You guys are fighting over +5 leadership a soldier gets in the fort battle? grow up seeesh!
From my experience as a soldier, I really don't see the point of most of its bonuses as they are based on skill points. I'd rather become a dueler(for dueling) or adventurer(for fort battles) instead.
TBH, A soldier can't do lots of quests without venturing out of the soldier build( high strenght/charisma).....I haven't been able to complete any of the new questlines that they have and won't be able to for a very very long time(including the questline introduced in this update) and that is more than a fair share for a weakness. Even the 50% tactics bonus is useless after reaching a limit(I think it was limited the same time resistance was limited to 1/4th of the weapon's damage range...they could still get beaten by a pure resistance player).
So lets see, soldier's get beaten up badly in fort battles from all the critical shots from the duelers(and again, the bonus only applies if you have the skill points into HP), their weapon bonus is useless after reaching level 75, their tactics bonus has limited effect on defense dueling(since the appearance and tactics have capped effects on duels) and at last leadership bonus which is only useful in the fort battle IF you have put your skill points in it! And might I remind you, they only get 4 bonuses instead of 5 which all other classes get....which makes soldiers a miserable class to choose atm.
I'd recommend to make all classes equal by giving them similar bonuses that depend on skill points and give soldiers some bonuses that don't depend on skills but that's a whole different topic so lets leave it at that.
Thanks to this update, the only major thing affecting a duel is luck(aside from aim/dodge). The appearance/tactics part of the system was weakened, the damage inflicted/ resistance part of it was weakened.....the way I see it, the devs are pushing it in the right direction for us to get used to the new dueling system(which they were talking about at the start of the year).
The avatars need to be refined a bit more and it makes sense that only premium players can change their avatars completely. All in all, this may not be the best update but it's pretty decent and helpful for quest seekers, duelers and fort battlers