Feat Selection for Intimitank Build

[GGProfessor]

Hello, I've been playing for a short while, so I'm probably still a bit of a newb, but I've been using only one Fighter who's level 7 now and I've been following the revisited Stalwart Soldier build (http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p...&postcount=179) but have been considering swapping out some feats for a few reasons.

The main problem I've been having so far is casters; they totally destroy me. Other enemies can hardly ever get through my AC, but I have hardly any saves and no magic resistance. So the main things I'm considering dropping and swapping out are to increase saves and improve survivability against casters

Mostly I'd just like a thorough overview of each of these feats and how useful they are to an intimitank, with long-term playability in mind. Ratings for each of them would be very helpful.

Feats I'm Thinking of Dropping:
Improved Trip (don't use it very often, seems like it could be used on something else)
Power Attack (too much focus on offense when defense still needs improvement)
Skill Focus: Intimidate (how much more intimidate do I really need?)
Skill Focus: UMD (how useful will this really be?)
Weapon Focus/Specialization Feats (too much focus on offense when defense still needs improvement)
THF Line (too much focus on offense when defense still needs improvement)
Dodge (it is only +1 AC... how useful is that?)

Feats I'm Thinking of Taking:
Lesser Dragonmark of Sentinel (protection from magic seems like it would be helpful)
Luck of Heroes (more saves)
Lightning Reflexes (more saves)
Resilience (+4 to all saves sounds really nice)
Bastard Sword Proficiency (to use with Tower Shield and in combination with THF line if I keep it)
Weapon Focus/Specialization Feats (particularly Focus, to make up for attack penalties from tower shields and stances)
Improved Shield Bash (to use while blocking so I can put out some damage while still taking hits)

All help and advice is appreciated.

[dredre9987]

Check this out it will help a whole lot...He goes through just about everything you could think of for an intim

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=216140

[Bobthesponge]

without any more info that what you have posted (stats, gear, actual save numbers, ect) the best advice is... relax.

fighter saves will get better and there are spells and clickies that will help you prevent many things. looking at your list comments in red:

Feats I'm Thinking of Dropping:
Improved Trip (don't use it very often, seems like it could be used on something else) very useful to get an opponent on the ground
Power Attack (too much focus on offense when defense still needs improvement) keep it. it is considered essential by many for fighter DPS
Skill Focus: Intimidate (how much more intimidate do I really need?) for an intim build? all you can get. intimidating the orthons in VoD requires something like a 55 intim and they aren't the worst of the bunch
Skill Focus: UMD (how useful will this really be?) depends. if you put ranks into UMD at every level it can be very useful. the ability to scroll heals and other goodies on yourself can be invaluable.
Weapon Focus/Specialization Feats (too much focus on offense when defense still needs improvement)see PA comment. you need DPS
THF Line (too much focus on offense when defense still needs improvement)very see PA comment. you need DPS
Dodge (it is only +1 AC... how useful is that?) depends on if you are trying for an AC build or not. AC build are very difficult to build correctly because you have to sacrifice so much DPS to get a good AC. end game AC needs to be in the 70s to be relevant and i'm not sure if there is a relevant AC for epic.


Feats I'm Thinking of Taking:
Lesser Dragonmark of Sentinel (protection from magic seems like it would be helpful) personally, i think that's useless. feel free to disagree
Luck of Heroes (more saves) see above
Lightning Reflexes (more saves) without evasion and a high intelligence, neigther of which you should have as a pure fighter, this is useless
Resilience (+4 to all saves sounds really nice) once again, i don't think you need to worry about your saves. as you progress in levels you will find that you are relying on magical protections more than saves
Bastard Sword Proficiency (to use with Tower Shield and in combination with THF line if I keep it)bastard sword is not a THF weapon even though you get some help with glancing blows from the THF series. that was added in update 7 (i think) to try and make them more viable but as far as i can tell it didn't really work. my thought is it is a waste of feats to do both. go wither THF with GA, falcion, ect or TWF with bastard swords (or whatever)
Weapon Focus/Specialization Feats (particularly Focus, to make up for attack penalties from tower shields and stances) you have this listed in both lists??
Improved Shield Bash (to use while blocking so I can put out some damage while still taking hits)meh. there really aren't that many times where you will intimidate and turtle up and will need to use this.

[sephiroth1084]

Hello, I've been playing for a short while, so I'm probably still a bit of a newb, but I've been using only one Fighter who's level 7 now and I've been following the revisited Stalwart Soldier build (http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p...&postcount=179) but have been considering swapping out some feats for a few reasons.

The main problem I've been having so far is casters; they totally destroy me. Other enemies can hardly ever get through my AC, but I have hardly any saves and no magic resistance. So the main things I'm considering dropping and swapping out are to increase saves and improve survivability against casters

Mostly I'd just like a thorough overview of each of these feats and how useful they are to an intimitank, with long-term playability in mind. Ratings for each of them would be very helpful.

A few notes and specific comments on the feats you're looking to swap:
First, a character with no offense is useless. Period. Yes, you can turtle up and intimidate, which can be useful...in about 0.1% of content/situations. You aren't helping anyone standing around blocking if the party isn't taking that much damage, or if casters are the main problem in a given fight, or if the monsters have self-healing/regeneration, or if the fight needs to be over faster, or even if the goal of the quest/group is to move quickly (not even talking about zerging, just not spending a lot of time standing around).

Don't get me wrong, having the ability to block and intimidate is very useful as an option, but it shouldn't be the primary focus of your character, because you'll just not be contributing in a meaningful way in the multitude of situations in which the strategy is simply not needed. I advocate focusing heavily on DPS for all melee capable characters, and as a fighter, there is really no reason not to do so.

An important question to answer, is what race are you?

Feats I'm Thinking of Dropping:
Improved Trip (don't use it very often, seems like it could be used on something else) You should have enough Jump to leap over the front line melees to get to the casters as quickly as possible. Improved Trip is excellent vs. enemy casters, as they typically have low Str and Dex and often low Balance. This is one of the absolutely best defenses against most enemy spell casters!Keep it! One excellent strategy is, as you jump over the enemy beaters to get to the casters, hit intimidate. That way, they turn to face you, exposing their backs to the rest of your party while you're taking care of the enemy caster(s).
Power Attack (too much focus on offense when defense still needs improvement) Every melee character should have this feat. Period. You will not need to be focusing on defense all the time. More AC isn't useful against casters, and sometimes you simply want DPS over AC. Additionally, there are a lot of places where your AC may be enough for you to run around without even your shield on and still not get hit (more on this later).
Skill Focus: Intimidate (how much more intimidate do I really need?) Depends on how high your intim will get with gear, really. Just max ranks + a little Cha +a +15 item and a couple of other temporary bonuses (GH, Prayer) will usually be enough for almost anything, but vs. some bosses (particularly raid bosses), and especially on Hard, Elite and Epic difficulties the more intimidate you have the better. You can ditch this now and pick it up again later if you feel you need it. Generally speaking, if you intend to intimitank a boss, you should really be aiming to getting it on a roll of 1, since if you can't lock it down 100%, the group will be at great risk.
Skill Focus: UMD (how useful will this really be?) UMD is simply one of the most valuable skills in the game. With enough UMD you can scroll Heal yourself, or other members of the party, and that is a very powerful ability. Short of that, though, getting enough to use Shield (lvl 10) wands is very useful, as it allows you to maintain a hybridized DPS/AC mode: use your two-handed weapon for more DPS while leaving on some AC gear and only losing 5-6 points of AC by taking off your shield. For example, my paladin AC tank can tank all raids on normal, and some on hard and elite, without bothering with his shield, partly due to access to Shield wands that last more than 1 minute. Shield will also protect you from Magic Missiles. UMD can provide you with the tools to negate much of what enemy casters do: Greater Heroism scrolls (immunity to fear and +4 to your saves, in addition to skills and attacks), Spell Resistance scrolls, Protection from Elements scrolls, Resist Energy wands (the 7 and 11 ones are excellent), True Seeing (bypass enemy casters' Blur/Displacement).
Weapon Focus/Specialization Feats (too much focus on offense when defense still needs improvement)Same deal as Power Attack for a fighter, except that these apply all the time. Invaluable.
THF Line (too much focus on offense when defense still needs improvement) Same deal as PA and the Weapon Specialization line. If you need to drop some feats, I'd start here, honestly, though on a fighter feats shouldn't really be an issue.
Dodge (it is only +1 AC... how useful is that?) Every point of AC is meaningful. AC is all about adding up lots of small bonuses. You can drop this if you're desperate for feats, but I probably wouldn't bother.

Do you have Combat Expertise, or enough Int to pick it up? It's not listed, which is why I ask. For situations where you're desperate for AC, CE is about the best around, though not something you need to be using very often--normally Power Attack is preferable.

Do you have Improved Critical worked in? This feat is up there with the other DPS feats, and the comments I made about them applies to this as well.

Feats I'm Thinking of Taking:
Lesser Dragonmark of Sentinel (protection from magic seems like it would be helpful) Since this gives a bonus to intimidate, you could pick this up in place of Skill Focus: Intimidate.
Luck of Heroes (more saves) An okay choice, but really, your biggest issue is probably Will saves, not Fort or Reflex (your HP is your Reflex save for the most part), so Iron Will or Bullheaded are probably better choices.
Lightning Reflexes (more saves) See above.
Resilience (+4 to all saves sounds really nice) Junk.
Bastard Sword Proficiency (to use with Tower Shield and in combination with THF line if I keep it) I'd say that if you're concerned about feats, there is no reason to pick this up. If you aren't, I think khopesh is still better DPS even with the full THF line, although Bastard Swords are cheaper. I'd rate this as an incredibly low priority. Figure out whether you can fit in everything else you want, and then, if you have feats left over and really want this, go ahead and take it.
Weapon Focus/Specialization Feats (particularly Focus, to make up for attack penalties from tower shields and stances) What stance are you taking a penalty from? Are you using Defensive Fighting? Combat Expertise?
Improved Shield Bash (to use while blocking so I can put out some damage while still taking hits) Garbage. Your shield will deal pitiful damage, won't bypass damage reduction, doesn't benefit from most of the feats you'd want and attacks incredibly slowly. The goal for this kind of build, as frustrating as it may be, is to attain enough AC to be attacking and still not getting hit. That's pretty easy in the early game, not difficult in the mid game, and requires a ridiculous amount of grind for most of the end game...and then AC becomes almost entirely useless at the very end (epic), where intimiblocking is also rendered rather useless, as crowd control and DPS rule the day in epics.

All help and advice is appreciated.

No one wants trashcan. Don't be one.

[Feithlin]

I won't add to above comments, which are good. At level 7, what kind of problems do you have with casters? If the problem comes from direct damage, try to get cloaks with elemental resistances (fire, acid, lightning mainly) or UMD a resist element wand or buy resist element pots. If this is because you get held, you can increase your will save by taking the Force of personality feat if you dumped wis and have a high cha, or get a +X wis item or owl pots. Also get get items giving +X to your resistance. If you still have issues, you can drink heroism pots too (+2 to saves). But remember that the best defense against casters is to kill them fast. Ignore the other monsters and focus on them; trip them to prevent them from casting. Droping your dps feats is a bad idea because killing fast will protect you much more than increasing your saves (you always on a '1').

[Quikster]

@Ferr

He has ce if he has imp trip

[sephiroth1084]

@Ferr

He has ce if he has imp trip

Dur. Yeah.

[sephiroth1084]

MrWizard, why would you advocate dropping PA? You can turn it off for CE when the situation dictates, but you can't do that if you don't have the feat. And there are plenty of times where you want the DPS more than the AC.

As for not being burst DPS...Haste Boost contributes to that.

Also, easier for a newer toon to get a good two-hander than two good 1-handers to support TWF. That said, Stalwart really wants more Dex, so there is some synergy there.

[MrWizard]

Hello, I've been playing for a short while, so I'm probably still a bit of a newb, but I've been using only one Fighter who's level 7 now and I've been following the revisited Stalwart Soldier build (http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p...&postcount=179) but have been considering swapping out some feats for a few reasons.

The main problem I've been having so far is casters; they totally destroy me. Other enemies can hardly ever get through my AC, but I have hardly any saves and no magic resistance. So the main things I'm considering dropping and swapping out are to increase saves and improve survivability against casters

Mostly I'd just like a thorough overview of each of these feats and how useful they are to an intimitank, with long-term playability in mind. Ratings for each of them would be very helpful.

Feats I'm Thinking of Dropping:
Improved Trip (don't use it very often, seems like it could be used on something else)
Trip a caster to prevent him from hurting you...keep this, get items and enhancements, and use it all the time.


Power Attack (too much focus on offense when defense still needs improvement)
Drop this, unless you are a thf dps type, which you are not, drop it.

Skill Focus: Intimidate (how much more intimidate do I really need?)
Keep this

Skill Focus: UMD (how useful will this really be?)
Keep this


Weapon Focus/Specialization Feats (too much focus on offense when defense still needs improvement)
THF Line (too much focus on offense when defense still needs improvement)
Keep the focus but go TWF instead. Keep the line of TWF but not oversized


Dodge (it is only +1 AC... how useful is that?)
Very useful...keep it.

Feats I'm Thinking of Taking:
Lesser Dragonmark of Sentinel (protection from magic seems like it would be helpful)
Luck of Heroes (more saves)
Lightning Reflexes (more saves)
Resilience (+4 to all saves sounds really nice)
Bastard Sword Proficiency (to use with Tower Shield and in combination with THF line if I keep it)
No to all, khopesh instead

Weapon Focus/Specialization Feats (particularly Focus, to make up for attack penalties from tower shields and stances)
yes, slashing

Improved Shield Bash (to use while blocking so I can put out some damage while still taking hits)
No, drop it.

All help and advice is appreciated.

make wis a dump stat. Get force of personality. Start with a 12 charisma (32 point build, 11 if not). Get charisma up there.
TWF line
Weapon focus/spec, 2 levels of it, and the damage enhancements you will get.
shield mastery feats for high DR (45 at end game)
UMD is incredible, especially in today's non-buffing caster milieu.
Improved trip is your caster bane..trip one, attack the other.


Things do not start coming together until 12th level and you start getting some good gear. Til then you really need the defensive and offensive feats, except power attack.


You will find in play that you need to have CE on a lot, this makes Power attack and its extra 5 points of damage a wasted feat for you. TWF you will do more damage and can have that trip weapon handy in one of them.
You are not burst dps, you are sustained dps. You will do more damage over time due to survival. The more you take from survival the less sustained damage you can do.
You will not have the kensai or barbarian damage additions. I am assuming human, so you can get a +5 damage burst from human versatility in the odd rare situation when you think +5 per swing is gonna make a big difference (won't happen, but what the heck).

Fact is, the intim and your survivability along with your ability to whittle down foes makes you an important part of the group if played correctly. It takes time to understand it and know how to play it. Just like any other class. It is hard but if you like to deal with aggro and help out your party, you will learn it...it takes time.

at 7th level, you are like everyone else....not so good yet. Your PrE's, enhancements, skills, etc are are still in baby mode. 12th level gets interesting. Gear gets even better.

[wax_on_wax_off]

On any human intimidate build with feats (like a fighter) i would take bullheaded, skill focus: intimidate AND least dragonmark of sentinel for +8 to intimidate, invaluable. The highest intimidate needed is 80 for elite HoX i think.

As people say, don't worry about the defense thing, things will get better. Easy solution is to get buffs, either from clickies, potions, scrolls or a friendly spellcaster:
Protection from evil (+2 to saves, immune to some mind control stuff from evil guys)
Resist Energy (invaluable to mitigate elemental damage)
Rage (+hp +will save)
Resistance item
etc.

That said, THF feats aren't strictly necessary, if you wanted to drop some feats this is where'd I'd start.

When you see a spellcaster, just beeline to them and trip them or do something else to disable them. Remember to try to dodge their ray attacks and such. Don't stand in firewalls without resist fire.

[sephiroth1084]

I'd definitely take PA over the THF feats, Shield Mastery, Dodge, Skill Focus: UMD, Improved Critical...

There are simply too many places where intimidate and/or AC aren't needed and DPS is. I get ****ing ****ed as hell at people who continue to turtle in those situations. Had one guy recently in a Running With the Devils group...nothing in there has a **** melee attack, yet he had his shield out, kept intimidating and blocking and taking tons of damage he couldn't mitigate, while fights were taking longer than they needed to be because we were essentially 5-manning. I told him to cut that **** out for the boss near the end that has a lot of self-healing, but of course, he spent the whole fight doing nothing.

There's little enough excuse for that on a paladin, but on a fighter there's NONE! You have enough feats that you can afford DPS options. I'm sorry MrWizard, but a fighter is the very definition of NOT feat starved. There's no reason for a fighter to not have PA, IC, WF, WS, GWF, GWS, Toughness. None. That's less than half the feats a fighter gets.

[Quikster]

Id take pa over a lot of feats the op has up there.

Yes even on a twf. The thing you arent considering when you say that pa is better for a thf is that +5 to damage on every swing for a twf adds up to more dps then +10 for every swing on a 1 hander. There is absolutely no reason in the world not to have pa on a fighter.

You say its more important for the new player to focus on defensive oriented feats because of lack of gear, I say for the same reason they need PA. They arent going to be close to the ac of a moderately geared tank, and might be half a die roll or more behind a well geared tank. No reason not to have PA to increase their already gimp'd dps.

You and I have been having this discussion for over a year, and you still dont understand the mechanics of how dps works it seems.

OP go with pa. I have helped countless people build tanks and only 1 person I know still advocates not taking PA. Everyone else would take a second PA feat if it was available.

[jwdaniels]

Id take pa over a lot of feats the op has up there.

Yes even on a twf. The thing you arent considering when you say that pa is better for a thf is that +5 to damage on every swing for a twf adds up to more dps then +10 for every swing on a 1 hander. There is absolutely no reason in the world not to have pa on a fighter.

I agree with you that PA is essential, however the TWF character does not get 2 swings every time the THF gets one, therefore the +5 on every swing does not add up to more than the +10 on each.

[Quikster]

I agree with you that PA is essential, however the TWF character does not get 2 swings every time the THF gets one, therefore the +5 on every swing does not add up to more than the +10 on each.

No not anymore unfortunately, but twf still gets more swings per, especially if there are no thf feats to boost the damage output from glancing blows, or if the t-hander is moving. All that becomes moot when the fighter hits hasteboost however. And a mostly pure fighter without hasteboost maxed is a poor one.

Not having pa because its only +5 instead of +10 is a very poor argument imo simply because the +5 still adds up a ton with the twf feats.

[MrWizard]

You and I have been having this discussion for over a year, and you still dont understand the mechanics of how dps works it seems.

OP go with pa. I have helped countless people build tanks and only 1 person I know still advocates not taking PA. Everyone else would take a second PA feat if it was available.

psssst - he's talking about me...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnoaT9WH6lQ

[Aeolwind]

I have PA, and I really like it for the times that I don't have a shield up. And I have to agree, a first life intim fighter could have a couple more feats and still have a time fitting it all in. If you don't have the gear to fall back on, it suuuucks. Bad. I'm speaking from experience.

PA is good, CE is good, Imp Shield bash is pointless (mobs have too many HP), weapon focus is good. If you are going to press your intim key on a regular basis and expect it work, you'll need SF: Intim at some point. Same for bullheaded & Least dragon Mark; until you can get gear to offset it. You also need to spend enhance points on those. Weapon Focus is only good if you are getting the spec feats. You are a fighter, extra hit is nice but you don't really need it.

For tactical attacks to work, you need to invest enhancement points in those as well. Trip & stunning blow are pretty dope.

Resilience is weak. +4 to saves may sound good, but in essence it is pretty weak. With a handful of exceptions, most casters come 1-2 per pack of mobs until later levels. You trip one, beat the others face in. If you grab stunning blow, you trip one, stun the 2nd and melt his face in 2 seconds flat. The good news is, trip & stunning blow can work on other mobs. The +4 to saves is really only relevant against casters. Universal utility vs specialized ability (and a weak one at that). That is a call you have to make for yourself. But I assure you, you will be underwhelmed with Resilience, remember, you still fail a save on a 1.

You have to have a secondary role however if you pug a lot. You do not need your shield out full time. Without the THF or TWF feats along with some specialization/focus, you'll be a detriment more than a benefit in some cases.

[Quikster]

psssst - he's talking about me...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnoaT9WH6lQ

Thank you for proving my point.


Im not saying drop ce and take pa. Im saying drop something thats not giving you as much and take PA.

You argue that a new player needs those points of ac. I agrue that he needs those points of damage even more. Hes not going to be tanking whenever a better tank is in the group, and as a new player that may be often. The difference will be even more pronounced when he gets to raiding levels and is either A. not tanking because there is nothing tankable, or B. not tanking because there are better alternatives.

My fighter rarely turns ce on, or uses all his ac gear. Its not important to me to not get hit if there are mass heals/cures coming in to keep me up. Im wasting peoples time by ac'ing up if there is enough healing coming in to keep the no ac str rogue next to me up. In that case im losing damage from feats (ce over pa) and gear (swapping out ac gear for dps gear in a few slots) for what? So my red bar doesnt move as much as the guy next to me? Who cares how much my red bar moves so long as there is still some red left in it? Even if Im only avoiding 3-5 hits per 20 instead of 18-19, there are still other members in the party that are taking damage so the heals are coming in regardless. The best thing for me to do in that situation is to put out as much damage as I can, as fast as I can. If things go wrong I can always ac up to save the day if needed.


A fighter has plenty of feats, even a tr, that they can afford to take power attack. Any fighter that doesnt take it, inevitably is selling themselves short, regardless of how many normal sins completions they post on you tube.