Getting back into DDO after 2 year break, need advice to fix fighter

[elroyj08]

Hey all,
I took a long break from DDO for about 2 years or so. I'm just getting back into it and re-creating all of my toons. I currently have a 16th level pure dwarven fighter that I would like to fix. I have the +20 lesser heart of wood so I can LR. I've been looking at the forums for some viable builds and found Cetus https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...ht=cetus+build , the Kensei Warpriest https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...hter-Cleric%29 , The Kensei Centered Cleaver https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...ntered-Cleaver and the Dwarven Defender https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...arven-Defender. These are all great builds. Are these the ones that are most viable at end game? Are there any others I can take a look at?

[goodspeed]

They're still viable...Hell they're really nice. BUT!! 2 things happened since then.

1. Heavy armor actually became useful. (lol I know can you believe that ****?)

2. (And even more shocking still) Paladins became badasses with a change or 2 to their tree's and the gift of long lasting zeal as well as holy sword. (Holy sword gives a +1 crit range that STACKS, and +1 multiplier on crits... used to have +1 w die but people were a lil ****ed so they nerfed it from the extra w dmg.)

And that is why currently the best at survival and probably dmg give or take is a lv..15 pally I think. Ya pretty sure 15 gives zeal and holy sword. Anything less then 14 and you just wasted like 10 levels on pure suck. (3 pally or ftr gives the defensive stance to stack up prr and mrr which is also why heavy armor is great. It reduces physical and magical dmg before the other reducers kick in. So reflex is somewhat a joke now)


Also both fighter and pally have had their tree changed to include medium or heavy armor to give the 20% hp boost instead of just needing a sheild equipped.

Actually that brings me to my next statement. Sword and boarding is viable now (Ya can you believe this stuff? the top 3 things that really really sucked are tops now lol) Now you can SB on a fighter or pally, but forget that, you need to go bard. They are just the meanest lil badasses with their new swashbuckle tree. I mean self healing, CC, dmg, defense. It kicks holy sword in the nads.

The reason SB is now viable is because of the new line called single weapon fighting which makes holding one weapon in hand become a speed blur. So ya lots of stuff. And thats just the tip of the iceburg for combat at end game.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

imo none of those builds are the best endgame fighter build you could have.

pure human thf with ranged is what id say is least gimpiest compared to a paladin or barb.

[unbongwah]

To be honest, pure ftrs are in a bad spot right now. They're out-DPSed by pure pallies (Zeal, Holy Sword, Div Might, KotC capstone) who also have better saves and more self-healing; lack of feats is the only downside to pallies. And the U23 Armor Up changes to PRR/MRR means that pajama builds have lost out defensively (tho Shadow Veil is still nice, ofc); Cetus has switched to pure pally and AFAIK has no regrets about it.

So really the only advantage to mostly-ftr builds is a ton of feats. Which I try to exploit for tactics and/or full-S&B-DPS, esp. now that Vanguard is a big boost. I have some ideas for CON-&-INT-based Dwarven Defender variant - TYWA for CON-to-dmg, Know the Angles for extra dmg, Insightful Reflexes for saves - but that's kind of a square-peg-into-a-round-hole scenario.

EDIT: I hate it when people say "just TR!" but...you really might want to consider plowing to 20 and TRing.

[elroyj08]

EDIT: I hate it when people say "just TR!" but...you really might want to consider plowing to 20 and TRing.

You might be right, but I would still need to re-do my enhancements. The last time I played this toon was over 2 years ago, along with another one that I have (Level 15 Monk). I played pretty regularly up to 2012, then life happened and I didn't / couldn't play. Now I can actually get back into the game, and I don't want to lose the progress that I've made. I might just go through the last couple of levels and TR. With all of the updates that have happened since 2012, it's almost a completely different game. It used to be that to MC was a bad thing, now it seems it's better. I can also remember that when you got into a group, everyone kinda had a role to play, now it seems like groups want everyone to do their own thing and be completely self-sufficient (tank, trap, heal). Don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to the new way, it's just going to take me a little bit to catch up on the new way of doing things.

Any other advice going forward? All advice is welcome.

Thanks.

[Saekee]

Do you also have a raider's reward box? If so, don't open it for a while until you are certain what you want

[the_one_dwarfforged]

So really the only advantage to mostly-ftr builds is a ton of feats. Which I try to exploit for tactics and/or full-S&B-DPS, esp. now that Vanguard is a big boost. I have some ideas for CON-&-INT-based Dwarven Defender variant - TYWA for CON-to-dmg, Know the Angles for extra dmg, Insightful Reflexes for saves - but that's kind of a square-peg-into-a-round-hole scenario.

snb is the worst compared to a paladin.

fighter snb gets crit range OR dstrike OR 10 mp.

pally snb gets crit range AND crit muliplier AND dstrike AND 10mp.

no contest. and if you splash 2 ftr on a vanguard pally the feat situation is not a problem.

[Miow]

snb is the worst compared to a paladin.

fighter snb gets crit range OR dstrike OR 10 mp.

pally snb gets crit range AND crit muliplier AND dstrike AND 10mp.

no contest. and if you splash 2 ftr on a vanguard pally the feat situation is not a problem.

This is what i did yosh it's been great.

[elroyj08]

If anyone has links to builds that I can check out, that would be awesome. Thanks!!