A survey can ask the question, How important is the warlord class to you? And then compare the results of the other questions according to those who have a strong interest.
If the warlord fan base is split on any topic, an archetype can be build for each preference.
Right... but that's favouring a disproportionately small percentage of the fanbase. There are almost as many new fans of D&D as old, and of the old fans most probably were indifferent to the warlord.
Why make a class and then purposely cater it towards a small minority?
Isn't the best design to make the class as popular with as broad an audience as possible so the most people will play it? What's the point of making content that the majority of the fanbase is not interested in?
The ‘lazy lord’ is a salient favorite of the fanbase, is mechanically interesting, and probably makes a great subclass. The lazy lord is more like a coach. As someone who ‘leads from behind’, the lazy lord is a vivid archetype. Moreso than the other warlord subclasses, the lazy lord is especially the ‘tactician’.
But, of course, the lazy lord or "princess warlord" is a fan build that doesn't appear in any books. So making it a major basis of the basis of the class feels a little odd.
Given the majority of D&D fans don't ever visit the forums, it stands to reason the majority of warlord fans will have no idea what the lazylord is.
(It was also popular because it focused on breaking the warlord, by making the secondary stat the primary one granting bonuses higher than normal making it unusually strong. But it was also a late edition build. A noteworthy
thread on the subject being in 2010 and also dipping into bard.)
Status removal -> Prevent status in the first place. (reroll a failed save).
[...]
resurrection -> Prevent death in the first place. (THP, bonus AC).
Right, but it's not going to negate them. Even with a cleric or a bard at the table, a character can still die or be turned to stone. Sometimes the dice are just cold.
The whole point of
lesser restoration and
greater restoration and
raise dead is getting the character back after something bad happens, and the warlord simply cannot replicate those effects. They'll never have full symmetry with a cleric/bard /druid / sorcerer/ warlock that is specced to be the "healer".
So... why try and fit into that design space? The warlord is a square peg and the 5e leader role is a round hole, and it's doing a disservice to the squareness of the peg to shave down its sides and make it less square just to cram it into that hole. Let it embrace its squareness.
It feels a little like trying to make a wizard a tank. Sure, you can get it to work a lot of the time, and it can hold its own under ideal circumstances but it will never be remotely as effective as even a half-assed fighter.
Seems more effective to focus on making the warlord something else than a replacement cleric for an edition that doesn't really need more replacement clerics.