If only experimental elixir was actually a good feature before it gets continuously built on.

Okay, not so much "better" as it is "less bad" but you get my point.

Homunculus wasn't bad, it just didn't synergize with the rest of the subclass.

It was less the homunculus(cool idea that went to waste) and more everything else about it and how that did nothing to make the class more interesting than "find familiar but you waste one of the most important attributes of your character on it".

I liked the old, old alchemist better... while it wasn't great by any means, at least it had offensive options(the potion tossing one not the Homunculus.) I don't know if I'm missing something but there's almost no scaling to it. Your healing does the same at level 3 as it does at level 20. Of course there's the temp hp, but that also doesn't scale. Spending a 1st level spell slot on an elixir nets me the same exact result as spending a 5th level spell slot on it...

It's not as good a healer as a bard, cleric, or druid, and it lacks the offensive and utility capabilities of all three.

Am I missing something?

Quote from Yurei1453 >>

You missed the boat, Arutha.  We've been discussing this since page 10 of the other Artificer thread.  In summation:

1.) The Alchemist got turbo-bonernerfed.  It has no combat capacity, severely diminished exploration/adventuring capacity, and reduced downtime crafting viability, primarily because idiots demanded that the entire class be built around potions, nothing but potions, everything potions, potions potions more potions potions additional potions potions potions POTIONS.  So.  We got an Alchemist with an "Experimental Elixir" ability that's almost strictly weaker than the homunculus was, a 'Homunculus' infusion that is strictly weaker than the old Alchemical Homunculus whilst also consuming more resources (a precious infusion slot), and ended up with a subclass that cannot effectively contribute to an adventuring party beyond what a basic, no-subclass-selected artificer could do until it gets to the levels where it gets free Lesser/Greater Restos.

2.) The artificer as a whole has lost its ability to effectively engage in martial/weapon combat, outside the Battlesmith.  No crossbow proficiencies, no Arcane Weapon.  No ability to make use of the magical weapons it can create on its own; the artificer is instead expected to give all of its infusions to other party members and then demand those party members haul the helpless artificer around like a sack of loot-sucking spuds.  The Alchemist and Artillerist instead get weak spell-boosting abilities that in no way make up for the loss of Arcane Assault and Arcane Weapon.  The artillerist is strictly weaker than an Evocation wizard until 15th level when it can double its cannon damage, and the alchemist is never effective outside of town beyond the extremely unfun and sharply limited role of "out of combat heal***** boi".

3.) On the flip side, the reintroduction of Magic Item Adept/Master/Savant allowing a gradual increase in attunement slots is very welcome, and Flash of Genius is an interesting and fitting ability that allows the artificer to squeak its team through tough spots.  Infusion selection was improved, and the ability to craft any Uncommon or lesser item for half the cost and a quarter of the time is likely to be more broadly useful than the item-specific crafting discounts which were previously tied to subclass.

On the whole, discussion seems to agree that the artificer in general got a bit weaker but in acceptable ways.  The Alchemist was unfairly overnerfed, and the Artillerist is in a weird spot, but the Battlesmith is excellent.  The loss of Arcane Weapon is deeply confusing, the loss of Arcane Assault is deeply frustrating, the loss of Right Cantrip for the Job is both, and there's a lot of talk of homebrew fixes to get the class back to a point where people feel confident playing it.

Wow I was completely not aware that crossbows were removed from base Artificer, totally not on board with that and Arcane Weapon’s removal also strikes like a balancing move at the cost of interesting gameplay. That was definitely a bad move. 

I agree that Alchemist got over nerfed, that’s what you get when you don’t play test the final version, I am definitely going to add scaling based on the spell slot used.

On the other hand I think we are underestimating the Artillerist buff. They can now do 4d10+d8+6d8=53.5 damage per turn easily without concentrating. That’s a high high dps subclass. I just take issue with the forcing into one path I would rather a choice to pick up 2*(d10+d6+5)+6d8=56 nerf to light crossbow for 54. I am absolutely going to offer the “Variant feature” of EA for 5th level.

Battlesmith was great and is great a good introductory subclass for Artificer players. I will definitely be splitting Artillerist and Wandslinger as that was always the best idea. What was the link to the other thread? If that survives better there could be some good ideas there.

Alchemist scaling is not the problem, it scales to become perfectly fine already. That is not the problem. That was never the problem. Below level 9 alchemist is the problem. That is the problem. The elixirs need to be actually good, not just good on higher levels, because guess what? They are good at higher levels, after they get the temp hp.

Haha Mergon, I think I might have seen you on the YouTube comments! I didn’t see the changes as that massively discouraging, mostly the Warforged Armor but that was just so likely to get nerfed if you followed any threads. And I mean you can get the same effect by actually going out and searching for a good magic armor. The only change I would make is warforged don’t need to don/doff armor at all once assimilated.

I would prefer Wayfarer’s options remained, specifically in the UA toggle so most people would select the official Artificer and Warforged but “Artificer UA” and “Warforged UA” were other options, that don’t need any further support.

But other than that I think the book is fine with plenty of setting details and character options that in a vacuum would be well balanced and comparable to every other options books we received previously like Xanathars and far better than SCAG or Ravnica.

Quote from Bunsenburner03 >>

Alchemist scaling is not the problem, it scales to become perfectly fine already. That is not the problem. That was never the problem. Below level 9 alchemist is the problem. That is the problem. The elixirs need to be actually good, not just good on higher levels, because guess what? They are good at higher levels, after they get the temp hp.

I think the people that were hoping for potions to be replacements for Cantrips are the ones that are disappointed. You still have Cantrips as your balanced damage source, and you play them as on demand premade potions. Having a fly speed at level 3 for a 1st level spell slot is pretty strong. Just needed a more robust play test. Eg increase fly speed by 10ft (stacking) so you can chuck 3 potions at once for good flyspeed. And at higher levels you don’t just get more free uses, you get more uses per spell slot also.

It's the whole package of changes here that irks me.

Previously:
Alchemical Homunculus -> 1 bonus action command to it fly over to someone and administer a salve offering temporary HP/flight/advantage for a while.
Happens all in 1 turn with 1 bonus action

Now:
Experimental Elixir takes an action to create a potion and takes another action to drink/administer the potion.
Happens in 2 turns with 2 actions or 1 turn with a collaborative effort with 2 actions one being taken the alchemist and one by another player. And costs a spell slot.

Granted the one you got for free was already made and only costs 1 action in 1 turn but that's still slower than the Alchemical Homunculus.

Further they also removed the Many-Handed Pouch infusion. So there's no easy way to distribute your potions. Even taking the Homunculus Servant infusion isn't really that much help because while it can carry a potion RAW the servant can't use it's action to administer said potion since that's not one of it's available actions.

Experimental elixer might be more thematically coherent (in some people's opinions) but mechanically speaking It's actively worse. Most of the time it's just better to use an actual spell. In combat at least. I'd have preferred if they simply improved the Alchemical Homunculus at higher levels.

I do like that the other alchemist spells, Purify food and Drink, Create Food and water, and web were subsumed into the base Artificer spell list though. Glad that those aren't just gone forever, and flaming sphere is pretty awesome, no lie, it's just man was this a disappointing update.

Oh yeah, they totally should have left in many handed pouch. It is like this was designed for this, christ.

 I don't think there's anything stopping you from using your spell slots to create experimental elixirs ahead of time. Especially if there's a particular formula you want.

Why would you do that though? You might never get to that situation, and you only have so many spell slots. the ONE thing i will say that is good about the experimental elixir feature, is that it essentially gives you a bunch of extra spells prepared.

So like, even if the elixir is experimental the alchemist is supposed to be able to discern what it does, right? 

Quote from Unclevertitle >>

Quote from Ophidimancer >>

Quote from Unclevertitle >>

 I think people (definitely not me) mostly just objected to every subclass having a pet or pet-like magical object. So Homunculus became an infusion, max infusions went up to 6, and Artillerists turrets are small or tiny instead of being medium.

 Aww, darn! There goes my idea of my gnome riding her turrets into battle.

 It might still work though! Just not so much as "mounted." When ability checks are needed the turrets "stats" are solid 10s. That gives it a 10 in strength which gives it a carrying capacity of 150 lbs. Pulling capacity is 300 lbs. Both well above a gnome's average weight. Later on you could use some sort of chariot tied to two turrets to let them slowly drag up to 600 lbs.

Dear God, I just thought of the greatest/dumbest idea ever...

 Turret Heelys.

Damn, I'm actually quite happy with the version of Artificer they've settled upon. There's a couple of LOL moments while reading the class, but overall, I love it.

The aforementioned lols:

1. Artificer - the dedicated "magic item class" - gets the ability to use magic items regardless of restrictions... 1 level later than a Thief does. But then again, thief's a specific subclass, whereas artificers get that for free, as a part of the main class.
2. I absolutely LOVE how so many DMs across the lands were crying in agony at the "Soul of Artifice" allowing for 6 magic items and +6 total to all saving throws, throwing balance out of whack... so they made it retain all that (though through magic item adept/savant/master as well) AND they slapped basically 6 self-revivals on top of that, just for kicks.

Again, love the 6 magic items, and Soul of Artifice as a whole, but boy, I chuckled.

Besides, a free Heal spell for the Alchemist... me likes.

You know a lot of DMs who run level 20 parties? Please send me that info. For a level 20 ability I would say it's okay at best, especially since this class is the only ones that can actually survive a saving throw from the monsters in the back. Druids can wildshape indefinitely and I would say that's more broken then this ability or the rogue's I'm good at everything so I can just succeed ability. 

Soul of Artifice is perfectly fine and balanced, it is absolutely fair.

Since its inception, the highest level a character I have ever gotten was a L17 Abjuration mage . . .

I literally have 100+ characters L5-7 though and a half dozen or so L7-13.

The Artificer is supposed to be a 1/2 caster; part of the half caster is spellcaster obviously but what is the other half supposed to be. Both the ranger and pally put the artificer to shame in the combat department.

Seeing what WotC did to the Artificer, they should have done ahead an made it a pure caster. A hexblade warlock is better in combat than the Artificer.

(as a side tip, never ever ever ever compare anything to hexblade, that is notoriously overpowered as hell)