So I was pondering a number of problems that fighters faced when putting together their build.

1. A fighter needs to have strength for damage, endurance for hitpoints/survivability and enough agility to deliver such damage.

2. A fighter may also need intelligence to power up skills like soul rend, holy roller, righteous stomp and cleave (when upgraded with awesome cleavage), and to have enough mana to use these skills.

3. Fighters have problems with lots of critters. While they pose no threat to the fighter, they are time consuming to one-hit and kill. Compared to the efficiency of an AoE based mage with skills like ring of fire, shadow lightning and gaseous blast, fighters are left behind.

So, I've decided to embark on an experiment. I respec'ed Feisti, my fighter, into a build where I didn't allocate a single point to strength. And I put the points instead to Intelligence. By Gosh, FSeries, have you gone mad? Hopefully not.

At level 27, my stat breakdown looks like this:

Str 10 : 120
Agi 60 : 112
End 45 : 120
Int 55 : 91

HP: 4932, MP: 1295

I'm wielding a 1H weapon + shield and doing max damage of 709 + either 708 to 1650 with soul rend or 522 to 870 with holy roller. So, max damage for me would work out like:

Soul Rend: 709 + 1650 = 2359 (note: soul rend does its damage over 3 seconds)

Holy Roller: 709 + 870 = 1579

These numbers look rather respectable given that this is from a 1H weapon. If using a 2H weapon, I could probably eke out more damage but if this build works out like I think it will, weapon damage is merely a bonus and it's the divine magic bonus that will power this character's melee effectiveness.

Damage as you suspect is quite uneven with spikes of damage from soul rend and holy roller to smaller hits with unbuffed damage. Still, I can take down bosses (Vergrim and Algor the Snow Chief) with little difficulty.

As for skills, you'll notice I have both Way of the Roo (for increased attack speed) and mental prowess for (increase magic damage). The two skills conflict with each other somewhat but the net gain from each of them seem to be worth it (Way of the Roo has -7% magic damage and Mental Prowess has -7% attack speed). Other key skills are divine ascendency as a way to power up soul rend and holy roller and your 1H / 2H swivel.

As for AoE control, I currently have cleave (unaugmented by awesome cleavage which I'll get at 35) and gaseous blast. With an int based build AoE spells like gas blast, ring of fire or shadow lightning become much more plausible. However, the build still doesn't have too much mana, so I'm sticking only with gas blast. In the future, the goal is to play without using any of the traditional mage or ranger skills and only rely on your Gosh powered skills (soul rend, holy roller, cleave).

As for equipment (below is the approach I'll probably use):
* Fighter armor (you have to stand toe to toe)
* Fighter weapon (either 1H or 2H)
* Ranger gloves (for int/end/agi)
* Ranger shoulders (for int/end/agi)
* Ranger/fighter boots (for str/int/end/agi - depending on what's needed)
* Mage rings (for int/end and resists)

The equipment approach should give me an even spread of ability stats. I was tempted to not use +strength items at all, but there are few fighter items without increased strength and your base cleave skill needs it. I'll also be looking for +divine damage items with the end goal of having the divine bonus around +300 around level 50, +600 at game end.

Anyway, comments on the approach are appreciated, especially from high level fighters. The character is only 27 at the moment and suffers from no problems whatsoever in killing efficiency. What I don't know is how well this build scales as you level.

EDIT: For clarification, this is a PvE only build.



Edited by FSeries (01/22/08 02:16 AM)

Hmmm very intresting, the only thing i could think of is find a weapon with a good amount of +mana, not Int since most fighter skilsl lower the effectiveness of it.
Like with my fighter i have a weapon that give +380 mana with 2% mana steal. very effective

Better yet...HERE
The thing is i can last SC with very few pots because i can heal from just hitting ^_^.Also is my attack rating good?

Ouch.

Video of Feisti versus Snow Chief

A few comments:

1. Yeah, I know: a level 28 versus Formiddable setting Snow Chief is not exactly hard, but it gives you an idea of what the build can do. The video isn't really meant to show off, but to give an idea of capabilities. I think it's a pretty nice showing for a fighter without a single point allocated to Str (excepting those from items of course).

2. The spikes in damage are pretty noticeable. They're probably not that much higher than what a normal fighter could do but gaseous blast is much more effective than fighters of equivalent level. I'm giddy to see what awesome cleavage will do with the int bonuses as well. I like the fact that this build doesn't struggle that much against fodder...not AoE mage capabilities, but certainly better than a pure fighter.

3. Sorry about the poor video quality. The game looks pretty great on my computer but my video editing / compressing skills could use a lot of work.

4. I tried to upload the file to youtube, but it just looked like crap. I think even though you'll have to wait for a bit of buffering, the video looks better on putfile.

I tried a similar approach with Bogey around the same lvl. Gave him an increasing amount of Int as I went along. I never really focused on the warrior Divine skills. Went with Acidic Blight, Gaseous Blast, and Ring of Fire, It worked for a while. Finally gave it up and moved to a Int Mage with him at lvl 60. The problem I ran into was at higher lvl's was that I didn't have enough DPS on either the warrior side or the mage side to handle the bosses. Abby, Shadow Queen, and the trio at the end of HDoL were just to rough for a hybrid build or at least my hybrid build:)

Gary

A quick update. One of the important facets of an experiment is to test the very hypothesis that you are trying to prove. My hypothesis is that an Int based fighter is viable. My second hypothesis is that it is a build that can do "very well" by normal play standards - I think for most players that would mean: generate xp quickly, deal with bosses efficiently, be able to handle most dungeon situations (champions, fodder, etc.)

For the next stage of the experiment, I've changed Feisti back into a 'dumb as rocks' fighter build. All the stats I had in Int, I've moved back into Str. I'm trying to generate a benchmark on how effective the Int build is against Rotgut, who has significant divine resistances. So far, the Int build didn't work so hot. I could still solo Rotgut on Formiddable on either build but the Int build took longer to take ol' Rotty out. Or so it seemed.

No question, the Str based build did more single target damage, especially considering you're facing a divine resistant opponent. One thing I haven't factored is the damage from gaseous blast...I noticed with the Int build that Rotty's minions were significantly weakened by the time I ran to finish them off. There seems to be a tradeoff there that I need to factor into this study.

Anyway, Feisti's build you can see below in my sig. Current stats:

Str: 80 : 155
Agil 50 : 133
End: 50 : 181
Int: 10 : 41

I'll play the 'dumb as rocks' build til I level then I'll switch back.

Try a pur Int. mage with a few fighter skills and dual Wraths kinda crazy.

I have been testing out INT based warriors a lot, and they do pretty good. I still can't compete with the eliet pvpers, but in pve they are pretty dang good.

I went with high endo plate, int/agil jewlery and duel weild int/agil weapons (soul swords).

I found a few points of interest. First is that you need to have an ok attack rating to even land the soul rend/holy roller, and also that fast weapons are better for this type of build than a slow 2h.

For soul rend I had a 2.8 - 2.9 cool down, which isn't bad at all considerring that it lasts 3 seconds.

The self buffs like swivel arm does NOT effect the cool down timer.

The cool down timer is based off of the combined weapons, so a fast 1h in your main doesn't necessarily mean you can put a slow weapon in your off hand. The cool down will be slightly effected, however, it is much better than having a slow weapon in the main hand.

Your armor rating will be lowered because of the lack of STR, so you may need more endurance.

In pvp, I have found that using a shield isn't that bad with this build. I ended up going the mage/fighter route, and although I still seem to get creamed by the so called 'pure' builds, I have a lot of fun losing.

I think my title is Divine Inquisitor, which I am ok with. I use gaseus blast, ring of fire, rightious stomp, smackdown, holy roller, and soul rend.

In pve it is just insane. I holy roller in, aoe the crap out of everything, and then clean up the few remaining with soul rend.

I would like to get some 'proper' gear for this build, but it seems that PLATE gear is VERY hard to come by that compliments an INT/END/AGIL build.

I use a rather silly leveling with my fighter. I put 1 point into each ability, str, agi, end and int, with the extra point going into str or agi every other level up. Since I rely almost exclusively on Cleave and Awesome Cleavage for attacks this means I can go a lot longer before I have to chug a mana potion. Yet I still do decent damage, and have enough health to survive all but the most difficult mobs.

I prefer to put my Stats (As a fighter) shared half/half into STR and END, and use a mix of Fighter armor that gives more END and STR, and Ranger armor that gives % Mana/Health Steal. It is quite effective as I have hardly seen the need to use pots in quite a while.

Just as an update, I am really liking this build now that I have some gear that supports it. That is the hardest thing I have found is to get non-str armor with high AR. Almost all plate armor that drops has str.

Currently I am lvl 28, and I think I only have one rainbo in my gear, which is lvl 22. Most of my gear is out of date, but I still put up a little bit of a fight against the higher level pvp kings. I don't win usually, but at least its a fight, and not just an easy skunk.

It seems that critical shot archers and super high int mages with +to their damage type hurt really bad though.

Dephyler

That's interesting Deph - using the Uber Wand as a melee weapon. Would be neat to see what you could do with better gear say, with either the Buckler of the Brown Eye Shield (+int/+end/+%block/+melee reflection/+resists) or the Shardian (+end/+stun res/+def rating/+%block/+ranged reflection) coupled with either an Executioner or Slayer (both fighter weapons with +int)

If you notice, most of my gear is for 'slashing' damage. I was origonally going for the daggers, or soul swords. The ludicris speed on them gives me a 2.9 - 2.8 timer to soul rend.

I had a Biology test today, so I have been spending most of my time studying for it. Now that the weekend is clear I will be able to spend more time looking for better gear.

Any suggestions on farming things? I can clear out the snow chief pretty dang fast, but is that where I want to be? Is there any problem with killing sissrat when he is grey? I can also handle IDOL pretty easy on normal. I usually only get yellows and purples in there though, I have yet to get a rainbo from it.

Deph

Snow Chief is where you want to be, but get a group together - the group as a whole will get better drops.

After you hit 30, go right to Rotgut. Rotgut is sort of a sweet spot since he drops great gear, especially in groups.

Both SC and Rotgut farm teams are very popular and you won't lack for teammates. Get in a group and let them know you are farming for gear and loot.

I had great gear 30 to about 55. Then after the Rotgut drought ended, RB Sally was my primary source of Rainbows (all my regular RBs were ranger gear which I promptly just gave away).

If you get up to level 33, I have a Wrath you're welcome to. It's a +agi/+divine damage soul sword RB.