Good artifacts?

[magnate]

Hi all,

I've made about 15 artifacts now, including half a dozen Greater artifacts, and none of them seems better than my humble Shroud of Eternal Night, which I made in Act I Normal. (It got a completion bonus of +8% attack speed, on top of its inherent +10%.)

Am I missing something about other artifacts, or is the balance just a bit weird? Which ones should I look out for? (I tend to play mostly melee chars - warfare, dream, defence, nature.)

[silenttales]

There are heaps of other that are better.

My melee characters started with Shroud of Eternal Night as well, with the same Attack Speed bonus as you, but without a source of continuous life steal like from weapons or armor, legendary proves to be a challenging a bit, so I always have the Soul Shiver equipped to them to have very good life steal

Eventually, if I just wanted tons of damage and defense, I use Star of Ishtar. 20% STR and DEX, some percent increase in Damage resistance and a cool proc.

An insane damage artifact is Symbol of Polymath. %Damage Increases, %Stat increases, and a 15% Total speed boost. Just too good.

[magnate]

Excellent, thanks for the reply. I've made a Soul Shiver, but I'm not using it yet because it drops my DPS a lot and I don't need the lifesteal yet (Act IV Epic). I've not found Ishtar or Polymath but will keep an eye out. I'm going to make a Shadow Veil and see if that's better.

[Medea Fleecestealer]

There are artifacts that give +1 skills to specific masteries in addition to their other abilities as well and they could be worth looking out for.

Some of the lower ones do seem to be better than going for the higher level ones for some reason. For characters playing Storm mastery you can't really beat Skyfire Pendant (L20) and Effigy of Skyfire (around L35 I think). I haven't managed to get a Storm using toon up to lvl55 to try Ikon of Zeus, but that's the only one I've found that might be able to beat these two and the Effigy has a nice +1 to all Storm skills as well. Eye of the Heavens, which is a L45 artifact for Storm users, just can't beat them. And Molton Orb is an L5 artifact which can last a long while for those using Earth mastery.

Always check how the artifact's skill (if they have one) is triggered, many only activate when you have low health and if you don't ever get low enough they won't trigger. That's why I've never found a use for Blood Gem with my hunting toons as they rarely get low enough to set off it's Blood Boil skill, even though it has a +1 to all Hunting skills on it. Star of Ishtar's skill Scimitar Spirits is also only triggered when you have low health. It's probably better to try and equip ones that activate on being attacked or taking damage, unless your health is struggling and the other kind are likely to trigger.

[LittleJoeRambler]

For Nature builds, Leafsong is a decent starting one if you don't have anything else; it's also a building block for Druidic Wreath and Hand of Gaia, both of which provide +1 for Nature skills. Combined with a Wanderer's staff (which are pretty uncommon but you really only need one for all your characters) and you can get three wolves without a mastery shrine.

I completed a Jade Idol that gave a +25% attack speed boost upon completion, for a total of +42% attack speed for the arifact. Good for any build that attacks with a weapon. :p

[silenttales]

There are artifacts that give +1 skills to specific masteries in addition to their other abilities as well and they could be worth looking out for.

Some of the lower ones do seem to be better than going for the higher level ones for some reason. For characters playing Storm mastery you can't really beat Skyfire Pendant (L20) and Effigy of Skyfire (around L35 I think). I haven't managed to get a Storm using toon up to lvl55 to try Ikon of Zeus, but that's the only one I've found that might be able to beat these two and the Effigy has a nice +1 to all Storm skills as well. Eye of the Heavens, which is a L45 artifact for Storm users, just can't beat them. And Molton Orb is an L5 artifact which can last a long while for those using Earth mastery.

Always check how the artifact's skill (if they have one) is triggered, many only activate when you have low health and if you don't ever get low enough they won't trigger. That's why I've never found a use for Blood Gem with my hunting toons as they rarely get low enough to set off it's Blood Boil skill, even though it has a +1 to all Hunting skills on it. Star of Ishtar's skill Scimitar Spirits is also only triggered when you have low health. It's probably better to try and equip ones that activate on being attacked or taking damage, unless your health is struggling and the other kind are likely to trigger.

This is true. My Storm character wearing an Effigy of SkyFire has a MAX damage of almost 50,000+ because of its activation, but it kinda looses appeal to long range chars 'coz its only a wave shot at an area in front of you on medium melee range.

I've yet to grab an Ikon of Zeus. Looks perfect for Storms. I'm hoping its an auto aim Lightning/Chain bolt proc

[Medea Fleecestealer]

I'm dying to see what it looks like myself. Guess I'll have to move my Paladin along a bit further so he can wear it and see what happens. He's the nearest Storm toon I've got to L55. May have to wait a few weeks though, as I'm in the process of moving house. It certainly sounds as though it will look pretty spectacular when it goes off.

[magnate]

Is there a list of cooldown times for artifact procs anywhere? I've switch from Shroud of Eternal Night to Shadow Veil, because although the DPS goes down a few percent, the Veil has this handy splatter proc on taking melee damage. But I'm interested to know how often it can fire - seems to be around 10s.

Just about to make my first Divine artifact (Crosier of Osiris) - very keen to know how often *that* proc can fire!

[Irma2]

Crosier is around two minutes iirc. Shadow Veil shouldn't be 10 seconds, I think it's a lot longer than that.

Don't be afraid to ditch Shroud of Eternal Night, it's a very misleading artifact. The DPS engine calculates energy leech as damage, which is why it seems so powerful early on. It's a decent starter artifact but not nearly as good as the DPS screen would have you believe. From Act II Normal onwards, I'd far rather have Soul Shiver.

[CrocMagnum]

Is there a list of cooldown times for artifact procs anywhere?

You'll find everything in Galefury's thread.

The first link to the excel sheet is dead but the attached zip file at the bottom works all right:

http://www.titanquest.net/tq-forum/threads/18797-Artifact-Info