LRing my gimped fighter

[axel15810]

I only have 1 melee at cap, he's the first toon I ever made, a 20 pure Fighter Kensei. He's 28 point build, THF, warforged (terrible choice in hindsight). I figured I'd take advantage of the free LR and reduce his gimpiness as much as possible.

I don't play him much he mainly just farms shroud. But I'd like to play some epics with him when I feel like taking a break from my main cleric toon. I don't have a good idea of what feats to take, especially with the changes recently I'm not sure what's good now. I heard whirlwind attack is something you want now. Basically I'm looking for the most melee DPS possible while having sufficient HP (thinking at least around 600).

I don't have much gear for him besides a good DR breaker, Titan Gloves, Minos Legens and DT docent with 10%/20% healing amp and haste guard. I'm saving up larges for other toons so it'll probably be a while before I get him a 45 HP item and a MIN 2 greataxe.

Ability points seem pretty easy, just max STR and put the rest in CON. I have no idea on feats, any suggestions appreciated. I really haven't seen any Pure 20 Fighter Kensei builds on here since the recent update so I thought I'd post.

I wanted to splash 2 barb levels but he's lawful good and I don't think the free LR lets you change class selections or alignment anyways does it? I've TRed before but have never LRed before.

[Kinerd]

The free LR does not allow you to change levels. However, a 2 barb splash wouldn't be very relevant to your goals anyway.

If all you run is Shroud anyway, forget about the min 2. Get into Cannith crafting and get a Holy of Lawful Outsider Bane, or butter up a friend of yours who does, or just AH it.

The most relevant defensive change for you is that Dodge got split off of AC. Now there are two checks...
Dodge: your total Dodge chance - their Dodge bypass, which to my knowledge is only available to PCs
AC resolution: (their to-hit + 10.5) / (2 * your AC), which works out that your AC will be mostly useless at epic end game instead of entirely useless

The main thing this means is that if you can get your hands on any Dodge whatsoever, it's literally useful forever, Korthos to eLoB. As you are a fighter with feats out the ears, you should at least pick up the Dodge feat, and perhaps the Mobility and Spring Attack feats, although those are tougher sells.

You may be best served TRing into a better race, though. A second life isn't too punitive in XP, you'd have another 6 build points to play with, you wouldn't be the master race anymore hoping that Healer's Friend will get fixed someday.

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DPS-wise is pretty much the same. Precision lost its half damage penalty so it could make sense against a super fortified target, but not really for a fighter. Just stick with Power Attack (and Improved Sunder). As a mainly-Shrouder, you could go with Stalwart Defender or Kensei and be fine, it's not like threat is a big deal in Shroud, so those feats are the same. The one new wrinkle is the epic feat Overwhelming Critical that requires Cleave and Great Cleave, which were not common choices in the long long ago.

[axel15810]

Well I mainly was wanting to barb splash if I could for the sprint boost so I can do favor runs so he can be my favor toon. Yeah I really hate that he's warforged but I'm not willing to put in the time to TR him and run him back up to 20. At least not any time in the near future. I only have 2 toons at 20 at the moment and I need him to farm ingredients. I do actually have holy silver greatsword of lawful outsider bane as his shroud weapon. If MIN 2 isn't a big shroud upgrade from there then yeah I'll definitely just pass on it.

And thanks I wasn't aware Healer's friend was broken. I'll definitely put the points into something else.

So far I'm thinking of the feats below. Don't really like the idea of so many toughnesses but I'm not sure what else to take and I really need more HP for shroud. I'm finding that the 500ish he has now is a little squishy. I'm completely open to changing it if there's something better. I like the idea of taking dodge but this guy is 28 point build THF so I won't have the dex for it. I guess maybe I could change him to TWF? I'm not sure how that would work on a 28 point build. Also is Whirlwind attack worth it? It would be tough getting the INT on a 28 point build for the prereq though.



Toughness x 6
THF
ITHF
GTHF
Cleave
Great Cleave
Weapon Spec
Superior Wea Spec
Weapon Focus
Greater Weap Focus
Superior Weap Focus
Improved Sunder
Stunning Blow

[Kinerd]

If you're struggling to get the build points for Dodge, there's no way Whirlwind Attack is worth it. I think Dodge is reachable, though: 10 build points gets you +8 to Str and Con (total 16 and 18 on a WF), then 5 into Dex for Dodge, then you could put 1 more in Dex to even it out and 2 in Cha to get kissed a little more often, or 3 into Str.

On a melee I don't think run speed is that key for favor runs. I may be in the minority, but I find that without reliable Invis or CC you still spend a lot of your time killing stuff so you can undertake the mind-bendingly complex task of opening a door. Plus favor running is pretty dang easy, I would rather focus my build on what's hard, like hitting auto-attack and going AFK behind a boss.

Feats look great to me with the minor caveat to switch one Toughness to Power Attack, but I think that's a typo if you have IS and Cleave. As a THFer you might get a little use out of Quickdraw, but if you're feeling the HP pinch don't worry about it. There's probably some fancy math you could do to figure out if Mobility would provide more defensive benefit than another Toughness in melee, but we all know math doesn't solve anything. Especially as a character that seems like a stopgap until you get some real characters to 20, I think you should be satisfied with the effort you've put into building it and not worry anymore.

[axel15810]

Yeah it was a typo, left out IC: slash as well. Ended up going with the feats above except i added IC: slash and power attack and dropped stunning blow since he's mainly a shrouder anyway. I'm very happy with him. 640 HP without buffs as opposed to 502 without buffs before. He's much more survivable now and I didn't lose any DPS...just got rid of **** feats like bullheaded and luck of heroes that thilocan's build includes. Also made him look a lot cooler, didn't realize you could redo looks on an LR. I have a feeling I'll be playing him more now.