How do you develop your Princeps?

[nemserultnem]

For me the first several levels are obvious - the Veteran tree has the must-haves. Opportunist lets you actually lock & tank your enemies, +movement is always essential, Knockdown lets you disable enemies and then the War cry is a gamechanger and trivializes some of the most challenging situations.

I also found Brace to be a very useful pick to apply deflect on yourself if you're out of attack options & expect to be hit.

But what then? Which tree / skills to go for, what is your Princeps development strategy?

[Aimstrong]

Finished the game on insane with 3 princeps using very few talents in Defender:
-Brace lvl1 for all 3
-Bastion for all 3 (all res +max res)
-Repair on 1
All the others are optional in my opinion.
The encounters in the game don't really make that tree shine (ex:very hard hitting bosses with 2 attacks in a turn that need taunting or even better have special mechanics like always attacks the closest squad member )
All the rest went in Veteran mainly (Movement,Knockdown, Opportunist, Stand Fast, Warcry) and some in Vanguard (HP and some others that are again optional).
Even though I skilled Bull Rush I ended up never using it.

[Chaoslink]

Bull Rush can be good in some situations, though it’s definitely a little situational. However, it’s nasty on Daeinera if you have that special axe she gets. I forget the wording, but basically it gives her a cleave passive. So when you bull rush through a line of enemies that are all adjacent to one another, the damage of the rush attack will cleave. So the first guy takes damage which causes the second to also take damage. Then the second guy is hit, hurting the first and third too and so on. You can sometimes instantly kill the middle guys because they’re taking hits three times in there and since the knockdown turns off shields, much of the damage can’t be blocked by shielded enemies. It’s a pretty nasty combo.

[raphoux69]

Veteran, then shield related perk, forget the left tree or 1 point to gain stack of strong.
To be more precise, you will always have a point for your stack of strong with deianeira and Caeso, so just focus on veteran then the second tree.
Why ?
Princeps only shines with it's CC. Tackle is really good and warcry is insane setup for your destroyere triarius.
The second tree is nice, but nothing amazing. More shield damage when full health rarely procs but you will get HP which is always nice. The further skills are useful, especially the -10 morale one if you cannot do anything else, or want to spam morale debuffs.
The first tree is not bad, but has one key weakness. It generally only works for damage mitigation for you and later on for a buddy or two. The problem is, in this game you will always be on the back foot number wise, and thus you will need DPS. Plus, things like warcry (2hex area stun) is also a damage mitigator since they cannot do anything else if they're stunned, obviously.
Veteran is just too good to pass up. Buffing up survival is ok, but princeps are already hard to kill so better be useful for your allies and set them up for their DPS. Princeps are more of a support. They don't need to be built as a tank since they already are one. Better be then a nuisance for the ennemies and a setup for your buddies.

[nicolasco]

I usually build the tank as the controller. If you give them a weapon with Defensive strike, they are already tanky, as raphoux69 said. My tank is usually occupied with delivering damage + protection (with Defensive strike), and/or threatening to hold enemies in place (with stunning counterattacks, Harpy affix is great for that). War cry ability is nice for control.

Thus, you just don't have an action point to spare for any other ability. They are pretty meh in comparison with the controlling ones. Bull rush looks good on paper, but is very situational, requires a couple of spaces for direct movement, and has many useless perks as a pre-requisite.

This gives us the space for any abilities that do not require to spend an action point. They are just two: Shield Wall and Flawless Defense. The combo of Flawless defense and Bastion is great and should be taken in the mid-game. By the end-game you can go either shield wall or bull rush... it doesn't matter, the game is almost over by then.

For the sake of diversity, I usually develop Caeso as a true tank (Veteran 9 / Vanguard 3/ Defender 8), and Deineira is my 'mobile off-tank controller' with Veteran 9 / Vanguard 8 / usually Brace 2+ Fortress). My MC is never a princeps.

[Trolleur_Durden]

In short (because I've already ranted about it in another thread :) ), the Princeps has very good weapon skills and a poor action economy with his active skills, therefore the way to go is to take mostly passives and only the best active skills, like Brace or Warcry.