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:

Two-Handed Fighting (THF): a fighter who uses the Two-Handed Fighting Feat as his centerpiece

Sword and Board (S&B): a fighter who wields a one-handed weapon and a shield

Dual Wielding or Two Weapon Fighting (TWF): a fighter whose Two Weapon Fighting Feat is her focus

Ranged Shooter: a fighter who selects Feats that benefit ranged 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.

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