Sentinel Hunting Artefact options

Renek

I am going to have a bit of left overs after transing some skills and have thought about some artifact combinations with the mindset of having them for hunting purposes. I needed peoples opinions for which option would have the best credit investment

Nazihk

SOA is a mandatory pick for this.

The crit pendant is the better choice, but I think the spear is the more fun choice and wouldn't fault you for going spear. Also, tridents are way cooler than spears. 

Big benefit of the pendant is also that it will maintain value throughout class changes where the spear will not.

Renek

Nazihk said:

SOA is a mandatory pick for this.

The crit pendant is the better choice, but I think the spear is the more fun choice and wouldn't fault you for going spear. Also, tridents are way cooler than spears. 

Big benefit of the pendant is also that it will maintain value throughout class changes where the spear will not.

I don't think I will ever change class on this alt. I retired two characters specifically for this alt/class/city. So having class specific artifacts are not that much a downfall for me, but I appreciate your thoughts on the subject.

Ryzeth

Spear will also be beneficial if/when you decide to start doing combat with Sentinel. I'd personally go with that if you do, for sure, intend to stick with Sentinel. Also agree with Nazihk. Tridents > Spears.

Lyrin

I'd just get the shield to start with - it's a pretty clear winner whatever you end up doing.

Spend a while hunting with a normal spear to start and get a feel for your speeds.    Once you're comfortable with that, request a loan of the L1 spear and give it a go.   The difference is noticeable but fairly subtle for level 1 so personal taste is going to be a big factor in whether you see value.     After a short while you'll be able to gauge whether you'd rather spend the 300cr on that speed differential (+future pvp benefit)  or get +2% crits and some change.

If it wasn't for battlerage attacks (skewer & bore) requiring a wielded spear to use, I'd actually recommend that people buy an artie axe before an artie spear.    Previous testing showed that dps for throw axe and thrust are the same, with axe having the benefit of faster attack speed allowing more responsive bashing.    The other advantage is that I find an artie axe allows access to more interesting limb strats in pvp .  Unfortunately using an axe/shield to hunt means you lose access to those two aforementioned battlerage attacks when off balance

Sarathai

I was torn between SoA and L1 spear or SoA and L1 crit pendant. I'd do what Lyrin suggests, which is get the SoA, work with the normal spear, and get a loan of the L1 spear to test it out after a while.

Zahan

Some numbers might help.

A bit of context first: testing artefact scythe numbers, so I built a table.  My attack does 2% damage to a mob every swing.  I'm fully transed out with no stat modifier (since depthswalker), so I give it a value of 1000 damage.  The following table is assuming you're really low level with terrible luck and get 0 crits...

Level	Hits	Damage	Target HP
0	50	1000	50000
1	45.5	1100	50000
2	43.5	1150	50000
3	41.7	1200	50000

Here is the table factoring in some random crits, to give a more accurate reading (at least at higher levels)...

Level	Hits	Damage	Target HP
0	16.7	3000	50000
1	15.2	3300	50000
2	14.5	3450	50000
3	13.9	3600	50000

It's definitely not Sena-level dissection (and may be flat out wrong with the way I've been sleeping lately) but you can see roughly that a level 1 artefact -scythe- is only going to save me, at most, 4 hits (8 seconds of balance).  But I have a 40% crit rate as dragon-level, so it's not even that much.  On average, it's only going to save me about 2 hits (4 seconds of balance), per mob, or less.

For some people, that alone is well worth it.  Others may find it trivial.  One thing for sure, though, artefact weapon has a lot of cool factor and can be customized to your liking.


*Special Note: artefact scythe is for depthswalker class.  It only boosts damage (10%, 15%, 20%), it does not boost speed afaik.  The numbers for a spear or trident could be slightly better.