Pure Fighter - How to make it good?

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ZombieDuck
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Pure Fighter - How to make it good?

Post by ZombieDuck » Fri Apr 02, 2021 5:48 pm

So I've been trying to see how pure fighter does on the test server and while it's decent, it's lack of evasion and decent Reflex/will saves, lack of UMD make it feel a bit weak.

Anyone got any tips for building/playing a pure fighter?
Currently my favourite/strongest build was duergar with epic DR reaching ~50 AB/AC+Expertise.
The build's hp and dmg are nice, and while the AC can be upped with expertise it's still a bit weak, especially on anything that evasion affects and mind affecting effects.

And does the +10 Discipline at 28 work on the live server?

Anyway, tips/builds/tactics for playing one would be appreciated.
(Please do focus on the pure fighter part and don't suggest multiclassing)
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Blossom
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Re: Pure Fighter - How to make it good?

Post by Blossom » Fri Apr 02, 2021 7:38 pm

Max out lore for one thing (80 for 9th level scrolls).. You won't even need wands though stocking up scrolls of the spells you need is much less convenient and much more expensive than wands.

Max out leadership for henchmen and the other minor bonuses

Max out saves with gifts and feats-- maybe the +2 universal major gift, luck of heroes and all the will feats, reflex too if you can

19 con opens EDR now though only 9 EDR isn't really worth 3 epic feats

Consider the invis or darkness minor gifts for quality of life and/or a race with a special tactical gift or powerful racial gear

Consider the mundane enchanting feats for quality of life

Make friends with casters

Those would be suggestions off the top of my head. I wouldn't say it's a bad idea like some pure classes especially with the lore change. Having to cross class tumble means -3 AC but you can work around that. I'd say high lore and high will saves are what you should concentrate on as that will make or break you.

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Re: Pure Fighter - How to make it good?

Post by ZombieDuck » Sat Apr 03, 2021 8:15 am

Fighter doesn't lose out on AC becouse of cross-classing tumble since they get +1 Armor/Shield/Helm AC at 28(That AC even sticking around for flat-footing actually makes it a better source of AC).

I really wonder how much difference the Epic DR III would make combined with 10% physical immunity from gear(and maybe +5% from race), something to cover for the mediocre AC, maybe?
Are there many sources of constant dmg that does around 10 physical dmg/round? I figure it would be ideal to blocking those(Giants throwing rocks, for example).

What weapons would recommend for fighter? I think the Cav hammer was the best pick(Bludgeon/Pierce and the +4 one that was mentioned in the updates, but doesn't seem to be in yet), but the dwarven axe and moonblade seem nice too(Both being race locked for pure fighter, though).

What races would everyone recommend for pure fighter? I feel like Duergar is one of the strongest picks for it.
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Re: Pure Fighter - How to make it good?

Post by Cabarcos » Sat Apr 03, 2021 12:11 pm

Blossom wrote:
Fri Apr 02, 2021 7:38 pm
...
Max out saves with gifts and feats-- maybe the +2 universal major gift, luck of heroes and all the will feats, reflex too if you can
...
They are very useful for a fighter. I've been almost the last man standing been a pure fighter with lower level, resisting dead magic between those and equipment that improves saves.

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Re: Pure Fighter - How to make it good?

Post by Ordo.Lupus » Sun Apr 04, 2021 5:51 pm

ZombieDuck wrote:
Sat Apr 03, 2021 8:15 am
Fighter doesn't lose out on AC becouse of cross-classing tumble since they get +1 Armor/Shield/Helm AC at 28(That AC even sticking around for flat-footing actually makes it a better source of AC).
Pretty sure the AC bonus from fighter levels don't stack with equipment. So getting +1 Armour AC isn't worth much. That's my experience from PGCC with a 6 levels of fighter dip.

23 lvl of fighter gives you +1 AB making a +3 weapon into a +4. Well you only need 19 levels of rogue to get similar benefit. Though it only applies to rogue prof. weapons.
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AstralUniverse
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Re: Pure Fighter - How to make it good?

Post by AstralUniverse » Sun Apr 04, 2021 5:57 pm

If you dont go Specialist or bard then at least build for EDR 3 because otherwise I really dont know why anyone would go pure and what they would spend all these feats on. EDR sounds like an interesting option. Going specialist or bard is objectively better option tho.
Ordo.Lupus wrote:
Sun Apr 04, 2021 5:51 pm
Pretty sure the AC bonus from fighter levels don't stack with equipment.
It does. With 5th fighter lvl you turn an armor +4 into +5. This scaling bonus does not stack with spells or anything other than the AC property on armor/shield/helm.
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Re: Pure Fighter - How to make it good?

Post by Tarkus the dog » Mon Apr 05, 2021 11:23 am

Pure fighter is an amazing juggernaut that's often overlooked in favor of safer builds or simply builds that deal more damage ( weaponmaster/barb/assassin/EVIL WIZARDS) If you're looking to min-max one, however, I made a little guide:

Race:

Any race that gets untyped AC. Orog works, but the real kicker are the trogs. They can get up to 58 ac without expertise which is amazing on it's own.

Any high STR races in general are good. Duergar are great, half-orcs are amazing as well. Drow are pretty good too now that you can take a STR gift, the SR helps a lot. Anything that takes penalty in STR or CON I'd really avoid.

Avoid races with bonus feats as you have more feats than you know what to do with. Small races are also a poor choice.

Starting ability scores:

I recommend STR over DEX as you want all the kill pressure you can get since your AC and HP is pretty high on it's own and you really don't want to play a high DEX character without both evasion and uncanny dodge. You also lose on an amazing feat which is overwhelming critical and Blinding Speed does not scale with fighter.

-High Strength
-Ignore dex
-14 INT for skill points and expertise
-Rest to CON

So with that in mind, half-orc spread looks like this:

STR 19
DEX 9
CON 16
INT 14
WIS 8
CHA 8

Gifts:

Major gift of STR and CON I recommend greatly.
Minor gifts are up to preference, but for total min-max we're look at 5% elemental immunity one.

Weapon choice:

We're looking at One-Handed edged focus for the most part as you want to make use of your +3 ac from 30 fighter on the shield, however certain races can go Two-Weapon fighting or Dual-Wielding and swap between the two. 18-20 threat range weapon is your vanilla choice, otherwise some other options are:

-Two-handed focus for Orogs - Make use of both 2h Heavy Orog Sword and 1h Orog Bastard Sword ( 2h focus applies to Bastard Swords ). Dwarves can't do this, sadly, due to dwarven waraxe being 1h only.

-Dual-wielding for Half-orc. This is an amazing choice as Horcs get Ambidexterity for free, so you don't need to get your DEX to 15. Take the Two-handed focus and swap between Bastard sword and Two-Bladed orcish sword ( or double axe, but I recommend the sword instead ).

Pre-epic feats:

We have 18 feats in total, 11 fighter and 7 general.

Your mandatory pre-epic fighter feats are:

1. Blind fight,
2. Expertise,
3. Improved expertise,
4. Weapon focus,
5. Weapon spec,
6. Improved critical
7. Knockdown

That leaves us with 11 more feats to work with. Orogs and Dwarves need Exotic Weapon focus ( if they are going for the race weapon ), so that's 10. Half-orcs need weapon fighting feats ( again, if going with dual-wielding ) so they get 8 more ( Two-Weapon Fighting and Improved Two-Weapon fighting going on the mandatory list ).

So, with all of that in mind your most desired feats going forward are:

8. Power attack
9. Cleave
10. Greater cleave

Something to note, if you're TWO-HANDING absolutely take Disarm and Improved Disarm. Otherwise, we have 8 more feats to work with. Our options are:

-Improved knockdown
-Toughness
-Improved power attack
-Called shot ( I both recommend and do not recommend this feat, it's extremely situational and IMP KD will do the same job most of the time )
-LUCK OF HEROES
-Strong soul
-Skill focus: Discipline ( ONLY if pure fighter doesn't actually give you +10 discipline )
-Iron will
-Lightning reflexes
-Resist energy ( Fire > Acid > Sonic is the priority. This stacks with /5 DR essences )

Obviously you can't fit all of these feats especially if you're going with dual wielding but I'm not going to tell you which feats you should take. Saves are always nice ( you don't need Greater Fortitude, you will have plenty of fort ). Resist energy is an amazing feat sadly no build ever can take, but fighter has that privilege. If there is ONE, well, no, TWO feats I would really recommend from this list that is TOUGHNESS and IMPROVED KNOCKDOWN. IMP KD lets you knockdown annoying giant mages ( and annoying player mages ), and toughness is great because you're more of a HP tank rather than an AC tank.

Also please keep in mind that Luck of Heroes and Strong Soul can only be taken at level one and are general feats, so if you want both you need to be a human. Toughness, Skill focus, Resist Energy, Iron Will and Lightning reflexes are also general feats. General feats can only be taken at 1, 3, 6, 9, 12, 15 and 18, so 7 in total ( or 8 if human ).

Epic feats:

5 fighter and 4 general.

Recommended fighter feats are:

1. Epic weapon focus
2. Epic weapon spec
3. Armor skin
4. Overwhelming critical
5. Epic prowess

Things get a little bit tricky here due to the addition of the Epic Second wind feat. I strongly recommend taking as many Greater Strength feats in general and prior to the addition of Epic Second wind your general feats would literally be Greater Strength I, II, iiI and IV, but that's not really optimal anymore. So, we have some options:

Option number 1:

You actually picked a dwarf and want to go EDR. You can do this much easier now that 19 CON is the requirement. Go 3 EDR, Epic Second Wind and Epic Prowess. You suffer an AB/damage loss but in return big and chunky and sit on 9 DR along with your very decent AC and HP.

Option number 2:

We ditch 2 Greater Strength feats in favor of Epic Second Wind and an extra feat. Which extra feat this is, I actually have no idea. Epic Discipline comes to mind, but if you've taken Skill focus: Discipline ( which I highly recommend ) or pure fighter grants +10 discipline then this is kind of pointless. Epic Will is an option as is Epic Energy Resistance unironically. You really can't go wrong by picking Epic Toughness either.

Option number 3:

You go with 18 STR, 10 DEX, 14 INT, 14 CON spread and just take 3 Greater Strength feats. That way you can afford Epic Second Wind on top of the 5 feats mentioned above.

There's probably something else you can do as well, but this is all I can think of at the moment.

Skills:

Discipline > Lore > Tumble > Spellcrafting or Heal. You get both if you're a human. Going 16 INT is an option in order to get both as non-human, or 16 INT + human if you really like horses or something. This is actually an option as Mounted Combat gives you an extra AB. Other than that, well, fighters aren't really an exciting class when it comes to skills. 23 lore is fine, 33 lore if you want greater breach or want to gear lore for Word of Faith. In general, you can't go wrong for as long as you take Discipline, Tumble and some Lore. CRAFT MASTERY is also a skill I really recommend if you don't have any enchanter friends. Either 30 Craft Mastery or 20 + Craft Mastery Feat.

Also, you're a fighter so no detection for you. Make a mage friend and grab as many True Sight scrolls as you can get.

Gear:

The 3 AC and 3 EB ( that's EB, not AB, meaning damage as well ) that pure fighter gets stacks with everything. Meaning with adamantine you get +6 on your equipment and + 6 on masterly damask. +7 if you're using a +4 weapon and +8 if you're using a +5 weapon. One downside is that magic vestment does not benefit you, but who cares when our AC is 6, not 5.

Early levels whatever you can get your hands on is fine, I really recommend grabbing a masterly steel and a permanent essence asap for grinding purposes.

Later on adamantine is the priority. Much later on absolutely get the Dragonbone Plate, it's the best fullplate on the server if you don't need CHA. Keen masterly damask is obviously ideal, otherwise normal damask is fine. If you're using a rapier or a scimitar you can rune one of the rare loot weapons and keen them as an alternative to masterly damask keen, but absolutely try to get your hands on one if you can.

When it comes to enchanted gear if we're talking soft 5% then the usual shtick is Discipline > Spellcrafting > Fort > STR > CON. Discipline > AC > STR > CON on boots, Discipline > Spellcrafting > Another skill, if you like > CON > STR on rings, but I'd try not to linger on this gear for too long. Keep in mind that being a fighter gives you +3 soft STR so you can also go CON and UNI on the rings and maybe some other gear as well if you don't mind drinking skleens or extra bull's strength.

If we're talking hard 5% gear then Universal Save is your best friend. You really, really need this start. The biggest weakness of the fighter are their shitty saves. What you probably want is Discipline > Spellcrafting > UNI > STR > CON on all of your gear except boots and rings. It is possible, I believe, to go 4 skills instead but, really, you've no skills you care about so don't torment yourself.

For all of my mage hating friends here's a little trick: Get your hands on as many +2 UNI rings as you can get. There's an NPC that sells them, just ask around IG. Hard 5% Discipline on it then rune it and you'll get +2 UNI, Discipline, CON, for example. Again, you've got 3 STR from being a fighter so you can get away with this. +2 UNI amulets exist as well, those you can turn into Discipline > Spellcrafting > CON and then rune it for STR for example. For crazy-tier min-maxing, you can also gear WIS and entirely rely on +2 STR skleens and +5 STR from Bull's Strength but I don't recommend this whatsoever as the power of the fighter is being able to throw-down at any point in their daily life. They can even rest in fullplates for this exact reason.

Rune your addy, or 5% and then rune your addy. Again, UNI is the thing fighters really need since spells and weird abilities like Swashbuckler drain and Spellsword shenanigans is what counters you the most. A well played fully geared fighter is quite a beast to deal with since with UNI saves you've sealed your biggest weakness.

No wands for you, so potions are your best friend. When it comes to scrolls the priority is Lesser mind blank and True Seeing. Westin the Pompous sells Improved Invisibility if you can get a mage friend to buy some for you. Also, don't forget to buff your DEX. It's annoying, but hey, this is the min-maxing guide.

Final stats:

People love these so let's post some numbers:

AB:

25 BAB
17 STR
1 Epic Prowess
3 Weapon focus
3 Weapon itself
3 Fighter bonus

Total is 52, 54 with epic second wind

AC:

10 base
13 full plate
3 tumble
2 armor skin
1 boots
4 barskin
1 mage armor
4 haste
3 helmet
6 shield
9 fighter

56 without improved expertise. For comparison this is roughly what a DEX rogue with a shield gets. I really recommend TROG for this purpose as 58 AC without needing to click the improved expertise button is just crazy. So 56-58 AC 52 AB at all times ( during actual fighting, that is ).

HP is 300 from fighter, 30 from toughness and 300 from CON, so 630 in total, 660 if you're a dwarf. 570 if you went with less CON and no Toughness, which is still pretty impressive.

One hander damage:

17 STR, 3.5 weapon average, 4 essence, 3.5 temp essence, 6 weapon, 6 weapon spec, 3 from fighter:

Roughly 43ish. Meaning 86ish crits + 10ish from overwhelming critical. Which is obviously not weaponmaster-tier but still pretty good. You can also toggle power attack or imp powerattack depending on the circumstance in which case you can fool somebody into thinking you've Increased Multiplier feat.

Two hander:

Same as above, except 25.5 from STR and roughly 7 from the weapon. So roughly 12 more damage, which is nice in certain situations. You actually crit for roughly 140ish with improved power attack, and since you're two handing your ab is sitting comfortably at 54, 56 with epic second wind and 57 if you're an Orog.

I'm not a great fan of 3x weapons unless you've Ki Critical as the 18-20 threat range is extremely inconsistent, but you can't deny that dwarves with axes look pretty cool. Don't forget that you can -twohand them despite of not going for the Two-Weapons feat, that way you can mitigate a little bit the +2 AB loss in the situations where you literally don't care about AC.

How do I play one properly?

Literally hit things. You can't go wrong with left clicking something. In PvE you can be both the tank and DPS, in PvP you're the annoying piece of shit getting into people's faces while enemy guys with mauls and falchions are trying to protect their friends. You absolutely want this to happen. If you can get 3 people to beat into you without taking too much damage, then you're doing your job right. Obviously ward proper and have haste and concealment up at all time. You're essentially a bruiser that, while not necessarily a threat, can dish out some damage if people aren't watching their backs. Your AB is crazy at all times so spam the living hell out of Improved Knockdown. But don't mistake the fighter for the dead-brain class to play. All the PvP rules apply to this class just as well and it will take time to learn what you can and cannot do in certain situations. But in general, if someone's looking for a class to learn Meleeing 101, then this is it. Also, don't forget that you absolutely do not care about Premonition and anything that's countered by having a +5 weapon. Magic be dashed!

Now go on out there and eat some Timestop combos.

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Re: Pure Fighter - How to make it good?

Post by ZombieDuck » Mon Apr 05, 2021 1:18 pm

Good points and advice here.

I'm quite interested in anyone who has actually used Imp. Disarm and whetever it has worked well for them.

As far as weapons go, I was thinking I could just pick exotic weap prof and use the new cavalier weapons, especially the
Bec de Corbin (Cavalry Hammer2d4/x3)
+4 AB, +4 slashing damage
Massive Crit: 2d8
Runed already.
If I understood the update announcement correctly, these are coming sometime soon(?) and only the saber has class restrictions.

I was also wondering whetever it would be better pick(mechanically) to go drow for that SR to cover for Fighters weakness vs spells, compared to races that make fighter a better fighter(Hadn't thought about H-orcs free ambidex before, which might be neat.)

With the resist energy feats stacking with gear, I am still wondering the usefulness of Epic DR and if fighter could reach that 'immunity' to smaller amounts of dmg, with resistances/DR feats combined with gear.
I mean reaching 10/15% physical immuntiy + 9 DR and 10 Res/Elements seems great, but is it worth the cost?

And if anyone has leveled one before, or just a build that mains fighter, I'd really like to hear how to leveling went and what kind of difficulties you ran in to.
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Character: Typically some Orog in UD

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