GOAT of pure melee

[ChompyRiley]

I know that Mutation warrior is still kinda the GOAT of pure melee. Feats, bab, extra bite with the mutagen. But how does Drunken Master measure up? For that matter, for no-frills melee combat, is there anything better than basic ♥♥♥♥♥ human fighter?

[CHAO$$$]

multi melees are the best
1 demonslayer
4 mutagen war (level 4 should be what you need for weapon spec which unlocks mythic weapon spec iirc - if you can get weapon spec somewhere else 3 is enough)/can also use vivisectionist if you really need the levels somewhere else
1 slayer
1-4 (eldritch) rogue can be good if you want to use weapon finesse anyway and you know what weapon you want as it lets you skip mythic finesse wielding

and then just add levels of whatever big feature you want
some shifters are great, 11 paladin is great, sword saint is great for crit features and denying enemy dex bonus without conditions (aside from charges), also comes with a free feat at level 1

drunken master is a pretty competetive solo class but not as good as multis from a pure dmg perspective
There is a feature early on for drunken master that turns your int + KI points into alchemy bonuses which is also quite good, might be worth integrating into multis, does not work with int classes tho as you gimp your int as tradeoff, make sure to pick the KI mythic

[CHAO$$$]

Originally posted by Deo:

Btw, to not create extra threads - Guarded Hearth is now Sacred bonus again. Silent change from last patch.

ohh god back to mandatory domain bots

[CHAO$$$]

Originally posted by IlluminaZero:

I mean move->action has inherent disadvantages

This is a problem that just doesnt exist in rtwp as long as you put some effort in your positioning at the beginning.

[Cutlass Jack]

Originally posted by Aranador:

At lower levels, a Rowdy Rogue is worth your consideration. Sure, once you can stack enough bonuses, 8 weak attacks bonused up is better, but for the first half of the game, your rowdy is wrecking things.

Rowdy Rogue is one of my favorites. Especially with cleaving finishes. Just one shotting everything into a fine red paste even from level 1.

[ptirodaktill]

Early game nothing came close to Rowdy, as you crit-shot every encounter and even normal hits usualy kill most stuff. Easy to support, only need alchemist or sensei for true strike. Trough after Drezen Rowdy is pretty meh.
Shifter is okay early, but barely scale and gets outclassed heavily by charge abusers. Late game 2 longspears Cavalier/Titan fighter intro legend is the most DPR in the game. You can end first faze Arielu in 1 charge.

[CHAO$$$]

Originally posted by ptirodaktill:

gets outclassed heavily by charge abusers

If you really want to run pounce on anything you can always just roll kitsune

[ptirodaktill]

Originally posted by CHAO$$$:

Originally posted by ptirodaktill:

gets outclassed heavily by charge abusers

If you really want to run pounce on anything you can always just roll kitsune

Its mostly about extra multiplier.

[CHAO$$$]

Originally posted by ptirodaktill:

Originally posted by CHAO$$$:

If you really want to run pounce on anything you can always just roll kitsune

Its mostly about extra multiplier.

whats the specific feature youre looking for?
stuff like spirited charge you can just pick up on anyone

[Razer]

Originally posted by ptirodaktill:

Early game nothing came close to Rowdy, as you crit-shot every encounter and even normal hits usualy kill most stuff. Easy to support, only need alchemist or sensei for true strike. Trough after Drezen Rowdy is pretty meh.
Shifter is okay early, but barely scale and gets outclassed heavily by charge abusers. Late game 2 longspears Cavalier/Titan fighter intro legend is the most DPR in the game. You can end first faze Arielu in 1 charge.

You haven't tried Feyform Shifter. At level 4 you're looking at 5 attacks with full sneak dice at full BAB since they are all primary attacks. Nothing beats that. Nothing. It eats Rowdy for breakfast, just like it eats mutation warrior for breakfast. No class or archetype has this type of power at this level. Feyform Shifter doesn't get outclassed by charge. At all. It'll kill 3 enemies or more while your charge kills 1 in the same round. You can let it auto play Leper's Smile. You don't even need to do anything.

[Bystander36]

Originally posted by Razer:

Originally posted by ptirodaktill:

Early game nothing came close to Rowdy, as you crit-shot every encounter and even normal hits usualy kill most stuff. Easy to support, only need alchemist or sensei for true strike. Trough after Drezen Rowdy is pretty meh.
Shifter is okay early, but barely scale and gets outclassed heavily by charge abusers. Late game 2 longspears Cavalier/Titan fighter intro legend is the most DPR in the game. You can end first faze Arielu in 1 charge.

You haven't tried Feyform Shifter. At level 4 you're looking at 5 attacks with full sneak dice at full BAB since they are all primary attacks. Nothing beats that. Nothing. It eats Rowdy for breakfast, just like it eats mutation warrior for breakfast. No class or archetype has this type of power at this level. Feyform Shifter doesn't get outclassed by charge. At all. It'll kill 3 enemies or more while your charge kills 1 in the same round. You can let it auto play Leper's Smile. You don't even need to do anything.

You are arguing early vs late game power. Shifters, which get all their attacks early, are very powerful early, but late game, their low crit range and damage per hit compared to 2h attackers, they don't remain the leaders when the game gets tougher.

Then you get mounted classes, which can do good damage, and have some decent defense, but late game, the mounts do not remain kings in defense, as you cannot put mirror image on them, or other self only cast buffs that up your defenses.

For offense, having 10-12 levels of Primalist adds another aspect of offense not discussed too, pounce without having a skald on board, with mirror image, 2h weapons, mage armor and what not.

You can also go with 11 levels of Sohei and get 7 attacks just like the Feyform, and get the 2h weapon damage, fauchard crit range and ki ability to add 1 more attack, that Feyform lacks, still get added attacks from other means too. And pick up spirited Charge for a massive charge attack.

I'm not sure what is best, but there are a lot of options out there.

[Brother Santodes]

it's 2H fighter because they dropped the ball on that class if it comes to damage.

mythic power attack is needed the rest is not as important.
a legend 20 level 2h fighter plus 20 level gendarme should one shot everything in the game none crit.

20 level stable marine should do the same if the target can be crit.

[Deo]

Originally posted by IlluminaZero:

This is actually huge for anyone that likes Bards or Skalds ٩(- ̮̮̃-̃)۶

Nah, it's a "nerf". Before, when Guarded Hearth was Competence, you could give your melee:
Touch of Good (+10 attack at 20, Sacred)
Guarded Hearth (+13 attack at 20, Competence)
Vision of Madness (+10 attack at 20, Untyped)
Lethal Stance (+6 attack at 20, Competence stacked with Guarded Hearth - bug)

Now you cannot gain +10 attack from Touch of Good, because you will have Guarded Hearth already.

This is mostly a "nerf" to blaster casters - and it's continuation of nerf/fix chain (ray sneak attack nerf, ring of pyromancy/mallander nerf, no more bloodline + damage dice stacking, allied spellcaster nerf/fix).

[Razer]

Originally posted by Bystander36:

Originally posted by Razer:

You haven't tried Feyform Shifter. At level 4 you're looking at 5 attacks with full sneak dice at full BAB since they are all primary attacks. Nothing beats that. Nothing. It eats Rowdy for breakfast, just like it eats mutation warrior for breakfast. No class or archetype has this type of power at this level. Feyform Shifter doesn't get outclassed by charge. At all. It'll kill 3 enemies or more while your charge kills 1 in the same round. You can let it auto play Leper's Smile. You don't even need to do anything.

You are arguing early vs late game power. Shifters, which get all their attacks early, are very powerful early, but late game, their low crit range and damage per hit compared to 2h attackers, they don't remain the leaders when the game gets tougher.

Then you get mounted classes, which can do good damage, and have some decent defense, but late game, the mounts do not remain kings in defense, as you cannot put mirror image on them, or other self only cast buffs that up your defenses.

For offense, having 10-12 levels of Primalist adds another aspect of offense not discussed too, pounce without having a skald on board, with mirror image, 2h weapons, mage armor and what not.

You can also go with 11 levels of Sohei and get 7 attacks just like the Feyform, and get the 2h weapon damage, fauchard crit range and ki ability to add 1 more attack, that Feyform lacks, still get added attacks from other means too. And pick up spirited Charge for a massive charge attack.

I'm not sure what is best, but there are a lot of options out there.

I was responding to someone who commented on the strongest early game.

Besides I'm currently running a Trickster Feyform shifter and at level 14 it's still performing a lot better than all the 2H DPS characters I've played and it's not going to slow down. Like I mentioned before a 15-20 crit range isn't going to make an ounce of difference vs a 17-20 crit range if you oneshot everything. And yes, I'm dealing 150 damage per strike at this point in the game. Which is only going to get higher. At level 20 I will have 20d6 sneak attack plus all the STR boost. Sure it's not going to be multiplied by 1.5, but there's so much other source of damage that I don't need it to do the same damage as some of the other classes. Plus it does get a crit boost. Unlike a fighter Feyform gets x3 crit multi at level 17. So you actually get to use it and not when there's like 2 enemies left to fight. So I'm currently looking at a level 17 crit stat of 17-20 with a x6 multiplier. Got enough attacks to kill multiple enemies in a single round.

Sure you can make something better if you min max and combine all busted things in the game in terms of classes and archetypes and such. But a single pure class on it's own. This thing is the best I've seen so far. Plus you get lots of nice things added on top, like extra AC, DR, SR, evasion, blur effect, freedom of movement, ignore diffucult terrain. All undispellable effects innate to the feyform. Your mutation warrior gets out of bed, he's just a high level npc with nothing to show for it. Feyform gets out of bed he's ready to battle Deskari.

I'm willing to wager in terms of single class power, the Feyform is the strongest. Nothing else comes close. At any level. Provide me with something different and we'll see.

[Teddy]

Demonslayer is pretty decent, you get a pet and your main enemy are demons (which there is plenty of in this game lol)

[Brother Santodes]

Originally posted by Razer:

Originally posted by Bystander36:

You are arguing early vs late game power. Shifters, which get all their attacks early, are very powerful early, but late game, their low crit range and damage per hit compared to 2h attackers, they don't remain the leaders when the game gets tougher.

Then you get mounted classes, which can do good damage, and have some decent defense, but late game, the mounts do not remain kings in defense, as you cannot put mirror image on them, or other self only cast buffs that up your defenses.

For offense, having 10-12 levels of Primalist adds another aspect of offense not discussed too, pounce without having a skald on board, with mirror image, 2h weapons, mage armor and what not.

You can also go with 11 levels of Sohei and get 7 attacks just like the Feyform, and get the 2h weapon damage, fauchard crit range and ki ability to add 1 more attack, that Feyform lacks, still get added attacks from other means too. And pick up spirited Charge for a massive charge attack.

I'm not sure what is best, but there are a lot of options out there.

I was responding to someone who commented on the strongest early game.

Besides I'm currently running a Trickster Feyform shifter and at level 14 it's still performing a lot better than all the 2H DPS characters I've played and it's not going to slow down. Like I mentioned before a 15-20 crit range isn't going to make an ounce of difference vs a 17-20 crit range if you oneshot everything. And yes, I'm dealing 150 damage per strike at this point in the game. Which is only going to get higher. At level 20 I will have 20d6 sneak attack plus all the STR boost. Sure it's not going to be multiplied by 1.5, but there's so much other source of damage that I don't need it to do the same damage as some of the other classes. Plus it does get a crit boost. Unlike a fighter Feyform gets x3 crit multi at level 17. So you actually get to use it and not when there's like 2 enemies left to fight. So I'm currently looking at a level 17 crit stat of 17-20 with a x6 multiplier. Got enough attacks to kill multiple enemies in a single round.

Sure you can make something better if you min max and combine all busted things in the game in terms of classes and archetypes and such. But a single pure class on it's own. This thing is the best I've seen so far. Plus you get lots of nice things added on top, like extra AC, DR, SR, evasion, blur effect, freedom of movement, ignore diffucult terrain. All undispellable effects innate to the feyform. Your mutation warrior gets out of bed, he's just a high level npc with nothing to show for it. Feyform gets out of bed he's ready to battle Deskari.

I'm willing to wager in terms of single class power, the Feyform is the strongest. Nothing else comes close. At any level. Provide me with something different and we'll see.

this is trickster...
with that logic you can go take titan fighter or 2H fighter and just use a x4 weapon get it easily to x7 and roll 20s only...
you can do the math yourself.
1.5 str... is nothing. it is 2.0 with a massively improved power attack the base damage is at such a different level the sneak damage doesn't matter.
x3 crit at 17... ever heard of Grave Singer?

shifter change the ultra low crit multi to x3 from 2x it does not x3 the stat it just adds plus 1 just like the fighter at 20 but worse. you will be x2 crit multiply behind... wow... yes you can actually use that or you stat at 17-20 with x3 crit... or 11-20...

this is just sneak damage which is a trap because it doesn't scale. sneak damage is just a trashmob destroyer.

trickster 2H fighter does easily 700 damage per hit and there is so much more you can do....
don't look at a mutation fighter it just a small upgrade over a normal fighter.