I'm far from an expert at it, but my understanding is:

1. Swift Strike does 1 damage to ward (1 HP if no ward left), but moves faster in the action phase. Good at interrupting enemies, as if you take damage while you are in the action phase you get booted out of it and have to restart it.

2. Balanced Strike deals your force worth of damage to ward (2 damage if no ward left), and is the same speed as defense stance.

3. Heavy Strike deals your force + 5 to ward (3 damage to HP if no ward left), and will still deal 1 damage if blocked instead of being completely nullified. It moves much slower on the action phase though, so it is prone to being interrupted or blocked.

4. Defensive stance blocks any attacks that hit you while you are during your action phase. If they hit you before or after that phase though, you will take full damage. So timing is important. If your block will end before their strike, you won't get to block at all and should have attacked instead to interrupt them.

5. Force is your damage in both balanced and heavy strikes (+5 for heavy).

6. Ward is basically armour like you said. While you still have ward you cannot take damage to your HP.

7. Speed is mostly irrelevant now. Seems to affect things slightly, but your actual speed on the bars is mostly based on how many people on your side of the fight. More characters means everyone is slower. This is why 1v1s can often feel header to get any hits in, even if they have low speed.