[.11] Being a fighter

PYKE

PYKE

Specialist
After a play test event as a rouge I started looking at maybe making a fighter as I didn't see many play. I made a charter build for a fighter and saw the sad reality that fighters are horrible to play now. As a rouge I had built it as a take out hitter with evades and dodges. Using alot of defenses I could use magic items too bane alot of stuff back. I wasnt really affective as a front line fighter but when a back was exposed I was easily taking things down. I had still over 100 experience points I could still put into fighting skills I put into other areas like alchemy and craftsmans.
Now looking at a fighter I had very few take outs. Barely any defensives. No production no craftsmans and I swung 10s. Swinging 10 with new rules maybe top notch but without a magic wrapon with monster slayer or race Racer a caster swinging 2 body is more of a threat.
Also as a high level alchemist with archery. 10 damage coatings can make you even more powerful. I know some say throw money at the enemy but it works if i want to be a top fighter for one mod.

In summary I feel anyone playing a fighter will be disappointed and the class may not be used as much as before.

Jared Sisco
 
I disagree you should talk to Matt Waller who loved it this weekend.

If you jumped right to 8 profs well 10's are good but, at your level you've left a lot on the table.

Consider rebuilding Pyke swinging around 6s 7's, or maybe 8's. Take a picking up a few parries, and a few riposting strikes, and see what it looks like when you can swing out a 1-3 eviscerates and some slays.
 
Yeah, fighters are in an interesting place and I think it more comes down to personal preference. in discussing and looking into rogue builds I actually was thinking the opposite, as I never felt like I got enough oomph for the XP I spent on skills as a rogue. I would agree that flat damage didn't feel as satisfying but that SHOULD be how it is. A big stick and only profs should be less satisfying than using per day abilities, or why would you take anything else.
 
8 Profs is so expensive.

As a 34th level Spellsword build, I’m going with 3 Profs and 20 Crit Attacks. As a Fighter, I’d probably do the same, honestly, except maybe 30 Crit Attacks. This is with sword-and-board, so I’d be swinging 10s for an hour of combat per Logistics period, and 5s the rest. That would save me some build for takeouts.

Alternatively, Fighter with Polearm/Longbow can do 10s with 5 Profs, which can save you a bunch of build, too.

The presence (and quantity) of Natural armor will definitely affect the experience, I agree.
 
Take my opinion with a grain of salt as there is a significant difference in XP between myself and Pyke/Jared, but, as Chris said, I have felt extremely effective as a Fighter in the 2 playtests weekends I have done now. Virtually every Slay I have used was meaningful and killed whatever I was fighting and I haven't yet felt the need to even consider Eviscerating anything. Just 10s has pretty much crushed everything I have fought thus far. I also have felt way more confident in not being dropped by take outs than it seems like anyone else around me. Admittedly, I have two strong racial defenses, enough Spell Parries to cover all my Parries, and some Recharge Prowess and Focused Resistances to give me more bang for my buck.

My only real concern is if, in the future, as people start strengthening and customizing monsters more, a reasonable percentage of my Martial Skills don't actually land it will get very frustrating.

I haven't really made any mid level Fighter builds to know for sure, but I think I can see some places XP wise that it probably wouldn't feel that great to be a Fighter.

Rogue wise, I have come up with some heavy Riposte focused and non Backstab focused builds that look really strong on paper, even at like 20th level for my secondary, but I haven't really found a Backstab heavy Rogue that I really like yet.
 
Matt: There's the reason you felt strong. You're carrying more smart defenses than most anyone in the game outside of that specific niche will have.
 
There are quite a few people playing Fighters that have pre-reg'd for Oregon's upcoming playtest. It will be interesting to hear their feedback.

I know that @Tantarus is having a hard time deciding if he will go Fighter in 2.0 because of how many take-outs he'll have in conjunction with things like lots of Mettles. @Polare will be playing his 15th level Fighter at this upcoming event as well. @chantellw changed up from a spellsword to a straight fighter build.

We'll see how it goes. I cannot say that Fighters feel weak on paper like some people think they did in previous versions of the playtest.
 
Fighters feel very strong on paper to me. Mettle, parry/spell parry, and some nice racial give you a ton of defenses you didnt have before. Unless you where stacked with magic items. I am level 40 hobling. I have 30-40 defenses depending on the build. I am waiting till seattles play test in nov to try fighter. I am currently a templar in 1.3 and going to test that in Oregon this week. But on paper it feels really weak compared to fighter.

The one thing I will say is I think fighters should have access to evades the same way rogues to do riposte. Because otherwise rogues have 2.5x the melee defenses of a fighter which feels off. That said I am a hobling so I have that access already, in which I bought 10 of. That way they can be my parries and my parries can be spell parries without issue. Or messing up ripostes.
 
Muir said:
Matt: There's the reason you felt strong. You're carrying more smart defenses than most anyone in the game outside of that specific niche will have.
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That's pretty not true. He's got a lot for sure. But, scholars can really stack on smart defenses and so can rogues.
 
For sure, and I totally understand and admit to that, being high level does come with a lot of advantages. But, if it helps put into perspective at all for my feelings, in two weekend events combined, I used a total of 7 Slays, 3 Resist Magics, 1 Evade, and 2 Spell Parries. I also virtually didn't take more damage at once that a Fighter half my level could take. So it wasn't really a matter of smashing things with my paper and ink.

I did feel like my overall damage was very meaningful, when I didn't feel that in 1.3, that my per day offensive skills were meaningful, I also didn't feel that in 1.3, and that I had good abilities to solve a fight if things hit the fan, combined with the impression that most of them would actually land if I used them.

In total, my experience with the playtests and new rules in general and my specific class choice were very positive.

Side note, I think a similarly leveled Rogue or Scout would have a comparable level of defenses so that it isn't that specific of a niche. Unless you mean my character level as the niche, in which case I agree wholeheartedly.
 
Alkalin3 said:
That's pretty not true. He's got a lot for sure. But, scholars can really stack on smart defenses and so can rogues.
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Ehhhh.

Scholars with access to Formal Magic can buy Highly Specific Cloaks at a rate of 6 XP per day, sure. But that gets really expensive and doesn’t help them against Getting Stabbed A Lot. I mean, if a Scholar wants to prep against Command/Curse/Binding/Alteration 3xday each? That’s 72 XP, nearly three columns.
 
Draven said:
Ehhhh.

Scholars with access to Formal Magic can buy Highly Specific Cloaks at a rate of 6 XP per day, sure. But that gets really expensive and doesn’t help them against Getting Stabbed A Lot. I mean, if a Scholar wants to prep against Command/Curse/Binding/Alteration 3xday each? That’s 72 XP, nearly three columns.
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And then they can follow up with some counter spells as well. It's a lot easier to memorize a lot of different spells.

Those cloaks work against and/or banes now work against a decent amount of rogue and fighter tricks. Stack on some Retributions to the mix and yeah, you can't bounce back a slay or eviscerate or raw but, you can sure bounce back a bunch of the other tricks.

Retribution was particularly powerful when combined with weapon shields and spell shields.
 
PYKE said:
Now looking at a fighter I had very few take outs. Barely any defensives. No production no craftsmans and I swung 10s. Swinging 10 with new rules maybe top notch but without a magic wrapon with monster slayer or race Racer a caster swinging 2 body is more of a threat.
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Body is designed to be killer, and watching Baylan throw body at the undead, utterly destroying them, was awesome. I think this part is getting used to the fact that Scholars are becoming more effective now. The idea wasn't to weaken Fighters but make scholars more utilized in battle. Changing MI's is apart of that. While I see monster slayer/race reaver becoming one of the most coveted MI's (if not the most) as an inevitability, it still makes Scholars more useful, which is a good thing. I don't think you totally need those items as a fighter to be 'useful'.

For the rest of your comments, you could swing 8's and that would still be really effective having a lot of XP left to buy other skills. It depends on how you build your fighter but they totally have resources for defense.
 
Alkalin3 said:
And then they can follow up with some counter spells as well. It's a lot easier to memorize a lot of different spells.

Those cloaks work against and/or banes now work against a decent amount of rogue and fighter tricks.
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Sure, but why are players (NPC or PC) trying to take down a Scholar with tricks or KOs? Just chew them down with static damage and MAYBE follow it up with Slays. Scholars didn’t suddenly get a gigantic amount of Body. You need around 60 damage to take out a Scholar of 30th level. Yes, they might KO you in a duel before that happens, but that’s just the nature of the “Not a Rock/Paper/Scissors system” that is Alliance.
 
Draven said:
Sure, but why are players (NPC or PC) trying to take down a Scholar with tricks or KOs? Just chew them down with static damage and MAYBE follow it up with Slays. Scholars didn’t suddenly get a gigantic amount of Body. You need around 60 damage to take out a Scholar of 30th level. Yes, they might KO you in a duel before that happens, but that’s just the nature of the “Not a Rock/Paper/Scissors system” that is Alliance.
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That wasn't really a point I was making. Rather that @OnceKnight's build wasn't terribly unique in the amount of smart defenses it had, a lot of classes have smart defense options.
 
Chris was trying to talk about the balance of defenses per class, not the tactics of killing a scholar.

I think you missed the point there.
 
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