Standing firm on the notion, a benefit will be used to its maximum potential by a wise man. Since the launch of GW2 ive been playing with a professional guild and we owned, we were glorified and praised cause we won with impossible odds, cause we defended the undefendable.

How? By taking every benefit the game throws at us and melding it to compliment the situations we face.
This meant for example that the same classes like the Guardian, Warrior, Mesmer and Necro all had different builds to envelop as much of the benefits the trait system of the game gave us. Each buff, each food and stat booster was adequately given to the one that benefited the most from it. When most people rolled a single type of build in their raids for a class we had 2 guardian builds, 2 mesmer builds, 3 warrior builds all paired with the other classes.
And you know what, it showed. The synergies that we made were overlooked cause they didnt excel in certain situations, yet we found where they did excel and we dominated with those cause the enemy was clueless to something they thought was insignificant.

I repeat, a good commander will make you eat dirt if you overlook the small details. And those were battles of 200+ men, those wont be a rarity on EC, not every battle out there will be 500v500. And like i said, in those battles it will be harder to exploit the benefits, yet people will try and the impact however insignificant in the eye of someone who didnt study the subject they are facing on the battlefield in EC will stand there not knowing how they lost.

Also one very important thing you need to know before you hope for an overbalanced game is that the devs have many times over mentioned the concept of "abstract" balance and that Miguel himself said something on the lines of "war isnt balanced". So theres that too.

It's not the developers that contribute to the stat problem so much as the mentality of the players (and they're not really a problem either, more like just the way it is). An abstract balance will still be quantifiable in terms of what is best. The players are like running water; they will erode the boundaries you think they'll follow until it suits their playstyle... or the water dries up and it goes somewhere else. Blizzard wrote about this in one of their dev blogs. They mentioned that they learned that players will play the game their way, and they'll find every way to circumvent the way you intend them to play.

See, you're referencing an organized team of good players. Those are the outliers in a game. The typical player isn't a "professional" as you described. Statistical difference will matter to the best players, but they're the outliers. It won't make a difference to the typical players who will form the bulk of the gameplay experience.

Also, for every game you can reference where the mods apparently mattered, I can reference another game where the mods don't make a significant impact.

You know, tattoos are probably the answer. The ork clans will be using the primary colors which will obviously be pretty distinct from one another, and then they'll have tattoos and stuff of the same color on their skin.

Should be fine.

What does it matter in which circles the benefit rears its head, it rears its head all the same and those who know to use it will use it. How much it will effect the pugs is debatable, there are core best in slot and DPS builds in GW2 too, yet arguably only half of the RvR population follows them, the others constantly invent new and usually very interesting and helpful builds that they roll in the pugs, a trait that still lingers from GW1 days of a million skills as your options.

The issue will exist, i need not go further than that, its size is irrelevant to the solution im asking for.
Im not asking them to reinvent the wheel, im asking the Ork players for what signifies klans most and what is the most visible part of one persons belonging to the said klan.
That was the actual topic which should be discussed here, and this write up between us steered it far enough from the original question, so lets just say i have personal experience behind my claim, and it seems you have some as well. Lets keep it at that and let the topic run back on course.

Tattoos are small though, or better said theres no part on an Ork which can have a big enough tattoo to be visible from a distance, unlike the other races who are totally colored in their colors from head to toe.
Perhaps a banner of sorts.

Ork tattoos are more like just dumping paint on yourself rather than intricate human styled tattoos. The main difference between Space Marines will be color when seen at a distance. As long as the orks have enough color, it'll serve for them as well. If the game is anything like Relic's Space Marine, you'll be able to distinctly see player's color schemes just simply due to how striking they can be from one another and how big the models are. Orks can qualify for both of those.

In regards to GW2, if what you're saying is true, that is what makes GW2 unique because everywhere else you get the cookie cutter effect, and there is little to no deviation from it. In Magic the Gathering, you've got the "top tier deck combinations" and the "counter top tier deck combinations." In Call of Duty, you've got the designated best weapon with its associated optimized perks. In CoD4 it was the P90, in CoD6, it was the AK-74u. In battlefield, it was explosive ammo, then it was steel dart shotguns. In Relic's Space Marine, it's meltagun/stalker bolter and chainsword ASMs. There's always the statistically best combinations to use that people gravitate towards. That's why I think it'd be better if there was no difference at all between the subfactions. The fact that the factions themselves will already be different is enough cause for min/max stat crunching behavior.

If EC turns out the way you describe GW2, which I struggle to visualize, then the stat mods could make enough of a difference that you would care to differentiate players. If it's not, then it'll be like I said, a negligible difference that will be overlooked except by particular stats that happen to be distinctly better than the others.

That picture would help differ klans greatly, though the question remains how happy Orks players will be to all be forced to wear warpaint, thats up for them to see.

As for the rest, going by the devs opinions of balance i stated above i believe it wont be a simple paintjob (further given fuel by the existence of actual subfaction specific abilities/accessories/weapons).
The bland nature of the listed games (of which i played most) is naturally bland cause it strives for perfect balance, cause it strives for competetivenes on the lines of E-sports. I played both Quake 3 and CS 1.6 religiously and for money. And while i love them both to death i dont want to see Behavior try and make balance of that caliber.
EC wont be an E-sports, its balance is already said to be abstract and that we should deal with the notion that war isnt balanced.

This is also what made GW1 great, sure there were builds that were popular and used allot, but the sheer freedom the game made tons of other ways of play available. It wont be like that in EC, but subfactions surely wont be a paintjob.

It won't matter what the devs design EC to be played as. Shooters and action games are competitive. The gaming culture has evolved to be this way; the game's intent won't make a difference. The people will play it their way, and their way is to min/max stats to get the optimum payload. It'll take some months for the best concepts to circulate, but it'll happen.

Example: Relic's Space Marine? That was definitely not intended to be an e-sport, but every time you play the game you're going go see players using the optimum combinations: meltagun/stalker pattern for tacs, chainsword for ASMs, and lascannon for devastators. You'll have a noob here or there who doesn't know any better, and you'll have a hipster here and there who is trying to not be part of the conformity, but that's going to be like 1 or 2 people out the match.

That's just the way people are. In Magic the Gathering, we refer to that mentality as "Spike Tournament Player" which is the player mentality that the only good options are the optimum (best chances at winning) options.

As far as things like tattoos go? Well, the players are already going to have to deal with the prospect of enforced sub-faction colors. You'll just have to deal with a little extra if you're an ork.

Whats your posts point? I never denied the nature of min maxing irrelevant of the games or devs wishes, it will be no different here. Yet like i said EC isnt going to be an E-sport and the devs arent gonna go and balance every single thing the players complain about. Your little boycott on subfactions mattering wont make anything different, min-maxing will exist irrelevant of the existence of subfaction specific things.

Notice how Brents quote says some of these things will be situational, you cannot min-max situational things.
A flame resistance for Salamanders is situational and is only useful if certain criteria of a situation are met, you cannot put a min-max on that.

What your point implies is min-maxing outside the spectrum of subfaction abilities, of min-maxing trait trees that are available to all the subfactions, and that isnt the thread to discuss this nor does it touch upon subfactions at all.

Oh, you can min/max situational things. You ever play the game Blood Bowl? That game is all about the chance of the dice and situational abilities, yet it can still be disected and min/maxed to the point that you will see a homogenization of gameplay tactics. There will be optimum gameplay tactics that fall into specific groups. Caging is an example in Blood Bowl, that's just a tried and true method that most players are going to use. All of the other methods in the game don't matter if there are a select few methods that are more reliable. That is how situational abilities are marginalized.

Here's how it works. Situational abilities become marginalized. Players will gravitate away from abilities that only work in seldom situations and instead prefer abilities that are active in larger situations.

Let's say that Salamanders got 50% fire resistance, if fire weapons aren't hugely popular (you are encountering flame weapons on a regular basis), players would favor a subfaction with... +5% melee damage instead because it is a consistently active effect. It's better to have a small bonus that is reliably in effect than a big bonus that only works once in a great while.

Let's say EVERYONE had situational abilities. Some of those abilities will have to be less situational than others. Players will gravitate towards those abilities.

What my point implies is that the mentality of players is that they will always gravitate towards whatever is statistically the best, and that's just 1 reason why I don't think the subfaction mods won't really matter. The other reason is that the mods could just be very subtle, like each faction gets +5% to some attribute. That's incredibly subtle. No one is going to care if the mods are like that.

Thats entirely based on speculation, i would personally rather have a whopping 50% of a element resist than a measly 5% of melee dps. I would go where im needed and where my subfactions benefits give me the most advantage, like in the flamer incidents which you speculate will be rare.

And i said before you think noones going to care, those that know to use the benefit and are in command will care. A 5% boost to melee DPS in a 20v20 will matter, and the people with the 5% boost times 20 will win if both are of equal skill. You are just running in circles, im truly unaware of what you are trying to do here when i have witnessed first hand on tried examples what im writing, and succeeded in exploiting it.