Fighters are THE most difficult class to full grasp. So many skills......so intricate and diverse in their abilities. Making the decision on where to put your Attributes points on level up can induce much hair pulling and kicking of the dog. Do you pump Strength, Strength, or Strength? When it comes to Skills, is it Sword, Sword, or Sword? And during combat, do you choose regular attacks or go Berzerk? These are tough decisions, but fret not weary souls, i'm here to help!

Playing around of course (if you didn't catch it by the first sentence.....GO AWAY! ). Just thought I'd do a very quick write up on this *YAWN* boring class.

The Fighter
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Ah, the Fighter. Through out the history of RPGs, Fighters have been a staple character Class. These are the grunts, the shock troops, the muscle behind your party. Able to dish out huge amounts of damage in a relatively short span of time, and able to take just about as much as they can dish out and still be left standing tall. Typically, they're able to use a good 99% of the weapons and armor found in an RPG. Wizardry 8 is no exception.

However, all this power comes with a price. Fighters tend to be THE most boring character class in RPGs. Why? They don't do anything except hit fast, and hit hard. That's not to say they don't have their moments, though. Watching as they slam some poor monster for upwards of 100+ damage PER HIT is indeed a sight to behold. However, the shock value tends to wear off after a while.

Fighters are the type of class that start off good, peak relatively early, and don't really have much to look forward to other than, you guessed it, more damage dealing.

Fighters have the ability to Berzerk--score double the normal damage with ANY weapon they can use, save Bows, Crossbows, Slings, and Modern Weapons. The downside? Well, the manual and in-game info states that it makes them more succeptable to attacks from the enemy. I myself haven't really noticed a difference. What I HAVE noticed, however, is that much like in Wizardry 7, you miss much more often and don't penetrate as much when Berzerking. For those of you who haven't played Wizardry 7 (shame on you!! ), Berzerking was refered to as Meleeing (certain weapons had this ability and wasn't relegated to just Fighters).

And if Berzerking wasn't enough, Fighters also have the ability to Knock Out (K.O.) opponents. This leaves the enemy totally helpless. Just a sitting duck. Plus, while K.O.ed, the enemy recieved double damage from your attacks. However, a Fighter attacking a K.O.ed opponent WILL NOT deal 4 times the damage. Instead, he/she will deal an extra "stack" of damage. In other words, you'll deal 3 times the damage. Still not too damn shabby.

And yet another ability of a Fighter is Stamina Regeneration. This is helpful in that you can recoupe more Stamina after a round is over than normal. Why is this important? Because Fighters tend to lose more Stamina during combat than most other classes due to Berzerking. Swinging a huge sword for double damage does have to have it's downsides now, doesn't it?

Let's break down how to build an effective Fighter. And if you seriously can't seem to get your Fighter up to par, you need to stop playing Wizardry 8 altogether.

First off, we'll look at which Races make the most effective Fighters. There are a few.

--Lizardman. The KING of Fighters. Immense base Strength and Vitality, and decent Dexterity and Speed--the 4 stats that make a great fighter. Downsides? Low Senses and penalties to Mental and Divine spells.

--Dracon. My favorite Race for Fighters. Great base Strength, Vitality, Dexterity, and Speed. Why are they my favorite? Acid Breath, baby! The higher your level, the more damage you can deal to a Cone-shaped area. This saps huge amounts of Vitality, though. Shouldn't be a problem because you SHOULD be pumping Vitality during level-ups. Downsides? Low Senses and a slight penalty to Mental and Divine spells.

--Dwarf. Another Fighter favorite, and one that has traditionaly been the choice for players over the history of RPGs. What sets them apart from the other races in Wizardry 8? Innate Damage Resistance. Great base stats for Strength, Vitality, Speed, and Dexterity.

So there are the 3 best choices for a Fighter--Lizardman (or Lizardwoman if you prefer ), Dracon, and Dwarf. Let's now break down which Attributes are best for a Fighter and why.

--Strength. Obvious. The higher it is, the more damage you can deal. Hit 100 Strength and you not only unlock Power Strike, but you'll notice you'll be dealing double damage every hit. Power Strike is great in that you can hit and penetrate more often, and do "more" damage. Not MORE damage, per sey. More like...you have an increased chance of scoring in the higher numbers of damage on your damage scale. For example--say your damage range is 10-30. The higher your Powerstrike skill, the more often you'll deal 30 damage, as opposed to say...10 damage. At least that's how it worked in Wizardry 7. Not sure for a fact that it works like this in Wizardry 8, though. I do know for a fact that Powerstrike increases your chance to hit and penetrate, though. Some comfirmation on the damage aspect would be much appreciated.

Also, the higher your Strength, the more weight you can carry. This is important to a Fighter because of all the very heavy weapons and armor they use. Don't want to be encumbered now, do we?

--Vitality. Obvious as well. The higher this is, the more Hit Points you have and recieve during level- ups. Also, the higher this Attribute is, the more weight you can carry, and the more Stamina you have. Stamina is important because all those big swings your Fighter does during battle in Berzerk mode tend to wear the poor guy/gal out. Even thought it's about as exciting as the Fighter him/ herself, there's nothing like having your main damage dealer taking a nap during combat now, is there?
Also, once this Attribute hits 100, you unlock the awesome Iron Skin Personal Skill. As Iron Skin gets better and better, you recieve more and more bonuses to Damage Prevention. As if all that heavy armor wasn't enough already. Sheesh. ;)

--Dexterity. Dexterity is important to to a Fighter for one reason only--it helps increase his/her chance to acctually land one of those 100+ damage hits. What good is all that power if you can't acctually land a hit? Also, while in Berzerk mode, your hits tend to miss much more often. So you see why high Dexterity is imporant. As an aside, once you hit 100 Dexterity, you can unlock the Reflextion Personal Skill. As this skill gets better and better, you recieve Armor Class bonuses. And Lord knows you need Armor Class bonuses with a Fighter. He/she can only use THE BEST armors in the game. (that's sarcasm if you did't catch it, folks ;)). Also, the higher this Attribute is, the more attacks you recieve.

--Speed. Speed is important to a Fighter for Initiative. Now, why pump Speed and not Senses, when Senses gives bonuses to Initiative AND melee combat? One reason---Snakespeed. Once you hit 100 in Speed, you unlock the Personal Skill Snakespeed. You can garner much more Initiative bonuses with 100 in Speed coupled with a high Snakespeed Skill than you can with just 100 in Senses. You want your Fighter to not only hit hard, to not only hit often, but to hit FAST. Having your Fighter attack early on in combat is crucial. That way they can take out an enemy (or two) right off the bat, or at least hella soften them up for the rest of the party to finish them off. Also, much like Dexterity, you recieve extra attacks per round as your Speed Attribute gets higher and higher.

That was easy, no? But which Attributes do you raise first? My suggestion is to pump 3 points each into Strength and Vitality at first. That way you can unlock Powerstrike and Iron Skin early on. You shouldn't need too many level-ups before maxing out Strength and Vitality. After you max those out, concentrate on Speed and Dexterity. If you manage to max those 2 out before finishing the game (I did, so you should be able to as well), concentrate on Senses and Wisdom. Why Wisdom? Well, the higher Wisdom is, the more Stamina you get. Plus you don't really have a choice, with the only other Attribute being Intelligence (like a Fighter needs that! ).

As for Skills, you can't really go wrong here. You'll find plenty of weapons in Wizardry 7 in each and every category. The beauty part is that a Fighter can use almost every single one of them (and Berzerk with them, too, remember?).

Your best choices to pump Skill points into, however, are Sword, Axe, Shield, Dual Weapons, and Close Combat.

If you know off bat that your Fighter is going to exclusively use a certain type of weapon, you're best off NOT puting any points at all into Close Combat at first. Close Combat is like a "generic" skill that gives you proficiency in all melee and extended weapons. However, you'll garner much more combat bonuses if you stick to one specific weapon and pump points into that instead. You can pump points into Close Combat once you max out your weapon Skill of choice.

Shield is good because the higher this is, the more often you'll block incoming attacks with your Shield, and the more Armor Class bonuses you recieve ON TOP OF the bonus your Shield already provides.

Dual Weapons is important if you want to wield 2 weapons at once effectively. The beauty of this is that you can Berzerk with BOTH weapons, effectively quadrupling the amount of damage you can dish out. The higher Dual Weapons is, the less combat penalties (reduced chance to hit and penetrate and reduced number of attacks), you recieve when weilding 2 weapons. Even if you decide to pump Shield, you should still allocate points in Dual Weapons. Why? Well, once you come across Diamond Eyes (No, not Diamond EPEE), you'll understand. ;)

The most powerful weapons you can find in Wizardry 8 tend to fall under the Sword category, so obviously you'll want to concentrate heavily on this skill. There are some decent Axes as well, but not nearly as many of them as their are Swords.

So there you have it. I reccomend that during level-ups you pump 3 points each into Shield, Dual Wield, and Sword. Once those are maxed out, start pumping up your Personal Skills and Close Combat. That should keep you preoccupied throught the entire game. If you manage to max out all the above Skills before the end of the game, start concentrating on Close Combat, Axes, and Bows or Polearms.

And that about covers how to build up an effective Fighter. Told you it was easy. ;) But before I go, I just want to say NOT to take my snide comments seriously. I dig Fighters. Really I do. I try to include one in every party I create if I have the room. They are a fast, strong, sturdy, and reliable character class to have around. They fill the role of dealing and taking HUGE amounts of damage. Not only that, but having one around almost ensures that you'll be able to use almost every new weapon and piece of armor you come across. Plus they level up VERY quickly to boot.

But again, they are indeed pretty boring classes to play. They don't do anything except deal huge amounts of damage. No spells, no Critical Kills, no special resistances, no making neat little potions during Camp......just damage, damage, damage, and more damage.....
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That didn't take very long. About 20 minutes of my time. Hope this helps some of you RPG newbies out there. Again, just disregard my snide comments on the Fighter. Don't let them deter you from picking this great class. Just having a little fun at the Fighter's expense. I mean, you have to. They're sooooooooo boooooooring! ;)

IlleglWpns

Speed is also better than senses because it increases the number of attacks and # of swings.

MORE DAMAGE!

greenkiwi

How adversely does bezerking effect the chances that you are going to miss? i.e. does it cause you to hit only 50% of the time? or is it more like only a 25% reduction?

If it's closer to a 50% reduction, then there is very little point in bezerking, as you hit half as many times for twice the damage. Oh wait... that doesn't change your total damage output.

JonnyLuv

So I still don't get it. Which attribute is best to focus upon? I think strength makes sense, but wouldn't intelligence make your fighter tell better stories while resting, which could heal your party more quickly? Plus, he would do better on his SAT's, allowing him to get into the finest east coast schools.

Altus, another wonderful post. One thing I did is use my fighter for some of the "generic" skills, too. I pumped up his mythology so that he could identify my enemies' weaknessess quickly. Since he has 9 skill points per level, and I really only needed to pump his axe and close combat, I used a few points each level to give this skill a boost.

Now he has powerstrike, which takes up three points per level, so I've stopped with Mythology. Plus, it goes up every now and then as he uses it.

This let me use all nine points per level on more important skill, like spell schools, for my more complex characters.

Peace out, homeys.

Muffley

Atlus, another great post. I find that for my style of play though, I disagree with you on one point. VIT...I haven't put a single point into Vitality, and my fighters are doing fine. Hit points ramp up pretty fast without spending points on it. Initial points went into STR, DEX and SPD, ALL subsequent points into STR and DEX. DEX gives you the beautiful ability to have multiple attacks per round (as opposed to speed's multiple swings per attack). I use my priest as a healer, not a fighter, so she's able to keep the boys healthy while they bash away.

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