Princeps Class Overview in Expeditions: Rome

 Expeditions: Rome has a lot of classes, and early on in the game you are tasked with choosing your character's specialisation. This is an important choice since it can't be changed later on in the game, but it's too early to know enough about them to make an informed decision.

In order to prevent that, I decided to write an overview of each of the classes and all of their subclasses, how they work in battle, and what their skills are. That way, you might be informed enough to be able to make the right call.

One thing I'd like to mention is that each of the subclasses has two different skills that can be unlocked. One will always be a passive, whilst the other will always be a skill. Players will need to spend one, four, and seven skill points to be able to unlock each of the subsequent tiers.

Additionally, I will only be mentioning the first level of each of the abilities to keep the article as short as possible, given that it is long enough.

Princeps

The frontline of any fight, Princeps are built to lead the battle with their shields and tank all of the attacks that come their way. As the only class to equip shields, they have the buff called "Strong" which is dictated by their shield strength. This buff takes damage first before the health bar. Excess damage will also not be translated to the health bar unless the ability used does so. The Strong buff gets replenished a bit at the beginning of their round. Their three different subclasses are:

Defender

The Defender's tasked with keeping all of the other praetorians alive at all costs, with several abilities centred around keeping them alive.

Tier one:

• Brace: Regain two stacks of Strong.
• Bastion: +10 to all Resistances. +10 to Maximum Resistance. (Passive)

Tier two: You must spend one skill point in the ability branch to be able to unlock this tier.

• Fortress: Brace restores 25% Shield Strength per stack of Strong. – Requires Bastion to unlock. (Passive)
• Repair: Applies jury-rigged to self, becoming immune to all negative statuses that affect shields. (This ability has three charges.)

Tier three: You must spend four skill points in the ability branch to be able to unlock this tier. 

• Protect: Applies protected to allies, which will halve the damage the ally receives and shared with the caster.
• Shake It Off: 20% chance at the beginning of your turn to automatically cure one negative status effect currently affecting the character. (Passive)

Tier four: You must spend seven skill points in the ability branch to be able to unlock this tier.

• Guardian Angel: Protected now additionally redirects status effects towards the Protecting character. – Requires Protect to unlock. (Passive)
• Shield Wall: Applies Shield Walled (+250% Shield Strength Maximum) and Exhausted (Lose all Strong stacks and cannot restore Shield Strength at the beginning of the turn) to self. Then restores Shield Strength to full. (This ability has one charge)

The most important build for Defenders are centring their skill points on Protect to make sure that the most important ally in any given battle is alive. These are best paired with high-damage characters and to prevent any unnecessary deaths. This subclass works more as a second support than a frontline tank, and it is due to this that they're best paired with the Vanguard subclass, which will skyrocket their survivability.

Vanguard

Vanguard is meant to be the frontline tank, with all of its passives and abilities centred around tankiness and using abilities to disable the enemies, locking them down, and taunting them to prevent them from attacking the other members.

Tier one:

• Hardened: +10% Health Maximum. (Passive)
• Frighten: -10 Morale to all enemies within a two hex radius.

Tier two: You must spend one skill point in the ability branch to be able to unlock this tier.

• The Best Defence: +20% Shield Damage when at full Shield Strength. (Passive)
• Flawless Defence: Applies defending to Self, which increases all Resistances equal to the highest Resistance, increasing Maximum Resistance by 10%, but removing three points of Movement. (This ability has three charges)

Tier three: You must spend four skill points in the ability branch to be able to unlock this tier.

• Taunt: Forces an enemy to attack the character at the start of their turn with a range of six hexes. 
• Adrenaline Junkie: +50% damage when Health is below 25%. (Passive)

Tier four: You must spend seven skill points in the ability branch to be able to unlock this tier.

• Bull Rush: Move in a straight line, hitting and knocking down all characters on the way, including allies. (This ability has one charge)
• Avenger: When an ally is Incapacitated or killed, Shield Strength is restored to full and damage is increased by +20% for the rest of the encounter. (Passive)

Vanguards make for the tankiest of the subclasses. They are meant to charge into the middle of the battle and take on everything. Bull Rush will be useful as the charge ability that will allow the character to be placed in the middle of the battlefield, with several passives and abilities meant to allow them to survive long enough to make use of Avenger. The Vanguard subclass can be paired with either Defender to ensure a strong and protective support or Veteran for a damage-dealing heavy centred around knocking down and stunning enemies.

Veteran

Veterans are the most mobile of the subclasses whilst also incorporating heavy CC into their kit, allowing them to play well as Princeps built for aggression and damage dealing.

Tier one:

• Nimble: -1 Movement reduction from wearing light armour or heavier. (Passive)
• Knockdown: Deals bludgeoning damage and knocks enemies down. (This ability has two charges)

Tier two: You must spend one skill point in the ability branch to be able to unlock this tier.

• Headbutt: Deals bludgeoning damage, reducing enemy damage by -50%. If the enemy already has a stack of either Weakened or Harried, they will be stunned instead. (This ability has three charges)
• Opportunist: Your attacks of opportunity apply Weakened, which reduces the enemy's damage by -50% (Passive)

Tier three: You must spend four skill points in the ability branch to be able to unlock this tier.

• Battering Ram: +1 Base damage to the equipped shield. (Passive)
• Stand Fast: Applies standing fast to allies, making them immune to crippled, stuck, stunned, and knocked down, also removing stunned, stuck, and two stacks of knocked down from allies affected by it.

Tier four: You must spend seven skill points in the ability branch to be able to unlock this tier.

• War Cry: Applies stunned to enemies within a 1 hex radius. (This ability has one charge)
• Immovable: Grants permanent immunity against getting moved by any ability. (Passive)

The Veteran's abilities allow for the Princeps to become some of the strongest damage dealers present in the game. With almost every ability present in their skill tree allowing for any form of disabling the opponents, while Battering Ram allows the shields that have damaging abilities to have an even higher output. The Nimble ability is important to just about any build, allowing the Princeps to keep up with high-mobility classes such as Veles and Sagittarius. The Veteran is best mixed with Vanguard to make for a tanky damage dealer, especially when skills such as "The Best Defence" from the Vanguard, and "Battering Ram" from Veteran synergise so well. However, when paired with the Defender subclass, this will allow the Veteran to become a great defence to any character, while also being able to lock down any priority targets.

Verdict

Overall, the Princeps is a great starter class for any newcomers, with a lot of building options that will allow versatility to the main character, with several builds that are going to be useful; you can never have too many Princeps in your party. This is especially true given the Princeps is one of the only classes that has great synergy among all of its subclasses, making versatile building easy and fun.

Make sure to check the other three guides, each depicting all of the abilities and their separate builds and uses on the battlefield, such as the Sagittarius, Veles, and Triarchus when they are out, and make sure to tell me down in the comments below which class you went for!