(Pure) Fighters seem just... Boring... :/

[Handsome_Potato_86]

Yeah :/ I mean... They have melee, kinda melee and kinda tank, and plain tank.
None of which feel that interesting in my opinion.

Kenseis only gets "meh" special attacks in their tree, until lv.12 where the
good stuff is hidden away. You can reduce people's fortification
(why? you're not a rogue?), and then there is also "attack of opportunity"
which is just weird. You get two charges, which then have a 10% chance
to recharge on hitting an enemy. Oh and some dodge thing that
might as well go into the tank tree...? I think...?

The tank fighter just sits there and holds down the shift button. Because why
would you use your action boosts for your silly counter attack thing, when
your capstone (okay, IF you take it) is WAY better at keeping you not dead?
Every melee tree should have at LEAST two special attacks. If not, you're
a caster with SOME melee... Otherwise, what are you doing!?

Hm... Okay, i guess Vanguard is at least "interesting" (Seriously. someone tell
me how to make a 100% shield offhand attack thing, please!) But that's
shared with paladins, so... I dunno. Feels kinda like only a half tree.

I hope they come up with something more fun when fighters get an archetype.
Now... I am obviously a newb who knows nothing about DDO, so this is
the part where you slap me across the face, yell "NO!!" and correct me.
(No. Seriously. Go ahead!)
Like for example. How do you really play proper, GOOD Kensei?

[LurkingVeteran]

Yeah :/ I mean... They have melee, kinda melee and kinda tank, and plain tank.
None of which feel that interesting in my opinion.

Kenseis only gets "meh" special attacks in their tree, until lv.12 where the
good stuff is hidden away. You can reduce people's fortification
(why? you're not a rogue?), and then there is also "attack of opportunity"
which is just weird. You get two charges, which then have a 10% chance
to recharge on hitting an enemy. Oh and some dodge thing that
might as well go into the tank tree...? I think...?

The tank fighter just sits there and holds down the shift button. Because why
would you use your action boosts for your silly counter attack thing, when
your capstone (okay, IF you take it) is WAY better at keeping you not dead?
Every melee tree should have at LEAST two special attacks. If not, you're
a caster with SOME melee... Otherwise, what are you doing!?

Hm... Okay, i guess Vanguard is at least "interesting" (Seriously. someone tell
me how to make a 100% shield offhand attack thing, please!) But that's
shared with paladins, so... I dunno. Feels kinda like only a half tree.

I hope they come up with something more fun when fighters get an archetype.
Now... I am obviously a newb who knows nothing about DDO, so this is
the part where you slap me across the face, yell "NO!!" and correct me.
(No. Seriously. Go ahead!)
Like for example. How do you really play proper, GOOD Kensei?

While I agree that the fighter trees are a bit dated and boring (e.g. active attacks could be more interesting), particularly on tanking side, they are not bad statistically speaking. Fortification bypass is also useful for crits (about 70% of your DPS).

Feats are supposed to provide the variety for fighters, but one big issue in DDO has always been that there aren't many interesting feats to pick beyond the obligatory weapon styles + crit. Trip and Stun are pretty solid with THF (with enough investment). At least these days whirlwind and spring attack are also viable. I haven't tried the new whirlwind myself, but it seems potentially fun on a THF build.

They now also get second wind as a class feature, but not any of the new imbues (kind of a bummer for TWF/SWF builds in particular). Overall I would say they are in a decent place with some kind of healer though.

[Handsome_Potato_86]

How did you play it?

I only really played the tank fighter.
Dwarf with dwarven axe, towershield, BOTH fighting styles.
Gave him spring attack to have some sort of "charge" thing,
cleave, great cleave, whirlwind. Thought it'd be nice to be able
to hit all the enemies you're supposed to tank, at once.

Kensei, i uhh... I only ever tried briefly. Mostly some sort of 2h
melee thing, until i went "Nah..." and went back to barbarians
Their gameplay unfolds too slowly for my tastes (Kensei fighters).
When i start a barbarian i immediately have stuff i can click.
I need some ACTIVE gameplay. Not just holding down left mouse.

[boredGamer]

This is just *generally true* of melee.

There aren't that many *abilities* that *do things* that are *useful*.

Stunning blow has a huge cooldown, could we get ways to reduce the cooldown?

The counterattack type abilities seem mediocre at best, huge loss of dps at worst.

Melee need more abilities, that are not on a shared epic strike cooldown, that actually do things.

That being said, I have a pure 20 fighter, was super easy to level with 2nd wind, crushes everything, just seems like it could be a lot more interesting.

Oh, also, enemies that are actively engaged by melee - can we have an auto-harried mechanic put in for them? Chasing an archer around that has 6 hp left that does that floaty random direction run around thing is maybe the most annoying mechanic in the game.

[DaviMOC]

I'm actually playing a pure 2hf fighter kensei and while feels like its the melee tree with less focused support for 2hf in the tree I do enjoy playing it . (even acrobat rogues got more 2hf foucused support)

Without playing it looks boring but its actually fun. It dosent have special resources and different actions like healing, buffs or spellcasting but they are great on what they do, damage. I'm not an expert but from my experience they are the hardest hitting pure 2hf melee I've played. I used to think barbarians would do better with their expanded critical profile but all the fighter bonuses piles up in a subtle way that from my experience playing pure barbs, fighters and paladins the fighter damage is champion. In general for survivalbility , flexibility and solo capability paladins and barbarians are way better than fighters but if you really want to just do damage i feel like fighters are the best ones to go.

They have plenty of buttons to press, actually more active atacks than the other two 2hf options I've talked about to the points its gets annoying and i do prefer to just ignore most and focus on the epic ones.
Also 3 boost buttons. 1 action boost, cruel cut and power surge. When you get to epics both the boosts and epic abilities piles up and are too much as in the end all do the same, do damage or increase damage delt.
The latest addition, "second wind" really makes a big difference but its far from what you got on paladins and barbarians. Dont get it wrong, its prr feats cant keep up with the healing and dodge other classes offers unless you're tank.

I'm only talking about a pure kensei fighter, compared to other pure something 2hf classes, also I'm not expert so dont take my word too serious or absolute when I say I had better dps on a pure fighter than on a paladin or barbarian. Its my opinion based on the experience I had playing different classes.

[boredGamer]

They have plenty of buttons to press, actually more active atacks than the other two 2hf options I've talked about to the points its gets annoying and i do prefer to just ignore most and focus on the epic ones.
Also 3 boost buttons. 1 action boost, cruel cut and power surge. When you get to epics both the boosts and epic abilities piles up and are too much as in the end all do the same, do damage or increase damage delt.
The latest addition, "second wind" really makes a big difference but its far from what you got on paladins and barbarians. Dont get it wrong, its prr feats cant keep up with the healing and dodge other classes offers unless you're tank.

Having plenty of buttons and having buttons that actually do something interesting are different. Having 4 different options of +4w, +3w, +4 crit, etc - are not really options. They're just less dps if you don't do them.

Also, boosts, again, don't *do anything* except make you more powerful.

Maybe I want too much in my melee. I'm sure there are interesting abilities people could come up with that CC/defend/attack when needed. Games are interesting when there are counters to counters, if the counter is "do more damage" ... well, it's not that interesting.

[LurkingVeteran]

Having plenty of buttons and having buttons that actually do something interesting are different. Having 4 different options of +4w, +3w, +4 crit, etc - are not really options. They're just less dps if you don't do them.

Also, boosts, again, don't *do anything* except make you more powerful.

Maybe I want too much in my melee. I'm sure there are interesting abilities people could come up with that CC/defend/attack when needed. Games are interesting when there are counters to counters, if the counter is "do more damage" ... well, it's not that interesting.

I agree. Although the tactics feats + spring attack do have some game play value if you invest in them, the fighter trees themselves are kind of boring (even for melee trees). Maybe fighters trees should have some way to improve the tactics feats (e.g. shorter CDs, make sap / hamstring better etc). It could also auto-grant e.g. hamstring, make it a 70% slow, or give some attack slow. These could optionally be feats.

I do think that a big problem with fighters is that they tried to fill the feat void by giving them a bunch of passive prr/mp/dc feats with very minor improvements. Burning four passive feats for like +8 MP is both boring and not so great. Fighters in D&D are actually quite fun and versatile because there is such a large variety of feats that affect game play.

[Fauxknight]

You can reduce people's fortification
(why? you're not a rogue?),

Fortification affects weapon critical chances, it's kind of important.



Overall I feel like fighters multi-class better than a lot of other classes, but they don't feel right pure to 20 as well as say Barbarians or paladins. Adding second wind was a big step up at least.

[Logicman69]

My main character is a fighter (kinda).

She was first a pure THF fighter. The goal was just to see how hard I could hit (this was pre-THF nerf). I would laugh at some of the numbers I was doing to raid bosses. Post nerf, it was still good, but no where near what I was doing before.

Went back to monk for a bit and decided to try and build a better DPS monk using fighter. What I came up with is a 14 fighter/6 Monk. Plays like a monk, has all the stances (including GM stances), more DPS from Kensai, and better stun/Jade DC's than a pure monk. It is missing little things like Abundant step and the pure body/soul feats (which seemed worthless to me). What it gained outweighed that.

Sure, its not a traditional fighter, but its still a blast to play.

[Buddha5440]

Fighters are NOT meant to be strong (not counting the high STR as meaning "strong") at higher levels... That is where casters shine and become almost god-like.

Fighters are meant to keep the low level 'squishies' alive until they can pull the load for everyone. After that point they are mainly for cleaning up those that remain after the nuking.

That is one thing that actually translates from D&D to DDO.

[LurkingVeteran]

Fighters are NOT meant to be strong (not counting the high STR as meaning "strong") at higher levels... That is where casters shine and become almost god-like.

Fighters are meant to keep the low level 'squishies' alive until they can pull the load for everyone. After that point they are mainly for cleaning up those that remain after the nuking.

That is one thing that actually translates from D&D to DDO.

That is not how it works in MMOs, and has traditionally not been how it works in DDO. I still don't think it's how it works in actually difficult content, some R10 are just too easy these days.

[DaviMOC]

Having plenty of buttons and having buttons that actually do something interesting are different. Having 4 different options of +4w, +3w, +4 crit, etc - are not really options. They're just less dps if you don't do them.

Also, boosts, again, don't *do anything* except make you more powerful.

Maybe I want too much in my melee. I'm sure there are interesting abilities people could come up with that CC/defend/attack when needed. Games are interesting when there are counters to counters, if the counter is "do more damage" ... well, it's not that interesting.

I agree completly. Its alot of buttons that does the same.
I also agree with @Logicman69, it feels to me a pure kensei should not be pure but a monk splash, many gains few losses and much more complete.

[Arkat]

Kenseis only gets "meh" special attacks in their tree, until lv.12 where the
good stuff is hidden away. You can reduce people's fortification
(why? you're not a rogue?), and then there is also "attack of opportunity"
which is just weird. You get two charges, which then have a 10% chance
to recharge on hitting an enemy. Oh and some dodge thing that
might as well go into the tank tree...? I think...?
...
Like for example. How do you really play proper, GOOD Kensei?

FYI, on the most recent Fridays at Four livecast, Severlin mentioned they are working on tweaking the Kensei tree.

The video is about an hour long and I don't have a timestamp where he talks about it. You'll just have to listen to the whole thing (or most of it) I'm afraid.

[Eltharrion]

Fighters are NOT meant to be strong (not counting the high STR as meaning "strong") at higher levels... That is where casters shine and become almost god-like.

Fighters are meant to keep the low level 'squishies' alive until they can pull the load for everyone. After that point they are mainly for cleaning up those that remain after the nuking.

That is one thing that actually translates from D&D to DDO.

I want to disagree with this statement heavily.
Our 4-man friend group who is playing (at moment of writing in 22-23 level range, though soon probably reincarnating to join new player) has a pure 20-level fighter in the team. Classic dwarf with shield and axe.
The thing is, he invested tons into Shield Bash and usual kensei critical builds in addition to some levels of vanguard. Even before we hit Epics, he had some of highest DPS in our party (for comparison, we have a Ranger, Wizard/Rogue 18/2 and a 2H Cleric). Even in Epics, the joke is that "only reason he is not killing everything by existing is because some enemies are Undead, and Wizard has ranged spells". Dude is steadily hitting into 1k-2k damage ranges with his criticals, and has the classic Kensei instant-kill moves in his skill set. He is at point that he has near 100% shield bash chance passively, and his attack speed is high enough that with boosts on he can't finish attack animations before starting new ones.

In short, he is an angry blender moving through the dungeon. Anything steps in front of him that is less than a miniboss, dies within 0.2-2.5 seconds even if he soloes it at his level. Granted some of this power might be my Cleric who is built to be just ultimate tank-support (As in "I get infinite AC, infinite turns, and infinite health as well as give people total of +10 to hit and damage) but even without me he is able to just walk into a room, smack everything to pieces and then just point out that he lost 15% of his HP, and asks for a heal.

Edit: Also want to point out this player is 100% F2P and is not running with maximum enhancement tomes or stuff like that.

[droid327]

Well ultimately if Fighter isnt fun for you, then just play another class. There's a place in the game for a more passive-playstyle melee class for those that dont like to have a bunch of buttons to manage in combat.

Fighter is intended to support Tactics, though - so those take the place of enhancement-based active attacks. Though Tactics themselves have some issues, but that's not a problem with Kensei. Likewise, Fighter gets all those bonus feats to take things like Whirlwind and Spring Attack that also take the place of enhancement abilities.

[boredGamer]

Well ultimately if Fighter isnt fun for you, then just play another class. There's a place in the game for a more passive-playstyle melee class for those that dont like to have a bunch of buttons to manage in combat.

Fighter is intended to support Tactics, though - so those take the place of enhancement-based active attacks. Though Tactics themselves have some issues, but that's not a problem with Kensei. Likewise, Fighter gets all those bonus feats to take things like Whirlwind and Spring Attack that also take the place of enhancement abilities.

A) forums are for feedback. Obviously if at the end of the day you find something boring, don't play it.

B) What tactics rotation do you use on a fighter that is compelling? This is at least my point, there's not enough tactics abilities with non horrendously long cooldowns to be all that interesting.

C) "Fighter is intended to support tactics, but tactics themselves have issues, but that's not a problem with fighter" - well, it kind of ends up being one, at least for the player, don't you think?

[droid327]

A) forums are for feedback. Obviously if at the end of the day you find something boring, don't play it.

B) What tactics rotation do you use on a fighter that is compelling? This is at least my point, there's not enough tactics abilities with non horrendously long cooldowns to be all that interesting.

C) "Fighter is intended to support tactics, but tactics themselves have issues, but that's not a problem with fighter" - well, it kind of ends up being one, at least for the player, don't you think?

Yes, but I'm saying if that's something they're ready to fix, then fix Tactics, and then Kensei will be more compelling by extension. Dont try to fix Tactics by changing Kensei to make up for their deficiencies, because then you're just pigeonholing them both to only work together, and preventing them from ever being balanced with anything else.

[Oxarhamar]

Yeah :/ I mean... They have melee, kinda melee and kinda tank, and plain tank.
None of which feel that interesting in my opinion.

Kenseis only gets "meh" special attacks in their tree, until lv.12 where the
good stuff is hidden away. You can reduce people's fortification
(why? you're not a rogue?), and then there is also "attack of opportunity"
which is just weird. You get two charges, which then have a 10% chance
to recharge on hitting an enemy. Oh and some dodge thing that
might as well go into the tank tree...? I think...?

The tank fighter just sits there and holds down the shift button. Because why
would you use your action boosts for your silly counter attack thing, when
your capstone (okay, IF you take it) is WAY better at keeping you not dead?
Every melee tree should have at LEAST two special attacks. If not, you're
a caster with SOME melee... Otherwise, what are you doing!?

Hm... Okay, i guess Vanguard is at least "interesting" (Seriously. someone tell
me how to make a 100% shield offhand attack thing, please!) But that's
shared with paladins, so... I dunno. Feels kinda like only a half tree.

I hope they come up with something more fun when fighters get an archetype.
Now... I am obviously a newb who knows nothing about DDO, so this is
the part where you slap me across the face, yell "NO!!" and correct me.
(No. Seriously. Go ahead!)
Like for example. How do you really play proper, GOOD Kensei?

Idk I loved TWF Kensei

The less special attacks the better some many enjoy mashing those every umteen seconds I’m good nothing is more annoying

[the_one_dwarfforged]

More special attacks is not necessarily better. Economy of action is a thing. Enemy health totals is a thing. Typically in this game's history rate of attack has outweighed the CD and damage benefit of special attacks by so much that focusing on passive damage increases was not only easier but better.

As far as active abilities go that Fighter(Kensei) has access to:

Trip is a very good button that Fighter can make good use of with access to decent amounts of Str and more access to general + Tac DCs than other Str melees. Stun is in the same boat. If you don't like or need/want to press Trip/Stun...you are playing trivial content where you probably don't need to press any buttons besides W and MB1 anyway.

Sunder actually got modernized and provides useful benefits that scale throughout the game. Additionally, Kensei has Shattering Strike which applies a separate Fortification shred on hit with no save, which also can affect incorporeal targets (Sunder often does not affect ghost-like enemies). Shattering Strike also is a 10 second CD with a 10 second debuff duration or essentially 100% uptime compared to Sunder's 60% uptime (Sunder has a 10 second CD now instead of the older 15 second, which is also cool). A Fighter can remove up to 40% Fortification on a single target starting at lvl 4 if they want, which is overkill but also really good. Both of these effects can also be applied to multiple targets with Strikethrough.

Fighter has the feat total to take both Cleave and Great Cleave if they want. They are the worst cleaves in the game now, but they still do more than nothing, offer more damage than +4 MP except for pure single target, and are at least buttons to press. They can also benefit from Double Strike and attack speed buffs now. Because of their scaling with attack speed I am not sure if this is still true, but cleaves used to also be good any time you had an effect on your character that slowed attack speed because cleaves would be unaffected since they are forced attacks with a (previously, at least) fixed animation speed.

A Good Death is honestly not bad for heroics, especially reaper in heroics. Unfortunately it doesn't scale very well and incentivizes Falchions over GAxes and I think GAxes are very much the meta at endgame for THF Fighter. The CD is also disproportionately long compared to the effect except for late heroics on reaper difficulty, IMO (it is massive overkill ~lvl 12, increasingly weak post ~18).

Deadly Strike is ok in heroics but gains increasing power the higher level you are, as well as for using weapons with higher multipliers (axes). The CD is unbelievably, absurdly, astonishingly, insultingly long. My guess is that their initial logic was that if you made 1 attack every second, then 1 guaranteed crit every 20 seconds would be like having an extra 5% crit chance. Unfortunately we make far more attacks per second than that, and this attack has no additional effect such as +[W] or crit range/multi. If they are "tweaking" Kensei and don't want to add anything to this attack, I would just make the CD 6 seconds. As a point of comparison, a Kensei with an axe using Adrenaline crits on a roll of 2-20, and an autocrit also crits on a roll of 2-20, so comparatively this ability is much less powerful, less efficient, and Adrenaline has 40% of the CD time. Head scratcher.

Opportunity Strike is a bit lame as it is essentially another maintenance buff that requires less thought to use as difficulty of content increases (when you need to do more dmg, just always push this button all of the time) and depending on target count, rate of attack, and melee uptime can effectively have a 100% uptime. Still, +3[W] every 6 seconds in sustained combat is surprisingly not terrible in this game and the +20 MP buff to all attacks for 6 seconds is strong. Despite how annoying and lame this ability is, you cannot say it is weak.

And finally there is Haste Boost. No, Haste Boost is not a special instant attack with a unique animation that will result in the biggest possible single hit damage you can achieve in the game. But for DPS, this is overall one of the best, if not the best, buttons you can press in the game and has been that way since forever. There is a noticeable increase in the feeling of how powerful your character is that I think most people would describe as "fun" when using this ability even if it is not unique or a special attack.

Melee combat in this game for a long time did not support special attacks very well or at all, except for monks. With the original release of Epic Destinies LD had two attacks called Momentum Swing and Lay Waste which became the bread and butter of pretty much every melee build (even people not using LD would often twist one or both). I find their removal from the game to one of the worst changes SSG could have ever made, personally. That being said, overall support of active attacks for non caster/monks is certainly much better than the pre-ED era.

Fighter in particular I would say is a class that is about maximizing the effectiveness of the tools you do have in this game rather than facerolling your keyboard.

[Oxarhamar]

More special attacks is not necessarily better. Economy of action is a thing. Enemy health totals is a thing. Typically in this game's history rate of attack has outweighed the CD and damage benefit of special attacks by so much that focusing on passive damage increases was not only easier but better.

As far as active abilities go that Fighter(Kensei) has access to:

Trip is a very good button that Fighter can make good use of with access to decent amounts of Str and more access to general + Tac DCs than other Str melees. Stun is in the same boat. If you don't like or need/want to press Trip/Stun...you are playing trivial content where you probably don't need to press any buttons besides W and MB1 anyway.

Sunder actually got modernized and provides useful benefits that scale throughout the game. Additionally, Kensei has Shattering Strike which applies a separate Fortification shred on hit with no save, which also can affect incorporeal targets (Sunder often does not affect ghost-like enemies). Shattering Strike also is a 10 second CD with a 10 second debuff duration or essentially 100% uptime compared to Sunder's 60% uptime (Sunder has a 10 second CD now instead of the older 15 second, which is also cool). A Fighter can remove up to 40% Fortification on a single target starting at lvl 4 if they want, which is overkill but also really good. Both of these effects can also be applied to multiple targets with Strikethrough.

Fighter has the feat total to take both Cleave and Great Cleave if they want. They are the worst cleaves in the game now, but they still do more than nothing, offer more damage than +4 MP except for pure single target, and are at least buttons to press. They can also benefit from Double Strike and attack speed buffs now. Because of their scaling with attack speed I am not sure if this is still true, but cleaves used to also be good any time you had an effect on your character that slowed attack speed because cleaves would be unaffected since they are forced attacks with a (previously, at least) fixed animation speed.

A Good Death is honestly not bad for heroics, especially reaper in heroics. Unfortunately it doesn't scale very well and incentivizes Falchions over GAxes and I think GAxes are very much the meta at endgame for THF Fighter. The CD is also disproportionately long compared to the effect except for late heroics on reaper difficulty, IMO (it is massive overkill ~lvl 12, increasingly weak post ~18).

Deadly Strike is ok in heroics but gains increasing power the higher level you are, as well as for using weapons with higher multipliers (axes). The CD is unbelievably, absurdly, astonishingly, insultingly long. My guess is that their initial logic was that if you made 1 attack every second, then 1 guaranteed crit every 20 seconds would be like having an extra 5% crit chance. Unfortunately we make far more attacks per second than that, and this attack has no additional effect such as +[W] or crit range/multi. If they are "tweaking" Kensei and don't want to add anything to this attack, I would just make the CD 6 seconds. As a point of comparison, a Kensei with an axe using Adrenaline crits on a roll of 2-20, and an autocrit also crits on a roll of 2-20, so comparatively this ability is much less powerful, less efficient, and Adrenaline has 40% of the CD time. Head scratcher.

Opportunity Strike is a bit lame as it is essentially another maintenance buff that requires less thought to use as difficulty of content increases (when you need to do more dmg, just always push this button all of the time) and depending on target count, rate of attack, and melee uptime can effectively have a 100% uptime. Still, +3[W] every 6 seconds in sustained combat is surprisingly not terrible in this game and the +20 MP buff to all attacks for 6 seconds is strong. Despite how annoying and lame this ability is, you cannot say it is weak.

And finally there is Haste Boost. No, Haste Boost is not a special instant attack with a unique animation that will result in the biggest possible single hit damage you can achieve in the game. But for DPS, this is overall one of the best, if not the best, buttons you can press in the game and has been that way since forever. There is a noticeable increase in the feeling of how powerful your character is that I think most people would describe as "fun" when using this ability even if it is not unique or a special attack.

Melee combat in this game for a long time did not support special attacks very well or at all, except for monks. With the original release of Epic Destinies LD had two attacks called Momentum Swing and Lay Waste which became the bread and butter of pretty much every melee build (even people not using LD would often twist one or both). I find their removal from the game to one of the worst changes SSG could have ever made, personally. That being said, overall support of active attacks for non caster/monks is certainly much better than the pre-ED era.

Fighter in particular I would say is a class that is about maximizing the effectiveness of the tools you do have in this game rather than facerolling your keyboard.

Yes the attacks are there for anyone who wants it but Fighter can just do raw DPS without all that keyboard mashing

I wish more classes played like fighter in that aspect homogenized gameplay of mashing buttons is not necessary for every class