330 réponses à ce sujet

[Bigdawg13]

So...one of the things I've been trying to do, is to try out the specs that just look like crap.  All I've ever said about Artificer is how boring it looks.  I made a copy of my character pre-spec and played an assassin (my fav) for a few hours.  Hidden blades is fun as usual.  But I have some difficulty with archer assassin.  Hidden blades doesn't always work sometimes.  And it's wonky for me to use mark of death.  I'm starved for stamina.  It works, just not as well as DW.

 

Considering I wanted to play an archer, and I know how much i hate tempest, I decided to actually try out artificer.  

 

http://dragoninquisi...er_Archer_Build

 

It is really quite a bit of fun.  I'm not sure how but it feels like I'm cheating.  It's like perma flask of fire on all the time.  Leaping shot with hail of arrows is easily as cheap as thousand cuts, but some how more gratifying.  Knowing I must select and gear my team correctly to augment my own cooldowns is fun.  And the elemental mines is a nice change of pace.  I did swap out stealth for fallback plan, but so far it is equally fun albeit a little more difficult to use.  It's easy to forget it or try to use it after it's expired.  But I can use it to reset my position from leaping shot which is just tons of fun.  Lots of strategy.  Love it so far.

 

So, just like the rift mage, I'm eating my words.  Artificer is a lot more fun than I though it'd be.  

[Duelist]

So...one of the things I've been trying to do, is to try out the specs that just look like crap. All I've ever said about Artificer is how boring it looks. I made a copy of my character pre-spec and played an assassin (my fav) for a few hours. Hidden blades is fun as usual. But I have some difficulty with archer assassin. Hidden blades doesn't always work sometimes. And it's wonky for me to use mark of death. I'm starved for stamina. It works, just not as well as DW.

Considering I wanted to play an archer, and I know how much i hate tempest, I decided to actually try out artificer.

http://dragoninquisi...er_Archer_Build

It is really quite a bit of fun. I'm not sure how but it feels like I'm cheating. It's like perma flask of fire on all the time. Leaping shot with hail of arrows is easily as cheap as thousand cuts, but some how more gratifying. Knowing I must select and gear my team correctly to augment my own cooldowns is fun. And the elemental mines is a nice change of pace. I did swap out stealth for fallback plan, but so far it is equally fun albeit a little more difficult to use. It's easy to forget it or try to use it after it's expired. But I can use it to reset my position from leaping shot which is just tons of fun. Lots of strategy. Love it so far.

So, just like the rift mage, I'm eating my words. Artificer is a lot more fun than I though it'd be.

Lol, welcome to the club.

I originally thought it was underwhelming but once I understood the Artificer, it turned out to be much more fun and powerful than expected.

Versatility is what I love most though.
You can either set your party up to reduce your cool down times and kill enemies from afar (the Novadove method) or fight at close quarters and mow down hordes of enemies with mines which are addictive as hell (the Xelander method).

The biggest plus for me though is it helped me understand just how powerful a party member Varric actually is.

[Bigdawg13]

What recommendations are there for mastercrafts on weapons for archers and DW?  I'm inclined to think that +10% stats is ideal for the main hand (DW) or bow (archer) without exception.  

As for armor, HeroXMatt sums up tier 2 nicely here.  Pretty easy to extrapolate for tier 3.

 

 

Some recommendations on Fade-Touched materials:

Obsidian = 3 Guard on Hit. (Found in Redcliffe, behind locked door. Can be exploited. For more info, check here.)

Snoufleur = Heal 1% on Hit (will get while farming in Emprise Du Lion)

Phoenix Scales = +20% DMG if not hit for 5 Seconds (will get while farming in Western Approach)

(Plush and Faustian) Velvet = 10% Chance to use Hidden Blades

[Reptillius]

I need to get into my rogue game before I can know for sure. considering more and more I may go dual wield but archer does still call to me.

 

But part of that is for the hidden blades procs off of master works.  I've seen them do some nice stuff. specially on multiple hits.  Watched a friend get some of those procs off and end up with like 30 hits.

[Bigdawg13]

Yeah I put hidden blades with 5 hits on my armor.  Just wondering if I should go +10% for highest possible weapon damage on the bow.

[The Hierophant]

Yeah I put hidden blades with 5 hits on my armor. Just wondering if I should go +10% for highest possible weapon damage on the bow.

Been wondering this myself. I'm struggling on choosing between Varghest Scales (30% damage if not hit for 5 seconds) or the 10% stat bonus.

[Bigdawg13]

Best options for bow masterwork seem to be

 

+10% stats

+30% damage if not being hit for 5 seconds

hidden blades proc

+10% shield bash

 

I did consider reduction in ability cost, but with passive and high crit that doesn't seem to be a problem.

[The Hierophant]

I looked up Fade Touched Stormheart, and it's full damage shield bash is ridiculous. These choices are killing me. Looks like i'll have to farm to make alternate gear.

[Reptillius]

Having detonator potentially tied to most of your attacks does have some interesting possibilities if it indeed works this way. Does anybody know if shield bash keeps it's detonator nature if it comes from a masterwork proc?  And is it a normal shield bash or an upgraded one?  Even though the difference is only really in taking down guard. It is a curios question for me.

[Bigdawg13]

I went ahead with +10% shield bash and am quite pleased.  It's rather humorous when I hook & tackle in on something big, like a bear, and hit it with leaping shot.  A few shield bashes trigger and the bear goes into orbit.

[The Hierophant]

That's beastly. I'm just mad there's only one place to farm Stormheart.

[Bigdawg13]

Finally found a downside to artificer archer. 

 

Leaping shot spam + hail of arrows = screen glitch & reload

[Tharkun]

I am interested in good masterwork choices as well.  I have yet to craft my end gear and so have a lot of options.  The fact that +10% stats can randomly consume your dragon bone/dragon scales worries me, I guess carefully save scumming can prevent this but I am trying not to be super cheap.  I am running a DW Artificer so I am using spinning blades a ton.  Which is great fun btw.

 

I am thinking of 

1. Guard on hit
2. 10% chance of n Hidden Blades on Hit
3. 1% Heal on Hit

This should be pretty gonzo and I am building my team so that it is functionally immortal with death benefits.   Artificer's are all about the team because of Opportunity Knocks and the two team buffs. 

[Bigdawg13]

I found defensive masterworks completely worthless on artificer.  Hidden blades on hit was nice, but I put that on my armor.  1% heal also isn't needed IMHO. 

 

I really did enjoy +10% shield bash.  It knocks targets back/over/down.  And when I hook & tackle in to leaping shot, the results are silly humorous.  And my damage was so high the +10% to stats wasn't really needed. 

[Tharkun]

Well my Artificer is an Dagger Rogue, so I wanted to deal with the oops I didn't see that 360 attack in the middle of the scrum coming issues.  I also love the way Spinning Blades gets 9 hits/Mob in an AOE so if I push into the middle I can get some fun DPS with a bit of risk.

[draken-heart]

I thought about a Double Dagger artificer, and outside of hail of arrows, it sounds a tad bit close range spec. I would think that assassin makes it closer to an archer spec.

 

The most important things for an archer rogue (pure archer) are opportunity knocks and hail of arrows. For Double Dagger, Artificer abilities open up more. Now you can use elemental mines and spike trap to deal with groups of mooks and open up more value.

[Mabari Owns High Dragon The 2nd]

Since Shadow Strike is broken (More damage when out of stealth verses in stealth AND it never crits from stealth), I'm looking for another heavy damage from-stealth hit to supplement Twin Fangs when it is on cooldown. Deathblow looks like my only option at this point.

[Duelist]

Since Shadow Strike is broken (More damage when out of stealth verses in stealth AND it never crits from stealth), I'm looking for another heavy damage from-stealth hit to supplement Twin Fangs when it is on cooldown. Deathblow looks like my only option at this point.

 

Deathblow is good but has bugs of it's own: it drains all of all of your stamina on the second strike and doesn't trigger the Dance Of Death passive (although for me it's triggered when I kill more than one enemy with it).

That said, I love getting a big group of enemies clusteres together with Pull of the Abyss and then taking them all down with a single Deathblow. Very satisfying.

 

If roll an Assassin you get Hidden Blades which is awesome but I took Throwing Blades as well. It isn't all that great a skill but I had leftover points and it was good for taking down annoying enemies like Wraiths from a distance.

[Mabari Owns High Dragon The 2nd]

Deathblow is good but has bugs of it's own: it drains all of all of your stamina on the second strike and doesn't trigger the Dance Of Death passive (although for me it's triggered when I kill more than one enemy with it).

That said, I love getting a big group of enemies clusteres together with Pull of the Abyss and then taking them all down with a single Deathblow. Very satisfying.

 

If roll an Assassin you get Hidden Blades which is awesome but I took Throwing Blades as well. It isn't all that great a skill but I had leftover points and it was good for taking down annoying enemies like Wraiths from a distance.

 

Thanks for the reply, I'm noticing the bugs on Deathblow and its quite aggravating... I'm not even going to bother with it (Running out of cash for respecs, lol). Honestly, besides Stealth + Hidden Blades / Twin Fangs, I'm lacking any serious damage output at all. My daggers are pretty good but I just feel like I'm either not understanding this class or I just suck... Combat generally goes with me spamming Stealth and Twin Fangs as often as I can utilizing "I was never here" and hidden blades when necessary. Basic attacks just feel so worthless even with critical hits happening constantly and they leave me open to retaliation... However, they are necessary due to me running out of Stamina...

[draken-heart]

Thanks for the reply, I'm noticing the bugs on Deathblow and its quite aggravating... I'm not even going to bother with it (Running out of cash for respecs, lol). Honestly, besides Stealth + Hidden Blades / Twin Fangs, I'm lacking any serious damage output at all. My daggers are pretty good but I just feel like I'm either not understanding this class or I just suck... Combat generally goes with me spamming Stealth and Twin Fangs as often as I can utilizing "I was never here" and hidden blades when necessary. Basic attacks just feel so worthless even with critical hits happening constantly and they leave me open to retaliation... However, they are necessary due to me running out of Stamina...

 

For rogues, the general consensus is to pick up 'looked like it hurt' which restores stamina for EVERY critical hit. The bugs with Deathblow...I am not going to touch those.

[Duelist]

Thanks for the reply, I'm noticing the bugs on Deathblow and its quite aggravating... I'm not even going to bother with it (Running out of cash for respecs, lol). Honestly, besides Stealth + Hidden Blades / Twin Fangs, I'm lacking any serious damage output at all. My daggers are pretty good but I just feel like I'm either not understanding this class or I just suck... Combat generally goes with me spamming Stealth and Twin Fangs as often as I can utilizing "I was never here" and hidden blades when necessary. Basic attacks just feel so worthless even with critical hits happening constantly and they leave me open to retaliation... However, they are necessary due to me running out of Stamina...

I personally consider Deathblow to be worthwhile even with bugs for the damage alone.
Even if your target survives, it'll knock them down and make them easy prey for follow up attacks.
Better still, the second strike is Area Of Effect.

Other than that Looked Like It Hurts and Dance Of Death will help with stamina.

[Mabari Owns High Dragon The 2nd]

Other than that Looked Like It Hurts and Dance Of Death will help with stamina.

 

I actually already have dance of death but it doesn't help that much.. Looked like it hurt is on my list.

[Duelist]

Unless your me, kneel in supplication and I shall bestow upon you stormheart for days on end.

We're fine thanks. We have Dragon Bone. It's better

[Duelist]

I actually already have dance of death but it doesn't help that much.. Looked like it hurt is on my list.

Looked Like It Hurt works brilliantly with Hidden Blades and Twin Fangs too.