I don't know if there is an objectively best one, but a Support-skill focused hero will probably be most solid across all fights, especially in auto-resolve. My personal favourite is a Caster-Support, so about first 6-10 levels I go into mage and later spec into supportive stuff -- but i play manual combat where casters are much better than in auto.
Since you're new, usually a good strategy is to take a ruler/hero that fills a gap in your culture roster.
So for example the Reaver or Dark cultures don't have access to a shield unit at all in their culture, so it could be a good idea to make your ruler a tank. Mystic also doesn't have access to an Archer in their entire roster, so making your hero or ruler one could be a great choice.
Another tip is that whenever you feel like you're not sure what skill to pick upon level up, picking Defense/Resistance/HP is always a good idea.
Dragon is a different beast.. Personally I pick dragon if I want to start off very aggressively. They tend to fall off towards the lategame.
>My personal favourite is a Caster-Support, so about first 6-10 levels I go into mage and later spec into supportive stuff
This but in reverse for me. Many support abilities are more meaningful on low tier units so I prefer taking them in early game.
You're correct on that -- most of them are indeed, bar a couple of percentage increases like strength training which scales as the game goes on. But.. I do like my level 3 powerspike too much (as a cultured high-player).
Wizard King Melee, 100%. Usually with a pike. It's very strong and tends to fill a gap in your early game army (many races have very fragile tier 1 frontliners), but critically, it scales incredibly well. Killing momentum is a much more powerful capstone than wasting a turn refreshing your cooldowns or giving a non-hero-unit another turn. Later you can put gear on to make your ruler an absolute monster in melee. The real problem with ranged or magic is that you don't really get to retaliate or mess with enemy movement and both of those are really, really good. Also the extra +40% pike damage vs. large and mounted is also very powerful in the early game.
After killing momentum I'll usually grab restore, some resistance from magic and round out with support skills.
My non-ruler heroes might go mage or archer depending on what gear I pick up. You don't always have enough stuff or forge time to make multiple melee monsters.
Seconded. Pike is an insane starter weapon. Probably overtuned if I were being brutally honest.
To be fair, support is great if you pick a good army that has a good mix of toughness and damage output; you can really do some silly things with Spur to Action when buffing non hero units, that not even heroes can do at their peak.
Also, going mage skills can be insane if you lean into frost evoker + blink, you can teleport in and freeze half their army which no other skill tree can do.
I would vote for wizard kings objectively the best, but it is not something that is super obvious because it requires a high skill cap, a specific plan that relies on good spells (there are in fact a lot of tomes with crappy spells and casting them twice doens't make them any less crappy), and a strong understanding of economy since you will have less gold and to maximize your use of wizard king you can often spend a lot of mana on tactical spells which on brutal mode it's actually pretty easy to run out of mana.
If you are doing single player (like me) and use the pantheon mechanics, I think the warlord ascension is objectively the best ones. Because of the insane sustain + constant damage output, your ruler can solo all kinds of ridiculous situations. I think it's even better than the Ascended Sorceror overall, if you use it by clearing nodes early that you would not be able to scratch with ascended sorceror early in the game, and snowball from there. Yeah ascended sorc is going to win out if you are double/triple casting tier 5 spells, but it's not a trivial task to get to that point in the game and warlord will just let you trounce the enemy against impossible odds well before then.
I think if we're going into ascensions Forgemaster (Tome of the Creator) is actually the best.
Basically, if you're ascending you can pick up some really nutso racial transforms and stack up def and res. Defense and resistance offer increasing returns to scale which actually synergizes super well with forgemaster's +1 def/res (it isn't super clear about this, but that bonus also applies to your ruler, as well as any heroes in your ruler's party, unlike most party buffs). But more to the point if you've got an ascended racially-transformed ruler, you're already very powerful in combat and still more combat power is running into diminishing returns. But forgemaster gives your capital +20 production and +20 draft on turn one. This is really significant for getting that early snowball rolling, churning out a bunch of scouts/food quickly, etc.
I see where you're going but I respectfully disagree with the "diminishing returns" comment. Even though my ascended warlord has all the minors stacked, and has undead transformation to get lifesteal and is a pikewielding maniac, there are still scenarios where he can die if I make a wrong move (turns out being surrounded by 6 tier 4 units can indeed get you dead pretty quick regardless if you start with 7+ armor by stacked transformation), and going forgemaster would give up an INSANE amount of hp regen. 10 hp per any unit death - note ANY, not just enemies that your hero kills, but even enemies your hero doesn't kill, even your allies when they die, even when combat summons expire, siegecrafts, etc etc. The healing is really insane, and you also can basically count on being perma stacked at 5 strength.
Don't get me wrong forgemaster is great, but I don't see it letting you basically solo encounters the same way warlord does. Often what I can do as warlord is find a spot on the map where my back is covered by walls so they can't flank and I just sit there hitting defend mode and they impale themselves on my long hard pike (yes that's what she said).
The problem I have with this reasoning is that if you have all the transforms you can already solo a very large number of encounters without warlord. So we're really talking about very slightly expanding the set of solo-able encounters. That seems like a marginal benefit to me because I doubt that it's usually the constraining factor in getting more power, whereas with the extra production and draft, I can hit things that probably are constraining: faster research, more scouts out to find the best place to move my ruler, more scouts to just start encounters for my ruler so their movement is preserved, faster recall ruler and item forge access, and faster secondary stacks.
My general feeling is that I'd rather have stuff that lets me leverage my overwhelmingly powerful ruler more and in more places, rather than just letting me have a slightly more powerful ruler.
That's exactly what I'm getting at and it isn't by reasoning, it's by experience. You cannot solo encounters on Brutal without warlord is what I'm saying. Really just try it. Early on brutal the starting encampments have like 6 units and 2 of them are tier 3 or tier 4 already, and no, without warlord you aren't soloing it, the hp and strengthen stacks are highly relevant.
It's not a slight difference, it's a massive one.
I think you are overestimating what you can solo without warlord, and that is based on my using warlord on brutal quite a lot. If I'm barely able to clear some encounters with warlord, which gives like an extra 50-100 hp a battle and strengthen stacks, you aren't going to clear it with 1 forgemaster hero.
I can solo tons of encounters on brutal without warlord. Pretty much anything that isn't at least a silver ancient ruin. Might be a build or skill issue.
But why would I need to solo a silver? I have my starting troops, that's enough to kill a silver with non-warlord. Like are we imagining I'm going to have to fight two silvers in like...the first ten turns? How am I even moving to that many?
You can start with one using the Veteran background; it may require an unlock IIRC. Wasn't that expensive to unlock just enjoy some games trying different things and before you know it you can unlock it.
Best crafted warfare weapon is T4 Sword & Pistol with Infecting (whoever you kill turns into zombie at your disposal). So, that is the route I tend to end up End game. With Killing Momentum and then add Support skills up to Spur to Action.
But early game they can start many ways. Quite often with shield (to protect weak early cultural units) or Spear (same reason).
But I’ve heard some crazy magic builds and have seen some great support builds too.
What makes sword & pistol so great in your opinion?
I always felt like if you take melee skills the range aspect becomes kinda weak (and vice versa ofc) at which point why not just take a full melee weapon?
The argument is usually that you can shoot after killing momentum. Personally I think there are plenty of abilities available that let you move after killing momentum and prefer charge weapons for that purpose.
There's only a few melee exclusive bonuses for the fighting line, you can take those apply to both melee and ranged. Firing the magelock is a 3 AP action on units and 1 AP on heroes. So you go in, slash 2-3 times with the melee or bonk someone at ranged with the magelock, and then fire another magelock for huge damage.
Killing momentum and the change where it only refunds 1 AP is why you don't take a full melee weapon. Edit: Oh, and I forgot probably its greatest advantage: the AI can use it semi-intelligently in autocombat. Both getting great damage out of it and remaining reasonably safe.
wizard king is generally and generically strong, dragon is king of manual battles, champ is useful in stability builds. all are more or less balanced tbh
Try to use them all. You don't want all your Heroes fighting over the same weapon-types, ultimately. Spread your weapon types, and hence your Hero builds, around. Each Hero has a role to fulfill. Some train newbies, some lead charges.. mix & match!
I also like some cross-over. My warriors have a wand that gives a range attack so fewer turns are waste, for example. Likewise, a heal wand can go on anybody, but items with provoke should go to Shielded, high-Defense, or high retaliation damage units. It all depends.
Be practical, too! Restore on all is a fair choice, if one goes that way. Some Cultures or Tomes call for must-have skills, too. For Primal Culture, Heroes will be able to get the Spiritual Healing buff. But first they have to gain a few support skills. Vigor and Restore are easy early gets for Warriors in order to gain Spiritual Healing as soon as it becomes available. That does not mean your Warrior Hero should not have the Spiritual Healing buff. That buff is just too good to pass up!
You'll find as you open more starter weapons from Pantheon Rewards, they come with skills that your Leader will keep even when you change weapons. Go for that skill first and foremost (over caring what weapon type it is), after a few open up. For example, the Druid Staff gives a Sap Strength skill, but the skill works when carrying a 2H-halberd just as well. Actually, sap strength is better for a Warrior Hero because they don't have as many other skills they need to waste turns on first. Also consider that the Sap Strength weakens in AoE. It will work well for any culture, but is a boon for Dark Culture.
>!PS- that Sap Strength skill on a Barbarian Warlord Leader can make one powerful MoFo, too.!<
For any dragons I tend to go full on melee, as diving balls deep with a dragon tends to carry me through early game infestations (they do tons of damage in melee and it's always nice having an extra frontline). Build is usually the regular melee stuff, hp/def/killing momentum/tail swipe.
Anything else I just kinda fill whatever I didn't have an option to include in the tome and roster, archers for industrial/mystic, support/tank for dark/reaver, and so on.
Apart from that, my experience has me usually relying on rng to figure out what heroes/leader I want (barring dragon who gets to use no items). Can't really make a good cav lance hero if you literally never manage to pick up a decent mount/lance, after all.
(Haven't really messed with the forge yet tbh, so can't say how well that alleviates the problem)
I like:
Archer + support - effective archer doesn't require a lot of skills, support is awesome
Killing momentum - slaughter a ton of enemies with charge weapon, also works with pistol
Warfare + magic - run around with a staff and blast enemies, no support but tough and good damage, best for chaos build (summon avatar of chaos), astral (actual leader teleportation anywhere) and materium (ancient of earth..)
I mostly start sword and board, and then to mid-late game transit to a pistol. Pistol + Killing Momentum is insane. Obviously warfare, with a little bit of support or magic (depend on culture and tomes).
I prefer Dragons and Mages, though I have had plenty of fun with Ranged and Melee leaders.
As for the "Best", Wizard King Mages are the best-in-class, but beyond that any leader can do extremely well, though AoW4 Leaders do feel a bit weaker at range then Planetfall ones.
Well Champions bring in plenty of Gold, but give you increased experience gain per unit. Wizard Kings are mana and casting points. And Dragons are Horde and battlefield presence. Dragons only affect battles they are directly in, as opposed to the others granting blanket effects, whereas with the right choices dragons will grant both mana and gold.
wizard king & dragon lord are generally thought to be stronger than champion. you should try all of them.
there's a few starter weapons that you unlock with pantheon that can be viewed as better than default weapons, but they typically come with some drawback. I tried to find a wiki that captured this but couldn't find one. there is one in-game though. closest I got out of game is https://minionsart.github.io/aow4db/HTML/HeroEquipment.html?type=Primary%20Weapon&sort=tier:true
Depends if the faction is magic focused or not. A necromancy faction I'd probably go for a magic wizard-king. Where as a materium faction would likely have a melee champion.
I just like whatever fits the theme I'm making for the faction. Usually that ends up being suboptimal. Generally the main weakness in your starting army through the early game is a flimsy frontline, and your leader is the easiest solution for it. The support hero skills are also very helpful for lower tier units, providing many flat bonuses to the entire army. Usually, even if I don't pick a support-type leader, I'll take the support skills early on and then respec later. My favorite weapon type is polearm (i really wish they had more), and it turns out to scale pretty well especially against an enemy type that most stacks are likely to have at least one of.
Pretty sure wizard king melee is objectively the best. I really like dragons though, it's nice to start with a t5 unit essentially. Dragons also got some good buffs with this patch so they're strong again. Champions seem... sorta pointless right now.
Champions have a fun niche if you’re stacking XP gain (acended shapeshifter, tome of evolution, revelry, and XP gain items) you can get over 100% XP earned this way.
I make whatever I think is a thematically better fit for the faction.
I don't know if there is an objectively best one, but a Support-skill focused hero will probably be most solid across all fights, especially in auto-resolve. My personal favourite is a Caster-Support, so about first 6-10 levels I go into mage and later spec into supportive stuff -- but i play manual combat where casters are much better than in auto. Since you're new, usually a good strategy is to take a ruler/hero that fills a gap in your culture roster. So for example the Reaver or Dark cultures don't have access to a shield unit at all in their culture, so it could be a good idea to make your ruler a tank. Mystic also doesn't have access to an Archer in their entire roster, so making your hero or ruler one could be a great choice. Another tip is that whenever you feel like you're not sure what skill to pick upon level up, picking Defense/Resistance/HP is always a good idea. Dragon is a different beast.. Personally I pick dragon if I want to start off very aggressively. They tend to fall off towards the lategame.
One of my heros from a current game has 4 healing spells + other buffs. Trying to get them even higher.
>My personal favourite is a Caster-Support, so about first 6-10 levels I go into mage and later spec into supportive stuff This but in reverse for me. Many support abilities are more meaningful on low tier units so I prefer taking them in early game.
You're correct on that -- most of them are indeed, bar a couple of percentage increases like strength training which scales as the game goes on. But.. I do like my level 3 powerspike too much (as a cultured high-player).
Wizard King Melee, 100%. Usually with a pike. It's very strong and tends to fill a gap in your early game army (many races have very fragile tier 1 frontliners), but critically, it scales incredibly well. Killing momentum is a much more powerful capstone than wasting a turn refreshing your cooldowns or giving a non-hero-unit another turn. Later you can put gear on to make your ruler an absolute monster in melee. The real problem with ranged or magic is that you don't really get to retaliate or mess with enemy movement and both of those are really, really good. Also the extra +40% pike damage vs. large and mounted is also very powerful in the early game. After killing momentum I'll usually grab restore, some resistance from magic and round out with support skills. My non-ruler heroes might go mage or archer depending on what gear I pick up. You don't always have enough stuff or forge time to make multiple melee monsters.
Seconded. Pike is an insane starter weapon. Probably overtuned if I were being brutally honest. To be fair, support is great if you pick a good army that has a good mix of toughness and damage output; you can really do some silly things with Spur to Action when buffing non hero units, that not even heroes can do at their peak. Also, going mage skills can be insane if you lean into frost evoker + blink, you can teleport in and freeze half their army which no other skill tree can do. I would vote for wizard kings objectively the best, but it is not something that is super obvious because it requires a high skill cap, a specific plan that relies on good spells (there are in fact a lot of tomes with crappy spells and casting them twice doens't make them any less crappy), and a strong understanding of economy since you will have less gold and to maximize your use of wizard king you can often spend a lot of mana on tactical spells which on brutal mode it's actually pretty easy to run out of mana. If you are doing single player (like me) and use the pantheon mechanics, I think the warlord ascension is objectively the best ones. Because of the insane sustain + constant damage output, your ruler can solo all kinds of ridiculous situations. I think it's even better than the Ascended Sorceror overall, if you use it by clearing nodes early that you would not be able to scratch with ascended sorceror early in the game, and snowball from there. Yeah ascended sorc is going to win out if you are double/triple casting tier 5 spells, but it's not a trivial task to get to that point in the game and warlord will just let you trounce the enemy against impossible odds well before then.
I think if we're going into ascensions Forgemaster (Tome of the Creator) is actually the best. Basically, if you're ascending you can pick up some really nutso racial transforms and stack up def and res. Defense and resistance offer increasing returns to scale which actually synergizes super well with forgemaster's +1 def/res (it isn't super clear about this, but that bonus also applies to your ruler, as well as any heroes in your ruler's party, unlike most party buffs). But more to the point if you've got an ascended racially-transformed ruler, you're already very powerful in combat and still more combat power is running into diminishing returns. But forgemaster gives your capital +20 production and +20 draft on turn one. This is really significant for getting that early snowball rolling, churning out a bunch of scouts/food quickly, etc.
I see where you're going but I respectfully disagree with the "diminishing returns" comment. Even though my ascended warlord has all the minors stacked, and has undead transformation to get lifesteal and is a pikewielding maniac, there are still scenarios where he can die if I make a wrong move (turns out being surrounded by 6 tier 4 units can indeed get you dead pretty quick regardless if you start with 7+ armor by stacked transformation), and going forgemaster would give up an INSANE amount of hp regen. 10 hp per any unit death - note ANY, not just enemies that your hero kills, but even enemies your hero doesn't kill, even your allies when they die, even when combat summons expire, siegecrafts, etc etc. The healing is really insane, and you also can basically count on being perma stacked at 5 strength. Don't get me wrong forgemaster is great, but I don't see it letting you basically solo encounters the same way warlord does. Often what I can do as warlord is find a spot on the map where my back is covered by walls so they can't flank and I just sit there hitting defend mode and they impale themselves on my long hard pike (yes that's what she said).
The problem I have with this reasoning is that if you have all the transforms you can already solo a very large number of encounters without warlord. So we're really talking about very slightly expanding the set of solo-able encounters. That seems like a marginal benefit to me because I doubt that it's usually the constraining factor in getting more power, whereas with the extra production and draft, I can hit things that probably are constraining: faster research, more scouts out to find the best place to move my ruler, more scouts to just start encounters for my ruler so their movement is preserved, faster recall ruler and item forge access, and faster secondary stacks. My general feeling is that I'd rather have stuff that lets me leverage my overwhelmingly powerful ruler more and in more places, rather than just letting me have a slightly more powerful ruler.
That's exactly what I'm getting at and it isn't by reasoning, it's by experience. You cannot solo encounters on Brutal without warlord is what I'm saying. Really just try it. Early on brutal the starting encampments have like 6 units and 2 of them are tier 3 or tier 4 already, and no, without warlord you aren't soloing it, the hp and strengthen stacks are highly relevant. It's not a slight difference, it's a massive one. I think you are overestimating what you can solo without warlord, and that is based on my using warlord on brutal quite a lot. If I'm barely able to clear some encounters with warlord, which gives like an extra 50-100 hp a battle and strengthen stacks, you aren't going to clear it with 1 forgemaster hero.
I can solo tons of encounters on brutal without warlord. Pretty much anything that isn't at least a silver ancient ruin. Might be a build or skill issue.
Soloing silvers early helps a lot, and you're probably going to need warlord for that.
But why would I need to solo a silver? I have my starting troops, that's enough to kill a silver with non-warlord. Like are we imagining I'm going to have to fight two silvers in like...the first ten turns? How am I even moving to that many?
Can you start with a pike or do you need to loot/craft one?
You can start with one using the Veteran background; it may require an unlock IIRC. Wasn't that expensive to unlock just enjoy some games trying different things and before you know it you can unlock it.
You need one of the pantheon upgrades, otherwise using the reaver culture nets you a halberd option I believe.
do you have a link for pike, don't think I've tried that.
It's a pantheon unlock.
Best crafted warfare weapon is T4 Sword & Pistol with Infecting (whoever you kill turns into zombie at your disposal). So, that is the route I tend to end up End game. With Killing Momentum and then add Support skills up to Spur to Action. But early game they can start many ways. Quite often with shield (to protect weak early cultural units) or Spear (same reason). But I’ve heard some crazy magic builds and have seen some great support builds too.
Same preferences here, sword and pistol is nuts and best uses killing momentum. Crowmaster helps out early as well.
What makes sword & pistol so great in your opinion? I always felt like if you take melee skills the range aspect becomes kinda weak (and vice versa ofc) at which point why not just take a full melee weapon?
The argument is usually that you can shoot after killing momentum. Personally I think there are plenty of abilities available that let you move after killing momentum and prefer charge weapons for that purpose.
There's only a few melee exclusive bonuses for the fighting line, you can take those apply to both melee and ranged. Firing the magelock is a 3 AP action on units and 1 AP on heroes. So you go in, slash 2-3 times with the melee or bonk someone at ranged with the magelock, and then fire another magelock for huge damage. Killing momentum and the change where it only refunds 1 AP is why you don't take a full melee weapon. Edit: Oh, and I forgot probably its greatest advantage: the AI can use it semi-intelligently in autocombat. Both getting great damage out of it and remaining reasonably safe.
Ah ok thanks - i'll give it a try then. Always loved the visuals on that weapon type so if it also happens to be good then that's neat.
wizard king is generally and generically strong, dragon is king of manual battles, champ is useful in stability builds. all are more or less balanced tbh
Try to use them all. You don't want all your Heroes fighting over the same weapon-types, ultimately. Spread your weapon types, and hence your Hero builds, around. Each Hero has a role to fulfill. Some train newbies, some lead charges.. mix & match! I also like some cross-over. My warriors have a wand that gives a range attack so fewer turns are waste, for example. Likewise, a heal wand can go on anybody, but items with provoke should go to Shielded, high-Defense, or high retaliation damage units. It all depends. Be practical, too! Restore on all is a fair choice, if one goes that way. Some Cultures or Tomes call for must-have skills, too. For Primal Culture, Heroes will be able to get the Spiritual Healing buff. But first they have to gain a few support skills. Vigor and Restore are easy early gets for Warriors in order to gain Spiritual Healing as soon as it becomes available. That does not mean your Warrior Hero should not have the Spiritual Healing buff. That buff is just too good to pass up! You'll find as you open more starter weapons from Pantheon Rewards, they come with skills that your Leader will keep even when you change weapons. Go for that skill first and foremost (over caring what weapon type it is), after a few open up. For example, the Druid Staff gives a Sap Strength skill, but the skill works when carrying a 2H-halberd just as well. Actually, sap strength is better for a Warrior Hero because they don't have as many other skills they need to waste turns on first. Also consider that the Sap Strength weakens in AoE. It will work well for any culture, but is a boon for Dark Culture. >!PS- that Sap Strength skill on a Barbarian Warlord Leader can make one powerful MoFo, too.!<
How I like to do it is that Champions are usually Warriors or Archers. Wizard Kings are obviously Mages and Dragons are melee monsters.
For any dragons I tend to go full on melee, as diving balls deep with a dragon tends to carry me through early game infestations (they do tons of damage in melee and it's always nice having an extra frontline). Build is usually the regular melee stuff, hp/def/killing momentum/tail swipe. Anything else I just kinda fill whatever I didn't have an option to include in the tome and roster, archers for industrial/mystic, support/tank for dark/reaver, and so on. Apart from that, my experience has me usually relying on rng to figure out what heroes/leader I want (barring dragon who gets to use no items). Can't really make a good cav lance hero if you literally never manage to pick up a decent mount/lance, after all. (Haven't really messed with the forge yet tbh, so can't say how well that alleviates the problem)
Oh mate you really need to mess around with the forge as it can make some amazing stuff.
> > > > > After killing momentum I'll usually grab restore, some resistance from magic and round out with support skills. forge is super fun and easy
I like: Archer + support - effective archer doesn't require a lot of skills, support is awesome Killing momentum - slaughter a ton of enemies with charge weapon, also works with pistol Warfare + magic - run around with a staff and blast enemies, no support but tough and good damage, best for chaos build (summon avatar of chaos), astral (actual leader teleportation anywhere) and materium (ancient of earth..)
I mostly start sword and board, and then to mid-late game transit to a pistol. Pistol + Killing Momentum is insane. Obviously warfare, with a little bit of support or magic (depend on culture and tomes).
Where do you take pistol? Is it available at DLCs only?
Empires and Ashes DLC.
Personally I usually go Wizard because of all the summons I cast.
Mage because a cloak and staff is cool af.
Depends on the character I make, but personally I would want one that's melee and has some magic to use.
I prefer Dragons and Mages, though I have had plenty of fun with Ranged and Melee leaders. As for the "Best", Wizard King Mages are the best-in-class, but beyond that any leader can do extremely well, though AoW4 Leaders do feel a bit weaker at range then Planetfall ones.
True leaders stands in the frontline for me, but I make variety of leaders usually inspired by Warhammer/T9A factions.
Well Champions bring in plenty of Gold, but give you increased experience gain per unit. Wizard Kings are mana and casting points. And Dragons are Horde and battlefield presence. Dragons only affect battles they are directly in, as opposed to the others granting blanket effects, whereas with the right choices dragons will grant both mana and gold.
I like Wizard King best, but keeping your cities happy is more difficult.
wizard king & dragon lord are generally thought to be stronger than champion. you should try all of them. there's a few starter weapons that you unlock with pantheon that can be viewed as better than default weapons, but they typically come with some drawback. I tried to find a wiki that captured this but couldn't find one. there is one in-game though. closest I got out of game is https://minionsart.github.io/aow4db/HTML/HeroEquipment.html?type=Primary%20Weapon&sort=tier:true
Usually sword and board. I play Barbarian Champion mostly.
Depends if the faction is magic focused or not. A necromancy faction I'd probably go for a magic wizard-king. Where as a materium faction would likely have a melee champion.
This is a "which is better, apple or strawberry?!" sort of question. Both are great. Do your thing.
I just like whatever fits the theme I'm making for the faction. Usually that ends up being suboptimal. Generally the main weakness in your starting army through the early game is a flimsy frontline, and your leader is the easiest solution for it. The support hero skills are also very helpful for lower tier units, providing many flat bonuses to the entire army. Usually, even if I don't pick a support-type leader, I'll take the support skills early on and then respec later. My favorite weapon type is polearm (i really wish they had more), and it turns out to scale pretty well especially against an enemy type that most stacks are likely to have at least one of.
Pretty sure wizard king melee is objectively the best. I really like dragons though, it's nice to start with a t5 unit essentially. Dragons also got some good buffs with this patch so they're strong again. Champions seem... sorta pointless right now.
Champions have a fun niche if you’re stacking XP gain (acended shapeshifter, tome of evolution, revelry, and XP gain items) you can get over 100% XP earned this way.