Good 2H Strength build?

[Tim]

How do I make a good 2H Strength build using Fane? The game is fairly easy, but I feel like Fane is lagging behind my other team members all the time, and is generally mostly useful just to keep stuff CC'd with Knockdowns or Atrophy from Tentacle Lash. I've so far only put points in Warfare/Polymorph, with a little dabbling in Necromancer/Scoundrel for Living Armour (and Shackles of Pain plus Living on the Edge, and Adrenaline) and mostly put points in Strength, and enough in Wits so his initiative and crit chance helps (unless I should disregard the latter entirely in favor of Enrage, but it only works 2 turns and still cost me 2AP?).

He does have a few in Constitution, but this seems warranted since being up close and personal means he tends to take more hits. I find that mages just get way more out of their AP with Elemental Affinity, whereas my archer just outperforms him due to not needing to walk as much + ranged/height just being crazy easy to abuse.

[Godwoken Dovahkiin]

All you need is Bull Rush early, Warriors are the only class without mobility skills until Act 2 while everyone else gets theirs at lvl 4. That's all you need really.

Useful talents:
Opportunist
Executioner
Hothead

Situational talents:
Picture of Health (Debatable but I always get it)
Five Star Dinner
Comeback Kid
Living Armor

I just put everything into STR, memory/wits when needed.

Max out Warfare asap
1 Poly - Bull Rush, Tentacle Lash
1 Scoundrel - Adrenaline

Later on Two Handed and some necro for lifesteal.

Dont forget to buff the warrior with Haste and peace of mind. Early basically what you wanna do is Bull Rush > Enrage, usually you'll do an attack of opportunity > hit enemy twice > next turn hit 3 times thanks to haste and the extra AP from last turn. Don't forget Enrage + Whirlwind, teleport enemies to your warrior.

I'm not a fan of necro focused warriors so someone else might bring some insight. (Unless it's my fav combo, Decay > Blood Rain > Bloodsucker). You might want a geomancer to heal your fane though, don't know how effective this is, not a fan of undead.

[Tim]

Yeah I've got all those talents + PoH and Living Armor. I remember dropping Bull Rush early on in favor of Phoenix Dive, which I've since kinda dropped in favor of Tactical Retreat (the auto-haste is just too useful tbh). I find PoM insanely useful and it's often used on my more effective team members, I guess I could use 1 Pyro on Fane for Haste/PoM instead of wasting one point on Huntsman for TR?

Otherwise the only difference seems to be more points thrown into Str, as I've got a few Mem for some stuff I tend to find more situationally useful (Medusa Head to completely lock down MA-depleted enemies for a while, Terrain Transmutation to get rid of nasty terrain / set up Elemental Affinity, Spread Your Wings if I end up needing to get places in vertical areas, Chicken Claw because CC).

Feels like part of the problem is a lack of strong attack skills as well. Battering Ram, Battle Stomp, Bull Rush, are useless damage wise for the most part. Blitz Attack hits two at least so that's nice, Crippling Blow okay-ish, but better if you can get two enemies at once. Only Whirlwind really stands out, otherwise it's like I'm better off relying on normal attacks with the Cleave bonus?

[Godwoken Dovahkiin]

Originally posted by Tim:

Yeah I've got all those talents + PoH and Living Armor. I remember dropping Bull Rush early on in favor of Phoenix Dive, which I've since kinda dropped in favor of Tactical Retreat (the auto-haste is just too useful tbh). I find PoM insanely useful and it's often used on my more effective team members, I guess I could use 1 Pyro on Fane for Haste/PoM instead of wasting one point on Huntsman for TR?

It's better if someone else hastes you tbh, you'll have 10 AP in total between 2 turns rather than 8.

[gregfromthepeg]

Damage, damage, damage. All STR as Godwoken says. You have a lot of defensive things - points in CON, PoH, Necro points. Ditch some of those for more damage focus. I use Necro generally, but Picture of Health is alright, especially after warfare is maxed out.


Don't use wits until later in the game when you can have better crit overall. You should be able to find gear with initiative to help turn order. Pour it all into STR except the odd bit of memory. Use enrage when it will help kill someone as you get the 2AP back from executioner. Ditch your CON points for STR, vitality isn't that important.

Tactical retreat requires 2 huntsman; if that is what you have, it isn't worth it. Use phoenix dive and use the points for either the pyro support as you mention, or something to boost damage. 2H is good later on when your crit gets high (after warfare is maxed). Scoundrel only needs one for adrenaline; 2H otherwise as it increases damage AND crit damage.

For a Fane warrior, get a point or two in Geo. The spells can cripple or knockdown a ton of enemies after physical is stripped (whirlwind, battlestomp to strip phys armour then impalement and earthquake to cc them). He is undead so poison spells can heal him. Cripplling an entire group around you so your ranger can pick them off and you can keep killing them is pretty useful. Or else make sure a geo mage has their turn right after Fane's so they can put their cc spells on the enemies he has just stripped phys armour from.

I would have your archer go first, and get some enemies stripped of physical armour and then have Fane go in and knockdown or use geo to cripple/knockdown then just use weapon attacks for 2 turns. He should be killing someone almost every turn to get extra AP that way.

[Chaoslink]

Just keep in mind that a melee build isn't going to be able to keep up in the late game. The Pawn would be an excellent talent for free movement, but as you're seeing already, ranged characters are stronger. The game does little to motivate using melee and any effort you invest from other characters to boost him will ultimately be better spent on your other characters.

[BigRockWall]

You could....... make him glass cannon with 10 leadership 10 preserverence and a shield........

But in all seriousness. Lot of good advice here. One point I'd like to add.

Enrage starts becoming wasteful as soon as u get a 20% crit chance weapon. By end of act 2 our current game fane 2h build has 48% crit chance, and thats in a 4 man group not lone wolf. Rather take another swing than waste the 2 ap on enrage at that point

[Tim]

Thanks for the help guys. I figure that what Chaoslink said is the case, where melee simply tends to fall off. Mages really get all the fun stuff. I'll make it work regardless and squeeze a little more Str out of him by crunching down on Con and Mem.

[Chaoslink]

CON is generally only worth investing to meet shield equip requirements. Health isn't an important stat most of the time since it only takes a hit when your relevant armor is missing and you're far better worrying about armor than health. Its actually unimportant enough that the couple of opportunities you can use to trade stats I often dump CON for anything else. I usually have a character by the end of the game with just 3 CON, 7 less than the default you start with. If you use the proper tools to protect yourself, you can prevent yourself from taking damage to begin with. Mix that with other effects and health becomes pretty meaningless unless you screw up.

As for the whole melee thing, they're pretty good early on when your mages don't have many spells. If I run a party with two physical and two magical damage focuses, physical tends to be my focus early on as their damage can be pretty brutal. Later on though, mages always end up taking over and whatever melee I have tend to fall into supporting roles rather than main damage. They intercept enemies getting too close and learn spells that can help the team, sacrificing their own damage potential to augment the team's instead. A good example might be learning rain and electric discharge so your warrior can set up the elemental affinities for two Aeromages. This might cost you some AP, but the mages will get more back from that than it cost and it enables your mages to burst damage hard enough to land early CC in fights.

That doesn't mean warriors can't have a place later game, its just that they're more difficult to get the most out of without inhibiting your team. I tend to prefer having as few melee as possible to avoid having to worry about friendly fire. Too many co-op games I've had to deal with my mage not being able to maximize their damage with perfectly placed spells because apparently it was more important for the warrior to be right in the middle of everything for a perfect whirlwind. Sure, that was a nice whirlwind, but I have 3 spells I could use in that same place to deal at the very least 4x the damage the whirlwind just did... Point is, melee tend to get in the way more than they help in those situations and since they're already having to fight for every bit of efficiency they can get as is to compete, its better to just resign them to a support role, learning spells or effects that might not augment their own capabilities, but have a greater effect on the team as a whole.