Judicator

Might helps with other things, though. Like healing.

Those 2 points in Per aren't really going to do much. I'd put them in Might if I were you.

Well, it is a dragon. Idk why people are surprised it's stronger than humanoid characters.

I don't understand people who say you can't tank in IE games. The enemies always targeted the character closest to them. Just send in your Fighter/Paladin/Barbarian first and that's that.

A Barbarian with Sneak Attack, and someone who casts CC spell as backup sounds very fun. You could maul a room full of enemies ridiculously fast. Actually I think of saccing a bit of Might for Per on barb to have more accurate carnage + better interrupt and maybe follow it up with Interrupting Blows. That talent will give 15% dmg so that lets me sac might a bit for per. You can build a barb with M 18 D 14 C 10 P 16 I 16 R 4 Which is going to be pretty devastating. Glass canon tho, but as lons you have a decent front line it will do just fine. Good conversation options, too. I don't dump stas to 3-4. I find it anticlimatic The least I will put is 7. And I still roll over POTD atm You can probably take 1-2 points from Per and Int. It won't matter much.

A Barbarian with Sneak Attack, and someone who casts CC spell as backup sounds very fun. You could maul a room full of enemies ridiculously fast. Actually I think of saccing a bit of Might for Per on barb to have more accurate carnage + better interrupt and maybe follow it up with Interrupting Blows. That talent will give 15% dmg so that lets me sac might a bit for per. You can build a barb with M 18 D 14 C 10 P 16 I 16 R 4 Which is going to be pretty devastating. Glass canon tho, but as lons you have a decent front line it will do just fine. Good conversation options, too.

A Barbarian with Sneak Attack, and someone who casts CC spell as backup sounds very fun. You could maul a room full of enemies ridiculously fast.

I like this idea, disengagement attacks are too weak against anything other than squishy casters. Some talents that boost damage would be good, or maybe have some talents that increase crit chance or induce conditions like prone or stun. That would make holding the line far more viable.

It looks OK. If it was me I'd drop some intellect and add it to resolve for the better dialogue, concentration and deflection, but it won't make that big of a difference. Soldier is a fine choice with pikes, greatswords, and the two biggest hitting range weapons for the alpha strike. Adventurer gets you the super effective Estoc but the Warbow, while great for sustained ranged combat, is not the best for a one shot alpha before swapping to melee. Since none of your stats are maxed out any of the races will work for the stat spread you have listed. I personally dislike the godlike race, especially the moon godlike with its OP AoE heal three times per encounter but that is up to you. If you are not planning on standing at the front taking hits, assuming this based on the medium armor, then the coastal Amaumau ability might not get as much use. The free weapon slot from Island Amaumau can be useful in giving you additional flexibility in your weapon load outs - have a two hander, shield and a ranged, or have two big hitting ranged weapons for two alpha strikes. I don't want to drop int, I hate playing retard characters (even if there is no moron speak in the game), and PoE is not hard enough to warrant such blatant powergaming IMO.

Okay, so I've been thinking about my stat spread. Something like M 18 D 14 C 10 P 16 I 10 R 10 Equipped with medium armor (probably Eder's), with Weapon focus Soldier (or Adventurer for those sexy estocs). Moon Godlike for the healing or Coastal Aumaua for the towering physique ability. Opinions?

Looks interesting except for the retard int score. I can't roleplay characters with bad in scores. Also, I'd take a different race.

What doesn't matter exactly? What you take. Because hard is not hard at all so it 'doesn't matter'. All fights can be done with 3-man party as well. Sure, but the question is what build would be fun. You can solo with any build, but that doesn't make them enjoyable. What doesn't matter exactly? What you take. Because hard is not hard at all so it 'doesn't matter'. All fights can be done with 3-man party as well. What I specifically meant was the weakness of the barbarian, too little accuracy. On hard all the monsters can be hit way easier because they have 15 points less deflection. The nerf to deflection and and the accuracy buff from Perception could change that.

What doesn't matter exactly?

I already played a Barbarian and he was absolutely beastly, at least on Hard. I thought I'd give a non-tank fighter a whirl since defender fighters are about to get nerfed anyway.

Okay, so I've been thinking of running a fighter char built around high single target damage. He will not be the main tank obviously, so I'll have him in light or medium armor. Can anyone share experiences?

Is there any reason to even use a fighter now? Paladin seems like a superior tank with this latest nerf.

Part of the problem is that stats do the same thing for all of the classes. So, it's always the same stat distribution for a certain build no matter what. I think they should have made stats have different uses for different classes. Like in DnD, Charisma offers a lot of perks for Paladins (saving throws, turn undead, smiting, etc), but it's generally a dump stat for other warriors. In PoE you'd think Resolve would offer affect a Paladin's special abilities, or add some kind of extra bonuses to them based on their class discription, but nothing like that exists in the game. And don't even get me started on every spellcaster being a muscle wizard.

When is the patch expected to be released? It's time I finally played a pally.

That's not exactly true. A Kensai and a Berserker were very different beasts.

Eh, that's not saying much. You could probably solo the game with a character with 10s in everything on Normal.

Defender, Wary Defender, Weapon Focus/Spec/Mastery, and I can't remember the rest.

Some people don't care if they're "suboptimal." eg, you can still win even if you're not. And to some, that's even more fun. That isn't a reason why it should be that way. What's "optimal"? 90% of encounters in PoE are trash mobs, and the quicker you clean them the more optimal you are in my opinion. If a tank can help with that and hold mobs long enough he is optimal. And if that's not enough, equip Hatchet, largest shield and drink Llengrath's potion - bam, you're optimal for everything but Adra dragon. I have a potd group currently on level 5 (other saves are stored away and I'm lazy) with the following stats: Durance about 5k damage done (he only has about half the time in combat from the rest, so I doubled the damage for comparison). Pallegina and Kana, both 2h + plate armor: both about 6k. Mother: 7k (doesn't have a blunderbuss yet + mostly supports the PC with mental binding/phantom foes). Sagani at 10k (which to me is a reasonable difference to "tanks" that are also supporters, considering she is also an offtank with her fox). PC reach-rogue: bordering 30k. If I replaced one or both of my tanks with a big rock with a sign saying "hit me" on it, I honestly doubt that the difference in killing speed would be noticeable. This. My first playthrough was with a Barbarian on Hard and he had 145000 damage by the end of the game. The closest behind him was Grieving Mother with 40000. Eder and Pallegina didn't even make a dent.

Spellcasters were the best at everything in IE games but that's not the point. As others have said the game rewards specialization far too much. You're either a tank, a DPSer, or suboptimal.

There are two reasons. The first is that these are terms people are familiar with, sometimes even from MMOs (weird, I know). The second is that when you optimize a party in PoE, you get a natural drift towards those roles. This is arguably a weakness of the system. That depends. On Normal, and even on Hard, they're about as good at it as they need to be even without optimization for tanking. On the PotD, they're about as good as they need to be so long as they're built specifically as tanks. When you start to build them for tanking at lower difficulties, though ... then you start to run into issues. So you want a tank class that tanks on equal level to pure tanks while at the same time does damage at equal level to pure damage dealers. That's not actually what the OP said. What I think is intended (and correct me if I'm wrong, OP) is that he would like melee characters to be designed such that they do not naturally drift towards these roles (DPS vs. tank) when optimized. Given the mention of the IE games, presumably the OP would like melee characters to play more as they did in those games - generally good endurance coupled with steady offense, with a few exceptions where DPS-esque kits like the kensai were concerned. You got it right.

You have a crappy fighter on your party and you're wishing it wasn't so useless. Well, you're right. The only mistake is equating your crappy fighter with the crappiness of fighters for everyone. There are many testaments - and builds - that show fighters don't have to just sit there and be a sponge. Nah, my fighters are fine, they walk out of fights on PotD with barely a scratch on them, they're just boring.