I'll start with some goals I'm looking to accomplish:
- Be effective in an organized ORvR setting
- Be useful in small group play
- Be effective in solo roaming for ORvR objective-based play
- Be fun, and dynamic to play
- Can farm crafting mats.
- Not be a pain to swap around those different roles.
Group
Solo
Farm
One of the big things that I think I had to accept was that I was going to ignore Path of Vigilance and skip Smashing Counter in the middle tree, relying instead on Heaven's Fury for my stun/stagger. My reasoning is thus: if I'm solo, I can control the stagger; if I'm in a group, other people will have a better KD; I can be doing other better things with my GCD thanks to others having the KD; and the extra AoE damage / area denial/interrupt/stagger works well for the groups I usually play with.
The other thing is I had to be more flexible with my auras. I normally run All Out Assault!, Gather Your Resolve!, and To Glory!. However, I tend to drop AoA! and even To Glory! for other things as needed, like Press the Attack!, On Your Guard!, and Stand Strong! in order of commonality. Sometimes you get paired up with other KotBS and sometimes you don't, make decisions on what your situation needs the most, but try to lean into your strengths (no pun intended).
In group play, I get to run around, stripping healing off everything (thank you Shamans), punting people, slowing them down, debuffing them, and just being a nuisance to their lives. Preferably while chugging pots, and bubbles, and guards, and all the things to stay alive, while your guarded buddy does the killing, and you provide some tipping point bomb damage. Hearing the WB leader call out "bomb bomb bomb" is a great time to drop PtA for AoA and get a nice few more pulses of Elemental Damage in, because why not?
End goal, I'm hoping to be Warlord/Triumph mix for the stats I'm looking for and fill in the rest with tali's. The few days I've been playing this has been a blast and I've particularly enjoyed the WE fights I've been able to find that I think everyone walks away a little surprised from, no matter the victor. Don't sleep on Emporer's Ward, the frequency of those little micro-bubbles showing up in a fight against some classes is surprising.
Anyway, have fun out there, and have a happy new year!