U78 Lamannia Arcane Trickster Preview

[jrazumich]

Force Spell Power should be +5 per PL to be consistent with other builds. Force is already dumped on enough, there's no need to make it worse.

 

[VinoeWhines]

The Arcane Trickster is a Rogue Archetype who dabbles in their own kind of magic to augment their abilities. They have modest skill in Enchantment and Illusion magic but can also steal spells from other classes. They also can summon a magical Mage Hand to cause mischief and disable traps at a distance.

Alignment: Any
Hit Die: d8
Class Skills:

• Skill points at 1st level: (8 + Intelligence modifier) x4
• Skill points at each additional level: 8 + Intelligence modifier
• Uses Skill Rogue List minus Intimidate and Swim but Gets Concentration and Spell Craft instead.

Weapon and Armor Profs: As Rogue
Past Lives: +1 Illusion DCs and +3 Force Spell Power
Enhancements Trees

• Arcane Trickster (see below)
• Mechanic
• Thief-Acrobat

1st	+0/+0	+0	+2	+0	Sneak Attack +1d6, Trapfinding	0	0	-	-	-
2nd	+1/+1/+6	+0	+3	+0	Evasion	0	0	-	-	-
3rd	+2/+2/+7/+12	+1	+3	+1	Sneak Attack +2d6, Magical Training, Mage Hand Legerdemain	20	1	-	-	-
4th	+3/+3/+8/+13	+1	+4	+1		30	1	-	-	-
5th	+3/+3/+8/+13	+1	+4	+1	Sneak Attack +3d6	40	2	-	-	-
6th	+4/+4/+9/+14	+2	+5	+2	Bonus Magical Feat	50	2	-	-	-
7th	+5/+5/+10/+15	+2	+5	+2	Sneak Attack +4d6	65	2	-	-	-
8th	+6/+6/+11/+16	+2	+6	+2	Magical Ambush	80	2	1	-	-
9th	+6/+6/+11/+16	+3	+6	+3	Sneak Attack +5d6,	95	2	1	-	-
10th	+7/+7/+12/+17	+3	+7	+3		110	2	2	-	-
11th	+8/+8/+13/+18	+3	+7	+3	Sneak Attack +6d6	125	2	2	1	-
12th	+9/+9/+14/+19	+4	+8	+4	Bonus Magical Feat	140	2	2	2	-
13th	+9/+9/+14/+19	+4	+8	+4	Sneak Attack +7d6	155	2	2	2	-
14th	+10/+10/+15/+20	+4	+9	+4		170	3	2	2	1
15th	+11/+11/+16/+21	+5	+9	+5	Sneak Attack +8d6	185	3	2	2	2
16th	+12/+12/+17/+22	+5	+10	+5	Spell Thief	200	3	3	2	2
17th	+12/+12/+17/+22	+5	+10	+5	Sneak Attack +9d6	215	3	3	2	2
18th	+13/+13/+18/+23	+6	+11	+6	Bonus Magical Feat	230	4	3	2	2
19th	+14/+14/+19/+24	+6	+11	+6	Sneak Attack +10d6	245	4	4	4	3
20th	+15/+15/+20/+25	+6	+12	+6	-	260	4	4	4	4

Spells:

Intelligence is the Arcane Trickster's primary casting stat. These are done like bard/sorc spells (with swap support) so no scroll scribing.

IMPORTANT BUG - For some reason Metamagics/caster Feats aren't respecting Trickster as a class that should have access. For this preview build you will need to splash 1 level of a caster class to access metamagic/caster feats including the bonus feats.

Example: Take 1 Wizard level before level 6 so you correctly get your bonus caster feats for arcane trickster.

Spell List:

• 1st Level Spells: Charm Person, Color Spray, Expeditious Retreat, Feather fall, Hypnotism, Jump, Magic Missile, Merfolk's Blessing, Nightshield, Protection from Evil, Repair Light Damage, Sleep, Tumble
• 2nd Level Spells: Blur, Cat's Grace, Daze Monster, Fox's Cunning, Hypnotic Pattern, Invisibility, Otto's Resistible Dance, Resist Energy, Scorching Ray, See Invisibility, Touch of Idiocy
• 3rd Level Spells: Chain Missile, Deep Slumber, Displacement, Frost Lance, Haste, Heroism, Hold Person, Repair Serious Damage, Suggestion, Water Breathing
• 4th Level Spells: Charm Monster, Crushing Despair, Dimension Door, Force Missile, Phantasmal Killer, Remove Curse, Repair Critical Damage, Freedom of Movement

Feats:

1st Level - Trap Finding, Sneak Attack (progresses like standard rogue, check the chart)

2nd Level - Evasion

3rd Magical Training & Mage Hand Legerdemain ​

• Mage Hand Disable Device (you can disable a device at base spell range. This cannot be enlarged with meta magics)
• Mage Hand Bluff: Bluffs target but has a longer duration than the standard bluff skill
• You Gain the Magical Training Feat

6th - Bonus Feat: 1 of Maximize, Empower, Quicken, Heighten, Extend, Eschew Materials, Mental Toughness, Improved Mental Toughness Spell Focus and Greater Spell focus for Enchantment or Illusion, Mobile Casting

8th Magical Ambush: Your offensive instantaneous damaging spells deal additional 1d6 force damage equal to your sneak attack dice. Scales with 50% of force spell power. This proc has no cool down so it works very well with multi missile spells like magic missile. The sneak dice will not function on DOTS, Pale Master Aura, Wall of Fire, etc.

12th - Bonus Feat: 2: 1 of Maximize, Empower, Quicken, Heighten, Extend, Eschew Materials, Mental Toughness, Improved Mental Toughness Spell Focus and Greater Spell focus for Enchantment or Illusion, Mobile Casting

16th Spell Thief

• Your melee and missile attacks that strike targets who have spells (we check for a spell list) grant spell points. 1d20 spell points on a 5 second cooldown for melee attacks. Ranged is a 10 second cooldown.

18th - Bonus Feat 3: 1 of Maximize, Empower, Quicken, Heighten, Extend, Eschew Materials, Mental Toughness, Improved Mental Toughness Spell Focus and Greater Spell focus for Enchantment or Illusion, Mobile Casting

Feat Notes - Arcane Trickster will NOT get uncanny dodge, Trap Sense or the Special Ability feats (improved evasion, opportunist, etc etc)

ARCANE TRICKSTER ENHANCEMENT TREE:

General notes:

• Assume AP costs are 1 unless other indicated.
• Starting at core 2 these guys "steal" spells from other classes and uses them as SLAs referred to as Stolen spells with the following rules…
• Stolen spells uses character's rogue level for caster level (this tree offers mixed magics though like wild mage)
• Stolen spells for DCs uses your disable device skill score

Core 1: Novice of Trickery - Each core grants 5 Universal Spell Power and a +2% bonus to Doublestrike and Doubleshot including this one. Some of your emotes will generate a mage hand which will emote with you.

Core 2: Stolen Spell SLA Multi Selector:

• Stolen Magic Missile 2SP 6sec CD (wiz/sorc theft)
• Stolen Cure Light Wounds 2SP 6sec CD (divine theft)
• Stolen Conjure Bolts 2SP 6sec CD (arty theft)
• Shillielagh 2SP 6sec CD (druid theft)
• Sonic Blast 2SP 4sec CD (bard theft)
• Stolen Fine Dust 3SP 15sec CD (alchemist theft)

Core 3: Stolen Spell SLA Multi Selector:

• Chain Missile 8SP 10sec CD
• Moderate Wounds 4SP 6sec CD
• Personal Augmentation insightful Damage 8SP 2sec CD
• Sound Burst 8SP 20sec CD
• Salt Ray 4SP 8sec CD
• Salt Crystals 8SP 20sec CD

Core 4: Stolen Spell SLA Multi Selector:

• Force Missile 6 SP 6sec CD
• Cure Serious Wounds 6SP 6sec CD
• Radiant Force Field 20SP 180 sec CD
• Neutralize Poison 10SP 10sec CD
• Greater Heroism 8SP 2sec CD
• Flash Freeze 8SP 30sec CD

Core 5: Stolen Spell SLA Multi Selector

• Disintegrate 8SP 10sec CD
• Heal - 20SP 15sec CD
• Tenser's Transformation - SP15 30sec CD
• Fire Seeds - 10SP 10sec CD
• Great Shout- SP15 10sec CD
• Greater Evolution. - SP25 10sec CD

Core 6: Magical Ambush spell power scaling increased to 100% and Spell Thief spell point steal is boosted by 50%. +2 to all stats and +2 Imbue Dice.

Tier 1:

• Mage Hand- Eye Poke: (2AP Cost) Target takes 1d2 force damage per 2 character levels, scales with spell power. Max caster level 20. Target must make a reflex save against your disable device skill, if they fail they become blind for 8 seconds with a recurring saves every 2 seconds. Cost: 2 SP 10 CD. Passive: Gain 30 Spell Points.
• Magic Fingers: +1/2/3 Open Locks, Disable Device, Concentration
• Keep it Flexible: Gain 5/10/15% Reduction to Arcane Failure.
• My favorite bauble: While holding an orb, dagger or staff you gain +10 Universal spell power
• I prefer subtly: you generate 10%/20%/30% less hate

Tier 2:

• Mage Hand - Slap: (2AP Cost) Target takes 1d4 force damage per 2 character levels, scales with spell power. Max caster level 20. They must make a fort save against your disable device skill or become stunned for 6 seconds with a recurring saves every 2 seconds. Cost: 2 SP 10 CD. Passive: Gain 30 Spell Points. Requires previous mage hand enhancement.
• Protective Gear: - 2/4/6 bonus to MRR and MRR Cap
• Three handed Casting: Your Quicken Spell Feat costs 1/2/4 SP less. Requires Quicken Spell. Stacks with Efficient Quicken from other trees.
• Catcher Glove:(2AP Cost) Your mage hand will deflect incoming projectiles occasionally granting the deflect arrow feat and you also gain a +2% bonus to dodge.
• Illusory Escape: When you tumble, you will phase out of reality briefly, passing through enemies as you do so. (anti req'd against gnome version)

Tier 3:

• Mage Hand - Meddle with Reality: Any creature you target with mage hand Slap or Eye Poke is no longer immune to sneak attacks, their fortification is reduced by 25% and their will saves are reduced by 4. The creature type changes to fey for purposes of immunities. This lasts 30 seconds. This can apply to bosses. Passive: Gain 30 Spell Points. Requires previous mage hand enhancement.
• More Magic More Fun:(2 AP) - Multi Selector
  • Mixed Magics: As per Wild mage
  • Quick Silver: You gain the quick draw feat and 5 Universal spell power.
• Tricks on Tricks: Your weapon attacks and offensive evocation spells have a chance of granting you a stack of Tricks on Tricks, which gives a +1 to Illusion and Enchantment DCs. This stacks up to 4 times. The stacks decay at a rate of 1 every 30 seconds.
• Arms of the Trickster Multi Selector:
  • Trickster Trick - Imbue Toggle: Your weapon attacks do 1d4+1 force damage. Scales with spell power.
  • Trickster's Blade - Imbue Toggle: Your weapon attacks do 1d4+1 force damage. Scales with 200% melee power.
  • Trickster's Bolt - Imbue Toggle: Your weapon attacks do 1d4+1 force damage. Scales with 200% ranged power.
• Int/Charisma/Dex Picker

Tier 4:

• Helping Hand: Removes most crowd control effects from a target, heals them for 50% of their Max Hit points and applies a restoration effect to the target. Can be used while your CC’d. Cost: 5 SP. 60 CD. Passive: Gain 30 Spell Points. If your incapacitated for more than 6 seconds and have 5 spell points you will receive the helping hand effect. Requires previous mage hand enhancement.
• Applied Force: (2 AP): Gain +1 imbue die per 3 rogue levels and +10% to crit damage with force spells. Requires any of the Arms of the Trickster selections
• Pin Point: +1/2/3 Spell Pen +3/6/10 Fort Bypass. Rank 3: Your mage hand spells automatically dispels Night Shield and Shield spell effects.
• Slippery Magic: (2 AP) You have a chance to gain a +5% uncapped bonus to dodge and +1 reflex saves whenever you land an offensive spell on a target. This can stack up to 3 times. 1 stack drops every 15 seconds. Passive: +2% bonus to dodge.
• Int/Charisma/Dex Picker

Tier 5:

• Mage Hand - Presto! (2 AP): Mage hand snaps it's fingers over a none boss target to make them disappear. We don't know where they go, it's magic! Target gets a will save to negate the effected with a DC equal to your disable device skill. Cost: 10 SP 30 CD. Passive: Gain 80 Spell Points. Requires previous mage hand enhancement
• An Extra hand: All meta magics are reduced in cost by 2. You have a chance when struck by a spell to manifest an extra mage hand which knocks down the opposing caster down.
• Magic is a Tricky Business: You gain a +1/2 bonus to illusion and enchantment DCs. Rank 2: Passive - Tricks on Tricks now also increases to hit and damage with weapons by 1 per stack.
• Good with my Hands: +3/6/10 Melee and Ranged Power. Rank 3: Passive - Gain 8 MRR cap.
• I'm Not Half Bad... Multi Selector: (2 AP):
  • With a Blade - +1 competence bonus to critical thread range and damage multiplier with melee weapons and 15% competence bonus to max hit points.
  • With a Bolt - +1 competence bonus to critical thread range and damage multiplier with ranged weapons and a +10% to Dodge Bypass.
  • With a Spell - +20 Universal spell power, +2 spell penetration and +5% crit chance with all spells.

Known Issues in this preview:

1. Enhancement I like to be subtle currently doesn't work
2. Mage Hand Bluff Feat at level 3 is not implemented yet
3. Fixed a bug with chain missile so if it hits a single target, all the missiles will work on that target (before it would fizzle with one hit)
- This spell is still a little wonky because it takes so long to do its damage so it's under review for a redesign.
4. Arcane trickster isn't qualifying for caster feats by itself including its bonus feats at level 6, 12, 18. This is a bug you can work around with a 1 caster level splash in this build.

-T

Enhancements Trees

• Arcane Trickster (see below)
• Mechanic
• Thief-Acrobat

As we see 2Rogue/18Wizard builds in game now, it would make sense that for Enhancement Trees it should be:
Enhancements Trees

• Arcane Trickster
• Assassin
• Thief-Acrobat

As this combo already is supported with gear such as:

• Echos of the Walking Ancestors Set
  • 3 Pieces Equipped:
    • +3 Artifact bonus to all Spell DCs
    • +3 Artifact bonus to all Tactical DCs and Assassinate
    • +3 Artifact bonus to all Ability Scores
    • +3 Artifact bonus to Imbue Dice.

Shadow Dancer Tree also synergies with illusion and Assassinate.

Just like Dhampir has:
Ascended Bite: Your Vampiric Bite now applies 5 stacks of Vulnerability and deals double the piercing damage. if the target of your Vampiric Bite is Cowered, living, and corporeal they must make a Fortitude Saving Throw (DC 16 + Highest of STR/CON/CHA Mod + Stunning Bonuses + Enchantment Bonuses) or die

Shadow Dancer has illusion + Assassinate in its Tree.


Arcane Trickster would have Assassin Tree to synergies with illusion + Assassinate.

As of now without Assassin Enhancement Tree, it's still weaker than a 18/2 Wizard/Rogue but if you remove the Mechanic Tree and replace it with Assassin tree, it would truly be a Rogue Trapper Stealth Trickster assassin enhancement Tree build.

The gear like Echos of Walking Ancestors already supports this build and as an INT based Rogue, I've always had to have Caster gear to raise my INT based skills like wearing the Legendary Black Satin Waist to get the +3 Quality Intelligence to raise my Assassinate scores and always wore Caster gear that was tied to intelligence also to help with Trapping and Magical Traps.


It makes more sense to have either Mechanic or to a lesser degree Thief Acrobat removed(as they do not much to add to) and have Assassin Tree not excluded as it flows better with Arcane Trickster Stealthy gameplay. It has the Venom Daggers Poison imbue dice to support it also.

It pairs nicely with Magical Poisons Assassin Tree; Force and illusion from Shadow Dancer would land better too.(which could use a refresh to be a main tree.)

Mechanic and to a lesser extent Thief Acrobat does nothing to enhance Arcane Trickster but Assassin Tree has the Sneak Dice and Venomed Blades to synergize with it.

As Force might not work that great at end game Boss fights, having the option of Assassin Trees Venomed Blades imbue would give it a boost in Raids, when illusion and Force won't be doing as much but switching to Magical Daggers would be like what Eldritch Knight works with, but instead of focusing on abjuration and evocation it would focus on Magical Handed daggers of Force and illusion and Venom.

The Shadow Dancer Tree already follows this line of thinking at its Core, but would now tie it synergistically much more, together now....smoothly.

 

[Dom]

That comes down to numbers. Base dmg, mrr, vulnerability - you can do 100 dmg with so many combinations of the 3. 100 dmg, 0 mrr, 0 vuln. 50 dmg 100 vuln. Etc etc. It's just a numbers balance game, and you don't *need* all 3 to balance it in a reasonable way.

It doesn't matter how you look at the numbers, the numbers all come behind every other spell in the game because of how garbage base force damage from the spells is. If you're not gonna have a combination of all three, then you would need to have whatever combination be in excess (by a lot) compared to other spells. For example, if a fire spell does 100 base damage, 0 mrr, 0 vuln, a force spell would almost need to do 250 base damage, 0 mrr, 0 vuln to be anywhere close (don't hold me to the numbers, its strictly an example). Therefore, it is likely the easiest to get force spells on par, or closer, to other spells by having all three scaling it.

Additionally they get access to a Symbol of Force spell to make everything within it take five stacks of force vulnerability per second that stacks up to 50% (so at 10 seconds you'd reach maximum power).

I know this is example, so won't get too much into it, but waiting 10s to get max power, or waiting at all to get the additional vulnerability is just pointless with how the game is played. This would only be "beneficial" in raids, but casters in raids = lul.

It's still not going to be as good as something like high sonic damage with harmonic resonance and ash + ooze + shattered device, but it'd be less bad - and it'd be different.

The good news is, its already different. It is different because it does half the damage (on a good day) compared to any other caster at cap

 

[FuzzyDuck81]

I really like the look of this one, time to respec my proc-based evocation archmage to be a sneaky magic missile pew-pew.

 

[Terranigma]

Things I've noticed so far:

• Even though this is an INT-based spellcaster, it does not have spell scribing or prepared spells. I'm assuming it was done for the sake of simplicity, but just to toss this observation out there.
• Spell Thief seems to be bolstered by Positive Healing Amplification (or something), as I was frequently ranging around 20-50 Spellpoints healed without the Arcane Trickster Core 6.
• Eye Poke seems to properly instantly kill Evil Eyes.
• Mage Hand can not be used while under Barbarian Rage. No clue if this is intended or not.
• Slippery Magic Tier 4 Enhancement can gain mutliple stacks from a single spell, so a full Chain Missile can easily give multiple stacks for the Dodge bonus. Pretty handy.
• Could probably benefit from a Mage Hand: Open Locks. I understand why interacting with objects and opening doors is being avoided, but Open Locks does not further quest scripting, thus shouldn't break anything with its inclusion.
• Magical Ambush worked on Eldritch Blast as well as Eldritch Aura.
• Turning Golems into Fey sub-typing does not strip their racial immunity to Poison Damage. Wasn't expecting it to, but I had to check.

 

[SpartanKiller13]

I really think the 100% scaling SP in the capstone is too limiting. The class itself is not complete enough, it kinda assumes you're bringing in something from multiclassing, but the 100% scaling is too valuable in Epic to keep your added damage relevant, and that requires 20 AT. 50% scaling on Ambush is not worth giving up 8 levels in another caster class (and thus their top-tier spells), so its kind of a catch-22. If you're going to gimp yourself to mid- and low-tier spells and SLAs, then you need that 100% scaling to make up for the lost damage.

I think swap it into the T5, similar to how DA gets 200% Harm scaling in T5. That's still requiring a major tradeoff, but gives you much more flexibility to multiclass to help you actually do something in the game, and make use of the marvelous Mixed Magics mechanic

Could also maybe go to d4/d5/d6 in core 4/5/6, and/or add like +10% scaling per core or something.

--------

Looking at the various options for Ambush (heroic leveling, epic leveling, cap) - for heroic leveling what's the theoretical leveling order for a split? Level 14 with 8 AT you're Ambush-boosted Fireball instead of like Chain Lightning? Do you just AT 8 first then take your caster class? I'm trying to imagine a 7/5 AT/Wizard still casting Fireball at lvl 12 lol (Mixed Magics helps a lot but still).

In epics you've given up Meteor Swarm, for what?

12/8 Alch/AT is the best I've come up with so far; Multivial with bonus Force damage seems fun (and Mixed Magics so no CL issues). Not sure it's worth losing MV SLA for though lol, but you could just go Alch 12 > AT (or 1 AT early for trapping). But that's reliant on Alch having trash level 6 spells lol (and you can T5 Bombardier for stripping).

Otherwise 12/8 AotS/AT? Using Ambush to scale eldritch blast a bit more (18/2 for like Heal? Costs blasts feats tho).

Or like 8/5/x AT/FvS for healing wall/CW w/full caster level, spamming MM etc for cheap no-save damage?

8 is a lot of levels to spend lol. Blightcaster? Hmmm.

 

[Pretty Good Old One]

After seeing a few requests, I need to put in a counter - please keep Mechanic tree in for Trickster. If Assassin needs to be added, remove Acrobat.

Why: between the recent changes to Alchemical Traps (sneak attack die and scaling), Trickster Magical Ambush lets you double dip on the sneak attack. All together, this creates reasonable AOE damage for leveling… and it fills in some survivability/leveling speed gaps at lower levels.

It would be fun to see this leveraged more - add trap making at level 2, and allow level 3 or level 4 magic hand to place traps at a distance. Distance placing spell traps with disable device for the dev would be a fun mechanic.

 

[Mokune]

Even with the long CDs the Core spells Sound Burst, Flash Freeze and Greater Shout using Disable Device as the DC is enticing af. Mage Hand Presto uses DD score as DC as well.

 

[Darlyaa]

Noob reactions/questions.

Feat Notes - Arcane Trickster will NOT get uncanny dodge, Trap Sense or the Special Ability feats (improved evasion, opportunist, etc etc)

Seems a pity, but same time the Mage hand seems very nice.

Nothing on Spot/Search in the tree?

• Stolen spells for DCs uses your disable device skill score

Am I understanding correct that you could have Magic Missile in spellbook, DC related to INT; and also Stolen Magic Missile, DC related to Disable Device? So one spell and one SLA not calculated the same concerning DC?

Will Spell focus work on stolen spells? Also Spell power?

• Stolen spells uses character's rogue level for caster level (this tree offers mixed magics though like wild mage)

I guess the few spells from book too?

 

[Lofen]

The Arcane Trickster is a Rogue Archetype who dabbles in their own kind of magic to augment their abilities. They have modest skill in Enchantment and Illusion magic but can also steal spells from other classes. They also can summon a magical Mage Hand to cause mischief and disable traps at a distance.

Weapon and Armor Profs: As Rogue
Past Lives: +1 Illusion DCs and +3 Force Spell Power

-T

The first impression is that it seems there's a lot of power in this class, perhaps too much.

I expected to see more confusion/relocation mechanics for this tree (being a rogue "trickster") than there appear to be. You could have casts reset relocations or something along these lines, to lead to a unique play style that rewards the arcane rogue with something that isn't pure damage (but this time, force!), I would have preferred anything that leans more into the theme of the illusion/enchantment.

the imbues are a lot for 2ap, and late in the tree.
the subtlety is redundant with the acrobat, yet you have both trees for this class. that's just bad design.

two strange choices:
1. make rogues be better arcane casters than an archmage wizard
2. give an illusionist arcane rogue access to divine healing spells.

another word on these healing SLAs - they are better than the healing SLAs divine casters get.

overall this tree feels like someone was trying to have fun pouring power into it rather than building a thematic tree with the intended class.
illusion, enchantment, mischief, rogue

edit - some ideas for already existing effects you could use instead of damage/subtlety- shattermantle, flicker, vulnerable will
make it an illusionist that debuffs with their tree (on hit effects) instead of having high DCs like normal casters, make it fade in and out of aggro, you can put the flicker as an on-attack % instead of when-attacked %

 

[Abax11]

Not sure yet.

Some damage effects also seems to apply as spell/imbue, for example cold damage from Inexorable Advance on Sharidi Champion tree (the light damage from mantle maybe too?)

 

[droid327]

My thoughts after playtesting...

- I couldnt playtest a pure AT since they dont qualify for metas while still getting the capstone, and without metas you cant really test it properly. Though from what I have played, I think I can project that it wont be that great either.

- Seems to be a viable Force caster, up through R1 Epic. Combination of Shadowstrike + Ambush is enough to carry you, with adequate Sneak Dice and Force damage/crit. Viable does not mean good, though - it feels like this is a very low-ceiling build option.

- Biggest issue is lack of AOE. Chain Missiles is not an AOE, its a single-target spell that will also do damage to 1 or 2 adds. Spreading the missiles out just spreads them too thin, the individual added damage is not enough.

- Magic Missiles is a nice single-target nuke for its cost and cooldown.

- I played a 12 Acolyte/8 AT in this preview. Ambush works great with Blast to add another chunk of damage, and especially with Wave since that hits 3x. Chain or Cone + Wave makes up for the lack of AOE for questing. Total damage is still too low though - even in R1 with Arcane Pulse, Ruin, and GRuin, bosses were taking a long time to whittle down

- No filigrees on Lama of course, but Force is not well supported with filis anyway, so I dont think they'd help much. Hopefully we get a Force caster set with the next generation. Likewise, ED support isnt great - I could eke out a build with Shadow, Shiradi, and Primal, but it definitely wasnt on par with elemental casters in Draconic + Primal. Shadow has a good synergy, but Primal was just for passive boosts and heals, and Shiradi gives occasional Force damage, but scaling on Imbue, which AT doesnt stack a lot of (you can hit 7, probably not 14). Maybe Magus could get a third version of its abilities in Force.

- Nice defense for a caster archetype. Dodge was high, and the extra +20% uncapped was definitely noticeable (wonder if there's some Monk cheese there). Bug, btw: Slippery stacks to 4, not 3 as indicated. Cocoon+Reborn was enough healing for cap, but having that emergency heal with Helping Hand would be useful, and the auto-heal on incap was very nice vs non-deathblow mobs. Cure Wounds options in Heroic are likely handy too.

- Very gear dependent, especially a Solar Gem of Sneak Dice, since no caster sets give Sneak

Conclusions: I'm not that excited to try building around this archetype. It doesnt seem to have enough on its own, and it seems to require too much investment to try and mix it with anything else. Its a fun idea on paper, but the execution just isnt there for the opportunity cost. The low ceiling means this is a flavor build at most.

 

[Lotoc]

While we're overall looking at issues with force damage, could force be added to energy criticals?
Force currently has the lowest potential crit chance out of the damage types due to exclusion from energy criticals and lack of itemisation giving an insightful impulse lore option, initially it was fine because only really archmage had a focus on force damage and archmage was bugged giving way more force crit than it should have but that was eventually fixed.
Now Blightcaster and Arcane Trickster can focus on Force/physical casting it is definitely about time to reassess force damage and its support and place in the game.

 

[glass_jaws]

While not technically an Arcane Trickster bug, I do want to mention Quick Draw. This keeps getting added to every hybrid tree but it doesn't actually do anything. The feat is supposed to allow us to start fighting again after spellcasting faster, but this doesn't actually work.

 

[droid327]

While we're overall looking at issues with force damage, could force be added to energy criticals?

I agree that Force needs a little extra, but I think itd be nice if it came from somewhere else...both for the variety, and just so that every single caster build isnt dependent on 3x Energy Critical past lives for a significant chunk of their potential DPS.

Caster builds should be more accessible to first life builds

 

[Torc]

My thoughts after playtesting...

- I couldnt playtest a pure AT since they dont qualify for metas while still getting the capstone, and without metas you cant really test it properly. Though from what I have played, I think I can project that it wont be that great either.

- Seems to be a viable Force caster, up through R1 Epic. Combination of Shadowstrike + Ambush is enough to carry you, with adequate Sneak Dice and Force damage/crit. Viable does not mean good, though - it feels like this is a very low-ceiling build option.

- Biggest issue is lack of AOE. Chain Missiles is not an AOE, its a single-target spell that will also do damage to 1 or 2 adds. Spreading the missiles out just spreads them too thin, the individual added damage is not enough.

- Magic Missiles is a nice single-target nuke for its cost and cooldown.

- I played a 12 Acolyte/8 AT in this preview. Ambush works great with Blast to add another chunk of damage, and especially with Wave since that hits 3x. Chain or Cone + Wave makes up for the lack of AOE for questing. Total damage is still too low though - even in R1 with Arcane Pulse, Ruin, and GRuin, bosses were taking a long time to whittle down

- No filigrees on Lama of course, but Force is not well supported with filis anyway, so I dont think they'd help much

- Nice defense for a caster archetype. Dodge was high, and the extra +20% uncapped was definitely noticeable (wonder if there's some Monk cheese there). Bug, btw: Slippery stacks to 4, not 3 as indicated. Cocoon+Reborn was enough healing for cap, but having that emergency heal with Helping Hand would be useful, and the auto-heal on incap was very nice vs non-deathblow mobs. Cure Wounds options in Heroic are likely handy too.

- Very gear dependent, especially a Solar Gem of Sneak Dice, since no caster sets give Sneak

Conclusions: I'm not that excited to try building around this archetype. It doesnt seem to have enough on its own, and it seems to require too much investment to try and mix it with anything else. Its a fun idea on paper, but the execution just isnt there for the opportunity cost. The low ceiling means this is a flavor build at most.

Thank you for taking it for a spin in client. We are definitely looking at Chain Missile working more like standard AOE to fill this gap among other things as we gather feedback.

 

[Lotoc]

I agree that Force needs a little extra, but I think itd be nice if it came from somewhere else...both for the variety, and just so that every single caster build isnt dependent on 3x Energy Critical past lives for a significant chunk of their potential DPS.

Caster builds should be more accessible to first life builds

only issue is when they make those insightful crit items it's significantly more restrictive than just giving them from past lives.
Insightful Radiant and Void lore had been restricted to orbs for years (Sharn orbs and coalesced coinage), and then when we finally got them in alternate slots it was a rare drop table void scepter and radiant trinket.
Putting insightful impulse lore in the game just means restricting a specific item slot in much the same manner and it'll likely come on the rare drop table just because it's such a 'gimmick' effect.

 

[Venatori d' Argonnessen]

I played around with arcane trickster at a few levels. I played pure because I wanted to test the capstone, so I didnt have some metamagics.

Lack of aoe was a bit rough, though it sounds like chain missiles might be getting changed to compensate, so I wont mention that. The increased disable range without an increased detection for boxes did not feel very useful, though it was hilarious to disable from absurdly far away. The cornerstone of the build wasnt available until level 8, so the early levels really sucked. Moving ambush a bit earlier would be lovely, even if its a reduced version that gets upgraded later. Feydark spells didnt proc magical ambush for me which also hurt. In game magical ambush says it is 1d3 and the capstone increases it to 1d6, however it actually functions as it mentions here, 1d6 with 50% scaling, and the capstone upgrades it to 100% scaling

Like what most people have said force damage is a pretty weak element because it lacks a lot of support, and what its supposed to be good at is less valuable in this era of ddo. Immunities arent as much of an issue as they used to be, and force lacks the omph from things like energy criticals

Potential Solutions:
Change the magical ambush damage to either the same as normal sneak (physical?) or to match the type of damage that procs it
Add some form of force vulnerability to the tree or as a feat
Update force damage to scale with mrr, though this would cause issues in other places in the game so /shrug

General feedback
Playing as a hybrid is already punishing, Id like to see a lot of the multi selectors simply grant all the bonuses rather than having to choose. Looking at you quick draw/caster levels and crit profile/crit chance

Some of the spell selections felt underwhelming. Greater heroism, disintegrate, and fire seeds all felt quite meh for when you get them. Dancing sphere over heroism, thorn lance or thornwave instead of fire seeds, and greater dispel magic or mass suggestion over disintegrate all feel like better options at a similar spell level to the original

This tree gets a lot of imbue dice (8), but... doesnt really seem to have anything that functions with imbues. The tree gets minimal melee power or ranged power to scale the physical imbues, and none of the caster stuff works with imbues at all. This should probably be tweaked so that either imbues work with what the tree seems to want to be doing, casting spells (with an internal cooldown), or some more support given to melee / ranged. Someone earlier had a good idea with a similar simple thrown expertise ability.

Other requests / changes
Id very much like to see the feat selection added to with more interesting unique options similar to alchemist.
Limiting the upgrade to magical ambush to the capstone feels very harsh. Id like to see that moved either to the t5, or to a feat upgrade takeable at 18
Please add the ability to set your traps like noisemakers, open doors, or pull levers or similar from an increased distance with mage hand too
Distraction from feydark illusionist feels like it should be at home here
Please add in faster sneaking, maybe make it thematic so that while invisible and sneaking, you sneak at full speed

Potential new idea that seem interesting to me
Capstone: Spell echo, once every 10s? your mage hand casts a copy of your next spell with the same target using your stats

Obligatory "please make the next archetype not a melee with spells". All but 2 of the archetypes have been caster centric. All of the hybrid classes have turned into more of a spell caster, and most of the weapon uses have gotten spells added. Next archetype please make it a caster that loses some of their casting to gain some ability with weapons.

Thank you!

 

[Rull]

I tried lvl34 geared 6 wizard (magic missile + chain missile SLA), 1 dark hunter (2 sneak dice), 13 trickster (still 7 sneak dice).
It was fun to spam magic missile SLAs endlessly, but without the trickster capstone the damage was just lacking. I had 28 sneak dice, decent endgame force spellpower gear, but it just didn't work well enough, even single target without taking no MRR reduction options into account.

conclusion: Magical Ambush without capstone is meh, even when investing into it.
I don't know if it's currently 1d3 100% scaling or 1d6 50% scaling, the ingame description is different from the description here, but either way it's not much. With capstone, on the other hand, it could be good, but I'd need metamagics working to test that. But it seems like you can safely up it to 1d4 pre-capstone, instead of 1d3

13 Trickster 6 Acolyte of the Skin 1 Dark Hunter would have been my next try for better AoE damage, but it already looks like that damage won't quite cut it either if the single target damage isn't even there.

 

[Dulkhan]

This could be a good oportunity to add an increese to the range of search in the mechanic tree ( give some love to this tree with this update too plz) maybe in the core 6 or 12?