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The Fighter has always been the staple adventuring class in Dungeons

& Dragons, the big dumb lug with the sword and heavy armor who gets

right up in the enemy's face and hits it until one of them dies. Back in

the weird old days of tabletop D&D, when classes had racial

restrictions, there was no species that was ineligible to be a Fighter.

The basic Fighter can take many forms, but in Neverwinter's

first public beta weekend, the Guardian Fighter class is

your straight-up sword-and-board melee tank. He is capable of dishing out

the hurt, but even more capable of taking it and being the last man

standing.

In addition to our hands-on experience with the class during the beta

weekend, we have a world-exclusive video montage of the Guardian Fighter

in action:



[video]http://video.tentonhammer.com/neverwinter/nw_guardian_fighter_montage.mp4[/video]

At first glance, there doesn't seem to be a lot of subtlety to a class

like the Guardian Fighter - he hurls himself at the enemy and batters them

to bits with heavy metal implements and ground-shaking fury. But that's

just the surface. Anybody can be a Guardian Fighter, but only the clever

and informed ones will be any good at it.

Guardian Fighter Class Overview

As a Guardian Fighter, you are the wall that stands between the enemy and

your allies. There are different paths the Guardian Fighter can take, but

even the more damage-dealing specs still rely fairly heavily on stout

defenses. Guardian Fighters wear the heaviest armor and carry big shields,

which they use both defensively and offensively. Ideally, this class has a

very large pool of Hit Points, and the means to keep those precious Hit

Points safe.

Blocking & Defense

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As a primary melee tank class, the Guardian Fighter believes that the

best offense is a good defense. The Guard skill is

mapped to the Shift key, allowing the character to move around and block

most incoming damage with his raised shield. Movement while blocking is

slower than usual, but the trade-off is that actively blocking enemy

attacks is very effective. It doesn't just mitigate a percentage of damage,

and it doesn't require a roll. If you are Guarding, you automatically

block incoming blows, and when you block a blow, you take zero damage.

There are some kinds of attacks that simply can't be blocked - lingering

damage-over-time effects from poison, for example, or ground-based area

attacks like fire. But nearly everything else can be blocked - directed

magic, ranged attacks, special melee attacks and even certain effects like

knockbacks and stuns simply bounce harmlessly off the raised shield.

Blocking requires Stamina, and Stamina is sapped by

each successful block. The Stamina meter is the blue crescents to the left

of the character - as each blow is blocked, the crescents empty out until

they turn red. Small, regular attacks drain a tiny bit of Stamina, and

powerful boss attacks drain huge amounts. If the meter does turn red, the

character is unable to block until the Stamina bar is completely refilled

- that is, the character cannot block again until his Stamina meter has

gone all the way from 0 to 100%. This is clearly less than ideal for a

defense-based class, so the Guardian Fighter will need to strike a balance

between constant, impenetrable defense and keeping his Stamina bar from

totally depleting.

Refilling Stamina requires using the shield to attack, using the

right-mouse-button shield attack or Encounter or Daily skills. It's

possible to keep your guard up and keep attacking at later levels when the

Guardian Fighter gets Shield Swipe, the right-button

attack that replaces the starting shield attack (Tide of Iron)

when actively defending. Each strike of Shield Swipe increases Stamina by

a tiny bit, and this can theoretically be used indefinitely against strong

mobs (provided they don't sap large amounts of Stamina with powerful

special attacks, which, of course, most of them do).

Of course, blocking isn't the only option for damage mitigation. Nearly

every enemy attack is announced beforehand - an animation buildup, a red

area effect ground indicator or even twinkling lights. The ones that

aren't announced in this manner are usually predictable anyway after a bit

of observation - standard mobs will run through a simple attack rotation,

with a strike coming at even time intervals. If your Stamina is low and

blocking isn't an option, these blows can be avoided by fancy footwork,

side-stepping and getting around the enemy's flanks. This is especially

effective against large enemies like ogres, which have slow but powerful

attacks.

Generating Threat

Threat generation is the bread and butter of the melee tank. Every attack

the Guardian Fighter makes generates some threat, but some generate more

than others. In particular, area-effect Encounter and Daily attacks

generate very large amounts of threat, but even Tide of Iron/Shield Swipe

generate a fairly high amount (or at least more than Cleave

or Stab, the basic left-click attacks). Group-spec

Guardian Fighters will want to spend their Feat points on higher threat

generation when available.

Additionally, there are a few Encounter skills that taunt enemies for

forced attacks. Enforced Threat, for example, deals area

damage and taunts all enemies within range, forcing them to attack the

Guardian Fighter for the duration of the effect. Knight's

Challenge is situationally useful - it is also a forced-attack

taunt, but the taunted enemy deals significantly more damage while

taunted, which can be quite painful during boss fights.

Another option is the Mark ability, mapped to the Tab

key, which paints a big red X on the target. The marked creature suffers a

mitigation debuff when attacking anyone but the Guardian Fighter who

marked it. It's not quite the same thing as generating threat, but it's

definitely a useful tanking skill.

Equipment

Guardian Fighters use medium melee weapons, shields and plate armor.

During the first beta weekend, medium melee weapons were largely limited

to longswords. I did, however, manage to find a battleaxe, which I used

for a while, so it feels safe to assume that the live game will feature

weapons other than just the longsword.

There are a few different enchantment types that can really benefit the

Guardian Fighter. Power is useful to enhance the class's relatively low

damage output, and armor penetration helps to bypass some enemy damage

mitigation to make hits count for slightly more. One of the most useful

enchants is life stealing, which returns a small portion of damage dealt

as healing. At very small numbers, this enchantment is nearly meaningless,

but stacking life stealing allows the Guardian Fighter to attack a little

more aggressively without worrying about his health dropping.

The most important stat for the Guardian Fighter is CON, which

contributes to Hit Point total and to physical resistance saving throws.

STR is second, as it contributes to damage output. All other stats have

more or less equal value to the Guardian Fighter, since they all

contribute to defenses in some way. Welcome to the homogenous mush of 4th

Edition rules.

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Tips & Tricks

There are a few ways to get the most out of the Guardian Fighter,

depending on your preferred style of play. Because there is very limited

space on the skill toolbar (three Encounter Powers mapped to Q, E and R,

two Daily Powers mapped to 1 and 2, the Tab power and the basic right and

left mouse button attacks), solo players will want to use a slightly

different skill setup than group players.

Solo players will want to maximize their damage output, slotting more

offensive skills on their toolbar. Villain's Menace, for

example, is a very useful Daily Power for soloing - a big, strong area

effect attack. Enforced Threat is a good Encounter Power for either solo

or group - again, a strong area-effect attack. Griffon's Wrath

and Knee Breaker make excellent single-target choices,

particularly useful during boss fights.

Fighter's Recovery is incredibly handy to have,

regardless of spec - for 10 seconds, the Guardian Fighter heals himself

with every point of damage he deals, and is immune to damage and status

effects for the duration. This is an incredibly useful recovery skill to

help with a tough boss fight - hit Fighter's Recovery, hurl yourself at a

group of mobs and start spamming Cleave and other area-effect

attacks.

For group-oriented players, a slightly different setup will work better.

Lunging Strike is more useful in a group setting,

allowing the tank to be the first one into the fight, or to dash quickly

across the melee to intercept an ally's attacker. Knight's Challenge is

really only useful in a group setting, since threat generation and

taunting is essentially a null issue when soloing.

Single-Target Fights

When approaching a single tough mob, whether it be a dungeon boss or a

solitary ogre roaming around in a pubic zone, the Guardian Fighter will

want to strike first and then defend immediately to brace against a heavy

retaliation. Tough mobs and bosses tend to have hard-hitting attacks that

chew through Stamina very quickly, so it is essential to balance blocking

with other defensive moves.

A good opener is:



Lunging Strike to close in quickly and strike first >

Guard and/or sidestep to avoid the first retaliatory

attack> Knee Breaker to slow movement and apply a

damage-over-time effect > run around flank to avoid big attacks > Guard

and Stab/Shield Swipe from the flank

Boss enemies often have big frontal area-effect attacks that take a long

time to complete. There is usually time to run around behind the enemy and

get a few quick basic attacks if the player moves as soon as the big red

indicator shows up. It is important to note, however, that the Guardian

Fighter will need to temporarily drop his Guard while attempting this - if

he keeps his shield up, he will not move fast enough and will end up

blocking the attack instead of avoiding it, potentially wiping out a large

amount of Stamina in the process. Drop the shield and run sideways - never

backwards - and the boss enemy will usually miss the attack.

Multi-Target Fights

The Guardian Fighter has plenty of area-effect attacks, starting right

away at level 1 with the basic left-click attack, Cleave. This makes the

class uniquely suited to dealing with large groups of mobs right out of

the gate. At later levels, when big, powerful area attacks are added to

the repertoire, big group battles get even better.

As a general rule, the best strategy when dealing with a large group of

enemies is to take out the weaker targets first and save the toughest ones

for last. Focusing on the strong enemies first means the weak ones are

attacking for much longer, doing more damage than they need to. Take them

out first and you can focus your entire attention on the stronger monsters

later.

For a typical landscape encounter with a few weak mobs and one tough

leader, a strong opening salvo is:







Enforced Threat to soften all the normal mobs > Knee

Breaker on the tough mob > Cleave (or Stab)

until all the weaker mobs are dead > Griffon's Wrath

on the leader

This combo should pretty much wipe out most standard landscape groups

before they have a chance to deal any serious damage.

Later Game

There are a couple of options for the Guardian Fighter's first companion.

The obvious choice is the Cleric Disciple, who will toss out a few light

heals during fights and add a bit of survivability. This makes the tank

even tankier, able to absorb more punishment than normal. But the heals

are quite small and infrequent, Fighter's Recovery and cheap potions can

be used to make them redundant, and the cleric companion is a squishy

aggro magnet. Some players will find that a DPS companion will contribute

slightly more to the fights, enhancing the Guardian Fighter's

relatively-low damage output and making the fights shorter overall.

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At level 30, you will need to choose a Paragon path. Essentially, what

you will be choosing is whether you want to focus more on defense or

offense. There are three options available. The Conqueror tree will likely

be better for solo players, giving them more firepower rather than

defense. The Guardian tree is not so much about defense as it is about

soaking more damage, a good choice for group-spec tank types. The

Tactician tree is for those players who prefer to fight smarter rather

than harder, exercising more control over the battlefield and keeping

enemies positioned and facing where they want them. Again, this one is

better for a group spec - threat management is essentially meaningless for

solo players.

Did you learn any Guardian Fighter tips or tricks you would like to

share? Let us know in our comments!