Artificer: Armorer + Psychic Warrior or Artificer + Rune Knight?

[Citadel97501]

Hello all, quite simply my first look at Tasha's led me to interesting multi-classes but I am unsure which one is better as the level 3 dip for a Tank/Support character? Both are fighter sub-classes so that doesn't help, and they also have strong abilities for tanking & mini-smites. For tanking we have Rune Knight with control effects, and Psychic Warrior with damage reduction to you or others, so I can't really determine which one works better for this style of play.

At most I would say that a Psychic Warrior is more resource dependent but as it reduces your MAD issues due to being Intelligence focused instead of Constitution like the Rune Knight?

[Silpharon]

Lol, I just posted on this in another thread. I decided toward Psychic Warrior. Here's my build take:

Artificer 15/Psi Warrior 3/Knowledge Cleric 1/Genie Warlock 1. I'm not decided yet between Armorer and Battle Smith.

I'm sharing healing for my party with a paladin. With this combo I've got:

1) Cure wounds, Healing Word, Shield of Faith, and Revivify
2) SSI to hold 10 charges of cure wounds
3) Flash of Genius to add +5 to a saving throw for someone I can see
4) Psi Warrior's Protective Field to reduce damage of 8.5 avg from an attack on someone I can see
5) If I go Battle Smith, 4d6 healing for someone near one of my attacks.
6) A homunculus servant to cast long range upcasted cure wounds.

I really wanted goodberry too, but it didn't fall out. I can also do significant damage as either class with attacks, haste, and other buffs.

The genie dip is for getting my extradimensional man cave that will hold all my Glyphs of Warding like Haste, Bless, Enhance Ability, etc. So many fun things to try...

As for Rune Knight, I don't think it's worth a level 3 dip, but depends on what you're going for. Have you considered Arcane Archer? You'd be able to use the abilities about as often, and it's Int based. Banishing Arrow and Grasping Arrow seem especially good for a support class.

[Citadel97501]

Thank you for the input.

I find Arcane Archer to be utterly awful. In regards to your character I can definitely see the route you are going and that seems like a very powerful character, and extremely versatile. I personally wouldn't have taken the Knowledge Cleric, if your that into healing you could go for Life Cleric instead. I think your build would likely be better as an Armorer.