fighter newbie guide, trial version

[master]

Alright, you have decided that you dont want to annoy with boring spells and empowers and prefer more bare weapons method...
You start with choosing race... any race can be fighter...
First choice is minotaur, of course. This race is born and made to be warrior. They are naturally the strongest race, which allows them to wield (and dual wield) many weapons. If minotaur cant wield some weapon, then noone can. Resistances to phisical attacks is pros, and fire vuln is big weakness for mino warrior. Perhaps only minotaur warrior and invoker can do so huge amount of damage. However, they are much much more effective with supporting spellcaster.
 
Second choice is dex type fighter - kender. Less damage than mino, of course, but max dex is good for those who like to be master of defences.

The rest of races can be divided into str type and dex type... Str type races are like dwarf, draconian, human and so on ... and dex races like elf, dark elf, wild elf and so on.
The choice for str or dex race depends on the way you are going to play... Str races do more damage, but lower dex; dex races do less damage but have better defences.
RACES
MINOTAUR   
pros : strong hits, deathblow, phisical res, good con, big hit/dam bonus, weaponmasters
cons : fire vulnerability, lower dex, learn slow, wis
feats: 1. balance,   toughness,  weapon focus,   bloodline(fire), 
           2. tougness,  necrofisiology,  weapon focus,  critical hit
           3. toughness,  weapon focus,  critical hit,  blinding speed
clans : excellent for heretics, solamnia, warders and probably any other( except tower)
KENDER
pros : big dexterity, excellent avoiding of phisical attacks, artifact find, thrust, whirl
cons: lower constitution (less hp), less strength, cant wield too heavy weapons.
feats: 1. balance,   toughness,  weapon focus
           2. tougness,  necrofisiology,  weapon focus,  critical hit
           3. toughness,  weapon focus,  critical hit,  blinding speed, uncanny dodge
clans : ?
HUMANS
pros : faster leveling, good strength
cons : less hp
feats: 1. balance,   toughness,  weapon focus
           2. tougness,  necrofisiology,  weapon focus,  critical hit
           3. toughness,  weapon focus,  critical hit,  blinding speed
clans : heretics, solamnia, warders and probably any other( except tower)
HALF-ELF
pros:
cons: weak, average dexterity, less hp
feats: 1. balance,   toughness,  weapon focus
           2. tougness,  necrofisiology,  weapon focus,  critical hit
           3. toughness,  weapon focus,  critical hit,  blinding speed
clans : ?
ELVES, WILD-ELVES, DARK-ELVES
pros : good dexterity, fast learning
cons : weak, average dexterity, less hp
feats: 1. balance,   toughness,  weapon focus
           2. tougness,  necrofisiology,  weapon focus,  critical hit, mind over body (elves only)
           3. toughness,  weapon focus,  critical hit,  blinding speed
clans : ?
DWARVES
pros : strength, con,
cons : dex, weaknes to acid
feats: 1. balance,   toughness,  weapon focus
           2. tougness,  necrofisiology,  weapon focus,  critical hit
           3. toughness,  weapon focus,  critical hit,  blinding speed
clans : excellent for heretics, solamnia, warders and probably any other( except tower)
DRACONIANS
pros: fly, str, con, int
cons : dex, weaknes to holy
feats: 1. balance,   toughness,  weapon focus
           2. tougness,  necrofisiology,  weapon focus,  critical hit
           3. toughness,  weapon focus,  critical hit,  blinding speed
clans : takhisis
GNOMES
pros: wis (lots of trains), use of staves and wands
cons: str, dex, con, bashing
feats: 1. balance,   toughness,  weapon focus
           2. tougness,  necrofisiology,  weapon focus,  critical hit
           3. toughness,  weapon focus,  critical hit,  blinding speed
clans : warders ( excellent health)


At last, the best warriors are minotaurs, dwarves, kenders, draconians and humans. The average warrios are elves, dark elves, wild elves. The worse warriors are gnomes and half-elves. I have to say that these differences however are not big, and after all some experienced, skilled  elf or dark-elf  warrior with good eq can probably win newbie minotaur warrior with average eq.

Finally
SKILLS
weapons,hand to hand,dual wield - master as many as you can. Alowing better parry, disarm and damage.
parry, dodge, shield block, feint - master as soon as you can. Blocks phisical attacks. Feint  can even block special attacks
rescue- take blows instead others
dirt kicking - master as soon as possible. Favorite skill of many fighters. Blind enemy can lose orientation, weapon, and the most important - moral.
kick - forget about it
fast healing - use only one practice, it will grow with time
trip - ? useless probably
bandage - learn
disarm - learn if you dont have weapon specialization.
warcry- learn, gives more chance to hit, and nice spell protections
riding - no need for warrior, not compatible with stances, cross-slice and other, dont prac
berserk - very nice skill, you will see, but dont use it if you are low on moves
meditation - use one practice
shield cleave - hmm, questionable, but learn
stance - use 1 practice
deathblow- use 1 practice
trophy - learn, can be useful if you cant find good belt (gives nice hit/dam bonus)
lunge - hmm, depends on specs, but learn if you want additional attack until better one; slow
crush- can be used to make mages to cast slower
offhand disarm - never tried, but sounds interesting
lore - avoid
mounted fighting - avoid unless in clan, learn if you want to experiment with it
recovery - try to master, fighting with group of  mobs in the same time, who can trip or bash
toughen- improves resistances, only in defensive stance (not sure if only phisical or all...?)
adrenalin rush - additional attacks, inferior than haste, only in offensive stance
For more informations about specific skill, try help.

SPECIALIZATIONS

There are 8 kinds of specializations. Fighter can choose 3. There are 56 ways to do it .
Practically, only several of them are used by players. Sword, mace, axe, whip/flail, dagger specs allows you to dual wield many weapons that are not possible to wield without it.

SWORD
Good for offense (cross slice)  and defense (flourentine). Riposte is nice too. Cross slice can lower some stats (con, str and maybe dex? ). FLurry is powerful to finish pk enemy, but it is hard to master and it is slow.There are many swords in realm and all this makes it very popular, probably unavoidable choice for spec.

DAGGER
Dagger as dagger is not the weapon you can easily parry with. Maybe you should not take it if you choose str type of race. But bleed (lowers some stats), restrike and undercut are nice skills.
It is also not easy to find good dagger as it is with swords.

MACE
Offensive skills, backhand is nice additional attack (but less powerful than cross slice), boneshatter lowers some stats and drumming maces is powerful attack useful against mages or to stop enemy for fleeing. There are may good maces in realms, which makes this feat good choice.

WHIP/FLAIL
Specialization that offers a lot to tacticians. Lash slows enemy, eyejab is less succesful than dirt kick, but last longer, strip weapon is very useful, much better version of disarm, pull offers many possibilities (see tactics), choke is equivalent for sleep...

AXE
Offensive spec, offers powerfull cleave to start combat  (low chance of vorpal hit), pincer is axe equivalent for cross slice, break weapon - never tried...

SPEAR
Defensive spec. Stand off is very good for blocking attacks, jab is equivalent to pugil, but a bit more powerful, charge set also nice (see tactics), impale hardly useable, since u need to be mounted, harpoon - useful for pk, powerfull attack which can be used to finish battle

STAFF
Good defensive spec. Stand off explained, pugil is not so important because overhead is more powerful.

HAND TO HAND
Better for dex type fighters. Forget about parry when you use hands to fight, but instead you get hand block. Iron strike is some equivalent for enhanced damage, and throw in combo with ground control is very powerful attack which can decide who wins in pk

TACTICS

All this said before can be combined in many ways to help someone to get one step higher on stepladder of power. Tactics of playing is possible the most wide topic to write about.  It is limited only with imagination of players. Because of that, there can not be all of them written and listed here, and it is expected from everyone to play and do experiments with it.

Tactics depends on race, feats and specializations. Also is can depend on mud knowledge, eq and situation on battlefield, and who is enemy, who is on the other side.

Generally, first thing that even low rank fighter can use is dirt kick(or eyejab)  and disarm ( or strip weap). This will leave opponent practically defensless. Blinded enemy will dodge worse, and without weapon he cant parry. Blind can also make him disoriented.When enemy is blinded you can organize your retreat, if necessary. However, some classes can prevent disarming by magnetise spell (invoker) or scroll, or they can simply wield cursed weapon, but this happens not to often. If fighter has whip/flail spec, much better way is to try to strip weapon instead of disarming.
Fighter vs fighter class, good tactics is first to use skills that lower enemy strength (cross slice, bleed, undercut, boneshatter and so) and hope that will make enemy unable to wield his wepons.
Fighters usually have big problems with spellcasters.
Fighter can try to use skills that will make caster slow with spellcasting (crush, drumming maces, lash and so). If necromancer succesfully sleep warrior, warriors is probably dead; with all his maledictions that can lower strength for -8 cumulative ( or more), fighter will drop weapons and be very easy target for necros minions, which means fighter can hardly win solo against necromancer. If not slept, fighter specialized in whip/flail can try to kill necromancer by using his pull skill. If succesfull, warrior will split necromancer from his army and try to destroy him.
In most cases, fighter in offensive of defensive stance is not able to solo kill necromancer before minions kill him.
In any case, the best weapon to use is of divine or acid. Invokers can protect  themselves from flaming, freezing, shocking, wrath, dirt kick.
Is interesting that you can choke enemy during the fight, which can help you with retreating if necessary.
Pull skill can also be used in many creative ways. For example, if enemies are raiding warders, fighter can camouflage (move hidden) and pull one enemy to grizzly bear, where it is supposed to be one briartangle and so on...
FEAT COMBOS
For example, 3 toughness as some 400 additional hps, not bad. If warder, then it is 700 additional hp cumulative. If gnome it is some 300 hp more from trains. All in one, 1k hp more, hmm, plus sanc from orb, not bad.
3 weapon focus sword for example will give additional 36 hitroll, damroll. With good eq, warcry, berserk and stance offensive i had fighter with 113/ 125 hrdr but it is possible to have more.
Necrophisiology is good for book searching and fast leveling your mates, but it is of no use for pk, unless you are fighting lich. However if you stumble solo to lich, i doubt it can help you
Critical hit, not bad, blinding speed is also nice (though chances are not much bigger). I am not sure about uncanny dodge, but it is definitelly only for dex type fighters. Improves defences and makes you hardly touchable (if kender).

WEAPONS

Fighters must carefully choose weapons they wield. They must know weakness of target. For example, wraiths from Sla Mori are weak to lightning and flame, zombies too. They also have to know how their enemy can be protected. Most of priests can protect themselves nice from flaming and freezing weapons, druids from lightning too, priest of sirrion from flaming weapons and so on.


Please, correct all mistakes who can, and add anything useful from yours experience.
Then, i hope, when everyone add what they can, Nierth can collect all that and make one final post, like you did for all other newbie guides.
ps believe or not this not so big text took me 2 hours to write, so either it is bad or not please do not pour sh*t on it.
(in other words, do not criticise very much)     

[Raider]

Many mistakes.

races:
best choises are:
1. wild elf (sneak, all stats are high, very easy to master skills)  dagger, whip,  spear/mace
2. minotaur (large size, deathblow) sword,axe,hth
all other races but dwarf(huge vuln to acid makes them unplayable) are okay too, but these are the best.

Higher str - more damage from each attack, better parry.
higher dex - more attacks, better dodge and lots of the skills work bettter.
And sneak... Its a lifesaver.

i can see only three good feat setups:
1. toughness, blind fight, uncanny dodge - the best.
2. 3x weapon focus sword
3.3x toughness(or toughness, mind over body, toughness for all kind of elves)

Its best for a fighter to be neutral, since protection from evil/good is easy to get and lowers your damage for 25%, which is alot.

skills.

Trip is useful when target has no fly but has protective shield(necromancers).
shield cleave is very useful against everyone who has shield. These are pretty easy to cleave, which removes shield block.
trophy creates a poncho(wear about) 3dr 3hr 30hp, lasts like 50 hours. Good for showing off.
lunge is useless for a fighter, any spec. Well its the only skill to use if you wield a polearm, but it does piercing damage and has 2 rounds lag.
crush is the best lagging skill after lash. It ignores recovery and fly/protective shield. It rarely misses.
offhand disarm is useful when is mainhand weapon is cursed or if you dont want to kill a mob to get a shield or hold item(books). Fails often.
lore - dont avoid, its a good way to find item stats. And it shows weapon weight and all flags
mounted fighting is good for races with low dex and good vs assassins and thieves.


specs. Key skills.

Sword - flourentine+riposte. Minotaur.
Dagger - bleed+restrike. Any dex race, for restrikes. Any race is you picked it just for bleed(the best maledict skill for fighters)
mace - drumming maces
whip/flail - the best spec. Eyejab, strip, lash.   pull and choke have VERY low chances to success.
axe - cleave and pincer. Pincer lags victim and does damage. Very good skill. Almost does not fail. No chance to avoid.
staff and spear.  stand off and overhead/harpoon are the key skills.  Defensive spec, staff is better for minotaurs, harpoon is for clan wars.
hand to hand - ground control. Good for supporting harpoon spec.


tactics:
You wont kill any prepared character. All casters will tear you in pieces if you do not use sanc/harden/protection and dont have good saves+damrol+hp+resists.

against fighter-likes:
Lower their chances to block your attacks. Bleed (-str/dex), boneshatter(-str,dex), primal scream(heretics, -str/dex).  Then eyejab/dirt and strip/disarm/shield cleave.

If you are minotaur sword spec you can just spam bash/crush and hope that ripostes will do the job.

against casters:
If they have sanctuary(and i suppose they will have it in most cases, cos its very easy to get) you have very low chances to succeed unless you are heretic. Even if you deal enough damage to make them flee they can always recall.


Fighters are supposed to be damage dealers and stunners.  They are not too good damage dealers(most of attacks are blocked, and damage is easily reduced. Sanc+protection lowers damage by 67%).  And stunning is useless if no one deals damage. And there are many ways to avoid most stuns.

Yes fighters are good at killing not prepared people. A pack of demolishes and target is dead. But its very rare.

In general, fighter is the hardest class to play solo. Considering number of people in the game, my advice is - reroll at something else. Or get some friends to help you fight.

[unreal]

human race now is the best for fighter indeed.

[master]

shield cleave is very useful against everyone who has shield. These are pretty easy to cleave, which removes shield block.

hmm, prepared player (mostly clerics) have lot of shields in sacks, so this is not very useful skill against them. You spend lot time to succesful cleave, and they simply replace it.

lore - dont avoid, its a good way to find item stats. And it shows weapon weight and all flags

NO need for this since, you can see all this when you remove wepons, check score, wield weapons, check score and see the difference

Fighters are supposed to be damage dealers and stunners.  They are not too good damage dealers(most of attacks are blocked, and damage is easily reduced.

Except cross slice which is powerful unblockable attack and can cause bleed (-con, str,dex?)

[Raider]

eyejab prevents new shield.

try loring things. Lore gives useful information.

cross slice is just 2 attacks per 2 rounds. Nothing powerful in it.
and affect is -2str as far as i know.

Bleed is 2 attack in 1 round.
Undercut it 2-5 attacks in 2 rounds.
overhead is stronger than average attack once a round.

all of it is better than cross slice.

yet you did not get me. In almost every pk fight you meet a person who has at least sanc and protection on him, which makes your damage very low, while you dont have good defense and must do a lot to make your attacks hit.  And if you have good defense your damage is next to nothing.

[master]

ye, ye, thats why i've said fighters are much more effective when in group with spellcasters...