Fighter as damage dealer

[Achilles]

A strategy I've been using (and having a lot of fun with)

 

Eder

Weapon Focus/Specialization/Mastery (Ruffian)

Into the Fray

Arms Bearer

Knockdown

 

Weapon Set 1 - Blunderbuss

Weapon Set 2 - Saber/Shield

Weapon Set 3 - Stiletto/Club (dual wield)

 

Step 1 - Use Into the Fray to pull a target

Step 2 - Use Knockdown (Weapon Set 2 or 3 active) to make them prone and reduce their Deflection by 10

Step 3 - Switch to Weapon Set 1

Step 4 - Watch bad guy explode into little bits.

Step 5 - Switch back to Weapon Set 2 or 3 to finish him off if he managed to survive and/or if other bad guys are around.

 

It doesn't work good on tanks, but it does neutralize rogues, wizards, and barbarians quite nicely.

 

So...you can have a tactical fighter build

Edited April 11, 2015 by Achilles

[KDubya]

A fighter specced for dps would be built exactly like a rogue except:  No starting 1.5 damage modifier.

 

They'd have more health and the ability to wear better armor at less of a speed penalty -- neither helps dps at all.

Instead of crippling strike and blind you'd get 3x prones per encounter -- I'd call that an even enough trade to consider it a wash, even though it favors tanking more.

 

No other meaningful differences, really, but the lack of the free 1.5 damage multiplier is significant enough -- which is offset somewhat at the cost of a talent for weapon specialization.    

 

I wouldn't bother making a dps fighter since most of its better abilities would go to waste.

 

There'd be a lot more differences than that, primarily deflection and stats. What are the dump stats on a rogue? If it is not int then your tanky stats will suffer if everything else is comparable i.e. both max might, high dex, res and per with 7-9 con. A low con will have worse consequences for a rogue than for a fighter due to base hit points.

 

A rogue has a lot of duration effects that would be wasted with a 3 int. Raising to just a 10 would have to drop something by 7,  most likely per or res. This plus the initial 10 less deflection would get a 17 lower deflection than a damage fighter and have less interrupts and/or concentration.

 

A fighter in plate will have better attack speed (50-16=34) than a rogue in scale (-35%) and have a massive DR advantage.

 

In the same armor a fighter will attack 16% faster with 17 more deflection or 4 % slower with +32 deflection and +10 saves via wary defender. With that much of a lower deflection, if a rogue can tank and survive, then the fighter would be untouchable.

 

I don't see how a rogue can stand in the front, tank the monsters and still put out decent damage because this is what a damage spec'd fighter can do. If the rogue is hiding in the back with the other squishies, a pike barb would do better for the team with carnage, or even just spec the rogue for ranged attacks. In that case the party still needs someone to stand in front to take the engagements, a damage spec'd fighter is that person.

 

The game does not require a super tank with low dex, low might, max con, re and per using sword and shield with a hatchet in order to hold back the hordes. A damage tank fighter can tank well enough while putting out some large consistent single target damage in relative safety. His job is to fire an initial shot then rush the foe and hold them back while hitting for big numbers at a decent rate.

[Longknife]

 

 

Nooooope

 

Care to back up that claim at all or just gonna leave it at that?

 

Do you care to back up yours?

 

Fighter brings, what ... Engaging extra enemies? Worthless. Defender? Pretty good once you take the child talent, but monks and paladins both get similar tricks that can be used with Cautious Attack.. Constant Recovery? I'd rather just avoid taking damage. Vigorous Defense is pretty good, sure, as is Critical Defense, but they're kind of it. Unbending and Unbroken help a bad tank, I guess.

 

Defenses are the most important part of tanking, and paladin has them in spades

 

 

Fighters essentially get +10 to +20 (deflection, and I think the Fighter can even +30 that) to all defenses permanently and engage more enemies. This is WITHOUT the temporary Vigorous Defender, which can be used whenever +10-20 isn't enough to make everything jump up to +30 or +40. Aside from this, a Fighter can both Prone enemies (thereby stopping that enemy's damage output AND increasing the likelihood of teammates hitting the enemy) and "GET OVER HERE" enemies that are going for squishies, better serving the job as tank when it has superior control over what comes after it, which ties in well with it's higher engagement. Lastly, the Fighter is constantly able to heal back up, with high level fighters even being able to revive themselves should they somehow manage to die.

 

Comparatively, a Paladin gains at best (aka this depends on dispositions and must be built up) 8 deflection and 16 of every other defense while housing no natural endurance regen ability. While the Paladin has plenty of other support abilities, only one of them (defense aura) is focused on doing any sort of tanking, and Lay Hands On is inferior healing (for tanking) than any self-healing that Fighter can do.

 

 

How can you argue Paladin is the superior tank when the numbers are plain as day and it's clear the Fighter's are higher?

[ErlKing]

Personally I went for soldier focus / specialisation for Eder.

 

- defender + improved defenses = +15 deflect +10 defenses +2 engage, hell yeah.

- soldier spec = good damage with pike/greatsword for damage or switch to warhammer/shield (shatterstar for extra engage) for tanking, optional arqebus for starter.

 

So Eder goes as second line damage dealer and backup tank in case my paladin got flanked, which is often.

 

In my first run I used Eder as main tank and he is reeeaaaly good at it, but as my PC cipher was overpowered and I didnt like that Eder start conversations with npc I restarted with paladin (kinda fit my rp playstyle better).

 

In my opinion fighter builded for damage could be good, much more reliable than other classes - no restrictions, no conditions, pretty self sufficient.

Edited April 11, 2015 by ErlKing

[Achilles]

Good luck with that. Looks like they respeced him for Ruffian (which is fine, as that's what I usually gave him at level 4 anyway)

[scrotiemcb]

Fighter is great for more aggressive tanks, just like monk, but if you're looking to stand around looking invulnerable, paladin is the way to go.

Your analysis (but not necessarily your conclusion) makes the mistake of confusing "high defense" with "tank."

 

Tank is a verb more than it is a noun. The full verb might be expressed as "tank for." As in, tank for someone. This means 1. Having more suitable defenses than that which you are protecting and 2. Keeping enemies on the tank and off of the squishier party members.

 

In PoE this is somewhat variable, but for a great many encounters it is indeed a case of simply having the highest defense possible; in these cases, the enemy AI does the work for you. But in a more active sense, punishing disengagement is PoE's aggro mechanic. In this second, more active sense, a Fighter has the edge. Arguably, two-handed weapons even have an edge over shields, since disengagement attacks are far more powerful with them.

 

In practice, though, your analysis is correct. Bad AI is bad.

 

In the future, however, I'd like to see an AI which evaluates your tank's real threat and disengages when appropriate. If you're all defense and zero offense, enemies shouldn't hesitate to disengage and go after juicer backrow targets if available.

[Caerdon]

In the future, however, I'd like to see an AI which evaluates your tank's real threat and disengages when appropriate. If you're all defense and zero offense, enemies shouldn't hesitate to disengage and go after juicer backrow targets if available.

 

I'd love to see this.