When to branch off into fighter levels?

[johnnyputrid]

My newest character is a Ranger 6 currently, about halfway to level 7. I plan on taking two levels of fighter for the extra feats, but I'm not sure when I should do the split. Ranger 6/Fighter 2 would give me Oversized TWF and Power Attack, with Improved Crit coming in at level 9, basically netting me all of the feats I'll need pretty early on. However that would push back getting GTWF and Tempest II a few levels.

So my question is, what level is a good split choice? Ranger 6, Ranger 11 (for GTWF) or Ranger 12 (for Tempest II)? Or does it really even matter that much?

[Dragavon]

In my head its always a good idea to MC early to get the feats asap.

[Dawnsfire]

My newest character is a Ranger 6 currently, about halfway to level 7. I plan on taking two levels of fighter for the extra feats, but I'm not sure when I should do the split. Ranger 6/Fighter 2 would give me Oversized TWF and Power Attack, with Improved Crit coming in at level 9, basically netting me all of the feats I'll need pretty early on. However that would push back getting GTWF and Tempest II a few levels.

So my question is, what level is a good split choice? Ranger 6, Ranger 11 (for GTWF) or Ranger 12 (for Tempest II)? Or does it really even matter that much?

I personally took my first fighter level at 1st so I could get toughness and dodge right away and the second at 8th for IC pierce.

[ratpacker]

In my head its always a good idea to MC early to get the feats asap.

Agree but depends on what class feats you plan to take as a fighter. I am building a ranger 18 fighter 2 at the moment and i have taken fighter at lv 4 for spring attack (fighter class feat) because it needs +4 BAB. And then fighter at lv 8 to get IC: Slash to make my bursts weapons that much more effective.

You can take a look at my build.

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=219461

You should ask yourself what extra feats you need and then you will know when you need to take the fighter levels.

Have fun building!

[QuantumFX]

Short answer: When your eligible to take the feat that you’re splashing the fighter level for. And never splash it at level 1 as you lose too many skill points.

[sephiroth1084]

Short answer: When your eligible to take the feat that you’re splashing the fighter level for. And never splash it at level 1 as you lose too many skill points.

I'm with Quantum on this one.

I'd say that the best points to splash would be level 8 for Improved Critical, and then sometime later (after getting GTWF from Ranger 11) for whatever other feat you wanted, unless you really want it now. You'll be delaying Tempest III until level 19 anyway, so pushing it to 20 isn't such a hardship.

Fighter is probably one of the easiest classes to splash, as it hardly matters when you splash so long as you aren't giving up something important at that point.