General Artificer Advice?

[Sophie The Cat Burglar]

Even though the class is very alien to me, I have decided to convert one of my melee characters into an Artificer because they can be ranged damage dealers, disable traps, and cast self protection spells. That seems like a good combination of skills.

Robot dogs and rune arms do not interest me so those things will be left on the table. The character will be human because that is the only race I like. These things are not open for debate.

Based on my reading, I can take this character in two directions, both using the standard set of ranged feats. Option One is to use the Artificer ranged tree with some kind of repeating crossbow. Option Two is to use the Inquisitive tree with a heavy crossbow. Is one better than the other?

While they do not meet my needs, I have carefully examined the ranged artificer builds in this forum. Is there anything else I should be mindful of when building this character?

Thanks!

 

[Ryiah]

Even though the class is very alien to me, I have decided to convert one of my melee characters into an Artificer because they can be ranged damage dealers, disable traps, and cast self protection spells.

Practically speaking there's only one self protection spell (Radiant Forcefield) and it has a very long cooldown (180 seconds). Everything else doesn't scale well or at all. They're fine in low difficulties (Hard and Normal) but then enemies will have a hard time hitting you in low difficulties (mostly due to dying before they can reach you).

Robot dogs and rune arms do not interest me so those things will be left on the table. The character will be human because that is the only race I like. These things are not open for debate.

Just be aware that with the recent revamp to rune arms you're giving up the majority of your damage by ignoring them. You're also ignoring a large part of the tree that provides damage to your crossbow. It's fine if you don't want to use these but at that point you might as well just be a Rogue Mechanic.

Based on my reading, I can take this character in two directions, both using the standard set of ranged feats. Option One is to use the Artificer ranged tree with some kind of repeating crossbow. Option Two is to use the Inquisitive tree with a heavy crossbow. Is one better than the other?

Speaking of which: Inquisitive. It's not that the tree is better than the Artificer Battle Engineer tree. It's that it doesn't expect you to be actively firing your rune arm. If you didn't mind using your rune arm there would be a discussion to be had, but because you're ignoring it there is no discussion to be had at all aside from considering Rogue since Mechanic doesn't expect a rune arm either.

Choice of tree aside a repeaters (and single crossbows) make a loud plink sound. Inquisitive dual crossbows make a much quieter plink sound. If you haven't tried them out yet I recommend trying them in-game to see if you can stand the noise as you will be hearing it constantly.

 

[Sophie The Cat Burglar]

Thank you for all that advice, Ryiah! I already have an Rogue Inquisitive and Rogue Mechanic but was hoping for something better. It seems my hopes are misguided, as usual.

 

[Zvdegor]

OPTION 3 Melee Arti

https://forums.ddo.com/index.php?threads/1st-lifer-vistani-mach-r-o-b-o-t.2663/#post-45595

 

[Stoner81]

Speaking of which: Inquisitive. It's not that the tree is better than the Artificer Battle Engineer tree. It's that it doesn't expect you to be actively firing your rune arm. If you didn't mind using your rune arm there would be a discussion to be had, but because you're ignoring it there is no discussion to be had at all aside from considering Rogue since Mechanic doesn't expect a rune arm either.

Firing a runearm doesn't interfere with attack animations (last I knew) so it is free damage for literally nothing plus all other bonuses it gives. I use one on my Inquisitive (nearly) all the time.

Stoner81.

 

[Dendrix Deathblade]

Another thing to think about is a spell caster based artificer, they can do pretty OK as electricity damage casters. You have lots of artificer feats to fit in Maximise, Empower, Heighten and Quicken.

Personally though I love the Repeater + Battle Engineer tree + Harper tree (int to hit/damage). Fusilade at about 8th is awesome.
DO Wear a rune arm just for the extra dice it adds to your shots and the abilities it gives you as an item of equipment.
At some point while playing turn on auto charge, then hit alt sometimes to fire the rune arm.

 

[seph1roth5]

Flame turret is super useful as well. It has like a 1000 intimidate and monsters will charge and stomp it to death, and then beat it up even more afterwards.

 

[Zvdegor]

Firing a runearm doesn't interfere with attack animations (last I knew) so it is free damage for literally nothing plus all other bonuses it gives. I use one on my Inquisitive (nearly) all the time.

Stoner81.

Confirmed. You can fire your runearm after typing /sleep. You wont get up!

 

[Onyxia2016]

Arti without runearm is basically a gimpped rouge. You would be better off going rouge with high UMD and use wands/scrolls for buff and using great crossbow which you get from mechanics tree (core 1).

There are so many different types of runearms available. AOE, single target, every possible element based. There are also bonuses on the runearms as well as enhancement that do extra if runearm is used and charged a tier or two. Just do not forget to drag the runearm feat from the list to a hotbar and turn it on so your runearm is auto charging.

 

[FuzzyDuck81]

My personal preference for artificers is the renegade mastermaker tree - not great on damage though they can hold their own well enough, but incredibly durable as a generalised party support & with good timing can just opt out of big hit attacks for the entire party at 20+ thanks to the mass unbreakable forcefield.

 

[Sophie The Cat Burglar]

Thank you for all the replies. I have decided to heed the advice here and play something else.

 

[Coffey]

Artificer is easy street!

 

[kmoustakas]

Even though the class is very alien to me, I have decided to convert one of my melee characters into an Artificer because they can be ranged damage dealers, disable traps, and cast self protection spells. That seems like a good combination of skills.

Robot dogs and rune arms do not interest me so those things will be left on the table. The character will be human because that is the only race I like. These things are not open for debate.

Based on my reading, I can take this character in two directions, both using the standard set of ranged feats. Option One is to use the Artificer ranged tree with some kind of repeating crossbow. Option Two is to use the Inquisitive tree with a heavy crossbow. Is one better than the other?

While they do not meet my needs, I have carefully examined the ranged artificer builds in this forum. Is there anything else I should be mindful of when building this character?

Thanks!

Pew pew in heroic! Put points in harper agent and pew pew some more. In epic take extra clip and pew pew pew pew

Since extra clip and arties got their own imbue, no need to go inquisitive. You could but there's no need.

 

[QuantumFX]

Evasion is not required to be a trapper. So, don't be scared of adamantine body, medium armor or heavy armor. And don't let people who fail to understand the benefits of Improved Construct Essence scare you off. That doesn't mean you can't hold off on the Construct Essence feat until 2 minutes before you plan on taking the Improved version though.