No intention currently to make this build, but in theory, a full artificer can reach 100% wand/staff/rod reuse.

The secret ingredient is the Artificer past life feat.

Student of Artifice: +15%
Full Artificer levels + On Destiny: +25%
Int 60 or above: Voila.

Splashes need at least 5 arti levels + enough Int to make up for the lost ~15.

All that's needed is a wand/staff/rod that would make it worthwhile. DDO does not have this, to my knowledge.

On second thought, cycling one, two, or three (depending on cool down) thunderforge dragonbreath staves might make this surprising.


Edit: Destinies only grant 5 class levels.

NOTdarth wrote on Dec 15^th, 2014 at 4:37am:
I dunno, made me think about someway to make an Arti useful in epic levels.

Aeolwind wrote on Dec 15^th, 2014 at 12:42pm:

If it works, it could wind up supplementing a capped Arcanotechnician.


AngryKobold wrote on Dec 15^th, 2014 at 5:09pm:

I'm waiting to check this stuff until I log on Lama. The idea is silly, and I have to admit I have a weakness for silly builds, but I'm not going to throw resources and time into this just to find out Turbine coded forge staves as non-staff, or that their charge retaining math is ... Turbine math.

Also need to check greensteel staves. Could get meteors, chain lightning, DBF, etc.

hmms do green steel scepters exist? Never bothered to notice. I did try a crappy ddo store rod (stated as a rod, uses simple weapon prof. for club). And the rod did retain charges. I did not try it with arti past life, but when I get some time I can on my twink.

Maybe for flavor I suppose on a capped pure Arti with Arcano capstone.
Epic Winter's Wrath, Wand of Blasting, Staff of Arcane Power, Cacophonic Verge/Epic CV, Clickies that cast spells etc.

The casting time and CD on most this stuff is so flippin slow  could save some SP in a pinch and add flavor.

Aeolwind wrote on Dec 16^th, 2014 at 2:36pm:

The Harper tree changed things. Your pure arti still won't be a star in epics, but it can contribute. This retain essence idea is partly to find a way to be able to still use arcanotech.


Aeolwind wrote on Dec 16^th, 2014 at 2:36pm:

Looks like a six second cool-down. It also gave me a charge-retained message on a T-Forged club, so that's positive. The question I don't have an answer for is if two clubs would share the same cool-down.

rest wrote on Dec 16^th, 2014 at 10:49pm:

Wouldn't be so bad if you were AE'ing them, 18-24 seconds per group on normal would just need bigger trains.  Would suck in someplace like Inferno though.  And you could get by with 2 staves rather than many.

Cool idea.  Anyone know what the DC on the thunderforged clickies are with or without the capstone? 

I guess the viability of this build depends on how good the thunderforged clickies are.  With wand and scroll mastery, it could be decent... Arcanotech is seriously bad otherwise.

Revaulting wrote on Dec 17^th, 2014 at 11:36pm:


I know, the capstone says:You treat any non-scroll activated equipped item that casts spells (such as wands, rods, armor, or other activated items) as if they were staves. 

So based on the description... it SHOULD work I guess depending on whether it counts all clickies as "spells" or not.

So, unfortunately, I've been told that the TF clickies do share a cooldown.  Damage average was around 700 on a sorc.  If wand and scroll mastery is working, that'd be around 1225 with a 6 second cooldown.  It might be even higher on an arti with caster level increases.  Another nice thing, I didn't see any reflex save, so it looks like it'd be pretty strong versus evasion mobs.  That's pretty decent, but I don't think it's worth building around. 

It would definitely be a boon for a capped caster arti, but caster arti is just too much of a flavor build for my taste.  I don't see an xbow arti even bothering.  The weapon switch time and casting speed time is just too expensive. 

What I would appreciate if someone could test is if a bauble or RoSS can retain essence on an arti with arcanotech capstone.  I don't know anyone with a capped pure arti, and lammaland isn't up 

If it did work, it would make arti casters finally viable and fun to play.

Asked around in chat, and retain essence does work on bauble/RoSS.  However, they were skeptical that you could get 100% retain lol.

AtomicMew wrote on Dec 20^th, 2014 at 1:12am:

I'm still skeptical. I have never seen essence retained on a trinket. It's possible the bauble is coded differently, though. I don't have any ring clickies, so I can't speak to retaining essence from a ring, but it still would mean that rings have to be coded differently from other equipment. Not sure I'd be willing to make the investment based on the word of some guys who don't think 100% retain is possible. (Not unless they were saying they had personally reached over 100%, and yet still lost charges. Turbine math, I'd believe.)