TeamCity + Artifactory question

Im using Team City 9.1 with the Artifactory Plugin and the Gradle+Artifactory plugin.
In a single build step the gradle build is done then the Artifactory publish is completed.
I want to 'watch' multiple branches and also allow for personal or 'remote run' builds.
But I dont want any of these committed to artifactory.
Suggestions on a clean way to accomplish this.

Ideas I have so far

1) Clone all the builds but omit the artifactory publish settings (ug).
2) Split the build into 2 steps -- build first then publish --
--> Not sure how this works, what Build Runner would I use for the second step to publish
the results of the first one ?
3) Some kind of parameter that can disable the artifactory publish component
--> not sure how this is accomplished.  The build steps have simple 'check boxes' for Publish to Artifiactory -- not sure how to disable those with a parameter.

Any other ideas ?