The Artificer sucks, here's why...

[FableNights]

The Artificer is my favorite character currently in RoR2. She has a nice design, iz space wizard, and tons of DAMAGE, but she feels a bit weak overall, her biggest issues come from her kit : Flame Bolt, Flamethrower, and Snapfreeze.

Flame Bolt

First off Flame Bolt (her basic attack) has charges and is on a cooldown which makes Syringe and any item that procs on-hit not that great when compared to the rest of the cast, especially Engineer. This wouldn't be as big of an issue if she was able to get more charges throughout the game as she leveled up (maybe +1 charge every level or 2?) but since she doesn't, those items lose a lot of value on her.

Why is this an issue, because this is how every other character in the cast survives late game. They spam their basic attack, proc every on-hit item they have, and blow up massive hordes of mobs, attack boss, rinse and repeat.
What does she do? She uses her abilities. Having an ability-based character is fine, it's the reason why the Engineer is relevant, but her abilities can't proc on the same scale as other characters and because of that she ironically loses damage.

Flamethrower

Her strongest ability, damage wise, is Flamethrower. Dealing a massive 1700% damage over a course of 3 seconds, but the big issue is that she must get close. This ability melts mobs and deals massive damage to bosses. Most mobs you can get away with being literally right next to them, but bosses...you never want to be near bosses as they usually have something to punish that or a super strong attack that requires you to take cover otherwise you might die.

The 2nd squishiest character and the character with the lowest amount of protection in the game, must get close to enemies, which to do late game is suicide, to make use of her best ability. I'm sorry, but that's kinda stupid considering the rest of her kit in addition to the nature of the game. It's a shame really.

Snapfreeze

This is her best defensive option and it sucks.
It freezes and allows for executes on enemies that are at 20% hp or below, but it doesn't block shots and an enemy simply touching a pillar breaks it which means they and others can now walk through it.
The execute isn't that relevant on a character that is literally meant to dish out huge numbers, this is something i would expect to see on the Mercenary, not her. What is relevant is the freeze, which is essentially a longer stun which is something she needs, but Snapfreeze overall doesn't give her what she needs and that is defense. Every other character in the game has SOME way to avoid death.
Her way to avoid death is to kill before she's killed, but because she no way to proc items often, she does this rather poorly late game.
What would be amazing for her is if Snapfreeze acted like a wall and blocked projectiles and prevented grounded enemies from walking through it while freezing them instead of freezing them and breaking.
Give the pillars that form the wall HP or make it break after X amount of hits, it doesn't matter, but make it protect her (and her allies).

Item Builds

While playing her I've been focusing on these 3 white items : Tougher Times, Glasses, and Energy Drink (I'm not including items of a higher rarity because it's not reliable getting multiples of them before the game becomes extremely hard for it).
I'm also going to mention Armor Piercing Rounds. It's great, but I don't focus on getting it compared to the 3 I listed.
Edit : Going to put Backup Magazine here, decent item by itself. You only need to run 1 if you don't have any way of resetting cooldowns, but if you get something like Bandolier, then feel free to get more.
Edit : Crowbar also gets a mention, you only need 1-2 of these, but this will allow Flame Bolt to one shot lesser wisp for most of the game. When you can start shooting off crits reliably, then get more Crowbars. That 150% (+30% per stack) is stupid good when you can start reliably critting your Charged Nano-Blast.

Why these 3?
Chance to avoid damage.
Crits.
To gtfo to cover when I need to.

Having a 15% (+15% per stack) chance to just ignore a hit would be ok, but the Teddy stacks, so I grab as many of these as I can so that when I do take a hit, because I'm going to, I can't freeze/stun every mob at once, I will most likely ignore it and if I do take damage, well, that's what Energy Drink is for.

CRITS!!! The chance of doing double damage is what I live for on a character like the Artificer and I would argue she benefits from crits the most when compared to the rest of the cast because...

Flame Bolt goes from 200% to 400%.
Charged Nano-Blast goes from 400%/1200% to 800%/2400%
Flamethrower goes from 1700% to a whopping 3400%

I guess Snapfreeze also goes from 100% to 200%...woo

No other member of the cast can even come close to the numbers she has in terms of raw damage output and it feels amazing just melting a boss or a horde of mobs in a couple of Crit-throwers.

Energy Drink because that is literally the only consistent way she has of escaping death, that's sad.

If you don't get these items (or similar ones) well, you're not surviving HAHAHA and you'll have difficulty surviving Impossible through I'm Coming for You even if you're careful.

Conclusion

Overall, she's a character that's just pure power fantasy, but she isn't that practical when compared to the rest of the cast. Even with the stuff I've mentioned, I've been able to do more damage over the same amount time lived with less stupid builds on literally every other character.

Allow Flame Bolt to either gain charges as she levels up or reduce the base damage and remove the charge limitation.

Turn Snapfreeze from something that looks like a wall to something that acts like a wall, she needs it.

Edit : Sadly, as much as I like the idea of Flamethrower, it doesn't really fit on a character like the Artificer. Essentially the squishiest character in the game (Huntress may have lower hp, but she has an escape) has to get close to use her highest damaging ability. I'm sorry, but this doesn't fit the Artificer. I know other people like the ability to, I see a bunch of people on other suggestion posts asking for a Flamethrower buff, but sadly, it just isn't that great for her.

I do have a suggestion. A Giant Piercing Lance that stops on contact with Boss Mobs and Surfaces. It doesn't disappear, but instead sticks into the ground/Boss then explodes in a rather substantial AoE with additional effects depending on what the Artificer's last element used.

Fire - DoT Damage
Nano - Stun
Ice - Slow/Armor Reduction

The game describes her as being amazing against huge hordes of mobs and against bosses with huge amounts of burst damage, and this ability, in concept, would still be following that description, it fits even better then Flamethrower because she wouldn't need to be literally next to the enemy to use it AND it's actually burst damage. Flamethrower isn't burst, it's a channel.

Additional Notes

As for a practical buff to her, she can charge Nano then sprint, but she can't sprint then charge Nano, so that needs to be changed so that she can charge while sprinting and that could possibly be added to Flame Bolt and Flamethrower as well, I don't know if that would be a little too strong, but currently she has no mobility options other than sprinting, so it would be nice if she got something extra out of it.

[Bandit Hadron]

Thank you! Someone put what I wanted for Artificer into words!

[Vahnkiljoy]

I read your thread and I honestly don't agree fully with the changes you propose or complaints you made, you're 'focused' items are good but you are SERIOUSLY limiting yourself, her MAIN damage doesn't come from her flame bolts, you need to stop thinking of her like she is to be used like the other classes.

Her flamethrower doesn't put her into deaths door as badly as you claim, she doesn't have to get THAT close that flamethrower has surprising range for its power, get damage items and it will proc so many things on targets.

She may be slow but it's intended just like on her description she is meant to be used tactically and you need to position yourself to utilize her to her fullest.

Haven't gotten lucky enough to get it as I always seem to get bs sniped by wisps but 2 of my friends last night unlocked their backup mags and THAT is a required item for her, gives her an extra RMB shot and lower cooldown.

[FableNights]

Originally posted by Vahnkiljoy:

I read your thread and I honestly don't agree fully with the changes you propose or complaints you made, you're 'focused' items are good but you are SERIOUSLY limiting yourself, her MAIN damage doesn't come from her flame bolts, you need to stop thinking of her like she is to be used like the other classes.

I'm not thinking she has to be used like the other classes, but something she needs is more defensive options and/or to be able to proc on-hit items more reliably because currently she only has flamethrower which puts her a little too close to enemies. One of the reasons why the Engineer is considered godly is because of his turrets ability to use the items he has which is x3 the output of any other character at worst and more then that at best.

Originally posted by Vahnkiljoy:

Her flamethrower doesn't put her into deaths door as badly as you claim, she doesn't have to get THAT close that flamethrower has surprising range for its power, get damage items and it will proc so many things on targets.

She may be slow but it's intended just like on her description she is meant to be used tactically and you need to position yourself to utilize her to her fullest.

While she doesn't have to get THAT close to use Flamethrower, she does put herself in an unfavorable position to get the most use out of it, a "tactical, position based character" has to put themselves in a bad position. Again, 2nd squishiest character in the game with the lowest amount of protection in the game. That screams "Stay away from me!" but her flamethrower says otherwise.

There's a reason why the 2nd part of the message says "defensive items" because she relies on them so much more then any other character in the game and that part is 90% more important then any positioning she could have.

Originally posted by Vahnkiljoy:

Haven't gotten lucky enough to get it as I always seem to get bs sniped by wisps but 2 of my friends last night unlocked their backup mags and THAT is a required item for her, gives her an extra RMB shot and lower cooldown.

First off, Backup magazine doesn't lower cooldown, so far I only know of Alien Head and Bandolier reducing cooldowns on abilities.

When I first wrote this, I didn't even know Backup Mag was a thing, but now that I have gotten it, it's not amazing on her unless you get bandolier. Usually the game isn't going to give you enough time to charge all your nano shots on a normal run if you have more then two, so at most all you'll need is one. However, if you do get bandolier, then getting more is a viable option, however, the 3 white items I've mentioned are still overall better then backup. Backup needs bandolier, a green item, to be a good stacking item. Glasses, Teddy, and Energy don't need any other items before you can start stacking them.

As for getting backup mag, just use Engi on the first level and cheese it by yourself or with friends who also run Engi until you get it, not much more to say then that. That's how I did it.

[Sneaky Sable]

Originally posted by Vahnkiljoy:

Her flamethrower doesn't put her into deaths door as badly as you claim, she doesn't have to get THAT close that flamethrower has surprising range for its power, get damage items and it will proc so many things on targets.

Try playing monsoon and loop for 2-3 hours.
Flamethrower is a certain death sentence, especially with the current state of Blazing and Overloading Enemies.

[Noire]

Artificer is a bit OP early game, but severely underpowered in the late game.
This is caused by the same problem leaved from RoR1 -- those powerful items needs attack to trigger, and artificer doesn't have that much(perhaps lowest ) attack speed in the late game, since her(i suppose?) primary attack is limited.

so basically, those who can achieve high attack speed generally does better in late game.

[NeloDante]

Agreed.

[𝕯𝖆𝖇𝖚]

+1 solid point

[Hotslice]

https://www.reddit.com/r/ror2/comments/b86rho/brainstorming_ways_to_buff_artificer/

[Miserable Little Pile of Secrets]

For what it's worth, if you're able to stack attack speed items along with the Backup Magazines you're able to unload rapid-fire full-charged RMB attacks, and that can get pretty silly.

But I do agree that her LMB attack needs some tweaking--either by gaining charges as you level or changing how items interact with it to either lower its cooldown or give it charges--and her ult's short range is a pretty severe limitation.

[Zeddy]

Originally posted by FFIXMaster:

For what it's worth, if you're able to stack attack speed items along with the Backup Magazines you're able to unload rapid-fire full-charged RMB attacks, and that can get pretty silly.

Game needs to tell you which skills the Syringe works on, because it's clearly not all of them, and if what you're saying is true not only limited to the basic attack.

[FR4K4--]

like you , i love this char, for me the most missing on her is you have no escape, i'm fine with the batle mage thing , but you can't escape when you are on trouble, other char can.

and pushing up his move speed can be nice too, because when you are in early game, you can't look around like some other char do and that often result at a bad start on the item side

but i really love her and she so fun to play, i agree that need some tweaks

[Flackzer]

I Hard AGREE with you on her abilities , Primary i think should get a small dmg buff , interact better with syringes, and maybe have very small amount of target homing to nail the close calls so the charges dont feel like a complete waste , Maaayyybe 5 charges instead of 4

[Miserable Little Pile of Secrets]

Originally posted by Zeddy:

Game needs to tell you which skills the Syringe works on, because it's clearly not all of them, and if what you're saying is true not only limited to the basic attack.

I dunno, as far as I can tell the Syringe interacts with every ability the way I'd expect it to; Artificer LMB fires off stored charges very quickly but doesn't regen them any faster, and RMB charge time gets faster.
Her RMB works exactly the same way as Engineer's LMB; with stacked AS he can charge up to maximum grenades much faster.

[Evono]

Entirely true. Artificer needs tweaks or actual usefull items for her like + main charges or just plain + base damage items ( so her scaling abilities get way stronger )

[FableNights]

Originally posted by S4P:

like you , i love this char, for me the most missing on her is you have no escape, i'm fine with the batle mage thing , but you can't escape when you are on trouble, other char can.

and pushing up his move speed can be nice too, because when you are in early game, you can't look around like some other char do and that often result at a bad start on the item side

but i really love her and she so fun to play, i agree that need some tweaks

Engineer is already one of the most successful characters in the game only being beaten out by MUL-T and he doesn't have an escape. Artificer only needs a defensive option and while I would like a dash/blink, I think an ice wall would thematically cooler if pulled off correctly.