The Armorer is my favorite Artificer subclass. While the Battle Smith is probably the most powerful of them, there's just something about making your own walking tank out of your armor that really appeal to me on a deep level.
This was a new subclass with the Tasha's reprint, but now comes back as a veteran subclass. So, let's see how it has changed.
Armorer Spells:
These have not changed at all, and that's great, because Armorers have among the best subclass spell lists.
Level 3:
As with all the subclasses, you now get the ability to craft magic and non-magic armor in half the time. This is, of course, dependent on whether you campaign even really allows for much downtime (even a 450-gold set of mundane splint armor takes 9 whole weeks of work, and cutting that down to 4 1/2 might not make an enormous difference). Still, this works on both mundane and magic armor. You should be able to bang out a set of Studded Leather for your Rogue in around two days (though you'd probably need to have leatherworking supplies proficiency).
Arcane Armor remains the same. However, Armor Model does have some big changes, including a whole new model:
The Dreadnaught is a fully new armor model, and one that I suspect will be very popular, as it has some powerful abilities, including a weapon that deals force damage.
Infiltrator is totally unchanged (at least at this level).
Guardian is slightly different: First, its Thunder Gauntlet is now Thunder Pulse, which could theoretically originate from some other part of the armor (thus leaving a hand free, though you can already cast your artificer spells through your armor anyway). The other big difference is how Defensive Field works. And this is either a buff or a nerf. You now have unlimited use of Defensive Field, but you can only activate it when you're Bloodied.
I think this is probably a nerf, as you probably aren't getting bloodied all that often in a day, and this likely means that you'll need to spend a part of your action economy mid-combat that you might want to use on something else (though Armorers are relatively light on bonus action abilities). The other big issue is that if you can't preemptively use this, you run a greater risk of getting downed in one hit. Say your max HP is, like, 31 at level 4. The old version would let you activate this as a bonus action to push yourself to the equivalent of 35. Now, let's say you get hit for a nasty hit that does, like 32 damage (maybe a bad guy rolled well on a Fireball). With the new system, you'd be down and making death saves. The old version, you would still be up, and then could use the bonus action again on your next turn to get yourself a little extra cushioning for when the bad guy's minions go after you.
In other words, despite its limited uses, this will probably actually see less use overall.
Level 5:
We just get Extra Attack. No real changes.
Level 9:
Conceptually, Armor Modifications and Improved Armorer are pretty similar in concept. The old version raised some interesting ambiguities: if you could separately infuse your armor's weapons, boots, chestplate, and helmet, did that mean that previously, you couldn't wear a magic set of boots with your Arcane Armor?
Improved Armorer is less ambiguous, at least in this way: the way your armor is described no longer says it now covers every part of you (with a helmet that can be retracted with a bonus action) and presumably just works like other armor.
Now, there is a bit a nerf here, maybe, because the old version gave you two extra infusions as long as they were onto one of these pieces of your armor. Notably, by calling out the special weapons as a target for infusion, it made it explicit that you could put, say, Enhanced Weapon on your Thunder Gauntlets (and it also explicitly said this would transfer over to your Lightning Launcher if you changed models).
The new version instead just lets you learn one new plan and replicate one new item, as long as they're both armor-type items. So, one fewer bonus infusion.
However: there's a new thing that gives you an automatic bonus to your built-in weapons, giving you a +1 to attack and damage rolls with them.
But is that a buff or a nerf? Because now that we're not infusing separate items within our armor, are those built-in weapons a possible option for replicating, say, a +1 or +2 weapon? Or is this +1 bonus the only way we can enhance these weapons at all? If it's the latter, this is a nerf to them (it saves us a replication slot, but we also lost one because of this redesign). But if we can stack this bonus on top of our +2 weapon (available at level 10,) this is actually a buff, because we can finally get effectively a +3 weapon. This is something we really need clarification on (and given that they never fixed the ability to infuse built-in weapons on D&D Beyond for the old version, I'm not going to hold my breath for a digital confirmation one way or another).
Level 15:
There are a few changes to Perfected Armor. Obviously, there are new improvement to the previously-non-existent Dreadnaught armor model. But let's look at how the Guardian and Infiltrator have changed.
Both (as well as the Dreadnaught) now get a boost to their weapon damage, with Thunder Pulse going from a d8 to a d10 (pretty tiny, actually) and the Lightning Launcher going from a d6 to 2d6.
However, while the Lightning Launcher would seem to have gotten a massive buff, let's actually pull back on that a bit:
The Lightning Launcher used to give the next attack against the target Advantage, including for allies. And then, that attack made with advantage would get to add an extra d6 if it hit. In other words, you're still getting two additional d6s, it's just staggered out a bit. You hit for 1d6 (and probably add your once-a-turn extra d6, but that's a wash with the earlier version) and then the next attack has advantage, and so you attack again for 2d6. Then, your friend attacks them, also with advantage, and they do their normal damage plus an extra d6. So, that's 4d6 spread over three attacks. Now, we're a little more selfish with our damage. Between two attacks, we're still dealing 4d6 damage (and probably adding a fifth on the first attack) but it's all coming with our hits.
The thing is, the old version could technically do less if someone misses - the d6 on the subsequent attack goes away if the attack missed. However, we were also granting advantage, first to ourselves and then our next friend. So I'd guess in the aggregate, this is probably actually a nerf, albeit a complex one that might, situationally, be better for us.
The Guardian's "yoink" ability is mostly the same, except that we get to use it Int times per long rest instead of PB times. This is a slight nerf, as by this level we probably have equal values to both, but by 17, our PB is higher.
However, while the Infiltrator gets a... slight nerf (though I'll grant it also make it far less complicated), they also get a wholly new ability that might make up for it, being able to get a brief, one-turn fly speed equal to twice your normal speed Int times per long rest. I see this primarily as a great way to get to a high vantage point out of reach of creatures in melee, though it also has plenty of utility out of combat.
Overall Thoughts:
I think we're primarily looking at a buff here. The Dreadnaught is quite good (possibly a new default choice). I think we really need some clarification on Improved Armorer and how the built-in weapons interact with replicate magic item. That's probably the biggest thing to consider, though at worse, our weapons are just going to be slightly less powerful than they are in the old version, and we get a lot of new toys, so again, mostly a buff.
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