So I'm a player that's brand new to 2e starting up a homebrew game soon with some friends, and getting to be a player in a pathfinder game for the first time in a long time meant I had to take the opportunity to play an alchemist. I loved their mechanics in PF1, and I was really happy with how they translated things into 2e. That said, I've run into a ton of very critical opinions of the design of the class, essentially calling them "Jack of all trades, mediocre at everything" sort of class that tends to be decent at support, but runs short on tools often because of their dependence on Infused Reagents, and isn't terribly adept at combat on its own.

While I'm a very experienced TTRPG player, I'm just not familiar enough with 2e to be able to evaluate this sort of criticism. Is the alchemist in a bad position? Or is it more the case that there are some common pitfalls in character building that should be avoided? Are there some simple homebrew modifications that could be implemented to bring it up to par? My GM isn't open to homebrew much, but it wouldn't hurt to see what he says. If it matters, I was planning on playing a Ratfolk Toxicologist, mainly for the flavor it would have for the character, but nothing is finalized quite yet.