So I used a build when I was first starting out on my Mage which was mostly Sorcerous Blast and Unstable Bolts. Fire/Lightning Traits were quite pointless, and it was rare that the 1 free movement at the start of the turn from Traveller meant anything to me at all. So for skills, I just looked to the biggest attack card available, which at the time was a Fireball. I was content with that. On the warrior I use now, since he is built for Step moves and Vicious Thrust is no longer Penetrating, he has no use for Bruiser, Impaler nor Slicer. Outside of the one attack card which comes on the skill itself. There are plenty of other builds which just don't have any use for any of the Traits. So where are the items that accommodate this by just not offering any traits to begin with? Yes... traits are still useful for the fact you draw a replacement card, and you will probably still have at least ONE card that can benefit from the trait. And putting on beneficial attachments can kick off negative ones if you are at 3 already... I would still like to see a few skills which are trait-free. Alternatively, some more traits like Dimensional Traveller which do not need synergy with any specific attack type to work. Priest is decently covered with Holy Presence, and Wizard with D. Traveller. Though having other options would not be terrible. Some no-thought-invested Trait alternatives for Warrior: Resourceful - Attach to self, Duration 3. Draw an extra card at the start of each turn. Diligent - Attach to self, Duration 2. You may keep 1 extra card at the end of each turn. Agile - Attach to self, Duration 3. When you attack, the card gains Cantrip on a Roll 6. Or you can cheese out and just make a Martial skill which has Immobile for the trait slot. Really a copy of almost any Dwarven Racial would be suitable in the Martial slot.
In general, there simply aren't enough Martial Skills. First of all, as neither Back Breaking Strike nor Weak Strike count as Drawback cards (which should be called "handicap cards" if players are supposed to find them with the "handicap" filter), there are exactly zero skills you can take on a Warrior in a "Use only Drawback Cards" challenge. It's not just that there are none that don't require a power token and thus can't be used on the low level quests, there are straight up none at all. Second, there are three flavors of Martial Skill trait: Bashing, Chopping, and Penetrating. But there are six types of attacks for a Warrior to specialize in: Bashing, Chopping, Penetrating, Stabbing, Bludgeoning, and Stepping. Fully half of the things a Warrior might be asked to specialize in for a particular mission are completely unhelpable with any skill trait. If the Warrior is being asked to bring high mobility, high damage, or long range to the table, none of the traits help even a little bit. The Priest can always take a trait where they just passively heal their allies, and the Wizard can always take a trait where he gets free movement. All of the Warrior skill traits are tied to attack modes that they may not have. If you go into battle with a Thick Club and a Dull Short Sword, there are zero traits that help you in the slightest. There is room for Martial Skill traits that improve armor (say a +1 to Armor and/or Blocking Rolls for 3 turns), traits that improve stab kiting (bonus damage when no enemies are adjacent to you), traits that improve step fighting (ignore encumbrance on step moves), and so on. But fundamentally, Back Breaking Strike should be counted as a Drawback card and there should be some skills that punch above their weight class because they have Slowed, Fumble, Trip, or something on them so that Warriors can actually bring skills to those Quests. -Frank
I would be happy if it was "fully half". But the reality is that Slashing, Crushing, and Piercing, for which there are no helpful traits, are far more common than Bashing, Chopping, and Penetrating. You already need quite a large collection of cards specialize in something like Bashing. Meanwhile the wizard has traits for his common damage dealing cards (Fire, Electrical, Arcane) and is only missing traits for the rare stuff like Frost.
I like these ideas, but i hesitate to give anything more to warriors. I think there's a pretty delicate balance right now that's based on different unbalanced things canceling each other out. It's the same reason i'm not asking for a frost-focused wizard trait.
Yes, if they added some new skill that helped Step attacks specifically, we would almost certainly see them take a blow to basic stats, making you NEED the skill. Well, the ignore encumber for step moves wouldn't really lead down that path... but a silly +X damage certainly would. I guess for spears the idea of +X damage if no enemy units adjacent to attacker could be changed to Roll 4, attack is unblockable if no enemy units adjacent to attacker and it would also avoid leading to a potential nerf to base stats. Of course, a chance to ignore block would seem more fitting on the Penetrating skill now that I think about it... However just a generic trait, or some skills with no trait at all feels like a decent thing to request without upsetting balance terribly.
Item diversity is really lacking in all the Class Specific SKills. It basically boils down to any of the 3 main type of traits, then a standard attack or not. As OP asked, what about the no-trait option ?, the non-standard option ? Most traits are boring and simple (+1 dmg) for the purpose of balance but I wish there could be more complex trait.
Skill diversity is much better with Wizards and Priests than it is with Warriors. Wizards have five different traits to choose from and Priests have four. And those traits include "generic" options that aren't dependent on combos with specific types of attacks or spells. Impaler got nerfed on the grounds that everyone was using it to the exclusion of the other Warrior traits. But perhaps we should consider the idea that people were using the Impaler trait because Martial Skills do not have many options and the two other options are not terribly good. Slicer is only 1 point of damage if you can't get two targets in (which you probably can't in multiplayer) and simply isn't very good. Bruiser adds 2 damage, but if you're running around with a lot of Bashes, it's because you want to keep enemies from closing with you or knock them off victory tiles - the damage is largely incidental. Even a Bashing specialist may not really care that much about the damage bonus Bruiser provides. -Frank
I think part of the issue here is that the warrior class is already pretty dominate. I'm not sure what traits they could give warriors that would not make them crazy OP. Either new traits would be necessarily weak. Maybe something like armor or block proficiency that adds +1 to block or armor rolls. That might be to good though. Other one might be tactics allows you to drop cards to replace cards. Or maybe change facing at the beginning of each turn before movement or something like that.
The new choices don't need to be OP, just different. In fact, they don't even need to be traits (as per the OP). We are kind of arguing that the options that are there are already weak so adding other weak options would only give more variety. If you can't think of any, you're just not being creative enough!
OK I can think up a bunch based on problems I have with my warrior. The issue is that warriors right now are the best killing machines out there without any worthwhile traits. So if I address the problems I currently have with the warrior class it would make warriors OP which then drives the meta to all warrior decks. Honesty of the classes needing work I think wizards need the most help. Aside from encumber strategies which are lame. I don't feel like wizards have a whole lot going on.
