As the forever DM of my old friend group, artificer always seemed like a fun class to play and absolutely break everything with. #dndposting
I have soft-banned artificers for years. I fully believe that if you had a party of every class compete in a tournament, Artificers would win 9/10 times. Especially the 2014 Artillerists.
I don't blame you, they do absolutely break the balance of the game. They have always seemed fun despite how terrible they are to manage against, I will say druid at high enough levels can become about the same level of insufferable from my experience.
My primary means of dealing witb artificer characters was. Effectively. To give their machinations sentience and a sense of rebellion. They simply did not have enough badges to control their triangle that gives them unlimited temporary health.
I see that's very reasonable, I was just lucky none of my players went all out with the min-maxxing otherwise u think I would've had to invest in a more unbalanced session plans.