Another thing that really screws up fighter is the stupidly high damage immunity on gear. I mean, 5/ and 10/ damage resistance can be nice, but at level 13 for example you can get 40% (40%!!!!) immunity to slash or bludge, other than the res. How is a tank supposed to damage anything with the crappy gear he has? Consider for example a level 13 tank with emanched mithril [censored] sword, 21 base +4 from item strenght, weapon specialization on [censored]. So it is 1d10 + 9 +1d10 +2 damage, so 2d10 +11. let's say on an average roll 22 damage. 40% of 22 is 9 damage (well ok 8,8 but i suppose it's rounded up). And then 10 slash resist, so in the end the fighter has 19 of his dmg resisted. this leaves oh my! 3 damage! so much it could kill a lvl 1 elven wizard with 6 base con. Now let's see the case of a level 13 cleric. He casts greater magic weapon and gets a +4 weapon. He casts darkfire and gets his +10 fire dmg. He buffs and gets additional damage. He does like 5 times the fighter damage on a normal hit. I seriously think that ALL the imunity from items AND mobs should be removed. Or at least seriously tuned down. It makes pointless to be any class that rely on physical damage to kill something. And now, don't tell me to party up with a cleric. I always ask to party, but usually no one wants. Why? Well, why they should party with a fighter that leechs their xp wile offering lower damage than them or their summons?
Now, i think that things change when going epic and i sense that epic gear makes up for the lacks of fighter at epic levels. Or maybe not, 'cause i constantly see the immunities on items grow up. Lvl 16 imbued has 25% immunity on each piece, so 50% immunity with armor and shield. And even if epic weapons have lots of elemental and energy damage, you will still be unable to do physical damage, and if fighting with a planar caster (and most of the clerics i saw are aasimars, so...) the elemental dmg isn't so much effective. And what is a char's immunity at lvl 40? If it keeps progressing like this, a lvl 40 char gets 100% bludge slash pierce immunity? And mobs too?
I really hope that things will change, we are in a beta and there is still much to work on, i am aware of that, but i think that balance is one of the first things. To start with i think that immunities REALLY have to be removed from all items. A 20% slash immunity bonus could be acceptable for epic gear around level 30, but for a lvl 13 char is way too much. And there is worst, for example mobs like the high level giants that have 30% immunity to everything and 10 slash and bludge and 5 piercing resistance. All chars that rely on melee this way are sadly useless, wile casters still don't have any problems 'cause they still keep their spells. Really few casters i met were willing to party up, they didn't have any need to do 'cause they were far more powerfull that the stupid tank that was asking them to party, even if they were lower level. And without gear is impossible or nearly impossible to resist a necromancer wizard weil of banshee, at least if you aren't a paladin/cot.
I am of the idea that if you want to do a facrion war based mod the first thing needed is balance between classes. Make every class worth something at any level. Saying that at lvl 40 fighter are good 'cause they have good gear and stuff isn't an excuse to make their life impossible for all the other 38 levels
I am aware that this is an open topic that has been widely discussed but i wanted to toss in my 2 cents
