Anyway, True Strike won't help much.
All weapons have max runes (elemental and fondamental).
Purple: Warpriest d10 spell.
Red: Warpriest d12 weapon 3 attacks.
Orange: Warpriest d10 spell + Shortbow attack.
Green: Warpriest True Strike + Bespell Weapon + d12 weapon 2 attacks (only valid at level 8 and above).
Blue: Barbarian d12 weapon.
So, what we can see is that even with the best of the best optimization, you won't get much out of a melee Warpriest compared to a d10 spell and a bow shot.
I dunno. Your graph says that true strike with attacks gets you around 10 more damage than a bow at any given point.
The other note is that true strike is intended to be used with Channel Smite. Are you able to add a Channel Smite line in as well?
Red: Fury Barbarian d12 weapon 3 attacks (no feat, so kind of a minimum build).
Deep Blue: True Strike + Bespell Weapon + d12 Channel Smite.
Green: 2d6 per level spell + Dangerous Sorcery + Bespell Weapon + Shortbow.
Purple: 1d10 Harm + Dangerous Sorcery + Bespell Weapon + d12 Weapon 2 attacks.
Clear Blue: 2 1d10 Harm + Dangerous Sorcery + Bespell Weapon + d12 Weapon attack.
Orange: 3 1d10 Harm + Dangerous Sorcery.
As we can see, True Strike + Bespell Weapon + Channel Smite is just average compared to the other alternatives. And it's the heaviest build in terms of feats and action economy (you need 3 actions when the others are fine with only 2, so don't expect to use it often).
For a Warpriest to shine, you need to base most of your damage on spells, not strikes. Strikes are the nice third action.
Hmmm. I still think we're missing something here.
Unloading triple-harm in a vacuum is going to beat anything, but it's also going to burn through an entire fight's worth of resources in a single round.
I did my evaluation of Channel Smite under the assumption that it's much easier to manipulate the situation to maximise its effectiveness.
With harm, there's not that much you can do tactically to increase its effectiveness. Frightening or sickening the foe is generally about it.
With Channel Smite, we can always have status buffs online, and we can flank, and still benefit from frightened or sickened. (Heck, even clumsy is easier to inflict than drained.) Also, true strike/Channel doesn't trigger Attacks of Opportunity when that's relevant.
We're comparing Sorcerer Dedication + Dangerous Sorcery against Channel Smite + Divine Weapon. The former hits harder in a vacuum, but the latter is more resource efficient and applies its bonus with every spell we cast.
I also need to look at Cast Down.
I do appreciate the graphs. But, from the perspective of building this guide, my job isn't just to find the optimal solution, it's also to find the situations where each option is optimal.
We're not missing anything.
Channel Smite makes you lose damage compared to Harm + Strike. With True Strike, it evens out. It's nice but it can't be your bread and butter attack. First, because it costs a lot of resources. And second because you need all your three actions to unload it. But it's very nice to have, against AoO enemies or those who have low AC/high Fortitude (whatever the reason they have low AC). It just won't make you shine on its own.
If you want to contribute only through weapons, play a martial (or martial gish). If you want to play a successful caster gish, you have to mix spells and attacks. That's obvious when you think about it: If there was a way to massively increase your melee damage output through caster multiclassing, all martial guides would tell you to do that.
I think I'll be presenting Channel Smite as a tactical option for low-WIS builds only, and presenting Harm (and Cast Down) as a good option for high-WIS builds.
I mostly like Channel Smite as a potentially efficient nuke- when you get stuff lined up, it can be very strong for what you spend (given that a 1st level slot isn't much of an additional cost). Also, when you have a starting array of something like 16/12/12/10/12/16, Harm is very weak for a long time.
Cast Down/Harm/Strike seems very good for Wisdom builds. You choke an enemy action on having to stand up and let the team dogpile. There is a bit of awkwardness in that if you want Dangerous Sorcery it's a little awkward to get on a high-WIS build... maybe 16 WIS gets the best of both worlds. 16/12/10/10/16/14 is fragile as hell, but can access Sorcerer, while 16/12/12/10/16/12 can pick up Sorcerer later and be more functional early to compensate.
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In my opinion, you need high Wisdom on a Warpriest. Channel Smite is a tactical option, but as I said above, it's not your bread and butter strategy. Having decent damage output 5 times a day and then go down to abismal efficiency is completely lame. Striking with a Warpriest puts you at 50% of a martial's damage, it's basically useless.
If I build a Warpriest, I'd go with 18 Wisdom and 16 Strength. Yes, it means low defensive abilities and not a lot of fonts. But that can change every five levels.
Also, I'd avoid going straight up into melee. I'd choose my targets so they can't put me down quickly.
Anyway, right now, I don't believe much in a Strength-based Warpriest. Speaking with you, I've isolated a few abilities (Harm, mostly) that can push the damage high enough to put you on par with other martials. So, maybe is it viable. But not through weapons only, the damage graphs I've done have cleared that out.
...while 16/12/12/10/16/12 can pick up Sorcerer later and be more functional early to compensate.
One "advantage" of said array is that the character will be "finished" by level 15 after only 3 stat-ups (20/12/18/10/20/18). I don't know about you but my best guess is that level 20 playtime will be very limited, even if we finish our current campaign as planned (i.e. after all 6 volumes of AoA). Planning peak performance for level 15 instead of 20 has its own merits and disadvantages.
And yes, Sorcerer MC looks nice on warpriests, as you can get spells like true strike, blur or haste very easy.