IMO most anything would work but you're gonna want twink gear. Also new content is typically way overtuned for low levels---like Saltmarsh, IMO, is about as hard as Necro2 but you're 5 levels lower....

0. What you mentioned would be fine, but Artificer Nuker would be most fun IMO. It's single target is bad in epics until you hit cap and take ruins + draconic t5. You can get evasion out of shadowdancer or primal now.
1. Pure Barbarian and then bring a hireling. (150 Temp HP clicky is nice from Frenzied Berserker)
2. Pure Cleric Nuker. Starts a little slow but once you get Divine Smite SLA (level 6 IIRC) it is a breeze.

when the game was a lot different 1 level of arti at level 1 was more powerful and useful than anything u would have gotten one level sooner but i would figure the nature of epic levels has since invalidated this but i had a lot of fun on 19anything/1arti lives that didnt have a modern epic component. 19 in barb, sorc, wiz, are most memorable to me

i guess i am reminiscing more than answering but whatever

ive always wanted to do this

A lock in blaster mode can solo about 90% of the side content in the game without even trying.  Right out of the gate you've got DD, and open lock.  Don't dump dex and throw a handful of points into search and you can you've got everything covered except for a handful of STR doors (you'll miss one shard in Tear).

Go for a CC/healing build.  You'll need a cleric hire till level 10 or 12 (as opposed to a barb who'll need a cleric hire forever), after that you'll have to scroll heal for awhile and by epics you'll just heal yourself.

CCing and blasting makes the blue bar last way longer than any other caster.  Most quests you won't have to shrine at all. 

If the toon you're using has anything resembling decent gear, reaper points or past lives, elite is a walk in the park and r1 is barely more challenging.

Outside of that: barb with a fleet of hires, but there's way more button mashing and stress hoping the hire remembers to keep you alive during the fights.

Aldbar made a build to solo raids, too. It is actually quite convenient if you want to stay in low reaper. Aldbar's Phoenix build or something.
And since it is melee you got time to flower-sniff.

Alchemist is pretty awesome, you have loads of skills, and can do everything except for traps.  I've been playing this a lot recently as a tiefling with a bunch of racial past lives to get the ash blast and immunity stripping.

Tiefling Alchemist 20 levels.
1-11 go for negative energy - you get 2 cause AoE's from the ... which ever tree.  Add in the single target freebie damage spell and that 3 almost mana free attacks.
@ 12 you get evasion, switch away from negative energy attacks.  T5's give you the weakening mixture so nothing is immune to your 2nd cast freebie AoE in the T5's.

Alternative option:  Gnome Alchemist with a light crossbow.
Take 2 levels of Artificer initially so you can use a repeater/runearm use battle engineer initially. 
At some point (about 6-8th level I think) switch out of repeater to a light crossbow, then you can spend enhancements in racial, inquisitive, vile chemist for simple weapons boosts, harper for int to hit/damage. 
You have xbow for most killing (@ 12th level inquisitive fusilade), and lots of awesome AOE spells for smashing up groups, or glueing them as an opener. 

higgildypiggildy wrote on Jul 11^th, 2022 at 9:39am:



I’m glad you posted this. This is just about perfect for what I want. I hadn’t considered it.

I rolled a gnome artificer to start this. I just did the first few korthos quests and got lvl 2. I think I’ll go alch from here. Thanks! The alternative was to stay pure. I wanted some aoe, but I forgot with the spell pass that arti lightning as a secondary is likely decent now.

Has anyone tried arti caster lately?  Again I’m not talking about reaper epics. I’m sure it’s not top tier as a nuker at end game. But flavor nukers got a big boost. I’ve seen sonic bards now, and light-based divines shred lower difficulties/heroics.

Guildie is obsessed with clerics (which I kinda dig) and is always trying to make it work. He’s currently running a light nuker cleric. We did a circuit of R1 Isle of Dread, and I had to work to out-kill him on my Druid. Now, I know of it was R6+, I’d pull ahead by a good bit because my crits are nastier. But still it’s nice to see nuker clerics working.

Rubbinns wrote on Jul 11^th, 2022 at 4:43pm:


Toppie.

I prefer Evasion over any more caster levels from wizard or ranged feats from fighter. It still manages to get 1 sneak dice, so it's not the worst. And it's a lot of skill points. The best part of fighter would be the extra 3 NHB charges. I just rather have evasion for most content in heroics. The dex score is high enough with augments and saves gear to skip insightful reflex feat.


Base of the build is just 36 inquis with 12 harper and an undead form. The Black Velvet Capelet and Ratcatcher slotted with admantine ( barovian for devils and other dr breaking ) are what gear I would suggest.

I never found Alchemist that much fun to play. Artificer on the other hand was endlessly entertaining.

Standing Stone Games wrote on Jul 12^th, 2022 at 8:48pm:


I've got my 3 alchy lives so I've done some stuff with it. Just never could find the fun.

higgildypiggildy wrote on Jul 14^th, 2022 at 4:55am:


I found everything perfectly solid, but:

higgildypiggildy wrote on Jul 14^th, 2022 at 4:55am:


Couldn't find any of that.

higgildypiggildy wrote on Jul 14^th, 2022 at 4:55am:


That shit annoyed me. The other thing that really annoyed me was how most of the spells were just sorc/wizard spells with a stupid alchemist theme(like Melt Lock instead of just Knock). It was just a lot of little annoying things I could never really get past. Its a lot like Druid, its great but I don't like it.