Armorer Artificer...How?

[carrdrivesyou]

How do I make this subclass keep up with others in terms of damage? It's got all the skills but the special armor weapons are not great in terms of synergy. Anyone got suggestions?

[diplomancer]

Infiltrator Model works with Sharpshooter; it's main problem is facing creatures with Resistance to Lightning damage. Depending on your Infusions, and if you still have decent Dex, you could also perhaps carry a Repeating Crossbow, just in case.

[Aalbatr0ss]

How do I make this subclass keep up with others in terms of damage? It's got all the skills but the special armor weapons are not great in terms of synergy. Anyone got suggestions?

There's a few things you can do to squeeze out some extra damage, but how much above the suit weapons are you hoping to get and how often? This is a great subclass for helping the high damage dealers in your party more effective.

[Psyren]

In addition to what Diplomancer said, you can also get the bonus action attack from your homunculus without needing a feat. This also lets you drop that feat into Archery Style instead, which in combination with your enhanced weapon will almost entirely offset the penalty from SS and let you benefit from that damage.

[carrdrivesyou]

I was wondering how to make the thunder gauntlet really shine. Its basically a long sword that deals thunder damage. But other than things like hex or dueling fighting style, I'm drawing blanks on how to make it better.

[Psyren]

I was wondering how to make the thunder gauntlet really shine. Its basically a long sword that deals thunder damage. But other than things like hex or dueling fighting style, I'm drawing blanks on how to make it better.

The Guardian Armorer isn't supposed to be dealing big damage. It's a true tank in that it intercepts/interferes with enemy attacks against allies. Infiltrator is the damage option for that subclass, unless of course you multiclass.

[Kane0]

How do I make this subclass keep up with others in terms of damage? It's got all the skills but the special armor weapons are not great in terms of synergy. Anyone got suggestions?

Lightning Launcher is just a fancy lightning damage ranged weapon so it has plenty of ways to increase attack/damage output. Enhanced Weapon infusion, Archery fighting style, Sharpshooter feat, Tempest Cleric Channel, Rogue Sneak Attack, certain Battlemaster maneuvers, Genie Warlock 1, Gloomstalker/Fey Wanderer/Swarmkeeper/Hunter Ranger 3, Divine Favor, Hunter's Mark, Hex, Magic Weapon, Elemental Weapon, Haste, Bladesinger Extra Attack, Monk Dedicated Weapon, the list goes on.

Edit: Most of those also apply to the Thunder Gauntlets, but there are melee specific ones like Barbarian Rage, Paladin Smite, etc.

[Keravath]

I was wondering how to make the thunder gauntlet really shine. Its basically a long sword that deals thunder damage. But other than things like hex or dueling fighting style, I'm drawing blanks on how to make it better.

I've been playing one but only level 4 so far. It might pick up a bit at level 5. So far I have gone the guardian route - maxing out AC as much as possible and applying a +1 AC to shield and a +1 to the gauntlets as part of the armor. I just picked up the mobile feat and the concept is to run in, hit opponents and run away (before level 5 using booming blade). This forces the opponent hit to make all their attacks against someone else at disadvantage or chase the armorer to make straight rolls against a high AC target and take the damage from booming blade.

At 5th level and two attacks, the artificer could hit two opponents using extra attack. If the opponents move to follow they may take op attacks from your allies - or they can attack the allies with all attacks at disadvantage.

Its the only really workable tactic I have come up with so far. It can't do as much damage but it is probably one of the best melee tank builds since it imposes a real penalty on opponents for attacking someone else.

I might pick up a level of wizard for the shield spell to make the character even more difficult to hit.

P.S. There were a couple of threads on artificers a few weeks ago that suggested some of these tactics.

[Dork_Forge]

If you want to focus on damage then the Infiltrator with normal ranged tricks would be the way to go, the Guardian is about tanking not damage.

That said, you can increase it's tanking and damage by taking the Dual Wielder feat, letting you make a bonus action attack with the TWF'ing rules, you can then add the TWF style for modifier damage if you want too.

[Sigreid]

Carry a gun with the repeating shot infusion and get the gunner feat?

[Psyren]

Carry a gun with the repeating shot infusion and get the gunner feat?

You may as well be a Battlesmith at that point so you're not MAD.

[Waazraath]

You may as well be a Battlesmith at that point so you're not MAD.

Tbh that's where I end up every time I want to make an Armorer. Unless you specificallly look for the 'draw aggro' mechanism of the gaunlets, the BS does everything better. Much higher damage, and the pet is a huge blob of hp with utility to boot. And between having another body to block passage and the deflect attack reaction, I don't think it's a much worse tank than even an Armorer with gaunlets.

It has a fun flavor and is by no means bad, but it suffers from the arteficers specific downside that some subclasses are very potent (BS and Artillerist) while the others are (in power) much weaker (Alchemist as well as Armorer).

[Khrysaes]

Multiclassing, tempest cleric and i think war cleric have some synergy with the armorer features. Although artificer actually has nice high Level features so it may not be what you want.
Storm sorcerer 1 has some synergy with the armorer too.

Less of an issue with armorer, but i like 2 warlock on my alchemist and artillerist as the short rest spell slots mean the potions and turrets can be used with those slots on short rests.

[J-H]

The Armorer's strength is having a lot of extra infusions on their armor. You're Iron Man. The lightning launchers are like 4d6+10 total damage per round, plus your homunculus can zap for another 1d4+5ish. Add Sharpshooter on the lightning launchers and you are at 4d6+30 which is very respectable.

The Thunder Gauntlets are the equivalent of a base +0 longsword, except that they do thunder damage so they're less likely to be resisted, and you get the tanking bonus from them.

If you want more melee damage, you're in the same position as a ranger or paladin or even a fighter: Your weapon damage + strength mod is the base, and you look for ways to increase that:
-Infusions to boost str to 19, later to 21.
-Craft high end giant strength belts.
-Get a better weapon (flame tongue, etc.)
-Make more attacks by picking up Sentinel or PAM, or both.
-You can go GWM with a big weapon since you can boost your own STR with infusions...but you give up the tankiness of a shield.
-Use Haste. You have Flash of Genius and a capstone save boost, so it's pretty hard for an artificer to lose concentration. Now you have a 3rd attack every round.

Haste+Sentinel+PAM+GWM is a lot (3 feats) but it also means you're reliably handing out 4-5 attacks per round, potentially with a +10 damage rider on each. You can afford feats better than many classes, as you're probably the only character who can give yourself flight, Str 19, Con 19, and Int 19 for free.

[Sigreid]

You may as well be a Battlesmith at that point so you're not MAD.

That is indeed where I wound up when I was looking at Artificer and didn't want to depend on cantrips.

[Psyren]

-Use Haste. You have Flash of Genius and a capstone save boost, so it's pretty hard for an artificer to lose concentration. Now you have a 3rd attack every round.

Also Con save proficiency :smallsmile:

Personally though I'd rather focus on the Lightning Launcher for these resources, in most games I'm not going to have the build space for three feats.

[J-H]

Yeah, until he had to drop due to work, the artificer (15th/16th level) was flying around zapping things like Iron Man, or using a spear that gave a BA attack if he used at least half his movement, and flying around stabbing things 3-4 times... with AC 25-26 thanks to full plate and infusions and such. Very hard to hit or make him fail a save or pin him down.

The best tactics I could come up with to serious inconvenience him were grappling, and unfortunately Aaracokra aren't known for being very strong.

There could be room for some weird niche build that dips Sorcerer for Twin spell and enough Sorcery Points to twin Haste a couple of times a day since artificers are really good at concentration. I wouldn't do it, though.

[samcifer]

If you can spare a 13 for Charisma, I'd suggest at least 1 level of hexblade warlock for Hex and Hexblades Curse. You'll have 2 ways to add a d6 to every hit or your prof bonus to every hit for added damage. You'd also get access to the Shield spell for added defenses.

[Sigreid]

Remember, you still have cantrips that will scale on your level with your armor being the focus. So you have more "weaponry" than the base kit.

[stoutstien]

The best way to utilize the TGs is probably increasing your attack count seeing how the rider is the real reason to use it so it promotes switching targets once you land an attack. Haste can work but it's risky so that leaves asking DM if the duel wielding feat works with them or multiclassing.
Few options on the multiclassing. Psi warrior will keep you mostly SaD and give you some additional damage and mitigation options along side the standard fighter stuff or gloom stalker/Hunter ranger also works but have more situational additional attacks.

Honestly I think straight artificer is strong enough so any multiclassing will hurt at some point. Not like you don't have ways to deal with hordes and such if your standard 2 attacks aren't debuffing enough of the targets.

[Damon_Tor]

How do I make this subclass keep up with others in terms of damage? It's got all the skills but the special armor weapons are not great in terms of synergy. Anyone got suggestions?

Keep in mind that at certain levels booming blade will deal more damage than making two attacks with your fists (even without considering the potential bonus damage if they move) so keep aware of that.

[Pyrophilios]

Armorers can get longbows with bracers of archery -> Sharpshooter
3 Tiny Servants + Magic Stone -> Bonus Action turns into three 1d6+Int Bonus attacks
All Purpose Tool can mimic any cantrip for 8 hours -> Eldritch Blast or Shilleagh
Oger Bracers/Belt of Giant Strength allow standard melee with great club and Great Weapon Master

All that with Haste.

[Keravath]

Armorers can get longbows with bracers of archery -> Sharpshooter
3 Tiny Servants + Magic Stone -> Bonus Action turns into three 1d6+Int Bonus attacks
All Purpose Tool can mimic any cantrip for 8 hours -> Eldritch Blast or Shilleagh
Oger Bracers/Belt of Giant Strength allow standard melee with great club and Great Weapon Master

All that with Haste.

How does the Tiny Servants + magic stone work? Magic stone is a bonus action to cast. It will at least take your free object interaction (if not your action depending on the DM) to distribute the stones to the Tiny Servants. However, it then takes a bonus action to command the Tiny Servants to attack so you could do this at best once every second round assuming you don't have another use for your bonus action.

In addition, Tiny Servant requires a 3rd level slot and getting 3 of them is a 4th level spell slot which an artificer won't get until level 13 - so it is pretty late game for most folks.

In terms of ranged attacks, an armorer using a long bow has to use dex for the attack rolls which makes them a bit MAD. They are probably better off most of the time using the built in lightning launcher which does slightly more damage than a long bow for 2 shots. It works fine with sharpshooter though.

The homunculus infusion does give a bonus action ranged attack that can work with either infiltrator or guardian armorers.

Strength items certainly let you go the GWM route but they would also work pretty well with using the guardian gauntlets if the strength is higher than int.

The fey touched feat with hex as the level 1 spell is another way to increase damage output too.

[Kane0]

How does the Tiny Servants + magic stone work? Magic stone is a bonus action to cast. It will at least take your free object interaction (if not your action depending on the DM) to distribute the stones to the Tiny Servants. However, it then takes a bonus action to command the Tiny Servants to attack so you could do this at best once every second round assuming you don't have another use for your bonus action.

In addition, Tiny Servant requires a 3rd level slot and getting 3 of them is a 4th level spell slot which an artificer won't get until level 13 - so it is pretty late game for most folks.


Presumably Magic Stone is pre-cast with the 1 min duration, but honestly I prefer just giving a homunculus your SSI loaded up with a blast or control spell at that stage of the game.

[Damon_Tor]

How does the Tiny Servants + magic stone work? Magic stone is a bonus action to cast. It will at least take your free object interaction (if not your action depending on the DM) to distribute the stones to the Tiny Servants. However, it then takes a bonus action to command the Tiny Servants to attack so you could do this at best once every second round assuming you don't have another use for your bonus action.

Your Tiny Servants have their own item interactions remember, and you can give them the order to continue to perform a certain action over and over again, such as "throw rocks at enemies". You can craft the objects you turn into your Tiny Servants to your specifications, and that means they can simply be components inside a more complex machine you use for this purpose. You can design a shoulder-mounted device that both protects the tiny servants from harm and feeds them new stones via spring-loaded magazine. If your DM gives you trouble about being able to "touch" the stones inside of such a device, simply use a spider familiar (artificers can emulate any 1st level spell via spellwrought tattoo) to touch them on your behalf from inside the machine.

So your bonus action is spent casting Magic stone on the three pebbles in front of the three tiny servants inside your shoulder mounted turret. Your familiar casts it on your behalf using its reaction. Then on your Tiny Servants' turns they follow your standing orders of "throw rocks at enemies". (Personally I would rig the turret to turn with my helmet so that the servants can only see what I'm looking at to reduce the risk that they focus on silly targets.) Then once the tiny servants remove the pebbles to throw them, more pebbles pop up from the spring-loaded magazines so the whole process can repeat again.

This is what I call a "Tiny Servant Actuated Robot" or "TSAR". Check out my signature for more ideas on how to use these things. (We haven't even discussed integrating a Spell Storing Item yet!)

[Pyrophilios]

In terms of ranged attacks, an armorer using a long bow has to use dex for the attack rolls which makes them a bit MAD. They are probably better off most of the time using the built in lightning launcher which does slightly more damage than a long bow for 2 shots. It works fine with sharpshooter though.


That's the nice thing: Armorers can dump Strength and thanks to their Temporary Hitpoints also take a hit to Constitution. That leaves Dex as their second high stat. In fact, Armorers who focus on Dex can get away with a midling Int score and just go for a Circlet of Intellect at their earliest opportunity (creating uncommon magic items is actually really easy/cheap if you have a week of downtime)

[Kane0]

Armorers also really benefitting from using both forms of armor rather than trying to specialize in one or the other, given you can swap between them during short rests

[Silpharon]

Your Tiny Servants have their own item interactions remember, and you can give them the order to continue to perform a certain action over and over again, such as "throw rocks at enemies". You can craft the objects you turn into your Tiny Servants to your specifications, and that means they can simply be components inside a more complex machine you use for this purpose. You can design a shoulder-mounted device that both protects the tiny servants from harm and feeds them new stones via spring-loaded magazine. If your DM gives you trouble about being able to "touch" the stones inside of such a device, simply use a spider familiar (artificers can emulate any 1st level spell via spellwrought tattoo) to touch them on your behalf from inside the machine.

So your bonus action is spent casting Magic stone on the three pebbles in front of the three tiny servants inside your shoulder mounted turret. Your familiar casts it on your behalf using its reaction. Then on your Tiny Servants' turns they follow your standing orders of "throw rocks at enemies". (Personally I would rig the turret to turn with my helmet so that the servants can only see what I'm looking at to reduce the risk that they focus on silly targets.) Then once the tiny servants remove the pebbles to throw them, more pebbles pop up from the spring-loaded magazines so the whole process can repeat again.

This is what I call a "Tiny Servant Actuated Robot" or "TSAR". Check out my signature for more ideas on how to use these things. (We haven't even discussed integrating a Spell Storing Item yet!)

Fun read, thanks for sharing! Quick suggestion, for the shatter/scorching ray SSI combos, if the PC concentrates on Elemental Bane then the extra damage applies to each casting (because all of the TSAR turns are separate). Maximize that damage! :)

[stoutstien]

Armorers also really benefitting from using both forms of armor rather than trying to specialize in one or the other, given you can swap between them during short rests

Aye. Best I've come up with is using either bugbear or goblin to make sure you can fully utilize both forms. Im partial to goblin. Having a solid way to move around and generate advantage goes a long way for armorer.

[solidork]

I'm actually pretty low on the utility of being able to switch back and forth between the forms. Unless you have a really good idea the kind of situations you're going to get into, you're going to mostly stick to one form because of how awkward it is to switch.

You don't really play like a switch hitter at all, though maybe once you can make Gauntlets of Ogre Strength you can stay in ranged mode and use strength for melee attacks.

[samcifer]

I made a few multiclass ones: one with evocation wizard on the guardian form for a "ground zero" bomber character with aoe spells and another 2-weapon fighting guardian form with vengeance paladin for a smiting pugilist kind of build.

[Aalbatr0ss]

. Unless you have a really good idea the kind of situations you're going to get into, you're going to mostly stick to one form because of how awkward it is to switch.

Yes. I’m usually doing guardian, but the ability to switch-hit when you see the situation coming is pretty clutch. I’ve only run infiltrator for 3 missions, but they were all times when switching was a clear advantage for the scenario. But it’s a valuable option.

[sambojin]

Just for my normal druid shenanigans, infiltrator is entirely form-fitting. You can only use items, armour, etc, in wildshape, if your form could realistically do so.

Your infiltrator armour fits any form. So, Moon 2? Or maybe 3? Because of spell slots and lists mostly, but there's probably a way of leveraging this somehow. Just a thought....

(Tony Stark's Spiderman? Lol. It still seems really slow damage-wise to just Moon Druid though, or a bunch of 1-3lvl MCs from it)

[Damon_Tor]

Just for my normal druid shenanigans, infiltrator is entirely form-fitting. You can only use items, armour, etc, in wildshape, if your form could realistically do so.

Your infiltrator armour fits any form. So, Moon 2? Or maybe 3? Because of spell slots and lists mostly, but there's probably a way of leveraging this somehow. Just a thought....

(Tony Stark's Spiderman? Lol. It still seems really slow damage-wise to just Moon Druid though, or a bunch of 1-3lvl MCs from it)

Both armors will change shape to fit the wearer, which means you can absolutely use this to be a dire wolf in (non-metal) plate mail.