QCF Design Community

Most of the classes have two, ideally three, interesting traits that have a big effect on the way they play, but it seems the Fighter drops the ball a bit here:

Veteran: Really good trait, maybe even too good (bonus XP per kill AND less XP required to level up?). This is what makes a Fighter worth playing (although Fighter is a misnomer, as he isn't especially combat-oriented).

Pit Dog: OK, so someone cast CYDSTEPP on me right before I stepped into the dungeon. I find it hard to get excited about this once the Warlord is unlocked and everyone has a chance of finding the glyph for themselves.

Instincts: What is the point of this? It doesn't tell me what type of monster they are, and fighting same-level monsters is not something you want to do very much with any character, Fighter included. I end up just exploring or using LEMMISI to find suitable targets, like I would with other classes. Maybe this is better than it looks and I don't understand how to use it properly. I suppose if you have a good memory, you know exactly what level the unexplored monsters are, which might help for long-term popcorn management, but this isn't exactly beginner-friendly design for what is supposed to be *the* beginner class.

I sort of feel like Fighter is a class that's very useful as a complete beginner but is somewhat harder to use well once you get to the more fiendish dungeons. I think the oldschool way to play it in the Vicious dungeons was as an elf with your +mana deity of choice, using the fast dings to replenish a big mana pool.

As a beginner class, Instinct points you to enemies so you don't waste space exploring, Veteran is really useful for meaning you don't have to catapult and engage in fancy fighting above your level and Pit Dog lets you get out of a dumb misclick or tank an extra hit on a boss like Bleaty or Aequitas. I kind of think the class gives you a gentle ride on the first few dungeons when you don't have all the interesting boosters and helps you learn to time dings. After you get onto the two boss dungeons and have your 2nd tier class unlocks, he takes a bit more skill to use. I agree that Veteran's the main thing, though Instinct is pretty useful as a general dungeon awareness tool.

Instinct's only purpose is to tell you when to stop casting WONAFYT

Yup, Veteran is basically the class feature that carries the class, Pit Dog is nice but largely inconsequential, and Instincts is so niche that it's rarely useful.

The only time I find Instincts useful is when I'm in a dungeon level that has a preponderance of life-steal enemies. This allows me to avoid exploring their tiles and getting life-drained at inopportune times. Still pretty limited, though, since it won't help you avoid higher-level threats.

The Fighter is a deceptively complicated class. He's designed to mitigate the effects of bad play, to give beginners a chance, but becomes very powerful when in the hands of a skilled player. He has no real combat traits (Pit Dog doesn't really count), but he does have Veteran, the most powerful support trait in the game. Once you've learned how to set up multiple mid-boss level ups, he becomes a beast.

And yes, Instincts is near useless. I dislike it because it teaches beginners the wrong lessons (ie its existence implies that fighting same-level monsters is a good thing, and that blackspace is more important than xp).

I agree that the Fighter's name is a bit misleading. He's a jack-of-all-trades, and he usually makes for a better fireball slinger than a melee character.

Yes, it really is almost an anti-trait. The only time I've been really glad I had it was the pan labyrinth subdungeon.

Honestly, I used to think the fighter was underpowered, but he really isn't. If you can use some leverage to get yourself off the ground, he's a beast. I've scored 5 mid-fight level ups before. Combine that with a high mana pool gnome (this does require deities, but elves work as a weaker version) and you have an almost unstoppable power. Also, as a gnome the potions can give you the extra push through areas where you can't fully utilize the mid-fight level ups (some vicious dungeons).

I find Elves work much better for Fighters. What you lose in potions, you make up for in more powerful spikes on level-up. Prepping a schadenfreude seals the deal.