stupidly overpowered has never been a roadblock for SSG before. Just saying...

 

[WolfsGoRawr]

IMHO Blightcaster is a better force caster than Archmage wizard. Thorn Knight's count right?
Season's Herald get caster levels for force spells in their cores, so a Feydark / Thorn blightcaster could work.

thorns are forced, I thought they were mostly acid and poison

 

[Kimbere]

MM SLA from Archmage tree. It scales to full level 20 with Mixed Magics. You also get Sonic Blast box breaking. Generally, you need 6 spells/strikes to cycle through as an AT. Having another fully metamagic'd MM SLA is quite nice. Again, almost certainly not as much DPS as the capstone, but it does offer other tangible benefits, and as Kimbere said, you also get another feat.

Is the Archmage MM SLA on a separate timer from ATr's?

 

[Marshal_Lannes]

Yes. Makes computing the DPS difficult vs pure and the capstone. Again, I still think Capstone comes out ahead, but the double MM SLA is really good for raids with no shrines.

 

[ChickenMobile]

thorns are forced, I thought they were mostly acid and poison

For wild shapes -- Hive is Acid/Poison. Thorn is Thorn/Poison.
Force spellpower and crit affects both Force and Thorn spells, so its a good way to max these without too much effort. Thorn spells are also Magical Piercing, so creatures like Helmed Horrors shouldn't heal from it.

If you want a hybrid w/ melee approach, multiclassing Trickster w/ Blightcaster could be fun.

 

[Marshal_Lannes]

Druid/AT...hmm...I like where you are going.

 

[WolfsGoRawr]

For wild shapes -- Hive is Acid/Poison. Thorn is Thorn/Poison.
Force spellpower and crit affects both Force and Thorn spells, so its a good way to max these without too much effort. Thorn spells are also Magical Piercing, so creatures like Helmed Horrors shouldn't heal from it.

If you want a hybrid w/ melee approach, multiclassing Trickster w/ Blightcaster could be fun.

yeah this sound interesting to look into.

 

[Marshal_Lannes]

The big drawback to this combo is that the level split doesn't work. We need 13 levels of Blightcaster to get Thorn Knight and 8 levels of AT to get magical ambush. AT absolutely needs magical ambush. If you can't get Thorn Knight, you'd have to use the much inferior Thorn Kin. 16 AT/4 Blightcaster doesn't feel great. At that point, you might want to go all in a melee hybrid and do something like 12 AT/4 Blightcaster/4 Fighter (or Dragonlord). Could go 11 AT/5/4 if you wanted tier 5 in either Blight or Dragonlord (or Kensai), but then you give up another stolen spell. The L12 AT SLA for this build is Thorn Bloom, so you almost certainly want that, though. So 12/4/4 is where you're looking to go.

 

[Kimbere]

Yes. Makes computing the DPS difficult vs pure and the capstone. Again, I still think Capstone comes out ahead, but the double MM SLA is really good for raids with no shrines.

Nice. It will also make splashing 1 Wiz virtually a no-brainer for a 1-20 PL run using ATr.

 

[ChickenMobile]

Nice. It will also make splashing 1 Wiz virtually a no-brainer for a 1-20 PL run using ATr.

Had to double check it - yeah the Archmage SLAs don't share a cooldown. Nice!

The big drawback to this combo is that the level split doesn't work. We need 13 levels of Blightcaster to get Thorn Knight and 8 levels of AT to get magical ambush. AT absolutely needs magical ambush.

Ah bummer, Thorn Knight has a bunch of immunities which are strong too, but it can still work.

So yeah agree with the 12 AT/4 BLC/4 Fighter - or maybe a 12 BLC/8 AT or 11 BLC/8 AT/1 Wiz or Fighter.
11+ Blightcaster gets Word of Balance (the ultimate reaper nuker) and grasping thorns.

 

[Marshal_Lannes]

Nice. It will also make splashing 1 Wiz virtually a no-brainer for a 1-20 PL run using ATr.

I know you're much more dedicated to the number crunching than I am, so if you ever find a way to calculate the DPS difference between the capstone vs the second SLA MM in combat situations, I'd be interested in what you find.

 

[Kimbere]

I know you're much more dedicated to the number crunching than I am, so if you ever find a way to calculate the DPS difference between the capstone vs the second SLA MM in combat situations, I'd be interested in what you find.

The TL;DR answer is, it's not close - the capstone wins by miles. Splashing 1 Wizard is only worthwhile if you're not planning on leveling past 20.

Here's the long answer.

There are a lot of variables to account for depending on the exact build, varying cooldowns on the spells in the rotations and what spellpower, crit chance and crit damage multis you're looking at, so it is difficult/impossible to give a specific number, but in this case that's not needed.

In it's most simplistic form, you're basically asking if an additional MM SLA is more net damage in an ATr's SLA/Spell rotation than the next best SLA/spell you'd use if you don't have that second MM SLA.

So the question at it's core is, how many additional Ambush procs would the second MM SLA add to the rotation versus the next best option AND are those additional procs enough to make up for losing 50% damage on every proc in the rotation?

Let's assume a 5 spell/sla rotation.

The no-capstone rotation would be something like somewhere around 22 procs - MM SLA (5), MM SLA(5), Force Missle SLA(4), Chain Missle SLA(3), MM spell(5).

The capstone rotation would be something like 20-21 procs depending on what SLA/spell you used insead of the second MM SLA: MM SLA (5), Force Missle SLA(4), Chain Missle SLA(3), MM spell(5), Force Missle spell(4).

1-2 additional Ambush procs wouldn't come remotely close to making up for losing 50% of the damage on the other 20-21 procs in the total rotation.