The Warrior specialization

I rarely pick warrior over defender now.  The attack bonus isn't bad, and access to things like dragon slayer is nice, but it's hard to justify it against extra hp and resistances.  

my most recent game I currently have 1 champ and sov ... one is Defender and the other is Mage.

Perhaps Warrior would become more attractive if it would allow you to duel wield single-handers and/or single hand a double handed weapon?

(with proper penalties to the off-hand weapon of course-> unless its a dagger/below a certain weight threshold)

IIRC it offers higher attack potential than defender and the ability to wear heavier armor than assassin provides. I wouldn't try to argue that it's generally better than either of the other options, but there are probably some circumstances where it might be more useful. I thought it also allows for some offensive general type abilities too, like tactics/leadership. I might be wrong on that though.

The various warrior "skills" need a slight buff. I seem to never ever use them, so I never ever pick warrior.

If warrior had a +1 hp per level to it, I would then choose it as often as Defender.

Hmm. I could see Warrior with a +1 HP per level. Defender is +2 HP per level yes?

Yep.

There definitely needs to be some adjustment.

One very important thing is I think Sweep should be a Warrior trait and not an assassin trait.  Why would an assassin wade into the middle of battle? 

I would pick warriors a lot more if I knew eventually they'd get to sweep. 

I'm working on mods for a lot of leveling.  There needs to more varied picsk so that every sandbox game isn't always the same build for each for the first 15 levels or so (if you are getting to level 37, you'd going to have everything anyway .  So far only defender seems really well fleshed out 

The Mage leveling seems to be based on the concept that you have your schools of magic, you have Evoker, and that's it.  Affinity and Knowledge are a 1-of and after that the mage picking are slim.  Not that Mages don't have power, but picking their levels is unfun.  A lot of the time I just see 5 generic ups if I'm playing a solo schooled mage.  Why is Apprentice Swordsmen showing up there?

I think there's room to add some levels on affinity (instead of -10%, it should be -5%, -5% and -5%or10% for 3 separate levels of mana cost savings. 

There should also be a 100% chance at lvl 16 of seeing at least ONE other path, so you can multiclass more often.  If it's not the path you want, too bad, but at least the chance should be there.  It happens very rarely.

My assassins are always in the middle of battle... but I never use sweep either. I take Assassin for crit and armor ignore.

Is there anything online that lays out the skills by class?  I've only rolled a few defenders but I never had any use for them.  The only ability that ever showed up was the "+5 defense when defending," which doesn't do much unless your defender just sits there.  I'm sure there's more to it, just haven't gotten the luck roll.  I guess you just load them up with armor and have them sit in the middle of the enemies?  Seems like it would compliment my Tarth death archers.

I really like "Stun" from warrior, but overall the class seems much less capable than Assasin.

double post.

Defenders get stun as well.  Defenders have some awesome abiilties, like the ability to add +5 defence to your entire army, being immune to criticals, being immune to counterattacks (without having to use spears) and more.  Bascially, defenders are great at distracting your opponents while buying your ranged units enough time to do their damage.

Yeah well the Assassin path is basically the best because the game tactically favours attacking instead of defense.  A defender hero is still a good idea, but let's just say I had just one sovereign mage and henchmen, I'd make an assassin first, defender second, and then probably just keep rotating.

Govenor's are actually quite good, but leveling them is so hard.  I wish there was a way for them to gain XP (good amounts - not the adventurer's guild crap) without actually having to wade them into batlle.

Perhaps adventurer's guild should give better exp ...

and/OR what I've been saying. Certain 'administrative' buildings should give passive exp to Governor builds (while he is present in the city)

When I look back at my games, I see that if I count my champions, their frequency goes like this (most to least)

Assassins > Mages > Governors > Warriors > Defenders

I have no use for defenders, because I want my fighters to deal damage. 

I may have too many governors, but that's because I play very aggressively, and spawn a ton of cities.  The governors are invaluable to keep occupied cities producing and are great at leading armies. They get "Swordman" and "Trainer", so they're no worse at dealing damage than defenders.  I also do not reload, so those who end up hurt too much become governors.

I like warriors, and if I have a ton of heroes, I do level some as warriors... but I usually do not have enough heroes anyway, and I do not NEED warriors the way you need mages.

Assassins are just the most effective.  Unless my sovereign is a total wuss s/he becomes an assassin.

Govs are good, but I never choose that trait. Maybe on a sion, (never had one survive long enough) or a henchmen.  But probably not even then.  And the reason is as everyone points out, they can't gain experience governing.  Warriors gain experience killing shit, as a warrior is suppose to do, but a governor can't gain experience governing.  So, you are stuck with deciding when you should retire the gov character. 

Only Warrior has the best damage trait: Lethal. Lethal gives 2 attack. Lethal II - 3 attack. Lethal III - 4 attack. Lethal IV - 5 attack. Lethal V - 6 attack. Total: 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 = 20 attack. With latest loot nerf it is hard to find good weapon. So +20 attack is very valuable now.

That's the warrior's saving grace, but if you do not reload, the trait gets lost in the deluge of Resistance/Brute/Bruiser/yada yada.

With an assassin, I can usually pick traits I like - double attack, sweep, dodge+, critical+, shadow strike+ those are all good, and you get some of them.  If the warriors had a garanteed "lethal" on every level up, I would prioritize them.

The worst is Emnity.  I have to check the XML if it's really rare because it shows up all the freaking time.

There are simply too many traits that are not good.  It'd be much more fun if there was always a difficult choice of good traits rather than what it is now, which is on some paths often simply picking what's either necessary or not awful.

Now Warrior has only attacking traits. So Warrior is most fragile among Paths. Even Assasin has +dodge trait. Imho Warrior needs some +defence trait.

Not necessarily. Call him 'Berserker' and give him more offensive traits. You know what would be great? "Cleave".  Get a free turn after every kill.

Also Bruiser (+X% Blunt Attack) and Swordsman (+X% Cutting Attack) are inconvenient traits, because you don't know what weapon you will find in future. Maybe add trait that gives +X% Cutting/Blunt/Pierce Attack instead of Bruiser and Swordsman.

I like them.  I just delay getting them until I get a nice weapon.  I have chosen bruiser for skulla's mace, and marksman for the champion's lance, but I usually default to swordsman, because the most common good weapons are swords, and because Governors get Swordsman too.

I think anyone can get swordsman.  I wish the others were more widely available.  I would like my spear using warrior/defender to get some pierce love.

I wish that instead of swordsman, Basher, etc..,  that it was consolidated into a Weapon Specialization skill that then asked what weapon type you wanted to Specialize in.  Leaving more room in the skill advancement trees for more options.

Hmm, probably if we saw a merging of the weapon spec traits and the lethal traits ... hmm.

example.

Axe Focus 1 (+25% damage with axes)

Axe Focus 2 (+2 initiative with Axes)

Axe Focus 3 (+2 defense with Axes)

Axe Lethality 1 (+2 attack with Axes)

Axe Lethality 2 (+3 attack with Axes)

Axe Lethality 3 (+4 attack AND +1 initiative with Axes)

Axe Lethality 4 (+5 attack with Axes)

Axe Lethality 5 (+6 attack AND +1 initiative with Axes)

Edit:

at a certain level (say the level after specialization pick ... so level 4 I think?) all Focus 1's become common or more.

Focuses are Sword (sword cutting), Axe (axe cutting), Bludgeon (Mace blunt, Hammer blunt), Polearms (melee Staves blunt, Spears pierce), and Bow (bows piercing).

also Mages have Staff focus (ranged Staves elemental) -> increases the damage of the ranged elemental staves.