The Fighter Background

[Davion Fuxa]

How did this go from "Fi is worse than Gl" to people forgetting Gl exists

In 24 hours no less!

Anyhow, it isn't so much that Gladiators don't exist, but rather that Gladiators are well enough balanced that they really don't need fixing or changing and such action should be reserved for the classes that do need fixing in changing - I think.

[KoboldLord]

Balance really doesn't enter into it all that much. If the gladiator was retroactively nonexistent, the fighter's game design heuristic-related problems would be less. It would still be a boring background with no particularly useful starting equipment and no starting abilities of any kind, but at least it wouldn't be 90% the same as another background, with the remaining 10% involving being an inferior knock-off. The fact that it's not actually significantly harder than other backgrounds is yet another strike against it, because if they were sufficiently terrible they could slot in next to the chaos knight as a challenge background. Fighters fail at that, too.

[Sjohara]

I've been playing a bunch more fighters. I never really wound up in an endless parade of awfulness like I did in my first attempt, so maybe that game was a fluke. Some of them wound up cornered with no consumables and died. Some of them were doing okay but died due to negligence on my part. Some did really well. One even got the Gossamer Rune before dying in a crossbow-related accident in the Vaults while healing up before going to finish off the last remnant of the V8 welcoming committee (cold-branded bolts hurt bad when you're in fire dragon armor, even if it's just from a lowly orc). I doubt I've had more than 6-8 characters get runes across my career, including my two wins.

The ones who excelled were categorically ones who found a great mace. Wow, I never knew how amazing two-handed weapons were before I did this. Back when I tried in vain to get MDFis off the ground I would actually ignore two-handers so I could keep using my shield. But a warrior with a great mace is a killing machine. It two- or three-shots practically everything. Between that and your god, you can coast through the Lair easy. The first one to go crazy like this actually started with the falcion. I threw away my weapon, my shield, and probably over 75% of my experience--absolutely everything my background gave me--and immediately went from a harmless kitten to an unstoppable death-dealer. The Fighter's whole deal is the shield, but the absolute best-case scenario for a Fighter is being afforded the opportunity to throw it out.

That got me to thinking...and then I started running Wanderers. I'd ignore everything I started with and set whatever combination of Fighting, Maces & Flails, and Armor I could as my only active skills. Now, Wanderers have a definite tendency to splat on D1 and D2 to any old random thing. Any who made it past that, though? I found them utterly indistinguishable from my Fighters in their capabilities. You're guaranteed to find an equal or better weapon and body armor than what Fighters just lying on the ground almost immediately, so after that, the only difference is your stats, a couple of skill points, and the lack of the shield. And it seems like the shield wasn't doing crap for me, because anything that threatened or killed one of these Wanderers would have been equally dangerous for a Fighter, and anything that a Fighter could handle the Wanderer could too. The sole exception was Adders and, to a lesser extent, Giant Ants--the Wanderers were somewhat more likely to get hit with lethal doses of poison. This is the only context in which the shield confers a noticeable benefit. The overall course of the game is the same: you're basically helpless without good consumables, but if you survive long enough to get a two-hander or a plussed-up artifact, you're fine from then on.

So while it's true that Fighters aren't has hard to play as I initially thought, I'm now more convinced than ever that they're a junk background. The shield is barely better than worthless. It sounds really good on paper. You totally negate a non-trivial number of hits against you. Great! Except it's irrelevant. Say I run into an ogre on D4. With my base weapon and no shield, I have a (for the sake of argument) 30% chance of evading enough attacks to kill it in melee if I were to attempt it. Add the shield and maybe my odds go up to 60%. But who cares? The correct response to either scenario is to run or use a consumable that guarantees victory. Ditto for orc warriors and the nastier gnoll packs and uniques and basically everything else which is even marginally dangerous.

Fighters have two categories of enemies: those they can kill with 100% certainty, and those that they can't. If they want to live, they can never even ATTEMPT to engage anything in the latter category without a powerful item handy. The shield is not enough to move anything from the latter category into the former; only reliable offense from a good weapon can do that. So what you're left with is a character called the Fighter who is too weak to fight anything of note with their starting equipment, and nothing they have makes them more likely to survive long enough to get the equipment they need than any other background in the game. I have no doubt whatsoever that a Gladiator who turns off Dodging on turn 1 and puts on the first metal armor they find will outperform a Fighter in all circumstances, because their nets give them three guaranteed wins that the Fighter couldn't have taken, and they lose effectively nothing in return (same weapons, same opportunities to make use of heavy armor). I haven't tried it yet, but I assume Monks and Artificers who learn only Fighter skills and seek out Fighter equipment will outperform actual Fighters as well, as long as they don't die to poison on D2. I can't see how they couldn't.

[graffen69]

As someone coming from a non-RL gaming background I always wondered why Fighters are so subpar in DCSS. Interestingly enough Assassins (as well as AK and prolly a few others) start with a +2/+2 weapon, but the pure atheist Tank (actually both Fi and Gl) get none of that. But hey, I left Fi long ago to play Be and finally in trunk they too can choose starting weapon (but for some reason KoBe´s cant start with LBs).

[TehDruid]

for some reason KoBe´s cant start with LBs

No species can start out with LB on a Berserker. It's a fighter/gladiator privilege only atm.

[Sjohara]

for some reason KoBe´s cant start with LBs

No species can start out with LB on a Berserker. It's a fighter/gladiator privilege only atm.

Is there really even a good reason to take the falchion, though? The more I play, the more I feel like the mace is the most sensible option (assuming equal racial proficiency in all the options, of course, ). Yeah, the falchion and the trident are nominally better (by one point of delay and damage respectively...although I think you lose that point of damage on the trident with a shield anyway), but after the first three or so floors (which are usually a cakewalk with any weapon if you have any AC at all), you'll be desperate for an upgrade regardless of what you chose. Maces and flails seem to be the most common weapon type by far in the early dungeon, so statistically speaking, your second weapon will most likely be a flail or a morningstar, and then you're looking for spiked flails and great maces. There's always some chance of finding a longsword or great sword instead, but it's considerably less likely, so why not bank on the winning team from the start? Choosing the falchion because you want to use a demon blade or triple sword in the endgame is shortsighted at best; it's easier to switch weapons in the midgame than it is to survive the early game without being willing to adapt to what you find.

[some12fat2move]

for some reason KoBe´s cant start with LBs

No species can start out with LB on a Berserker. It's a fighter/gladiator privilege only atm.

Is there really even a good reason to take the falchion, though? The more I play, the more I feel like the mace is the most sensible option (assuming equal racial proficiency in all the options, of course, ). Yeah, the falchion and the trident are nominally better (by one point of delay and damage respectively...although I think you lose that point of damage on the trident with a shield anyway), but after the first three or so floors (which are usually a cakewalk with any weapon if you have any AC at all), you'll be desperate for an upgrade regardless of what you chose. Maces and flails seem to be the most common weapon type by far in the early dungeon, so statistically speaking, your second weapon will most likely be a flail or a morningstar, and then you're looking for spiked flails and great maces. There's always some chance of finding a longsword or great sword instead, but it's considerably less likely, so why not bank on the winning team from the start? Choosing the falchion because you want to use a demon blade or triple sword in the endgame is shortsighted at best; it's easier to switch weapons in the midgame than it is to survive the early game without being willing to adapt to what you find.

Eh, halberds and glaives are pretty common early on. I'd say trident is the best weapon pick for most fighters.

[cerebovssquire]

Considering that tridents are better than flails and morningstars their availability isn't much of an upside, either. Really the best thing about maces is Pikel's whip and great maces being very good and very common. Demon whips are very good but so rare that they shouldn't factor in the decisino.

[inkydood]

Okay, so that admittedly worked out to be a pretty fun run, in a crazy intensity sort of way. [...] I had to use finite resources to accomplish pretty much anything at every stage of the game.

Those are always the most fun games, for me anyway.

[graffen69]

Is there really even a good reason to take the falchion, though?

I suspect SBs cross-training with LBs is part of the reason players like me would go LBs on a KoBe. Come to think about it, in that context it makes sense and actually works for the build, since LB´s isn´t very attractive for a KoBe if it was available from start.

[Sjohara]

Considering that tridents are better than flails and morningstars their availability isn't much of an upside, either. Really the best thing about maces is Pikel's whip and great maces being very good and very common. Demon whips are very good but so rare that they shouldn't factor in the decisino.

The common nature of flails and morning stars mean that you're a lot more likely to find one with decent pluses, though. I'd call a +2 damage flail an upgrade over a trident. Get similar pluses on a morningstar or especially a spiked flail and it just gets more significant. I haven't spent much time using halberds, though, so I'm not sure if they tend to be good enough to compete or not.

[cerebovssquire]

Considering that tridents are better than flails and morningstars their availability isn't much of an upside, either. Really the best thing about maces is Pikel's whip and great maces being very good and very common. Demon whips are very good but so rare that they shouldn't factor in the decisino.

The common nature of flails and morning stars mean that you're a lot more likely to find one with decent pluses, though. I'd call a +2 damage flail an upgrade over a trident. Get similar pluses on a morningstar or especially a spiked flail and it just gets more significant. I haven't spent much time using halberds, though, so I'm not sure if they tend to be good enough to compete or not.

Flails have 9 damage, morningstars 10, halberds have 13 damage and reaching, being equally common (gnoll packs) so yeah, polearms are definitely better. Also, orcs wield tridents as well, and you often find an orc trident with ok plusses. +0 trident is probably comparable to +2 flail in strength, +2 trident is considerably better.

[Sjohara]

I still feel like I see many times more maces than polearms even though halberds show up fairly consistently, but maybe I'll give the trident a shot next time. I'd still dump a halberd for a great mace hands down, but I've given up on assuming I'll be able to stick to one weapon class anyway (sometimes I switch two or three times).

Though it might be a moot point, because I'm actually kind of digging these Artificers I've been experimenting with. Those 45 wand charges give you so much more potential in the early stages. Gnoll packs become free equipment upgrades rather than unassailable threats. Even the Wand of Random Effects is surprisingly nice to have. It's worthless in an emergency anyway, so you're encouraged to use it aggressively. See an ogre at the edge of LoS on D2? Zap it! If you get crappy effects you can still probably run (unless you get REALLY unlucky and get Haste). But if you roll well, you might one-shot it and get a free level-up. You can even be more aggressive against middling enemies in melee, because if your health drops to half and you get nervous, you just switch to your Wand of Flame or Wand of Enslavement and survive anyway. Also, enslaving an orc priest and then kiting a player ghost around until it gets smited to death is fun. I feel like I've been hitting the Lair more consistently than before.

I'm not sure if they're necessarily better than Gladiators (nets are probably more reliable than the wands in an emergency, but you also get fewer of them), but I'd definitely recommend them to anyone who plays Fighters. Guaranteed emergency supplies is exactly what a melee background needs, and it's exactly what the Artificer gives you. It's not the greatest stuff ever, but it's enough to make a significant impact.

[cerebovssquire]

A strategy tip for Ar: that ogre isn't faster than you, so if you can walk to a staircase you can start zapping it safely with /random effects. And yes, Ar is always better than Fi.

Great maces are much better than halberds. They are worse than bardiches (rare but extremely good, and not as rare as other top-tier weapons), and better than glaives (very common) but not by a huge margin.

[Sjohara]

Doesn't a bardiche have the same damage but considerably worse delay? I'm not sure if reaching is worth the slower swing speed. I think 170 rounds down to .9 rather than .8 at min delay, so it might not be a huge difference in the long run, but it takes a fair bit longer to get your weapon skill high enough to make the bardiche not dangerously slow (doesn't it take 26 skill, same as an Executioner's Axe?). The two-handed polearms in general have subpar delay for their damage, so I tend to not build towards them unless I'm playing Merfolk or happen to find an awesome artifact.

[cerebovssquire]

Doesn't a bardiche have the same damage but considerably worse delay? I'm not sure if reaching is worth the slower swing speed. I think 170 rounds down to .9 rather than .8 at min delay, so it might not be a huge difference in the long run, but it takes a fair bit longer to get your weapon skill high enough to make the bardiche not dangerously slow (doesn't it take 26 skill, same as an Executioner's Axe?). The two-handed polearms in general have subpar delay for their damage, so I tend to not build towards them unless I'm playing Merfolk or happen to find an awesome artifact.

It does take 26 skill, but I'm not sure if you understand the min delay formula correctly. The weapons all have a min delay of 0.7, unless half of their base delay is smaller than that (exception of sabre applies).

base delay 3 = min delay 0.7, though this would require more than 27 skill levels so it isn't actually possible, but it isn't limited by the formula directly
base delay 2 = min delay 0.7
" " 1.5 = min delay 0.7
" " 1.4 = min delay 0.7
" " 1 = min delay 0.5
"" 0.2 = min delay 0.1

First and last examples are purely hypothetical.

2 skill levels = minus 0.1 delay. So base delay 2 means you need to subtract 1.3 to get to 0.7, and 1.3*2=2.6=26 skill.
And reaching means a lot. You get an extra hit in with a weapon that will reliably 2-3-shot most enemies.
A bardiche has higher investment and higher return. I'm not saying that great maces are bad, especially for lower-apt races they are very good.

edit: don't describe great maces as "great" for obvious reasons