D&D 5E Does the Artificer Suck?

[doctorbadwolf]

I don't disagree, but I don't see how the Wizard tanks anything particularly effectively.

Nor do I.

Remember tanking is about making the enemy want to attack you and being willing to be attacked. The only thing a wizard can do to draw enemies to attack him is cast powerful spells - most of which are concentration. The issue there is if he's concentrating on a powerful spell he probably doesn't want to be attacked and risk losing that concentration.

Yeah Bladesingers get a bonus to concentration for a reason. Agreed 100%.

Contrast this with a raging Barbarian who who always wants to be attacked and can encourage enemies to attack him by positioning himself as an opportune target and having a strong OA

Yep. Why chase the Wizard when the Barbarian can probably take down your own artillery in one round and you have advantage to attack him? And IME most Barbarians take Sentinel. Good luck getting past him.

Absorb elements is pretty effective for non-attack damage - just not every type.

Sure. It’s one of my favorite spells, even for non-melee characters.

 

[Stoutstien]

I see comparisons like that alot but it's a very deceptive comparison.

Single encounter: level 5 Half Orc Bear Totem Barbarian (18 str, 16 con, 14 dex using a greatsword) eHp vs a +6 attack enemy = 220 eHp. He will be making 2 attacks @2d6+6 damage at will.

Single encounter: level 5 Hobgoblin Abjuration Wizard (18 in, 16 con, 14 dex) eHp vs a +6 attack enemy = 85 eHP before shield and in combat abjuration spells get factored in. He will get a few level 3 spell uses before mostly doing 2d10 with his firebolt cantrip.

When it comes to tanking it's not just about how much damage you can soak over the whole adventuring day. It's also important how much you can soak in a single combat at your best. It's about how effective healing is for you (Healing is very effective on a raging Barbarian but not nearly as good on an abjuration Wizard). It's about how much more eHP your hit dice can grant you (this is never factored into these comparisons and it's very much in the Barbarians favor) It's about how much of a threat you are (and not just when you have full resources). It's about whether you are willing to put yourself in positions where enemies can hit you and want to do so.

So I'll have to disagree. The tankiness of abjuration Wizards when compared to Barbarians and Fighters and even clerics tends to be highly overrated because they rate lowly on so many important tanking parameters (at least before much higher level).

Or maybe a better way to put this in perspective. In a single battle the Barbarian will only have lost about 6 hp from attacks before the abjurer wizard will lose his special abjuration shield (provided no abjuration spells are being cast). By the time the Barbarian loses 12 hp total, the abjuration wizard will have lost 14 actual hp (provided he's not using resources for extra mitigation).

You would have to factor in the fact the wizard doesn't have to use their health to mitigate damage which is all the barbarian has if they spend a limit rage to do so. So right off the back of your comparison's flawed because you're comparing the barbarian using a very limited resource to be better at mitigation than the wizard who's doing nothing but slinging cantrips. Toss on a few rounds of using shield/THL/TMW in the comparison as a fair point of resources expended and that gap shrinks up.
Then the issue is you're comparing the barbarian at one of its strongest points to the wizard who's just now getting going. They get a few more mitigation features as they level up for the most part it's just gaining a few HP every level and occasionally gets an extra rage a day.

in the end the barbarian is better until they hit their ceiling which unfortunately is rather low. Other classes do have lower floors but higher ceilings as well. The whole angle of being good at taking damage but easier to hit just doesn't hold the same level of impact as HP pools inflate and challenges evolve to include secondary threats to the party. Prevention/avoidance just works better than reduction/mitigation.

2 becomes less true the more the Wizard is trying to “tank”.

3. Shield doesn’t help you make saves.

Don't think you want to bring up saves when using a barbarian as your baseline of comparison.

 

[Stoutstien]

Yeah I run and playin very high difficulty games and nothing you’re saying here rings remotely true.

The only thing I could mostly agree with is that everyone needs to have solutions for the primary basic avenues of efficacy.

But if high AC is making wizards that effective at damage mitigation in your games, we definitely accomplish high difficulty differently.

Decent AC is only one part of the picture. It just happens to be cheap to aquire. Witches don't make good tanks because they are super effective at mitigation. They are okay at mitigation but extremely good at preventing the damage and/or bad stuff from happening all together. Some people consider it control or debuffing but I don't see the point of that because if that is incoming damage that you are preventing you have prevented it. The shield spell is a great example of why when you examine all the different levels of how incoming damage interact with a PC you can greatly exceed the value of Base HP. The focusing on reduction or prevention will depend on individual campaign styles but IMO prevention wins because the worse case scenario as you spend the resources recovering that you were going to spend anyways with reduction.

To come full circle back to the artificer they don't really have any part to the puzzle that fits perfectly but at least they have all the different pieces. Their HP Is good enough, their saves are good enough, their AC ranges from good enough to top tier, their control is good enough, their recovery is good enough, their information gathering is good enough, and their damage is also good enough. They don't have a proverbial glass jaw in any aspect which allows them to adequately adjust to the situation.

 

[FrogReaver]

You would have to factor in the fact the wizard doesn't have to use their health to mitigate damage which is all the barbarian has if they spend a limit rage to do so.

Wizards typically do have to use health though. None of their defenses mitigate 100% of all attacks/damage coming their way. There are blows Shield can't block. Absorb elements only reduces half the damage you take. Etc. It's guaranteed Wizards will take hp damage at some point if they are regularly attacked and possibly before they even have an opportunity to use shield.

So right off the back of your comparison's flawed because you're comparing the barbarian using a very limited resource to be better at mitigation than the wizard who's doing nothing but slinging cantrips.

I noted in my comparison that the wizard would have shield and that it wasn't accounted for, but that was for good reason. The issue is shield could prevent 1 hp of damage per use or 1000 per use and it's not actually reliable - some attack will roll high enough to bypass your potential Shield. Placing damage on your hp. As a Wizard you normally can't take many hits before you are downed and so this issue is quite a bit more pronounced.

Toss on a few rounds of using shield/THL/TMW in the comparison as a fair point of resources expended and that gap shrinks up.

And I noted that in my comparison. But it still doesn't close completely. (I'm also not sure what THL/TMW is?)

Then the issue is you're comparing the barbarian at one of its strongest points to the wizard who's just now getting going.

I'm sorry, but are you really objecting to looking at a comparison at level 5? IMO - Level 5 is probably the most fair level that exists.

They get a few more mitigation features as they level up for the most part it's just gaining a few HP every level and occasionally gets an extra rage a day.

And wizards get nothing for extra mitigation as they level up. Unless we are talking about schrodingers wizards. They have everything all at once.

in the end the barbarian is better until they hit their ceiling which unfortunately is rather low. Other classes do have lower floors but higher ceilings as well. The whole angle of being good at taking damage but easier to hit just doesn't hold the same level of impact as HP pools inflate and challenges evolve to include secondary threats to the party. Prevention/avoidance just works better than reduction/mitigation.

Better at what? I'm talking about tanking. If you asked me which class is better overall i'd say wizard, but that doesn't mean a wizard is a good tank.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Don't think you want to bring up saves when using a barbarian as your baseline of comparison.

Sure I do. They’re no worse off than the Wizard, and can actually survive a lightning bolt.

 

[FrogReaver]

Decent AC is only one part of the picture. It just happens to be cheap to aquire.

Depends on what you mean by decent AC. Getting 17+ AC isn't easy to acquire.

1. You either must multiclass - which means that every other level you'll be missing the next level up in spells.
2. Or you must pick a race that grants medium armor proficiency. Meaning your int is likely lower or that you are missing out on other great racial abilities.
3. Or you must pick the blade singer subclass. Meaning you don't get some of the other amazing wizard subclass features.

Those sacrifices are a steep price IMO.

Witches don't make good tanks because they are super effective at mitigation. They are okay at mitigation but extremely good at preventing the damage and/or bad stuff from happening all together. Some people consider it control or debuffing but I don't see the point of that because if that is incoming damage that you are preventing you have prevented it. The shield spell is a great example of why when you examine all the different levels of how incoming damage interact with a PC you can greatly exceed the value of Base HP. The focusing on reduction or prevention will depend on individual campaign styles but IMO prevention wins because the worse case scenario as you spend the resources recovering that you were going to spend anyways with reduction.

No idea what your point is here.

 

[Stoutstien]

Sure I do. They’re no worse off than the Wizard, and can actually survive a lightning bolt.

Damage is the least of a PCs worry when it comes to STs.without heavy opportunity cost barbarians have little to prevent mental saves from taking them out any bypassing all of their mitigation powers with something as benign as a first level spell.

 

[Stoutstien]

Wizards typically do have to use health though. None of their defenses mitigate 100% of all attacks/damage coming their way. There are blows Shield can't block. Absorb elements only reduces half the damage you take. Etc. It's guaranteed Wizards will take hp damage at some point if they are regularly attacked and possibly before they even have an opportunity to use shield.


I noted in my comparison that the wizard would have shield and that it wasn't accounted for, but that was for good reason. The issue is shield could prevent 1 hp of damage per use or 1000 per use and it's not actually reliable - some attack will roll high enough to bypass your potential Shield. Placing damage on your hp. As a Wizard you normally can't take many hits before you are downed and so this issue is quite a bit more pronounced.


And I noted that in my comparison. But it still doesn't close completely. (I'm also not sure what THL/TMW is?)


I'm sorry, but are you really objecting to looking at a comparison at level 5? IMO - Level 5 is probably the most fair level that exists.


And wizards get nothing for extra mitigation as they level up. Unless we are talking about schrodingers wizards. They have everything all at once.


Better at what? I'm talking about tanking. If you asked me which class is better overall i'd say wizard, but that doesn't mean a wizard is a good tank.

I think Schrodinger's barbarian is just as absurd as the wizard. At least the wizard has the theoretical ability to potentially have the correct spells prepared. Everytime someone brings up barbs they somehow have spent ASIs on feats and have increased ability scores while also seem to have rages to spare. Usually they have the bear totems damage resistance and the AGs threat while never dealing with more than ~3 enemies that have no offense past melee attacks.

*THL/TMW Tasha's hideous laughter/mind whip. Cheap high impact spells.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I'm sorry I'm having troubling reading past the glaring brightness of the white room.

 

[Retreater]

I'm not going back and reading 38 pages of comments, but wanted to put in my 2 cents to the OP.
No, I don't like the artificer. Same thing as witches, oracles, warlocks, gunsmiths, alchemists, etc. There are classes that just duplicate other abilities or have no defined role in a group. They are almost always picked by players who want to be edgy and don't care how they fit into the campaign or the rest of the party's abilities.
I'm fine with cutting all these types of classes.