Fighter Ability and Talent Advice

[Thorgarth]

Hey, all! 

 

I'm currently working on my first play though, leveling Eder as a tank fighter, and I'm curious about a few abilities and talents. What are your thoughts about Rapid Recovery, Into the Fray, and Vigorous Defense? Is the bonus from Rapid Recovery worth a talent choice? Should I consider Vigorous Defense or Into the Fray; or would you suggest a more offensive ability for my level 5 fighter ability?

 

I just reached level 8, so my current build looks like this:

1st level - Knockdown

2nd - Weapon and Shield Style

3rd - Defender

4th - Wary Defender

5th - Vigorous Defense (With my current defenses, I rarely use this ability)

6th - Rapid Recovery

7th - Overbearing Guard

8th - Hold the Line

 

Also, are there any other fighter abilities that you would suggest for future levels? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.

[Slapstick87]

Welcome to the fandom

 

Actually fighters has so much innate defense and sturdiness to begin with, that you don't have to build them ultra-defensive. It can be much better to build some offense into them so they can be a properly disruptive force on the field. It also helps the AI not ignore them and just go for the glass canons instead, which they are liable to do if the tank is no threat. As you say, you usually don't even use vigorous defense!

 

Rapid Recovery is generally not needed, at least not if you have a priest or druid for healing. Overbearing guard I haven't tested, but I find offensive talents more attractive. Disciplined Barrage is +20 to accuracy, which is huge. It's for anything the fighter might be doing the next 15 seconds! so the knockbacks will land, that's for sure. If you put spellbound items that charm or dominate, or scrolls, you can see how that's pretty awesome!

 

With Armored Grace and Weapon Specialization he can ramp up the damage he can get out of a sabre quite significantly. Clear out, and then charge are all nice powers. he's still not going to go down unless you want him to I do keep vigorous defense in my build for the nastier stuff though.

[Thorgarth]

Hey, thanks for the reply!

 

The more thought I give it, the more I agree with focusing on offensive talents and abilities. As of now, Eder just stands in a group of mobs and never loses any health. I did some respec-testing and realized that Rapid Recovery doesn't even boost my passive healing by a whole point, so that's definitely out of here. I chose Overbearing Guard because I currently have +4 engaged enemies with talents, abilities, and items; and the prone part of the ability is nice from stopping enemies from advancing too close to my ranged characters. I'm still 50/50 on it, though. Yeah, I think I'm definitely going to focus on more offensive abilities and talents.

 

I also just recently picked up Gyrd Haewanes Stenes (the dominate scepter) and bound it to Aloth. The dominate effect is insanely powerful.

 

Thanks again for the feedback! Have a good one, friend. 

[Boeroer]

Rapid Recovery scales with level as does Constant Recovery. With Rapid Recovery you can make Constant Recovery better than Veteran's Recovery. You have to decide for yourself if you need it for your fighter. If you don't lose a lot of endurance anyway then you might not need it. I like to stack a lot of healing bonuses via items and survival and thus more regeneration is always very benefical. I'm able to drop deflection and armor a bit then. Since I have to rest from time to time because of spells the health loss is not a problem. That's a reason I like Rapid Recovery personally. But perhaps that's just me. I also take Veteran's Recovery for nearly every frontliner because I don't like to give them all shields and superhigh deflection. You see where my preferences are.

 

In my experience an offensive fighter is more fun than a defensive one. A defensive fighter "tank" can't do anything but staying alive. Take the Hit is bugged as sh!t and Overbearing Guard was always underwhelming when I used it. Into the Fray and Clear Out are the two abilites that can deal decent damage and don't depend on your weapon and talent/ability choice at all - and that's that for a fighter tank.

 

There are other classes which can be build very defensively as well but are still useful while standing around (for example a paladin with auras and heals and other support abilites or a chanter with summons, support or DoT phrases). 

 

The good thing about a fighter is that you can combine decent single target dps and disables (applied with crazy high accuracy) with a lot of staying power. Thus, a fighter is really good at rushing to enemy squishies and taking them out while not risking to get knocked out. Once you get Charge this playstyle is like "Whooohooo! Down you go!"

 

I have to admit until recently I wasn't a big fan of fighters because most builds I tried seemed pretty boring. But then I tried to build around Take the Hit and spectacularly failed because it's so awfully bugged. I then retrained a bit and thought "Well srew it -  I'll just use this guy with the Cape of the Cheat to get behind enemy lines and mess things and later use Charge". That's when I discovered that this is a really fun way to play a fighter. But you have to be able to compensate for one missing team member in the front line because this guy is not part of your formation most of the time.

 

Another nice role is that of an offtank who helps out here and there when other party members are under pressure.

 

That doesn't mean that a fighter can't be a good tank. But he will not do anything besides soaking up damage.

Edited March 11, 2017 by Boeroer

[Natures Bounty]

I have to admit until recently I wasn't a big fan of fighters because most builds I tried seemed pretty boring. But then I tried to build around Take the Hit and spectacularly failed because it's so awfully bugged. I then retrained a bit and thought "Well srew it -  I'll just use this guy with the Cape of the Cheat to get behind enemy lines and mess things and later use Charge". That's when I discovered that this is a really fun way to play a fighter. But you have to be able to compensate for one missing team member in the front line because this guy is not part of your formation most of the time.

 

 

You can also play a fighter with charge with low or zero recovery. That way, you can either charge behind enemy lines and immediately charge back, or charge behind enemy lines and then use into the fray to draw 2 foes back from the frontline, or charge behind enemy lines and then clear out the front line from behind. I like to use these three options to somewhat compensate for that problem. It's a lot of fun. But you should have some sources of "weakened" in your party, as charge, knockdown, clear out all target fortitude.

[Elric Galad]

I put my own fighter on this forum, but I admit it didn't get a ton of success :

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/91836-class-build-the-unstoppable-wave-siege-breaker-fighter/

 

From this experience however, and whatever build you choose, I strongly recommand the following combo :

Disciplined barrage + charge + knockdown (preferrably dual wielding)

 

This + general DPS passive (Confident aim, Weapon Focus / Mastery / Specialization, Armored Grace) will make your fighter fantastic at taking down any priority target.

 

Sidenote : even with 10 Res, 10 Con and no shield Fighter, a fighter with a good armor almost never get down.

Don't waste his/her DPS potential at making him defensive. A couple of high level defensive abilities (Unbroken, Unbending, Triggered Immunity) will do the job.

I have no experience with teammate protection abilities such as overbearing guard. Maybe they worth considering...