Yes, all four of the subclasses in these posts for the Artificer are published in Tasha's, but I'm going from the earliest official publication.
The first two we touched on, the Alchemist and Artillerist, are both spellcasting-focused subclasses. While they can both rely a lot on cantrips for respectable damage, you're still mostly going to be looking at things from a caster's point of view. The other two, which we'll be covering here, are a little closer to other half-casters, who tend to put more of an emphasis on weapon attacks. That said, because they have access to cantrips, both subclasses should strongly consider the SCAG melee cantrips (conveniently reprinted in Tasha's) like Green Flame Blade and Booming Blade, which are excellent and continue scaling up to level 17.
The Battle Smith:
As a Battle Smith, you're going to have access to all manner of weapon. While I think the default assumption for this subclass is for you to wade into melee, trusting your infused armor and such to keep you safe, along with your Steel Defender (which we'll get to,) there's actually nothing here preventing you from focusing mainly on being a ranged damage dealer. In fact, while all Artificers will get proficiency in firearms if they're in a world that has them, Battle Smiths are probably the only subclass likely to rely on them (other than cases of multiclassing.)
Battle Smiths get proficiency in Smith's Tools, or any other artisan's tools if you already have that proficiency. This works just like the tool proficiencies for any of the Artificer subclasses.
Your Battle Smith spells are Heroism, Shield, Branding Smite, Warding Bond, Aura of Vitality, Conjure Barrage, Aura of Purity, Fire Shield, Banishing Smite, and Mass Cure Wounds. Let's unpack that.
Notably, the two smite spells you get have been errata'd (I believe) to be usable with both ranged and melee weapons, instead of just melee. I'd actually thought about a ranged paladin build, but it turns out that only these two types of smites work with ranged weapons. Shield can make you very, very hard to touch if you are also wearing medium or heavy armor and a shield, as I know from my Eldritch Knight. Note, however, that unless you have Warcaster, you'll need a free hand to cast it, or you'll need to drop your weapon whenever you do. If you just spend your item interaction on each turn picking up your weapon, that will technically work, but especially without an Eldritch Knight's Weapon Bond, you probably want to get Warcaster ASAP.
At 3 you also get Battle Ready. You gain proficiency with martial weapons. Additionally, and here's the real kicker, you can use your Intelligence modifier instead of Dexterity or Strength for attack and damage rolls when attacking with a magic weapon. And hey, you're an artificer. Your weapon is basically always going to be magical. This lets you get the 14 in Dexterity to max out your Medium armor and then just put everything into Intelligence for both your attacks and spells. Again, the lack of something like this makes it less likely any other subclass is going to be using firearms unless they roll very well on stats.
Also at 3, you get Steel Defender. This mechanical companion will fight alongside you in combat. It shares your initiative count, acting after your turn. It can move and use its reaction on its own, but requires you to command it with a bonus action to do anything other than take the dodge action. (If you're incapacitated, it can act on its own.)
It regains 2d6 hit points if you cast Mending on it (which I think is something Artificers should generally take.) If the creature has died within the last hour, you can use your Smith's Tools as an action to revive it if you're within 5 feet and expend a spell slot of 1st level or higher. After one minute, the defender revives with all its hit points.
At the end of a long rest, you can create a new steel defender if you have smith's tools. If your previous steel defender still exists, it will immediately perish. Also, your steel defender perishes if you die.
The Steel Defender has a scaling stat block, using your spell attack modifier, proficiency bonus, and level to determine things like damage output, attack bonus, and health. It can heal itself or other constructs or object a limited number of times a day, and has a reaction to give a foe disadvantage on an attack against a creature it's within 5 feet of, along with an attack that does force damage.
While the Steel Defender isn't going to be adding a ton of damage to your output, it can harass foes and make you or an ally harder to hit, and potentially set you up for flanking if you use those rules. (It can also work well with a Rogue multiclass to give you sneak attack.) Also, naturally, you get a lot of potential for creativity in describing the appearance and maybe even personality of your Steel Defender.
At level 5, you get Extra Attack. Standard, but of course doubles your (personal) damage output.
At level 9, you get Arcane Jolt. When you hit a target with a magic weapon attack (which again should be most of them) or your Steel Defender hits a target, you can channel magic through the strike. You can choose for the target to take an extra 2d6 force damage, or choose a creature or object you can see within 30 feet of the target and heal them for 2d6 hit points. You can do this a number of times equal to your Intelligence modifier (minimum of 1) per long rest, but you can only use this once per turn. I'm not sure if this gets doubled on a crit like Divine Smite (it seems to be separate from the weapon damage, so I think no.) But it does mean potentially getting a little more damage in there on a hit, which can be very nice when you need the boost. And that heal can, of course, be clutch (you don't need to be near the target of the heal, just your attack's target.)
Finally, at 15, you get Improved Defender. Your damage and healing from Arcane Jolt is now 4d6 instead of 2d6. Your Steel Defender gets +2 to their AC (which only raises it to 17, but still welcome.) And whenever your Steel Defender uses its Deflect Attack reaction, the attack takes extra force damage equal to 1d4 + your Intelligence modifier. The boost to Arcane Jolt is probably going to be the most noticeable change, though a little punishment damage is nice too.
I really like the idea of playing this as a ranged subclass, though thanks to being able to use Intelligence for any weapons, you can swap between the two modes very easily. And honestly, I think I'd be very drawn to this if not for the newest subclass, which I think runs away with the gold.
The Armorer:
Yes, yes, it's the Iron Man subclass. But honestly, there's so much to recommend this. Despite being a d8 class, you can potentially tank up there with Paladins, Fighters, and dare I say Barbarians? And then, very easily, you can turn into a stealthy infiltrator with some really great ranged damage abilities. Also, let's not forget that you get two extra infusions (which makes it easier for you to spare some for your party.) While Arcane Infusions are powerful for any Artificer, I've written previous posts about how you can give yourself an AC of 25 with this subclass without requiring a single magical item other than your own infusions. And that's along with being able to fly and myriad other awesome features. Let's get started.
As usual, you get proficiency with a set of artificer's tools. You get Smith's Tools, or any other type if you already have this one.
Additionally, you get proficiency in heavy armor - this will make you way more effective as a tank, as a set of plate will give you 18 AC - more than you can normally get from Light or Medium armor.
Your Armorer spells are Magic Missile, Thunderwave, Mirror Image, Shatter, Hypnotic Pattern, Lightning Bolt, Fire Shield, Greater Invisibility, Passwall, and Wall of Force. This is a very solid set of spells, nearly all of which I've seen used often. Lightning Bolt is a little harder to use than Fireball, but is another one of those classic, massive-damage spells that is great to have.
At 3rd level, you get Arcane Armor. As an action, you can turn a suit of armor you're wearing into Arcane Armor if you have smith's tools in hand. This grants the following benefits:
If it normally would have a Strength requirement, it lacks it for you (this is huge, as you can wear plate with any Strength score. Remember that if your DM cares about encumbrance you will still need to carry it, though, so you don't want an utterly pitiful strength.)
You can use the Arcane Armor as a spellcasting focus for your artificer spells (this resolves any weirdness about the built-in weapons, which we'll get to, and also means you're very self-sufficient as long as you're suited up.)
The armor attaches to you and can't be removed against your will. It also expands across your body, though you can retract or deploy the helmet as a bonus action. Also, the armor will replace any missing limbs, acting as a prosthetic for the limb it replaces. (I really like this last bit, as you can have a disabled character totally wreck house in one of these. While it says that the limb functions exactly like the replaced limb, I'd be very generous with imaginative alternatives.)
Also, you can don or doff the armor as an action. It continues to be your Arcane Armor until you don another suit or you die. Given that it takes like 10 minutes to get into a suit of heavy armor, if you're ambushed in the middle of the night and sleeping outside your armor to regain hit dice, this lets you spend just a single turn to become fully functional, rather than being useless. Also, it lets you have that awesome moment from Infinity War where Tony Stark just taps his chest and immediately gets his suit on.
Not done yet! At 3rd level, you get Armor Model, which is honestly just more info about Arcane Armor.
You can customize your Arcane Armor. When you do so, you choose one of two models: Guardian or Infiltrator. Each model includes a special weapon, and when you attack with that weapon, you can use Intelligence instead of Strength or Dexterity for attack and damage rolls. (While this gives you a similar bonus to what Battle Smiths get, it's limited to the armor's weapon, which means no firearms, sadly, unless you also happen to have great Dexterity.)
You can change the model whenever you finish a short or long rest as long as you have Smith's Tools in hand. Notably, many infusions (like enhanced weapon) will adapt to the switched model, so you don't have to redo all your infusions if it's the same piece of armor.
Guardian Model: This is designed for front-line tanking, and is amazing. You get:
Thunder Gauntlets: Each of the armor's gauntlets counts as a simple melee weapon while you're not holding anything in them. They deal 1d8 thunder damage on a hit, and if a creature is hit with the gauntlet, they have disadvantage on attack rolls against any target other than you until the start of your next turn. Much like the Ancestral Guardian Barbarian, this is a great attention-drawing ability - and it works on both attacks (level 5).
Defensive Field: As a bonus action, you can gain temporary hit points equal to your Artificer level (replacing any you already have as normal.) You lose these if you doff the armor. You can use this a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and regain all uses at the end of a long rest. While this is a mere 6 total temp HP with two activations at level 3, this scales insanely well. By level 20, you've basically got 120 temp HP in 20-point chunks, meaning you can take a huge amount of punishment (and does, effectively, give you better than Barbarian levels of HP. Pick up Stoneskin at level 13 to potentially give yourself resistance to the attacks as well.
Infiltrator Model: This mode is makes you a ranged combatant and a bit better at sneaking around. I'd actually recommend carrying around a Breastplate along with a set of Plate armor if you really want to maximize the effectiveness of this, though it will also make you not as terrible at sneaking even in heavy armor.
Lightning Launcher: You get a gem-like node on the chest or fists of your armor (your choice - be creative!) that counts as a simple ranged weapon with a range of 90/300. It deals 1d6 lightning damage. Once on each of your turns, if you hit, you can deal an extra 1d6 lightning damage to that target. (I'm not sure if this will double with a crit, but getting 2d6 on one of your attacks makes this pretty good.)
Powered Steps: Your walking speed increases by 5 feet. Nothing special, but more movement is always good.
Dampening Field: You have advantage on Dexterity (Stealth) checks. As normal, if you have disadvantage on these checks (say, from wearing heavy armor,) this will cancel it out. Though you can also use a Breastplate or other armor that does not impose disadvantage if you simply want to get advantage on these checks.
And that's just level 3. Obviously, this covers a huge swath of what makes the Armorer great, but we have literally only just gotten started.
At level 5, you get Extra Attack. Works precisely as it does for any other martial class, meaning it also works on weapons that aren't part of your armor, though I think you'll probably just stick to them anyway.
At level 9, you get Armor Modifications. Thought things were already off the wall? Your Arcane Armor now counts as separate items for the purposes of infusions. You can now separately infuse the Armor (chest piece,) boots, helmet, and the armor's special weapons. Each of those items can carry only a single infusion, and they will transfer over when you switch the armor model (so enhanced weapon on the Thunder Gauntlets will transfer over to the Lightning Launcher, for example.) In addition, you can now infuse two additional items, as long as they're part of your Arcane Armor. This is freaking huge, as you can now buff both the AC and the weapons with your infusions, not to mention, say, putting Goggles of Night on the helmet and Winged Boots on the boots. Given that the weapons deal non-physical damage by default, I'd probably focus on buffing the armor with Enhanced Defense before this, but now you won't have to choose! Plus, the extra infusions are great in any situation, but given that the extra two have to be on your armor, you can now potentially feel freer to grant infusions to allies' stuff (if you didn't already.)
Finally, at level 15, we get Perfected Armor. This grants a new bonus to each Armor Model.
Guardian: When a Huge or smaller creature you can see ends its turn within 30 feet of you, you can use your reaction to force it to make a Strength saving throw. On a failure, (hilariously, the actual text says nothing about failures or successes, but I'm sure it only works on a failure) you can pull the target up to 30 feet toward you to an unoccupied space, and if it comes within 30 feet of you, you can make a melee weapon attack as part of the same reaction. You can do this a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus per long rest. This is pretty insane battlefield control. And it works on Huge creatures. That Fire Giant going after your Wizard friend? You can Scorpion them back to you and then punch them for good measure. Also, there's nothing saying you can't just use this to make a melee attack against a creature that's already within 5 feet of you (and if I read this right, that attack can be made whether they succeed or fail.) Really amazing.
Infiltrator: Oh, but the Infiltrator isn't left behind. When a creature takes damage from your Lightning Launcher, it glimmers with light until the start of your next turn, shedding dim light in a 5-foot radius (sucks for them if they try to go invisible.) They also get disadvantage on attack rolls against you. In addition, the next attack roll against the creature has advantage, and if the attack hits, the target takes an extra 1d6 lightning damage. So, to break this down, you hit them with your first attack, dealing the normal 1d6 along with the usual bonus 1d6 from the 3rd level feature. Then you make your second attack with advantage, and if you hit with that, it's 2d6 (and I believe this will double with a crit.) And then the next friend who attacks them also gets advantage. And with that, also an extra 1d6. So you've effectively got 5d6 damage plus twice your Intelligence modifier per turn normally.
I'll concede that, as a class that is limited mostly to its built-in weapons, you'll never be able to make them better than +2s through Enhanced Weapon. That's not actually terrible, though, given all the other effects they have. But honestly, look at all this crazy stuff you get. You're going to either be a really powerful tanking class (potentially the strongest, or at least one of them) or, on a short rest, you can become a really good ranged support class.
This is my favorite subclass for my favorite class, and I really, really want to play one. It's extremely versatile, but as a tank, it doesn't really suffer from the Jack of All Trades, Master of None problem. There's so much potential for describing the way your armor works, and... well, I'm just really into it.
And so, very swiftly, we come to the end of the Artificer subclasses. Again, even if I'm utterly enamored with the Armorer, every Artificer subclass is really good. I really hope they keep making more of these subclasses.
And that leaves us with only one class to review: the Wizard.
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