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)

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.