What artifacts to get for bashing?

Daxi Strongleaf

I am getting around 100 bound credits per week from the dailycredit system, so wondering what credit artifacts I should focus on to boost my bashing ability. I am currently a level 85 elfen aquachem with telekinesis forcefield (so take damage to ego instead of health), a beaker for reagents, and have enough vial and pipe runes, a divinus attack with a 3/12 divinus buff arti, getting to 11/12 with use of various abilities, kirigami, dark beer, wondercorn, and so on. I mainly bash through the Catacombs of the Dead once a day.

The artifacts I'm currently considering are

Offense
Great Rune of Mental Alacrity
Crit Runes
Great Rune of Razing (not sure if this + beast attack on balance, or just using beast to break shield instead of damage is better)
Golden Riding Crop (beast divinus attack, if not going for aggressive)

Defense
Great Rune of Shielding
Great Rune of Absorption
~ Rune of Beauty (increases max ego)
~ Rune of Ego Regeneration
Pendant of the Divine Spark (will give me nice regen, but only in natural areas, and the Catacombs are tainted constructed underground)

If you guys could suggest what I should go for first, and if there's anything I should get not on the list, I would be grateful. (I can't get goop easily at present, so now focusing on getting any goop arties or gnome weapon stuff.)

Stratas

For the cost, I would go with a Great Rune of Razing first. The ability to break shields and hit on the same attack is beautiful. IIRC, it will proc on a beast attack, and that will be the hit that does 50% damage, so it is in fact better.

After that, I would probably say go for Absorption. The damage reduction is pretty amazing, and will likely serve you better sooner than ego/regen buffs will.

From what I understand, the change to crit calculations means the higher levels of crit rune are worth significantly less. First level is cheap enough to be worth a 2% boost, but higher levels could wait until you have credits to burn.

Also, I don't recall the Aquachem damage type off hand (I'm assuming divinus at least in part) but you might be well served anyways by getting a whip. I believe they have better DPS than most class bashing attacks, and I recall chems in general are lackluster with bashing damage.

Daxi Strongleaf

Thanks for the advice.

Default attack is asphyx/cold/blunt, but there is also a 100% divinus attack you can use at the cost of 1 reagent per attack (which is expensive, hence the beaker being very important). I'm sure you are still correct about the whip being more, but, in this one instance I am going to have roleplay trump efficiency. (I will probably get a gnome weapon at some point because they are just ridiculously good, but only when I have my wondercorn finished and get enough goop.)

Lycidas

A full gnomeweapon is 18,500 goop so get to generating! Also when it comes to bashing, Stratas has the right idea on ordering. I might even suggest to upgrade your divinus rune from 3/12 to the 5/13 so that you can be at 13/13 divinus attack. I also recommend a whip as a stand-in for the gnome weapon, because the whip has higher damage than base class bashing and of course, pure divinus. In summary:

Razing
Absorption
Greater Divinus
Shielding
Crit Rune

Tridemon

Wait, you kept Aquachem? That's... an interesting choice.

Daxi Strongleaf

I am dailycrediting instead of fighting so it doesn't matter that I can't use bombs. I like my skills, especially forcefield, but Celest sucks and Serenwilde is fun and has family. When Celest stops sucking and/or I'm rich, I'll come back and even learn how to fight.

Minkahmet

I think the divine pendant would be worth getting in the long run. It pairs wonderfully with the changeling cameo too. That way, you can coordinate the race of choice with the pendant on wherever you will hunt/influence the most for 1 rl day. 

Daxi Strongleaf

On that note, what is the best race for hunting with a tk forcefield? I looked at ego-regen races like tae'dae and sileni but not sure it's actually worthwhile. Considered going viscanti for catacombs till I remembered that they don't regen ego in taint, just health and mana. So...illithoid? That's kinda sketchy as they're banned in Seren and Celest, and I'd have to hat myself to another race to do it, which I could, but it feels a bit sketchy.

Minkahmet

If I recall correctly, I believe the racial benefits were nuked enough to not truly make a strong difference. Though...you can definitely try tae'dae or a female kephera.  Though certain damages that it absorbs will apparently go to ego damage. So its a bit of what do you want to sacrifice or not or even Sileni if you can afford to purchase the race though.

Lycidas

No need to go for an ego regen race, simple because there are so many ego regen buffs out there, especially to a Psionic. Just having a performance on gives ego regen, the ego regen rune you've got on your checklist, psionics 3/8 buff it has. If you're going to be bashing, honestly with what you are, Merian is a good choice simply because that crit buff Demi/+ power.

Steve

Whips worth it? If so what type? What's the cane I see everyone using? There a post or helpfile explaining it/them?

Lycidas

Divinus Whip (pious) if you have the credits for it. The cane is one of the many designs for gnomeweapons. The brief on those is that you can alter their damage type based on gearboxes and they can fire nine additional times (one for each gearbox) So you could have nine divinus shots. Oh yea, divinus is hands-down the best damage type in the game for bashing, zero questions asked.

Xenthos

Check ASHOP LIST GEARBOX.  The gnomeweapons are the things worth 5,000 goop on that list.  A gnomeweapon does a certain amount of base damage, and you can add up to 9 gearboxes to it.  Each gearbox has a specific damage "tuning" that it will apply.  It splits up the damage of the overall weapon into separate attacks (one extra attack for each extra gearbox) and adds 25 damage per gearbox added.

Attach 3 gearboxes to your gnomeweapon and it will split your damage into 4 "streams" (the base stream, plus one for each box).  Critical hit rolls will be rolled separately for each stream, which means your damage is much more likely to be averaged out on every attack vs. getting streaks of high/lows with single attack weapons.  Plus, the damage will all roll over to the next thing in the room with the same attack alias, so you're able to spread it out much more efficiently (even potentially killing multiple creatures in 1 attack!), which makes it the best weapon for any kind of killing competition.

Lycidas

Essentially the cost is 18,500 goop and with no real in-game methods to generate goop outside of some curios, it will take a bit.