A Soldier's Field Manual: Fighter
Tactics in DDO

By Gol of Argonnessen



Ah, to be a fighter. Your job is perhaps the most straightforward of
any of the classe:. do damage, and soak up
damage. But how is this best accomplished? This job, though very simple
at first glance, is harder than it seems. Monsters come in all
shapes in sizes, and with every different skill in the book. However,
you have to be able to combat them all.
And even harder, you have to keep their attention.

Your Role

As a fighter, your primary expected role in DDO is to be up front in
the fray of combat. Keep the monsters
occupied, and keep them dead. However, the monsters don't like for you
to do this. They're out to get you. Most
of the time, you're going to be the monsters' primary target. High AC
and high saves are crucial to your survival,
and dishing out damage is essential to your party's survival.



Typically, you have two types of targets to be
concerned with in combat.First is the closest monster to your party.
Usually the closest monster represents the greatest threat.
However, as any player would tell you, this isn't always true. You
might be better served to ignore the puny kobold nibbling at your heels
if there's a second type of target to be concerned with, perhaps an
Ogre archer or
spellcaster raining fire down on you from afar. More on the how to
handle this later.



The Basics

Fighters come in several different varieties. 95% of them will fall
into one of four categories, based on how
they do their damage in combat:

Now, I listed Ranged Shooter here because the fighter class is one of
the best ways to build an archer. However,
it doesn't fulfill the basic role of a traditional fighter. So, I'll
leave the archer discussion to another time.
As for the other 3 categories, that's were I will be focusing for the
purposes of this Field Manual. The other 5% of fighters are some mix of
those 4, shining equally in 2 or more categories.



Picking the Right Build

So, you might be thinking, "Gee, all fighters are really just the
same!" Well, you couldn't be further from the
truth. What separates fighters from any other class is the number of
Feats they have. Fighters have Feats, and
lots of them. They're how you make your character fit into one category
or another. However, again, for the
purpose of this Field Manual, I'm not going to get into character
building--I'll devote an entire article (or several,
maybe) to discussing this sometime later.



With that said, the discussion of fighting style is still up for
debate. At lower levels (say, 3 and below), it doesn't matter
much. My only recommendation is don't try to go with TWF without the
appropriate feats. After level 4 or so, however, S&B is
the clear winner. The protection of a shield is absolutely crucial.
It's just too much AC to give up for a very modest
amount of damage. I won't digress into the math just yet; I'll try to
save that for another article. Suffice it to say
for now that S&B is the best way to go for long term. Don't get me
wrong: that doesn't mean you have to use a sword. Any one-handed weapon
will do the trick.



How to Fight

Let me start with something that might not be so obvious. Map a key to
your attack skill. The default is to right
click your mouse. Well, you're a fighter. My suggestion to you is this:
you shouldn't use a mouse to be all that
you can be. Map a key to attacking. Map 2 more keys to monster
selection (default is tab). Learn to use these keys to
select monsters and to attack. Ever since doing this, I've never not
led my party in kills. Allow me to further
suggest that you map these keys all in reach of your right hand,
leaving your left hand free for movement control.
I personally map the Insert and home keys to monster selection,
the delete key to attack, the '\' and ']' keys to object selection, and
PgUp / PgDn to scrolling my shortcut bars up and down.
Doing this gives you super fast access to just about anything you need.



Flanking is Not Just for Rogues

Flanking lets rogues get their sneak attack damage, sure, but you don't
have any of
that. But that's completely not the point! It's +2 to your attack.
Under normal circumstances, that's an extra
10% chance of hitting your target. If there are any other "tanks" in
your party, you should always try to position
yourself in a flanking position. One correlary is to not let yourself
get flanked. You're already going to end up
taking most of the monster attacks; it won't help you any if they get
flanking bonuses on you. Keep yourself
positioned safely.



Pin the Jumpers in a Corner

Many enemy spellcasters or throwers love to jump around and play hard
to get.
It makes for a longer fight, and allows other monsters to beat on you
while you chase them around. If the enemy is
moving around, it's a lose-lose situation for you. If you position
yourself properly, you can pin an enemy into
the corner in such a way that it just cannot get out. Once pinned, go
to town with you weapon of choice.



Draw the Monsters to You

This will frequently be done by others in the group, but you can (and
should) do it, too. Any
party member with a bow can help make the encounter a lot easier by
splitting up the enemy forces. Have a bow
hotkeyed and use it to draw monsters to you. Keep plucking at them
until they're in melee range, then switch to
your melee/primary damage. It's important that you not let the Rogue or
Wizard draw the monsters, too. The monster
is going for whomever attacks him. What did I say a fighter's role is?
Yeah, keep the monsters on you and off the others.



Keep the Monsters on You

Like I just mentioned before, you should be drawing the monsters to
yourself. You should have the highest AC, and you have one of the
highest health totals, too. You should also be leading the charge
into battle when drawing monsters out is not an option. Another key
method to keeping monsters on you (sometimes
called "keeping the aggro") is the use of your Intimidate skill.
Fighters are tied for the fewest skill points of
any class, and aren't exactly known for being all that intelligent.
However, Intimidate is one of your skills. Make
use of it. A successful Intimidate ensures the monster will stay on you
for at least 6 seconds.



Stay with Your Party

A Fighter by himself is a dead one. Running out ahead of your party
is a good way to
do two things. The first is to die. You might take out a few cheese
monsters, but you'll get hit by traps, surrounded
with no way out, and possibly lost. The second is that if you do
survive, you're going to waste spell points of your
party healer. Remember, DDO is a team game. You need your
party, and your party needs you.



Final Thoughts

That should be enough
information to help get you started playing a fighter. I'm only Level 4
myself right now, so
as I level up I'll be able to speak more directly to higher level
content. However, people tend to learn the ropes for
themselves as they progress. I just hope this Field Manual is able to
get you started playing a fighter and give you enough
information to survive in Stormreach.