So one of my big fears of playing the Arty class is coming true. I am falling for it fairly hard. I am already thinking of doing a major juggle and switching guys in to different kinds of Arties. I was telling a guildie the other day (think it was Phlor) that they are the most complex class I have ever played. It takes so much concentration to make them sing.

The thing is even with all the things I love about them and I truly love to play this life, I feel I am busy doing all the cool thing and not really watching what I am doing. And that is leading to play error deaths. For example think I died 3 times in Tide Turns last night. WFT? Twice while getting the traps and once clearing the last room. Cleared everything but the water Ellies, while Fopo on his Pally life dropped the boss. Went to get them and took 6 shots from Frost Lance. As I had died earlier I lost my ship resistances and had so much else going on I forgot to cast them on myself so my 2 points of cold resistance from the ranger life stopped 12 points of the 204+ points of damage. Just a lot of things to keep track of over a normal caster.

I want to do a little break down, mainly for myself but you might dig it.

Casting: They have some really good spells, unfortunately they cap out at 6th level. Right now at level 9, I have three slots for direct damage spells. Static Shock, Lightning Sphere and Blast Rod. As I said they are very good. I really love Lightning Sphere to the point I even keep a copy of it unmetaed just for breaking things. Did you know its damage works through walls and stuff? So all those low level quests with 4+ breakables behind a gate can be broken with out having to stop to open things. Making racking up a ransack bonus a ton faster, and it is way nicer to make concentration check for a spell if a million little mobs are hitting for 1 or 2 points of damage vs trying to open a door/valve and being stopped every time you take 1+ point of damage. They are also loaded up with indirect damage spells, with the weapon buffs and haste like armor buff. Think I will be swapping to Lighting motes and carrying Haste scrolls however, as Armor of Speed doesn’t counter slow and at these levels the mobs spam me with that spell.

Wands: Boy howdy. Okay this is really the Artificer Knowledge feats in action but I most notice it with wands. Vendor shield, resistance (when I remember to use them), Fox cunning and other stat boosting wands are all golden. I even have been using a web wand to good effect. And I need to remember to nab an ice storm wand or two. I have the feeling that they will rock.

Melee: Okay this is a lot different now that I am level 9 and swapped out my claw set. I still do 20-30 normal numbers in the first melee slot. But I almost always hit even with power attack on thanks to Insightful Strikes but the trail of other numbers is almost sick at this level, right now I have a Icy burst, Lighting burst of Pure good scimitar from level 4 that I am still using because of this trail of numbers. Base + icy+shock+ good+ rune arm + weapon buff. Most swings of 18+ crit for icy and shock burst effects. That is a fairly impressive list of numbers. I have taken to using a race required paralyzing Sword with Icy burst and still the string of numbers is impressive.

Ranged: To be honest I don’t do a ton of ranged combat this live other then the rune arm. But I made a quick shock of pure good heavy repeater just to have around in case. And I have to say once boosted with Insightful Strikes and acid damage and using the auto reload clickly plus a rune arm the ranged damage is very nice. Did the Pit on Elite last night and I was able to stand up top during the end fight and let Fopo run around and get the mobs and it was very nice.

Pets: So the dog has issues. Mostly with weird bugs. Like if I go below decks on my guild ship I have to leave the boat for the dog to reappear, as well as how the dogs can’t use guild slotted items, or when it just decides to lock up and you have to dismiss it and re-summon it to make it do anything again. There are plenty of none bug related issues like how there is only a weapon and armor slot. They are dogs hello! No dog collar. /shakes head. And once you make a module and out grow it you can sell it or break it down for mats because there are no way to recycle that module as a new module. Oh other pets, have you seen the Flame Turret? Would like to see an something like an auto ballista or a catapult for say boss fights at cap but the flame turret is fun at level so far.

Any way thinks I am doing with my arty that is working and not in the coming days.

❤