POST 2
YEP, HE’S STILL YAPPING
So here I get more into the nitty-gritty of balance numbers and overall scaling strength of the Arcane trickster, 99% of this will be me talking about its strength as a caster tree.
As I already pointed out in the post above,
I do not like how t5 of the tree makes the player choose between +1crit/multi with ranged or melee weapons (plus their other benefits like 15% comp hp or 10% evade bypass) or the only spell crit chance you get in the tree and USP AND spell pen. The “choice” in whether to take “
Not Half Bad with a Bow/Blade” stacked against “
Not Half Bad With a Spell” is no real choice at all. If you wish to use melee or ranged on your character, you will never go t5 ATR because t5’s of other trees like mechanic//horizon walker// vistani (trees that a pure Arcane trickster gets access to) are just leagues better for scaling your martial strength. This means the only people taking t5 arcane tricksters are more “pure” casters who will always take the +20 spell power, +2 spell pen, and +5% spell crit. Again, this means the multiselector only has one reasonable choice: “
Not Half Bad With a Spell”.
I would really like to see this changed as the idea of rolling an elf AA or Eladrin Crossbow Mechanic who uses chain missles as their aoe option and has cc/ Presto is REALLY, REALLY COOL. I also tampered around with making a dodge tank THF staff acrobat ATR who used Magic missile spells for single target. In short there’s some really cool stuff that’s just teetering outside of the realm of possibility right now because the hybrid potential of the tree is lacking. I don’t
really mind the only 10 melee/ ranged power in the tree: stuff like warforged/ aasimar trees, Horizon walker/ Inqius etc etc have some of that to reinforce what’s lacking in the tree.
If anything, I would prefer to see Melee Power in the cores or early parts of Thief Acrobat alongside this update to give melee arcane trickster some love,
Okay so how does Maining this tree do in terms of power for a caster then?
Answer: Really, Really good.
Hot damn does this tree feel strong in heroics and in epics. On the surface, it may seem like there wasn’t much tweaking in numbers to preview one, but man is that not the furthest thing from the truth.
1-8 is a bit of a slog.
-this makes sense, your imbue dice is based on rogue level, and you don’t get magical ambush until 8, so naturally you would suffer from the same weaknesses as base rogues does in the early game. A class has to have its low points anywho or you never appreciate its highs so no comment here really.
8-15 is a Blast.
-The addition of “
Sharp Magic” in t4 is amazing for power. Again, hats off to the Team for that one cause MAN does that enhancement feel good to take. By the time you hit 9 and have Maximize/Quicken you are already at 7d6 sneak attack dice which makes for a crazy burst in power similar to when alchemist gets its aoe spells and multivial. The new Chain Missile hits very well on r1, it is not 1-shotting healthier mobs but deals with trash packs well (I’m not running lamordia gear for the purpose of unbiased power scaling). Most noticeable here is the no animation for the mage hand skills: for quick cc with slap or the panic heal from Helping hand these are way better to use in combat flow now.
15-20 is SO MUCH BETTER.
-I don’t think I’m shocking anyone when I say once you hit sharn, mob HP balloons and that can be a problem for some builds. Thankfully now with the updated chain missiles, the addition of Hold Monster as a stolen spell (not my personal choice but it does the job), and roughly 11-14 sneak attack dice depending on race at lvl 15, you are more than suited to carry on throughout the rest of heroics without falling behind other builds.
I know Torc said they were thinking of putting Greater Colour Spray into the level 4 spellbook, but I think maybe that’s not warranted and maybe something like an aoe confuse or Greater Command would be better suited. I think if you’re going ATR, you’re already thinking of dipping 10-20 points into Feydark, and gnome already has some nice synergies here so maybe it’s redundant? I like the idea though so maybe I’m just being picky.
Epics
Hey look, I don’t think I need to tell you that once you get your hands on shadowdancer’s wonky 8 Sneak attack dice and additional hit damage on spells from paranoia that this ramps your damage. Improved sneak attack is just the cherry on top. So when I say Past life Wizard Magic missiles are trucking epic reapers, believe me, I mean it. I rolled up to R1 Legendary Sharn and blasted part one solo at level 26. Possibly the best part about this Archetype is that you still play the same way in epics as you do heroics. It is my personal bane that when I play a caster, I drop almost all my heroic spells by the time I hit 28 than my heroic character is wildly different from my epic one. Here, Arcane Trickster’s missile blaster gameplay is still pumping its damage and being its own fresh and unique playstyle. I spent a fair amount of time running around Legendary Grim and Berret on R4 on a 13ATR/6Wiz/1Fvs and man, master of the arcane weaving between MM and Chain Missile spam is really one of my new favorite ways to play. If you make use of mixed magics and go AM illusion Deep gnome with t5 ATR you also have a very competent DC caster in epics with no shortage of Instakills. Really, this archetype one of the few that keeps its power and unique identity in epics and that is something to commend the team for.
End Game.
So lets talk numbers: Running shadowdancer and t5 Draconic, with shadowlance and paranoia upkeep,
Pure ATR force caster went from a ttk on boss kobold of 56.8 seconds on preview one to 19.3 seconds this preview. Now the bulk of this spike in dps comes from the now functional capstone giving 100% spellpower scaling on magical ambush, but the ~5 more sneak attack dice from “
Sharp Magic” in the tree is a sizable boost when using Wizard Past life MM or just MM in general. The gear I used was all pre-Lamordia, non raid items and I had no sentient jewel/ filigrees equipped.
I’m sure with an epic completionist and a fully upgraded sentient weapon, a ATR can hit 40-50kdps.
More importantly, I sat in the dojo for 4 minutes strait rolling my keyboard and spamming spells, I lost only half of my 3.4k sp. Stolen spells’ next to no mana cost is a godsend for mana economy and this is a caster I can very much see being usable in endgame raids for dps and DC casting.
It is because of this
I cannot STRESS ENOUGH that Shiradi casting does not need to come back for the purpose of making this build “viable”. I Know that there are people that want to see the RNG number-fest of Shiradi Magic missile spamming come back
Whats more Is the multiclassing builds for endgame as well. As mentioned above, my most successful multiclass was a 13ATR/6WIZ/1FVS at cap. Archmage t5 Arcane supremacy coupled with master of knowledge weaving magic missiles is a deadly dps build as far as casters go. It is competitive with Pure Atr in Dps (in the same gear it had a ttk on boss kobold of 21.0)
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.... Is it over?
... HAS HE STOPPED YAPPING?!
Yes, It's done, In the time it took for me test and to write this post I literally turned 30, I'm going to bed now so I can celebrate tmo. If you have any questions about what exactly I tested, how I do my testing, or just want clarification, feel free to dm me, reply to this post, or msg me in the official discord
@Nerosothe
