I borrowed from one of my posts on Ork classes. While there were several class discussions on all the various classes, I've yet to see a thread specifically outlining why a "Warboss" class should be one of the non-hero playable classes.

JUSTIFICATION:

I don't think you can do justice to the 40K Ork faction, without having a persistent presence of some sort of "Boss" type class on the battlefield. Now while there might be "named" hero Warbosses in game as well, I'm assuming that's NOT going to be omnipresent on the battlefield.

If you look at Dawn of War 2, each faction had named heroes that each had a specialty. While none were truly epic or heroes of sorts in my opinion, each played a specific "class" role according to the lore. The Ork faction Warboss is no exception. I think if you toned down some of the weapon types and overall damage, a similar "Warboss".. that's NOT a hero class, could be implemented into EC, or should I say, MUST be implemented for EC as a regular, playable class.

The Ork faction, more so than any other faction in Eternal Crusade, according to lore, is extremely dependent on the Warbosses presence on the battlefield. Omitting their presence 24/7 for occasional, player spawned Hero Warboss would be shortchanging Ork faction players.

Having players running around playing as various nobs, meks, shootas is great and all, but playing the Ork faction just wont do justice to the Orks if they don't have a boss class helping lead the charge.

CLASS MECHANICS:

As far as mechanics, the boss class would be a "buffing" class as well as an AOE healer.

-80% buffer, 20% healer.
-Buffing run speed, toughness, attack speed(melee), reload speed(shootas), accuracy, damage.
-Possibility of applying debuffs to enemies within his area of influence
-Allowing players to spawn directly off the Warbosses location via special mechanic. Players spawning in on the Warboss could be triggered by enemies killed nearby, or some other similar mechanic.
- Boss could only have one buff or debuff up at a time, with some overlap(think twisting Chosen and Knights of the Blazing Sun Auras in Warhammer Online).
-Buffs would be centered off the Warboss, and the radius of the buffs and heals could be increased via points spent or pieces of gear.

- A "momentum" or "green tide" mechanic could also be added, via specialty tree or gear, where the more enemies killed in the immediate area of the boss, the stronger the buffs become along with increased duration(longa and stronga!)

-Warboss buffs CANNOT stack. That is to say, multiple Bosses in the same area cant stack multiple buffs on multiple players. Any given player, at any given time, can only have 2 buffs from any given Warboss.

CONCLUSION:

Developing the Warboss(non hero) class as a buffing class, with minor aoe heals or heal over time, without many individual skills would make for an outstanding class. Think tons of HP, hits like a truck, with slow attack speed, and perhaps a slow firing off hand ranged weapon, the Warboss class could be kept in check from becoming overpowered.

While the Warboss wouldnt excel or stand out as far as individual abilities or their overall damage output, they would only truly shine in a group setting. The special individual abilities and high damage would be reserved for named Hero Class Warbosses.

All said, I hope the amount of information(or lack there of) we're receiving on the Ork faction, compared to the amount of information they've released on SMs isn't a reflection of the amount of dev time being put into the Ork classes and models. If Ork classes, mechanics, models and playable hero classes end up being subpar to their SM counterparts.. well, enjoy every campaign boiling down to SM vs CSM... yawn...

It would be like a nob+
I like this

Hopefully the non stacking buffs would keep them from being spamed

@ Savij..

Perhaps, perhaps not.

I mostly know Warhammer Fantasy lore. There were always multiple factions, with multiple bosses fighting amongst themselves. Many Ork uprisings versus humans only occurred as a result when one boss kills off a bunch of other bosses and absorbs multiple clans under one banner. So it could play out rather well.

As far as players spamming the class itself, I think most casual players, once they figure out this type of class doesn't have any spectacular individual abilities, and lacks sustainable high dps, they'll move on to something more flashy. Long time MMO players will know that having more than 1 or 2 bosses in a 10 to 20 man group won't work to their advantage. So I really don't think developing such a class would result in a planet being swarmed with bosses.

I'm pretty sure I read something about Priests and Wolf Priests being a playable class, as in non hero.... if that's the case I'm sure were going to see those type classes in vastly larger numbers than you read about in the lore, so why would it be any different for a boss type class for the Orks?

War Council members could be called as Warbosses even if they're just veteran Ork players. Only problem I see is that Warbosses tend to be huge in lore but since EC won't have Ork players gradually growing up (citation needed), normal sized Orks as Warbosses seem out of place.

I am going to humor the idea, its easy to say no to so how can we make it work.

According to lexicanum a warboss once killed will have its place taken by the next biggest ork, after restoring order by brutal means if necessary, so if there is a hard cap there could be a few bosses for each tribe with a "Great boss" to lead them all, i can not remember the name but i saw it in GW related page a big giant ork warboss with a grott on his shoulders, he was huge, Orks grow through their entire life so would it be that wrong to think there might be bigger orks guiding it all including warboss type orks?

Example from warhammer 40k wiki.

A distinction between warboss and warlord, there is room to poke at the idea and see were it leads though, but i do think this should be in moderation with hard caps in how many warbosses can be out there fighting.

A cheap hero class type of unit would be perhaps prevalent for the Ork warboss class.

So what do we do with orks that just survive through the nob stage and meganobz? who manage to grow that big? Orks just fight it out until there is only 1 left, but what if there is 4 very big ones warlords bigger then warbosses keeping the other in line including the war-bosses.

Gorgutz 'Ead 'Unter is an OrkWarlord who was originally a Warboss of the Evil Sunz Clan, and was involved in three major campaigns against the military forces of the Imperium of Man and most of the other major intelligent species of the galaxy during the final century of the 41st Millennium.

Warlords and other titles

Particularly dominant and successful Warbosses are called "Warlords" or "Great Bosses". Tribe after tribe will flock to such a prominent leader, forming a massive Ork horde. The most notorious Warlord is Ghazghkull Thraka, who almost all Orks revere, that is, if they are smart enough to.
The most powerful and successful Warbosses may instead refer to themselves by a unique and impressive title of their own devising, such as the "Arch-arsonist" of Charadon

Im for a warboss by any other name. Can't we call em Boss Nobs or something. Still id like to see em built like the dawn Of war 2 retribution warboss. Shooter in one hand 'uge choppa in the other. boss pole.....awesome hat (optional).

But id love to see huge Orkz that are buff or support characters.

Making the Warboss into a support class just doesn't sit right with me. They're Warbosses because they're the biggest and the strongest, not because they patch everybody up or make their allies stronger. Warbosses would need to be weaker in comparison to the other combat focused classes to balance out their support abilities and a weak Warboss wouldn't be a Warboss for much longer in Ork society.

I'm not against the idea of group buffing via Nobs giving up a gear slot to take a boss pole or something similar. I just think that a Warboss should always be one of the deadliest classes in the game and trying to fit them in as a non-hero class would take that away.

Ill stick what I said about this last time.

No to Warboss being a class that every Tom,Dick and Harry can play. (in this case every Bork,Fork and Orkky can play)

But this does not mean that I am against the Idea of a playable Warboss class.

I just want it to be for the a few privileged ones. Like a class only for commanders/ leaders. It can be on a very long cool down.

As the leaders and counsel will not be made out of the same people all the time, it will be rotating due to electing or pit-fighting or what ever Behaviour thinks up of.

It would be fair to say that those who worked hard and deserved to be the leaders are rewarded with the Warboss class.

how about if Warboss is not the only option but you get Big-Mek too!!! (might as well throw that in, as we are just wishing right?)

Both Warboss and Big-Mek can share Timer. so you Can only be one. They both can do similar things like the Nobz and Meks but with a small boost. Let that be more health or more strength , or like the OP said can have Buffs for the Boyz around him. ( in case of Mek for vehicles)

See this is the reason I hate talking about "us discussing game mechanics" about a game that has very little known about it. We can just cook up any thing.

So Ill stop all my wishful thinking and say this in the end: Yes I like your idea about a Warboss. But not for every one.

As I said in ork classes: Warboss really good idea but every time someone from war council will be warboss, this would be unfair to other players who want to be warbosses too. Other factions also won't have units similar to warboss, like chaos lord or captain space marine. But the abilities that psychovski said could be included. Orks power in their numbers so than more orks stay together like a group they get bonus to damage, xp and like that or when you reach sertain level you can add banners to back of your hero and these banners can heal, add bonuses and like that to you and orks around you