Give Repair Skill a Combat Utility use for Artificers: "Expose Flaw" & "Salvage Shrapnel"

[Zvdegor]

Hi everyone,
Currently, the Repair skill feels like a missed opportunity in DDO. Aside from giving Repair Spell Power and stabilizing iron defenders, it has almost no active gameplay value. In contrast, classes like Rogue (Arcane Trickster archetype) get to use Disable Device in highly creative ways.
As the ultimate magical engineers, Artificers should be able to weaponize their knowledge of structures and materials. Here are two concept abilities that scale directly with the Repair Skill to bring more tactical depth to the class. Also I would like to know about your ideas! Share it in the comment section!


1. New Tactical Feat / Enhancement: Expose Flaw
An active combat maneuver where the Artificer analyzes the target's armor, joints, or magical composition to find structural weaknesses.

• Activation Cost: 10 Spell Points / Components
• Cooldown: 15 seconds
• Target: Single Enemy (Works on both living and construct targets)
• Mechanics:
  • The Artificer performs a Repair Check against the target's Armor Class (AC) or Reflex Save (whichever is higher).
  • On Success: The target's PRR (Physical Resistance Rating) and MRR (Magical Resistance Rating) are reduced by an amount equal to 10% of the Artificer's total Repair Skill for 12 seconds.
  • On Critical Success (beating the DC by 20+): The target is also stripped of 25% of its Fortification, and its incoming healing/repair amplification is reduced by 20%.

Developer Note: This turns the Artificer into a premier debuffer, letting high-skill builds actively melt enemy defenses just by knowing how things are built (and how to break them).

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2. New Spell / Enhancement: Salvage Shrapnel
The Artificer uses their telekinetic crafting skills to shred a broken mechanical enemy or spent ammunition into a deadly, explosive cloud of razor-sharp debris.

• Spell Level: Artificer Level 3 or Tier 3 Enhancement
• Cooldown: 12 seconds
• Target: Area of Effect (Ground targeted or centered on a fallen Construct body)
• Mechanics:
  • Deals Piercing and Slash damage to all enemies in the area.
  • Damage Scaling: Base damage is 1d6 per caster level (max caster level 15). Crucially, it gains a Damage Bonus equal to 100% of your Repair Skill value.
  • Secondary Effect: Enemies caught in the blast must make a Reflex save or suffer a Bleed effect (or Rust damage over time if they are Constructs) that ticks every 2 seconds for 6 seconds. The DC for this save is 10 + Spell Level + Intelligence Modifier + (Repair Skill / 10).

Developer Note: This gives Artificers a thematic AoE tool that rewards them for investment in a non-traditional combat skill, blending the lines between crafting and combat.

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What do you think? Would this make investing in the Repair skill on an Artificer feel much more rewarding? Looking forward to your feedback!

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[Visik]

I'd have to think more about these to decide if they're reasonable and balanced or not.

But I love the idea that knowing how things are put together might give hints as to how to take them apart. Seems rational.

However, imo the effects of 'Expose Flaw' should be highest on constructs and the heavily armored, while the effects of 'Salvage Shrapnel' should go the other way.

The heavier the armor, the greater the effect of finding a flaw and the more relevant to Repair skill.

Meanwhile something like shrapnel is going to affect the lightly-armored more. Though some of that is, ofc, built in to PRR already, so it might not need further adjusting. Thing is, the bleed is much more likely to affect the lightly-armored, while a Reflex save makes it the opposite. I'd use Reflex for the usual possibility to avoid damage, and Fort to avoid the bleed.

 

[Terranigma]

Yeah, Repair as a skill could use a few more uses beyond Repair/Rust spellpower and a few dialog choices. When someone brought up a Reanimator/Fleshmaker Archetype some of the uses included:

• Bonus to Repair Amplification
• Instant death via a Repair check to low HP units of specific races/types (including bosses)
• Alchemical bonus to stats with the duration being Repair-skill based (like Divine Healing)

Adding on things like PRR/MRR reduction or Area of Effect damage are also interesting considerations.

 

[Ratatoskr_Mikew]

Honestly, I want an expansion based entirely on the Mournlands and this sort of thing is the kind of thing one could expect to find in such an expansion.

The Mournlands would be filled with artificer/warforged gear and undead player gear, it would be awesome!

Also, placing a Modron rare encounter here as a teaser could feel right, especially if it is frantic and confused as to why it is there in the first place.

The lore gain, the storytelling, and the loot would all be appealing.

As for these, where would you recommend placing them in the trees if they were to be an enhancement?

Auto Gnome and Glitchling races could still potentially eventually be added to the game, so personally I'd say these would be great for their racial trees!

We are likely to see Warforged racial varients at some point, personally I am hoping they include an intelligence based construct race, perhaps having innate Bastard sword proficiency, the ability to use intelligence to hit and damage when using a bastard sword, , weapon attachment, that melee power boost enhancement the regular Warforged tree gets, and a converter like the tiefling get so one can use the higher of repair of electric spellpower. Sadly, I can not find a cannon Warforged varient that would make this a likely reality.