But, both times Battle was in power. If you play a small number of hours at the same time each day, you might find yourself helping out the wrong end of a pendulum swing. My last Nexun suffered from Fortoclockitis and for a good portion of his life he might as well have been an Imperial. That being said, you'll go through swings of every kind, and get to fight almost everyone who's not a neutral/neutral. To me, that's one of the perks.

I'm kind of surprised that some PK/RP badass hasn't made a name with a Nexun. You've got plenty of options, from wading into that group of helpless Fort newbs to coordinating a group to take out the latest evil uberchar.

Also, your cabalmates usually come through for you, except for cases of newbness (and I'd put Nexus as second to Fort for ratio of new players.) Nobody trusts a Nexun, and many outright dislike them. That leaves your cabalmates as the most reliable allies by far.

Finally, vanguard really is that good. If orderly and evil are tipping the scales badly, Vanguard is a hell of a lot better then stone skin against an Imperial, for example. It's also very, very good against deathblow and other high damage skills and spells like ambush, invoker spells, backstab, etc. This becomes less true the more preps you've used beforehand, however.

Bond can be hit or miss, depends on what classes in your cabal are playing at the moment. Some are underwhelming, some are frigging awesome. A warrior/offensive shifter bond is a wrecking ball.