The Fighter strikes back - 3000 favor Vanguard Hardcore build

[Marshal_Lannes]

Recent changes to fighters, in particular, the Second Wind ability have made them quite attractive for those looking for a melee experience. Second Wind, which heals you for 1/2 of your HPs (and amplifies on HAMP) and clears most ugly effects you might acquire (such as mummy rot) is better than Lay on Hands in every way personally (LoH does allow heals on party members which Second Wind does not) which means Fighter might be moving ahead of Paladin soon as a preferred class. On hardcore, this is the build I took to the favor cap. Season 7 has a favor cap of 3000 but this could easily get 5000 as well since once you get to those mid-levels you're almost impossible to kill on elite.

Starting Race and Stats

Purple Dragon Knight. Why? Well, you get a 32-pt build and an equipment package at L15 (more on that latter). Now, I wanted to try a traditional longsword and shield Vanguard. Longsword ends up with a 16-20 x4 profile. War Hammer is identical if you want to swing a hammer. This build is a tactical creation so if you want to strikethrough (and have 32-point veteran unlocked) I'd go Dwarf with Dwarven Ax. If you must swing a bastard sword, then any class will do.

For starting stats you want at least 16 STR 16 CON 13 DEX (for precision). I wanted 4 skill points (Jump, Balance/Swim alternate, UMD, Intimidate). I took 17 CON then but you could go STR or you could split INT and CHA. All level points into STR.

Feats and enhancements

We get a ton but end up using them all and still must make a tough choice or two.

1 - Precision, Shield Mastery, Weapon Focus Slashing
2 - Stunning Blow
3 - Improved Shield Bash
4 - Knight's Training. Did you know Fighters could get this so early?
6 - Weapon specialization slashing, Heavy armor combatant
8 - Improved shield mastery
9 - Improved critical slashing
10 - Tactical combatant
12 - Greater weapon focus slashing (need this for T4 Kensai), Heavy armor master
14 - Greater shield mastery
15 - Greater weapon specialization slashing
16 - Tactical supremacy (+9 to your DCs with the STR point)
18 - Heavy armor champion, Toughness (this could also be GR weapon focus slashing if you want 2 melee power but on HC toughness is better in my opinion. Could also take improved trip.
20 - Tactical mastery

On Enhancements, we are going tier 5 in Kensai and the 20 core in Vanguard. That means we have 41 and 33-35 APs tied up. That means you really don't have enough for Know the Angles trance, even with a +1 universal tome.

Equipment

This is always going to be hard to plan on for hardcore, but if you get lucky or are running this on live you'll benefit from Feywild and Ravenloft gear (The Best Defense is an amazing DPS shield but I couldn't pull despite ransack in Oath). I got lucky and pulled the Undying Sapphire from Isle of Dread giving me a deep unconscious range (didn't have to use it but still nice to have that cushion which is rather big - an extra 65, for elite). Another nice benefit to PDK is three equipment items are actually useful at L15 - Knight's Blade (vorpal!), Knight's Girdle (20 vitality +1 exceptional CON), Knight's Sabatons (25 Speed/and attack bonus, Dex 4, feather falling).
I farmed adamantine ore on casual at level 8 in Relic of a Sovereign Past. Difficult has no bearing on the ore drops. For example, I got 13 ores on casual. The Nightforged Avenger Blade is only 10. You can also sell these ores for a decent amount at the auction house. I did a lot of comparing between the Avenger Blade and the Barovian Longsword. Ultimately, I like the Barovian better even though the Avenger blade has an extra 2 crit range. It just depends on whether you want to rely on that big strike or the more sustained bonus effects the Barovian blade provides. The Knight's Blade outperforms both having vorpal and the highest base damage of the three. Running on elite any vorpal hit kills just about anything you face through Sharn and remember you're using this from L11 quests on.

How does it play?

Look, you're never going to outkill the Bard (who is the new FVS on hardcore), but the DPS is much better than you might think. Anything can be stunned will be stunned. And this is on a first-life character with no STR tomes. At level 16 you're over 800 Hps, 100+ PRR, 5-second winds, 60+ AC. You are almost always comfortable in quests. Traps aren't going to do much damage to you. Second wind bails you out of nearly any situation. Shield Rush is great allowing you to zoom forward into a pack of mobs hitting them all. You can then unleash your two stuns and a trip. You'll never be tops on the kill count but you won't be last either. Where you fit varies over the levels as I found the Vanguard swaying and declining then swaying again based on how other classes are picking up abilities. Once you start to get the enhanced attack speed from Vanguard the class is a ton of fun. You can wade into mobs like a Knight in a movie and just start thrashing things. I feel we finally have a playable classic armored knight with a longsword class.

Going Dwarf ax or Bastard sword will require you to take THF feats for strikethrough. With Knight's Training, Longsword has a better crit profile than bastard sword (although base damage is lower) so you're really building for strikethrough. That changes the build a lot as you'd need to drop 3 feats (4 effectively if going dwarf since you lose the bonus feat) for THF and you would be compelled to go into Fury epic destiny for the strikethrough there.

Into epics, the three EDs would be Dreadnought, Crusader, and Sentinal. Both Dreadnought and Crusader have cases to be made for primary depending on whether you want to enhance your shield or your tactics.

Conclusion

I saw a lot more fighters in hardcore during season 7. They seemed to finally reach a class attractiveness on equal footing with barbarians and paladins. I observed several Eldrich Knight builds in groups with my fighter and I always preferred my fighter. DPS is virtually equal and the Vanguard is a ton beefier. I'm not saying you can't build a good EK, with imbues, that is certainly possible, but the Vanguard fighter has so much going for it now - fun, comfort, reliability, defenses, a pleasant fighting style, and animation change to the THF swings we are all so used to by now. Give it a try, I believe you'll like what you find.

[Marshal_Lannes]

Epics

First 25 points in EDs (up to L23)

Divine Crusader - Core 1&2, Shield of Justice 3, Spear of Light 1

Legendary Dreadnought - Core 1&2, Dire Charge, Dread Mantle, Shrug off Punishment 3, Combat Brute, Esoteric Touch, Momentum Swing

Unyielding Sentinel - Core 1&2, Divine Energy Resistance, Guard Up, Renewal.

I got the Oathblade (15 Purple Dragon Knight commendations) at L22. It's easier than you think. Going through the first two ES chains and doing the sacred well rare twice did it along with some 3:1 trade-ins. The PDK in the bushes almost always spawns near the Farmstead area and he's worth 3 PDK coms. A bit of a ride to the well, but you have a horse (or a dinosaur).

Oathblade is 14-20x4 with 77.90 base damage. I'm using the Borderlands Sword Aegis and that's 114.40 base damage 17-20x4. Pretty good baseline stats for a first life character still using a lot of heroic equipment.

[Marshal_Lannes]

The road to 30

I reached level 30 on hardcore with the Vanguard Fighter. You'll find yourself surprised with the DPS as you proceed through epics. I quested on a mixture of elite and R1 with an occasional R3. On elite, you're virtually impervious to death as mobs won't break through your defenses for the most part. You'll take hits in the 100 range on R1 but again, nothing that your DPS can't overwhelm. And remember, most of the time you are fighting stunned or tripped mobs. The Dire Charge chain is a total game-changer for this build. Since our tactical DCs are already so high, Dire Charge is putting down group after group. On hardcore, parties generally move slightly slower than on live so you almost always have dire charge back off cooldown when the next group of mobs shows up. R3 is dangerous, as you'd expect, in particular the Reapers. I got hit by a Famine reaper's horrid wilting for 1500 damage - and that's with a 90+ MRR. Still, you've got the HPs and Second Wind to recover and it didn't take me down. Did make me hold off on R3 though pre Legendary since you notice the lack of quality gear, reaper points, and past lives in moments like that. Nevertheless, a highlight of this build was leading the kill count on R3 Madstone Crater.

One weakness with 53 Destiny Points is at level 30 I can't afford top-tier abilities since I split a lot of points between Dreadnaught and Sentinal. The bright side is that, unlike most trees, virtually everything I'm taking for Vanguard is functional.

Epic Feat Choices

21 - Overwhelming critical
22 - Perfect shield mastery
24 - Superior Wpn Focus Slashing (or Improved Trip)
25 - Crush weakness
27 - Blinding speed
28 - Deific warding
30 - Epic damage reduction, Scion of Arborea

The choice between Wpn Focus or Improved Trip boils down to whether or not you want one more button to push. You've built up a lot of action boosts at this point along with your kensai clicks, destiny etc. You've got two stuns and dire charge. If you can work in another with Improved Trip it's a better choice than a few melee power, but if you're never going to use it might as well take the melee power.

Oathblade is still probably (probably) better than the Barovian longsword. You should do slayers/rares in Saltmarsh at level 28ish to get some epic gear with little risk. I pulled three of the Tower Shields so it drops fairly often in the zone. With all your shield boost damage the base attack on this is over 300! Not too bad at all.

[Wipedout36]

This looks like a lot of fun, any chance of getting a screenshot of your enhancements & epic destinies?

[Marshal_Lannes]

I'll see if I can get something posted showing the full breakdown.

I've accumulated the 10 reaper points. Likely won't get 20 due to the sparsity of Legendary grouping. Fairly comfortable in R3-4 content. Most I've been reduced to HP wise was around 1100 (I have 2400 with Power surge on). Biggest scare in epics was still that Famine reaper blast back in Tor. I have a sentient gem now, although never having played a Vanguard before not exactly sure what I'll slot in my two spaces. Can't really give you an ideal gear layout since I'm nowhere near ideal (making me further pleased with reaper performance) and what you are able to pull in hardcore will be a lot different from what I've gotten. Maybe by the end of hardcore, I'll have a more stable gear layout. I'm about 300K xp from L32.

One item I would shoot for, although not possible to get on hardcore, is Lindal's Mighty Belt. It gives extra Lay on Hands (which we get from Unyielding Sentinal), 14 Strength, +19 insightful sheltering and +3 Smites. I don't have Smite Evil from Divine Crusader but would get it with a few more ED points that I'd get from post-hardcore epic lives. I'd probably go with a Isle of Dread set on Live since 3-pieces to grab right away would be the Dino Longsword, Lindal's belt and the Dino Tower Shield. I'd only need two more pieces then leaving plenty of open slots for another set allowing me to take full advantage of the profane bonus from the Dread Isle's Curse. Off the top of my head probably would use the Admiral's Wristwatch and one of the boots.