Lets jump straight into some thoughts on the weekend’s play. First most of the time the group was Fopo and myself but there was ample time when Tobril also got to jump in on his arty. Watching the two different kinds of arty’s play has given me some basic thought to share. I do really like the arty class as a whole and I think they have a hidden depth. Remember I said the same thing back when Helfs came out and now they are the other master race.

Casting focus Artys seem to be the way to go, at least if you like casters at all. The Blast rod spell is just as amazing as my wife said it was. If not more so. Empowered with a Superior Lighting clickly running I am seeing 300-500 points to as many guys as you can fit into the cone and it always castes right unlike cone of cold…Add in Lighting Motes, which other then the cloud not lasting as long as I would like it quite nice, To rake up the damage another tear and those 400-500s are fairly normal. A can hardly wait to fit in Maximize. But the surprise winner for me so far is Prismatic Strike.

Prismatic Strike’s summary in the ddowiki doesn’t do it justice.

A brilliant ray of multicolored light projects from your finger, causing the target to be afflicted by three different effects. The spell does 1d3+3 points each of fire, force, and sonic damage per two caster levels, up to a maximum of 10d3+30 damage (per element) at caster level 20, and the target’s melee and ranged damage is reduced by 75% on a failed saving throw, this spell has double range.

I hit up http://compendium.ddo.com to see how Turbine has the description written out as and I get the following:

A brilliant ray of multicolored light projects from your finger, causing the target to be afflicted by three different effects.
The first deals 4 to 6 sonic damage per 2 caster levels (up to a max of 40 to 60 damage at caster level 20) and knocks the target prone; a successful Fortitude save halves the damage and negates the knockdown.
The second deals 4 to 6 force damage per 2 caster levels (up to a max of 40 to 60 damage at caster level 20) and dazes the target; a successful Reflex save halves the damage and negates the daze.
The third deals 4 to 6 fire damage per 2 caster levels (up to a max of 40 to 60 damage at caster level 20) and reduces the target’s melee and ranged damage by 25%; a successful Will save halves the damage and negates the penalty to attack damage. This spell has double range.

Which is a lot more clear. You get 3 rays per cast a sonic, fire and force. Each ray does a d3+3 every other level so if it is your first level 5 spell it will be 6d3+18 points per ray or 18d3+54 base. But the crazy part is that each damage ray has 3 other effects to try and trip up the target if it doesn’t kill it out right, which it will a lot. Sonic as a knockdown effect, force dazes, and fire reduces damage by 25% each one against a different save and most likely against the hard save for the kind of target. Knock a caster on its ass, make a melee swing a little less hard etc. And there is no reason that all three can’t happen at once. 🙂 Running around in the sands I used this spell a lot and it if it didn’t one shot the mob it would often leave it dazed and triped and a quick melee swing on the way past it finished it off.

Looks like a good place to stop for now. I will knock out part 2 later today I hope. Fleshy vs Bot.

❤