Pure fighter bonus and pure FTR vs WM

[Steveohio]

I couldn't see it listed on the Wiki, but the pure fighter bonus'es to AC, AB, regen. They are listed 5 times in the NS4Wiki. Do they stack, or is that just cumalative?

If they do stack, there is really no reason to be a epic WM, as with 28 levels of WM(+12 of something else) nets you 6 AB bonus.

With a 40 FTR you have a 5 AB bonus, plus speed, plus ac, plus regen, an extra attack, sprint, Immunity to Paralysis, Movement Impairing Effects, Fear, and + 20 Discipline for 1 Round/3 levels, and Twice per day, the fighter swings his weapon with such might as to simulate a +20 weapon for 1 round / 5 levels.

Now I know this was done to give incentive to a pure class build, but when you actually put a pure fighter (or pure brab for that matter) up against a WM heavy build IE 28 levels of WM.

The WM gets a crit multiplier, and +2 crit range, and a comparable 6ab vs 5ab bonus to ftr.
So basically crits is all you get. you get that in 7 levels of wm. I can't see any reason to take more than the 7 here.

I'm fairly new to the server, I'm just curious if the gimpdom of a high level weapon master has ever been brought up before?

[LinuxPup]

The special abilities are pretty nice, and immunities are difficult to come by so those are nice too. Warlord's Rumble is a powerful ability that's often used... pure fighters get +5 AC, something WMs don't get. Taking a lot of weapon master levels can be really powerful too since you get sick AB and can KD/Disarm a lot of folks... having an AB in the upper 60s to low 70s is really nice. WMs aren't lacking.

What a few of us did as players was create a good group of synergy: pure bard, pure cleric, and a high level weapon master. With the buffs our weapon master was a wrecking ball... but I guess I'm getting off topic.

[VagaStorm]

It should be added that the ab bonus from fight goes towards the +20 limit, while the wm ab dos not.

[Alkapwn]

And the Multi Classing of a WM can really gain an advantage over a pure fighter anyday. To say WM is gimped ? Well thats just wrong......

[LinuxPup]

Oooh and Weapon Master has Listen/Spot as class skills.

[Bargeld]

7 WM + some cleric (with travel domain) will get you all the same bonuses as a pure fighter, less the rumble and disc bonus. Add divine shield with a decent cha and you should be able to beat the pure fighter ac (and take divine might for extra damage).

One sorc lvl with a minimal chr can get you true strike a few times a day also (which doesn't apply to the +20 ab cap either).

7 wm, 32 cl, 1 sorc maybe?

Only drawbacks are buff time, vulnerability to dispels, and low amount of feats.

[Alkapwn]

Bargeld!! SHHHH!!!

[number one bastard]

bottom line is this, there is ALWAYS a toon that can beat another toon on this server, pros and cons about them all, when i forget that, im reminded of it by sittin there dead waitin for someone to raise me. so i say, enjoy the fun of building a toon and getting your next idea for your next toon

[Lorkar]

To say that WM is uber compared to a pure fighter is just ridiculous. In order to get WM you have to qualify with a number of feats just to get it. And in the end your AB is only slightly better than a pure fighter and you dont even get the extras. I currently have a 31 Fighter and a 31 WM and the WM's AB is only 2 better than the fighters but the Fighter has a higher AC and my WM is a dexer whereas my Fighter isn't.
My Fighter has a AC of 55 and a AB of 50 at 31. And my WM at the same level has an AC of 53 and an AB of 52. And my fighter has way more feats to make him more survivable. Not to mention more weapon choices. In both cases I have made AB the top priority maxing both Str and Dex in the respective toons. So with all the extra feats it takes to get WM you get an improved crit range and multiplier. Big whoop, especially if the Fighter uses a rapier. So in the end you get a few more AB with 28 WM but lose out on the feats of the same level of Fighter. Nevermind the wasted feats of of whirlwind attack, spring attack and mobility(which with a dexer is completely wasted). Also, with my Fighter I even lost one AB because I used 2 stat points for Con to get EDR which I didnt find out until later didn't stack with Earth Gen. So that was 2 stat points wasted and a feat. And even with that waste he is more useful than the WM. Lastly, I get more feats with my Fighter for feats like elemental resists. Which, guess what? Makes him even more useful. With my WM I have 2 weapons of choice and my Fighter has 4 weapons with Epic Weapon Focus and I still have 9 more levels of Fighter to go.
So all the hoopla is nothing but BS in my eyes, the WM is supposed to be the ultimate melee machine but alas is nothing more than a second rate Fighter(sarcasm...kind of).

[Bargeld]

Bargeld!! SHHHH!!!

Lol, forgot to mention that it's also KD and disarm fodder till 39 or 40 when you take the last wm lvl. And yeah feats are real slim, prolly no auto-anything or spell focus/pen. And so on and so forth...

bottom line is this, there is ALWAYS a toon that can beat another toon on this server, pros and cons about them all

[cRaZy8or5e]

To say that WM is uber compared to a pure fighter is just ridiculous. In order to get WM you have to qualify with a number of feats just to get it. And in the end your AB is only slightly better than a pure fighter and you dont even get the extras. I currently have a 31 Fighter and a 31 WM and the WM's AB is only 2 better than the fighters but the Fighter has a higher AC and my WM is a dexer whereas my Fighter isn't.
My Fighter has a AC of 55 and a AB of 50 at 31. And my WM at the same level has an AC of 53 and an AB of 52. And my fighter has way more feats to make him more survivable. Not to mention more weapon choices. In both cases I have made AB the top priority maxing both Str and Dex in the respective toons. So with all the extra feats it takes to get WM you get an improved crit range and multiplier. Big whoop, especially if the Fighter uses a rapier. So in the end you get a few more AB with 28 WM but lose out on the feats of the same level of Fighter. Nevermind the wasted feats of of whirlwind attack, spring attack and mobility(which with a dexer is completely wasted). Also, with my Fighter I even lost one AB because I used 2 stat points for Con to get EDR which I didnt find out until later didn't stack with Earth Gen. So that was 2 stat points wasted and a feat. And even with that waste he is more useful than the WM. Lastly, I get more feats with my Fighter for feats like elemental resists. Which, guess what? Makes him even more useful. With my WM I have 2 weapons of choice and my Fighter has 4 weapons with Epic Weapon Focus and I still have 9 more levels of Fighter to go.
So all the hoopla is nothing but BS in my eyes, the WM is supposed to be the ultimate melee machine but alas is nothing more than a second rate Fighter(sarcasm...kind of).

?!?!?!?!

A good weaponmaster build PWN's a pure fighter build any day of the week and twice on tuesday. The only thing that a pure fighter has is his KD, especially against a dex based WM.

Really what it boils down to is a pure fighter is a juggernaut regardless of whether they get bard and cleric support. A weaponmaster build needs bard and/or cleric support, depending on whether its already been built in. However it does need both, but once it does have both, it is a devestating juggernaut as well. If built right, they can be devestating without support from either.

No I can't agree with the naysayers here, weaponmaster is still one of the most powerful classes out there, you just have to know how to build em, which is to say, build several learn what works and what doesn't as far as multiclassing goes, and then weigh in. Think of some of those weaponmaster builds that used to drop people like bad habits, ie the MD scythers, Vaga's Divine Reaper and (?Spartacus?), even his old anima da caelum were tough as nails. I only had one, Virgil Rix (FoN), that I built wrong cuz I hold on to some of those falsehoods that the book puts out (you don't get +1 AB superior wpn focus at lvl 10) but he still got over 4000xp during the last day of the last relic event killing people and didn't die . . . all day.

[Shhhhhhh]

Arent different people talking about different things?
The people that say WM arent too strong, seem to mostly be talking about the heavy WM builds, where you take for example 28 levels of WM.
While some others claim WM are strong, but those builds seem to all use only 7 WM levels.
So the problem seems to be that sure WM levels can be usefull, but investing heavily into WM isnt too useful and doesnt make you the melee monster you would hope to be.
Tho maybe in a group setting with all buffs its different?

[VagaStorm]

Arent different people talking about different things?
The people that say WM arent too strong, seem to mostly be talking about the heavy WM builds, where you take for example 28 levels of WM.
While some others claim WM are strong, but those builds seem to all use only 7 WM levels.
So the problem seems to be that sure WM levels can be usefull, but investing heavily into WM isnt too useful and doesnt make you the melee monster you would hope to be.
Tho maybe in a group setting with all buffs its different?

I think this is pretty spot on. Almost any mele build will be, to some degree, improved by wm lvls(they should be with the insane feat and stat cost of a wm), but making a pure wm or investing heavily into wm lvls is WERY hard to do right, and to make him better than a pure fight even harder. But it can be done. A pure fights gets some very nice bonuses which makes it easy to do relatively strong, but, the best pure fighters pre wipe had done some nice tricks that I never figured out how was even possible.

Bottom line is, both options(hevy wm and pure fight) can make great builds, but I think its harder to make the heavy wm great than it is the purefight.

[Korr]

Its just like everything else, strengths and weaknesses. WMs can do things pure fighters cant and pure fighters can do things WMs cant. Its all in what youre looking to get from the character. All around the pure fighter gets bonuses for survivability that the WM cant match. The damage output of a WM can blow away a pure fighter any day of the week. Both are good build for what you want

[frogofpeace]

But can it core a apple?