D&D 5E Best alchemist build

[Stoutstien]

Just a mental exercise I'm working on. What is the best single classes alchemist build that people have come up with so far?
Can anyone come up with an effective way for it to be good at anything? It's definitely not unplayable but for the life of me I can't figure out how to make it shine. Even as a healing and recovery focused character it feels anemic.

 

[Umbran]

Who is the best runner - Usain Bolt (fastest 100m dash) or Eliud Kipchoge (1hr, 59 min marathon)?

There is no general best. You have to identify some particular goal - Are you looking for the best support Alchemist, the best damage-output alchemist, or what?

 

[Stoutstien]

Who is the best runner - Usain Bolt (fastest 100m dash) or Eliud Kipchoge (1hr, 59 min marathon)?

There is no general best. You have to identify some particular goal - Are you looking for the best support Alchemist, the best damage-output alchemist, or what?

That's a fair point. I'm honestly wondering if anybody can turn this subclass into being good at anything.
Ill clear up op.

 

[Fenris-77]

I've played around with making greek fire and acid in bulk and then using the catapult spell to deliver essentially fuel-air bombs. It's fun. I had the most fun with a Loxodon there, as it could use it's trunk to help work the kinda wonky action economy of catapult.

 

[Stoutstien]

I've played around with making greek fire and acid in bulk and then using the catapult spell to deliver essentially fuel-air bombs. It's fun. I had the most fun with a Loxodon there, as it could use it's trunk to help work the kinda wonky action economy of catapult.

It's a fun idea but any artificer can pull this off and artillerist can do it a little better with Arcane firearm. If the wording of savant was a little looser so it worked with items or damage from spells on following turns/rounds like flame sphere.

 

[Laurefindel]

[edit] just realized this Was about alchimist specifically. Move along, nothing to see here...

I like the arcane sharpshooter artificer;
Battle Smith gives you proficiency with heavy crossbow, which you can infuse as a +1 weapon that creates its own magical ammo and that loses the loading property, allowing 2 attacks at lvl 5 using your key stat (Int) for attack and damage. Your attack bonus is likely high enough to use with Sharpshooter feat relatively soon. Mark of Making human is likely one of the best, but Gnome (restricting you to light crossbow however) is also good.

You’ve got half decent AC with medium armour and can hold your own in melee if it goes down to it. If you dedicate 1 level of fighter, you can get archery fighting style. 2 levels of ranger give you the style and 1 (full) spellcasters level (and 3 new 1st-level spells diversifying your spell list). Going ranger 3 for hunter or gloomstalker is tempting.

That in itself would be nice but in addition you get a steel defender for semi-tanking and attack as bonus action. The passive use of the defender is good enough that you can still cast bonus action spells without giving-up the usefulness of your defender for a round (to cast, say, hunter’s mark if you went ranger 2)

And on top of that, you can still cast spells and use all you base artificer features. You’re not aiming for high level spells; you’re an awesome crossbow shooter with a bunch of 1st and 2nd utility spells.

[edit] oh, and since artificer levels round up for multiclassing purposes, you can multi class out of battle smith at 3rd or 5th level of you’d like.

 

[Stoutstien]

I like the arcane sharpshooter artificer;
Battle Smith gives you proficiency with heavy crossbow, which you can infuse as a +1 weapon that creates its own magical ammo and that loses the loading property, allowing 2 attacks at lvl 5 using your key stat (Int) for attack and damage. Your attack bonus is likely high enough to use with Sharpshooter relatively soon.

You’ve got half decent AC with medium armour and can hold your own in melee if it goes down to it. If you dedicate 1 level of fighter, you can get archery fighting style. 2 levels of ranger give you the style and 1 (full) spellcasters level (and 3 new 1st-level spells diversifying your spell list). Going ranger 3 for hunter or gloomstalker is tempting.

That in itself would be nice but in addition you get a steel defender for semi-tanking and attack as bonus action. The passive use of the defender is good enough that you can still cast bonus action spells without giving-up the usefulness of your defender for a round (to cast, say, hunter’s mark if you went ranger 2)

And on top of that, you can still cast spells and use all you base artificer features. You’re not aiming for high level spells; you’re an awesome crossbow shooter with a bunch of 1st an 2nd utility spells.

Both the artillerist and battle Smith are strong stand alone options. The alchemist is the one that has me pondering. It's seems it like the beast master where it might take a fair amount of planning to not feel like a lump. Arguably the base class is strong enough to prevent this from happening but there's bound to be a way to pull something off with this l.

 

[Laurefindel]

Both the artillerist and battle Smith are strong stand alone options. The alchemist is the one that has me pondering. It's seems it like the beast master where it might take a fair amount of planning to not feel like a lump. Arguably the base class is strong enough to prevent this from happening but there's bound to be a way to pull something off with this l.

I’ve seen alchimist/life cleric builds that looked promising as party support. Double casting stats is usually hard to pull however.

 

[Fenris-77]

It's a fun idea but any artificer can pull this off and artillerist can do it a little better with Arcane firearm. If the wording of savant was a little looser so it worked with items or damage from spells on following turns/rounds like flame sphere.

The effectiveness kind of depends on what the DM will allow in terms of stacking damage. Catapult damage plus fire plus acid is pretty effective, and if you pack enough together you start to get into the range where some AoE is appropriate. As far as Alchemist specific stuff, I really like Flaming Sphere, as it's damage on a bonus action and you get to stack on your INT mod as well, and you can still rock a normal action, which could also be a spell that you stack an INT mod into. There is also a ton of utility in the elixirs that I think gets overlooked. Not the random prep, but the choose your effect for 1st level slot. Flight, healing, offense, defense, and alter self are all pretty useful, especially flight and alter self for water breathing. None of it looks amazing, but I think the Alchemist has a lot more to bring to the general utility/support role, which generally means a lot more to do outside of combat, which I see a big plus.

My favorite Artificer build though, I'll admit, is a Boba Fett build using the artillerist. Shoulder cannon, flamethrower, armor, a grapple gun (rope of climbing) night vision visor (goggles of night), and a 'blaster'. There's a couple of ways to work the jetpack and blaster bits.

 

[Seramus]

Alchemist is not unplayable and I am certain some people have a lot of fun with it. But it is weaker than Artillerist in almost every way, including providing effective HP for the party.

The only really unique thing the Alchemist has is low-level flying.