JakLee wrote on Oct 31^st, 2011 at 6:25pm:


Yes.

Shade, with his unparalleled knowledge of all things DDO, has carefully analyzed this, and come to the absolute conclusion...

http://www.ddovault.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1318324940

That's right. The ability to use heal scrolls makes them better than clerics, favored souls, bards, even Godh himself (okay, that's not much of a challenge, but had to throw it in) at healing!!!


Seriously, they do very well at using the scrolls and wands, either for buffs or to provide assistance with healing. I still don't think I'd trust an artificer to solo anything the tank isn't overgeared for.

Edit: Just wanted to add that, if you can stand to wade through the mire of hyperbole, you might want to actually read Shade's post that is linked from my drama thread. If you ignore his absurd bias, (he wants anything that isn't a barbarian to sit back and make him better) he does have some good advise for new artificers hidden away. Some of it is obvious. For example, if you don't have max Scroll/wand mastery at level 20, reroll (your enhancements). If you don't think the mastery is useful, reroll your player. Don't dump Int this time.

JakLee wrote on Oct 31^st, 2011 at 7:33pm:

As far as offensive spells, Blade Barrier is an artificer spell, which is boosted by the force line. If you only get one line of spell boosts, go with force. Lightning spells are decent, but anything that has non elemental damage components (blade barrier, tactical detonation, prismatic fun, in other words, all the top end spells). It might work on the inflict damage line, but not sure yet. Not too many constructs at my level that aren't dead when I think to use the nukes. As far as scrolled attack spells go, usually those are not worth using. Saves are capped pretty low, and you don't get to boost them with your capstone. If you end up scrolling attack spells, make sure they are ones that work even if the enemy makes the save, and assume they work at the reduced effectiveness (IE, Heal scrolls on undead are basically 75 damage a shot, plus mastery). If you happen to run into some scrolls that are good enough to use, of course use them, but don't expect that to be a significant source of damage. Wands would be nice, except they cap at low level spells. Clickies are usually low level spells as well, but sometimes you get lucky.

Now, regarding scrolls of the specific spells you mentioned:
Cometfall would be effectively level 15, which means you get 14 dice out of it. It is a reflex save, so anything with evasion will basically ignore it. Chain and Ball Lightning, Ball would be level 14, chain level 16, so 14 or 16 dice, but again reflex. Acid rain has no save, except the first one, but is only 11 dice. Circle of Death gives you two saves. Disintegrate would be 30 dice, if the enemy doesn't save (fort, most things have high fort saves) to drop the damage down to 18-30.

Still, that doesn't matter, as Blade barrier is the best spell in the game. If it moves, blade barrier can annihilate it. The only down side is the expense of a maximized, empowered, quickened, blade barrier. At least artificers don't need heighten, but on the other hand, they don't have nearly enough spell points to throw blade barriers everywhere. Just kite things until you get to the end, then kill everything with three.

(Important note: I do not recommend reading the last paragraph as a serious suggestion. Blade Barrier is nice, especially against mobile enemies. However, it is not the super ultimate kill everything in three attacks spell I'm implying. It takes up to 6 sometimes, and if you have the whole quest on you, chances are a couple of them will save enough to survive, silly monsters that they are! Erm... I'm not good at being serious right now, sorry.)