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Yeah, any time you chose str over dex you sacrifice AC for more damage. Almost any build is going to gain 5-10 ac just by switching to being dex based, possibly more depending on what races you switch out.
Bargeld's AC calculation for pure fighter dexers is also has a few mistakes and is significantly lower than what is possible from a pure fighter. pure fighters have an abundance of epic feats, so fitting 4 great dex feats is probably pretty reasonable, so +18 dex would be easy. Pure fighters can get up to +4 tumble AC, not +2, and being a dexer you can assume you are getting +2 ac from blinding speed. Also, you can use the githzerai race for a quick +4 ac. If you factor in the dodge feat and you are up to 76 AC vs your current target, and that is without IE entirely. Throw on a dex book for the sake of argument and you are at 77 AC
Turn on IE mode and you are up to a really easy 87 AC that doesn't rely on buffs like divine shield.
This hypothetical build is also at +16 dodge currently, so if you manage to get a pure bard buff, 81 ac without IE or 91 ac in IE mode is completely possible. This makes the dexer pure fighter one of the better AC tanks when you consider that you have shield damage reduction, a good amount of HP, a decent AB, a nice pvp disable, and you don't need to manage many short duration buffs to retain those stats. It isn't a perfect build by any means, damage is probably isn't very impressive, and they have all the drawbacks of being a non-caster with low will saves, but as far as just being an AC tank is pvm goes, this is going to do well. Some other specialized builds can get even better ACs, but they typically have some other notable drawbacks like low AB, low HP, or poor damage reduction.
Really the simple reason why Str based pure fighters are still more popular is because of the pvp uses of the pure fighter rumble token. Going str based makes the token nearly impossible to resist, and two-handed str based damage is enough to kill anything that hasn't invested in significant extra damage reduction. In the case of a dexer pure fighter, the rumble token isn't always an "instant win" button simply because the build doesn't always do enough damage to outright kill someone in the round they are prone.
Though i do think it is a mistake to say that str based pure fighters have no upside in pvm. They are quite simply the best when it comes to getting high AB and Damage in settings where there is a cleric and bard available. There are a few high level boss fights where just having enough damage output to overcome the bosses AC, DR, and regeneration is a challenge, and that is where high AB and high damage hitters come into play. The trick is that you need to play your damage reduction smart. You probably need to build in epic damage reduction as well as some energy resist feats as well as playing your armor and shield use smart to survive. I think the easiest way to tell the difference between a "newbie" player and a veteran player is how they prepare and switch out their damage reduction items on the fly so they are always using the best possible armor and shield combinations available for them for every specific situation. A smart player using IA armors and shields is going to do much better than a new player using whatever the "coolest" or "rarest" armors that they have, because those armors are no good if they don't have the right physical damage reductions for the situation.
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Sebastian (TSS) Doc - Rufio of (TSS) - Dagr (TSS)
Raijin {FoN} - Arcadia {FoN} - Geb {FoN}
Last edited by Rufio on Fri May 10, 2013 4:17 pm, edited 5 times in total.
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