Fighter Build Idea

[amano666]

The build idea below involves dual wielding spears but could just as easily transpose to a pure fighter with a more reasonable weapon choice that has a good critical range and damage type (i.e heavy flail, great sword, or halberd).

Could just lose the ranger levels and perhaps the monk one as well (at the loss of evasion and 43 listen?) for optimal DC on greater fighter abilities.

Scimitar would even have benefits for dual wielding and can work with this build but you would lose the bonus of using a large weapon (what is the trade off here? Is there any bonus for a str tank to use a bigger weapon?)

Which is a better build?

Could also be built with an open subrace or Juggernaut with some trade offs but I think that the below choice is optimal.

Build goals:
Str tank damage dealer, dual wield large weapon capability?, epic dodge, greater fighter abilities, disarm, and knockdown

I like Stinger for large size giving the ability to dual wield spears, walking on quicksand, fast movement, and free spring attack feat which I think would save several defensive feats allowing movement in combat without attack of opportunity.

"Stinger" (secret UltraRare; changes Appearance)
- FCs: Fighter, Barbarian
- STR +4, DEX +2, CON +2, WIS -2, CHA -2, free feat: Spring Attack, increased base movement rate - fast, able to walk on quicksand, increases character size to large, speaks Stinger

Alignment = Lawful

Starting
Str: 18 (22)
Dex: 10 (12)
Con: 14 (16)
Int: 14
Wis: 8 (6)
Cha: 8 (6)

All points into Str

Level 1-30 Fighter
31-39 Ranger
40 Monk

Skills:

Discipline: Max
Craft Weapon: Max
Listen: 43
Tumble: Max
Parry: Max
Concentration: 40 (20 might be enough and 20 points could go into craft armor)

Starting Feats:

blooded
strong soul (change to slippery soul)
blind fight
spring attack

Pre epic feats:

weapon focus spear
iron will
disarm
lightning reflex
knockdown
greater weapon focus spear
toughness
improved parry
brutal throw
improved critical spear
improved disarm
power attack
cleave
great cleave
improved knockdown
power critical spear

(could trade in lightning reflex and iron will for brutal throw and weapon specialization or dodge and mobility)


Epic feats:

It is possible to take only great str feats and epic prowess all the way through epic levels. Convert all epic prowess to str.

This yields

Epic Prowess x7 and Great Str 7

you also get

improved two weapon fighting (ranger 9)
evasion (monk 1)

Legendary Feats:

legendary skill affinity tumble
legendary slippery soul
epic weapon focus spear
overwhelming critical
devastating critical
legendary disarm
legendary knockdown

Paragon Feats

63 - legendary weapon focus spear
66 - paragon weapon focus spear
69 - paragon slippery soul
72 - paragon Knockdown
75 - paragon disarm
78 - epic prowess

Naked Stats at 80

hp = 1160

str 58
dex 14
con 18
int 16
wis 08
cha 08

Saves at 80 buffed by trainer

Fort 65
Reflex 62
Will 62

AB Dual Wield at 80 buffed by trainer

(17-20)x4 106/101/96/91
(17-20)x4 102/95

AB with Tower Shield at 80 buffed by trainer

(17-20)x4 112/107/102/97


Knockdown and disarm DC buffed by trainer vs test monkey

117 + 1d20

Could use a hand figuring out max ac with shield and dual wielding.


Am I missing anything about the build that would make it a lot better? Perhaps 1 monk and 1 of something else is a better class breakdown? Perhaps wizard for scroll use would be cool.

Thanks for your advice!

[tomaan]

A few things:

1) The Epic Prowess swap is availabe after F22. You can swap it as long as you have Epic Prowess and aren't level 41. You can check in the test chamber using !charedit to make the swap.


2) You may want to consider the advantage of the classes you're splashing. For example: Monk and Ranger don't play well together. In order to take advantage of Ranger dual wield, you have to wear light armor, but wearing light armor kills your Monk Wisdom AC, so all you're really getting with Monk is evasion and a skill dump.

Good splash classes for tanks are BG/Pally (saves), Rogue (UMD), Monk (if not wearing armor), arcane (scrolls).


3) To calculate your AC:
AC = base+dex+armor base+armor enchantment+shield+wisdom+dodge+deflection+natural+feats+skills+class bonus+tumble+girding=
Dual Wield: 10+9+3+17+0+4+20+17+17+0+0+0+12+2=111 (+3 w/strongheart)
Tower Shield/Heavy Armor: 10+3+8+18+17+0+20+17+17+0+0+0+12+4=126 (+3 w/strongheart)

Both are a bit low, although you can get by with good damage soaking gear with the Tower Shield/Heavy Armor option.


imho of course.

[Deleted]

There is a fairly unloved helm that will give you dev crit spear for free if that is the weapon you want.

If you can get parry maxed to 127 and keep displacement up, the rather poor ac might work with some decent soak armour given you have Epic Dodge and fighter secondary conceal.

12 Dex might be painful for kd/dom checks. Dropping 2 points of starting str for 4 dex + 2 somthing else looks more attractive to me....

[amano666]

Thanks for the replies!

I didn't know about Rangers losing dual wield if they are wearing heavy armor. That kills the spear idea for me since much of the defense relies on having the heavy armor high physical damage immunity. I will likely go with great sword or heavy flail and single wield.

The fighter epic prowess swap indeed only requires 22 levels of fighter but after you have 22 levels of fighter you can swap epic prowess even if you are not taking a fighter level. At least in the test chamber.

Taking a lvl of wiz is ok for the gs scrolls? I am not sure if that would work in heavy armor?

Taking 3 levels of paladin is attractive to me for the innate immunities to fear and disease and the few extra save points would not hurt. It would come at the cost of weaker fighter token abilities like greater parry,kd, and disarm which I think is a trade off worth considering.

Taking one level of ranger in epic levels would allow for an extra epic prowess feat conversion to be added through their bonus feat.

Monk is still attractive for the listen dump and evasion. I am assuming evasion still works if wearing heavy armor.

I am thinking 38Ftr/ 1Mnk/ 1Rng or 36Ftr/ 1 Mnk/ 3 Pal

Most of the other feats can stay I guess. The only ones I might change would be iron will and lightning reflex pre epic. To use an open subrace you could also lose brutal throw and pick up dodge, mobility, and spring attack, going for something like scimitar.

I am not sure if much str or ab feats could be sacrificed to make this more of a uni tank and still allow for endgame disarming, perhaps it can but I was going more the route of dmg and kd/disarm.

The result is a lowish ac tank with a lot of feats that it uses to improve melee damage and can disarm/kd

[Torin]

There is a 36 Fighter, 1 Monk, 3 Paladin build in the open subrace forum. Sounds fun, maybe give it a try.

[chirality]

Here's from my experience with mine and watching Chain's really quite awesome fighter in action (literally the only firsthand experience I have with fighters, and probably the same goes for a lot of those I play with heh)...

You need uni in my opinion. The difference between my Str, low-Dex fighter and Chain's with respectable Dex and Str is EXTREMELY noticeable and only more so the "deeper" you get. Sure his is HG and mine is Baseborn and unfortunately just a few points' worth of difference at creation and from subbbie, goes a long way in the ability checks department; however poor choices I made with my build hurt just as bad.

I think all of the so-called great fighter defensive benefits are pretty worthless if you're not capable of making checks.

After my fighter I will never again consider a tank that isn't at least pseudo-"uni".

It's probably a bit different in "the real game" vs. my hardcore experience but still...

Wiz I say is a great splash idea, had never considered it till Chain told me he did it on his and I must say if I could reinc...ah well

After watching the pain of pure druids and my fighter I feel like anything that can't GS is really not only in a bad spot for its own good but also for the party itself. There are so many runs or maps or boss fights or whatever where if I hadn't had someone to give me scrolls or constantly re-cast the spell (ugh, PoM...pretty sure Boxey spent the entire boss fight spamming GS on me...) not only would the toon be wasted but the fight totally screwed up. Again this is probably a much smaller issue in normal mode with much greater availability of scrolls, and pots as well, I believe.

"I am not sure if much str or ab feats could be sacrificed to make this more of a uni tank and still allow for endgame disarming, perhaps it can but I was going more the route of dmg and kd/disarm. "

This was pretty much the exact thing I thought when building and rebuilding fighters over and over and over again. I alluded to this is some older threads and I recall at least one other person commenting along similar lines but anyway...fighter is just really really hard I think, well at least without reincing from double demi with BUR sub and the right items. All the feats, all the ability point swap, all these goodies look so great on paper but the reality is that squeezing everything into one build is rough. I wasn't even able to max Str with ability swap due to the overwhelming number of bonus feats that were spent on "the basics". Of course I also wasted slots on KD and disarm which were a total waste of time. Others with uber fighters don't think so, but I highly doubt with Stinger and trying to balance out everything else your AB is gonna be high enough for it to be worth it in Thids+. With ability checks, AB, saves, fighter specials to worry about, all those bonus feats disappear quick and I think ability checks/saves is top priority, special fighter stuff dead last because it sucks.

I don't see a shieldless fighter as very survivable.

However since this update maybe if you don't mind taking a look at two-hander vs. dual wield, it may work out well on a Str tank anyway...

Still I would be downright terrified of no soak or conceal or shield.

I must be playing a different game than those who say fighter is the best defensive tank on the mod and has such an amazing dodge rate, or at least playing a different fighter, because I'm sorry fighter conceal does NOT equal real conceal, nor does epic dodge really do anything if your AC is crap from lacking a shield in the first place.

I don't think the fighter specials are even worth considering as a tradeoff for anything. Splash benefits will FAR outweigh those.

[tomaan]

Apr 7, 2012 6:54:29 GMT chirality said:

I don't think the fighter specials are even worth considering as a tradeoff for anything. Splash benefits will FAR outweigh those.

The Improved Parry bonus has helped my fighters in the past but I agree about the KD/Disarm bonus feats -- they don't seem to work for me with 58 levels of fighter.

That said, it looks like this build is trying to use the regular KD/Disarm attacks and is increasing the DC via feats (leg/para).

I haven't checked his numbers, but is 117 DC high enough to be an effective Disarmer/Knock Downer?

[chirality]

Well I'm being hyperbolic of course heh...I will say the invuln is nice but honestly not overly so...as far as the rest I don't know, I will check my numbers and see what mine were compared to 117...all I know is that if anything worked it was the normal disarm, then normal KD (in that order--I found, seemed more stuff/easier to disarm than KD in general)...the specials were totally worthless at every level of the game.

It's fun but from what it seems like to me the numbers are kind of geared toward only very high AB being the domain of disarm/kd'ers, thus WMs.

[amano666]

I think this is basically what I am going with, no kd or disarm and a more reasonable weapon choice that includes a shield, the build seeks to do dmg by hitting stuff.

Dex and other checks where this build is weak might be rough. Saves are also a bit on the weak side.

It would be possible to drop some str and go for dex. If anyone has a good method for when to increase dex the build could be improved and could even pick up Superior Critical for the full +10 to critical confirmation.


Fighter 34/ Weapon Master 5/ Monk 1

FTR 1-15 / WM 16-20 / FTR 21-39 / MNK 40

Subrace

Half-Orc
- All half-orcs receive the Toughness feat for free.
- All half-orcs receive the Blooded feat for free, which allows them to acquire Legendary Skill Affinity Tumble.

"Juggernaut" (secret Beyond UltraRare; changes Appearance)
- STR +6, CON +6, CHA -2, free feat: Expertise, increases character size to large, breathes water
- Juggernauts receive (Str modifier * 2)% immunity to critical hits, capped at 90%; that is, that percentage of critical hits on them will be converted to non-criticals; this immunity is based on their form and will go away if they polymorph or transform

(at 80 with full benefits this build would have 70% critical immunity)

STR: 18
Dex: 14
Con: 12
Wis: 8
Int: 14
Cha: 6


1 Fighter
Discipline +4, Parry +4, Intimidate +2
- Armor Proficiency (heavy)
- Armor Proficiency (light)
- Armor Proficiency (medium)
- Assist Other
- Blooded
- Command Targeter
- Darkvision
- Expertise
- Mount Actions
- Shield Proficiency
- Strong Soul -> Slippery Soul
- Toughness
- Weapon Focus (heavy flail)
- Weapon Proficiency (martial)
- Weapon Proficiency (simple)

2 Fighter
- Dodge

3 Fighter
- Blind-Fight

4 Fighter (Strength +1)
- Mobility

5 Fighter

6 Fighter
- Spring Attack
- Weapon Specialization (heavy flail)

7 Fighter

8 Fighter (Strength +1)
- Whirlwind Attack

9 Fighter
- Power Critical (heavy flail)

10 Fighter
- Improved Parry

11 Fighter

12 Fighter (Strength +1)
- Greater Weapon Focus (heavy flail)
- Power Attack

13 Fighter

14 Fighter
- Cleave

15 Fighter
Discipline +14, Parry +14, Intimidate +2
- Great Cleave

16 Weapon Master (Strength +1)
- Ki Damage
- Weapon of Choice (heavy flail)

17 Weapon Master

18 Weapon Master
- Improved Critical (heavy flail)

19 Weapon Master

20 Weapon Master (Strength +1)
Discipline +5, Listen +23
- Increased Multiplier
- Superior Weapon Focus

21 Fighter
- Epic Character
- Great Strength I
- Overwhelming Critical (heavy flail)

22 Fighter

23 Fighter
- Devastating Critical (heavy flail)

24 Fighter (Strength +1)
- Great Strength II

25 Fighter
- Armor Skin

26 Fighter
- Epic Fighter

27 Fighter
- Epic Prowess (+1 STR)
- Great Strength III

28 Fighter (Strength +1)

29 Fighter
- Epic Weapon Focus (heavy flail)

30 Fighter
- Great Strength IV

31 Fighter
- Epic Prowess (+1 STR)

32 Fighter (Strength +1)

33 Fighter
- Epic Prowess (+1 STR)
- Great Strength V

34 Fighter

35 Fighter
- Epic Dodge
- Epic Prowess (+1 STR)

36 Fighter (Strength +1)
- Great Strength VI

37 Fighter
- Epic Prowess (+1 STR)

38 Fighter

39 Fighter
Discipline +19, Parry +24
- Epic Prowess (+1 STR)
- Great Strength VII

40 Monk (Strength +1)
Discipline +1, Listen +17, Parry +1, Tumble +40
- Evasion
- Flurry of Blows
- Improved Unarmed Strike
- Monk AC Bonus
- Stunning Fist
- Weapon Proficiency (monk)

Legendary Feats:

Legendary Skill Affinity (Tumble)
Epic Weapon Specialization (heavy flail)
Great Strength VIII
Epic Prowess
Legendary Slippery Soul
Legendary Weapon Focus (heavy flail)
Legendary Weapon Specialization (heavy flail)

Paragon Feats:

Paragon Balance
Paragon Environmental Adaptivity 1
Paragon Inherent Levitation
Paragon Slippery Soul
Paragon Weapon Focus (heavy flail)
Paragon Weapon Specialization (heavy flail)


Final Stats @80 in training room

STR: 60 (+2 +14 +4 = 80 with arti, buffs, or asmo wins)
DEX: 16
CON: 20
WIS: 10
INT: 16
CHA: 6

Attack bonus:
Right Hand: Heavy Flail (14-20/x5) (+101)
BAB: 20
EBAB: 10
LBAB: 9
Ability: 31
Weapon Focus: 1
Greater Weapon Focus: 1
Epic Weapon Focus: 2
Legendary Weapon Focus: 3
Paragon Weapon Focus: 2
Epic Prowess: 1
Craft Weapon: 1
Weapon Master: 1
Size: -1
Magic: 20 (max = +20)
General: +20
generic : +20


Armor class:

AC = base+dex+armor base+armor enchantment+shield+wisdom+dodge+deflection+natural+feats+skills+class bonus+tumble+girding=
10+3+8+18+17+0+20+17+17+2+0+0+12+4=128 (+3 w/strongheart)

Base: 10
Dexterity: 3 (limited by armor)
Wisdom: 0
Armor: 8
Shield: 3
Dodge: 20
Deflection: 0
Natural: 0
Tumble: 12
Size: -1
Other: 3


Saving throws:
Fortitude: 30 + 11 + 0 + 20 = 61
Reflex: 29 + 9 + 9 + 20 = 67
Will: 26 + 6 + 9 + 20 = 61

[chirality]

I'd say if you're no longer set on Disarm/KD you could easily afford to drop Str-->AB a couple points for the sake of Dex checks. +101 AB is pretty beast I think.

If you have a Dex tank to team with it shouldn't be nearly as much of an issue anyway but if not...even in many LL situations, let alone +, I find 16 base Dex to be more or less equivalent to "ah crap I can't tank this thing" which gets really old really fast, especially the more prevalent such mobs are on a given run. Then again for LLs, who cares, no one will be forcing you to be the sole tank on any of these runs, there's no reason why you'd be required to stand toe-to-toe with a Uro Spawn or something; and as for Hells the hope would be that you'd be with a party that has plenty of options for dealing with it, so with that said maybe you could just leave it as is and stick with handsome AB and few more points of phys damage/hit.

Also it's a shame since +101 AB would be quite adequate for KD/Disarm I think, and also a shame to take monk only for skills, which of course leads back to the "just make a Dexer to take maximum advantage of everything" but I don't want to go there because bleh.

What do I know, but it looks solid enough to me, good luck.

[tomaan]

Attack bonus:
Right Hand: Heavy Flail (14-20/x5) (+101) (107)
BAB: 20
EBAB: 10
LBAB: 9 15
Ability: 31
Weapon Focus: 1
Greater Weapon Focus: 1
Epic Weapon Focus: 2
Legendary Weapon Focus: 3
Paragon Weapon Focus: 2
Epic Prowess: 1
Craft Weapon: 1
Weapon Master: 1
Size: -1
Magic: 20 (max = +20)
General: +20
generic : +20

Slight correction there -- you won't miss much!

Or, as was noted above, you could drop 10-12 pts of str and put them into dex for more uni-tankiness. You'd still have an AB of 100+