How did Artificer end up as "worst"? oO They are better "Beastmasters" than the beastmaster ranger, better melee fighters than the champion fighter, get free magical gear, get spell progression equal to paladins and a host of utility in their tools including thief tools to pick locks and disable traps.
Maybe I'm biased by the Battle Smith subclass, but imo Artificers are one of the strongest classes available.
Overall it's turned out to be pretty much what I expected:
Strongest: Wizard (with a healthy margin too!), Paladin, cleric
Weakest: Ranger (not even close lol), sorcerer, monk
Rogue sits in the center it seems along with the rest.
which is interesting since on paper, wizards initially seem like one of the weaker classes, unlike other classes that prepare their spells an wizard does not have access to their entire spell list, they have the weakest hit dice of any class other than the sorcerer, they can straight up loose access to all their spellcasting by the theft or destruction of their property, time and gold is needed a lot more for them since they need to add spells to their spellbooks and hopefully create backups of their spellbooks in case they get stolen meaning they get less time and gold for making magic items or engaging in other downtime, their casting stat is intelligence which is arguably much less useful than wisdom and charisma, whenever they gain access to a new level of spell that is the only feature they gain that level unlike warlocks, clerics, bards and to some extent sorcerers, and their one advantage of having a broad spell list should not really matter much when all spells of the same level are in theory equal and you cannot access all of them in the first place.
Of course in practice they are one of the most powerful classes in the game mostly thanks to the fact that all spells are not exactly created equal and the spells the wizards has domain over are always ether wizard only or shared by classes who use spells known instead of prepared spells (and who are thus inherently less flexible), their very nice and powerful sub classes, and of course that free short rest spell slot and free ritual casting also help in making every new level of spell more potent. Wizards may be one of the strongest but they are at the same time the most vulnerable classes
Worst: Artificer (unless we are speaking in downtime terms, then Artificer is the best and rouges are the worst)
Artificers are not the worst. They are way better than rangers.
Artificers are really good. UA Armorer is top tier.
of course the UA is strong, that is what unearthed arcana is meant to be, the designers find it easier to nerf something than to buff something so they always aim ever so slightly above the desired power level an subclass needs to be
Yeah, but the rest of the Artificers are up there as well. A correctly built artillerist artificer can have more survivability than a zealot barbarian and as already mentioned Battle Smith as better beastmasters than Beastmasters.
Yeah I think its more that Artificers are so new and only in the Eberron book so not as many folks have had experience with them. Word is they are getting reprinted in the Tasha book so I think that will help with that.
Worst: Artificer (unless we are speaking in downtime terms, then Artificer is the best and rouges are the worst)
Artificers are not the worst. They are way better than rangers.
Artificers are really good. UA Armorer is top tier.
of course the UA is strong, that is what unearthed arcana is meant to be, the designers find it easier to nerf something than to buff something so they always aim ever so slightly above the desired power level an subclass needs to be
Yeah, but the rest of the Artificers are up there as well. A correctly built artillerist artificer can have more survivability than a zealot barbarian and as already mentioned Battle Smith as better beastmasters than Beastmasters.
1) by choosing the correct animal an beastmaster will be able to get up to so many more shenanigans than that dull old steel defender will ever be capable of, from massive damage to weird utillity
2) what in the nine hells kind of artillerist are you playing? The subclass with zero defensive abillities?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
Worst: Artificer (unless we are speaking in downtime terms, then Artificer is the best and rouges are the worst)
Artificers are not the worst. They are way better than rangers.
Artificers are really good. UA Armorer is top tier.
of course the UA is strong, that is what unearthed arcana is meant to be, the designers find it easier to nerf something than to buff something so they always aim ever so slightly above the desired power level an subclass needs to be
Yeah, but the rest of the Artificers are up there as well. A correctly built artillerist artificer can have more survivability than a zealot barbarian and as already mentioned Battle Smith as better beastmasters than Beastmasters.
1) by choosing the correct animal an beastmaster will be able to get up to so many more shenanigans than that dull old steel defender will ever be capable of, from massive damage to weird utillity
2) what in the nine hells kind of artillerist are you playing? The subclass with zero defensive abillities?
To be fair the THP from the turret early on is better than a Zealot barb and later on it gives cover to everyone around it raising AC and DEX saves. The Barb at that point, however, is massively tanky.
Beastmaster options from the CFV were great and I actually think people might play it more when they come out in Tasha's book.
The defender does have free healing with mending which is handy.
Yeah, but the rest of the Artificers are up there as well. A correctly built artillerist artificer can have more survivability than a zealot barbarian and as already mentioned Battle Smith as better beastmasters than Beastmasters.
1) by choosing the correct animal an beastmaster will be able to get up to so many more shenanigans than that dull old steel defender will ever be capable of, from massive damage to weird utillity
2) what in the nine hells kind of artillerist are you playing? The subclass with zero defensive abillities?
To be fair the THP from the turret early on is better than a Zealot barb and later on it gives cover to everyone around it raising AC and DEX saves. The Barb at that point, however, is massively tanky.
Beastmaster options from the CFV were great and I actually think people might play it more when they come out in Tasha's book.
fun fact: unless you are using those class feature variants beasties, your beast companion cannot take the hide action ever, that is not one of the actions you can command them to take which is sad becuase the giant wolf spider will at third level have an +9 to stealth which is higher than what most rouges can get at that level. And even like beyond that there are plenty of overlooked viable beast companions people normally do not pick that i think make the subclass way more playable, the giant poisonous snake, the cave badger, the fastieth , the giant frog, the petranodon, the deep rothé all make for great companions that have cool unique benefits
also still like the buffs from the artillerist are buffs for the whole party to enjoy and are not used adequately if the artillerist is hogging them, thus in a party with both in it the zealot would still be the better tank becuase he is also getting that +2 AC and those extra temporary hit points
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
I, for one, would like to see some of these weird/strong Beastmaster builds I keep hearing about. I mean, I'm well aware that a Beastmaster's Beast does quite well out of combat as a super scout... but I've never seen anything that turns them combat worthy.
Yeah, but the rest of the Artificers are up there as well. A correctly built artillerist artificer can have more survivability than a zealot barbarian and as already mentioned Battle Smith as better beastmasters than Beastmasters.
1) by choosing the correct animal an beastmaster will be able to get up to so many more shenanigans than that dull old steel defender will ever be capable of, from massive damage to weird utillity
2) what in the nine hells kind of artillerist are you playing? The subclass with zero defensive abillities?
To be fair the THP from the turret early on is better than a Zealot barb and later on it gives cover to everyone around it raising AC and DEX saves. The Barb at that point, however, is massively tanky.
Beastmaster options from the CFV were great and I actually think people might play it more when they come out in Tasha's book.
fun fact: unless you are using those class feature variants beasties, your beast companion cannot take the hide action ever, that is not one of the actions you can command them to take which is sad becuase the giant wolf spider will at third level have an +9 to stealth which is higher than what most rouges can get at that level. And even like beyond that there are plenty of overlooked viable beast companions people normally do not pick that i think make the subclass way more playable, the giant poisonous snake, the cave badger, the fastieth , the giant frog, the petranodon, the deep rothé all make for great companions that have cool unique benefits
also still like the buffs from the artillerist are buffs for the whole party to enjoy and are not used adequately if the artillerist is hogging them, thus in a party with both in it the zealot would still be the better tank becuase he is also getting that +2 AC and those extra temporary hit points
Yeah for sure. I makes the Zealot a better tank for sure. Overall they are pretty adaptable I think and are mostly welcome in any party.
For me a Monk is the one where its okay to have in a party but no party really needs them. Same with ranger...they are fine to have but nothing really makes them absolutely needed or missed.
Sorcerer is a weird one as it does some stuff better than wizard and the subclass (Divine Soul) can really make them fill the spot of another class. I think they mostly suffer from the fact WotC keeps giving non-sorcerers sorcerer like stuff.
Beastmaster is flavorful but the fact the beast is so fragile and it takes a full day to get another one makes them hard in campaigns with tough timelines or where the DM is keeping the throttle high. They can have their place though but I generally find them to the be weakest subclass in the game.
Beastmaster is flavorful but the fact the beast is so fragile and it takes a full day to get another one makes them hard in campaigns with tough timelines or where the DM is keeping the throttle high. They can have their place though but I generally find them to the be weakest subclass in the game.
like wizards in a way, can be really potent but are much vunerable, can have the same AC progression as the monk if you start with an beastie with an default AC of 14, if you can train an fastieth or giant poisonous snake in light armor then them wearing studded leather will probably outdo most party members for AC, but it will always have bad saving throws and hit points, hopefully warding bond will help a lot
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
Beastmaster is flavorful but the fact the beast is so fragile and it takes a full day to get another one makes them hard in campaigns with tough timelines or where the DM is keeping the throttle high. They can have their place though but I generally find them to the be weakest subclass in the game.
like wizards in a way, can be really potent but are much vunerable, can have the same AC progression as the monk if you start with an beastie with an default AC of 14, if you can train an fastieth or giant poisonous snake in light armor then them wearing studded leather will probably outdo most party members for AC, but it will always have bad saving throws and hit points, hopefully warding bond will help a lot
Interesting comment on the armor...I haven't had a DM go that route ever but JC did mention fighter levels for the beast to help.
Yeah the HP is the major issue due to the fact that it doesnt scale well. Most of its life its one fireball away from death.
Beastmaster is flavorful but the fact the beast is so fragile and it takes a full day to get another one makes them hard in campaigns with tough timelines or where the DM is keeping the throttle high. They can have their place though but I generally find them to the be weakest subclass in the game.
like wizards in a way, can be really potent but are much vunerable, can have the same AC progression as the monk if you start with an beastie with an default AC of 14, if you can train an fastieth or giant poisonous snake in light armor then them wearing studded leather will probably outdo most party members for AC, but it will always have bad saving throws and hit points, hopefully warding bond will help a lot
Interesting comment on the armor...I haven't had a DM go that route ever but JC did mention fighter levels for the beast to help.
Yeah the HP is the major issue due to the fact that it doesnt scale well. Most of its life its one fireball away from death.
wait did crawdaddy explicitly say your beastie friend can have class levels?
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
You can't acquire an animal companion that has class levels at the time you acquire it, because if it does it will exceed CR 1/4 and thus not be a valid companion. Nothing specifically says it can't acquire class levels later.
You can't acquire an animal companion that has class levels at the time you acquire it, because if it does it will exceed CR 1/4 and thus not be a valid companion. Nothing specifically says it can't acquire class levels later.
That’s not necessarily true. It definitely might be, but you’d have to recalculate CR to know. Definitely not worth the hassle in any case.
Question is, what kind of artillerist have you been playing if you haven't even read about one of its basic abilities?
yeah obiously its got the temp hp and half cover from their turret, but those are buffs meant to be shared with the entire party, not something for you to only give to yourself like a selfish piece of shit, their main role in the party is still to throw out damage with fireballs and cantrips and support their other allies while trying to remain alive. ((also kind of forgot about the temp hp for a moment)) ((also that is a really really cool build somebody else made but it kind of only works in the specific context of this competition where support and magic items must come from the character themselves))
Can you point me to the rule that says that they have to share with anyone else? Either way, it doesn't change the fact that you were wrong in your statements about Artillerists or that your claims about that build are relevant in any way whatsoever. That build would probably be even more powerful in an actual campaign where it can have even more magic items AND help from friends.
Can you point me to the rule that says that they have to share with anyone else?
yeah its called being polite it is a game about having fun, yes you can play this invunerable warforged who refuses to help others in any significant way other than to destroy your enemies ether due to mistrust or some other factor, but the others might see that kind of as a dick move
That build would probably be even more powerful in an actual campaign where it can have even more magic items AND help from friends.
athas is and has always been a soldier, one who would repect the strength and valor of his fellow armsmen. In an game where he fights alongside say an defensively minded paladin, fighter or barbarian, i do not think he would hessitate to lend some of this magic, some of his infusions to his allies, and of course you have additional magic items to bring to bear. In this instance the warforged does not really have much compared to his fellow armsmen does he, he will still probably be rocking that very same equipment as the build descriibes if magic items are plentiful, but the only thing he has that his fellow armsmen would not would be a few extra attunement slots and that delicous but far-away 20th level capstone for +6 to all saves. He would still be able to take much damage, (and thus still be somewhat effective as an tank) but he would for the most part never outshine such a party member if such a party member existed, he never outshines the hill dwarf zealot barbarian, he amplifies the potency of the zealot barbarian. Would still be a fun build, would still be an character extremely helpful to the rest of the party (especially to the other tanks), he would tank, but he'd never really be THE tank unless the party martials slack on constituion or if nobody else wants to go that route
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
but it is something that is optional for the DM to include tho, it is not something that can be relied oppon in a build any more than i could rely on an a paladin build to give me an +3 holy avenger, i was just thinking more spending time to train them the old fasioned way like you would a warhorse. That being said with fighter levels you could give them heavy armor and the defense fighting style, an truly wealthy character might then give their pet with the defense fighting style an expensive set of +1 plate armor once you hit like tier 3, thus giving them an max AC of like 26 which is nice. It also allows for an giant wolf spider to become even more sneaky and tricky as they buff their dex and an fastieth or snek to increase their dex to become truly unstoppable in armor class and damage or the giant crab to become the biggest meme ever. Once the pet hits like 5th level you will also have the same benefits as you get at 11th level. Of course this is mort likely to happen with an awaken spell being cast first
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
How did Artificer end up as "worst"? oO They are better "Beastmasters" than the beastmaster ranger, better melee fighters than the champion fighter, get free magical gear, get spell progression equal to paladins and a host of utility in their tools including thief tools to pick locks and disable traps.
Maybe I'm biased by the Battle Smith subclass, but imo Artificers are one of the strongest classes available.
Eh, a non-zero number of people voted for every class as worst.
Technically not true. Zero people voted for the Artificer in either category.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
Yeah, but the rest of the Artificers are up there as well. A correctly built artillerist artificer can have more survivability than a zealot barbarian and as already mentioned Battle Smith as better beastmasters than Beastmasters.
Yeah I think its more that Artificers are so new and only in the Eberron book so not as many folks have had experience with them. Word is they are getting reprinted in the Tasha book so I think that will help with that.
1) by choosing the correct animal an beastmaster will be able to get up to so many more shenanigans than that dull old steel defender will ever be capable of, from massive damage to weird utillity
2) what in the nine hells kind of artillerist are you playing? The subclass with zero defensive abillities?
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
To be fair the THP from the turret early on is better than a Zealot barb and later on it gives cover to everyone around it raising AC and DEX saves. The Barb at that point, however, is massively tanky.
Beastmaster options from the CFV were great and I actually think people might play it more when they come out in Tasha's book.
The defender does have free healing with mending which is handy.
fun fact: unless you are using those class feature variants beasties, your beast companion cannot take the hide action ever, that is not one of the actions you can command them to take which is sad becuase the giant wolf spider will at third level have an +9 to stealth which is higher than what most rouges can get at that level. And even like beyond that there are plenty of overlooked viable beast companions people normally do not pick that i think make the subclass way more playable, the giant poisonous snake, the cave badger, the fastieth , the giant frog, the petranodon, the deep rothé all make for great companions that have cool unique benefits
also still like the buffs from the artillerist are buffs for the whole party to enjoy and are not used adequately if the artillerist is hogging them, thus in a party with both in it the zealot would still be the better tank becuase he is also getting that +2 AC and those extra temporary hit points
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
I, for one, would like to see some of these weird/strong Beastmaster builds I keep hearing about. I mean, I'm well aware that a Beastmaster's Beast does quite well out of combat as a super scout... but I've never seen anything that turns them combat worthy.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Yeah for sure. I makes the Zealot a better tank for sure. Overall they are pretty adaptable I think and are mostly welcome in any party.
For me a Monk is the one where its okay to have in a party but no party really needs them. Same with ranger...they are fine to have but nothing really makes them absolutely needed or missed.
Sorcerer is a weird one as it does some stuff better than wizard and the subclass (Divine Soul) can really make them fill the spot of another class. I think they mostly suffer from the fact WotC keeps giving non-sorcerers sorcerer like stuff.
Beastmaster is flavorful but the fact the beast is so fragile and it takes a full day to get another one makes them hard in campaigns with tough timelines or where the DM is keeping the throttle high. They can have their place though but I generally find them to the be weakest subclass in the game.
This one: https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/tips-tactics/75037-5e-throwdowns-d-d-beyond-edition-2-the-terminator?comment=16
Question is, what kind of artillerist have you been playing if you haven't even read about one of its basic abilities?
like wizards in a way, can be really potent but are much vunerable, can have the same AC progression as the monk if you start with an beastie with an default AC of 14, if you can train an fastieth or giant poisonous snake in light armor then them wearing studded leather will probably outdo most party members for AC, but it will always have bad saving throws and hit points, hopefully warding bond will help a lot
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
Interesting comment on the armor...I haven't had a DM go that route ever but JC did mention fighter levels for the beast to help.
Yeah the HP is the major issue due to the fact that it doesnt scale well. Most of its life its one fireball away from death.
wait did crawdaddy explicitly say your beastie friend can have class levels?
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
Somewhat yeah:
https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/1023487647690383361
You can't acquire an animal companion that has class levels at the time you acquire it, because if it does it will exceed CR 1/4 and thus not be a valid companion. Nothing specifically says it can't acquire class levels later.
That’s not necessarily true. It definitely might be, but you’d have to recalculate CR to know. Definitely not worth the hassle in any case.
Can you point me to the rule that says that they have to share with anyone else? Either way, it doesn't change the fact that you were wrong in your statements about Artillerists or that your claims about that build are relevant in any way whatsoever. That build would probably be even more powerful in an actual campaign where it can have even more magic items AND help from friends.
yeah its called being polite it is a game about having fun, yes you can play this invunerable warforged who refuses to help others in any significant way other than to destroy your enemies ether due to mistrust or some other factor, but the others might see that kind of as a dick move
i made an misstake. I admitted to making that mistake, shut up about it
athas is and has always been a soldier, one who would repect the strength and valor of his fellow armsmen. In an game where he fights alongside say an defensively minded paladin, fighter or barbarian, i do not think he would hessitate to lend some of this magic, some of his infusions to his allies, and of course you have additional magic items to bring to bear. In this instance the warforged does not really have much compared to his fellow armsmen does he, he will still probably be rocking that very same equipment as the build descriibes if magic items are plentiful, but the only thing he has that his fellow armsmen would not would be a few extra attunement slots and that delicous but far-away 20th level capstone for +6 to all saves. He would still be able to take much damage, (and thus still be somewhat effective as an tank) but he would for the most part never outshine such a party member if such a party member existed, he never outshines the hill dwarf zealot barbarian, he amplifies the potency of the zealot barbarian. Would still be a fun build, would still be an character extremely helpful to the rest of the party (especially to the other tanks), he would tank, but he'd never really be THE tank unless the party martials slack on constituion or if nobody else wants to go that route
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes
but it is something that is optional for the DM to include tho, it is not something that can be relied oppon in a build any more than i could rely on an a paladin build to give me an +3 holy avenger, i was just thinking more spending time to train them the old fasioned way like you would a warhorse. That being said with fighter levels you could give them heavy armor and the defense fighting style, an truly wealthy character might then give their pet with the defense fighting style an expensive set of +1 plate armor once you hit like tier 3, thus giving them an max AC of like 26 which is nice. It also allows for an giant wolf spider to become even more sneaky and tricky as they buff their dex and an fastieth or snek to increase their dex to become truly unstoppable in armor class and damage or the giant crab to become the biggest meme ever. Once the pet hits like 5th level you will also have the same benefits as you get at 11th level. Of course this is mort likely to happen with an awaken spell being cast first
i am soup, with too many ideas (all of them very spicy) who has made sufficient homebrew material and character to last an thousand human lifetimes