We're continuing this straight-class build for the new Armorer Artificer. This time, we'll be going through tier 2, which has historically been generally thought of as where 5E is in its sweet spot - the players have enough cool stuff to do without being so powerful that the DM struggles to challenge them.
As a half-caster, we have to wait until tier 2 to get our second-level spells, and eventually get 3rd level spells once we're most of the way through it.
We'll continue working on this Human with the Sage background, borrowing the Shield spell from Wizards to let us push our AC to absurd heights. As early as level 3, we're wearing a +1 Shield and Plate armor, so that we sit at a base AC of 21.
Let's look at what we get in tier 2!
Level 5:
Our subclass feature is just Extra Attack. Pretty standard.
We also now have access to 2nd level spells. We have two such slots (and now four 1st level slots). What spells to prepare, then?
Ideally, we'd want something to boost our weapon damage. However, there aren't a ton of options like that at our disposal.
Homunculus Servant, which used to be an infusion, is now a 2nd level spell. We summon the servant, which lasts until it's killed. We'll probably want to re-cast this each level we get a new spell level, as the stat block does benefit from being up-cast (mainly in its survivability). But it takes no action to command it, and it'll attack for 1d6 plus the spell's level in force damage, which isn't huge but it's a nice little boost to our overall damage (I think every Artificer is going to want one of these). It's more or less a more powerful familiar that can attack our foes at range and with a scaling attack bonus.
Magic Weapon actually ought to work on our built-in weapons (though a nasty DM might rule that because the armor is magical, the weapon is as well, and thus not eligible).
Actually, Dragon's Breath is a really good combo with Homunculus Servant. You cast this on them, and rather than their piddly 1d6+2 attack, they can now breathe 3d6 damage in a 30-foot cone while leaving you open to attack with your weapons.
Enlarge/Reduce can help your Dreadnaught be able to push and pull bigger things.
Web, of course, is a classic, powerful combat-utility spell.
And then you have things like Invisibility, Enhance Ability, Aid, Lesser Restoration, Spider Climb - lots of situational things that could be useful.
We will also automatically get Mirror Image and Shatter. The latter is going to be our poor-man's Fireball. Mirror Image does still take an action to cast, but if you wanted to make it so insanely hard for anything to ever hit us, tossing this up will help. We'll have an AC of 21, we can cast Shield to push that to 26, and then if they manage to still hit that, there's a 75% chance that it hits one of our illusions. I might be overkill at this point. But hey, that's fun!
Level 6:
At level 6, we can learn a fifth plan for Replicate magic item and also create a third item.
First off, we'll set aside the Smoldering Plate and pick up +1 Plate. our AC is now 22. But that's just our replaced plan. What other options might we look at?
Boots of the Winding Path give you a lot of fun mobility options.
Cloak of the Manta Ray solves all issues you might have with underwater combat.
Mind Sharpener (now a ring) is a really great item, though at least for you at this level, it'll be rare that you fail a Concentration save. This might be a good one to pick up now just to have it for later, and if you have an ally who needs to protect their concentration, you can make it for them.
Repulsion Shield is actually an upgrade to your +1 Shield, so if you want to drop the +1 Shield plan at the next level and pick this one up now, you can do that. In addition to the +1 bonus, you'll also get a reaction to push creatures that hit you away.
Spell-Refueling Ring is one that we won't get full use of quite yet (it can restore a 3rd level spell slot or lower,) but it can either give us greater spell longevity or help out a full caster get their best spells back.
We'll also now have Magic Item Tinker. Notably, if we have an item like Spell-Refueling Ring, we can effectively get more out of it - it only recharges after a long rest, so you can use it once to get a 3rd or lower spell slot, and then use the Drain option from this to get another 2nd level slot out of it, and then just re-replicate it at the end of the next Long rest. To truly maximize this, let a full-caster use it to get a 3rd level slot back and then re-absorb it for your 2nd level spell.
Depending on what else we've chosen (or just gotten,) we may or may not have items with charges. If you have something like an Enspelled Staff or Weapon that can cast a 2nd or higher level spell, you can effectively spend lower level spell slots to get higher-level spells (though only narrowly to the spell in the item).
Level 7:
At this level, we get Flash of Genius. It's one of the truly great Artificer features. While we will have some competition for our reaction thanks to the Shield spell, this is still going to be very good to use. But also, there's not much to say about it.
Level 8:
We get our second General Feat. The truth of the matter is that there aren't that many great feats that can boost Intelligence. Fey-Touched is certainly an option (Misty Step is so good). But given that our damage is mostly coming from weapons, a lot of the spell-focused things like Spell Sniper are just not that exciting for us.
So, I'd say probably just go with an ASI and cap your Intelligence. There are other feats we'll probably want to consider that don't give us Intelligence, so if you're ok with waiting until level 12 to cap Int, you might consider others like Shield Master or Heavy Armor Master. Sadly, most of the damage-boosting ones are out of reach for us.
Level 9:
Two big things happen at this level: 3rd level spells and our next subclass feature bundle.
First off, we get Hypnotic Pattern and Lightning Bolt. While harder to hit lots of targets than Fireball, Lightning Bolt is one of the premiere damage-dealing spells, and while we're getting it later than the full casters, it's still a respectable amount of damage, especially if we can hit multiple targets. Hypnotic Pattern is a very powerful crowd-control spell, and can trivialize encounters with a lot of low-Wisdom grunts.
For other options:
Elemental Weapon has the nasty cost of an action to cast, but it should work on our in-built weapons, adding a little bit of damage and a +1 boost to attack and damage rolls (which should stack with our subclass bonus, again assuming that just because it's built into +1 Plate, it's not magical in and of itself).
Blink can be extra funny on a Guardian, as it'll mean that they can't even attack you while you've given them disadvantage on attacking anyone else. Also a decent defensive spell when we're dealing with something that calls for a lot of saving throws rather than using attacks.
Fly, of course, is good utility (and great for Infiltrator mode). Haste can be powerful as well. Revivify will turn a bad day into an OK day.
Now, let's look at what our subclass gives us:
First off, we now get a +1 bonus to our in-built weapons' attack and damage rolls. Sadly, I think this does imply you can't make +1 (or later +2) versions of them with Replicate Magic item, though I'd say consult your DM (and I'd love to get a Sage Advice on this). But it's welcome!
The other thing is that we can now learn an additional plan and replicate another item, as long as it's some kind of armor.
So... we're going to swap out our +1 Plate and... learn the +1 Plate via this feature, to then free up its slot for something else. We'll get new options next level, but for now, we can just pick up one of the already-suggested options.
Level 10:
We can now attune to an additional item (I actually don't know that many of the items I've suggested for replication have actually required attunement, but hopefully your DM has also been giving you new stuff).
However, the other big deal here is that we now get another set of items to replicate:
First off, we are going to swap out our +1 Shield (or Repulsion Shield, if we took that) for a +2 Shield. Our AC is now 23 at base (28 with the Shield Spell).
Among the other new options, Armor of Resistance might be worth considering - if we know we're hunting a Black Dragon, for example, Acid resistance might be worth more than the +1 to AC.
We can, at this point, replicate Uncommon Wondrous items, and I think one solid choice here is Winged Boots, or possibly a Broom of Flying (a bit harder to fit in our steampunk vibes, but sure. Maybe it's more of a rocket-bike?)
Oh, but how foolish of me! We're trying to push our AC to the stratosphere. So we're going to get a Cloak of Protection. That's a +1 to AC and also all saving throws (which is probably our bigger weakness). For those keeping score, that's now an AC of 24 (and 29 with the Shield spell).
We can also make a Pearl of Power, which is more or less the same thing as the Spell-Refueling Ring, and so we can play the same double-dipping shenanigans with it.
And that's it for tier 2. At this point, Strahd's going to have a very hard time hitting you (in Curse of Strahd, he's only got a +9 to hit, meaning that if you have your Reaction and a spell slot, he has to crit you to land an attack on you - though he can still charm you).
I will say that the risk you run with building in this way is that you become so hard to hit that your DM stops even bothering to attack you. This might actually really incentivize you to go with the Guardian option, as it'll re-incentivize them to do so.
I do think that, probably, the default option might be for you to go Dreadnaught. Being such a massive force on the battlefield that can really rearrange the players on the field is a strong option, and if your group has another tank-like character (such as a Barbarian,) the high AC disincentivizing the DM from attacking you might just give you more free reign over the field.
Next post, we'll look at tier 3 (levels 11-16) and see how the class holds up in these higher levels.
My general sense with this class is that if you aren't worried about being the absolute best you could be, it works out fine. I think you'll have a lot of fun with the utility spells and the hilariously high AC. But I seriously doubt it will be winning any top damage awards.
I'm not even all that sure that this subclass could multiclass well to get insane damage. Probably the quickest route I could imagine is putting 5 levels into it to get Extra Attack and then getting enough levels in Wizard to get something like Spirit Shroud or Conjure Minor Elementals (though this would require quite an investment, as even if you have 4th level spell slots, you need 7 levels in Wizard to get that).
But I think that's just not your role. Your role is to be nearly impossible to hit and thus free to move about the battlefield for all manner of utility and still moderate damage.
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