It's not OP. It does magnify the disappointing reality that the subclasses aren't at all comparatively balanced. The Artificer is an awkwardly designed class.

"I'm not gonna bury the lede here," he says twelve and a half minutes into the video.

Also, I'm genuinely annoyed that the best 3rd level healing spell is on their list but not the alchemist's. Such a kick to the jewels.

My gut feeling is that the power of conjure barrage with Spell Storing Item overshadows everything else this class does. Which isn't great design. It's also strange that the Artillerist (the class all about , you know, ranged bombardment) didn't get barrage, but Battlesmith did.

Best part is, your defender can also attune to magic items, allowing for some fun combos.

I agree on the last point, pet subclasses have never appealed to me. The only character I have imagined playing this with would be a warforged who splits into the pet and the player in combat

I think part of problem with not giving artificers spells from other half casters is that they've never bothered to make bespoke artificer spells (aside from the new spell to change the homunculus from an infusion to a familiar). I do think the battlesmith falls down on flavour, even as someone who is currently playing one; I've constantly been frustrated that as a class that is essentially a crafter/inventor/enchanter, you never get to upgrade or modify your steel defender. There are no enchantments or infusions for the defender, no modularity. Instead your steel defender is just sort of there and only really useful in combat, which is fine, but not really leaning into the conceit of the base class at all. Battlesmith could have easily used something similar to the armourer's armour modes for the steel defender to make it more useful in a variety of situations and make it feel more integrated.

There were a couple of tweaks to the subclass, but they were very minor; the 2024 battlesmith and the 2014 battlesmith are almost entirely the same (and almost word for word the same), which feels very disappointing to me. The boost in power rides entirely on conjure barrage being able to be held in the spell storing item, which while powerful in combat, feels incredibly boring to me. I'd rather not have conjure barrage (or any 3rd level spells in the spell storing item) in favour of getting a weapon mastery or something else more flexible to allow for more variety in playstyle rather than feeling like if you don't put conjure barrage in your SSI and have your homunculus cast it every round I'm just playing sub optimally for no real reason. It just feels like a very lazy way to update the class and subclass.

13:48 It's not that battlesmith is so weak without conjure barrage,  it's that without that one feature, battlesmiths drop down to the same level as artillerists. The question you need to ask is steel defender better than TWO arcane cannons? Without conjure barrage,  artillerists' fireballs make them stronger, or at least comparable.

Damn the Repair feature from the Steel Defender can let it heal a Warforged or the Artillerist' Canon. If you play a Warforged Battlesmith you can have your pet heal you now!

The designers should have weighed the spell lists better against each other, especially at level 3 for SSI. Certain subclasses have more powerful features but also a stronger expanded spell list. The Cartographer and the Alchemist are the two weakest subclasses but their Tools of the Trade features can potentially create more scrolls or potions as they are the cheapest and quickest to make. It doesn't help that the Alchemist and Cartographer get a lot of support spells and barely any damage spells (only mediocre or bad ones). I don't really have a big problem with giving the Battlesmith Conjure Barrage power wise, even though it feels stepping on the Ranger's (and my fave the Artillerists') toes. It's clear to me that WotC thinks the Battlesmith is like the Rangery Artificer and I suppose that's why there's many similarities with the Beastmaster. But flavorwise or thematically I don't really get why a protector/medic should have or why they would use this offensive spell. Reminder that the Beastmaster and Hunter Ranger, also Stars Druid don't get an expanded spell list, but why? The Battlesmith has arguably the best expanded spell list of all Artificer subclasses and now it's superior than the Beastmaster imo.

In the comment section of Treantmonk's analysis, I saw people suggesting rearranging the 3rd level spells for the expanded spell list. For example the Artillerist would get Conjure Barrage and Fireball would go to the Alchemist. Every subclass would get a (very) good and OK 3rd level spell for SSI. But I can see the Alchemist is not a maker of explosives or bombs even if it can deal Fire or Acid damage to set the subclasses apart and not create too much overlap in terms of features and flavor/style. Another popular fix I saw there is that 1st or 2nd level spells can be stored as upcasted 3rd level spells in the SSI which would make it very good for 10x Cure Wounds for the Alchemist for example. This could be a popular homebrew for many folks in the future.

The more new releases of WotC I see, the more I notice it is made by different teams and collectives who don't communicate or cross check with the core books or UA materials. The background and origin feats are a mess power wise and I feel the subclasses of the 2024 PHB is much more balanced against each other than the Artificer subclasses. Maybe the Battlesmith should have been reigned in a bit and the Alchemist and Cartographer needed another UA run. The Armorer and Artillerist are power wise exactly where they should be and where the other subclasses should have leaned more to imo.

I loved the battle smith in 2014 and it's still great. I do think they needed to buff the defender more as you gain artificer levels. The ranger beast master pet scales up far more at higher levels than the steel defender. They could have had the steel defender scale better in defensive ways to be more equal in power but differentiated

You forgot that the Steel Defender has a medium size. A small player can ride it and increase the movmement speed. Good for skirmisher type players.

A potential extra thing for this subclass, depending on how the DM rules it, you could possibly craft the Manifold Tool, give it to your Steel Defender and effectively half all crafting time of everything by having a constant assistant.

With that said, I can see a lot of DM's ruling against it as:
- in the PHB/DMG assistant section mentions specifically other characters helping, not creatures.
- for magic items you need to be Proficient in Arcana, and while Steel Defenders have the Steel Bond feature, it technically says Steel Defender adds your Proficiency Bonus to their checks, not that they are actually Proficient in those checks.

My favorite character for several years running is my Battlesmith frontliner mounted on his Defender, and it works even better with the 2024 rules. The SSI is Warding Bond, and it's always cast by the Defender on the Artificer while a mix of other game elements (Saddle of the Cavalier, Mounted Combatant feat, Sanctuary if the DM really insists on it) make it pretty pointless to target the defender directly. The build is str-primary, using GWM and a lance for huge damage. A homunculus casts Haste on the artificer using an enspelled weapon while staying safe inside the armor. (Int stays at 16: 6 casts of Warding Bond is plenty for most days)

He doesn't use the Conjure Barrage SSI at all, but he still feels really strong. It's a good subclass even without it.

Walloping ammo is good, too. You can support your melee friends by knocking their opponents down so they get advantage on attacks on their turn.

8:30 I get what you mean about it not hitting like a truck but a consistent 1d8+2+int (around +5 total to start, +7 at max) is kinda wild as a bonus action only. The damage on a hit is force, so not commonly resisted and is the equivalent of a D8 weapon +2, which especially at level 3 you are unlikely to have. It effectively out damages you for a while as far as per-attack damage unless you use a d10 or 12 weapon and roll high. You are likely to have a +1 weapon early being a replicated item, but the equivalent of a +2 magic weapon dealing force damage as a bonus action especially at level 3 is kinda wild that its just kinda passed over like it doesnt matter and honestly would make a bit more sense just being +int.

I can see a fun build of a battle smith riding their steel defender, throwing returning handaxes and daggers while smiting, and stopping right next to their enemy for their steel defender to chomp on them.

While I have only played played a Battlesmith for a handful of levels, I had a lot of fun as a small Harengon who could sit on my Defender and basically get a 40ft speed

This is my planned next character.

Warforged, Battle Smith, mark of healing. Musket.

Full "support" our class spells and those from mark of healing will be more than plenty to restore the entire party between fights, without too much cost. Especially when potent mark is taken (potentially also greater?)

Musket let's me stay back picking out targets, with repeating shot I don't need a feat used for it.

Steel defender lets me actively help on the frontline or if I get cornered myself, and as a warforged it can heal me if I go down.

Homunculus servant lets me get touch spells, especially healings when necessary to my party, I can give it the spell storing item for either garage, it an aura spell / aoe healing spell without using my resources to keep fights going with constant replenish between hits.

Max int (22 with tome of knowledge)
14 dex, and the rest in con, its super easy in terms of stat placement,

Craft general and magic gear not only as an artificer, but general crafting rules as well for the party and while in towns/downtime... Honestly looking forward to his one, even if it will be a long time till I use it xD

Also, character will look like a mechanicus skiitari (but fully metal) defender will be a mini skorpehk destroyer with omnisiah axe as weapon. And homunculus servant will be either a, canoptek, wraith, Spyder, arcanthrite, scarab or tomb sentinel

I've found a particular setup of setting it up to be a meat shield is extremely effective. At lvl 5 slap Warding Bond on that badboy and stay back with a Repeating Shot pistol or crossbow. You don't want to be in the enemies face. This way you can provide damage for the group without putting yourself into immediate danger while having tour defender eat a solid amount of damage the other's would have taken.

I do had a much crazier setup that takes a few older pieces, but effectively doubles the HP of 2 characters (could be your defender, could be someone else). Basically you need to deal 300 damage to take down a barbarian with 77 hp... At level 6, thats before slapping on Aid and other thing's

13:24 Even if conjure barrage wasn’t replaced with something else like fireball, I still personally believe artillerist is stronger than now granted, this is highly DM dependent, but wands are just infinitely more useful than weapons.

There are strong weapons, no doubt about that, but crafting anything above rare would be difficult, let alone rare itself. Because of that, I tend to focus on the uncommon items I could mass produce. There are lots of weapons that can be made, but they tend to require attunement, so there’s only so much spreading of the love you can do. Artillerists on the other hand, can mass produce wands of magic missile and hand them out like candy. If you’ve got your familiar, a homunculus, and your full party all shooting no hit roll needed 17.5 average force damage, that’s hard to beat. I think if battlesmith could make magical ammunition on top of the weapons, and I would assume magic ammunition is consumable to further half the production time, it would bring their crafting potential much more in line. Personally I have the same issue with armorer, but I just don’t know what I’d add to make it work better. For battle smith the ammunition just seemed like a no brainer. Then if you replaced barrage with fireball or something, I think they would be more balanced, that way battlesmith is not just a 1 trick pony after level 10.

I also agree with the analysis of “why battle smith get all good spells from the other half casters”. Battlesmith definitely didn’t need smite, but I do think conjure barrage at least makes sense for them, especially considering my idea for the ammo crafting