Time for us to work this out.  Go full retard on fusilade and boosts.

12Arty/6Fighter/2Barb
Dragonborn or Horc gets 3 more boosts but going Drow or Deep Gnome for the upcoming changes to SR is an option.  Drow also gets -ASF if you plan to use heavy armor.

12 Arty gets core 4, tier 5, 3 feats, either tensers, align or silver weapons, fusilade
6 Ftr gets 4 feats, 3 boosts, +1 crit multiplier
2 Barb gets 3 boosts, possible sprint boost

20 Total Boosts, 23 with racial
5 base + 1 ship + 3 BE + 3 LD + 3 Barb + 3 Ftr + 2 Necklace

Great Xbow
14-18 x3, 19-20 x5

LD, Cocoon, some combo of prism>double rainbow, pin, ottos, sense, grim, meld, consecration.

Enhancements:
~36 BE
11+ Kensai, boosts, crit
8 Barb(9 for sprint)
7 Harper KTA
18 racial, defender, or more harper
Plus racial earned

14 Feats
Point Blank, Precise, Imp. Precise, Focus, Spec, Imp. Crit, Rapid, Dodge, Mobility, Sotr, Completionist, Insightful Reflexes, Precision, 1 optional

Needs fine tuned.

So,

It seems like your excitement about Fusillade is causing you to ignore what makes great Xbows good and not terrible: Tier 5 in Mechanic.

Tier 5 Mechanic (great xbow, not 18-20 Rogue)

Buffs:
+14 Damage
+8 SA Dice (tho I think it's bugged and you get more)
19-20 Vorpal (huge depending on effects slotted/equipped)
+2[W]
20 Ranged Power
10% Doubleshot
30% Alacrity
18-20 Rogue: Massive +2 Crit Multiplier to Great Xbows

Artificer BE:
+7 or +8 Damage based on Cores/Arty Levels
Fusillade (Probably similar or a little better than 30% permanent Alacrity)
+1 Crit Threat
+10% Doubleshot

I would go so far as to argue Great Xbows are a terrible fucking choice for ANY build that does not have a minimum of 18 Rogue levels. In my mind, a multiclass of Arty or Rogue screams for Heavy or Light Repeater (Race-dependent) and not Great Xbow. If you want to use a GxB you are leaving too much on the table not being 18 Rogue.


This may be an unpopular view with some, but at least meta-gaming the build it seems like a very weak choice to skip Tier 5 Mechanic.

I would argue the real power in BE is Fusillade at Tier 4, and that you can do far better spending AP in a different tree and character levels in different classes. Fusillade is great, but it's only Tier 4, and only requires for Arty levels. It's hardly justification for Tier 5 Arty or more than 4 arty levels, which is a still a pretty shitty class.

For a repeater build, I would think something like:

6 Fighter/5Arty/9Ranger
Ranger gets you evasion, feats, and possbile bow swap if you wanted it.
It also gets your DWS and Imbues

Kensei (11AP) +1 Crit Multi, Boosts
Arty (22 AP) Fussilade
DWS (38 AP) Sniper Shot, Evasion, 20% DS from Killer, 20% DS from Tier 5, +5 Damage Tier 5, 30RP on Rednames, 5RP passive, 3 SA Dice, Merciful Shot, Head Shot, etc
Harper (8AP)KTA
80 AP

One thing about the combo of Fussilade and Reapter that I like the sound of is recharging Adrenalines. So a build to exploit that could be quite strong as well (would probably need slayer arrow included)

harharharhar wrote on Jun 8^th, 2017 at 11:55am:

Agree. Except for the idea that this view might be unpopular. The BE changes only reinforce the strength of going 4 Arti.

GxBow advice is correct, too. Though overstated. It's a fucking terrible choice until Tier 5 Mechanic, after which, it's only a relatively poor choice until 18 Rogue.


Digimonk wrote on Jun 8^th, 2017 at 2:13pm:

I haven't tested thoroughly, but my play experience reinforces this idea. Going from memory, so the most recent update might have changed this, but most if not all clicky attacks seem only to apply to the first bolt.

Revaulting wrote on Jun 8^th, 2017 at 7:07pm:


Overstated? You literally just rewrote what I said in my OP.

harharharhar wrote on Jun 8^th, 2017 at 11:55am:


Unless I'm not understanding and you're saying GxB is ok'ish without Rogue 18 but having T5 Mechanic. If that's the case, to that I say, "meh"

Digimonk wrote on Jun 8^th, 2017 at 2:13pm:


All of this may be so, I havent tested it recently either.

I can corroborate that repeaters have adrenaline work on the extra bolt SOMETIMES but that was quite a while ago. It felt fucking random too, which I didn't understand.

Ranged SA will be an issue with these builds. You get 10 meters with elf cores, base is 15, so 25 total.
Compare this to a pure deepwood repeater (unlimited) or a rogue GxBow @ 75 before racial.

A sniper shot / arti / fighter would be @ 30 before racial, and 40 after.

It's gonna be noticeable and put you in more danger.

Is there another racial comprable to sun-elf?
Aracnotechnician is dogshit.

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Halfling: Heroic companion, SA, and Dragon mark. --> Good ips.
Shadar Kai: SA, Hide boost, Abundant step
Human: Action Surge, Hamp
Gnome / Deep Gnome: Damage, Color Spray (Great! with IPS and Artis with some DCs), spellpower, Scroll Mastery in Racial to save the bother of putting any points into AT

WonderfulFoppyBint wrote on Jun 9^th, 2017 at 3:32am:

That was my experience, too.  It seemed to be random whether it worked on one or sometimes more than one bolt which is why I called it *weird*.

Thinking about it further, I wonder if it's only applying to the first bolt and if doubleshot check triggers a second bolt off the first, it gets the adrenaline bonus while the base 2nd and 3rd bolts don't?  If so, that would explain the fairly random appearance.

18 rogue/2 arti mech is getting a nice buff without even putting points in BE from the passive runearm upgrades.

That being said, I think the best arti BE build will be pure + gnome/deepgnome w/ light repeater for the +1 crit range and +1 multi. I don't think it's going to break any records, but it should be viable and fun.

Am excited about both Gnome and Sun-elf builds.
I guess the other question is how much decent caster stuff you can cram into an Artificer.
Is it even worth the bother?
A working Tac-det is nice before a pin, and a blade barrier is nice before an Ottos.
PK / color spray gnomes are a slick addition. The new clickies in BE look decent.
How much DPS are rune arms if you keep em macro'd?
Is it worth getting the blast rod SLA? I know its OP in heroics but in epics it looks kinda garbage.

http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Machination_of_Madness

8 to 34, + 1d10 per artificer level = 131 damage per cast @ tier 5 charge
500 force spell power, 50% crit chance
131*1.5*6 = 1179 damage on average

Wow, that is horseshit when my monk can crit for like 5k.

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There's a 20d4 dot possible on the rune arm. So 50 damage every 2 seconds with no save.
~250 dps on a boss, which is not great.

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11 damage proc @ 200% RP in blitz is like 300 RP, or a 4x multiplier.
So 44 damage a hit. What was the calculation on hits per minute with a repeater? 210ish?? Talk about an old ass number.
3.5 hits per second @ 44 damage a hit.
~150 dps

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