Defining Strength and Tactic Skills

The Tactics Warrior as I perceive it is one that carry skills that makes him 'stronger' than a Strength Warrior, provided the situation is in his favour. Whereas the Strength Warrior deals and takes damage well regardless of conditions.

Currently this isn't really the case, it may just be a matter of naming conventions, but Tactics is still the stance dumping ground.

There are skills such as Griffon's Sweep, and Jawbreaker that should really belong to Tactics, as these are both technical and conditional skills. While skills such as "Fear Me" and Thrill of Victory should belong to Strength, as thy are both related to power and resilience.

Anyway that's my rant done. Please do post your comments and/or flames.

Tactics isn't the only "odd" skill line; there are still quite a few skill lines that seem unsymmetrical in the game right now (need I be the 20th person to count the number of skills linked to Soul Reaping? ). I assume there will be a more even allocation of skills by release.

While we are on the tactics topic, though, I personally think they just need to spread the stances out over all the warrior skill lines a bit more. One reason tactics isn't that great is because you can really only use one or two of the skills from it on your bar at a time due to the fact that stances cancel each other out. Giving a few of the tactics-linked skills a boost also couldn’t hurt.

I agree, a few skills should be swapped around between strength/tactics and death/soul reaping. Just remember that the primary attributes somewhat limit a secondary professions ability to use those linked skills. Take rangers for example- great primary class but horrible as a secondary due to expertise.

Tactics started out as the line for shouts and stances, much like other lines like Nature Rituals it was overly narrow and redundant with conceptual synergy but no actually connection between the skills except for their similar mechanics. It's come a long way since those days, of course, but it's still got a way to go. I'm not certain I like all of your suggestions but I do agree that Tactics and Strength both need a change. The Weapon lines are too small and those two lines are too large.

I'd empty them out and shuffle everything around. Strength is the line for Tanks - Endure Pain, Victory is Mine!, Watch Yourself!, and so on, primary Warriors get the strongest armor so they get the skills that help them survive better, too, and a few other things that would help primary Warriors, your Warrior's Endurance, your Sprint, but which would also be useful unlinked, too. Tactics is to shields what Axe Mastery is to axes. It'll be centered around defensive stances, but a few things that expand tactical and strategic options to broaden it out - offensive shouts and the like. Then you slap a few more skills into each weapon's line so they're broader, too - things like Moving Dwarven Battle Stance into Hammers or Bonnetti's into Swords, or Fear Me! into Axes.

I always viewed Strength as reflecting an offensive warrior and Tactics reflecting a defensive warrior. This being said, you sort of have to choose between the two (unless you want to go with at least Strength, Tactics, a weapon attribute and any other attributes). You're either there to lead the attack or to defend your party.

That means I don't see how Griffon's Sweep or Jawbreaker especially being in Tactics. They belong in Strength. I do agree that Thrill of Victory belongs in strength, but "Fear Me" is questionable. You can view it as the warrior scaring off advancing foes, or scaring off defensive foes he is charging towards. Either way I think they belong in Tactics since it is more of a tactical attack and not just "hit stuff!"

Of course the developers are still finding what skills work best in what attribute. I don't think the warrior needs that much work though, compared to some other professions (ranger and necromancer in my opinion). For the most part I agree where the warrior skills are placed. Some of the placement may be to spread some of the "good" skills amongst different attributes, too.

As someone who has a pet call as their avatar, I am quite aware that there are other professions that need some skill line lovin'. I raise this issue though as it seems to be so rarely discussed.

I agree with Trexton that Strength doesn't really need buffing in terms of skill numbers since Strength is Warrior exclusive.

As to make things more clear, the reason why I see skills like Griffon's Sweep belong to Tactics is because I see Tactics being about a Warrior's smarts and cunning. Hercules is to Strength as Theseus is to Tactics.

If Tactics was a defense specialist line, then it would be a skill line rarely taken by pvp primary Warriors, as humans are smart enough not to attack the tank first.