Making an engaging warrior class

I agree with @woootbm that you always want to be presenting interesting choices during combat, for every character class. Powerful active buffs that require your turn and buff up your basic attack (and your other attack-type skills) can be great tools to give Warriors. This presents the choice between getting off some damage immediately, versus building up for a volley of truly powerful attacks a few turns later.

I agree, a character that only uses basic attacks might as well be A.I. controled

I've built most of my characters/classes on my Eternal Twilight game to be as unique in their role as possible, making sure that whatever they bring to the table is different from the rest.

The warrior in my game gains "combo points" by using his filler attacks to build up and unleash his finisher attack.

He has a damage over time skill, an AOE attack, and a meddley of party-wide and self buffs.

His main mechanic is his EMRBACE aura, which increases all sorts of defensive stats for the whole party while he has it active. This skill is toggle-able and it drains his TP every turn to remain active, and because it's so powerful, you WANT to keep active at almost all times.

Many of his other buffs also cost TP, so to play him effectively you want to balance his TP usage and gain to maximize his buffs and embrace all while making the most of his combo points + finisher.

People seem to really enjoy his playstyle from what i've seen in feedback.

So I just finished fleshing out a warrior character's skill set for a quick side/experimental project (it's Therese, of all people!) and am pretty pleased with how it turned out. There's a few typical warrior-ish skills that deal damage and debuff the target's stats, etc that are always available like any other set of character skills. The rest of her abilities work by activating one of 3 stances. Each stance adjusts atk and def in various ways and grants access to a few additional skills themed around that stance:

• Gladiator Stance (balanced) gives her access to a few mid-range utility-themed attacks and allows her to sometimes counter physical attacks.
• Defensive Stance (tank) boosts her defense, lowers her offense, and allows her to taunt and sometimes counter physical attacks with a small self-heal and magical attacks with mp recovery.
• Blademaster Stance (offense), boosts her offense, lowers her defense, and gives her access to a powerful single target attack and a solid aoe attack. Squishy but deadly, just like a mage.

This whole thing took a few Yanfly plugins to get working properly, such as stances persisting after combat/death/rest/the end of the world/etc, the active stance not being usable repeatedly every turn (because that'd be pointless), emptying the limit break (TP) gauge upon switching as a stance-dance deterrent, and soforth. But overall? I'm pleased with how it turned out, and it isn't an attack-spam bot. ;)

When I think of warriors, I often think of axe-based fighters that are more of a "bruiser" or "off tank" or "tanky DPS." I think having moments where they make themselves more vulnerable for having higher damage output for a short time. If lowering the warrior's defense really doesn't make sense in your game, you can find other consequences to work with like making them Berserk state for a time so they can't control who they hit or use skills.

Timing these DPS increases with the rest of the party's buffs like a thief who makes the enemy more vulnerable or a bard that uses an attack increasing song for the greatest output is very satisfying. Having the healer interact with the warrior by removing the negative state caused by the berserk is also engaging and fun, especially when you plan this decision ahead of time in a battle.

For my main project, Arcane Paradise, the Warrior character’s levels up to learn 3 simple skills with limited utility. But since this game uses a simple skill points system (like Dragon Quest VII’s), her skills within that tree are wild, attack oriented, and generally brutal. She also is the only character who can receive up to 3 three turns if you go down the ‘passives’ tree.

While in theory this seems like a good route, I haven’t gotten enough of the game made to say if it will be fun in practice against rando fights. At least in battle testing she has been a fun, high damage dealing member. Those extra turns also means that her limited utility abilities are somewhat more effective.