Build questions: THF

[ChakatSilvermane]

So, after getting owned on an elite quest (which I was 6 levels higher than), I am questioning my build. I take a huge amount of damage pretty fast and I am wondering if this is a problem with my build, or (much more likely I think), my equipment.

Level 11 Fighter
Feats
Power Attack
Die Hard
Cleave
Great Cleave
Improved Critical: Bludgeoning
Improved Two Handed Fighting
Stunning Blow
Toughness
Two Handed Fighting
Weapon Focus: Bludgeoning
Weapon Specialization: Bludgeoning

Enhancements
Fighter AC Boost 1
Fighter Attack Boost 1 and 2
Fighter Haste Boost 1
Kensai Maul Mastery 1
Fighter Critical Accuracy 1 and 2
Fighter Kensai 1
Fighter Strategy (Stunning Blow) 1 and 2
Fighter Maul Mastery 1
Human Adapdibility Strength 1
Fighter Item Defense 1
Racial Toughness 1
Improved Jump 1
Fighter Strength 1, 2, and 3
Fighter Toughness 1, 2 and 3

Total Health: 227

Equipment (This is the part I think is the problem)
Weapon: +4 Icy Burst Maul (1d6 Cold + 2d10 Cold on crit)
Hat: Admiral Tricorne (+13 Jump, Seeker +4 [+4 to confirm crits, +4 damage to crits before multiplier])
Goggles: Blindness Ward Goggles (Immunity to blindness effects)
Armor: +4 Adamantium Full Plate (DR 3/-)
Bracers: Axe Bane (DR 5/bludgeoning, piercing)
Ring 1: Charismatic Ring of Resistance (+2 Charisma, +2 resistance to saves, tiny augment slot)
Ring 2: Acrobats Ring (+5% movement speed, +3 comp jump, +3 comp tumble)
Boots: Feather Fall Boots of Swimming (Feather Fall effect, +3 comp swim)
Gloves: Linen Handwraps (+4 enhancement strength, -1 dex, Immunity to disease)
Belt: Health Belt (+1 con)
Cloak: Envenomed Cloak (+2 save vs poison, Poison Guard, +3 enhancement bonus, part of the Might of the Abishi set)
Trinket: Voice of the Master (+5 EXP bonus, +1 luck saves)
Necklace: Underwater Necklace of Preforming (Water breathing effect, +3 perform skill)

Stats
Str: 27
Dex: 14
Con: 18
Int: 8
Wis: 9
Cha: 10
Armor Class: 23
BAB: 11
Fort Save: 14
Reflex Save: 8
Will Save: 5

I am VIP, but I haven't done a lot of farming for equipment or anything.

[Shade]

Not really seeing any major problems asde from a lack of any fortification.

You just need to understand that elite isn't just a scaling system.

It's a difficulty setting.

Ulimately, it's designed to challenge you as a player, and not be simply beaten by having more stats, but rather more skill.

The most important factor in reducing the damage you take in elite quests is skill.. Especially with THF play.

Moving around while attacking will massively reduce the damage you take, or even nullyfy it completely.

That said there are a couple minor issues I saw:
Feats;
Die hard - get rid of it. It's dumb to pick up a feat that relies on you getting incaped to work. It's like telling the game - yea I suck, so maybe when I get almost killed i could live. Don't give up so easily and pick such a bad feat lol.

Cleave/Great cleave - NEVER take these or use these, horrible choices.
Toughness - HUGE waste of AP at that level. No matter what you hp is, if your builds gimpy with too much ap wasted, your gonna die. Put AP in damage boosting skills and kill faster, so your enemy dies sooner and you die less. The feat itself doesn't hurt, since fighters get lots.. But dont spend any AP on its enhancements until ver high lvl.
Spec: Semes to be a blunt spec, yet you have slash feats too?
Just pick one for now, you can probably do both at higher lvl, but not at lvl11.

Recommended Feats:
Improved trip (if you can get a 13 base int for its prereq..)
Quickdraw
Greater Weapon focus/Superior eventually (needed for kensai III)

Enhancements:
Drop all the ac stuff and toughnes junk
Get haste boost maxed out
Get your trip and stun dc maxxed out
get as much dmg enhacnements you can on kensai

equipment:
Get rid of the pirate hat and get a minos legens so you stop dying so much. heavy fort = less dying. Must have.

[TheDearLeader]

Its your gear.

Necklace - get a Nice Constitution necklace here. +4 Con at least. Siren's Charm from Fathom the Depths might be a good start, since at least you know where to farm it. Wear Underwater Action only when you need it - you don't wear Scuba gear 24/7, do you? No, only when Scuba Diving.

You need an Improved False Life item. Belt slot would be good for this, since you don't need some junk +1 Con belt there. Otherwise, you could buy/beg for a Dusk Heart in the trinket slot. They're fairly common.

Heavy Fort - Min Level 11 is the minimum for Heavy Fort w/o restrictions. Notice how that matches up to your level? Awesome. Heavy Fort can be found on non-named items on Ring/Belt/Necklace slots. If you put it in a Belt/Necklace slot, then replace whichever ability you lose (+Con or +False Life) in your ring slot.

That's some basics. Get more HP, ABSOLUTELY get Heavy Fortification. If you find it easier this way, get a second hat from the event, put Heavy Fort on the hat. Or get Minos Legens from the Necropolis, Part 4. Being immune to critical hits is much more beneficial to your character at this point than dealing additional critical damage.

[InSoNiAc]

You have given detailed information on your build and equipment which is good but you need to say which quest you were in and what you were fighting.

I'm guessing that you were taking physical damage from melee hits due to the fact that unless your AC is super high (and from what I can see yours isn't) you might as well be wearing a robe instead of full plate.

Shade's advice is all good - dead enemies can't cause damage. Only thing I would add is energy resists. Apart from the obvious spells that enemies cast, a lot of creatures physical attacks are augmented with elemental damage. Much of this damage can be mitigated with house P buffs or resist potions.

Good luck.

[ChakatSilvermane]

I have slash feats? Where? All my weapon things are bludgeoning and I didnt see anything typed up as slashing...

Improved Trip: 8 intelligence. So yeah...
Quick Draw: I don't see the usefulness of this. The speed of weapon changing is already pretty fast. I don't change armor ever.
Greater Weapon Focus, ect: Planned, just haven't gotten them yet.
Die hard: Your probably right about this. This is from when I was before level 7 or so when it was still possible to do quests solo without getting trap owned or anything.
Cleave/Great Cleave: I dont see whats so horrible about these feats. I am often being surrounded by 3+ monsters even when grouped up, and the ability to hit all of them at once is great. This being said, this is my first character and I haven't experienced the majority of high level play, so maybe they trail off in usefulness?

Ive been looking for something with heavy fort, mostly a belt because its one of my most useless pieces of equipment. I like the hat for the seeker enhancements, which I will get the Bold Trinket from the event to stack up +8 confirm/damage before the crit multiplier of x3 takes effect.

[TheDearLeader]

I like the hat for the seeker enhancements, which I will get the Bold Trinket from the event to stack up +8 confirm/damage before the crit multiplier of x3 takes effect.

I can't tell you how much I don't care about this.

If you don't have Heavy Fort, then the hat from this event is the quickest and easiest way to get it.

No one cares how much you crit for if you're a Soul Stone. You asked for advice, you have your answer. Fix. It. Even if its only a temporary fix until you find Heavy Fort somewhere else.

You can have Two different hats with different enchantments, if I didn't make that clear earlier. Bank the Seeker one for now.

[ChakatSilvermane]

I did just reset my enhancements. They are now as follows:

Fighter Attack Boost 1 and 2
Fighter Haste Boost 1, 2, and 3
Kensai Maul Mastery 1
Critical Hit Mastery 1 and 2
Fighter Kensai 1
Fighter Strategy (Stunning Blow) 1, 2, and 3
Fighter Strategy (Trip) 1
Fighter Flanking Mastery 1
Human Adaptability Strength 1
Fighter Item Defense 1
Improved Jump 1
Fighter Strength 1, 2, and 3

Should I just forget about the heavy armor because AC obvious doesn't matter unless thats what your gearing your character for? Instead just get a robe or something with maybe an elemental resistance.

[TheDearLeader]

Should I just forget about the heavy armor because AC obvious doesn't matter unless thats what your gearing your character for? Instead just get a robe or something with maybe an elemental resistance.

The static DR 3/- for having Heavy Addy Armor is nice at any level. Stay in Heavy Armor.

If you want an elemental resistance, ditch the cloak. Its not really going to do you a whole lot of good after you upgrade your gear to the aforementioned, anyway.

[Darconeious]

Relic of the sovereign past? Lv 12 quest, is this were u can collect the ore and have the guy make you a heavy fort item? Someone knows what I'm talking about. You don't half to Finnish the quest there are threads out there on how to do it, an I believe the heavy fort necklace is ML 9, iirc.

[Kinerd]

The point of Quickdraw is that it reduces the inactivity time after a boost from 1.2 seconds to 0.6 seconds. This doesn't sound like much, and it isn't really, but as a fighter you have oodles of feats so you may as well grab it.

The reason Diehard is always a bad feat choice is that if you replace it with a Toughness (which you always can) you will always be better off, because with the extra Toughness you wouldn't have been incapacitated in the first place.

The idea with Cleave and Great Cleave is that it slows down your overall attack rate, and you're better off with one dead bad guy and two slightly weakened bad guys than three slightly more weakened bad guys.

[Loromir]

I would keep the armor you have. The DR/3 is pretty good. You might go hit Tempest spine in hopes of getting the Full plate of the Giants. That gives you DR/5. Your Axe bane bracers are for Slash damage reduction, not Pierce and Bludgeon.

You weapon in not too bad, so don't worry about that too much. If you want to try to boost your AC, look for a +5 Protection item. Although AC is basically useless at higher levels of the game, you might be able to help yourself a little bit at this level.

The Cleve and Great Cleve feats are nice in that you can strike multiple mobs at once, but in reality, it slows down your swing speed which costs you over all DPS.

Heavey Fortification will help you the most however. Check the AH, you should be able to find a ring or belt with Heavy Fort for a reasonable price if your patient.

[SetofBs]

Besides the obvious heavy fort, you need to get the highest + Str and + Con items you can find. At level 11 these should be minimum +4, preferably +5.

[cheese9131]

ok i want someone to explain to me why cleave is so baddd???
is it only in solo that it wouldnt help much? or is it in groups as well??
i think it sounds great

[Corzak]

In Theory, Cleave and Great Cleave are fantastic. The way they were implemented make them not so fantastic however. Because of their slow animation speed and a little recovery time, you really do lose alot of damage. I'm not sure how much of a slowdown it is these days, I'm sure there's a thread somewhere that does the comparison, but I'd guess that while running Fighter Haste Boost you would lose at least a swing and maybe even a couple of them. Like Kinerd explained, you really are better off with one dead bad guy than a bunch of wounded ones, as each mob that goes down lessens the chance you'll be the one dead.

I'm pretty sure you can pick up Heavy Fort or Greater False Life on a robe at 12 ,a level later than Minos Legens, and you lose the extra 20 hp so Minos is still better by a long shot. They are easy to find though, and you can usually even find these on the brokers in House K and Amrath, and it frees up your other slots for other things. However, at your level you'll still be able to benefit from the DR on the adamantine plate as well as the moderate AC it provides on Casual or Normal difficulties.

A handy tip for soloing if you're not already doing it: Carry Heroism, Rage and Haste pots or clickies. These are huge for a pure Fighter or anyone who melees, as they can increase your damage by a tremendous amount, and if something is dead, well, it can't kill you.

Shade's got a link in his sig for his Barb guide, but alot of the info there applies equally to a Fighter and it's worth the read.

[Alex301]

Cleave is only ever useful if you're surrounded by enemies, which may explain why you're dying so quickly. The animation takes longer than a normal attack, so against a single enemy you're doing less dps although you may net more damage if several enemies are around you. And as many have said, go to necro 4 and farm some taps; +4 seeker is nice, but heavy fort is nicer.

There's nothing hugely wrong with your toon, so taking so much damage maybe a problem with your play-style. As shade said, move around. Think about how you're taking on enemies. 1v1 is best; aggroing the whole room and trying to great cleave them = death. If you have 2 enemies on you then move to keep the guy you're hitting in between the other enemy. Learn to twitch as well, it will improve your dps and decrease how often your hit.

Take some responsibility for your own heath too and buy some pots. Don't be afraid of running away to heal yourself or giving the cleric time to heal you either.

[Tobril]

ok i want someone to explain to me why cleave is so baddd???
is it only in solo that it wouldnt help much? or is it in groups as well??
i think it sounds great

To use cleave requires you to be surrounded.

Surrounded with no AC == Dead.

THF with low/no AC kids need to position themselves so that they are only fighting ~one monster at time. This requires a lot of FPS style movement in lines/curves so as to position yourself out of melee range of every monster except the one you are hitting.

With a little practice you can even use the slightly longer reach of the two-hander and movement to hit the monster without it hitting you back.

[TheDearLeader]

ok i want someone to explain to me why cleave is so baddd???
is it only in solo that it wouldnt help much? or is it in groups as well??
i think it sounds great

Sounds great.. in reality, is junk.

It has a lengthy pause before and after the animation. In the time you to a cleave, you could do multiple regular swings. Due to being implemented in such a way, it actually lowers your DPS to use.