MadDemiurg

It actually doesn't matter at all in this case. For two reasons: 1. You have to crit anyways to make this happen and crits do 1.5 times PEN which usually is enough. 2. Since you are triggering a chain reaction that increases exponentially it doesn't matter what tiny damage your crits do. I even dumped MIG completely in one test and it makes no difference. The hits/crits pile up exponentially and everything in range (thus INT is important) is dead after 2-3 seconds. Killed by a staccato of hundrets of hits/crits. It would even kill with 1 dmg hits. Maybe I'll upload a video. I guess this stuff you have to see with your own eyes. Swift flurry procs blights on aoe attacks ? This will get fixed eventually.

A huge problem with blights is that they have terrible PEN so they aren't good at dealing with anything with armor. It's pretty safe to dumb INT on both in this range level as you don't have a whole lot of good timed abilities and cleave aoe seems to be fixed. I've run dual spear pala/sb on PoTD, it was pretty easy with some cornercamping and alchemy/potions. Shouldn't be much different for figter/sb. And yeah, the game is basically dynasty warriors in the current state, top weapon dps builds are pretty ridiculous. CC? What's that?

SA does like ~150 dmg (on top of main hand weapon damage) when alternating between FoD and SA on a lvl 9 pala/soulblade. It's not like you need to autoattack for a minute to get that focus. It goes more like this: FoD: 120+ total dmg > SA: 200+ total dmg > FoD 120+ dmg > SA: 200+ total dmg (repeat until dead). (that's w/o any crits) If you don't have full or aoe attacks to generate focus fast it would go slower. Which is why I don't see Soulblade as anything but multiclass.

Psyblade lacks cheap full attacks for single target alpha and is not as tanky as Inquisitor. But it's much better at aoe.

Spell enchantment = metamagic. Currently there's too few things that boost spell damage, making it quite weak compared to weapon damage. We can of course add new things to boost it, but if all lash buffs work with spells we won't have to, plus it would add some new possibilities for multiclass builds. I would also allow sneak attacking for single target spells.

How is cleave bugged? It does what it says. Even single target tho the fighter can compete with rogues (not street fighter), rangers and ciphers, who are supposedly "the" dps classes.

Backstab?

Based on the Beta? Yes. As for the release version: Well that depends on a lot of things (encounter length in mid- and endgame, high level abilities etc.) and whether you want to play the Shifter as pure melee [-> multiclass indeed] or as caster/melee hybrid via pre-casting Returning Storm, Relentless Storm, Avenging Storm [tier 9], Greater Maelstrom [-> single class]. It also depends on whether you like micro management or not. We also have no information yet how strong the Wildstrike Frenzy passive [tier 9] will turn out to be. And what the heck is Aspect of Galawain [tier 9]? Could as well be something like a very powerful Spiritshift form or self buff (aka druids Avatar) . There are full ability trees somewhere?

Fighters are a top tier dps class currently. Maybe not the best one, but one of for sure. 75% graze to hit with 50% hit to crit and full attack cleaves that are way better than carnage does that to people. As tanks, they're kinda meh in terms of survivability (better than average, but not top notch), but top tier in terms of keeping enemies engaged.

1) Everything that is currently "top tier" needs a nerf imo. Current top tier builds are way too strong, basically gamebreaking. 2) Fighter is described as defender first, striker second. They should not be the best dps class, above average maybe. Not on the level of Rogue/Ranger/Cipher/Fury for sure. They should be pretty damn tanky tho. 3) Fighters have a bunch of crappy abilities in need of buffs for the sake of build diversity if nothing else

I personally find souldblade a top tier multiclass material as well (needs smth with high dmg + full attacks ideally). It's kinda meh as single class but it has very strong synergies.

Well, I do use consumables because I solo but the build that relies on using them all the time to be viable is kinda eh...

Yeah, 2h gets good if you manage to get -recovery. But -recovery is very limited currently. Basically it's either hunting bow (which is a great 2h weapon) or streetfighter. Also Ila's chant for arquebus, but it's not enough to make it good.

I think Intuitive needs nerfs and Swift needs buffs (not to the level of the old DAoM tho). The reason I think Swift needs buffs is that it's one of the worst inspirations currently.

Hit to crit all fighters get the same because it's just too good to pass up. Higher accuracy is also universally good, except for the stuff like rapier modal which will likely hurt your dps even as devoted (it's probably only good for dps if you can barely hit your target without it and in this case it won't give you a lot of crits).

Take into account that crit not only adds 25% extra damage but also 50% more penetration, so criting 50% of the time is not only 12.5% additive dmg. Depending on the situation it can be much more, the most extreme case I can think of is transforming a severe under-penetration -75% to a +25% bonus. But Devoted does not increase crit chance, only crit damage. You can have the same crit chance with any other fighter. We were discussing the power of devoted +25% crit damage bonus, not the power of crits.

Rapier modal is pretty terrible tbh, it's only good for strikes you absolutely want to hit with (e.g. some CC), not for DPS. In general, modals that increase your recovery are terrible, the only one where you might break even on damage or even win is rod's aoe and it's still bit ???. But yeah, If you stack devotion from priest + rapier modal I can see 80% crit. It's not optimal for dps tho. Axes are pretty decent.

I mean 1 PL for.... 50% hit to crit? Is there even a choice?

On PoTD? kinda doubt it. I've been running solo crusader with 19 per, I don't crit 80% of time even with FoD which is +20 acc base. 50% hit to crit included. If you're talking ranger, yeah you might crit more with accurate wounding shot + stalkers link + mark but in the end you'll still be doing less dmg than crusader with FoD so the point is kinda moot. Oh, and you won't get stalkers link with multiclass and current level cap. So it's only 10 acc above FoD on wounding shot (trading for +20% dmg from sworn enemy and 50% multiplicative lash dmg from FoD)

Crit is not multiplicative. If you crit 50% of the time it's additive +12.5% damage. In this beta, it's also highly beneficial to switch damage types from my solo experience. E.g. Skulking horror is massively vulnerable to pierce (having pierce in much better than +2 pen with any other type).

Unbroken gets +1 armor when using shield (which is good if you want to use shield). But the point is, the difference between fighter subclasses is not big enough to be more than 0.5 tier apart (or maybe 1 tier apart in case of black jacket).

Actually Devoted can cover 3 types without penalty, just try Devoted/Monk, you have fist and let's say sword and you have 3 types. Devoted > all other fighter subclasses for sure in this beta version. I explicitly said about Devoted/Monk as an exception, because they get 1 extra devoted weapon for "free" (which is imo cheesy, they need to just be able to select fists or claws if multiclassing). Yeah in this combo, Devoted is much better. But that's just 1 combo. In all other combos, Devoted is also better, but very slightly so. Well, even if you use swords to cover 2 dmg types you already lose 1 pen to sabres and spears. And being able to attack the lowest enemy resist also translates to some effective +pen. So in the end it's less than 2 pen for the most part in practice as long as you're not too lazy to pay attention to enemy resists and use different weapons. +25% critical dmg is good, but not that great to move you up a tier. As I said, it's maybe like +10% dmg on average. And, when using other weapons you not only lose the bonus but take a pretty heavy acc penalty. So it's not like you can just as easily switch to another weapon as other fighters (but in some cases, you'll have to). Devout is also great from laziness perspective though, cause unless I'm having my ass handled to me I couldn't be bothered to check the enemy armor or switch weapons.

I think people also grossly overestimate the difference between some subclasses. E.g. paladins. Some are better, but 20% extra lash on FoD won't move you a whole tier. And let's say fighters. I agree that they are overall are top tier, but devoted is not really that much better than the rest, mostly more conveinient. E.g. a normal fighter can switch between potentially up to 3 damage types (let's say he has dw spears/dw swords as weapon sets). Also between lower or higher pen weapons. Devoted can't do that without heavy penalties. They would probably want to take a 2 damage types weapon like sword to not get screwed by immunities, which is bit supbar compared to sabres or spears in many situations (and 1 pen lower, so it's already like +1 pen). So +2 pen they get is more like a necessity when you're mostly forced to use one type of weapons. It's nice for monks who want to use fists anyway (and effectively get 2 weapons). You also can't use shield modals, so backup defensive setup is not available. +25% crit dmg is nice with current OP hit -> crit conversion, but really it's probably still equivalent to like +10-15% dmg at most on average. Good but not amazing. I would say unbroken and vanilla fighter are very close in power level. Black jacket is worse cause they trade a good passive for a bad one, so maybe they can be a tier lower (but not more, they still have cleave, confident aim and disciplined barrage which are the main OP abilities).

Again, how is soulblade low acc? It's as high acc as anyone else, you lack fighter's OP graze -> hit and hit -> crit but that's about it (and in a party you can get graze -> hit from a priest). With DW you have high enough DPS to spam SA every other attack and add a ton of dmg. Of course if you make him a tank with goldpact and shield he's gonna suck. I mean your acc would be low on average if you play on PoTD. The mobs you deal with will usually have higher deflection than you acc so that means your SA has 25%+ chance to miss and lose all focus. I tried one handed style but that doesn't work too well because you cannot keep both armor and attack speed/acc. This is what I try to explain here thats all. Well, anyone is missing on PoTD with roughly the same rate except for a few classes? It's not like you need to save all your focus for SA for a long time if you have high base dmg, it's usually like attack - SA - attack -SA. You would be actually wasting focus otherwise. For increased acc dualwield spears and if in a party use dire blessing etc.

Again, how is soulblade low acc? It's as high acc as anyone else, you lack fighter's OP graze -> hit and hit -> crit but that's about it (and in a party you can get graze -> hit from a priest). With DW you have high enough DPS to spam SA every other attack and add a ton of dmg. Of course if you make him a tank with goldpact and shield he's gonna suck. Nah, mostly blunderbusses or actually getting flanked. Blunderbusses are still pretty decent when you stack enough -recovery tho (and you get plenty from street fighter).