The ideal fighter build

[Colette Brunel]

As far as I can tell, the ideal build for a fighter is a guisarme, halberd, or ranseur fighter with Sudden Charge at 1st. Bows do not synergize well with Attack of Opportunity or the heavy armor class features, Power Attack is bad once magic weapons appear, Double Slice is still behind swinging with a two-handed weapon, and shields are janky. A reach weapon, at the very least, helps with lockdown.

Brutish Shove comes at 2nd, and Improved Brutish Shove is taken at 4th, because those are unconditionally useful. The ideal fighter takes Gray Maiden Dedication at 6th, because every other option at that level is poor. Sudden Leap comes at 8th to synergize with Flexibility (Felling Strike) at 9th, giving an answer to flying opponents.

Combat Reflex and Disruptive in either order at 10th and 12th work well with a reach weapon for more lockdown. Stance Savant arrives at 14th to save an action at the start of combat. Flexibility (Determination) is the choice at 15th, even with a middling Charisma modifier, to shrug off a nasty condition once per day. Given the lack of support for two-handed weapons at 16th, Whirlwind Strike gets taken here, synergizing with a reach weapon. Savage Critical at 18th is a marginal damage increase, but it is better than nothing. Finally, Weapon Supremacy at 20th is an extra strike, no questions asked.

Can anyone else identify a more ideal fighter build than this? Perhaps Certain Strike can be slotted in somewhere, even if it does not apply on a critical failure? I personally do not think investing in spellcasting is that appealing for a fighter, since it takes a heavy investment, and a fighter's Intelligence or Wisdom is not going to be stellar.

[PossibleCabbage]

For a lockdown build, I kind of like improved combat grab since you can make your athletics DC pretty high (and in any case people are wasting options to get you to stop stabbing them so much.)

I was looking at
1) Combat Grab
2) Improved Combat Grab
4) Dueling Parry
6) Whatever
8) Dueling Riposte
10) Certain Strike
12) Dueling Dance
14) Improved Dueling Riposte
16) Whatever
18) Savage Critical
20) Weapon Supremacy

Be a half-orc for necksplitter access, and grab sudden charge with natural ambition at some point.

[Colette Brunel]

I am somewhat skeptical of (Improved) Combat Grab builds, since they are hyperfocused on locking down a single enemy instead of threatening multiple enemies with Attack of Opportunity, and since they still wield a d8 weapon at most.

[Colette Brunel]

I am not impressed by bow fighters from 1st through 9th level, since none of their class feats strike me as especially good, and they still make poor use of Attack of Opportunity, even with Slippery Shooter at 8th. However, Debilitating Shot at 10th level is really quite good, and I can see that being spammed to no end for good effect.

Now, a gnome flickmace build seems like a viable alternative to a guisarme/halberd/ranseur build. It ideally uses a human with Adopted Ancestry and Weapon Familiarity (Gnome), so it only comes online at 3rd level, via General Training at 1st and Ancestral Paragon at 3rd. With a flickmace, Combat Grab and Improved Combat Grab work quite well for lockdown, and Dueling Riposte and Improved Dueling Riposte open up counterattacks... but I am not so sure how much better this is than keeping to a d10 polearm and more straightforwardly flat-footing enemies and threatening them with broad Attack of Opportunity capacities. Certainly, the one-handed flickmace build also has fewer answers to flying opponents.