Artificer's Thunder Pulse. How does it work?

Hi there, Midgardians!

So I'm creating an Artificer (2024 rules) and I wanna play the Armorer subclass. One of the armours I can use is the Guardian armour. One of the features of this armour is Thunder Pulse, whose description is as follows: "You can discharge concussive blasts with strikes from your armour. The pulse counts as a Simple Melee weapon and deals 1d8 Thunder damage on a hit. A creature hit by the pulse has Disadvantage on attack rolls againsts targets other than you until the start of your next turn." 

My question is, can I do this wielding a weapon?

Thanks in advance.

There is nothing in the description stating that the discharge comes form your hands, or that they are needed to use the ability, so your hands are free to be doing whatever you would like them to be doing, including holding a weapon and shield if you so choose.

Yea I would expect the feature to specify that your hand(s) needs to be free if they did. The Artificer from TCoE did so if the 5.5e version doesn't I'd have to think that is an intentional change.

Nice! Thank you for your help!! ❤️