I've been mulling over the choices here, as it's the main decision set when building an exemplar. These are my initial thoughts from reading through and putting a build together to test. As a whole I think they're mostly in a good spot, but there's some issues here and there and I've pointed out where I'd change things.
Root Epithets: I notice these almost all work really nicely with moving the spark into your weapon, and I like how that encourages the use of the class mechanics. All of these are in a good spot.
Brave: Free movement is good, a bit limited by directly going at your enemy but it's appropriate for the epithet. A nice way to start fights.
Cunning: Free feint, not useful with ranged weapons but still, it's free actions and it'll let you set up off-guard for accuracy hitting them.
Mournful: The flavor is a bit awkward perhaps but this inflicts a useful condition without a save. Mental trait makes a few enemy types immune, but that's fine.
Radiant: The healing is so-so - it's 2/3 of Lay of Hands. But it's free as part of something you were going to do anyways. Notably this can heal undead PCs. The only one that doesn't help you fight your current target so much, but it'll help the party just fine.
Dominion Epithets: These give you a critical specialization when using the weapon ikon and add a new activation for it. Crit specs are super unreliable, though some of these look nasty if they apply. But ultimately, it's more the active effects that are going to draw me to one or the other.
Born of the Bones of the Earth: This is a very mean crit spec since it requires a save to escape, but it's conditional on when it can work. Wound the World is a nice AoE that can be particularly effective in confined spaces by creating difficult terrain (and if you're really mean, making it greater the next turn... I can see a ranged party having a lot of fun here as this creates a shooting gallery). I do feel both parts of this are more conditional than the others though, so I probably place this as the weakest overall of them. I'd probably have it knock prone on crit if they don't meet the condition for immobilized? (Save against prone?)
Restless as the Tide: Big old splash, damage is minor though so meh. Good chance you smack yourself and/or allies with this, but it's going to tickle anyways. The activated ability however is amazing so I don't really care either. Massive repositioning effect, debuffs enemies, and then you get to strike so you're basically only spending one action for this (you were going to strike anyways if you had weapon ikon active, right?). Perfect as is.
Peerless Under Heaven: Crit spec is crit spec. While boring, this also makes it very effective with the right weapon. Reap the Field is... iffy. I'm not entirely sure it works right in the rules because you should need to finish your prior Strike action, including the damage, in order to use a new action. But a GM who actually rules that is just being a jerk since it's clear on intent. I dislike the penalty for failure on this. The actual benefit is fairly small and the risk is high (assuming you've got 60-70% hit rate, you're getting I think a 20-40% increase in total damage, but it's all or nothing). Especially if we compare to other transcendence abilities that allow multiple attacks, or similar Fighter feats (Double Shot, Double Slice)... I just don't see any reason this needs a drawback like this for balance. If you must, give the second attack a -2 for non-agile weapons, but a level 7 transcendence ability can probably skip that.
Whose Cry Is Thunder: Excellent crit effect, always works, assuming this can hit the same person you smacked it's amazing and it's still solid if not. The active is great too - built in Returning rune, ranged attack with bonus AoE damage and it scales as you level. Like Restless, I feel this epithet is basically perfect as is, I'd just like clarification on the crit effect.
Sovereignty Epithets: I do kind of dislike how late Worn Ikons get this upgrade. Plus, they're severely lacking in upgrades in feats in the playtest too, which makes them overall underwhelming (body ikons have few upgrades too, but get the first epithet selection and those are all useful and free bonuses). The playtest epithets are also all fairly specific, unlike previous epithets, and I'm not sold on that. Aura increase is universally good though. The effects on these failed to impress me compared to earlier epithets.
Teacher of Heroes: Free recall knowledge is useful. Good odds of triggering it off second attacks. Interesting how it forces the choice of info but those are all things you want to know anyways. Active is interesting, great if you've got a couple other allies in melee but much less useful with one, useless with none, so. A gamble but 10 damage at level 17 is fine in exchange for zero-MAP counterattacks from everyone in reach.
The Last Ruler: The only downside here is Demoralize has immunity, so you'll only get this once per enemy. Which is kind of iffy, but it's also a strong effect. The active is nice. I think it could just be a basic save against the damage instead of only doing double level on critical failure though? It's not exactly a ton of damage at this level.
Thief of Moonlight: Automatic dazzled if they miss, but... duration means it's less likely to do anything since they're probably only going to have one more attack under it, maybe two, and they'll have MAP. The active is good, and incap on it is totally fair since blinded is a brutal debuff. Although at level 17 maybe it doesn't need that, and special senses are a lot more likely here to mitigate it, so... hmm. Not sure.
Body Ikons:
Eye-Catching Spot: Wonderful passive effect, this is a very rare type of penalty so it'll stack with basically everything else (shields, frightened, etc) at making you hard to hit. The active is bad, because Fascinated is bad. Unless they changed something in the remaster, this fails at its attempt to fix Fascinated for a simple reason - it's still going to break the instant any ally does anything hostile to the enemy group, because it only prevents it breaking when you do. Needs to be changed for that. If the wording is fixed so only you can break it then this becomes really cool - there aren't any hard taunt effects in the game yet (largely because, again, fascinated is the weakest condition by miles)
Gaze Sharp as Steel: Another nice passive. Great to maintain out of combat because it's +1 initiative and you can free action move spark after rolling. +2 AC against ranged is useful, and it's a status bonus so it stacks with a shield. The active is respectable, and plays nice with shifting to a weapon, but it has the issue of being made obsolete by a level 6 feat later. I think this needs to have a Special: If you have Reactive Strike from another source... effect of some sort. Either the strike gains a bonus to accuracy (+2 or so?), or this one doesn't burn your reaction for the turn (letting you make two, but getting that at 6, even only some of the time, might be a bit too soon).
Scar of the Survivor: A weaker passive effect, but still useful. Fortitude saves tend to be against some nasty stuff. The active is amazing and the best of the body ikons easily.
Skin Hard as Iron: Okay, I get what this is trying to do, but there's a whole thread on why it's got issues. Two main problems - most physical attacks still ignore it entirely, and the active is extremely unlikely to reduce damage to 0 at all because enemy damage has a lot of flat damage in it. That said, the active viciously penalizes multiple attacks if they're the matching damage type, since a miss means they're off guard for a round and your party can beat them up. Still, it's so conditional that it needs a buff. I'd look at letting it pick two physical types (which is also closer to having a specific weakness I feel, thematically), and add a flat bonus on the active resist to give it better odds of triggering off a reduction to 0? ...Maybe have the active still only boost one of the two resists, but it can trigger off of either still, so misses are a risk still.
Weapon Ikons:
Barrow's Edge: If I hit you, your very soul begins bleeding or something? Very, very cool. Great against multiple enemies since persistent doesn't stack and will likely match the other bonuses over time. The active is respectable, and if you combine it with Scar of the Survivor, well. That's going to be a lot of healing, but it's... probably okay? This will be healing less than Scar does most of the time anyways, but you're half doing this to move your spark to a defensive ikon effect I think. Overall, this is the most defensive weapon ikon.
Fated Shot: A weaker damage bonus because you're ranged, that's fair. The active is quite good - instead of taking a second shot with MAP just make everything save against the damage instead. Nonlethal mode without penalties is also situationally nice.
Gleaming Blade: What appears to be the baseline 2 damage per die. This is going to hurt. Also, the active is very, very good. It's Double Slice but you can do it with a 2h weapon. You don't have fighter accuracy though. Also, it completely converts the attack to spirit (Which can also be coerced to some other damage types), which bypasses a lot of resistances. This is just a universally good ikon for when your only goal is to make things hurt.
Titan's Breaker: The hardness bypassing on the passive just means that you'll still do at least some damage if you roll really badly, since otherwise it would get past anyways. The active needs clarification and has its own thread on the issues there, but it's a souped up power attack, which is a respectable ability. Depending on exactly how this is intended to work, Gleaming Blade may or may not just be better. (If it's effectively adding +2 per damage die, plus another weapon die like power attack normally does, the total damage of this is lovely. Bonus points if you can get fortune effects on it!)
Worn Ikons:
Palisade Bangles: Your aura gives +1 AC, and it's written so that it stacks with shields. It probably needs to call out shield cantrips? Maybe just say it's +3 for a shield, +2 for a buckler or other circumstance bonus. No reason to not play nice with casters. Active is a nice bit of utility, overall I like this.
Skybearer's Belt: Probably the worst of these. Giving you Titan Wrestler for free basically is nice but pretty minor and it's just the one skill feat. The encumbrance stuff is basically a ribbon. The active has some utility for combat since you can, as far as I can tell, carry any number of allies during it. Potentially saves a lot of actions, but then we come to the next one.
Thousand-League Sandals: Speed aura! Which also saves actions for allies moving up. And the active lets all your allies also move! With the speed bonus! For fewer actions than the belt! You see the issue here, I think. (Buff the belt somehow, the sandals are great, it's just that the belt is bad and totally outclassed)
Victor's Wreath: Look at me, I'm a bard! A great passive. Active is... uh... yeah. Something needs to change here I think? It looks like it can make things worse, which feels bad, but also can be spammed without limit, which is a problem for a level 1 ability. Anyways, this has a whole thread on the issues with it. Assuming it gets reworded to something reasonable this is still a great ikon, because that's a wonderful passive aura to hand out.
