While I think I probably ought to play a full-caster in my next campaign, I'm certain that at some point I want to play an Armorer Artificer. But the primary appeal for that subclass, to me, is to do something similar to what I've been doing in my longest-running campaign as a player - tanking. My Eldritch Knight Fighter is built to push his Armor Class as high as possible - once he gets his gear back after a rather painful trip to the Nine Hells, he has a baseline AC of 22, which he can push to 27 with the Shield spell (which is the main thing he spends spell slots on.) He's there to be a piece of unbreakable iron.
And the Armorer build I tend to play around with is similar - the go the full tanking route with Guardian Mode.
But, of course, the Armorer also comes with Infiltrator Mode, which is less of a tank and more along the lines of, well, Iron Man. Here's how it breaks down:
At level 3, Infiltrator mode increases your movement speed by 5 feet and gives you advantage on stealth checks. Note that this only cancels out disadvantage from wearing heavy armor or other armor types that impose disadvantage on stealth - but it also means that there's no way you can truly be given disadvantage on these checks.
Still, to take full advantage, I think a true Infiltrator Build will want to use a Breastplate, unless you somehow have +5 to Dexterity (you could also take Medium Armor Master and go with Half Plate).
Finally, we have the Infiltrator's built-in weapon. The Lightning Launcher is a ranged weapon that has a 90 foot normal range and a long range of 300. It deals a d6 of lightning damage (which you add your Intelligence to because this is a weapon, and you get to use intelligence to attack with your built-in weapons) and once per turn, if you hit with the weapon, you can deal an extra d6.
So, in practice, you'll be doing 2d6+Int (+1 if you have Enhanced Weapon on it) at levels 3 and 4, and then 2d6+Int+1 and then 1d6+Int+1 at level 5. This is roughly equivalent to hitting with a greatsword (made of lightning) followed by a shortsword, from range. And that's honestly not terrible.
At level 14, when you get your final Armorer subclass features, the Lightning Launcher gets the following upgrades:
First off, hitting a target with the Lightning Launcher lights it up a little like guiding bolt - it shines light around itself and the next attack roll against it has advantage. This also gives the target disadvantage on attacks against you. Furthermore, if someone hits it while its glowing like this, it takes an extra 1d6 lightning damage.
The result, thus, is that if you hit both turns, you get the following:
1d6+Int+2 + 1d6 (the latter as your "once a turn" bonus) and then:
1d6+Int+2 + 1d6 (the bonus for hitting it while it's glowing.)
And then an effective additional 1d6 lightning assuming a friend then hits it.
Because the extra effect happens every time you hit, not just once per turn, you basically get advantage on your second attack, as well as giving an ally advantage (if you're right ahead of your party's Rogue in initiative, they'll love you.)
Effectively, if all your attacks (and an ally's) are hitting, at level 15 you're 5d6+4+2xInt by default.
Now, I don't think this will quite match up with, say, a Fighter shooting three longbow shots (if they have a +2 longbow, that'll be 3d8+3xDex+6) but it's not that far off, and the advantage of course makes critical hits nearly twice as likely. That's not to mention how the bright light they shine with will make it great against enemies that hide or try to go invisible, and the disadvantage on attacks against you will make you more likely to avoid getting hit with reprisals.
While I think a Guardian-based Armorer is probably going to focus more on survivability - by level 15 you can stack up enough buffs to give you an AC of 25 - an Infiltrator might look to different focuses. Naturally, enhanced weapon seems an obvious choice (repeating shot, which I believe is the only other ranged weapon infusion, is pretty useless for a weapon that doesn't require ammunition). I think either Winged Boots or Slippers of Spider Climbing (though why use the latter when you can get the former?) would be great to let you get out of reach of enemies and have total freedom on the battlefield. Gloves of Missile Snaring could be useful to keep yourself safe while up in the air. Armor of Magical Strength is also a great option if you intend to stay airborne, as you can just "nope" out of being knocked prone, which could be disastrous if you're high up. Homunculus Servant could also be useful as a scout to accompany you if you need to sneak somewhere.
Now, to what extent can you build to be able to use both options?
I think a Guardian Armorer is going to really want to use plate armor, unless you have a +3 or higher to Dex and the Medium Armor Master feat (which makes Half Plate strictly better as, with the feat, you don't get disadvantage on stealth and it will, again with the feat, give you an AC of 18.) Barring that, you could consider holding onto both a set of Plate and a Breastplate. Given that you need to spend a long rest switching your armor model anyway, which is also what it takes to transfer infusions, you can simply spend that long rest moving all your infusions to the other suit when you need to swap modes.
The big downside is that carrying around a Breastplate and a set of full Plate means lugging around 85 lbs of armor (not to mention raising the 1,900 gold to buy both sets). Given the Armorer's freedom to ignore heavy armor strength requirements, you might have fairly low Strength, in which case 85 lbs might be over half what you can carry. This is, of course, assuming your DM actually cares about carry weight.
Anyway...
Still, a Guardian will probably want to use melee cantrips like Green Flame Blade or Booming Blade, while an Infiltrator will get no use out of them. Granted, you don't need damage cantrips thanks to your ranged lightning launcher (unless you want something that uses a saving throw incase you find yourself with foes in melee).
Higher-level spells for Artificers can of course be swapped out, so no worries there.
I think the main thing is infusions. If you want a super-tanky Guardian mode, you'll want to learn a bunch of defensive infusions like Enhanced Defense, Repulsion Shield, Cloak of Protection, and Ring of Protection. If you intend to be far away from your foes, you might not really need any of those.
Still, generally Artificers learn twice as many infusions as they can have at a time, and Armorers get to do two additional infusions by level 9. So You could just learn those, share things like Enhanced Weapon and Winged Boots with your Guardian Mode, and maybe learn the ones we talked about a few paragraphs ago to reserve for Infiltrator Mode.
I guess the last question is proficiencies. Having a Stealth proficiency will of course make the Infiltrator more of an... infiltrator. That's not generally an Artificer proficiency, so you'll want to either pick up a background with it or pick a race that gets some bonus proficiencies.
Ultimately, though, I think you can pull off a Tank/Sneak hybrid build for the Armorer without sacrificing too much for one or the other (unless you get into multiclassing.) There aren't quite as many infusions you need to make a decent sneak, and you can still probably learn most if not all of them.
While the Guardian has a really obvious role as a group's tank, the Infiltrator gets to do a bit of decent damage, but I think that the level 15 constant-advantage-generation is probably the really huge thing you bring. Granted, a successful Faerie Fire does the same thing, but you're never going to run out of Lightning Launcher hits (and you can also do Faerie Fire.)
The class is new enough that I haven't really seen anyone playing these in streams, and I haven't been playing in adventurer's league since early 2020, so I'm curious to see how many people are focusing on the Infiltrator side of the subclass.
But the very fact that there's a subclass that can flip every day between two very distinct roles is pretty damn cool in my view.
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