Artificer feels... too underwhelming

[long long man]

I know she isn't like most characters, but when I tell myself "Man, I would be doing better with Commando against this boss" is something that I'm guessing I shouldn't say.

Now, I've been playing ROR2 for a while, I have mastery skins with all characters, except her and I decided to play with her since its the only that's left to have all the skins, and she looks pretty good in the alt

I don't wanna say she's slow, that's kinda the point of having a lot of attack capacity. The problem is that attack capacity is too restrictive, and at the same time, underwhelming, specially since a cowboy with a revolver from the back only does 500% less damage than her flamethower but in a burst AND has a 5x100% primary wich is pretty burst-able, and with high mobility and can escape a lot of dangerous situations with his shift, AND can combo from other enemies to clean-up efficiently, AND ALSO has high proc rates...

Snapfreeze is so underwhelming as a damaging or CC ability, it might as well be Cast Nano-Spear, her jetpack feels slugish, and might even be a detriment since Brass Contraptions appear to land more shots while I'm flying with it, her damage comes too slow and somewhat hard to hit, flamethrower doesn't interrupt wisps, making her reliying on good items on the first few stages even for good players wich can supress most of the luck factor with other characters, makes me think of her as a "less-rewarding Bandit"

Maybe a buff of her overall damage? Mobility wouldn't be a miss, Nano-Spear its just a better Snapfreeze, maybe Ion Surge for her special? Extra Proc rates? A rework for all/most important abilities such as Flamethrower? I don't know, but right now, it feels so underwhelming from the concept of, you know, a fricking flying elemental-wielding battle mage from space, I would expect to be a little bit better than a cowboy using traditional guns

[Pimpin Pippin]

She is very different to other characters.
I also thought of her as trash but recently i had several phenomenal runs with her.
She plays like a mage (nuker) and does not get much benefit from attack speed and damage over time.
She also benefits greatly from gathering every possible item on each level since she is very weak at start but with several proper items she insta-kills anything.

As your first white items try to get several Crowbars and Gasolines (new instant damage explosion is great and radius increases nicely with stacks).
At least 5 Goat Hoofs are mandatory to make good use of her hovering, and try to get several Backup Magazines so that with faster cooldowns your abilities stack more while you are casting other abilities.
As your first green items try to get one or two Razorwires, they are amazing vs air units and weak units in general.
Other great green items are Will o Wisp, Guillotine (easier than the unreliable Snapfreeze), Atg Missile, Ukulele, Bandolier, Kjaro and Runald band... try to always have one death mark, chrono bauble and stealthkit.

Brainstalk and Alien Head greatly increase her power and even Purity can help a lot.
Black Hole equipment item is awesome combined with her AOE attacks.

I always go for Plasma Bolt because its aoe is great (no damage falloff) and the Flame Bolt dot is just too slow to matter.
If you go for Charged Nano Bomb (universal destroyer) then you must take the Ion Surge so you can easily bomb the enemy from above.
If you go for Cast Nano Spear (primarily anti-air and anti-large enemies) you can choose between Flamethrower (aoe) and Ion Surge (mobility/safety), though keep in mind its easier to pierce multiple enemies with Nano Spear when you are on ground level.
If you skip Ion Surge make sure you get a few Hopoo feathers and Waxed quails for easier hovering.

So the general idea is that you will always be hovering which makes most ground enemies meaningless.
The air enemies will be a chore but the Razorwire is phenomenal against them (it stacks really well with the huge radius increase).
The only thing you care about is burst damage (will o wisp and similar), the damage over time effects will not get a chance to do anything but they can be useful to trigger Death Mark.
Try to get 100% crit chance and if you find a Shatterspleen it will be great (explosion on monster death and the bleed helps trigger Death mark).
Always mix which abilities you use so that all the cooldowns are active (instead of immediately burning all the charges on one ability).

Personally i never rush any levels and always take all the items, feels a lot more fun (Radar scanner is great for this playstyle).
My longest run with Artificer was i think over 3 hours, she was instantly killing every enemy and even end boss died without a problem.
She plays very different to most other characters and requires a specialized playstyle to make her work.

[Ittrix]

As an old Arty main who has been playing for about two years now

She's bad. With Ion Surge she can immensely cheese, but that's cheese. Without it she's bad. Workable, but bad. She desperately needs buffs and access to use more items for consistency.

[Tsatrik]

Just got a mastery skin with her,it was hard as hell. A fun character none the less,still could use some buffs tho.

[Copy & Cat]

Mostly probably because she has the worst basic attack and Ion surge is not a good alternative, it's interesting but it's pretty much just a high jump that's useless as an R skill.

Honestly just improving how the cooldown on the basic attack works should help immensely, as she is completely reliant on her second skill everything else feels too weak, and it's not the same case as capitain that has an incredible basic shotgun because everything else is utility. It's a damage but not cohesive damage that makes good combos

[TrueEvil]

She's been my favorite since they day I unlocked her and damn she does suck.

For a glass cannon character I'd like to see more glass and a lot more cannon. I have some very specific ideas on how that could happen but it's pointless to list them.

[Ninja Zyborg]

Artificer is quite good, the problem is that she doesn't scale well with most items.

[Genevir]

Artificer is good and a single purity solves any downtime you might have. The only thing they need to fix are those god awful specials. Flamethrower is basically never used again after the first 3 stages and ion surge is just bad in every way possible other than cheesing Mithrix.

[Wolforn]

Compare the Artificer to Loader and the problems are very obvious. Artificer can choose between being weak and slowly floating around or losing mobility for some burst damage. Loader has barrier, huge burst damage, and far more mobility with none of the compromises. Loader also benefits more from proc chains, attack speed, and bleed. Probably more from bands too which should be Artificer's big thing. Purity doesn't do nearly enough to fix her problems and it still has huge drawbacks considering it's a reverse clover. The only good thing is being able to fly around and cheese Mithrix, but he's not really hard for anyone unless you manage to get there with absolutely no mobility. Floating around also sucks when there's wisps and contraptions and you have to slowly pick them off with your terrible primary. I understand not wanting to just crank her damage up, but there needs to be some sort of trade-off for her weaknesses.

[Ittrix]

Yeah, comparing her to other characters really shows off her problems.

She's supposed to be a glass cannon who sacrificed her mobility for insane damage... but then you have characters like Loader doing the same damage without sacrificing mobility at all. She doesn't have enough oomph behind her to fit what she's supposed to be. She's a *regular* character with no mobility, not a glass cannon. Workable if you're good enough, but not a good character.

[Genevir]

There's always gonna be a ''worst character''. They can't achieve perfect balance and make all of them equal so comparing characters and complaining that some are stronger is kinda pointless.

The thing that actually matters is whether or not she's viable and fun to play, when it comes to viability she's more than enough to win the game with even on the hardest difficulty. When it comes to fun her abilities work really well with each other and do their job except for her specials which are just pointless and in need of a buff/rework.

[TrueEvil]

Originally posted by Ino:

There's always gonna be a ''worst character''. They can't achieve perfect balance and make all of them equal so comparing characters and complaining that some are stronger is kinda pointless.

The thing that actually matters is whether or not she's viable and fun to play, when it comes to viability she's more than enough to win the game with even on the hardest difficulty. When it comes to fun her abilities work really well with each other and do their job except for her specials which are just pointless and in need of a buff/rework.

I agree that it's okay to have a worst character but I'm having a difficult time taking this seriously because you're disregarding discussion of tuning by saying "they can't achieve perfect balance" but immediately insisting that the specials are "pointless and in need of a buff/rework"

[Wolforn]

Originally posted by Ino:

There's always gonna be a ''worst character''. They can't achieve perfect balance and make all of them equal so comparing characters and complaining that some are stronger is kinda pointless.

The thing that actually matters is whether or not she's viable and fun to play, when it comes to viability she's more than enough to win the game with even on the hardest difficulty. When it comes to fun her abilities work really well with each other and do their job except for her specials which are just pointless and in need of a buff/rework.

If it were just a matter of her being numerically weaker than the other characters I don't think it would be as much of an issue, but her kit just doesn't feel effective. She's good at nuking beetles and lemurians, but outside of that it doesn't feel like she does much. The primary is just a bad projectile that scales poorly, it doesn't feel like you're shooting a fireball or whatever the other one is. It doesn't justify the CD. She just walls and shoots her secondary for the most part and that also doesn't feel like the big nuke it should be. The wall is totally useless against her biggest threats too. The utility from ion surge is the most fun you get from her kit and it makes her feel even weaker.

She can work with good items, but so can everyone and it shouldn't feel like your items are winning the game for you in spite of your bad abilities. She just doesn't feel like this powerful mage blasting spells at stuff, it's missed potential.

[Ittrix]

Originally posted by Ino:

There's always gonna be a ''worst character''. They can't achieve perfect balance and make all of them equal so comparing characters and complaining that some are stronger is kinda pointless.

The thing that actually matters is whether or not she's viable and fun to play, when it comes to viability she's more than enough to win the game with even on the hardest difficulty. When it comes to fun her abilities work really well with each other and do their job except for her specials which are just pointless and in need of a buff/rework.

I can regularly win on Acrid Monsoon without any items. That doesn't mean it's viable nor fun.

Same deal with Arty. She's clearly much weaker than the rest of the viable and fun characters- which hints that she might not be.

[Genevir]

Originally posted by eV:

Originally posted by Ino:

There's always gonna be a ''worst character''. They can't achieve perfect balance and make all of them equal so comparing characters and complaining that some are stronger is kinda pointless.

The thing that actually matters is whether or not she's viable and fun to play, when it comes to viability she's more than enough to win the game with even on the hardest difficulty. When it comes to fun her abilities work really well with each other and do their job except for her specials which are just pointless and in need of a buff/rework.

I agree that it's okay to have a worst character but I'm having a difficult time taking this seriously because you're disregarding discussion of tuning by saying "they can't achieve perfect balance" but immediately insisting that the specials are "pointless and in need of a buff/rework"

Well you missed the most important part of my point. It doesn't matter who's the best or worst it only matters if it can win the game and if it is fun to play. Mainly subjective but those specials are so underpowered and badly designed to the point where they aren't fun to use. The rest of the character isn't though.

I'm against comparing characters to each other so much and thinking something needs a buff just because something else is stronger not any balance changes altogether. I just think people should change their focus from ''loader can fly half the map and oneshot the boss but every other character can't they all need a buff'' to how viable and fun a character actually is when suggesting changes.

[Genevir]

Originally posted by Ittrix:

Originally posted by Ino:

There's always gonna be a ''worst character''. They can't achieve perfect balance and make all of them equal so comparing characters and complaining that some are stronger is kinda pointless.

The thing that actually matters is whether or not she's viable and fun to play, when it comes to viability she's more than enough to win the game with even on the hardest difficulty. When it comes to fun her abilities work really well with each other and do their job except for her specials which are just pointless and in need of a buff/rework.

I can regularly win on Acrid Monsoon without any items. That doesn't mean it's viable nor fun.

Same deal with Arty. She's clearly much weaker than the rest of the viable and fun characters- which hints that she might not be.

What? Winning regularly is literally what makes something viable. The fun part is subjective but yeah it probably wouldn't be fun for most players to play without items.

Artificer is very viable and fun for me, probably fun for a lot of other people as well. She has a single ability slot that isn't fun imo but that doesn't make the entire character not fun to play for me.

I have more consistent wins with her than with some of the characters that are considered OP simply because I play her a lot and got pretty good at using her. Saying that she's not viable when it's clearly possible to win with her often is contradictory.