Thoughts for a fighter pass

[EllisDee37]

Main concept would be to remove the monk stuff from kensei and replace it with "fighting styles" stuff, like using alternate ability scores for to-hit, damage and tactics with your focus weapons.

When sitting down to plan out my pure lives for my wizard's completionist run, I was thinking: unarmed monk, crossbow rogue, ..., wait, who does the quarterstaff life? Fighters suck at quarterstaff, so maybe rogue quarterstaff and fighter great crossbow? Wait, fighters suck at great crossbows too. Why do fighters suck at so many combat styles? Aren't they supposed to be the masters of combat style versatility? (Also, who does the shuriken life? Monk seems required for both shuriken and unarmed.)

My initial thought is:

Remove monk line from Kensei, replacing it with a single line, all prereqs for each other:
Tier 2: Choose any ability score for to hit or +3 melee/range power (eight-choice multiselector) 2 AP?
Tier 3: Choose any ability score for damage or +3 melee/range power (eight-choice multiselector) 2 AP?
Tier 4: Choose any ability score for tactics or +4 melee/range power (eight-choice multiselector) 2 AP?
Tier 5: Master of Weapons: Get similar "weapon mastery" as other trees give for your Weapon Focus weapons.
So like for quarterstaffs, Master of Weapons would give you +1 crit range and multiplier, like staff mastery does for acrobats.
By contrast, for crossbows Master of Weapons would give you Expert Builder. (+1 multiplier, +2 for great crossbows)
etc...

[Nightmanis]

Main concept would be to remove the monk stuff from kensei and replace it with "fighting styles" stuff, like using alternate ability scores for to-hit, damage and tactics with your focus weapons.

When sitting down to plan out my pure lives for my wizard's completionist run, I was thinking: unarmed monk, crossbow rogue, ..., wait, who does the quarterstaff life? Fighters suck at quarterstaff, so maybe rogue quarterstaff and fighter great crossbow? Wait, fighters suck at great crossbows too. Why do fighters suck at so many combat styles? Aren't they supposed to be the masters of combat style versatility? (Also, who does the shuriken life? Monk seems required for both shuriken and unarmed.)

My initial thought is:

Remove monk line from Kensei, replacing it with a single line, all prereqs for each other:
Tier 2: Choose any ability score for to hit or +3 melee/range power (eight-choice multiselector) 2 AP?
Tier 3: Choose any ability score for damage or +3 melee/range power (eight-choice multiselector) 2 AP?
Tier 4: Choose any ability score for tactics or +4 melee/range power (eight-choice multiselector) 2 AP?
Tier 5: Master of Weapons: Get similar "weapon mastery" as other trees give for your Weapon Focus weapons.
So like for quarterstaffs, Master of Weapons would give you +1 crit range and multiplier, like staff mastery does for acrobats.
By contrast, for crossbows Master of Weapons would give you Expert Builder. (+1 multiplier, +2 for great crossbows)
etc...

As long as the capstone remains the same I could get behind this.

[Vellrad]

I think, grant kensei tree to monk class, and replace it with weapon master.
Make weapon groups like: slashing, ranged, thrown, etc. so it matches the weapon focus/spec/imp crit feats.
Instead of enhancements granting +X damage, grant +X melee/ranged power when using weapon from chosen group.
This tree should have attack, haste, melee/ranged and damage boosts, not multiselectors, you should be able to pick all 4 if you wish (and they should all have separate uses).
Add things that will enhance active feats such as:
Stances: Power attack: When this feat is active, it also increases melee power. Combat expertise: When this feat is active, also increases PRR and MRR. Precision: When this feat is active, critical hits also leave damage over time (xdy each 2 seconds, where X is your weapon's critical multiper -1 (so 1 dice for longsword, 2 for handaxe, 3 for pick). This scales with melee power). Active attacks: Slicing blow scales with melee power Sap stuns for 2 seconds, no save, daze after stun is finished Trip/Improved Trip: Enemy is helpless while on ground Stunning blow: longer stun Sunder/Improved sunder: effect is permanent
Cores should be like kensei's but:
1: Weapon groups like above
3: No meditation, instead clicky:
"You can sharpen your weapon, increasing its enhancement bonus by number of your core enhancements in this tree -1, and gainging "On vorpal: Grants you melee power buff for 10 seconds, which stacks with itself 5 times, and fades away 1 stack at a time. At 5 stack, further vorpals add +10 seconds to duration."
6, 12, 18 are good.
20: In additon to passive effect, active ability with very long cooldow: "Use this ability to make an 360 AoE attack. You weapons have 100% chance to proc random magical abilities that are not tied to dice rolls, such as ligtning strike.

Ofcourse, thats not an entire tree, it needs more than that.

[DevilYouKnow]

I think, grant kensei tree to monk class, and replace it with weapon master.
Make weapon groups like: slashing, ranged, thrown, etc. so it matches the weapon focus/spec/imp crit feats.
Instead of enhancements granting +X damage, grant +X melee/ranged power when using weapon from chosen group.
This tree should have attack, haste, melee/ranged and damage boosts, not multiselectors, you should be able to pick all 4 if you wish (and they should all have separate uses).
Add things that will enhance active feats such as:
Stances: Power attack: When this feat is active, it also increases melee power. Combat expertise: When this feat is active, also increases PRR and MRR. Precision: When this feat is active, critical hits also leave damage over time (xdy each 2 seconds, where X is your weapon's critical multiper -1 (so 1 dice for longsword, 2 for handaxe, 3 for pick). This scales with melee power). Active attacks: Slicing blow scales with melee power Sap stuns for 2 seconds, no save, daze after stun is finished Trip/Improved Trip: Enemy is helpless while on ground Stunning blow: longer stun Sunder/Improved sunder: effect is permanent
Cores should be like kensei's but:
1: Weapon groups like above
3: No meditation, instead clicky:
"You can sharpen your weapon, increasing its enhancement bonus by number of your core enhancements in this tree -1, and gainging "On vorpal: Grants you melee power buff for 10 seconds, which stacks with itself 5 times, and fades away 1 stack at a time. At 5 stack, further vorpals add +10 seconds to duration."
6, 12, 18 are good.
20: In additon to passive effect, active ability with very long cooldow: "Use this ability to make an 360 AoE attack. You weapons have 100% chance to proc random magical abilities that are not tied to dice rolls, such as ligtning strike.

Ofcourse, thats not an entire tree, it needs more than that.

Longer stun doesn't matter. The cooldown of stunning blow needs to be reduced across the board.

[IronClan]

The main thing I don't want to see is making multiclassing even more contra indicated with newly buffed classes by having extremely top loaded core 18 and 20... Fighter is traditionally a very multiclass friendly base class, I don't have problems with it remaining so. But a Multiplier at Core 18 and some of their "Back up the dump truck" pile of Melee power at Cap will kill that. I know I'm destined to be disappointed in this regard.

It seems that they are no longer willing to give out self healing, so by default Fighter is going to be the worst self healing melee of all, this means also by default that they will need to have the best melee DPS in the game. Considering they wont get 200hp and 120heal amp (or whatever) and a T5 passive heal that makes them auto-healing... this pretty much means they will need to back the Melee power and crit/multi dump truck up to fighter.

I think Kensei can be done with multi-selectors easy enough there's no need to remove existing functions and make current Centered style builds impossible. I would like to see a 4th tree though but I think weapon master and kensei are way to similar to make them two distinct trees... just go the multi-selector rout and make a 4th Fighter tree something like "Knight" or something inspired by a really classic standard Class or Archtype PrE without the eastern flavor.

As far as a weapon master style tree goes or ideas for multiselectors: I would love to see a T3 "Jack of all trades" ability that allows a Weapon master fighter to use different proficient weapon types with any type of improved critical feat. So you could use a slashing weapon when you had Blunt feat and vice versa. Just something to let my Dwarf switch from his axe to a Hammer when beating on Skeletons without losing improved crit, and thus not bothering to switch because the DR is costing a lot less DPS than losing crit range will cost.

[Nightmanis]

Originally I wanted to see Deadly strike turned into some kind of massive Temp hp boost, like a 50% chance on crit infinite stacking hp equivalent to your MP or something like that. I figured instead of outright healing, temp HP would be a good way to pull it off. This favours longer crit ranges (which works well with Keen Edge) and if all stacks wear off after 30 seconds you could actually very easily still die. So it's more of a you still need healing, but you could potentially go on forever. This would need to be tweaked hardcore to make it not super OP.

Weapon Meditation would instead work just like Nimbleness from the assassin tree, where the enhancement bonus just stacks up to 10 and stays there with a 2 second timer to lose a stack.

A Good Death would be some kind of massive melee cleave, one that uses offhand hits and works with handwraps as well.

Make One Cut a toggle, but raise it to Sovereign Vorpal with 100 damage on failed instakill, MP 400%. Gives 10mp.

Move Strike with no thought to 14 instead of 10. Give it 5mp.

Give 25mp to the capstone. Leave it alone otherwise.

In that empty space beneath OWTB, for 2ap reduce cooldowns on all tactical abilities and special attacks (like cleave) by 33%.

Move the current Deadly Strike to tier 4.

Change Shattering Strike to use the highest of the mental attributes (int, wis, cha). This way it balances well with splash classes, or with Harper. Make it 2 tiers for 1ap each.

Spiritual Bond would need changed, maybe just outright using something else? Autogrant Quickdraw?

Make Reed in the Wind ignore Dodge cap. If you're using a tower shield with MDB 2, well guess what you've got 11% now.

[IronClan]

this is my post from a few months back with some edits that I still mostly like , for a few more ideas anyway:

First off add Severe Stunning blow feat to the feat list, Improve Power critical to give +5 seeker, add Improved power critical +5 seeker and Epic feat Epic power critical +10 seeker (these all favor the fighters available feat slots). Give combat expertise +3 MP while in stance, add +2 MP to Mobility and make Spring attack +5 MP while moving (with some stickiness briefly after movement is stopped).

Kensei (consider these improvements to the monk side of the multi-selectors because at this point I agree they need some non monk options in this tree)


Core 3 You are considered centered in Light armor (this is all about the intended Samurai flavor ) Passive +2 MDB your critical hits generate Ki
Core 6 Warrior Philosopher: can now take Monk Stance feats without 1 Monk level and with 12 fighter levels you qualify for improved martial arts Monk Epic feat. (please fix this feat so that it gets the .5[W] to centered weapons as described; it is currently broken)
Core 12: if you have T5 Keen Edge, you now gain X1 multiplier on all crits (intended to balance HS spell)
Core 18 You may Abundant Step as a Monk (if the balance of Core 12 is considered too much swap these)
Core 20 Unparalleled Lethality: on a roll of 20 you gain an additional X1 crit multiplier. You now have Evasion in light or no armor, +10% dodge and an additional +5 max Dex bonus and dodge cap
New T1 Display Of Prowess: Activate to make all opponents around you shaken for 4/6/12 seconds (Samurai flavor again, ritualistic displays at the start of battle are a historical thing) sunder DC forumula used for save.
New T3 multiselector with Weapon meditation: Decisive Precision: You gain half your Dexterity Bonus to Damage and Tactical DC's for 30/60/120 Anti-requisit: Divine Might and Know the Angles (and fix this so they can't be taken at the same time OR remove the anti-requisit text if they have decided the AP investments/class levels taken are a reasonable counter balance?)
New T4 "Advancing Strikes" You unsheath your Kensei weapon and in one fluid movement quickly advance at your (soft targeted) enemy dealing a 1/2/3[W] Double attack with X2 multiplier (works as newly improved Shield Charge works)
New T5 Unbalancing Advance: requires Advancing Strikes enemies that fail an Improved Trip DC (normal formula) are knocked backwards when you use Advancing Strikes.


Vanguard, most of these changes are intended to compensate for the fact that Paladin Vanguard is so much better due to HS and Zeal, and built in self healing and restoration and Unyielding Sovereignty death penalty clearing. Also I would love to change this Vanguard version to have a different feel in combat than a Paladin Vanguard has, naturally as is my preference I would like to see a slower attack speed compensated by bigger first number damage, more mobility and active combat and more tactics focus. The loss of alacrity and thus affixes and procs IMO needs a fairly heavy buff to compensate.



Cores: Shield Precision: (replaces the 20% alacrity in Paladin version and also compensates for Zeal somewhat) your shield allows you to measure the foe and strike when most vulnerable, you gain 4%/6%/10%/15% stacking fort bypass (35% total) stacking Deadly 2/4/6/8 (20 total) and 4/6/8/12 Stacking Seeker (cumulative 30 seeker again this has to help compensate for much slower attack speed = much less affixes and procs going off) in Core 3/6/12/18
Added to Core 1: Tactical Versatility: your highest Stat is always used to determine your tactical DC's for the purposes of both feats and Enhancements.
Core 3: Shielded Maneuvers, The Spring attack feat now gives an additional +5 MP as long as you are moving or have recently moved (w/ say 2 second stickiness?)
Core 6: Shield Sunder: effect stacks with Improved Sunder (double values potentially), and does not share a cooldown, meaning you can use both as they come off cooldown.
Core 12: Improved Critical Shield: if you have the feat improved critical for any weapon it is also applies to your shield.
Core 18: Shielded leg sweep: Active trip tactical, performs a Trip cleave 90* in front of you, uses your Trip DC or your Improved Trip DC if you have that feat.
Core 20: Your shield and weapon gain X1 multiplier (no stacking with Kensei). On a natural 20 you have a 33% to automatically Improved trip, 33% to Severe Stun, or 33% to automatically Improved Sunder using the apropriate DC + highest Stat mod.
T1 No Weakness/Exploit Weakness multiselector 5/10/15% helpless damage
New T5 Shield buffet: 15 second CD, perform a Shield cleave with +2/3/4[W]
T5 Shield Rush lower cooldown to 15 does +3[W] shield damage to all in path no longer knocks down
T5 Shield to the face is now also an active attack with the passive 10% bash increase (note in reality testing shows this to be about a 1% increase due to the 1 second per bash limit) Active attack: perform a Shield Bash with +10[W] and +2 crit range, 15 second CD
T5 Disorienting Smash now a Multi-selector: new choice: Brutality 10/15/20% helpless damage.


Defender likewise suffers from the same Paladin "DPS with healing envy" problem (and again these are mostly to be added to whats already there):



Core 1: Intimidating presence toggle an Aura that surrounds you that automatically effects creatures with 2/3rds your intimidate score that are very close to you (melee range).
Core 3: Stalwart conviction: when in Stalwart Stance your conviction gives you increased stamina and vitality recovery: Every 4 seconds you heal 2hp this healing scales with 100% of your PRR score (including any PRR bonuses for blocking), and is effected by hamp and Heal skill. Note: Rage now is REALLY dispelled (all forms of it) when in Defender stances.
Core 6: Conviction increases by +2hp healed +1 per 2 epic levels
Core 12: +1d3hp healed Epic levels now grant +1 per level instead of every other level
Core 18: Your conviction is increased you now regain your stamina at a higher rate Conviction ticks every 3 seconds,+1d4hp healed.
Core 20: Measured lethality: while in defender stance and you have 5 or more Reprisal stacks your Weapons gain X2 multiplier
T3 Agile Blocking: While blocking you gain your Dexterity score to PRR and MRR and AC, the confidence you gain from this also increases the amount of stamina recovery you get from Stalwart Conviction.
T5 Stalwart Goad, enemies that attack you and miss, become increasingly frustrated and tend to open themselves up counter attacks; applies 1% stacking vulnerability max 1 stack per 5 seconds that stacks up to 30% and additively stacks on to all other sources of vulnerability (example a 30 stack of Stalwart Goad is added to other players fully stacked 20% vulnerability to equal 50% on a specific mob).
Reprisal can now stack up to X2 your Fighter level
Block and Cut now does 5/6/8[W]


Intent of Stalwart conviction is to come in at significantly less healing than a Barb passive self heals and be more useful to a high mitigation tanky type than a DPS oriented build (tied to PRR instead of melee power).

[DevilYouKnow]

The main thing I don't want to see is making multiclassing even more contra indicated with newly buffed classes by having extremely top loaded core 18 and 20... Fighter is traditionally a very multiclass friendly base class, I don't have problems with it remaining so. But a Multiplier at Core 18 and some of their "Back up the dump truck" pile of Melee power at Cap will kill that. I know I'm destined to be disappointed in this regard.

It seems that they are no longer willing to give out self healing, so by default Fighter is going to be the worst self healing melee of all, this means also by default that they will need to have the best melee DPS in the game. Considering they wont get 200hp and 120heal amp (or whatever) and a T5 passive heal that makes them auto-healing... this pretty much means they will need to back the Melee power and crit/multi dump truck up to fighter.

I think Kensei can be done with multi-selectors easy enough there's no need to remove existing functions and make current Centered style builds impossible. I would like to see a 4th tree though but I think weapon master and kensei are way to similar to make them two distinct trees... just go the multi-selector rout and make a 4th Fighter tree something like "Knight" or something inspired by a really classic standard Class or Archtype PrE without the eastern flavor.

As far as a weapon master style tree goes or ideas for multiselectors: I would love to see a T3 "Jack of all trades" ability that allows a Weapon master fighter to use different proficient weapon types with any type of improved critical feat. So you could use a slashing weapon when you had Blunt feat and vice versa. Just something to let my Dwarf switch from his axe to a Hammer when beating on Skeletons without losing improved crit, and thus not bothering to switch because the DR is costing a lot less DPS than losing crit range will cost.

Currently, all they do is loading up class lvl 18 & 20 cores with tons of melee power. This has to stop.

[EllisDee37]

Some good ideas, all. I like some of them a lot.

I mostly don't care what they do to fix fighter trees, as long as one overarching goal is met: You should be able to build a competent pure fighter specializing in any weapon. Right now on live, there is no way to build a competent pure fighter who uses quarterstaffs, crossbows, or shuriken.

Keeping unarmed as a monk-only thing would be acceptable.

[Lonnbeimnech]

While many abilities from many class trees have synergy with abilities from other classes, the kensai tree is the only one that REQUIRES multiclassing, and that is where whoever came up with it, missed the plot. It should be undone/removed.

Putting in things like increased damage or multipliers with weapons and one subset of those weapons being things that monks might use, fine. But ki generation, evasion, centering etc all have to be thrown out. They make as much sense as giving fighters a bonus to necro DC and spell pen.

[Angelic-council]

To be honest, I think fighters need more tactical abilities. Because that is what they are all about. And give cleaves a chance to restore that tactical skill just like in LD destiny.

Kensei is about martial art style fighting. You kill your opponent using combination of skills and tactics. They are not like barbarians, who acquired tons of melee power and spam cleaves. Fighters need more connectable skills.

[DevilYouKnow]

To be honest, I think fighters need more tactical abilities. Because that is what they are all about. And give cleaves a chance to restore that tactical skill just like in LD destiny.

Kensei is about martial art style fighting. You kill your opponent using combination of skills and tactics. They are not like barbarians, who acquired tons of melee power and spam cleaves. Fighters need more connectable skills.

Translation : Fighters should be weak, but they get to keep what others already use by now (tactical feats).

[Lonnbeimnech]

Translation : Fighters should be weak, but they get to keep what others already use by now (tactical feats).

I think if they wanted to have fighter be the tactical class, the way to do that would be to give them a % change to automatically activate an ability on a hit. Say you have the sap feat, and put 1/1/1 ap into it you now have a 15% chance to sap a mob per hit. And if you have stunning blow and put 1/1/1 into that, you have a 15% chance to stun mobs. This automatic activation would not put the ability on cool down, so you can still use it every 6/15 seconds or whatever.

So a weapon master with improved trip, hamstring, sap, stunning blow, improved sunder, and slicing blow would be constantly activating something. Flavor-wise that is appealing to me. How much dps that would actually add however is not much.

That and the multiselecter of improved damage with weapon categories, like kensai has now, and turn one with the blade into a +1 crit range and multiplier with a group of weapons, as the multiselecter. All of a sudden you have a tree.

[Angelic-council]

Translation : Fighters should be weak, but they get to keep what others already use by now (tactical feats).

Oh what? No, why having more tactical abilities = weak. You need to open up your mind a little bit more.

Here is the example: Tactical counter cleave: While cleave and greater cleave is on cool down, this ability become available, you perform 90 degree cleave with 3(W), enemies who failed saving against counter cleave will be stunned for 3 seconds, DC 10 + fighter level + STR modifier + other bonus.

Something like that will allow fighters to not only spam abilities, but use them wisely. For example, you see 7 monsters around you, cleave + greater cleave + stun then cleave or another skill = more damage.

[Nightmanis]

this is my post from a few months back with some edits that I still mostly like , for a few more ideas anyway:

First off add Severe Stunning blow feat to the feat list, Improve Power critical to give +5 seeker, add Improved power critical +5 seeker and Epic feat Epic power critical +10 seeker (these all favor the fighters available feat slots). Give combat expertise +3 MP while in stance, add +2 MP to Mobility and make Spring attack +5 MP while moving (with some stickiness briefly after movement is stopped).

Kensei (consider these improvements to the monk side of the multi-selectors because at this point I agree they need some non monk options in this tree)


Core 3 You are considered centered in Light armor (this is all about the intended Samurai flavor ) Passive +2 MDB your critical hits generate Ki
Core 6 Warrior Philosopher: can now take Monk Stance feats without 1 Monk level and with 12 fighter levels you qualify for improved martial arts Monk Epic feat. (please fix this feat so that it gets the .5[W] to centered weapons as described; it is currently broken)
Core 12: if you have T5 Keen Edge, you now gain X1 multiplier on all crits (intended to balance HS spell)
Core 18 You may Abundant Step as a Monk (if the balance of Core 12 is considered too much swap these)
Core 20 Unparalleled Lethality: on a roll of 20 you gain an additional X1 crit multiplier. You now have Evasion in light or no armor, +10% dodge and an additional +5 max Dex bonus and dodge cap
New T1 Display Of Prowess: Activate to make all opponents around you shaken for 4/6/12 seconds (Samurai flavor again, ritualistic displays at the start of battle are a historical thing) sunder DC forumula used for save.
New T3 multiselector with Weapon meditation: Decisive Precision: You gain half your Dexterity Bonus to Damage and Tactical DC's for 30/60/120 Anti-requisit: Divine Might and Know the Angles (and fix this so they can't be taken at the same time OR remove the anti-requisit text if they have decided the AP investments/class levels taken are a reasonable counter balance?)
New T4 "Advancing Strikes" You unsheath your Kensei weapon and in one fluid movement quickly advance at your (soft targeted) enemy dealing a 1/2/3[W] Double attack with X2 multiplier (works as newly improved Shield Charge works)
New T5 Unbalancing Advance: requires Advancing Strikes enemies that fail an Improved Trip DC (normal formula) are knocked backwards when you use Advancing Strikes.



All of your stuff basically just turns a fighter into a better monk. I'd much rather turn Kensei into a Weapon Master style tree instead of a "Monk with a greataxe" that they can do now. The centered in light armor bit is where I definitely draw a line: My old rogue monk will become a Bladeforged 13 Rogue 4 Fighter 3 Monk unarmed build when I'm done ITR/ETRing. Mithral Body is considered light armor, meaning that now I get the PRR boost from that, plus whatever cool thing I can get from the shadowscale docents or whatever similar setup the devs make in the future.

Thinking on your Warrior Philosopher idea, when exactly are we supposed to be able to take these feats? During epic levels? If I take OC and Blinding Speed (still a very viable feat), when do I take the monk stances? That's a broken ability that makes monks nearly useless. If you're talking about the Level 6 core, that's hopelessly overpowered if you can now go 12 Barbarian 8 Fighter Dual centered Khopesh build.

Kensei needs to get away from being a heavily monk influenced tree. It can keep One With The Blade, but it doesn't need more than that and it needs to change the stuff that relies on Wisdom to rely on any of the mental attributes instead.

I like what Ellis put, and combine it with mine I believe that leads to a nice smooth design. If we take what Devil has said and apply it, then remove the massive MP boosts I suggested and make them +5 at each core, +10 for the 3 above 12.

[DevilYouKnow]

Oh what? No, why having more tactical abilities = weak. You need to open up your mind a little bit more.

Here is the example: Tactical counter cleave: While cleave and greater cleave is on cool down, this ability become available, you perform 90 degree cleave with 3(W), enemies who failed saving against counter cleave will be stunned for 3 seconds, DC 10 + fighter level + STR modifier + other bonus.

Something like that will allow fighters to not only spam abilities, but use them wisely. For example, you see 7 monsters around you, cleave + greater cleave + stun then cleave or another skill = more damage.

Huh ? Anyone playing a dedicated dps toon already does that. There is nothing special about those abilities.

[nibel]

I think, grant kensei tree to monk class, and replace it with weapon master.

Yes, please. (http://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/464769)

Another option I can get behind and is very easy to implement is to give Fighters the weapon-based trees of other classes, with minor adjustments. Vanguard and Stalwart Defender are already pulled from Paladin, so why not make Fighter able to embrace all styles?

THF tree: Barbarian Ravager (with adaptation to remove rage-related stuff)
TWF tree: Ranger Tempest (without the light armor stuff like mobility and dodge)
SWF tree: Swashbuckler (with adaptations to make stuff scale with Melee Power instead of sonic spellpower)
Ranged tree: Mechanic, without the trap stuff
Shield tree: Vanguard, as is
Heavy Armor tree: Stalwart Defender, as is
Light Armor tree: Kensai, modified
Gish tree: Eldritch Knight


Fighters would be the DE FACTO splash class in the game, with access to 8 enhancement trees, bonus feats very frontloaded, and a ton of proficiencies.

[Vellrad]

this is my post from a few months back with some edits that I still mostly like , for a few more ideas anyway:

First off add Severe Stunning blow feat to the feat list, Improve Power critical to give +5 seeker, add Improved power critical +5 seeker and Epic feat Epic power critical +10 seeker (these all favor the fighters available feat slots). Give combat expertise +3 MP while in stance, add +2 MP to Mobility and make Spring attack +5 MP while moving (with some stickiness briefly after movement is stopped).

Kensei (consider these improvements to the monk side of the multi-selectors because at this point I agree they need some non monk options in this tree)


Core 3 You are considered centered in Light armor (this is all about the intended Samurai flavor ) Passive +2 MDB your critical hits generate Ki
Core 6 Warrior Philosopher: can now take Monk Stance feats without 1 Monk level and with 12 fighter levels you qualify for improved martial arts Monk Epic feat. (please fix this feat so that it gets the .5[W] to centered weapons as described; it is currently broken)
Core 12: if you have T5 Keen Edge, you now gain X1 multiplier on all crits (intended to balance HS spell)
Core 18 You may Abundant Step as a Monk (if the balance of Core 12 is considered too much swap these)
Core 20 Unparalleled Lethality: on a roll of 20 you gain an additional X1 crit multiplier. You now have Evasion in light or no armor, +10% dodge and an additional +5 max Dex bonus and dodge cap
New T1 Display Of Prowess: Activate to make all opponents around you shaken for 4/6/12 seconds (Samurai flavor again, ritualistic displays at the start of battle are a historical thing) sunder DC forumula used for save.
New T3 multiselector with Weapon meditation: Decisive Precision: You gain half your Dexterity Bonus to Damage and Tactical DC's for 30/60/120 Anti-requisit: Divine Might and Know the Angles (and fix this so they can't be taken at the same time OR remove the anti-requisit text if they have decided the AP investments/class levels taken are a reasonable counter balance?)
New T4 "Advancing Strikes" You unsheath your Kensei weapon and in one fluid movement quickly advance at your (soft targeted) enemy dealing a 1/2/3[W] Double attack with X2 multiplier (works as newly improved Shield Charge works)
New T5 Unbalancing Advance: requires Advancing Strikes enemies that fail an Improved Trip DC (normal formula) are knocked backwards when you use Advancing Strikes.


Vanguard, most of these changes are intended to compensate for the fact that Paladin Vanguard is so much better due to HS and Zeal, and built in self healing and restoration and Unyielding Sovereignty death penalty clearing. Also I would love to change this Vanguard version to have a different feel in combat than a Paladin Vanguard has, naturally as is my preference I would like to see a slower attack speed compensated by bigger first number damage, more mobility and active combat and more tactics focus. The loss of alacrity and thus affixes and procs IMO needs a fairly heavy buff to compensate.



Cores: Shield Precision: (replaces the 20% alacrity in Paladin version and also compensates for Zeal somewhat) your shield allows you to measure the foe and strike when most vulnerable, you gain 4%/6%/10%/15% stacking fort bypass (35% total) stacking Deadly 2/4/6/8 (20 total) and 4/6/8/12 Stacking Seeker (cumulative 30 seeker again this has to help compensate for much slower attack speed = much less affixes and procs going off) in Core 3/6/12/18
Added to Core 1: Tactical Versatility: your highest Stat is always used to determine your tactical DC's for the purposes of both feats and Enhancements.
Core 3: Shielded Maneuvers, The Spring attack feat now gives an additional +5 MP as long as you are moving or have recently moved (w/ say 2 second stickiness?)
Core 6: Shield Sunder: effect stacks with Improved Sunder (double values potentially), and does not share a cooldown, meaning you can use both as they come off cooldown.
Core 12: Improved Critical Shield: if you have the feat improved critical for any weapon it is also applies to your shield.
Core 18: Shielded leg sweep: Active trip tactical, performs a Trip cleave 90* in front of you, uses your Trip DC or your Improved Trip DC if you have that feat.
Core 20: Your shield and weapon gain X1 multiplier (no stacking with Kensei). On a natural 20 you have a 33% to automatically Improved trip, 33% to Severe Stun, or 33% to automatically Improved Sunder using the apropriate DC + highest Stat mod.
T1 No Weakness/Exploit Weakness multiselector 5/10/15% helpless damage
New T5 Shield buffet: 15 second CD, perform a Shield cleave with +2/3/4[W]
T5 Shield Rush lower cooldown to 15 does +3[W] shield damage to all in path no longer knocks down
T5 Shield to the face is now also an active attack with the passive 10% bash increase (note in reality testing shows this to be about a 1% increase due to the 1 second per bash limit) Active attack: perform a Shield Bash with +10[W] and +2 crit range, 15 second CD
T5 Disorienting Smash now a Multi-selector: new choice: Brutality 10/15/20% helpless damage.


Defender likewise suffers from the same Paladin "DPS with healing envy" problem (and again these are mostly to be added to whats already there):



Core 1: Intimidating presence toggle an Aura that surrounds you that automatically effects creatures with 2/3rds your intimidate score that are very close to you (melee range).
Core 3: Stalwart conviction: when in Stalwart Stance your conviction gives you increased stamina and vitality recovery: Every 4 seconds you heal 2hp this healing scales with 100% of your PRR score (including any PRR bonuses for blocking), and is effected by hamp and Heal skill. Note: Rage now is REALLY dispelled (all forms of it) when in Defender stances.
Core 6: Conviction increases by +2hp healed +1 per 2 epic levels
Core 12: +1d3hp healed Epic levels now grant +1 per level instead of every other level
Core 18: Your conviction is increased you now regain your stamina at a higher rate Conviction ticks every 3 seconds,+1d4hp healed.
Core 20: Measured lethality: while in defender stance and you have 5 or more Reprisal stacks your Weapons gain X2 multiplier
T3 Agile Blocking: While blocking you gain your Dexterity score to PRR and MRR and AC, the confidence you gain from this also increases the amount of stamina recovery you get from Stalwart Conviction.
T5 Stalwart Goad, enemies that attack you and miss, become increasingly frustrated and tend to open themselves up counter attacks; applies 1% stacking vulnerability max 1 stack per 5 seconds that stacks up to 30% and additively stacks on to all other sources of vulnerability (example a 30 stack of Stalwart Goad is added to other players fully stacked 20% vulnerability to equal 50% on a specific mob).
Reprisal can now stack up to X2 your Fighter level
Block and Cut now does 5/6/8[W]


Intent of Stalwart conviction is to come in at significantly less healing than a Barb passive self heals and be more useful to a high mitigation tanky type than a DPS oriented build (tied to PRR instead of melee power).

OMG no more dex based classes plz.
At this rate, str will be removed from game soon.

[IronClan]

All of your stuff basically just turns a fighter into a better monk.

Thinking on your Warrior Philosopher idea, when exactly are we supposed to be able to take these feats?

No the current design of Kensei did that, by basically requiring building a patchwork of Monk+ fighter levels to be able to take advantage of the stuff in the Kensei tree. All my stuff basically just takes it back as a Fighter tree, and allows a 20 fighter to have the same intended flavor.

And no it would not be a better monk not sure how anyone who knows monk could say such a thing

no:
Shadow Fade
No access to 20-25% run speed
No access to various Monk abilities including self healing and mitigation
Don't get the Stances for free
Various mitigation and dodge losses (Shintao Mountain stance PRR, class dodge% etc.)
No access to healamp

Just to name a few... I think it's safe to say being centered in Light armor, evasion and Abundant step don't compensate for all these, but you're entitled to your opinion that they do if you want to stick with that opinion...

Fighters also get lots of feats.

In defense of why I did those, they allow a fighter to take NO monk levels and still have the eastern Kensei flavor and still take advantage of what monk WOULD HAVE given them... It's an alternative Samurai flavoring of Fighter without monk levels. So it actually directly addresses the concern that monk levels are required to make use of the tree. Yeah it maybe ends up a little too much like a monk but they are just thoughts. And it's a tree I would build a pure fighter or a multiclassed fighter around and enjoy playing personally, and not because it's "a better monk".

Every one of those suggested changes could have a "weapon master" alternative ability that neither synergizes with Monk nor has Samurai flavor.

Why Light Armored = Centered: because is helps compensate/balance for not getting Monk Shadow Veil and to incentivize light over medium or heavy
Why Warrior Pholosopher: because it allows you to use Stance feats without Splashing 1 monk or more
Why Abundant step: because the mobility of Samurai is legendary, an iconic aspect of their achetype and zooming around is fun and nearly a requirement on a melee that doesn't leverage Heavy armor.
Why Evasion and dodge at 20: because like Shadow Veil not having it pretty much guarantees/requires a 2 monk splash
Display Of Prowess: this is a buff to tacticals with Samurai flavor so a tactics tie in/synergy
Decisive Precision: this is both an alternative to Divine Might and KtA and a way to make Dex a little more interesting as a stat. It fits as Samurai were some of histories most athletic and agile warriors. Flavor wise and tieing in with things like unparalleled lethality is the quick decisive strike that was valued in their training as the ideal to live up to.

It's all good I realize most people don't want fighters main DPS tree to have ANY eastern monastic or samurai trappings... Naturally enough they want medieval flavors for the same reason that the Realms are so popular and Kara Tur is a footnote. I completely get that... however I don't believe that Turbine has ever just tossed out an existing tree and deleted existing builds flavor and I don't think it's reasonable to run with that expectation. They have stated already that they wont simply start from scratch with an existing tree. Despite the fact that I personally would not have a big issue with doing so... regardless of what I would do if I was making that decision, my suggestions or ideas are just making do with what I think is likely to be the direction they go in. The best you guys can hope for is either a 4th tree or multi selectors that have no monk trappings. Either way the existing Monk synergies need to be addressed or the new multi selector weapon master (or whatever) type stuff will just blow the Kensei stuff away.

[Vellrad]

Yes, please. (http://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/464769)

Another option I can get behind and is very easy to implement is to give Fighters the weapon-based trees of other classes, with minor adjustments. Vanguard and Stalwart Defender are already pulled from Paladin, so why not make Fighter able to embrace all styles?

THF tree: Barbarian Ravager (with adaptation to remove rage-related stuff)
TWF tree: Ranger Tempest (without the light armor stuff like mobility and dodge)
SWF tree: Swashbuckler (with adaptations to make stuff scale with Melee Power instead of sonic spellpower)
Ranged tree: Mechanic, without the trap stuff
Shield tree: Vanguard, as is
Heavy Armor tree: Stalwart Defender, as is
Light Armor tree: Kensai, modified
Gish tree: Eldritch Knight


Fighters would be the DE FACTO splash class in the game, with access to 8 enhancement trees, bonus feats very frontloaded, and a ton of proficiencies.

I think FB fits THF more, but maybe its my personal opinion, based on fact self heal and extra damage from cores really fit TWF well.
But that's nice idea you got there.

[Enderoc]

That is completely funny when I read the post title I thought, rid of all the monk junk...and I was amused that is exactly what you were suggesting. A weapon master tree that allows a fighter to perfect his techniques with every weapon is probably the best and most strongest concept for a fighter prestige/enhancement tree that would put them on par with everyone else.

Kensai for a pure fighter is pretty much pointless. In fact it should go into Monk not fighter and allow Monks to be centered with a chosen set of weapons.

WHY IS KENSAI A FIGHTER PRESTIGE!

[ValariusK]

I favor an outcome-based approach. Essentially do this:
Take fully geared melees of level 24 or so (I don't recommend 28 because of the mortal fear thing). Run them through the Bruntsmash test enough times to get an average for the best builds of each class and common multiclass. On the basis of those numbers, decide what the highest DPS is that you're willing to countenance at this time. Got a number?
Good
Now give that number to the fighter.
It doesn't matter how you do it.
You can do it by increasing their attack speed, but I don't recommend that because burden that the physics tests that the increased attack speed would require. You can do it with more doublestrike/shot. You can do it with more crit profile modification. You can do it with more special damage or with more MP/RP. How you do it is a flavor decision. Just do it.
Next you consider who should be second tier---Barbarians raging, Rangers, Rogues who are sneak attacking consistently. Why these guys---because they all have something that the fighter doesn't have---barbarian has decent self healing, rogue has substantial group utility and slightly better self healing, and the ranger has decent self healing with a little group utility. Second tier ought to be down at least 10% from top tier, otherwise, why should someone play a pure or mostly pure fighter? Honestly I'd suggest like 20% down from the top. If you ever fix druids, wolf multiclasses ought to be here too---why, they have similar group utility and healing ability to pure rangers or barbarians.
Third tier should be paladins. Why, because they have the group utility level of a ranger (actually a little more) and have hardcore durability (both in terms of their PRR and Saving throws and in terms of self healing, especially burst self-healing). Mark them down from 2nd tier by at least 10% or so.

[nibel]

I think FB fits THF more

I do too, but FB have too much Rage/Frenzy stuff glued t the concept of the tree. Ravager would be easier to adapt to a pure martial tree.

[DevilYouKnow]

I do too, but FB have too much Rage/Frenzy stuff glued t the concept of the tree. Ravager would be easier to adapt to a pure martial tree.

You actually have to be a mix of both if you desire max dps and healing.

[IronClan]

OMG no more dex based classes plz.
At this rate, str will be removed from game soon.

LOL riiiiiiiigggghhhht..... STR is easily the optimum melee stat in 90% of possible builds... Tactics use STR by itself this reinforces the dominance of STR, Divine Might uses STR... most rage abilities stack (well except the spell and primal scream), and nothing like Titans gloves exist for any other melee stat... I mean what game are you playing?

[IronClan]

That is completely funny when I read the post title I thought, rid of all the monk junk...and I was amused that is exactly what you were suggesting. A weapon master tree that allows a fighter to perfect his techniques with every weapon is probably the best and most strongest concept for a fighter prestige/enhancement tree that would put them on par with everyone else.

Kensai for a pure fighter is pretty much pointless. In fact it should go into Monk not fighter and allow Monks to be centered with a chosen set of weapons.

WHY IS KENSAI A FIGHTER PRESTIGE!

Not a bad idea either, but again they are not going to gut a tree and make a segment of the players who are using it start over from scratch.

Weapon master is either a 4th tree or it's a Multi-selector path within Kensei, suggesting things that are actually within the realm of possibility is a lot more productive than wishing for stuff they wont do.

[Enderoc]

They can make it so any new character made will be made with the changes while locking in the current players in their progression. So if you are building a Kensai as it is now, it won't affect you. The changes will be for new characters, and true reincarnations.

[IronClan]

4th tree guys if everyone lobbies for that I'll bet we'd get it... if 50% of us doggedly stick to asking for kensei to be deleted we'll just have 50% less bodies weighing in for a 4th tree. If any class should have a true fourth tree before any other it's probably fighter due to the traditional flexibility and wide open archetypes Fighter covers. I'm okay with multi selectors but a 4th tree would be cleaner.

[Chai]

How about getting a third tree for some classes before floating fighter a fourth tree.

Kensai should just use multi-selectors, one of which is the monk style, but incorporate some other styles as well so that it doesn't feel like you are trapped into having to be a monk multi-class to get the benefits.

[Angelic-council]

Huh ? Anyone playing a dedicated dps toon already does that. There is nothing special about those abilities.

Wow.. that's a bit crazy. Do you aware that I'm offering AoE option to fighters, since they are weapon specialists. They can manipulate any weapons. That's why they get free combat feats, just like wizards who get spell casting feats.

Fighters in general, they use more tactical abilities than any other classes. That's why I said open up your mind and think about this. Fighters need more special abilities. A special effect that can be triggered by performing yet another skill, cleave or tactical feat and such. Melee AoE control and powerful instant blow for their high DPS. More abilities like, reset cooldown or bypass enemies defense. More martial focus... It's not about how others play, but what they get and how they use it. If you want straight DPS Melee option, you should play barbarian. That's what I think.

[Vellrad]

LOL riiiiiiiigggghhhht..... STR is easily the optimum melee stat in 90% of possible builds... Tactics use STR by itself this reinforces the dominance of STR, Divine Might uses STR... most rage abilities stack (well except the spell and primal scream), and nothing like Titans gloves exist for any other melee stat... I mean what game are you playing?

Game where almost all classes can get different stat for melee damage, that does more than damage, like boosting defence, HP, skill points, saves, etc.
This game is named DDO btw.

[Silverleafeon]

4th tree guys if everyone lobbies for that I'll bet we'd get it... if 50% of us doggedly stick to asking for kensei to be deleted we'll just have 50% less bodies weighing in for a 4th tree. If any class should have a true fourth tree before any other it's probably fighter due to the traditional flexibility and wide open archetypes Fighter covers. I'm okay with multi selectors but a 4th tree would be cleaner.

As a big druid and favored soul fan, I can weigh in my perspective on this matter.

Although I do feel strongly that each class should have three trees,
I have played thru Fighter on Fawngate and feel deeply that there is a serious hole in the Fighter enhancements.

I would definitely make an exception for Fighter getting a four tree at this time, and approve that move if the Devs make it.

Fighter is about versatility and the core of D&D.

Kensei is and probably will always be a monk splash tree whether we introduce multi-selection or not.
Although it is a good tree, it simply is not a pure fighter tree.

[Silverleafeon]

By the way, there is a serious bug in Kensei, some of the attack don't specify a required weapon type, but when you try to use them with a non-kensei weapon they give an error message.

[BoBoDaClown]

Is it a silly idea to bring in a bunch more feats? i.e. +melee power, +damage, +seeker, +PRR/MRR, tactics feats etc.

Some of them could be in ever improving pre-req chains.

This would advantage fighter due to their massive amount of feats and if you designed a decent amount of good ones, would benefit the more fighter levels you have, but would also still be useful on multi-class.

Without going into more crit stuff in enhancements like everyone.

[BigErkyKid]

Is it a silly idea to bring in a bunch more feats? i.e. +melee power, +damage, +seeker, +PRR/MRR, tactics feats etc.

Some of them could be in ever improving pre-req chains.

This would advantage fighter due to their massive amount of feats and if you designed a decent amount of good ones, would benefit the more fighter levels you have, but would also still be useful on multi-class.

Without going into more crit stuff in enhancements like everyone.

Feats is the answer for me. That has always been the advantage of fighters but power creep eroded feats into a pile of junk.

So for their pre I would make pre abilities boost feats. For instance, cleave now knocks down enemies on a crit. Or stunning blow has cool down reduced. Or trip now makes helpless. Or trip has aoe.

Should be easy to code given that all those effects exist. Just have as it is now with Kensei prereq. Being other feats so that fighter isn't only a splash class.

Then they need keen edge updated or at least enough mp / Dbs to be competitive.

Some hamp to round it up and good to go. An alternative could be the temp hps on tactical ability activated and landed. It is clear that fighters need some self healing option of sorts given Paladins, bards and barbs.

[Hara]

Ever since Kensai was introduced I have disliked the name alone, even with the old system. At least then the "tree" wasn't poluted with abilities that are clearly Monk orientated.

My prefered way forward is:

Delete Kensai

Create a "Shaolin Monk" treee for Monk to allow them to use weapons to a point where they are at least equal to handwraps in dps terms for a pure Monk. This would obviously be for select weapons and not all, i.e. Kama, shortword, staff? etc is this stepping on Henshin Mystics toes too much? The Shaolin Monk is clearly a more martial trained type, so no mystic powers in the tree just stuff to boost offense and defense

Create a Weaponmaster/Armsman tree for Fighter. I like the weapon types in the current Kensai tree, this is something that should move over to the new tree. Perhaps a weapon style path for the tree too, need to be careful not to step on Vanguard toes here too.

Perhaps TWF line, Bows, Crossbows, Thrown, 2handed, SWF lines selectable at Core 2 with a second line availabe at Core 12 and a third available at Core 18. Giving a fighter a primary, secondary, and tertiary combat line each one less powerfull than the former. Primary line would get to Tier5 levels of power, secondary line to T3 and tertiary to a mere T2.

I'm not worried about a Two Weapon Fighting line or bow line competing with the Ranger, in my opinion the fighter should be the BEST in their chosen combat area, that is after all the only thing they do, other classes such as Ranger get other abilities such as spells, evasion, etc. A fighter specialing in the longbow should be better than a Ranger specialising in the Longbow. Whilst the Ranger is busy improving his two weapon fighting and bows, his skills, his spell knowledge and wilderness lore as he levels all the fighter is doing is shooting arrows. Too many people think that the name Ranger refers to ranged combat, it doesnt.

The weaponmaster tree should expand on current feats and reduce timers even more, I think vanguard and stalwart should also be reducing the timers on feats that fit in with their tree. Cores could reduce time of feats such as trip and intimidate by a percentage for each Core selected.

[Axeyu]

How about getting a third tree for some classes before floating fighter a fourth tree.

Kensai should just use multi-selectors, one of which is the monk style, but incorporate some other styles as well so that it doesn't feel like you are trapped into having to be a monk multi-class to get the benefits.

To be fair, kensai is the only true fighter unique tree.
Multi-selectors would work. It would be efficient. But I'd rather see a weapon master tree and a slightly reworked kensai tree (more monk stuff).

It should definitly not be deleted or moved to monk, it's good to have trees that stands out from the norm.

[Silverleafeon]

If we had a 4th tree or multi-selection, I would like to see something along the lines of:

"Ultimate ability - you gain improved critical feat for all weapon types, and your weapon focus/specialization applies to all weapons, you gain proficiency in all exotic weapons"

"+? crit whatever is appropriate"

"+? melee/ranged power"

etc...?

[Talam]

I'm impressed all, there are some excellent ideas here.

[EllisDee37]

After re-reading my OP, it occurs to me that the Keen Edge problem is separate from the monk line problem. Just focusing on Keen Edge, I vote replace it with a multi-selector that lets you select between existing enhancements, meaning little development time. Mostly these would be tier 5 and ML18 cores:

Weapons Master: Multiselector, choose one of the following:

Arrow of Slaying*
Ranged Archery Attack: Performs a ranged attack with +250 damage. (This damage can be multiplied by critical hits.) Cooldown: 20 seconds.)

Dance of Death
Melee Dual Wielding Attack: Deals +1/+3/+5[W] damage. Your basic attacks when dual wielding strike 2/3/4 targets per swing instead of one for 10 seconds. (Cooldown: 15 seconds)

Empty Hand Mastery
Your unarmed weapon die size is increased from 1d6 to 1d8.

Expert Builder
You gain a +1 Critical Multiplier for bows, crossbows, and thrown weapons. Critical Multiplier increases to +2 for Great Crossbows. In addition, this ability reduces the cooldowns of Alchemical Trap attacks by 20%.

Keen Edge
You gain a +1 Competence bonus to Critical Threat Range with your Focus weapons. (Doubles with keen.)

Knife Specialization
You gain a +1 Competence bonus to Critical Damage Multiplier with daggers and kukris. Daggers also gain a +1 Competence bonus to Critical Threat Range.

Staff Specialization
You gain a +1 Competence bonus to Critical Damage Multiplier and Threat Range with Quarterstaves.

Weapon Attachment
Activate to attach your currently equipped weapons to yourself, giving you superior control over them. Until you unequipped these items or rest, they deal +0.5[W] damage. (Cooldown: 3 minutes) (Note: Selecting this locks out Warforged/Bladeforged Weapon Attachment)



*Slayer arrows is the only enhancement that wouldn't be a straight copy & paste. For the fighter version, remove the spell point cost.

[Coyopa]

It seems that they are no longer willing to give out self healing, so by default Fighter is going to be the worst self healing melee of all, this means also by default that they will need to have the best melee DPS in the game. Considering they wont get 200hp and 120heal amp (or whatever) and a T5 passive heal that makes them auto-healing... this pretty much means they will need to back the Melee power and crit/multi dump truck up to fighter.

You know, there could be an interesting solution to this (though I don't know how it fit lore-wise; so, feel free to "/not signed" my idea for that reason, but please discuss why because I'd like to understand): Have an enhancement imbue the fighter's weapons with vampirism (Lesser Vampirism, Vampirism, and Greater Vampirism, 1 AP for each of three ranks). Along those lines, there could be an additional enhancement that imbues their armor (not shields) with regenerative properties (Regeneration, Improved Regeneration, Greater Regeneration). Now, granted those enchantments are kind of low on the amount of healing. So, maybe instead of starting with the lowest and going to the highest, perhaps start with the highest and each additional rank invested improves on that. So, for Greater Regeneration, maybe start there and with 3 ranks invested perhaps regenerate something like 10 hp every 15 seconds? Or 10 hp every 10 seconds? I just realized that "Greater Vampirism" doesn't exist. So, perhaps create it and make it something like 1d6 per hit? Then you could improve it to 3d6 per hit with 3 ranks invested.

I don't know. Just a thought. I'll be interested to see if you all think it's workable or just a terribad idea.

[EllisDee37]

You know, there could be an interesting solution to this (though I don't know how it fit lore-wise; so, feel free to "/not signed" my idea for that reason, but please discuss why because I'd like to understand): Have an enhancement imbue the fighter's weapons with vampirism (Lesser Vampirism, Vampirism, and Greater Vampirism, 1 AP for each of three ranks). Along those lines, there could be an additional enhancement that imbues their armor (not shields) with regenerative properties (Regeneration, Improved Regeneration, Greater Regeneration). Now, granted those enchantments are kind of low on the amount of healing. So, maybe instead of starting with the lowest and going to the highest, perhaps start with the highest and each additional rank invested improves on that. So, for Greater Regeneration, maybe start there and with 3 ranks invested perhaps regenerate something like 10 hp every 15 seconds? Or 10 hp every 10 seconds? I just realized that "Greater Vampirism" doesn't exist. So, perhaps create it and make it something like 1d6 per hit? Then you could improve it to 3d6 per hit with 3 ranks invested.

I don't know. Just a thought. I'll be interested to see if you all think it's workable or just a terribad idea.You could imbue armor with Life Shield, and weapons with Vampirism and Bodyfeeder.

[Coyopa]

You could imbue armor with Life Shield, and weapons with Vampirism and Bodyfeeder.

OK. That's a cool idea, too.

[Chai]

To be fair, kensai is the only true fighter unique tree.
Multi-selectors would work. It would be efficient. But I'd rather see a weapon master tree and a slightly reworked kensai tree (more monk stuff).

It should definitly not be deleted or moved to monk, it's good to have trees that stands out from the norm.

Weapon master should have been the Kensai tree. Tying it to monk abilities is why most potential fighter builds don't work with it as well.

If they did multi-selectors, the weapon master stuff and kensai stuff could be added to the same tree, while limiting the ability to take both.

Besides, imagine the hilarity which would ensue if fighter get a 4th tree before FvS, Arty, or Druid get their 3rd. :p

[Axeyu]

Weapon master should have been the Kensai tree. Tying it to monk abilities is why most potential fighter builds don't work with it as well.

If they did multi-selectors, the weapon master stuff and kensai stuff could be added to the same tree, while limiting the ability to take both.

Limiting the ability to take both makes sense.



Besides, imagine the hilarity which would ensue if fighter get a 4th tree before FvS, Arty, or Druid get their 3rd. :p

Are you saying you don't want to see that? :p

[the_one_dwarfforged]

sigh, this thread again.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/464105-A-Suggested-Change-to-Kensai-Tree

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/462114-So-Fighters-how-would-you-like-to-see-them-brought-up-to-snuff

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/459034-Request-for-Comment-Proposed-New-Fighter-tree-Tactical-Warrior

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/447747-fighter-feedback-and-suggestions

not everything in the above links is necessarily current or pertinent to this exact thread, but the **** has been shot concerning fighters on these forums for a while...

here we go.



My initial thought is:

Remove monk line from Kensei, replacing it with a single line, all prereqs for each other:
Tier 2: Choose any ability score for to hit or +3 melee/range power (eight-choice multiselector) 2 AP?
Tier 3: Choose any ability score for damage or +3 melee/range power (eight-choice multiselector) 2 AP?
Tier 4: Choose any ability score for tactics or +4 melee/range power (eight-choice multiselector) 2 AP?
Tier 5: Master of Weapons: Get similar "weapon mastery" as other trees give for your Weapon Focus weapons.
So like for quarterstaffs, Master of Weapons would give you +1 crit range and multiplier, like staff mastery does for acrobats.
By contrast, for crossbows Master of Weapons would give you Expert Builder. (+1 multiplier, +2 for great crossbows)
etc...

the t2-4 baloney is as bad as half the the kensei tree being more useful for monks than for fighters. either youre spending 6 ap for 10 friggin mp (kensei already suffers from terrible cost-to-gain ratios, this inflate that like no other) which is unprecedented and majorly expensive (kotc/frenzy capstones = 1 ap for 10 mp), or you are spending 6 ap to get back to sq 1 on a non str build. kensei doesnt need any useless **** like that, it needs to be loaded with fighter buffs and abilities. i also dont think putting mp into the tree in this manner is the right way to go.

concerning the t5, its an ok idea, kinda i guess, but theres some problems with it. is it replacing keen edge? do falchion users get holy sword, or does that not count because its a spell not an enhancement, and fighters using traditional weapons are just screwed and stuck with keen edge? i also dont like the whole, "more of the same" approach. that is what has gotten us to this current clusterf*ck of class imbalance that were in now.



fighters can only heal themselves through heal scrolls, and epic destiny abilities. they also have no evasion, and 0 utility. their cc is lackluster, even for melee builds, and they have at best only situationally useful saves. they are also inferior at maxing strength compared to paladins and barbs.

this is how you fix fighters, in general terms:

1) major increase to dps. they need to be at the top of the food chain, while remaining harder to keep alive. in my opinion they should be doing more dps than barbs in a vacuum, and roughly equal dps in real play due to having a harder time self healing (you need to stop dpsing if you get low enough that you need to scroll and cocoon and let it tick more than once, that is pretty significant) as well as more focus on temporary boosts such as causing helplessness more often than what is currently doable, as well as greater action boost usage. add more types of boosts to kensei/fighter and add an enhancement that allows multiple boosts from the class source to be used simultaneously.

2) increase damage mitigation/avoidance by increasing cc options, usability, uptime, and to a certain degree dc. currently stunning blow has only 40% uptime, which is usually enough to nuke an enemy, but only 1. not to mention that it cant be undead or otherwise immune, and must fail a save. trip is alright despite not causing helplessness, but again is only a single target cc with a long cd. lay waste is a great cc but has a long/unreliable cd, and afaik doesnt apply tactics bonuses from gear poperly. none of these options are even exclusive to fighters. fighters also dont have a compelling dc lead over other classes, and in the current content stunning blow is nearly worthless, as you can only stun tieflings (admittedly decent for using against the mages) which have no hp, and abishai which come in giant packs and also dont have too much hp, reliably. reavers are a significant portion of the enemies faced and are extremely difficult to stun (its so unreliable, given the attack animation interruption caused by stunning blow id consider it a dps loss if you use it too much because you are only going to land 3/10 stuns at best on a lucky day) even with an effectively maxed stunning blow dc. add an enhancement that allows tactical resets upon using a tactical ability, that applies to all abilities and has over 50% of reset, unless more abilities are added.

3) add a small/moderate amount of defense/sustainability to the class/kensei tree. im not talking about blood strength, but perhaps an action boost that gives a decent hot as well as a hamp boost for the duration, and have it work like any other boost. or, have said boost be a huge temp hp proc as well as a hamp boost. also perhaps an enhancement that upon dropping below a certain hp threshold or a % upon taking dmg you gain a number of temp hp. basically, this should be just enough to keep a fighter more alive than dead without stopping every 6 seconds to scroll and cocoon, allowing them to dps, but not strong enough to make it easymode like barbs, and different enough to be interesting. and i think boosts/clickies/active components is really the way to go to both differentiate fighters and make them interesting.




also, either weapon focus needs to become massively better, verging on op, or the inane restriction of weapons that is applied heavy handedly to fighters needs to be lifted.

holy sword + mauls OR falchions OR khopeshes OR whatever, at will > +6-8 dmg and keen edge + falchions and....esos...and....yea thats it.....unless you respec, which isnt something people want to do often.

[EllisDee37]

concerning the t5, its an ok idea, kinda i guess, but theres some problems with it. is it replacing keen edge? do falchion users get holy sword, or does that not count because its a spell not an enhancement, and fighters using traditional weapons are just screwed and stuck with keen edge? i also dont like the whole, "more of the same" approach. that is what has gotten us to this current clusterf*ck of class imbalance that were in now.See more info here (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/465289-Thoughts-for-a-fighter-pass?p=5686662&viewfull=1#post5686662).

[the_one_dwarfforged]

See more info here (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/465289-Thoughts-for-a-fighter-pass?p=5686662&viewfull=1#post5686662).

so basically no holy sword. that completely ***** on anyone who doesnt want to use a qstaff, dagger, xbow.

it would make fighter the best t5 for bow users though, and it would make 15/5 pally/fighter the best tempest build. nvm, that is assuming those abilities are in place of keen edge. which would be pointless, the reason to go kensei t5 instead of ranger is keen edge. otherwise you go t5 in something else.

yep, that all would make tons of sense to me.

[slarden]

I would like to see fighters get some unique tactical abilities at high levels like a mass trip where you can trip all enemies in an arc, but with a longer cooldown. Perhaps some auto-granted feats at higher levels.

They fighter-only feats should add more melee power.

Overall fighter isn't as bad as some classes are right now, but it seems they are next on the list.

[Gremmlynn]

It seems that they are no longer willing to give out self healing, so by default Fighter is going to be the worst self healing melee of all...So basically they aren't actually going to address what's making fighters the new barbarians?

[Nightmanis]

Core Level 3: Autogrant Quickdraw

[IronClan]

You know, there could be an interesting solution to this (though I don't know how it fit lore-wise; so, feel free to "/not signed" my idea for that reason, but please discuss why because I'd like to understand): Have an enhancement imbue the fighter's weapons with vampirism (Lesser Vampirism, Vampirism, and Greater Vampirism, 1 AP for each of three ranks). Along those lines, there could be an additional enhancement that imbues their armor (not shields) with regenerative properties (Regeneration, Improved Regeneration, Greater Regeneration). Now, granted those enchantments are kind of low on the amount of healing. So, maybe instead of starting with the lowest and going to the highest, perhaps start with the highest and each additional rank invested improves on that. So, for Greater Regeneration, maybe start there and with 3 ranks invested perhaps regenerate something like 10 hp every 15 seconds? Or 10 hp every 10 seconds? I just realized that "Greater Vampirism" doesn't exist. So, perhaps create it and make it something like 1d6 per hit? Then you could improve it to 3d6 per hit with 3 ranks invested.

I don't know. Just a thought. I'll be interested to see if you all think it's workable or just a terribad idea.

I don't like that for the same reason I hated seeing passive self healing in the barbarian tree... thematically it's cringe worthy. I have the same problem with "temporary hit points" actually I hate them even worse... there are MUCH more elegant ways to abstract these systems and they aren't really making the best of D&D's hit point system abstraction.

In D&D HP's are a pool of Stamina, Health both physical and psychological, bruises, mental fatigue, intestinal fortitude all wrapped up into one neat abstraction because modeling a smaller pool of every one of those factors would be too cumbersome in a Pnp game. Arguably we can separate them in a computer game (if we don't mind making the game less D&D like).

In D&D terms a Supreme cleave takes away HP because it takes STAMINA it doesn't make you BLEED it makes you a little more winded, likewise almost all abilities that add or lose HP's have some implicit D&D founded flavor about making you feel better/worse more confident/stronger/rejuvinated or winded, in pain or fatigued etc. and are NOT all about stemming the flow of blood or closing wounds etc.

So what are temp hit points besides a highly non immersive raw game mechanic tacked onto HP?

Vampirism and Regneration are monster/supernatural themed abilities and shouldn't IMO become a primary method to survive for a FIGHTER who are not intrinsically supernatural or monster themed however: "conviction" "endurance" and "burst of confidence" are very real things that can lead a non supernatural fighter to recover some and press the attack.

IMO this is where they need to go with Fighter if they give at least some self healing... This explains the why of my "Stalwart Conviction" suggestion for a appropriately themed healing ability that is less powerful than either of the OP Barb passive self heals. But does it completely believable from a mechanics standpoint, unlike the inelegant and really quite poorly justified Barb stuff...

Yes the preceding msg has been brought to you by old school flavor and verisimiltude, and are purely subjective.

[Gremmlynn]

Core Level 3: Autogrant QuickdrawBecause fighters don't get enough feats to fit this in otherwise? It just seems that auto-granting feats is the wrong way to go with a class that already more than doubles a characters feats.

[IronClan]

So basically they aren't actually going to address what's making fighters the new barbarians?

Well the old Barbarians should have been handled differently that's no reason to make the same mistake with the "new ones" (once again if only they had taken the suggestion to allow cocoon while raging those T5 OP passive heals would not be there)

Fighters do not have Rage keeping them from cocooning, nor do they suffer an inability to use scrolls or displacement clickies when they're using their primary defining class attribute. So I would posit that they are not in the same boat.

That said I am not against some self healing, if you look at the first page for Stalwart Conviction you'll see proof if you need it. Albeit that ability is mostly trying to compensate for the fact that a Paladin Tank makes far better use of Defender tree than a fighter does.

I think they need to make Fighter the preminant melee DPS in the game at this point, unless they are willing to massively nerf Barbarian, which I don't see them doing. Right now the best self healing class is Barb and it's doing (arguably) the top non broken weaponized DPS*

* as always I do not include Broken tree and wolf builds or other stuff (TM) in my statements

Personally I don't have a problem with fighter being the "expert builders choice" in terms of not having easy button heals and mitigation, in other words pure class or heavily multi class lots of choices that increase DPS at the expense of mitigation and not much access to self healing unless it comes at the cost of DPS unlike the barb T5's which come WITH DPS.

I also think that to do them properly they really should bite the bullet and just make a Weapon master 4th tree. I would still want to see Kensei improved a little, some of the junk like weapon meditation changed to useful stuff. and SOME of the Eastern martial monastic stuff added to the late cores so that Monk levels are not required to get some of those trappings.

[Grailhawk]

That said I am not against some self healing, if you look at the first page for Stalwart Conviction you'll see proof if you need it. Albeit that ability is mostly trying to compensate for the fact that a Paladin Tank makes far better use of Defender tree than a fighter does.

IMO on the topic of self healing Fighter should get something like the Warlock T5 Shining Through. It should be in the defender tree though not Kensei.

Also if Fighter is to get a 4th tree IMO remove either remove Vanguard and let it be Paladin exclusive tree, or make Kensei a general tree available to all classes if the toon has bought it in the store or has a fighter and monk past life.

IMO classes should not be getting 4th trees when some classes still only have 2. (Sorc does not have 5 trees they have 2 Savant and EK, though you could talk me into agreeing with Sorc having 3 no way you can talk me into more... just getting that out of the way before anyone says otherwise.)

[Coyopa]

I don't like that for the same reason I hated seeing passive self healing in the barbarian tree... thematically it's cringe worthy. I have the same problem with "temporary hit points" actually I hate them even worse... there are MUCH more elegant ways to abstract these systems and they aren't really making the best of D&D's hit point system abstraction.

In D&D HP's are a pool of Stamina, Health both physical and psychological, bruises, mental fatigue, intestinal fortitude all wrapped up into one neat abstraction because modeling a smaller pool of every one of those factors would be too cumbersome in a Pnp game. Arguably we can separate them in a computer game (if we don't mind making the game less D&D like).

In D&D terms a Supreme cleave takes away HP because it takes STAMINA it doesn't make you BLEED it makes you a little more winded, likewise almost all abilities that add or lose HP's have some implicit D&D founded flavor about making you feel better/worse more confident/stronger/rejuvinated or winded, in pain or fatigued etc. and are NOT all about stemming the flow of blood or closing wounds etc.

So what are temp hit points besides a highly non immersive raw game mechanic tacked onto HP?

Vampirism and Regneration are monster/supernatural themed abilities and shouldn't IMO become a primary method to survive for a FIGHTER who are not intrinsically supernatural or monster themed however: "conviction" "endurance" and "burst of confidence" are very real things that can lead a non supernatural fighter to recover some and press the attack.

IMO this is where they need to go with Fighter if they give at least some self healing... This explains the why of my "Stalwart Conviction" suggestion for a appropriately themed healing ability that is less powerful than either of the OP Barb passive self heals. But does it completely believable from a mechanics standpoint, unlike the inelegant and really quite poorly justified Barb stuff...

Yes the preceding msg has been brought to you by old school flavor and verisimiltude, and are purely subjective.

I appreciate this explanation and your suggestions make more sense than mine.

[IronClan]

Also if Fighter is to get a 4th tree IMO remove either remove Vanguard and let it be Paladin exclusive tree, or make Kensei a general tree available to all classes if the toon has bought it in the store or has a fighter and monk past life.

They are not going to just rip a tree out and you know better man. I mean come on that's just slight of hand anyway:

Hey look over here!

<RRRRRRRIP>

Oh hey Fighter has three trees still would you look at that... Kensei, Weapon master and Defender... yup same as it ever was, good ol Weapon master... wassat? Vanguard? You didn't see that, now move along nothing to see here.

I refuse to believe that people are dumb enough to ignore the development time taken on a fighter 4th tree just as long as we remove an existing one. Besides my Barbarian Vanguard is just waiting on some Fighter improvements to become viable. As per Steelstar's Sig line: we don't only design for builds that exist...

[IronClan]

I appreciate this explanation and your suggestions make more sense than mine.

Hey ... wow thanks... I believe in 20 years of practicing my internets that this have never happened before :D

[Gremmlynn]

Well the old Barbarians should have been handled differently that's no reason to make the same mistake with the "new ones" (once again if only they had taken the suggestion to allow cocoon while raging those T5 OP passive heals would not be there)Drawing from that huge sp pool they get I'm guessing? Especially at heroic levels.


Fighters do not have Rage keeping them from cocooning, nor do they suffer an inability to use scrolls or displacement clickies when they're using their primary defining class attribute. So I would posit that they are not in the same boat.Again, no inherent SPs makes cocoon an invalid solution in my book as does it's unavailability in heroic levels. UMD not being a class skill makes scrolls just as invalid IMO.


That said I am not against some self healing, if you look at the first page for Stalwart Conviction you'll see proof if you need it. Albeit that ability is mostly trying to compensate for the fact that a Paladin Tank makes far better use of Defender tree than a fighter does.

I think they need to make Fighter the preminant melee DPS in the game at this point, unless they are willing to massively nerf Barbarian, which I don't see them doing. Right now the best self healing class is Barb and it's doing (arguably) the top non broken weaponized DPS*

* as always I do not include Broken tree and wolf builds or other stuff (TM) in my statements

Personally I don't have a problem with fighter being the "expert builders choice" in terms of not having easy button heals and mitigation, in other words pure class or heavily multi class lots of choices that increase DPS at the expense of mitigation and not much access to self healing unless it comes at the cost of DPS unlike the barb T5's which come WITH DPS.

I also think that to do them properly they really should bite the bullet and just make a Weapon master 4th tree. I would still want to see Kensei improved a little, some of the junk like weapon meditation changed to useful stuff. and SOME of the Eastern martial monastic stuff added to the late cores so that Monk levels are not required to get some of those trappings.I'm not a huge fan of barb healing, mostly due to melee power affecting it. It just seems a design flaw to me for more damage to mean bigger heals.

I do have a problem with the whole "expert builders choice" mindset. A class should be designed to stand on it's own first and foremost and multi-classing should mostly only influence it when it makes a combination that's to good.

I'm also against the idea of giving a huge advantage to cover for a fatal flaw. Which would be pretty much what ignoring self healing ability would be IMO.

[Grailhawk]

They are not going to just rip a tree out and you know better man. I mean come on that's just slight of hand anyway:

Hey look over here!

<RRRRRRRIP>

Oh hey Fighter has three trees still would you look at that... Kensei, Weapon master and Defender... yup same as it ever was, good ol Weapon master... wassat? Vanguard? You didn't see that, now move along nothing to see here.

I refuse to believe that people are dumb enough to ignore the development time taken on a fighter 4th tree just as long as we remove an existing one.

And besides my Barbarian Vanguard is just waiting on some Fighter improvements to become viable. As per Steelstar's Sig line: we don't only design for builds that exist...


Giving one class 4 trees creates an imbalance which they should try and avoid. More options are always better then less even if you can only take 80ap worth of those options. A fourth tree in any class is a bad idea.

[LuKaSu]

I think if they wanted to have fighter be the tactical class, the way to do that would be to give them a % change to automatically activate an ability on a hit. Say you have the sap feat, and put 1/1/1 ap into it you now have a 15% chance to sap a mob per hit. And if you have stunning blow and put 1/1/1 into that, you have a 15% chance to stun mobs. This automatic activation would not put the ability on cool down, so you can still use it every 6/15 seconds or whatever.

So a weapon master with improved trip, hamstring, sap, stunning blow, improved sunder, and slicing blow would be constantly activating something. Flavor-wise that is appealing to me. How much dps that would actually add however is not much.



I think this is my favorite Kensai re-think I've seen yet! That would definitely make me enjoy the class much more

[IronClan]

Drawing from that huge sp pool they get I'm guessing? Especially at heroic levels.

Again, no inherent SPs makes cocoon an invalid solution in my book as does it's unavailability in heroic levels. UMD not being a class skill makes scrolls just as invalid IMO.

Look this debate was lost somewhere in the rogue pass, and then lost again during warlock... I don't think they're going hand out healing like they did to barb's again because barbs were seen as a special case they were hard for healers to heal due to massive HP pool and low mitigation and they had no self heals due to rage keeping all alternatives from being viable. So Barbs healing turned out to be a minor disaster. Now any skilled player can make a barb perform so well that its basically god mode and top DPS at the same time. They should have handled it differently (mitigation instead of heal amp, and opportunities like Epic Silver flame pots and cocoon (which were both suggested on the PC) while raged instead of passive healing but too late now... water under the bridge.

You're arguing with the wrong person I am not advocating no self healing... Again my suggestions actually have some (that some have already objected to being there).

That said you're arguing from a pretend meta: anyone can put a spell power item on, I have toons that use Reconstruction that have 400sp without a single level of anything that gives a blue bar and no magical training feat even. I find it hard to believe you've never put an SP item on a non magic character and discovered this so I find your argument to be disingenuous.

UMD is laughable to obtain especially at epic levels, as I like to point out I have a Dwarven barb with 6 CHA that scroll resurrects in raids, teleports everywhere instead of running and can scroll heal (though I don't). Especially when Divine Might is a staple of DPS builds, especially with a Fighter with a gazillion feats, and one of the most multiclass facilitating classes in the game. I'm not buying a UDM is hard argument any more than a pretending that SP items don't give SP argument. And I'm not even arguing for no self heals...

The reason to give them some self heals is because that's where the game is at and reversing that now is liable to cost more players than it adds. The reason to NOT give them self heals is that when all is said and done with enough polishing and not giving more healing out: we may end up with Clerics and FvS having a HEALING role in the end game 30 cap era. I can see the merit in both sides of that coin. So I tend towards a moderate self healing preference myself.

[nibel]

I don't like that for the same reason I hated seeing passive self healing in the barbarian tree... thematically it's cringe worthy.

To be fair, since the implementation of Epic Destinies, Barbarian was thrown in the same category as it is on 4e: A Primal class, not Martial. Primal classes can empower primal forces to their bidding, and there are some rages on 4e that allow a barbarian to gain regeneration. So, self-healing barbarians is actually within lore.

Fighters, on the other hand, are still strictly martial since ever. I have no problem with the concept of healing as ways to encourage yourself and others (like 4e Warlord's Inspiring Word power), but they should not be healing on hit like a vampiric effect or exactly the same way barbarians heal. Make it be activated attacks that grant a surge of healing, or some defensive maneuver that gives a good bunch of THP and a defensive bonus for a short time. It should "feel" different than just the healing spells (click a button and gain HP) or barbarian healing (kill an enemy and absorb its HP).

[Lonnbeimnech]

They are not going to just rip a tree out and you know better man. I mean come on that's just slight of hand anyway:

Hey look over here!

<RRRRRRRIP>

Oh hey Fighter has three trees still would you look at that... Kensei, Weapon master and Defender... yup same as it ever was, good ol Weapon master... wassat? Vanguard? You didn't see that, now move along nothing to see here.

I refuse to believe that people are dumb enough to ignore the development time taken on a fighter 4th tree just as long as we remove an existing one. Besides my Barbarian Vanguard is just waiting on some Fighter improvements to become viable. As per Steelstar's Sig line: we don't only design for builds that exist...

Seen any virtuoso bards recently?

The meat and potatoes of the kansai tree can be copied into weapon master. The weapon group specialization, extra action boosts, tactic DC improvement, critical accuracy etc.

But the monk nonsense has got to go, to make room for some fighter related enhancements.

[Coyopa]

Hey ... wow thanks... I believe in 20 years of practicing my internets that this have never happened before :D

lol! Well, you're welcome. I don't really have any ego about my ideas, which helps when it comes to this kind of thing. Besides, I haven't played a fighter in ages. I've got a 17th level first life fighter who's been parked so long I can't remember the last time I played him (I know it's been *at least* two years). So, I figured I'd throw an idea out there and see whether it floated. I tried to +1 you, but apparently I have to rep other people some before I can rep you again.

[Jiirix]

Some thoughts about figthers: Their biggest assest are the abundance of feats they get but there are not enough good feats to make this a real advantage over other classes. (The melee power added to the weapon foci helped a bit with that, but it's kind of bland.) One simple feat could fix that: Fighters Dedication - You gain X more Action Points to invest in your enhancements; bonus fighter feat only, Prerequisites: Figher level 12

Because figthers can be of any alignment and get a lot of bonus feats they are a good class for non caster multiclass builds. To make a pure fighter more compelling the capstones should be unique and not something you can get from other sources (like plain doublestrike). Something that fits with the "disciplined and tactical warrior" theme, I am sure there is something nice in the pen and paper rules somewhere that could be adjusted

[Coyopa]

Some thoughts about figthers: Their biggest assest are the abundance of feats they get but there are not enough good feats to make that a real advantage over other classes. One simple feat could fix that: Fighters Dedication - You gain X more Action Points to invest in your enhancements; bonus fighter feat only, Prerequisites: Figher level 12

I dislike this idea. I don't think they should get both more feats and more enhancements. The way to make their abundance of feats better is to make feats more compelling and make deciding between them more difficult. Right now, it's no big deal to play a class with just 7 feats (or 8 if you're human) because there aren't that many compelling, must-have feats. Feats like Discipline, Resilience, Acrobatic, Athletic, and many, many more are just filler if you've nothing else to spend your feats on (yeah, right!). Make some of these more compelling and you'll find more people wanting more feats and considering fighters or fighter splashes more often.

[Jiirix]

I dislike this idea. I don't think they should get both more feats and more enhancements. The way to make their abundance of feats better is to make feats more compelling and make deciding between them more difficult. Right now, it's no big deal to play a class with just 7 feats (or 8 if you're human) because there aren't that many compelling, must-have feats. Feats like Discipline, Resilience, Acrobatic, Athletic, and many, many more are just filler if you've nothing else to spend your feats on (yeah, right!). Make some of these more compelling and you'll find more people wanting more feats and considering fighters or fighter splashes more often.

Well, I kind of dislike that idea too and think the feats should be more compelling like you said. BUT I don't think their will be a feat revamp in the somewhat near future and until then this feat would help a lot.

[Coyopa]

Well, I kind of dislike that idea too and think the feats should be more compelling like you said. BUT I don't think their will be a feat revamp in the somewhat near future and until then this feat would help a lot.

Well, I'll agree that feats won't be updated in the foreseeable future. They've got all the other classes to go, yet, and then the racial enhancement trees. (They're rather invalidating the edge in dexterity-based bow usage that elves currently enjoy by making DWS' Improved Weapon Finesse include bows. I'm already planning to reduce my investment in the Elven racial tree from 23 AP to 14 AP [just enough to get Elven AA] with at least 6 of those newly-freed 9 AP going to DWS.)

[Gremmlynn]

The reason to give them some self heals is because that's where the game is at and reversing that now is liable to cost more players than it adds. The reason to NOT give them self heals is that when all is said and done with enough polishing and not giving more healing out: we may end up with Clerics and FvS having a HEALING role in the end game 30 cap era. I can see the merit in both sides of that coin. So I tend towards a moderate self healing preference myself.I agree that the issue is something of a corner the game has painted itself into. I just have a personal dislike for contradictory game design, if UMD is supposed to be the answer just make it a class skill, if cocoon give them a few SPs and add some heroic version. Else, make a solution that fits with what the class is given that let's it fit in with how the game is played. Anything else just seems like a workaround to me.

Hmm, how about an enhanced healing potion enhancement. 100/200/300%, or whatever works, for cure potions. Or something like that.

[Lonnbeimnech]

Some thoughts about figthers: Their biggest assest are the abundance of feats they get but there are not enough good feats to make this a real advantage over other classes. (The melee power added to the weapon foci helped a bit with that, but it's kind of bland.) One simple feat could fix that: Fighters Dedication - You gain X more Action Points to invest in your enhancements; bonus fighter feat only, Prerequisites: Figher level 12

Because figthers can be of any alignment and get a lot of bonus feats they are a good class for non caster multiclass builds. To make a pure fighter more compelling the capstones should be unique and not something you can get from other sources (like plain doublestrike). Something that fits with the "disciplined and tactical warrior" theme, I am sure there is something nice in the pen and paper rules somewhere that could be adjusted

How about : 'your action boost now regenerate at a rate of 1 every 120 seconds'.

[Gremmlynn]

Well, I'll agree that feats won't be updated in the foreseeable future. They've got all the other classes to go, yet, and then the racial enhancement trees. (They're rather invalidating the edge in dexterity-based bow usage that elves currently enjoy by making DWS' Improved Weapon Finesse include bows. I'm already planning to reduce my investment in the Elven racial tree from 23 AP to 14 AP [just enough to get Elven AA] with at least 6 of those newly-freed 9 AP going to DWS.)Off topic, but I have a question.

Why get Elven AA? If the character qualifies for DWS it would qualify for ranger AA? Is Elven AA better in some way?

[Chai]

Off topic, but I have a question.

Why get Elven AA? If the character qualifies for DWS it would qualify for ranger AA? Is Elven AA better in some way?

Elves can use dex to longbow damage, so elf AA was the dex to bow damage flavor answer.

Also, to be able to multi-class and still get the AA capstone.

[Coyopa]

Off topic, but I have a question.

Why get Elven AA? If the character qualifies for DWS it would qualify for ranger AA? Is Elven AA better in some way?

Elven AA is better than Ranger AA from the stand point that my build is Elven, has only 2 ranger levels, and I want an AA ability from the third tier (Soul Magic). I cannot get Soul Magic from Ranger AA because that requires three ranger levels. However, Elven AA is predicated on character levels instead of class levels, which grants me access to Soul Magic**. So, I'm fortunate that Improved Weapon Finesse is only a tier 2 DWS ability because otherwise I'd be hosed and still have to invest 23 AP into the Elven racial tree to get dexterity-to-damage for bows (the Elven Weapon Training Line to unlock Grace). I would very much like to not have to get Elven AA at all, but one of the things I wanted from the build is access to the SoV SLA and this requires 18 Druid levels.

** I get access to Soul Magic at a later level than I would from Ranger AA. However, this isn't important because you don't actually take Elven AA until later levels, anyway, due to the AP costs involved. While leveling, there just isn't much benefit to unlocking Elven AA early because this build's primary power at early levels (under 15th level) comes from spell-like abilities, such as Produce Flame, Creeping Cold, Call Lightning, and Word of Balance. In fact, I built the character with the Enlarge Spell feat because the SLA's are that important to it. At 12th level when you get WoB and set Enlarge Spell to "always on" for it, you're a god in Invaders. Well, you're a god in most quests, but you really rule the day in Invaders (and your party loves you for it). Once you hit about 15 level, you've got enough AP to start really spending in the Elven racial tree and can unlock Elven AA then, resetting (and dumping) Ranger AA.

[IronClan]

To be fair 4e:

Sorry tuned out when you put 4 and e next to each other.


Seen any virtuoso bards recently?

The meat and potatoes of the kansai tree can be copied into weapon master. The weapon group specialization, extra action boosts, tactic DC improvement, critical accuracy etc.

But the monk nonsense has got to go, to make room for some fighter related enhancements.

Yes Virtuoso is alive and well in Spell Singer tree, almost 100% of the useful stuff is there along with almost 100% of the usefull Spell Singer stuff along with some nice SLA's that neither had before.

So no the Monk stuff does not have to go, you brought up a tree that has many multi-selectors which proves that point admirably. You just made the wrong conclusion after you brought it up.


The way to make their abundance of feats better is to make feats more compelling and make deciding between them more difficult.

I agree with this in fact I think they can actually tweak feats to be more viable as they go. They've made the focus feats more interesting (though they should have made each one 3mp) and by making them all stack they are actually an opportunity to do something different (take all three melee focus feats for 6mp) if you have a feat rich build that's got 3 extra feats. (yeah I know)

IMO they should do something similar on the fly with other bad feats...


I agree that the issue is something of a corner the game has painted itself into. I just have a personal dislike for contradictory game design, if UMD is supposed to be the answer just make it a class skill, if cocoon give them a few SPs and add some heroic version. Else, make a solution that fits with what the class is given that let's it fit in with how the game is played. Anything else just seems like a workaround to me.

Hmm, how about an enhanced healing potion enhancement. 100/200/300%, or whatever works, for cure potions. Or something like that.

UMD doesn't have to be easy button for it to be consistent its already easy to have workable UMD even on builds that you would think would have lousy UMD (Like a Dwarven 6 CHA Barbarian).

[Gremmlynn]

Elves can use dex to longbow damage, so elf AA was the dex to bow damage flavor answer.

Also, to be able to multi-class and still get the AA capstone.Okay the capstone issue makes sense Though the first explanation just explains why be an elf, not why spend enough points in the race tree to open Elvan AA on a ranger.

[Coyopa]

Elves can use dex to longbow damage, so elf AA was the dex to bow damage flavor answer.

Also, to be able to multi-class and still get the AA capstone.

Thanks for playing! However, please don't try to read my mind and answer questions for me in the future, mmmmkay? I'm perfectly capable of answering for myself and explaining the build decisions I make. In fact, I did exactly that right here: https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/465289-Thoughts-for-a-fighter-pass?p=5687252&viewfull=1#post5687252 . Wow! Amazing! What's even more shocking is how wrong your answer is when it comes to my build, which is what Gremmlynn was asking about. Since you've now been definitively proven not to know absolutely everything about everything, how about you stick to talking about the things you do know about and leave the other stuff to the people who know about that stuff?

[Coyopa]

Okay the capstone issue makes sense Though the first explanation just explains why be an elf, not why spend enough points in the race tree to open Elvan AA on a ranger.

I explained why I chose Elven AA here: https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/465289-Thoughts-for-a-fighter-pass?p=5687252&viewfull=1#post5687252 . Looking to Chai for answers about my build is an exercise in futility.