Rather than answer the same questions over, and over, and over, and over in the game, a guide here will serve the purpose equally well! Soo, without further ado, welcome to the "How to make a reasonable fighter in 10 (or more) easy-ish steps!"

Firstly, until the classless system is fully implemented, fighters are not mages. They can use certain skills well, and I'll touch on these later, but on a whole don't expect to rely on magic. You simply won't have enough mana to pull it off properly... 4 points per point of int leaves you with a massive problem when you start getting into spells that are 500+ mana to cast. Fighters with bows? Sure.. damage reduction overall because of the lack of focus on agility, but it can work if played properly! And remember, this is a guide of the way I played my fighter, and isn't anything more than that.. the real key is to experiment! Try builds, try skills, and play the way that works for you!

Stats

STR : This is the critical primary stat for any fighter. All of your damage for melee weapons comes from your strength rating, so don't skip on it. Additionally, your defense rating is linked to this as well, approximately 6 points of defense for every point into strength, so it serves a double purpose.

END : Your hitpoint pool. Some people like a lot, some people don't really care. As a rule, if you just go with what you get on gear you'll be sitting at 10k + by level 50. More hp means your potions become more efficient, so if you're having monetary problems, this might be the way to go.

AGI : Attack rating! More important for rangers, but useful for a fighter as well, this determines how often you'll connect with a hit. If you find you're missing a lot, bump your agi for the next few levels and you should see an improvement. Most fighters ignore this, but remember if you're hitting for 2500 damage and miss every third hit, you've dealt 10k in 6 hits.. if I hit for 2000 and connect every time, I'm 2k up in the world.. It really does make a difference as you go!

INT : Meh.. it has it's uses, but there are ways around it. A pool of about 1k mana will serve a standard fighter quite nicely with the right equipment.


The Gear

The vast majority of the gear out there you'll have to test for yourself, but I have a few basic guidelines to help with the decisions that crop up level to level.

Health Steal - Eh.. You need 10% or greater to see any real effect. IMO the amount stolen is not x% of your health but x% of the enemies. Hit a boss and watch it jump.. kill fodder and nothing really happens.. can be used effectively with the right gear combos.. common on weapons and necklaces.

Mana Steal - Extremely useful.. 2% will keep your pool full most of the time, and you won't have to tote around those pesky mana potions. most commonly found on necklaces, shoulders, helmets and weapons.

% boosts - 4% to slashing damage will give you more than +18 dps to slashing.... and will last you longer between gear upgrades.. most commonly found on rings.

2 handed vs Dual Wield - use what works for you. I prefer 2 handers as I hit hard and fast, and a single cleave can depopulate a room of fodder. But it's your choice. If you're heavily into health steal, Dual wielding ludicrous speed weapons is the way to go.

Grandma speed weapons - They hit hard.. the problem is, they hit very slowly, and some hit slower than others... the open ended wrench variety are the worst for this.. something in the attack animation makes them slower than a comparable grandma speed hammer, so it might be wise to steer clear of them. They also seem to miss significantly more than most weapons, and that becomes an issue with the very slow attack speed.

Mythics I've used over the levels include The Gavel, The Wicked Barb, and the Celestial Blade.

The rest is the choice of the warrior in question. Balance your stats the way you want them, and then see how it works, and tweak it accordingly.

The Levels

1 - 10 : Dew Valley, most of Algernon
11- 15 : Algernon, Sissirat, Agrocks Gauntlet.. start considering the Horrific Dungeon of Legend at this point
15- 25 : Agrocks Field, HDoL, Vergrims Vexation
25- 35 : Widowers Nest, Algors Frostbite, The Mutinous Malaise, HDoL.. consider farming Algor for very good drops and experience
35- 45 : Embercore Path, farm Rotgut in TMM for gear, Farm Abaddon in the Cleft of the Searing Knight
45- 55 : Abaddon, Shadows Embrace, HDoL.. start farming the Shadow Queen for gear
55+ : HDoL

Out of 77 levels, 60 of those I gained in HDoL. For a competent fighter the xp per hour ratio simply can't be beat. The bosses offer better chances at gear, but when it comes down to grinding, HDoL is where you want to be.

The Skills

I'll try to touch on most of them as I remember them with my opinion as to their use value for a fighter.

*******Ranger Skills*********

Anything involving a bow is probably not going to help you very much, so I'm going to avoid these ones for now.

Gaseous Blast - Handy.. good for clearing out fodder, low mana cost. Becomes ineffective past level 65.

Spirit of the Hare - Excellent for digging out healers and ranged enemies. A must have

Acidic Blight - Critical skill for a fighter. Their armor drops, you hit more and hit harder.. what more could you ask for? Excellent skill since the .49 patch extended it's duration.

Poison Resist - Has situational value.. good for sissirat, good for rotgut.. not so great to tote around all the time.

********* Mage Skills **********

Fire/Ice/Shadow Resist - Again, situational value only.. use them as you need them.

Bolt skills - Meh.. most fighters don't have the int to use these effectively, though cold bolt can be used to slow down fleeing casters if this is a problem for you.

Shadow Lightning - Mediocre damage with low int, huge mana drain.. probably best to avoid

Ring of Fire - Good replacement skill for gaseous blast at higher levels.. more consistent damage. Combine with cleave for maximum effect.


********** Fighter Skills **********

Righteous Stomp - Situational.. good for Vergrim, not so much use most of the time.. you want enemies close so you can beat on them..

Fear of Gosh - See above

Soul Rend - Excellent skill. A must in any warriors arsenal. Link it in the left mouse button with a 2% mana steal and go to town

Cleave - Totally worthless at lower levels but improves as your damage increases. At higher levels it's very useful for clearing normals and fodder.

Butcher - The exact opposite. The knockdown misses most of the time now, and the damage just isn't enough at higher levels to make it terribly useful. Often hits for 0 damage.. possibly a bug

Divine Ascendancy - Honestly never use it.. seems a waste of a skill slot for minimal use value

Divine Resistance - Again, situational.. Handy against Vergrim, waste of space otherwise.

2H/1H swivel arm action - You NEED this for whatever weapon type you like to use.. faster hits = faster killing.. enough said.

Unnerving Shout - Good if you're outmatched in a melee boss fight.. not so great otherwise.. use as needed.

Thickheadedness - Good for fighting most bosses, and anything that involves whisker blademasters

Retribution - I was finding that damage from this skill, since it is essentially reflected damage from an enemy, will actually heal certain elemental creatures, or generate a whole pile of IMMUNE messages... has it's uses, but certain isn't needed.

Rotgut is a tough fight with all of his ranged allies.. but if you pull them far enough they will run back to their spots while Rotgut keeps chasing. I suggest just avoiding him. Abaddon is a pain to farm, longer to clear than Queen, and gives almost no XP.. suggest skipping to Queen

lvls 25-50 XP is fastest at Algor hands down.. 9k-10k XP per hour

for stats I like to go 2:1:1:0.5 ratio.. so 200 STR, 100 END, 100 AGI, 50 INT

hit rating generally 'maxes out' at 1000-1200

best way to take ranged enemies is Hare + AoEs

Well I'm new to DR. I'm not sure what to make. I like rangers because I make those on most games I play. After I heard about ranger nerf I'm not sure if I still want to be a ranger.

Rangers still have 1 advantage... Ranger gear drops way more than any other class!!

I don't know about that ... Seems to me that drops are pretty evenly spread between the classes ... At least the drops my Ranger gets are.

As for Rangers, post nerf ... They are plenty playable. I've always been a Ranger in all the games I've played.

CoH - Blaster
WoW - Hunter
Guild Wars - Ranger
Diablo - Rogue
Diablo II/Lod - Amazon

So the first character I made here, naturally is a Ranger.

Mine made it to 28 last night (he's two weeks old and I don't play every day) and he is plenty effective.

I never played them before the "Ranger Nerf", but I can only guess that they must have been VERY powerful before, if they were nerfed hard that is.

I think Ranger's are a pretty decent class ... They may not plow like Fighters or Mages (of course I haven't played them yet, but people post they kill faster) ... But I don't have any problems with them, so far.

I think the way this game is developed, regardless of what class you build, you're going to need to take skills from other classes to help ... Which may be why they're going to change it to a classless system.

My ranger uses a couple Mage skills to help when he gets surrounded ... Ring of Fire (It burns burns burns) is kinda nice and Shadow Word: Smackdown is very handy ... From the Fighter skills, the Foot Stomp one (can't remember the name of it off hand) that gets everyone off is handy.

Combined with his own skills, it's not a bad set of tools to help with the ranged damage.

If I had my drothers ... I'd drother the gun weapons had more range ... They generally have the better stats (or at least the ones I've seen do), but their lack of range keeps me from using them ...

If you are a Ranger type from previous games, then these Rangers will be right up your ally.

is there an estimated attack rating we should have? Or maybe a max atk rating?

as you advance in the game you will need more attack rating... monster defense increased with levels. I can only suggest adding AGIL points when you notice that you are missing more often.

A short update before the next patch arrives!

Holy Roller - Awesome skill.. a must have for fighters and the best possible way for you to deal with fleeing casters and healers.

Monster Bait - Interesting concept, but needs to have the extra crispy to go with it to make it useful.. a waste of skill slots for a fighter.

Shadow Word Smackdown : Stick with Holy Roller.. same effect but easier to work with.

I'm at Lv.6 right now and I was wondering if I should keep pouring all my points into STR like I have been? I haven't added points into any other stat yet but I've been wanting to put some in Health for the HP boost. How should I distribute my stat points per level? Any suggestions?

It really depends on your playing style and the equipment you use.

I , though , liked +2 , +2 , +1 , +0. But this may change as the patches change what you need to succeed. Any combination of stats work as long as you use the right skills and supporting equipment. Mine was str , end blues.