Due to outside influences I am unable to spend much, if at all any time here for an extended period; most likely minimally a month, extending until about June. Do no worry, anything that could go wrong already has, so things can only improve for myself and my wife from this point forth.

My general contributions that I have plans for working on/am working on/are finished are thusly, put on hold. Here is a brief list of the projects I have currently and their status of completion:

Character Build Guides - 80% done [all but mindslayer, doomed, temporal warden, corrupters, summoners and reavers are 100% done, while these are at about 65% each]

The Order - This is my module using t-engine 4 and is currently not open to outside play, and unfortunately moving extremely slowly mostly due to my own incompetence. Weather this game will ever be released in even an alpha stage, remains to be seen.

Item Sets - I am the creator of Star and Moon, and the ideas of creating a 'pair' or 'set' out of them [with help from edge, Het, yufra, Zonk and ofcourse, DarkGod], and I have many other set ideas and plans in the works - however as these are generally more complex than Star/Moon or with unique/exotic abilities, they require much more code and much more testing [those of you that paid attention/were in the know may have noticed that the Star/Moon pairing went through more than 5 ... stages before they were finally deemed functioning].

Champion of the Arena Guide - I, being a very avid fan and beta tester for the Arena [thanks Het], have began writing a guide or short series of guides to the Arena mode itself, especially as it is so drastically different from the main campaign. This is one of my more recent projects however it is progressing very quickly. Depending on my available time, this might get published before my departure, however, do not expect as such.

Racial Talent Trees - This was something that was generally brought up and was kind of asked/forced upon me by several people and I attempted to deliver a general and sweeping lore filled tree for each race. With the lack of feedback from players and developers I feel that this may have been a wasted effort however I will, eventually, attempt to code the trees out completely and implement them myself.

Redesigning the weapons - Yesterday I took on the task to differentiate the various weapons in t4 as many are extremely similar to each other. In place, I have attempted to add in a sense of being and flavor to the core of the weapons themselves, adding in values to make each weapon be unique enough that picking the one with the highest damage value isn't always the 'best' choice, while not making the weapons too closed to be useful in very few situations.

- = The character build guides was one of my original projects that had some favor to the community, and had help grant me a title similar to " Keeper of the Tomes of TOME " ; and have unfortunately not been posted outside of 2 of them. The reasoning behind this is mostly due to the fact of how quickly the guides were getting obsolete - it would take me about a week to fully write a really good, in depth guide [more so than the 2 already posted, these guides have/had everything I could possibly think of] - however by the time I had it written and formatted to be posted - some change was announced or some such that pretty much made the guide not accurate anymore to the point that a rewrite would have been the best option. I will not abandon this project, but don't expect them until a full release or a damn near full release is out there. - =

- = Item Sets currently planned are a massive armor set using Head, Body, Hand, Feet that grant various powers based on which parts of the kit you have equipped, and is by far the most complicated thing I have attempted to code, in fact, the Body part can be found as Coltuur in the artifact/egos thread. I also have a Cloak & Dagger set planned, Greatmaul, Hand, Cloak set, Ring, Ring Amulet set, and a Sling & Shield set all planned and some partially coded - however these are taking a backseat while I am gone. - =

- = Champions of the Arena: A Guide for Tactical Play - is the Arena mode focused guide that I began to write about a month ago. As the mode is so drastically different than the main campaign in t4, while presenting a different array and kinds of challenges, along with forcing a different play style and generally different character growths, I thought a guide for the arena might be in order. Be a generalist guide, it is mostly a FAQ and Tips & Tricks style work with common play tips such as fighting as few at a time as you can and killing off the higher valued targets first [and telling you which those are at the various waves]. - =

- = Racial Talent Trees was one of the major changes/improvements I was looking forward to with contributing to the game, however with my general lack of understanding how t4 does math, and the lack of feedback on the trees themselves [other than screaming that 1 tree in particular people think is overpowered or stupidly underpowered {Cornac}] I was greatly disheartened at the lack of further development that was brought to them. I still really think that having racial trees will, in the end, benefit t4 in many ways, however as people seem generally content without them currently, this is clearly a dead project - =

- = Redesigning the weapons is, at this time, complete outside of making certain weapon only egos; and as such, will be sent to DG soon. Depending on the feedback of these changes, I will continue on and definitely finish this project before my absence. - =

---

Thanks to all the good people here and the friends I have made while I have been here - I will be back, but I will miss you guys, the community, while I am away.

FM

I’ll be trying a new format with this character build today, and hopefully it will look better.

Now then, I’m usually in the #tome channel on mIRC [we use Rizon server for those interested], and there are a lot of people that ask ‘how do I build a Reaver?’; and, here’s your answer. Now then, this build in particular is only one of several ways you can go. Notice that I don’t use the Bone or Hex trees at all. That’s mostly personal preference – but I’ve seen good use and arguments for Bone Spear and Bone Shield. I have not seen good arguments for Hexes yet, and it my opinion, the entirety of the Hex tree itself is rather terrible – though, I honestly don’t know the radius of their effects now, as they lack that in their descriptions.

Now then, here is a character dump of a level 50 Reaver with base equipment. Ruin is sustained, so Vim is lowered correctly. You’ll notice a few things here, such as stats, base hp/vim/ect. Take your time and look at the talent choices as well and see if you notice the combo involved.

I recommend a Higher as the race for one big reason really – the regeneration of the racial talent. Early in the game this will be what allows you to use blood sacrifice as you are ending combat without too much fear of a stray skeleton mage or archer killing you. As you wont’ be raising willpower with this build, the amount regenerated won’t scale, meaning you’ll probably only get an extra point or two as you progress due to your kit increasing willpower. This is fine, as you will always want to have at least one regeneration infusion inscribed on you, and probably level 20 or 30 you’ll want to put a second on.

 [Tome 4.00 @ www.te4.org Character Dump]

Sex : Male STR: 60
Race : Higher DEX: 12
Class : Reaver MAG: 60
Level : 50 WIL: 11
Exp : 0% CUN: 20
Gold : 10.00 CON: 60

Attack(Main Hand): 91 Life : 1684/1684Encumbrance : 8/148
Damage(Main Hand): 62 Difficulty : Normal
APR (Main Hand): 2
Crit (Main Hand): 6%
Speed (Main Hand): 1.00

                                Vim              :     256/256
                                

Attack (Off Hand): 91
Damage (Off Hand): 33
APR (Off Hand): 2
Crit (Off Hand): 6%
Speed (Off Hand): 1.00

Fatigue : 0% Spellpower : 60
Armor : 0 Spell Crit : 4%
Defense : 0.7 Spell Speed : 1
Ranged Defense : 0.7

Physical Save : 30
Spell Save : 17.75
Mental Save : 7.75

Number of NPC killed: 0
Most killed NPC: none (0)

  [Talents Chart]

- Technique / Combat training (mastery 1.30)

    Heavy Armour Training (generic)   1/5
    Massive Armour Training (generic) 5/5
    Health (generic)                  5/5
    Weapon Combat (generic)           10/10
    Weapons Mastery (generic)         5/10
    Knife Mastery (generic)           0/10

- Corruption / Sanguisuge (mastery 1.30)

    Blood Sacrifice (generic)         5/5
    Drain (generic)                   5/5
    Absorb Life (generic)             1/5
    Life Tap (generic)                5/5

- Corruption / Bone (mastery 1.30)

    Bone Spear (class)                0/5
    Bone Grab (class)                 0/5
    Bone Nova (class)                 0/5
    Bone Shield (class)               0/5

- Corruption / Curses (mastery 1.30)

    Curse of Defenselessness (class)  1/5
    Curse of Impotence (class)        5/5
    Curse of Death (class)            1/5
    Curse of Vulnerability (class)    5/5

- Corruption / Plage (mastery 1.40)

    Virulent Disease (class)          5/5
    Cyst Burst (class)                5/5
    Catalepsy (class)                 5/5
    Epidemic (class)                  0/5

- Corruption / Scourge (mastery 1.40)

    Rend (class)                      5/5
    Ruin (class)                      5/5
    Acid Strike (class)               5/5
    Dark Surprise (class)             5/5

- Corruption / Reaving combat (mastery 1.30)

    Corrupted Strength (class)        1/5
    Bloodlust (class)                 5/5
    Carrier (class)                   5/5
    Acid Blood (class)                5/5
 
 [Current Effects]

- Ruin

- Build focus -
Ranged DOT with supporting hard hitting and status causing melee abilities – that is about as detailed summary as you need for Reavers.

Raising magic first to help with EVERYTHING – that’s right, EVERYTHING you have scales off of magic [and thusly, spell power as well], then swapping between 10 points in str/con to help with overall damage/wear ability of items, and to allow rising of health at critical points. Survivability is hard as overall you are weaker than most enemies you will come across, but that is where VD and the various diseases and status effects you can inflict come in. You need to make your enemies weaker, way weaker, to be on an even field with them. But then, why only make it even? VD can put multiple diseases on a target at a time. Now, while the 3 diseases lower stats, they don’t disallow kit usage by npcs – BUT they do lower the effects of the stats. For instance, the str disease will lower the amount of damage that you take, especially at higher levels. The DOT you can inflict is great; it is large amounts of exotic damage types, with medium to long duration. You are able to inflict a wide variety of damage types as well, darkness, blight, acid, fire [if you go into hexes], along with physical, natively. Along with the various diseases and ways to spread them, you also are able to blind, cut, stun, lower damage all damage dealt, lower all resists, and if hit, thanks to acid blood – one of the best talents in the game – you can also lower ac [very good], and attack [even better] of npcs. Most all of these effects are at range, and at 10+ range as well. You also steal vim using 2 different talents and regenerate health through your racial, infusions, and increase your overall damage with life tap. This build focuses greatly on hitting from a distance, over duration, and then finishing them off with a hard hitting melee attack. You may want to not put 5 points into massive armor, and instead opt for only 1. If t his is the case, I’d recommend either putting them in Weapon mastery instead of absorb life. Absorb Life just isn’t very good, at all.

- Class Talents -
The order of which I recommend raising your class talents is going all out into VD first. This is really the first part of a really good combo, and the most important. The damage scales with your spell power [say hello to Bloodlust], it has good range and has a very short cool down. The stat penalties are also very good, with this dump it’s 18 stat point penalty. It doesn’t start that high, with the penalty only being 1 at the beginning, but you really want the DOT in the early game. Later, when VD is coupled with Cyst Burst and Catalepsy, you have one of the best combos in the game. First you disease someone, and then depending on if you want to spread the disease [meaning other npcs get inflicted], or if you want to stun the npc [Catalepsy], you can do so. Or of course you can simply let them come at you diseased, and then disease them again. That combination of three talents will cover your ranged assaults for the entire game, mostly.

As Ruin becomes available, I like to stop with VD and go directly and completely into Ruin. It does great damage, doesn’t drain your Vim like other project style talents such as Weapon of Light, and it’s an exotic damage type. Once you put a point into it, I’d sustain it, but if not, when you reach level 5 and raise it to tlvl 2, I greatly recommend sustaining it then. It will drastically help with your melee damage output.

Once Ruin and VD are maxed out, I like to race down to Acid Blood. Now, Acid Blood is by far one of the best talents in the game. 1) It’s passive ; 2) It deals damage, DOT style [which is VERY good for you {see Bloodlust}] ; 3) It’s a damage that really isn’t resisted all that often actually ; 4) It lowers the attack on enemies [which is VERY good news for you] ; 5) It lowers npc armor as well, which doesn’t mean a WHOLE lot as most npcs just resist damage instead of possessing armor, but you’ll notice it when it happens on the right enemies. Also, Acid Blood scales nicely in all aspects with tlvl, so I really believe it should be gotten to, and completed as soon as Ruin and VD are learned. Also, to get the talent learned, you only need 44 str, and that is easily reachable in a hurry. Depending on the comfort you have with dealing with pits, summoners, splitters, breeders, ect. you may want to invest a point [or 2 in the case of Cyst Burst, as it’s radius increases to 2 with 2 points] in Cyst Burst and Catalepsy before doing Acid Blood; and this is okay as well. Acid Blood is mostly picked up by me at this point because I like to finish off enemies in melee, to help preserve my Vim. Vim usage isn’t really an issue I find at any point other than the first 10 levels or so usually, unless I’m really in a bind and need to use a lot of the melee talents in succession.

In either case, after VD, Ruin, Acid Blood, and minimally a point in both Cyst Burst and Catalepsy, I like to finally invest a single point in both Acid Strike and Dark Surprise. Now, Acid Strike to me can be either really good or moderately bad, it really depends on the npcs you are fighting, and how tightly packed they are. Acid Blood’s key feature is that it splashes, a 1 radius burst in other words. This is your only melee style ball attack, and that makes it important, but not important enough to max out until late in the game. It functions fine at tlvl 1 most of the time – as only the base damage and splash damage scale with tlvl. Dark Surprise however is good pretty much the whole time. It deals 2 different damage types [to make it useful against a wider variety of enemies], the second hit auto crits if the first strike landed, and it BLINDS. Now, let me talk about the positive and negative aspects of Blind. The npcs that are immune to blind are probably the ones that you will want to blind the most, those being the undead enemies [like Dreads, Skeletons, Vampires, Ghasts, Ghouls, Wights, ect]. And the undead also have a bonus against you as they also typically resist darkness, blight, acid, ect in at least small amounts. However, not a single orc/dragon/natural enemy to my knowledge is immune to blind. That’s right, all those spell casters, berserkers, bears and dragons can be blinded. Just made you grin a little bit didn’t I? Unfortunately you are unable to spread blindness as you can diseases, but it does make melee life a lot easier once you have Dark Surprise.

Regarding unlocking the Curses tree, I like to hold off on that until my lvl 20 category point. You really want four inscribe slots at about your third dungeon with a Reaver so you can be absolutely sure you have enough healing to get by. The only curse you may want really early is Curse of Vulnerability. What this curse does is it lowers all damage resists on the target by x%. Those of you that have fought things immune to your damage type know exactly how useful this talent can be. The other useful Curse is really a toss up between Impotence and Death. Death is useful because it’s more DOT – but its core aspect is blocking healing for the npc. I … don’t know any npc that heals itself. So, Impotence gets my vote as it lowers all damage that the inflicted is capable of doing. It’s just like having – x% [damage], and that means you live longer. It’s really meant for things that have a lot of life, and/or are resistant to your damage types [not that I know of any other than Bone Giants and some bosses]. You’ll find the curses useful in some situations, but in most you’d rather disease/cut/stun/blind/ect them.

- Generic Talents –
Some what fortunately, you don’t have too many options for generic points. You only have one class tree that uses generics, and the most generic of the generic trees, Combat Training. Now everyone probably knows the drill by now when it comes to the Combat Training tree – raise con to use Health, raise str to unlock Massive Armor and in your off time upgrade Weapon Combat as needed. That all still applies to Reavers, to an extent. As a dual wielding class, you will want to raise Weapon Combat almost every chance you get to maximize the chance of getting both hits in every time. But then you run into a slight problem – Blood Sacrifice, the core talent of regaining your main energy source, deals you damage. Luckily, the amount of hp lost is static, but the amount of Vim regained scales quickly with tlvl and off of magic – so I recommend raising Weapon Combat every 4 levels, and Blood Sacrifice, and eventually Drain [which also scales with magic] every level other than that. Drain will do decent damage, and its range increases with tlvl, so you may wish to focus on that in particular more so than weapon combat, depending on how much you use your melee talents. Also, Drain can be used in every fight as a replacement for Blood Sacrifice, given that the amount of Vim recovered is directly based on the amount of damage Vim itself does. Life Tap can be very useful, or not at all. What it does is it drains some of your life, like Blood Sacrifice, but then it raises your damage, like an inverted Curse of Impotence. The duration at tlvl 5 is 7 turns, which is plenty long to get a couple of diseases going and spread, along with a cut. Yes, it even boots your DOT damage, which is really all its good for. Some people may find that some of the massive armors aren’t as useful for you as they would be for fighters/berserkers/sun paladins, and that’s fine. I do say put at least 1 point into the talent regardless as you never know what you’ll find; and 1 point is probably enough. In that case, go ahead and put the other 4 into Weapon Mastery [which really should be about the last thing you increase]. Weapon Mastery doesn’t scale very well with tlvl, same as Weapon Combat, but it does help you even more so than most other classes as you do attack more than once a turn.

- Dungeon Advancement –
Normally I would recommend melee capable classes of going into the Maze first as that is a very easy dungeon for melee combatants. The Reaver, while capable of devastating melee, isn’t one of them though – at least not until they have a few levels under their belt. So, the Old Forest is probably your best bet at easy adventuring with quick levels. The dungeon being fully lit and with large open areas work to your advantage with VD weakening the mobs or flat out killing them as they come at you. Even Wrathroot isn’t too much of an issue as long as you get to him at about level 3 or 4, as VD should deal a load of damage at that point, and you might even have a point in Health. The only real danger that Wrathroot possesses is freezing you and then coming in and not attacking the whole time you are frozen. The further away he is, the better it is for you, as the only damaging talent that he has at a range greater than 3 is Freeze. Once he gets in close he can do Tidal Wave and Ice Storm, both of which are no good for you. And, coming to him at such a low level, you most likely won’t have Ruin high enough, or Dark Surprise yet. So, Wrathroot = VD and walk backwards, then VD again.

Next I recommend the Maze as it will probably be easy as you might be as high as level 9 coming out of the OF. It’s pretty easy, usually 1v1 fights, 1 tile wide corridors, with some traps. The only npcs you might want to watch out for are the Minotaurs as they can confuse you [so you blind/cut/disease them before they get a chance to]. NOTE: The Minotaur of the Labyrinth can be blinded, which then makes him a push over. He can also be inflicted with whatever status effect you want, as he isn’t inherently resistant to any of them.

Next I usually tackle the original 2 dungeons, probably the Shaws first if I have found an artifact staff [for the apprentice quest], if not, then I do Kor’Pul first. Everyone knows about these two dungeons, and there isn’t much to say here so I’ll leave it at that.

I do the merchant quest whenever it shows, and the Cursed quest after my third dungeon [depending on if I’ve found a good weapon or not]. After all that, I do the Storming the City and Urkis quests, preferably with at least 25% lightning res.

Following all of these side marks, it’s pretty much a tossup between the Sandworm Lair and Daikara. If I have access to 40% or greater cold res, and 70% or greater stun res, and I have 2 regeneration infusions, and a teleport rune, then I usually do Daikara before the sandy pit. I also recommend to those that have trouble or have never been – have at least a phase door rune when going to the sandworm lair. Preferably a teleportation rune, but a PD would work fine.

The Ambush can be extremely difficult, or doable depending on how high of damage your VD does, along with the spread ratio of Cyst Burst, and the stun duration of Catalepsy. With all the orcs grouped so closely, you can disease stun about 3/4ths of them in 3 turns, and then work off the archers from there.

In regards to the order to do the western dungeons on the trip back, I say do Kor’Pul first, then the others in which ever order you want. Kor’Pul’s drop is custom made for you, and thus, it’s useful for you.

The prides in the east I like to leave until after I’ve done the Unknown Cave, and the Flooded Cave [remember your amulet of the fish!]. Depending on how bad I need a shop, I might even do the Spider Lair before starting up the quests to return west, or the prides.

The order that I recommend to do the pries really depends on what equipment you have. If you have a lot of fire/cold/lightning/acid/stun res, then Vor is a good start, if you only have good fire/cold then perhaps Gorbat instead. Grushnak, the warrior pride will probably be the roughest for you, with all the high damage melee crits and rushing in your face, you won’t be able to keep the enemy at bay. However, this pride is the ideal place for Acid Blood to show its worth. If Acid Blood and Ruin are maxed, and you have good armor and weapons, Grushnak might actually be the first tribe to try. Rak’shor is going to be your bane however, as you’ll be fighting hordes of yourself. Be prepared to fight of a LOT of DOT effects. Luckily, none of the Leaders of the Pride are all that difficult, as all can be inflicted with whatever the hell you want to throw at them.

- Equipment –
These are pretty much the items you should be striving for. Usually once you find one of these or a comparable item, even if it’s material lvl 1, you’ll probably use it for a good long while. Artifacts are capitalized, egos are not.

Weapon

    Razorblade, the Cursed War axe
    Wintertide
    Malediction
    elemental of corruption

Ring

    Glory of the Pride
    Ring of Dead
    Varg’s Redemption
    pearl ring

Amulet

    Vox
    Unflinching Eye
    teleportation

Lite

    Eldritch Pearl
    Wintertide Phial
    scorching of elbereth

Armor

    Spider-silk Robe
    Behemoth Hide
    Scale Mail of Kroltar

Cuirass of the Thronesmen

    impenetrable of the dragon

Cloak

    Ureslak's Molted Scales
    thick cloak of fog

Helmet

    Helm of Dwarven Kings
    Dragonskull Helm
    Crown of the Elements
    prismatic of precognition

Belt

    Girdle of Preservation
    Girdle of Calm Waters
    Blurring of resilience

Gloves

    Gloves of the Firm Hand
    powerful of iron grip

Boots

    Frost Treads
    Boots of Phasing

Digger

    delving

Infusions/Runes

    regeneration
    regeneration
    teleportation
    shield
    acid wave
    

- Ideal Endgame Equipment -
Pearl Ring/Vargs Redemtpion - Vox - Wintertide Phail - Ureslak's Molted Scales - Scale Mail of Kroltar - Helm of the Dwarven Kings - Gloves of the Frim Hand - Wintertide/Razorblade, the Cursed War Axe - Boots of Phasing - Girdle of Preservation

The reasoning is that this particular set up should, along with your talents, allow for more damage absorption as these grant a lot of broad resists without being too difficult to wield once found. Vox in particular should be the amulet you wear 100% of the time once obtained, as it raises your max vim, which is very nice but not utterly important, while also granting 80% silence resist, which is very important. Over all, there is no better amulet in the game for reavers and the same really goes for the Girdle of Preservation as well.

- Character Dump Talents –
These are what your talents will look like at level 50, with tlvls 5, and these stats. Keep in mind that they will in actuality be much greater in effect as you’ll be wearing a lot of things that increase your magic as you go.

Blood sacrifice - 139 vim recovery
Drain - 146 blight damage, 20% vim recovery of damage dealt
Life Tap - 19% damage all increase over 7 Turns – works with DOTs
Curse of Impotence - 27% damage decrease
Curse of Vulnerability - 42% resist all drop
VD - 32 blight over 6 turns with 18 stat drain [192 total]
Cyst Burst - 65 blight per disease 3 radius spread
Catalepsy - 5 turn stun dealing all remaining disease damage
Rend - 174% with 29 bleed damage over 5 turns
Ruin - 31 blight damage with each hit
Acid Strke - 174% acid damage – 96 acid damage 1 radius
Dark Surprise - 154% darkness – 154% blight with crit and blind 4 turns
Bloodlust - Maximum 6 spellpower increase a turn, with 39 spellpower reachable
Carrier - 100% disease resist with 20% chance to spread disease on melee
Acid Blood - 21 acid damage 5 duration, -25 attack, -29 armor

Hopefully this is a better character build guide, and that this one is even more helpful than the previous. This is part 2 of an unknown amount of character build guides, so expect many more.

As always, if you have questions or comments, you can leave them here, in the blog, or in this thread, or you can always PM me on the forum, or catch me in #tome. Again, enjoy, and try it out.

FM

This will turn into a multi-part series of character builds covering specific race/class combinations. First, I will cover Dwarf Fighters - one of my best and favorite.

Today I will be talking about how I build my fighters, why I choose dwarf fighters in particular, talent choices, when to raise what talents and stats, combat tactics, egos and artifacts to look for, dungeon completion order, and what to not do.

First, let me give a bit of a background on myself when it comes to dwarf fighters. As of this writing, I've made 42 Dwarf Fighters after profiles were created - and I've had 4 make it to the Far East, and 1 to the Final Battle. They are easily in my top three best played race/class combination, one of my favorites, and to me, the absolute easiest race/class combination to play.

Now then, why a dwarf when playing fighters? Well, for several reasons - they are naturally inclined to be fighters in the world of T4 - with good starting hp, along with strength and constitution bonuses, they cover two of the three more important stats for a fighter. Their racial in particular is probably the best for a fighter, as it will raise your armor [scaling very very nicely, about thirty or so armor], and huge boosts to two saves [something like sixty or so (however saves as of beta15b don't exactly do much - this is slated to change in beta16)]. Their penalty to magic doesn't matter at all anymore as scrolls/potions have been removed, and runes/infusions can scale off of any of the three stats you will most likely max.

I like to max out strength, dexterity and constitution, this will leave about fifteen or so points left after raising those three stats to the natural maximum of sixty. They go to either willpower or cunning, depending on the kit that I have available - and because I should be about level forty-five at this point, it's probably my final kit. I will raise the stats in particular by maxing out strength first, and once I start to reach the 'max per level' cap, the extra points will be going to constitution. Not only will this raise my hp [and allow me to get health], but it will also help the dwarf racial scale, and it scales very well.

My level fifty talent point distribution looks like this:

Class Lvl
Shield Pummel 4
Resposte 5
Overpower 1
Assault 5
Shield Wall 5
Shield Expertise5
Last Stand 5
Shattering Shout5
Second Wind 5
Battle Shout 5
Precise Strikes 1
Rush 5
Quick Recovery 5
Fast Metabolism 5

Generic Lvl
Disengage 5
Track 5
Massive Armor 5
Health 5
Weapon Combat 9
Weapon Mastery 10

Shield Pummel should be maxed because the stun duration is based off of the tlvl of Shield Pummel. Riposte now scales the counter hit chance better with points, and Assault is maxed out of pure lack of good things to put points in. Shield Wall should be your first priority to max out as it's your class defining talent, as should Shield Expertise as it directly effects Shield Pummel, Overpower and Assault. I really like Shattering Shout, especially for fighters as it's a massive cone of damage, and fighters lack AOE attacks entirely outside of this ability. It starts out at a low AOE, but I believe at lvl 5 it's radius caps at 5 - quite large, believe me. Second Wind is also useful for that quick boost to your stamina as at times you will run out stamina in cases that you would prefer not to. Battle Shout is useful for a quick boost to survivability as well. Disengage is your quick escape option, and is also very useful for dashing multiple tiles during the Mount Doom Dash - as is Rush. Rush is also important for chasing down those blasted mages - orc mages in particular. Track is your version of sense - sure it's not passive as Heightened Senses is, but it effects a greater area and scales with a stat you'll be raising anyway. And, of course you'll be maxing Massive Armor, Health, Weapon Combat and Weapon Mastery, because ... well, you're a FIGHTER. Some people will argue that 10 points in both weapon mastery and weapon combat is too much, and, they’re right. It is too many points, as both talents scale horribly with additional points. HOWEVER, other than if you somehow get a good amount of cunning, or you REALLY want to use the field control tree for some reason, there’s no other good options for generic point use. If you do wish to invest in these other tree’s further, take away from weapon mastery, not weapon combat. Attack is scaled off of both strength and dexterity evenly, so as a fighter you will have high attack, but you absolutely want to make sure that you can hit everything all the time. At lvl 50 and fighting things that are level 70/80/90, you WILL NEED attack as high as 200 to make certain that you will hit.

- Class Talents -
I like to save up class points so that I can raise each new class talent level at the same time, and so that I can max out shield wall as soon as possible. After that, I go for shield expertise, then shield pummel and the two regenerative talents.

- Generic Talents -
I put a point into Massive Armor so that I can wear it, and then raise weapon combat and disengage/track going back and forth. Health takes priority over this if I can raise it however. There's no real urgency to get any specific generic talents with fighters.

- Dungeons -
I like to do The Maze, Old Forest, Trollshaws, Kor’pul, Sandworm Lair, Daikara, Tol Falas, Iron Throne, Unknown Cavern, Underwater Cave [amulet of the fish required], Spider Lair, Grushnak, Rak'sor, Gorbat then Vor.

I like to do the maze first because it’s almost entirely 1v1 fighting with things that don’t hit very hard [only minotaurs, and you’ll probably fight only four or five of those]. Also, it doesn’t have escorts, and escorts level off of your level, so it will make doing all future escorts easier. If you would like to pretty much ensure all your escorts will live, after doing the maze, you could do the sandworm lair, but I find that that is unnecessary. OF I like to do second because it’s the next least frustrating and easier of the dungeons for a fighter, also, you might luck out and get some good escorts. Following the initial two dungeons, it’s pretty open actually as you should/could be at about level 12 now, which means you have shield wall and shield expertise maxed or close to it – and that means that you are pretty well settled.

Regarding the order of the prides – it’s mostly for the ease to do them/artifact you acquire. You really want the Glory of the Pride as it makes everything else much easier, thus, Grushnak first – and it’s also you against people built like you, so understanding what you’re up against is a nice thing. Grushnak also has a unique layout that really helps as a fighter, no mass open arena levels like the other prides. I like to save Vor for last as Vor can be one of the easiest or most dangerous depending on how you have your kit and what resists you have. If you have really good cold/fire/lightning resists then you could do Vor earlier. Rak’sor is also the same, it can be either pretty quick death or a relative walk in the park. With Rak’sor however, you’ll want poison/disease/hex/curse resistance/curing, along with blight/darkness/fire resistance. The specific status resistance will be hard/impossible to get, or get high, so a good temporary wild infusion will be fine here.

For the side quests, I would recommend doing them when you feel comfortable with them. Personally, I always do the merchant quest, save the Elven Ruins for right before the Iron Throne [be careful, you WILL be about eight levels under what you are supposed to be to come here], do the cursed once I’m about level 15, and the tempest quest at about level 15 as well, or once I have 50% lightning and cold resist constantly, along with about 500/600 hp. I do the heading back west quest after I do the Unknown Cave, Spider Lair and Underwater Cave mostly. Sometimes I put it off until after I’ve done Grushnak, but not always. Once back west, I do the dungeons again in the same order that I did them the first time.

In this next section, I won’t be using what material or item type because it doesn’t really matter that much as in beta15b and betas before it, egos don’t scale well, if at all, with what material level they are on. This is scheduled to change in beta16 however.
- Specific Egos and Artifacts -
Amulet:
Greater Telepathy
Teleportation
Vitalizing
Daneth's Neckguard
Garkul's Teeth
Choker of Dread

Ring:
Vargh Redemption
Ring of the Dead
Ring of the War Master
Glory of the Pride

Shield:

• element* of deflection

Fire Dragon Shield
Lunar Shield

Digger:
Delving

Cloak:
Thick/Oiled of fog
Serpentine Cloak
Ureslak's Molted Scales

Belt:
Blurring of the titan/life/resilience
Girdle of Preservation
Girdle of the Calm Waters

Gloves:
Powerful of iron grip
Gloves of the Firm Hand
Stone Gauntlets of Harkor'Zun

Lite:
Scorching of Elbereth
Eldritch Pearl
Wintertide Phial

Helm:
Prismatic/Shalorn of greater telepathy/precognition
Helm of the Dwarven Kings
Runed Skull
Crown of the Elements

Boots:
Stealthy/none of almost any
Shifting Boots
Frost Treads

Weapon:
Elemental of rage
Razorblade, the Cursed Waraxe
Wintertide
Malediction

Armor:
Impenetrable of the dragon
Radiant/Fortifying/Hardened of x
Behemoth Hide
Scale Mail of Kroltar
Plate Armor of the King

The reason that I like these egos/artifacts in particular [not counting the zone artifacts, I’ll add those in later], is because they help with survival the most. Trust me, you aren’t meant to deal damage, you are meant to absorb as much of it as possible. This makes fighters and sun paladins very similar, however, in my opinion, sun paladins have a much easier time. I like to go with as much resistance to as wide of damage types as possible – magic WILL kill you [unlike with paladins]. Your armor will soak up a vast majority of the physical attacks, so you don’t need to worry too much about that. Unlike sun paladins who have to fight back because of using active or triggered talents, fighters survivability is almost entirely non drain inducing sustains, and passives. Fighters simply outlive their opponents, and in order to do that, you need as much resistance and hp as possible.

This will probably be rewritten or at least reformatted as I go into more and more class builds; and decide on the best approach to display and write them. Thank you for your time, and you can expect a write up again in probably a week or two. I hope this helps, if you have any questions or comments, feel free and again, I’ll post another one up soon.

FM