Fighter that can do damage and take some too

[VanDerVaals]

Hi everyone!

 

I've decided to make a "classic warrior" character. But from what I've learned, player is up to choose full offense (glass cannon barbarian) or full defense ("turtlelike" fighter dealing pathetically low damage) variant if he wants to be efficient. But who I truly want is a warrior we know from old Infinity Engine games. You know, the one that does significant damage and can take rough beating too. Nowadays, RPGs seem to be heavily influenced by MMOs, which have split "warrior" class in two - namely - tank and damage dealer.

 

I know that I won't deal highest damage, being almost invincible simultaneously, but I want to make up offense and defense as much as I can. Is it viable in PoE?

 

The primary dilemma I have in making a warrior character in any cRPG/aRPG is choosing his fighting style It's always hard for me to choose whether to go for 1h weapon and shield or 2h weapon. Personally I prefer 1h weapon and shield style, because it seems more tactical and realistic to me. But, in PoE, I've found 1h weapon and shield to be significantly underpowered in comparison to 2h weapon. Am I doing something wrong or is it just the way it is?

 

In short - I want to make a Fighter that is efficient in dealing damage and taking some too. I want to use only 1h weapon and shield or 2h weapon (I need help in choosing here), no dual wielding nor single handed. I'm playing on Hard difficulty. I'll appreciate any help

[Dr <3]

In the build thread, check for lady of pain build

[Whipstitch]

You don't need to go all or nothing. It helps a bit in the early game to be focused, sure, but there's virtually always some equipment/ability combination out there for each class that can paper over whatever weaknesses you might have with a given build. You can seriously just be a high Might Fighter with Tidefall and that's generally good enough.

Edited November 5, 2017 by Whipstitch

[Braven]

2-Handed will be better through the early-mid game; particularly if you want to do decent damage. Shields don’t really shine Until late game and fighters already have great survivalbilty early from naturally high deflection and constant/rapid recovery. Shields perform better late game because the better unique ones are found later and also deflection is better when maxed which is not possible until you level up and able to upgrade your shield’s quality raring. It also takes a lot of talents to really make the defensive style shine and to overcome the accuracy and DR penetration issues shield users have early on. Late game sword/shields can do nearly the same damage as a 2-handers, maybe 10% less, but have much better survivablity. This is because of fighter’s full attack abilities (knock down and charge), higher attack speeds provided by durgan steel, availabilty of speed-enchanted weapons, and because of how higher damage multipliers (which increases for characters over the course of the game) help faster weapons more than slower ones because of how the Damage reduction math works.

 

In other words, bigger weapons are better earlier and small weapons are relatively better in the later portions of the game.

 

My suggestion is to start with a two-handed weapon and switch to sword/shield after getting Durgan Steel in The White March. You then will have access to sone decent shield, including a special soulbound one that is only usable by fighters and barbarians.

 

The two-handed fighting style talent is pretty weak. +15% damage is not nearly as good as it sounds and there are many other, better talents to pick early like rapid recovery, weapon focus, and bonus knock down. So just skip that one all together and take the shield style talent later on, after you start using a shield.

 

Soldier is a good choice for weapon focus. There are a few really good great swords available early and, after switching to shield, you can use a warhammer (there are a few really good one of these too).

 

——————

 

Here is an example to show why it is best to go all out with deflection boosting, or to not bother boosting it at all; “average deflection” is the worst because each individual point of deflection is not equally beneficial. Each point is more helpful than the one before it.

 

If your defenses are really high and you only get hit 2% of the time, increasing deflection by a single point will reduce this to 1%. You will now only get hit half as often (100% improvement); a huge difference allowing you to survive twice as long as before. However, if your deflection is average and you get hit 50% of the time, increasing deflection by one point leaves you still with a 49% chance of getting hit (2% improvement). This will only allow you to survive a tiny bit longer and is barely noticible. As you can see, deflection gets better and better the farther away from 50/50 you get. Similiarly, it gets worse at a greater rate the lower it is dropped below average. However, the game compensates a lot for this with a myriad of items that provides a large benefit when a character receives critical hits making really low deflection not nearly as bad as it otherwise would be based on the example above.

Edited November 5, 2017 by Braven

[Boeroer]

I like to compensate low deflection on front liners with high self heals (Veteran's/Constant Recovery, healing bonuses), decent DR (early game) and health pool (highish CON) and healing + spell holding gear. This way you can go all offensense with talents and abilities and shift the "improve sturdyness" part to the skills (and sometimes spells), I mean putting 12 or 14 points into survival. The result is always a good damage dealer who is also not dropping quickly in an encounter. This works with every class. Health loss can be an issue, but most of he time I rest because my caster's spell uses are empty and not because of low health, so... not an issue for me.

[BlackHat]

Do not underestimate the power of ALE.  Very realistic, that.  The right consumables can make a difference, be it ale or dirt-cheap spirit-armor potions, and farmer's choice (whatever the +1mv +2 might food is).  Cheap consumables used regularly help more than you think.

 

Add a Big Sword (yes, capital letters) and apprentice sneak attack/specialization.  A dead enemy can't hurt you.  Unless, you know, you're a cannibal, or they're undead.  If the former, then remember to refridgerate.  If the latter, then use fire.

 

So, you can make a very tanky dps, but *not* use the classic dual wield/2h builds.  Even with a dang stiletto and a shield, you can pump out damage; high dr+ flame shield potions, combusting wounds, any fast attack wounding weapon with bashing shields, add in runner's shot(not just a ranged ability), rotfinger gloves, Bilestompers.  Dots and aoes are your friend.  If you've got some kind of retaliate or "X when hit by enemy" effects, just run around the enemy proccing disengagement attacks, while your casters drop slow/combusting wounds on the enemies.  Pause for second winds/heals, stab a couple people to lock engagement/aggro, and as they gather around you repeat.

Edited November 5, 2017 by BlackHat

[BlackHat]

Well, that last bit wasn't very "classic warrior" but still, its fun.

[Archaven]

I like to compensate low deflection on front liners with high self heals (Veteran's/Constant Recovery, healing bonuses), decent DR (early game) and health pool (highish CON) and healing + spell holding gear. This way you can go all offensense with talents and abilities and shift the "improve sturdyness" part to the skills (and sometimes spells), I mean putting 12 or 14 points into survival. The result is always a good damage dealer who is also not dropping quickly in an encounter. This works with every class. Health loss can be an issue, but most of he time I rest because my caster's spell uses are empty and not because of low health, so... not an issue for me.

 

Thank god for whoever created Shod-In-Faith. The reason why i dump RES on my Barb because i wanted it to trigger Consecrated Ground XD. Currently i can't live without the following party members in any of my party setup:

 

Kana, Pallegina, Aloth, Hiravias, Durance

 

This makes it so hard for me to mix in a Ranger as i have main Barb. Kana is really a great support.. damage dealer, and CC. At the Sound of His Voice, the Killers Froze Stiff has became my best favorite  . Aloth... Maura Tentacles, Exposed Vulnerabilties, Blind, Miasma  .. also Devotions of the Faithful i found that it buffs spells ACC 

 

Multi-classing Eder as Fighter/Barbarian would be really awesome in Deadfire. Eder really lacks AOE.. after playing a Barb.. i had really hope Eder main class is Barb.

Edited November 5, 2017 by Archaven

[FlaviusPTZ]

Hi everyone!

 

I've decided to make a "classic warrior" character. But from what I've learned, player is up to choose full offense (glass cannon barbarian) or full defense ("turtlelike" fighter dealing pathetically low damage) variant if he wants to be efficient. But who I truly want is a warrior we know from old Infinity Engine games. You know, the one that does significant damage and can take rough beating too. Nowadays, RPGs seem to be heavily influenced by MMOs, which have split "warrior" class in two - namely - tank and damage dealer.

 

I know that I won't deal highest damage, being almost invincible simultaneously, but I want to make up offense and defense as much as I can. Is it viable in PoE?

 

The primary dilemma I have in making a warrior character in any cRPG/aRPG is choosing his fighting style It's always hard for me to choose whether to go for 1h weapon and shield or 2h weapon. Personally I prefer 1h weapon and shield style, because it seems more tactical and realistic to me. But, in PoE, I've found 1h weapon and shield to be significantly underpowered in comparison to 2h weapon. Am I doing something wrong or is it just the way it is?

 

In short - I want to make a Fighter that is efficient in dealing damage and taking some too. I want to use only 1h weapon and shield or 2h weapon (I need help in choosing here), no dual wielding nor single handed. I'm playing on Hard difficulty. I'll appreciate any help

Hey man, just a few day ago I made a similar post, it's called help making DPS melee as main character + mini rant; I wanted kind of the same thing as you want, only I wanted a 2 handed build; the comment have really helped, also there is a build called the lady of pain, you can search it on the forum, that really helped too; I've played till lvl 4 with my 2 handed fighter and its pretty damn decent(compared to most modern rpgs at least); I strongly suggest doing 2 handed dough; if you want to mix offence and defense, it's not going to go so well, simply because you will have to chose offensive and defensive talents and you don't get that many of them; the defense part will be covered by the many abilities the fighter has so don't worry too much about that; and think about it, the game is based on 15-16 century renascence(visually and weapons wise)period so just go for 2 handed; as armor got better and better, the shield became more and more obsolete; so for this time period, 2 handed would actually be more tactical and realistic; but if you like sword and board style, do your thing man, the game is not that hard anyway, I just don't want to be the suckiest in the party, so I try and make the strongest character possible, without making a caricature silly looking feather armor, dual wielding 2 christmas tree swords kinda guy; hope that helps