I am seeking a little advice on my first artifact purchase.

I have learned the right spread of skills and guildskills to survive now. Accordingly, I can finally put some funds towards the purchase of an artifact.

I am a Human Moon Pureblade Serenguard for reference.

Essentially, I am looking to spend around the price of one of the lowest level of weapon runes. However, I am uncertain if a weapon rune is my best choice (and if so, stats/wounding/bleeding?) or a critical rune etc.

What thoughts do you all have?

Wounding if you want to go for pvp.
Stats if you want to go for bashing (mostly for increasing speed), but you could just get another high speed bashing weapon instead of an artie.

You might want to consider artifact pipes, too. They're extremely handy, as unlike regular pipes, you don't have to worry about keeping them lit constantly or having to light them when you actually need them.

Artifact pipes were my first artifacts. Since I'm a psionics user, sometimes it's hard for me to light pipes. They're definitely worth it after transing a few skills.

I have to agree- rune pipes are the best pipes you will get for such a cost. I'd say that the next good ones are probably the gem of cloaking... for druids a cudgel with that gripping rune is not half bad, nor is the brooch of tempests...
I am not really into the cubix things... it's nifty, but 2000 credits? pfah

Artifact pipes are something already on my list to get. Wondering about artifact vials, are those worth it too? And what's so good about gem of cloaking?

And while I'm busy hijacking this topic, any artifacts in particular useful to a nihilist?

Gem of cloaking will take you off the WHO lists. I really can't emphasize enough how useful it is for infiltration and assault missions. People won't be able to find you on places like Water Plane, let's say, without scrying you. If that's necessary, they'll have to be looking for you.

Paradox pyramid is easily one of the most useful artifacts in any IRE game. If you don't have the Catacombs ability, it's basically like a warp to any 4 spots you can think of: just make sure it's either same plane or adjacent. Use it for rapidly moving to Astral, getting to a particular planar destination without needing to find a permanent gate, or doing errands on Prime. Great little device.

Artifact vials are not worth it. Maybe as a status symbol or for RP, but unless you absolutely hate carrying extra vials, save your money.

Best artifacts with reasonable price are Gem of Cloaking and Absorbtion Rune.

They are jsut great! Everyone will tell you that.

Next in line would be pipes i guess.

Gem of Cloaking is only useful if you have aethersight and you raid/get hunted a lot.

Uninterrupted Shallach bashing ftw.

for the 150 - 300 credit price range I would get artifact pipes and an artifact pack.

I would get weapon runes only if you have a maxed out weapon and really want to keep it. The +5 runes are basicaly just used to be able to make sure you never lose your weapon.

Gem of cloaking can be nice, but if someone REALLY wants to see you dead, they'll just scry, something which the gem doesn't protect against. At least I used to do that.

Wounding runes are a much better choice for PvP than stat runes. But as Daganev said, make sure you have a maxed out weapon before runing it - it has all stats as high as you want them to be. (Of course, there's the 463 limit, but I'm sure you know about it).

Artifact vials - not worth it. Vials are cheap, potions are cheap too.

Pipes in my opinion are the best option, when you think about how little (relatively) they cost. The double-puff bonus is ignorable, what matters is that you do not have to light the pipe anymore. Good-bye combat spam, good-bye stupid situations when you die because the pipe went out mid-fighting, and good-bye not being able to smoke pipes underwater!

So, if you want to go for PvP, invest in pipes, then wounding runes. If you want to go for PvE, you don't need arties.

LIES!

Crown of lucidity, Crit hit increaser, Influence runes, artifact vials help for pve, pyramid puzzle, absorption rune, regeneration runes, lots of arties for pve.

Err why? The only thing the fesix pack does is allow for more items to be put in. A purse reduces decay time, but that is in no way terribly important.

I'd say go for three artifact pipes first. They are very useful. There can be situations in combat where you need a pipe cure and when having to light the pipes first can slow you down considerably. After those.. not sure. Probably weapon runes so your swords can't be stolen. I'd only go for a gem of cloaking -after- I have aethersight in planar.

Because nothing is worse than dieing on your way to buy your new pack after your old one decayed.

I picked up an artifact vial that I use for bromides. I carry around a keg so I can refill it directly when its out. It costs 5k to refill the keg if I provide the herbs and since I'm an herbalist those herbs don't cost me anything. The keg holds 100 refills but the vial doubles the sips so its essentially giving 200 refills. That makes the cost 25 gold every 50 sips and you don't have to stop for refills for a very long time. Combine with an influence rune and I'd say its a pretty decent setup.

The point of the gem is to be used in conjunction with aethersight, so people can't see you via thirdeye and you notice with aethersight whenever someone scries you. That way it's impossible for someone to jump you unawares unless they just run into you by chance.



You can't smoke pipes underwater even if you have arti pipes.

Double-puff bonus?

Maybe Cuber's mixing up the herbalist double-puff skill with the artifact pipes.

Best two artifacts for up to 1000 credits: Cameo and absorption rune. Rune, for REALLY noticeable decrease of PvE damage, Cameo...well, it's just great to be able to adapt that much.