I was wondering what builds you guys are using. Pure STR? Pure Stamina? Mix of points into agil/str/stam?

Would like to hear from the higher ups to see how they do solo with certain builds.

I'm only in my teens but I do a mix of the 3. You have to have agility otherwise you wouldn't anything. So I don't believe fighter can go pure anything.

As a 33 fighter, I use just Strength and Stamina (Liger gear). Havent found a need for anything else, and I can solo the bosses easliy.

I'm sure my build isn't 'optimal,' but I find it a lot of fun - most points into str, enough into agi that my attack rating is about half my def rating, points into end if I find myself dying a lot, and gear that boosts int up to decent levels.

Why the int? I'm playing a fighter with a bit of a mage streak, and I have Soul Rend on right-click and often cast things like Ring of Fire. As an added bonus, when I'm not using magic (I'm lvl 36 in Shadow's Embrace right now, so my magic doesn't hurt anything), I can cast all my self-buffs and use Cleave and Butcher like mad without ever running out of mana.

FYI, if you can find gear that has 1% mana steal, then you'll never need to slot int...

~Ripper

Not true. I've had up to 2% mana steal and 5% healthsteal and barely noticed a difference in either stat when fighting. I may have run out of mana slightly less often, but it definitely didn't keep me from running out at least once a fight when I used more than just SR and Cleave.

I stick to lots of strength and lots of endurance. Hit em hard and take a beating! I dunno if that's the best way, but it works for me!

Fighters do need some agility. Your hit rate can vary from 50% to 90-95% defending on your agility and what your fighting and whether its above your level or not. It completely sucks when 1/2 your cleave strikes miss, or when your soul rend misses and the mana is wasted. Increased chance of crits with high agility is barely noticable and not a factor, but the miss rate is significant.

That said, its probably smart to let agility get low enough the miss rate starts to bug you to make sure you dont overdo it. Agil will be a lot lower than your strength and endurance, so you could get ALL your agility from gear, but it would restrict your choices a bit.

You are also going to want SOME intelligence to use the occasional gas blast and get in a meaningful number of soul rends, while still using your bread and butter and cleave when they are up. The intell is easily obtainable from gear, and that is what most fighters do, but it would not be unreasonable to add a very very small number of points to intell either.

Basically, I dont overdo any of the core 3 stats, that way I can generally take the "best" gear I find with the most bonuses, as long as its not intelligence heavy. If the best gear I find leaves one stat feeling too low, I focus on that one.

I suspect that once we are able to migrate stats around you'll start seeing focussed builds coming out. This will make it easier to expirement and tune builds.

In reply to Sword's post about health and mana steal, if your weapon does an average of 1000 damage than 5% health steal is 50 health. If you have 10,000 health you are not going to notice that. 2% mana steal is 20 mana. If you only have 400 mana, 20 is a noticeable little pop if you watch your bar. I only have 1% mana steal and I notice it.

My conclusion is that health steal is largely worthless for a fighter, but mana steal is useful.

That's probably why I didn't notice a difference - I try to keep my mana up at decent levels, since I like casting the occasional Ring of Fire.

Yeah, health steal is useless. I found a Rainbow weapon with 5% on it also had healthsteal on my gloves, boots and armor so I was close to 10% I had 15k hp and so I never even saw the hp bar move after each swing. I think the problem is that it only applies to your direct weapon damage and doesnt count things like butcher or cleave or other skills, because I was doing 4k dam so I should at least see 400 hp, then again maybe not if Im getting hit for 1000. But you would think that with 400 hp gain per swing, I should at least notice the difference.

I just restarted my fighter (been playing mage and ranger mostly).

Previously I'd been dumping all my points into the primary offensive stats (str or agi or int depending on the class) but I think I will go with a more balanced approach with this character and not be so dependent on specific buffs on my equipment...

Probably going to go str +3 agi +1 end +1 every level and look for a couple items with int buffs on them.

Sound good or should I put a little more into end?

Not sure about this-- but how would a pure end build play? Only reason i thought it might have n advantage was because a) more hp not only helps with physical damage but magic as well, whereas the armor bonus from strength only helps with the former, and b) retribution reflects damage taken, which will be higher with lower defense (from not adding str). If I were to pump endurance from level 1, at level 20 I would have almost 3k more hp (28hp x 5 attribute points x 20 levels), which for me is about double.

I know that in hdol my main obstacle is kill speed-- the regen can be pretty crazy. So to do well against bosses you probably need a more offensive build. It would be cool to watch a whole swarm of fodder to drop dead from damge reflection tho.

Also-- since cleave is on a fixed timer and independent of weapon speed, you get more dps from using a slower weapon with higher damage in comparison to one with a faster attack and equal dps, right? So fighters should use two-handed weapons.... always. Slow ones. Maybe.

I'm not sure, but I think that defense only affects chance of being hit, not damage taken. Also, retribution does very little against fodder, since they do so little damage to begin with, and it doesn't reflect all of it. In theory if you had high enough HP you could stand still and wait for them to kill themselves.. but the spell might well expire before then.

At lvl 40 the fastest purple two handers do around 115-750 while the Grandma weaps seem to do around 320-850. When multiplied by the strength bonus, strange things seem to happen for reasons I dont understand. If you look at the numbers on the character screen, the Grandma weap seems to do 50% more average damage (not max damage average). It seems at least 50% slower. While it does get more of a bonus from butcher and cleave, you overkill a lot of stuff. More faster hits means less overkill. So I don't think its really clear which weaps one should be using.

so far whats been wqorking for me is, keeping strength about 100% above agility .. so if i have 100 str ill take 50 agility ... been paying attention to not only to my allocatable attribute points, but of course the stat boosting of my weps ..

my int is 5 which does me well, and a good endurance is a must as well, need that buffer of high HP between pot spams

I mainly focus on agility and endurance, with a little here and there for strength and intelligence. Most of my items focus on agility, with some strength and endurance. With high agility, in combination with two ludicrous speed weapons that have a high base damage (really only matters on the main weapon on the damage) I rarely miss, and take my enemies down quickly. Works good for ranged enemies as well, cause when they run you get more chances to pop them, whereas when I was using a one handed grandma weapon, if you miss, the ranged enemy can run that much closer toward another mob. That, and I use the acidic thing, gaseous blast, and cleave, and soul rend to keep my melee enemies as close as possible. That, combined with the best heavy armor with the best stats, and keeping a decent amount of resistances. . .well, it works fine for me. Only buffs I use are the one handed weapon buff and the damage reflecting one. Oh, and I use the ice blast thingy just to lure mobs toward me, and further away from any that might be behind them or whatever.

These are roughly my combat stats at lvl 50.

health ~10,000
mana ~400 (no mana steal)
dmg ~2300
atk ~1400
def ~3000

The atk rating is high due to a rainbow sword (wicked barb)that greatly pumps agi and atk. If I ever swap out weapons my atk drops to something like 600.

I've swapped around gear and can get by with health ~7500 but I use more potions. This build can survive taking on two boss packs in the HDoL at the same time. Vs. bosses with healer support, I find its better to miss less than to hit harder. I've also tried a higher dmg weapon with +100% crit chance, but I didnt notice the crits enough to make up for the increased misses.

Curious what the stats are for others near lvl 50.

I dump most of my points into END, and I've been doing pretty good so far (I'm level 18, at the moment). The rest of the points are spread evening between STR and AGI.

I just blindly run in and smash them all to pieces with a spear (powerful, but quick enough to not slow me down). I very rarely dip below half health and I usually don't need potions unless the mobs are a lot stronger than me (bosses, crowds of ranged fighters, etc). But when I'm up against regular melee enemies, I don't even feel it.

You gotta compare naked stats... cause gear will change yours tats in a heartbeat... currently my character ahs over 10k hP.... 450mana... 1.6kdef... but that can all change if i whage 1 or 2 items.

Attribute allocation seems to be only 5-10% of the equation, like you say, gear selection is what really counts, but there a many different ways to combine the stats on equipment. So it might be more useful to just list what your final health/mana/def/dmg/atk are and how effective you feel it is. Then let people acheive those numbers using whatever combonation of stat points and equipment they can.

i maybe wrong but all my points go on to str and good items give me all the other stats i need i hit very hard and kill quick this way i don't need a lot of life or int my miss rate maybe a little low but items can improve that i have reached lvl 31 with no problems and most of the bosses die quickly my damage is about 1000-2500 hope this helps.

I experiment alot, this is one build I was using to good effect but I have a alot of levels left to go!. (heh, I'm a lowbie anyway, may need to reconsider int when you level higher for this build.)
Before I start, yes 2handers do more damage and often kill "Big" mobs quicker and dual wield may not be fully balanced yet, but there are many other advantages to a faster setup that can use alot of skills. I thought the other side needs to be told! All I hear is 2hders do more damage,... hehe

I know it sounds crazy to the big Endurance fans but,.. 2/5th STR, 1/5 Agil, 1/5 End, 1/5 Int. (for eg. 200 str, 100 ag, 100 end, 100 int.)
All resists as high as possible! dont neglect resists, I often pass up higher def for more resists.
you can selectively cast an appropreate resist spell for different situations and have even resist gear, or use mainly those resists on your equip if your hunting in 1 area a lot.
Use 2 "Fast" 1 handed weapons NO quicker. (I will explain why further down, it has to do with faster weapons not being as well compensated by bonuses, truth be told I often use faster and dont worry that I'm gimping myself a little)
I like to stack on Bonus to melee and bonus to damage type items even though they are per second, as you can tell I'm squeezing all the damage I can get into the weapons.
Try to get 2 weapons of the same bonus damage element and damage type, then concentrate on those bonuses. (unsure if ele bonuses get passed on to weapons though, its secondary priority)

Reason to try this build over a END/2Hder.
Using poison AOE will gain you alot of experience, learn to love it!
It may not be best for boss killing, but boss's arnt best for experience/time or the most common Mob, you'll clear boss's companions faster anyway making up for it.
You will mow through Minor mobs very quickly, consider how long it takes to kill a minor mob too, not just bosses .
"Fast" class weapons get a good speed bonus from dual wield and speed buff. bigger the numbers the better % increases work, in fact speed bonuses on faster weapons seems to be a waste in actual increase they give, I'm sure you can hit the speed cap and waste them. I'm guessing there are speed thresholds like Diablo where they were counted in animation frames!, your speed only increases when you pass each threshold, you may pass far, far less thresholds with a ludicrous weapon. (this may catch up to "fast" as well at higher levels at which point 2hders seem to rule by all accounts, still geatly benifiting from speed increases)
Some "Fast" Class weapons have a higher minimum damage than faster weapons AND many slower, and produce a good average damage, with good agl you will produce good consistant damage, no highs/lows and big misses, true you wont get the massive hits of some other weapons, but you will do more damage the thier lowest hits.
You will execute skills faster and using less pots, nuff said.
2 weapons get more bonuses than one, though often it seems similar.
In situations where you are being stunned often, you often get more damage in between stuns. (1 and 3/4 swings Vs 3 swings for a simple eg.)
When your opponent is stunned/running fast, you will often get more damage in while it is stunned.

Personaly I just find it more fun and less frustrating using this type of build.

Edited by Woedin (04/20/07 09:51 AM)

I'm building with str, agility and stamina.

I am only level 17 right now. But I go with a split between STR/AGIL/END right now. I use 2 1H weapons and it works out much better than the 2H's I think. It allows me to dish out some damage, turn around, knockdown whoever, and come back and finish the mob off.

When you are paying attention, the fast attack speed is great. This may change later on, but I like my build so far. I can't neglect any of my stats really (except INT) or I seem to start having issues. So I try to stay pretty balanced (but usually always end up with more STR from gear).

I have been going 2str 2 agi 1end and it seems to be working in the low levels.

I was going full END but ended up re-spec'n cus I was tearin through potions.

Now I use a balance of 2str / 2 agi /1 End/int and stocking up on END gear.

I can solo HDoL's since lvl 20 (takes some time but Awesome exp)

I am now lvl 28.

When I started I focused on all the stats, to try to even them out. Now that I have more than enough Int for my Mana, I focus more on the upper 3 stats. I admit that Ag is my lowest concern, but I still keep adding to it to help.

I mostly use resistances, acidic, and 2h for bosses, and 1h for running. All depends on where I am at..

I have yet to resspec my stats. I just might though!

I am pretty set for soloin HDoL, been alright since lvl 18, now I am nearing lvl 50, but I havent gone deeper into HDoL, which probably is going to be much harder to solo lol.. but its nice to have a group I might add!

I'm at level 17 now and I also leveled out my base stats at around 30 or 40 across the board, (can't remenber exactly.) I like to use eq that boosts my DR and AR and give me res boosts, so the actual stats spread is more of a 4-2-2-1 ratio. I was thinking I should start going more str heavy soon but I don't know when to start ignoring int.

My question to you higher level guys is this: What would you guys say is the ideal mana bar size for a fighter? I mainly use buffs and AoE and would like to be effective without having to lug around mana potions. Also, do the mana costs of these spells go up very much as you get the higher ranks?

I'm currently around 750, and don't really run out using both gas and fire AoE and buffs, but I think I still have some int boost ring on (can't seem to find decent fighter jewelery). Should I stop dropping points into INT yet?
Plz opinionate.

thanks!

Oh! and sorry for the long post

At level 71 I have around 500-600 mana total. I respected to have only 5 int. But I do have +2% mana steal on equipment. My bar rarely dips except when I first run into a group when I am firing multiple skills off at once.

Since you can use spells for any class, it depends on what spells you like to use.
If you use mostly fighter skills, 500-600 mana should be plenty.If you use ring of fire along with other spells you will need more, as one ring of fire spell costs...500-600 mana or more.
It depends entirely on what spells/skills you use.

I know that my set up is probably pretty low on any ones priority list and probably could be tweeked to be even better, but this is basically what I use.

I use all resistances in my bar, 2 passives, either a 2h or 1h, stomp, and acidic blight. Occassionally I will change out a resist for another item. My HP is almost 11k, with my mana is almost 2k, just b/c of my build and I had built this up incase I wanted to use other spells.

My stats flux and now I am workin on adding more to the main 3 stats.

This works for now, but I am sure when I go deeper and raise in lvl's i am gonna be SOL..

If anyone has a nice fighter build that works. I am open to suggestions and also help to make my build better.

thanks

At lvl 60 I have about 9k health and 600 mana.9k health seems to be plenty for me even for boss fights.I use 2h swivel,butcher,holy roller,acidic blight,soul rend,gaseous blast,cleave, and ...I forget the name...the one that makes mobs move/attack slower.600 mana is plenty for my setup.Basically I try to keep my health high enough to live,agility high enough to not miss too much, and the rest in strength.And I carry plenty of mana and health pots with me.

ok... heres the deal,

Aim for 9-10k hp... you never need more.
Attack rating.... I got 7500 and hit over 80% i'd say(havent watched actively)
pour all remaining stats into str.
800 mana is good for casting your buffs and opening attacks in a battle.(depends what you use).

Right now my fighter is 46str/28end/28agi/28int base.

I'm lvl 19 right now and I'm wondering if I gimped myself.

I would say you put to much into INT but again depends on your style of play. And can always respec as you see fit.

It is really tough to go wrong in this game. It all depends on how you equip and use your character.

My lvl 24 fighter right now has base stats about 85 str, 25 agil, 30 end, and 10 int. I have about 4k health and 400 mana. I have decent boosts in str, agil, and end from gear, but str is highest. My att rating is about 1300 and my def rating is about 3000. I like using a grandma club so far over 2 freakin fast axes because often times i can kill a fodder or weaker normal in 1 or 2 hits with the grandma and then move on to the next one. The grandma weapon also makes my Soul Rend and Holy Roller stronger, but I can't use it as often (pretty even trade off). I found out that with Soul Rend on my right mouse button, I can do a very quick 1-2 hit with a soul rend quickly followed by a regular attack. The delay in between the two hits is less than the delay between two regular attacks. The 1-2 hit kills anything weak instantly. 2 freakin fast 1H axes do more steady, consistent damage though.

I re-speced from a ranger to a figther a lvl ago because I started to dislike ranging, which explains the high str and relatively low end. Fodders and weaker normals don't hurt me much because of my high defense; I only take significant damage when there are many stronger enemies.

IMO agil is equally as important as end for fighters, at least for soloing. If you don't have good agil, you'll miss a lot (I need more agil) and I use both Gym Freak and Avg BMI passives together, which gives me a big HP boost. If you play on a team a lot though you can get more end for better tanking. Besides, you can use potions if you need health, but nothing can help you if you start missing a lot and it takes you a long time to kill something except more agil pts from lvling up or gear.

My skill bar:

LMB: 2H Swivel Arm (used to Trigger Finger Frenzy on LMB)
1. Holy Roller
2. Fear of Gosh
3. Cleave
4. Gaseous Blast
5. Acidic Blast
6. Average BMI
7. Gym Freak
8. Way of the Roo
RMB: Soul Rend

Do any of you recommend using Righteous Stomp or Unnerving Shout? I might replace Fear of Gosh with Unnerving Shout, but I'm not sure if Righteous Stomp will help me as a warrior (it helped me more as a ranger). Ring of Fire costs too much mana, so I don't use it.

Edited by Goldsniper (06/30/07 01:42 AM)

Personally I use unnerving shout over fear of gosh. I would prefer the mobs moved slower than running away from me.

i use alot on str, endurance and agility (3.8k agil, i hardly ever miss ) i dont use on intell because i got 2% mana steal and 5% hp steal (saves alot on pots).

180 str.
50 agility
65 endurance
and 20 intell.

I have been going 2 Strength 2 Agility 1 Endurance. I prefer duel-wield over 2H. I like a fricken fast main hand weapon and a ludicrous off hand, I don't know why... I just do.

On another note, I also enjoy cheese, hockey sticks, and shrubbery... in no particular order.

Tasty try flipping your weapons. Skill reacharge time (ie cleave, butcher, soul rend etc) are based off the speed of the primary weapon. It should decrease your cooldown time alittle.

Hmm I have been randomly putting stats in where I see fit, don't really have a specific patter. At the moment I am at:

Str-128
Agi-92
End-80
Int-8

I am level 20 with a 2hander and with a rating of 1378, have I overdone it on the agi? I think to myself that I need it to be able to not miss as much but is there a point where enough is enough? Also I could go dual wield and my stats become

Str-137
Agi-79
End-76

With a rating of 1187.

Edited by habtwo (07/25/07 02:45 PM)

Nah, at lvl 54 I have 7000 attack rating but 4000 would work fine.

I too have a warrior build that I am struggling to optimize. Reading this thread has given me some good ideas tho so thanks everyone.

My current build is heavy on strength and agility, low base stamina and intelligence. I have a large 2h weapon which honestly I wouldn't mind replacing w/ a 1 h weapon or 2 if I found anything decent. What about a 1 h and a shield? Is anyone doing that?

I'm gonna put some $$ in to gaseous cloud and unnerving shout. I have soul rend maxed for my level (21) and I also use acidic cloud. I was using the stomp one, but in parties w/ casters, its not a great idea so I'm thinking unnerving shout and the gaseous cloud combined w/ acidic cloud could be really helpful. Use cleave and soul rend on the big guys and voila I might have a decent character.

Does intelligence improve casting speed or just amount of mana?? All of my items focus on str, agi, ind. I'm thinking it would be a good idea to put some points into int, perhaps respec. I dunno, any advice if I am only looking to use the spells outlines above? I'd love more casting speed for acidic cloud.

Going with the naked stats here:

STR:87, AGI:56, END:125, INT:32

I almost never die (or come close to it). In fact my health or manna bars rarely move.

I have no set way of throwing in points. If I see my health bar moving I add END, if I find I miss more than I hit then I up the AGI, and if I feel like a squishy and like I hit like a 2 year old girl then up goes the strength.

Currently I have ~14k health and ~1.9k mana

Lvl 53 ATM. Been soloing every boss and HDOL (since 18). By lvl 23 I didn't need to many potions unless someone decided to aggro a third group to the second one they just aggro'd.

Why do the squishies always run... and in the wrong direction...

Hey thanks Joe, I will definitely make that weapon switch. Do you think my point distribution makes sence or would you make any adjustments?

The point distrubution works. You will find at higher levels that equipment makes up alot more attribute poinst than from leveling. Only a total of 500 from leveling ... and I cant think of total I have right now but over 1000 from equipment.