Optimizer from 5e trying to start optimizing in PF2E. What melee focused 1-20 builds can you recommend?

[Dancing Wind]

CRB, pg 26 sidebar wrote:

However, ancestries aren’t a monolith.

You always have the option to replace your ancestry’s listed ability boosts and ability flaws entirely and instead select two free ability boosts when creating your character.

[roquepo]

Kyle_TheBuilder wrote:

Hilary Moon Murphy wrote:

The Ancestry depends on whatever Ancestry feats you like. They now allow any ancestry the option of two free boosts.

Since I am still new to PF, could you point me out where it says that? I might have missed it.

That's in the last set of Errata. Should be there in the new printings of the CRB. It is also working in pathbuilder and the likes.

On another topic, this is what I would do for a Reach Fighter.

Ancestry: Elf
Weapon: Gill Hook
Armor: Heavy

Initial Boosts: 18STR 10DEX 14CON 10INT 14WIS 12CHA

Class Feats

Lvl 1: Sudden Charge
Lvl 2: Lunge
Lvl 4: Knockdown
Lvl 6: Bounty Hunter Dedication
Lvl 8: Keep Pace
Lvl 9: Blind-fight, Resounding Bravery o Sudden Leap
Lvl 10: Combat Reflexes
Lvl 12: Disrupting Stance/Lunging Stance
Lvl 14: Disrupting Stance/Lunging Stance
Lvl 15: Stance Savant
Lvl 16: Improved Knockdown
Lvl 18: Does not matter much, maybe Savage Critical or Whirlwind Strike?
Lvl 20: Boundless Reprisals

General Feats:

lvl 3: Adopted Ancestry (Dwarf)
Lvl 7: Ancestral Paragon (Unburdened Iron)
Lvl 11: Fleet
Lvl 15: Canny Acumen (Will)
Lvl 19: Toughness

Ancestry feats

Lvl 1: Elf Atavism (Desert Elf)
Lvl 5: Nimble Elf
Lvl 9: Mountain Stoutness
Lvl 13: Telluric Power
Lvl 17: Heroes Call

The build aims to be a pain in the ass for caster-type enemies and still be good on other types of encounters. Guill Hook + Knockdown gives access to both Grab and Trip, Keep Pace is there to still be in range when a caster moves and casts. With Combat Reflexes, you move first and then check the caster with AoO. You need to use Hunt Prey beforehand, though. In general, feats from 12 to 16 can be moved a lot.

Disrupting Stance is great in these type of encounters (or encounters vs archers), but Lunging Stance is for averything else. If you get enlarged to huge, You have 25 ft reach with your AoO. Pretty nuts.

Just so Keep pace is useful, you need to invest a lot in mobility. Elf starts with 30 ft speed (no penalty with Unburdened Armor), +5 from Nimble Elf,+ 5 of Fleet up to + 10 with boots of bounding and +10 from 2nd level longstrider, we are looking at a 60 ft speed max. Enough to be able to follow most creatures for Disrupting Stance purposes.

Desert Elf helps with persistent fire damage. Quite common. Telluric Power is a conditional boost to damage that is quite easy to get, Mountain Stoutness is Toughness 2. Heroes Call is there to help sometimes, but your build is done by that point already.

[Kyle_TheBuilder]

Dancing Wind wrote:

CRB, pg 26 sidebar wrote:

However, ancestries aren’t a monolith.

You always have the option to replace your ancestry’s listed ability boosts and ability flaws entirely and instead select two free ability boosts when creating your character.

Thank you very much. I have missed that sidebar. Any ancestry feats that have some synergies for Fighter?

[Deriven Firelion]

Kyle_TheBuilder wrote:

Thank you. That would actually make for really nice Crusader build! Couple questions about it:

1. How really useful was Power Attack here in real play?
2. Why Ranged Reprisal Paladin?
3. I totally don't understand level 16th explanation what you pick here. Also using our lvl 9 ancestry feat on level 16 for Cleric or Bard? And why those classes?
4. Why not taking Improved Knockdown is you already have Knockdown?

Also what would be best...

1. Power Attack was useful for breaking through DR and until you get your Greater Striking Rune. Then you can retrain it if you wish. I sort of think of it as giving you an early striking rune for an extra action, early on that can be powerful. I would say Power Attack was used quite a bit until about level 10 or 11 when I picked up a Greater Striking Rune. Then the second attack was better.

2. I like Ranged Reprisal because it allows you to set up with a little more distance for using Champion Reaction. You can step before using your Paladin Attack of Opportunity as part of the same reaction if needed. Sometimes something moves a bit before attacking or one of your allies is slightly farther away. I wouldn't say it's necessary, but it can be helpful for those times when the field spreads a bit more.

3. Level 9 ancestry human feat Multitalented let's you take level 2 Archetype feat which you need for basic spellcasting.

Cleric: You can take heal and heroism. Both of them can be nice little perks if needed at certain times. You will find the 2 action heal in this game is quite nice and can be used while attacking.

Bard: You can do an occult sorcerer too. Occult Spell list has True Strike and Heroism on it, which can both be nice personal buffs. Occult list also has invisibility and see invisibility. Which can also be nice. Pretty much makes it so you may not need Blind Fight or something similar.

I don't recommend going for Master Spellcasting. 1st through 6th level slots are fine for a personal buff class.

4. I did not take Improved Knockdown because I was critting so often at higher level that I didn't really need it. You crit and they go prone. You can't make them go more prone, so you just wait for a crit and then AoO them. When you buff yourself with heroism and other party members are debuffing while have a +2 higher attack bonus to start with you generally crit a ton, especially against mooks. My fighter champion murdered mooks.

The odd thing you'll find in this game is a lot of feats look good on paper, but don't play so well. So you end up doing the same thing over and over again. In the case of the fighter, you move up and hit stuff. You do that real good. So it's often better to make it so you hit stuff better with personal buffs.

I did play a goblin fighter that used knockdown a lot. It was real effective at level 4. Never leveled him high enough for Improved Knockdown. I'm sure you'd be fine using Improved Knockdown. There aren't a lot of bad options in PF2, but they don't add a lot from what your base class does.

So I focused on a couple of good reactions since the fighter is the best at using reactions with the Champion and Rogue next best. The focused on being able to add personal buffs on top of whatever the party provides.

It also gives you nice access to scrolls, wands, and staves. So if you want to start buying cheap heroism, haste, or other spell scrolls later on, you can expand your ability to buff yourself without having worry about asking a party caster. Then they can use their slots for debuffs and other hammer spells.

I found the ability cast on myself and use caster items of use better than the feats available at those levels.

[nicholas storm]

I am playing a fighter in age of ashes. I started out double slice shield and shortsword. I feel action economy with shield doesn't work without reactive shield. I switched to great pick and did some high damage, but required lots of healing. At level 12, I switched to unarmed with shield (multi talented monk, flurry of blows, agile grace, reactive shield, quick block). I love this setup as I rarely need healing and still deal good damage with flurry of blows and attacks at 0/-3/-6. Last combat with good rolling did 3 crits rolling a 10/19/20. Did 182 damage.

At level 16 going to switch to bestial mutagen for d12 bite, d10 claw both with d10 deadly.

[Claxon]

Kyle_TheBuilder wrote:

Me and my group are heavy powergaming group and we like many are leaving DnD and trying PF2e for first time. Obviously it will take long time before we can start crafting power builds for PF2e as system is huge!

So I would like to start with something grounded like melee-focused character (Paladin or Cleric/Ranger too, doesn't have to be without magic) for our first campaign. So what kind of best melee focused builds you can recommend and I would be grateful if you could also give me breakdown of your build so I can start to see "patterns" and "syngergies" etc. and slowly build my understanding of optimization in this system.

Thank you very much for every single proposition! Go wild, I don't really have any race, class/mulitclass or alligment restricion :). Just want to deliver very high damage/DPR and hopefully still keep nice defenses up.

I just want to provide a warning. A someone who was way into optimization in PF1, there just aren't the same kind of ways to optimize in PF2. You don't win fights in PF2 by building a great and powerful character. In you try to be a one man army, and the rest of your party does too, you will die horrible deaths over and over again. The enemy is always numerically superior to you and if you just try to slug it out thinking you have numerically superiority to support you will be incredibly disappointed. I know I was when I first tried PF2.

I've never played 5th ed, so I don't know how it compares but I wanted to provide that warning as it's something that trips up a lot of people who played PF1 and are transitioning to PF2.

Fights in PF2 are one by debuffing your enemy and working as a team to knock them down to your level. Getting enemies prone and flat-footed so that your fighter can have a high chance to crit them thanks to their AC decreases is a very important tactic. Using abilities like Bon Mot to debuff an enemy's will save so your caster friend can inflict their spell on them is important too.

If you don't do these support activities you will fail.

If you try to spend 3 actions a turn trying to inflict 3 strikes, you will fail.

Just some warnings you should heed.

[BretI]

Claxon wrote:

If you try to spend 3 actions a turn trying to inflict 3 strikes, you will fail.

Except when your opponent is an ooze.

Oozes are immune to crits and have horrible ACs. Just make sure someone does a Recall Knowledge check to figure out what the right way to kill them is or you may be surrounded by an ocean of oozes.

Seems the game also tries to make sure for any general advice, there is some sort of creature where you have to do the opposite.

[SuperBidi]

BretI wrote:

Seems the game also tries to make sure for any general advice, there is some sort of creature where you have to do the opposite.

The one best advice in PF2: Adapt your strategy to the situation.

[Kyle_TheBuilder]

Claxon wrote:

Getting enemies prone and flat-footed so that your fighter can have a high chance to crit them thanks to their AC decreases is a very important tactic. Using abilities like Bon Mot to debuff an enemy's will save so your caster friend can inflict their spell on them is important too.

If you don't do...

Yes, well, that's why I am trying to build Fighter that can do that (knockdown enemies + freighten them to lower their AC and rolls) on top of delivering high damage and be tanky. Once I have that I will advice my friends what to build and further support that. Besides our GM will always adjust everything so in the end we have fun so I am not that worry if everything will work or not perfectly at start, but I try to learn to maximize what PF2e has to offer.

Anyway, backing to building that fighter I noticed that Mauler seems like great option for Fighter, being able to Knockdown multiple enemies in one strike (Hammer Quake) with Titan Wrestler, which combined with Combat Reflex can result in multiple AoOs. I would pair that with Intimidation Gaze, Battle Cry (for action economy to fear), Scare to Death (they are freighten even on fail). Obviously going for Legendary in Atheltics and Intimidation.

For abilities I would go for STR,CON,WIS,CHA improvements, ideally ending with something like 22/20/20/18 or 22/20/18/20 for better fear.

The other feats that would be must would be: Intimidating Prowess, Power Attack, Improved Knockdown, Mauler Dedication, Weapon Mastery/Specialization (hammers), Combat Flexibility (Furious Focus), Juggernaut, Master/Legendary in Athletics, Overwhelming Blow + Savage Critical, Sudden Charge. I am also considering Shove feats since Mauler allows you to shove multiple enemies so it could be fun too!

The idea is to setup for myself (Knockdown + Fear) to debuff enemy and crit them hard and also CC enemies this way for rest of the party.

Now I am not sure if I would like to go here with pure Fighter or go Fighter/Barbarian and on top of that add Giant Instinct for +6 damage and higher HP etc.

Still not sure about Ancestry, but something with option for flying seems like good way for melee Fighter? Aasimars/Tieflings get flying, but human might be better option just for feats.

But that's just my current draft, I am still considering a lot of different options so don't hesistate to post more propositions folks :). Theorycrafting is always fun.

[Martialmasters]

I didn't notice anyone mention a big caveat to min maxing

Your will maybe be 10-20 percent better at the thing then someone who doesn't

That person who doesn't is also likely to have more options than you

[Kyle_TheBuilder]

Martialmasters wrote:

I didn't notice anyone mention a big caveat to min maxing

Your will maybe be 10-20 percent better at the thing then someone who doesn't

That person who doesn't is also likely to have more options than you

Min-maxing and optimizing are two different things: by min-maxing you maximize only one thing (lets say damage) and sacrefice others. By optimizing you try to to be as good as possible in couple things (for example damage + CC + social etc.) if build/system allows while at the same time you try to cover any weakness the build can have. Basically you try to have as little "min" as possible (or zero in best scenario) for enemies to exploit. While in just min-maxing you don't care as long as "max" side is at full power (basically one-trick pony).

Though obviously optimizing is way harder as it requires way bigger system knowledge.

[Claxon]

Kyle_TheBuilder wrote:

Claxon wrote:

Getting enemies prone and flat-footed so that your fighter can have a high chance to crit them thanks to their AC decreases is a very important tactic. Using abilities like Bon Mot to debuff an enemy's will save so your caster friend can inflict their spell on them is important too.

If you don't do...

Yes, well, that's why I am trying to build Fighter that can do that (knockdown enemies + freighten them to lower their AC and rolls) on top of delivering high damage and be tanky.

The problem is there isn't much options to build that. As a fighter, you get heavy armor. Wear full plate. The only real decisions to make is do you use a shield and one-handed weapon, or not. Based on your desire to knockdown enemies, I suggest using a two-handed weapon with the knockdown and improved knockdown feats. When using a two handed weapon with improved knockdown, hitting the enemy trips them. Grab intimidating strike and shatter defenses for inflicting frightened. There's not really a direct and easy way to grab additional damage beyond wielding a weapon with big damage dice, but using Power Attack with an enemy who is prone and frightened and hoping for a crit while power attacking is your best bet. nd that's basically it. There aren't a lot of little tricks for building damage or increasing AC, at least not once you start selecting things you want to do. You will find the list of options narrows considerably.

Actually, it's good because it makes it hard to build a character who is ineffective, but it also means even if you optimize as hard as you can you're not going to feel much more powerful than others. And the power is never in direct numerical bonuses. It almost always in combining multiple actions into a lesser number of required actions, or giving you more guaranteed results like automatically knocking someone prone instead of needing an athletics check that could result in prone.

[Kyle_TheBuilder]

Claxon wrote:

Kyle_TheBuilder wrote:

Claxon wrote:

Getting enemies prone and flat-footed so that your fighter can have a high chance to crit them thanks to their AC decreases is a very important tactic. Using abilities like Bon Mot to debuff an enemy's will save so your caster friend can inflict their spell on them is important too.

If you don't do...

Yes, well, that's why I am trying to build Fighter that can do that (knockdown enemies + freighten them to lower their AC and rolls) on top of delivering high damage and be tanky.

The problem is there isn't much options to build that. As a fighter, you get heavy armor. Wear full plate. The only real decisions to make is do you use a shield and one-handed weapon, or not. Based on your desire to knockdown enemies, I suggest using a two-handed weapon with the knockdown and improved knockdown feats. When using a two handed weapon with improved knockdown, hitting the enemy trips them. Grab intimidating strike and shatter defenses for inflicting frightened. There's not really a direct and easy way to grab additional damage beyond wielding a weapon with big damage dice, but using Power Attack with an enemy who is prone and frightened and hoping for a crit while power attacking is your best bet. nd that's basically it. There aren't a lot of little tricks for building damage or increasing AC, at least not once you start selecting things you want to do. You will find the list of options narrows considerably.

Actually, it's good because it makes it hard to build a character who is ineffective, but it also means even if you optimize as hard as you can you're not going to feel much more powerful than others. And the power is never in direct numerical bonuses. It almost always in combining multiple actions into a lesser number of required actions, or giving you more guaranteed results like automatically knocking someone prone instead of needing an athletics check that could result in prone.

But on top of that basic you can build for higher damage by taking for example Barbarian archetype/dual class and add damage bonus from Giant Instinc or like someone mentioned trying to get Truestrike or going for Reach with Disrupting Stance + Lunge as also mentioned above too.

The basic of indentifying best Fighter strategy is also part of optimization. It would be very easy for new player to totally miss taking Knockdown feats or not realizing that Fighter can be very good at Intimidation. I constanty see stuff like that from new players in every system. Part of optimizing build is to learning that and build on top of it. You already need more than "one read of CBR" to identify what you have said.

So you mentioned above the same thing I mentioned in response to your first comment and we agree on that: Knockdown + Intimidation is great combo for 2-handed Fighter. Good, that's the base.

But now you can further optimize it by combining for example Giant Instinct Barbarian + Mauler to make it even better/stronger, identifying best feats to take, best archetype to take, best ancestry feats to take, best skill feats to take. That's all a direct bonus over just a base.

And that is direct numerical bonus. Knocking down 2-3 enemies instead of one combine better with Combat Reflex and opens more setups for rest of the party plus for more damage for multiple AoOs. +6 to damage from Giant Instinct is numerical more damage. And so on. Chosing right dual class/archetype feats is also optimization as clearly some options would be waaaaay weaker than others. That's numerical advantage.

Even if difference in effectiveness is 5% here, 5% there, 5% there, the end result can be 15%-20% better overall than without further optimizing the base by taking the best options. And that is optimization. Increasing WIS is also optimization as WILL is something I consider a little weakness in Fighter. Taking feats to increase particular ability score is also optimization.

[roquepo]

Barbarian dedication is pretty meh outside of the very first levels if you just want it for the damage. Even for a Fighter, that can be build so the concentrate action limitation is a non-issue. The -1 to AC is hard to compensate with just 2-4 damage (or -2 for 6, which is even worse) and a few temporary hit points. And you need to burn 2 feats and an action for that.

If you pick it for some if its feats, it is another story. There are some goodies in there.

[Martialmasters]

Fair point in your own definition between the two terms. In my experience many use it interchangeably though so when I talk about optimization I usually include the word theme. To differentiate.

I don't know if that does, it just helps me lol.

If you are optimizing damage yeah giant instinct dedication works to get you I think +6 static damage while also being clumsy 1 and taking additional -1 to AC when you rage along with cutting off any concentration actions you could do aside from seek or if you take raging intimidation. Along with the action cost to rage.

So I guess it's almost more important to decide what you would be giving up.

[Kyle_TheBuilder]

roquepo wrote:

Barbarian dedication is pretty meh outside of the very first levels if you just want it for the damage. Even for a Fighter, that can be build so the concentrate action limitation is a non-issue. The -1 to AC is hard to compensate with just 2-4 damage (or -2 for 6, which is even worse) and a few temporary hit points. And you need to burn 2 feats and an action for that.

If you pick it for some if its feats, it is another story. There are some goodies in there.

Yeah, feats too on top of raw damage bonus from Giant Instinct.

What I had my eye on was Toughness, Barbarian Instinct (Titan Mauler), Basic Fury (No Escape), Fearsome Brute, Advanced Fury (Giant Stature).

Though I am still analysing stuff. It's just Fighter with 2h Hammer with Mauler + Barbarian archetype cought my eye as good combo to further optimize for Knockdowns, Intimiadtion and damage output. Tough it's possible it might be too many feats to be effective, but with Free Archetypes I might be able to combine it.

So far it's just theorycrafting around a draft I have in mind. I might scrap Barb archetype and just gow with Fighter + Mauler. Or try some different class archetype, like Champion.

[gesalt]

The real optimization in this system is party optimization which mostly revolves around exploiting opportunity attacks, stacking all the bonuses and penalties you can get your hands on and action denial.

With the math as tight as it is, and the sources of certain buffs and debuffs limited, there's really very little to it. Fighter for the best balance of damage and durability and more reactions. Bard for synesthesia, heroism or heroics, and with swashbuckler or gunslinger dedication for one for all or fake out. (Thief) Rogue to cover skill and perception proficiency gates on hazards (most or maybe all have a clause requiring a certain proficiency level to be allowed to pass). And then the flex slot where my top picks for the moment are ranged magus for pure damage and arcane spell utility, cleric for healing, condition removal and harm knockdowns to free up more valuable fighter actions or another fighter for the same reasons as above or for debilitating shot (2 action attack, no save slow) if playing ranged.

Oh and one thing. As far as skills go, the game devolves to it being harmful to try if you aren't focusing it since failure and critical failure exist. At best, grab untrained improvisation so that you have a real shot at passing basic level 1 checks sometime around level 7 for little things like climbing or swimming, if your gm doesn't handwaive all of that away.

[roquepo]

Now I realise, I think no one has mentioned item optimization, That is quite important too.

For starters, grab the Trick Magic Item skill feat around level 6 or level 8 and make sure you have either Nature or Arcana leveled. With that you can use a wand of 2nd level longstrider. That's +10 ft to your speed there. At higher levels, I've also used wands of Vital Beacon and a Wand of 5th level See Invisibility to great success as a melee martial. That last one combines really well with Blind-fight, btw.

Popular items for all classes include Boots of Bounding for the speed buff, Healer Gloves for the active, All sorts of damaging property runes for your weapon (most add a d6 of elemental/alignment damage), Energy Resistance Rings and Winged Boots/Cloak of the Bat for having access to a Fly Speed. As for armor property runes, Invisibility, Fortification and Soaring are the ones I can personally recomend (for most games I find these a bit hard to afford until you are higher level). In Treasure Vault there is also the Advancing Rune (Think that's the name), that also looks promising. Another Item I personally like is the Pendant of the Occult, Guidance is a really good cantrip to have and a good way to spend your last action. At higher levels, the Eye of Fortune is quite good as concealment and invisibility effects are fairly common.

In regards to general action economy boosters, there are the Storing Gloves and the Retrieval Prisms (this one is a consumable). You also need free hands to use most items you can use with these, so you are probably not that interested.

I think that has all bases covered, but I would appreciate if someone else can jump in and add anything that I missed, there are a lot of items and those are the important ones that came off the top of my head. Probably missing a generally good item or two.

[breithauptclan]

SuperBidi wrote:

BretI wrote:

Seems the game also tries to make sure for any general advice, there is some sort of creature where you have to do the opposite.

The one best advice in PF2: Adapt your strategy to the situation.

Corollary: Make sure your build is capable of adapting.

[Martialmasters]

breithauptclan wrote:

SuperBidi wrote:

BretI wrote:

Seems the game also tries to make sure for any general advice, there is some sort of creature where you have to do the opposite.

The one best advice in PF2: Adapt your strategy to the situation.

Corollary: Make sure your build is capable of adapting.

This is big one.

When I first started playing I player hyper specialized one trick characters and quickly found encounters that left me incredibly frustrated.

[Claxon]

Kyle_TheBuilder wrote:

But on top of that basic you can build for higher damage by taking for example Barbarian archetype/dual class and add damage bonus from Giant Instinc or like someone mentioned trying to get Truestrike or going for Reach with Disrupting Stance + Lunge as also mentioned above too.

The basic of indentifying best Fighter strategy is also part of optimization. It would be very easy for new player to totally miss taking Knockdown feats or not realizing that Fighter can be very good at Intimidation. I constanty see stuff like that from new players in every system. Part of optimizing build is to learning that and build on top of it. You already need more than "one read of CBR" to identify what you have said.

So you mentioned above the same thing I mentioned in response to your first comment and we agree on that: Knockdown + Intimidation is great combo for 2-handed Fighter. Good, that's the base.

But now you can further optimize it by combining for example Giant Instinct Barbarian + Mauler to make it even better/stronger, identifying best feats to take, best archetype to take, best ancestry feats to take, best skill feats to take. That's all a direct bonus over just a base.

And that is direct numerical bonus. Knocking down 2-3 enemies instead of one combine better with Combat Reflex and opens more setups for rest of the party plus for more damage for multiple AoOs. +6 to damage from Giant Instinct is numerical more damage. And so on. Chosing right dual class/archetype feats is also optimization as clearly some options would be waaaaay weaker than others. That's numerical advantage.

Even if difference in effectiveness is 5% here, 5% there, 5% there, the end result can be 15%-20% better overall than without further optimizing the base by taking the best options. And that is optimization. Increasing WIS is also optimization as WILL is something I consider a little weakness in Fighter. Taking feats to increase particular ability score is also optimization.

So, I am by far not an expert, but I want to make sure we have the same understanding of how multiclassing in PF2 works and what you will get.

At no point in a character's career can you ever become a Fighter 4/Barbarian X, where those are levels. Your levels will always be in fighter. You can get the barbarian dedication, which will get you rage. While you choose an instinct, you don't actually get any of the additional abilities they would normally grant (this is for balance). Rage will get you a +2 to damage, but comes with an AC and action restriction penalty. It's not great. If you eventually grab the instinct ability feat you can get another damage bonus, but it again comes at a penalty with Clumsy 1.

True Strike and crit fishing is a much better plan honestly, even if more limited use. The penalties from rage and clumsy may not seem that bad, on paper but you will feel them more than you expect.

For reference at 20th level your fighter might deal something like 4d8+14. Depending on weapon it could be 4d12+14. That's an average of 40. Rage + Instinct Ability can make that 46. A 15% increase, but at the cost of restricted action usage an Ac penalty. Personally I think it's a wash.

Like if you get overly focused on damage numbers, you might think it's a good idea. But from an overall character stand point, that lower AC is going to punish you. And unlike the barbarian, you don't have extra hp to make up for it.

[Kyle_TheBuilder]

Claxon wrote:

So, I am by far not an expert, but I want to make sure we have the same understanding of how multiclassing in PF2 works and what you will get.

At no point in a character's career can you ever become a Fighter 4/Barbarian X, where those are levels. Your levels will always be in fighter. You can get the barbarian dedication, which will get you rage. While you choose an instinct, you don't actually get any of the additional abilities they would normally grant (this is for balance). Rage will get you a +2 to damage, but comes with an AC and action restriction penalty. It's not great. If you eventually grab the instinct ability feat you can get another damage bonus, but it again comes at a penalty with Clumsy 1.

True Strike and crit fishing is a much better plan honestly, even if more limited use. The penalties from rage and clumsy may not seem that bad, on paper but you will feel them more than you expect.

For reference at 20th level your fighter might deal something like 4d8+14. Depending on weapon it could be 4d12+14. That's an average of 40. Rage + Instinct Ability can make that 46. A 15% increase, but at the cost of restricted action usage an Ac penalty. Personally I think it's a wash.

Like if you get overly focused on damage numbers, you might think it's a good idea. But from an overall character stand point, that lower AC is going to punish you. And unlike the barbarian, you don't have extra hp to make up for it.

oh, I am totally aware (as I already mentioned couple of times) that Barbarian might not be the best dedication to take. As I said it's still a draft, once I get better I will do proper xls calculations whenever +6 damage and extra HP offset -2 AC enough or not.

But now you speak my language. The idea is to find what is best dedication, best feats, archetypes etc. to take to support what I have in mind. Right now I really like idea of AoE Knockdown Fighter with Intimidation debuff, though I am open for any other good things. Like Trustrike you mentioned, but I am still not sure how to bite it so use it enough times to really have fun with it as Fighter.

Also can someone help me understand Hammer Quake... reach? It says to chose square and that I can attempt then to trip every enemy in each square adjacent to that square. So if it's working like in DnD it's basically like 5 feet emanation with middle squere enemy as initial target, correct?

Also if I have Hammer Quake + improved knockdown that means I can knockdown enemies that are effectively 10 feet away from me (2 squers).

So wouldn't it be more efficient to wield 2-hand weapon with Reach so with Combat Reflex I can reach 2 enemies after Hammer Quake when they try to get up. Like Guisarme, which is 1d10 S with Reach and Trip.

[breithauptclan]

Kyle_TheBuilder wrote:

Also can someone help me understand Hammer Quake... reach? It says to chose square and that I can attempt then to trip every enemy in each square adjacent to that square. So if it's working like in DnD it's basically like 5 feet emanation with middle squere enemy as initial target, correct?

Yes. You would be affecting a 3x3 set of squares where the center one is any square within your reach.

Kyle_TheBuilder wrote:

Also if I have Hammer Quake + improved knockdown that means I can knockdown enemies that are effectively 10 feet away from me (2 squers).

Subordinate Actions

The two actions Hammer Quake and Knockdown don't mix. Improved Knockdown changes the action cost of Knockdown, but doesn't make it compatible with Hammer Quake.

But also Hammer Quake doesn't need Knockdown or Improved Knockdown in order to work either.

[shroudb]

Kyle_TheBuilder wrote:

Claxon wrote:

So, I am by far not an expert, but I want to make sure we have the same understanding of how multiclassing in PF2 works and what you will get.

At no point in a character's career can you ever become a Fighter 4/Barbarian X, where those are levels. Your levels will always be in fighter. You can get the barbarian dedication, which will get you rage. While you choose an instinct, you don't actually get any of the additional abilities they would normally grant (this is for balance). Rage will get you a +2 to damage, but comes with an AC and action restriction penalty. It's not great. If you eventually grab the instinct ability feat you can get another damage bonus, but it again comes at a penalty with Clumsy 1.

True Strike and crit fishing is a much better plan honestly, even if more limited use. The penalties from rage and clumsy may not seem that bad, on paper but you will feel them more than you expect.

For reference at 20th level your fighter might deal something like 4d8+14. Depending on weapon it could be 4d12+14. That's an average of 40. Rage + Instinct Ability can make that 46. A 15% increase, but at the cost of restricted action usage an Ac penalty. Personally I think it's a wash.

Like if you get overly focused on damage numbers, you might think it's a good idea. But from an overall character stand point, that lower AC is going to punish you. And unlike the barbarian, you don't have extra hp to make up for it.

oh, I am totally aware (as I already mentioned couple of times) that Barbarian might not be the best dedication to take. As I said it's still a draft, once I get better I will do proper xls calculations whenever +6 damage and extra HP offset -2 AC enough or not.

But now you speak my language. The idea is to find what is best dedication, best feats, archetypes etc. to take to support what I have in mind. Right now I really like idea of AoE Knockdown Fighter with Intimidation debuff, though I am open for any other good things. Like Trustrike you mentioned,...

for Quake:

you choose 1 square within your reach. With a normal reach weapon, that is any square up to 2 squares away from you, including diagonals.

you stike the enemy that's in that square (if there's any) and then Trip everyone that's in that square plus all squares directly connected to that square. So basically a 3x3 trip centered on a square up to 2 squares away from you. With a possible strike on the initial target if there's anyone there.

For Imp Knockdown:
It doesn't do anything with hammer quake.
Imp Knockdown requires you to use, and makes better, the Knockdown activity.
If you aren't using that exact activity, it does nothing.

now, if you ARE using Knockdown, it basically means that if you hit, you also trip without a check needed (as opposed to WITH a check needed).

[breithauptclan]

And I think with a 2-handed reach weapon (assuming 10 foot reach) you could be making trip attempts against a creature 15 feet (three squares) away.

Increasing your reach, Hammer Quake adds 5 feet to the distance you could trip someone. Though you wouldn't be making the weapon strike against someone that far away.

[Claxon]

It is worth keeping in mind, the usefulness of Hammer Quake will be very dependent on your GM. Why? Because they control how much enemies clump, and how many enemies there are. If there are relatively few enemies, they are unlikely to be adjacent to each other, making Hammer Quake less useful than it appears. However, some GMs might love having all the NPCs stick side by side.

How useful Hammer Quake is, will be very dependent on your GM. Also keep in mind it uses all 3 of your actions in a turn, so even if enemies are clumped together, if you need to move to them you still can't use Hammer Quake.

I have not played a character with Hammer Quake, but I suspect that it's not actually very easy to use, compared to Knockdown.

[Claxon]

Kyle_TheBuilder wrote:

But now you speak my language. The idea is to find what is best dedication, best feats, archetypes etc. to take to support what I have in mind. Right now I really like idea of AoE Knockdown Fighter with Intimidation debuff, though I am open for any other good things. Like Trustrike you mentioned, but I am still not sure how to bite it so use it enough times to really have fun with it as Fighter.

So, with true strike you're going to want to get the enemy debuffed first if you can, trip them prone and get them frightened. Then you'll cast true strike as a single action spell (most enemies don't have attacks of opportunity so this isn't as risky as it sounds) and then power attack.

It is not something you use every turn, but maybe once a combat. Or saving it for very tough enemies. The goal is to help get critical hits, by giving you two chances on your attack rolls.

As for how to get access to the spell. Taking one of many spell casting dedications can get. Any arcane or occult spellcaster has it on their list. As well, clerics of certain deities. For your particular character I would probably go with the bard dedication, as you're already investing in charisma. After bard dedication, you'll need to sink a few class feats into the Basic Bard spellcasting, Expert Bard spellcasting, and Master Bard spellcasting. Strictly speaking you only need the first, but you'll have very limited spell slots. If you're going to pursue it, I would get all 3 spellcasting feats because at worst you can use true strike in all of them (by making it your signature spell, you wont get any extra benefit besides being able to use all your spell slots for it, but hey maybe that works for you). However, you may find that you also want to use those spell slot for other things. The occult spell list has lots of good spells.

Do note that True Strike only has verbal components, so you can use it with a two-handed weapon without trouble. Other spells you may not be so lucky.

[Kyle_TheBuilder]

Claxon wrote:

It is worth keeping in mind, the usefulness of Hammer Quake will be very dependent on your GM. Why? Because they control how much enemies clump, and how many enemies there are. If there are relatively few enemies, they are unlikely to be adjacent to each other, making Hammer Quake less useful than it appears. However, some GMs might love having all the NPCs stick side by side.

How useful Hammer Quake is, will be very dependent on your GM. Also keep in mind it uses all 3 of your actions in a turn, so even if enemies are clumped together, if you need to move to them you still can't use Hammer Quake.

I have not played a character with Hammer Quake, but I suspect that it's not actually very easy to use, compared to Knockdown.

I have GM that I play with for years, he will adjust so everything we have is usefull, so no worries, enemies will probably focus me the most as frontline melee so I can expect there will be quite a bit of situations for that, but sometimes there will be not, that's why I think having Knockdown + Hammer Quake is good to have as you can knock prone both single targets and groups of enemies. Usually even if they are not clamped in first turn, there will be eventually multiple enemies trying to fight me since I will be the front liner. Also Clear the Way is also very nice feat from Mauler, allowing to Shove up to 5 enemies, pushing them away from your friend, from your way, into hazzard zones, out of cliffs etc.

But if you have any other archetype suggestions for Fighter focusing on CC and knocking down enemies, I am all ears :). I have build in mind already but I am still working on details. I will post it here once I have it so you folks can give their opinions on it.

[gesalt]

Well, it's a late game strategy, but there's always snarecrafter. Caster puts big enemy in a maze. You deploy a stunning snare and a damaging snare or two. They reenter those squares on exiting the maze, triggering all traps. Stunning snare targets reflex which is a great choice at high levels and stuns on anything less than critical success. Very reliable single target CC combo, but takes until 8th level spells to come online and takes 4-5 feats.

[Pixel Popper]

Kyle_TheBuilder wrote:

But if you have any other archetype suggestions for Fighter focusing on CC and knocking down enemies, I am all ears :)...

Polearm w/ Reach and Staff Acrobat.

[shroudb]

Generally speaking, feats can help either with action economy, or with accuracy.

So you have stuff like double slice (2 actions for 2 attacks, but the second has big accuracy boost (no MAP)
Vs stuff like Flurry (2 attacks, 1 action)

Similarly, knockdown is accuracy enhancer. So knockdown is 2 attacks (attack+trip) for 2 actions, but no MAP on the trip.

Staff acrobat is the action economy enhancers for trips.

2 trips for 1 action, move+strike+trip for 2 actions, and etc.

(plus some extra goods like an AC increase stance, allowing to trip/shove gargantuan creatures, and etc)

[roquepo]

I hope Staff Acrobat (and Juggler while we are at it) gets eventually included in a rulebook or setting book, with some minor revision work like Jalmeray Heavenseeker did (minus the nerfs, of course). The archetype comes from an AP and it shows, the 16 DEX requirement feels so awkward. Which is a shame, because most other stuff from the archetype is really good.

[Deriven Firelion]

Kyle_TheBuilder wrote:

Claxon wrote:

It is worth keeping in mind, the usefulness of Hammer Quake will be very dependent on your GM. Why? Because they control how much enemies clump, and how many enemies there are. If there are relatively few enemies, they are unlikely to be adjacent to each other, making Hammer Quake less useful than it appears. However, some GMs might love having all the NPCs stick side by side.

How useful Hammer Quake is, will be very dependent on your GM. Also keep in mind it uses all 3 of your actions in a turn, so even if enemies are clumped together, if you need to move to them you still can't use Hammer Quake.

I have not played a character with Hammer Quake, but I suspect that it's not actually very easy to use, compared to Knockdown.

I have GM that I play with for years, he will adjust so everything we have is usefull, so no worries, enemies will probably focus me the most as frontline melee so I can expect there will be quite a bit of situations for that, but sometimes there will be not, that's why I think having Knockdown + Hammer Quake is good to have as you can knock prone both single targets and groups of enemies. Usually even if they are not clamped in first turn, there will be eventually multiple enemies trying to fight me since I will be the front liner. Also Clear the Way is also very nice feat from Mauler, allowing to Shove up to 5 enemies, pushing them away from your friend, from your way, into hazzard zones, out of cliffs etc.

But if you have any other archetype suggestions for Fighter focusing on CC and knocking down enemies, I am all ears :). I have build in mind already but I am still working on details. I will post it here once I have it so you folks can give their opinions on it.

One thing that might surprise you unless your DM is extra kind like you are stating is if the monsters focus on you, you're going to drop like a hot rock. I hope you have another frontline melee to take some of the pain off you because single characters cannot take the hits like they used to. Boss monster crits can be brutal.

[Claxon]

Deriven Firelion wrote:

One thing that might surprise you unless your DM is extra kind like you are stating is if the monsters focus on you, you're going to drop like a hot rock. I hope you have another frontline melee to take some of the pain off you because single characters cannot take the hits like they used to. Boss monster crits can be brutal.

Yeah, that's worth talking about.

In PF2 you're going to get hit. Often. There is no making an AC so high that the enemy will rarely hit you, that's just not how the game was designed. But high AC will keep you from getting crit, which is important.

But if you have 4 enemies attacking your fighter solely, you will go down quickly.

Assuming a 4 man, party the GM really needs to spread the pain across everyone, so with 4 enemies each should go after 1 PC (we're pretending space isn't restricted or anything else that would inhibit an enemy go after an PC). And in PF2 it's not things were in PF1, 3.5, or I guess D&D 5 (again, never played). Most enemies don't have Attacks of Opportunities to disrupt spell casting, and casters if they work on increasing their dex and keeping it right behind their maxed out casting stat will end up (with gear) roughly on par with medium armor wearing characters. Which puts them 1 or 2 points behind heavy armor.

So casters getting caught by melee monster enemies isn't as scary as it used to be because they no longer have terrible AC and most monsters can't disrupt their spell casting.

If you try to funnel all damage onto yourself, your gonna have a bad time.

[Faemeister]

Kyle_TheBuilder wrote:

So what kind of best melee focused builds you can recommend and I would be grateful if you could also give me breakdown of your build so I can start to see "patterns" and "syngergies" etc. and slowly build my understanding of optimization in this system.

Just want to deliver very high damage/DPR and hopefully still keep nice defenses up.

Plenty of others have gone into this, but I really dig that in 2e building characters with this mindset and trying to beeline straight into DPR isn't actually optimal by any margin.

[Kyle_TheBuilder]

Deriven Firelion wrote:

One thing that might surprise you unless your DM is extra kind like you are stating is if the monsters focus on you, you're going to drop like a hot rock. I hope you have another frontline melee to take some of the pain off you because single...

Thank you very much, that's good advice.I might invest them in some additional feats for that like Diehard maybe or Battle Medicine + Assurance for self heal with 1 free hand while wearing healing kit.

I like the idea of Mauler dedication since Hammer Quake seems cool, but I could always go with Sorc/Bard/Cleric for some Heroism/Haste etc. for Fighter.

I am still playing with build I have in mind. I guess there is no straight way to increase AC from feats that Fighter doesn't get anyway?

[Captain Morgan]

Kyle_TheBuilder wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

One thing that might surprise you unless your DM is extra kind like you are stating is if the monsters focus on you, you're going to drop like a hot rock. I hope you have another frontline melee to take some of the pain off you because single...

Thank you very much, that's good advice.I might invest them in some additional feats for that like Diehard maybe or Battle Medicine + Assurance for self heal with 1 free hand while wearing healing kit.

I like the idea of Mauler dedication since Hammer Quake seems cool, but I could always go with Sorc/Bard/Cleric for some Heroism/Haste etc. for Fighter.

I am still playing with build I have in mind. I guess there is no straight way to increase AC from feats that Fighter doesn't get anyway?

Pretty much. You can buy magical runes to enhance it but that's just the expected baseline. You can use the Raise Shield action to get a +2 circumstance bonus to AC. There are various other similar options but they are all circumstance bonuses so they don't stack.

Fighters do get very good support for AC because of heavy armor proficiency and shield feats. (Reactive Shield is absurdly good, for example, but requires you use a shield and not a maul.) The only classes which can get better are champions and monks.

[Deriven Firelion]

Kyle_TheBuilder wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

One thing that might surprise you unless your DM is extra kind like you are stating is if the monsters focus on you, you're going to drop like a hot rock. I hope you have another frontline melee to take some of the pain off you because single...

Thank you very much, that's good advice.I might invest them in some additional feats for that like Diehard maybe or Battle Medicine + Assurance for self heal with 1 free hand while wearing healing kit.

I like the idea of Mauler dedication since Hammer Quake seems cool, but I could always go with Sorc/Bard/Cleric for some Heroism/Haste etc. for Fighter.

I am still playing with build I have in mind. I guess there is no straight way to increase AC from feats that Fighter doesn't get anyway?

No way to boost AC. The only way to avoid being hit is not be there to be hit or some kind of avoidance like invisibility which comes much later. High AC helps against crits and does help against mooks later on, but PF2 combats are built to be like a Rocky fight with healing. You give a beating and take a beating and whoever is standing after 3 or 4 rounds wins.

The main class that can play the "I'm not there game" if you build for it is the monk. The monk has sufficiently mobility eventually they can avoid being hit altogether.

Monk damage at lower level is deceptively bad. You look at it and go, "Monk is super weak damage dealer." Then you investigate the monk feats and play with some builds, you find out the monk super brutal for avoiding damage. Problem is they do it by not being where they can get hit leaving their buddies to take the beating.

I built a mobility monk with rogue dedication and lots of leaping ability with trip, they would trip, leap or run out of range, then the creature had to drag themselves up, move to the monk to attack, and hope to still have enough actions to execute an attack. Fights are longer, but the monk is a brutal kiting class if they have the room.

[Kyle_TheBuilder]

Captain Morgan wrote:

Kyle_TheBuilder wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

One thing that might surprise you unless your DM is extra kind like you are stating is if the monsters focus on you, you're going to drop like a hot rock. I hope you have another frontline melee to take some of the pain off you because single...

Thank you very much, that's good advice.I might invest them in some additional feats for that like Diehard maybe or Battle Medicine + Assurance for self heal with 1 free hand while wearing healing kit.

I like the idea of Mauler dedication since Hammer Quake seems cool, but I could always go with Sorc/Bard/Cleric for some Heroism/Haste etc. for Fighter.

I am still playing with build I have in mind. I guess there is no straight way to increase AC from feats that Fighter doesn't get anyway?

Pretty much. You can buy magical runes to enhance it but that's just the expected baseline. You can use the Raise Shield action to get a +2 circumstance bonus to AC. There are various other similar options but they are all circumstance bonuses so they don't stack.

Fighters do get very good support for AC because of heavy armor proficiency and shield feats. (Reactive Shield is absurdly good, for example, but requires you use a shield and not a maul.) The only classes which can get better are champions and monks.

Hm, fair points. I like Mauler as it give Hammer Quake, but that's pretty much the only thing I like about that dedication. "Hammers" I like that you get on critical effect automatic Prone, which seems to work quite funny with Knockdown + AoOs :). Though maybe Polearms are overall better than that just for the reach alone or Greataxe for extra target hit. Clear the Way is fun feat on Mauler but unlike Hammer Quake it comes to heavy MAP penalties.

However, maybe Champion dedication is better overall with more options to increase AC and get something nice like Aura of Courage. Or Dedication Wizard/Sorc/Bard etc. for spellcasting and self buffs like Heroism etc.

Eh, I will have to theorycraft more tomorrow. A lot I already have, but details like that are still open to me. Does Dedication Champion offer better self healing than Battle Medicine + Assurance + wearing healing kit? I think you could get Lay on Hands.

[Deriven Firelion]

Aura of Courage is nice if you are the tank and playing with another frontline melee. A champion works best with another frontline melee.

[nicholas storm]

champion dedication on fighter is a waste. you already have bravery, so you don't need aura of courage.

A shield makes a huge difference in damage mitigation. You can get lay on hands from blessed one dedication, but i think the best dedication for damage mitigation is witch (arcane). You can get life boost and spells for things like stoneskin, invisibility, blink, etc.

[Deriven Firelion]

nicholas storm wrote:

champion dedication on fighter is a waste. you already have bravery, so you don't need aura of courage.

A shield makes a huge difference in damage mitigation. You can get lay on hands from blessed one dedication, but i think the best dedication for damage mitigation is witch (arcane). You can get life boost and spells for things like stoneskin, invisibility, blink, etc.

Aura of Courage helps your party. If you miss a bad save, it can eliminate a lot of fear.

[Kyle_TheBuilder]

nicholas storm wrote:

champion dedication on fighter is a waste. you already have bravery, so you don't need aura of courage.

A shield makes a huge difference in damage mitigation. You can get lay on hands from blessed one dedication, but i think the best dedication for damage mitigation is witch (arcane). You can get life boost and spells for things like stoneskin, invisibility, blink, etc.

I won't have high INT so I don't know if Witch is good choice. I will be having WIS and CHA as my secondaries after STR and CON so maybe Sorc/Bard/Cleric/Druid are better choice here for same spells?

[Martialmasters]

Kyle_TheBuilder wrote:

Deriven Firelion wrote:

One thing that might surprise you unless your DM is extra kind like you are stating is if the monsters focus on you, you're going to drop like a hot rock. I hope you have another frontline melee to take some of the pain off you because single...

I am still playing with build I have in mind. I guess there is no straight way to increase AC from feats that Fighter doesn't get anyway?

AC the best you can get, is Dex cap on your armor+the appropriate runes for your level.

You get a +1 with heavy armor and bulwark (bonus to reflex saves)

After that is a shield, Wich you will not have if you are going mauler

Going champion won't get you higher ac but might get you some group support.

Don't go giant instinct dedication if you want high AC.

You will find that generally, everything has a trade off.

Like yeah you can pump your ac with different items and spells you get circumstance and status bonuses, but you are going to eat you your actions doing it.

You can sneak in more damage options but many are conditional (1d4 sneak attack from dedication requires simple agile weapon). Bespell weapon (had to of cast a spell) etc.

My best bet is a caster dedication that can learn true strike and various utility/buff spells.

You can do things like mirror image or blur that will increase your survival beyond just trying to increase your ac

And true strike can ensure your attacks will land with a decent chance to critically hit

The opportunity cost of this build is

You don't really get any spell slots until level 4.

You need to pump your proficiency with the corresponding knowledge skill to get the later dedication feats (arcana for wizard as example)

And actions, outside of true strike most spells will cost 2 actions and you may find some don't last as long as they did in 5e.

[roquepo]

There are ways to get a status bonus to AC, but these come from spells most of the time. Things like Inspire Defense, Circle of Protection or Warding Aggression.

The last one is pretty good for Fighters btw.

[Kyle_TheBuilder]

So here is my build. Please note this is my first ever attempt to optimize build in PF2e so I will welcome all feedback/suggestions to it.

The goal of the build was to be Intimidation/Knockdown build to keep freighten condition going to keep enemies flat-foot (Shatter Defenses) and get bonuses from Fearsome Brute. Intimidating Glare/Prowess/Battle Cry are to demoralize, hobgoblin ancestry Remorseless Lash is to upkeep freighten with every strike and Agonizing Rebuke to keep that 1d4/2d4/3d4 going every turn for additional damage over time. To that I have Knockdown/Improve Knockdown to inflict prone. So: freighten, prone, flat-footed, damage over time + fearsome brute bonus. I also took Scare to Death and Terrified Retreat. I feel like I miss Intimidiating Strike, but with Remorseless Lash I felt It might be too much clog of Initmidiation things, but let me know your opinion. Also if you think that Intimidating build is overrated (mostly it's just -1 to stuff, sometimes -2 in first turn) and not worth all the focus: let me know, I could give up Intimidation idea and go for different ancestry, like Human, Ancient Elf etc. and pick up Fighter feats instead while keeping spellcasting dedication. I am still lacking "real-testing" experience

I took Hobgoblin+Tiefling as my goal was to make Oni-like character (brutish tiefling) so it's flavour but also Hobgoblin naturally works best with Intimidation builds and Tiefling give access to Wings for flying, hooves for extra speed and Dimensional Door spell (though I could get 5/ fire resistance instead maybe).

Couple general feat boosts like Fleet, Fast Recovery etc.

Weapon will be Maul so I can benefit from it's prone on crit, which will allow me to save Knockdown that turn or prone on AoO so in my turn I can focus on mauling prone enemy.

Now, elephant in the room. I took Sorcerer dedication as WIS and CHA are my secondaries (WIS obviously for Will saves, CHA for Intimidation) since True Strike seems to be very good at setting up big Power Attacks or increasing chance of Improved Knockdown to hit when it's crucial. Many people on forum/reddit were recommending spellcasting dedication just to True Strike from slots. My other choices was Blur and Heroism as very strong spells for Fighter. Not sure if I should later take Bloodline Breadth or Master Spellcasting. I feel like BB is better.

Anyway, the casting dedication is not something I am sure of. They take a lot of class feats so I had to give up stuff like Sudden Charge, Brutal Finish, Combat Reflex, Advantageous Assault or Blind-Fight (though there is always Flexibility!) and Burtish + Powerful Shove combo. But True Strike seems like big thing in this system especially for Fighters to crit and while other party-members could substitute for buffs on me, they can't True Strike me. Let me know if you think it's worth it.

On the other note, I could go for 14 INT instead of WIS and take Dedication Magus for Spellstrikes with Gauging Fang. 1 per combat only though, so less flexible.

Anyway, here is build:

Ancestry: Hobgoblin (Versatile Heritage: Tiefling)
Ancestry Feat: Remorseless Lash
Background: Warrior (Trained in Intimidation and Warfare Lore)
Class: Fighter
Initial Ability Scores (2x Free): STR: 18 (22); DEX:10 (12) ; CON:16 (20) ; INT:10 (12) ; WIS:12 (18) ; CHA:12 (18)
Initial Skills: Trained Athletics, Intimidation, Warfare Lore, Deception, Occultism, Acrobatics
Initial Feats: Intimidating Glare, Power Attack, Attack of Opportunity, Shield Block
2nd: Skill Feat: Titan Wrestler; Class Feat: Sorcerer Dedication Shadow
3rd: Bravery, General Feat: Fleet; Expert in Intimidation
4th: Skill Feat: Intimidating Prowess; Class Feat: Knockdown
5th: Ability Boosts: STR, CON, WIS, CHA; Ancestry Feat: Fiendish Wings; Fighter Weapon Mastery (Hammers); Expert in Athletics;
6th: Skill Feat: Terryfing Resistance; Class Feat: Basic Sorcerer Spellcasting (True Strike, Blur, Heroism/sig)
7th: Battlefield Surveyor, General Feat: Fast Recovery; Master in Intimidation; Weapon Specialization
8th: Skill Feat: Quick Jump ; Class Feat: Shatter Defenses;
9th: Ancestry Feat: Nimble Hooves ; Combat Flexibility (Furious Focus), Juggernaut; Master in Athletics   
10th: Ability Boosts: STR, CON, WIS, CHA; Skill Feat: Battle Cry;  Class Feat: Improved Knockdown;
11th: Armor Expertise, Fighter Expertise, General Feat: Powerful Leap; Expert in Occultism
12th: Skill Feat: Terrified Retreat; Class Feat: Fearsome Brute
13th: Ancestry Feat: Fiend's Door ; Master in Occultism; Weapon Legend
14th: Skill Feat: Wall Jump; Class Feat: Expert Sorcerer Spellcasting (Blink, Death Ward, True Seeing)
15th: Ability Boosts: STR, CON, WIS, CHA; General Feat: Scare to Death; Greater Weapon Specialization, Improved Combat Flexibility (Whirlwind Strike);Legendary in Intimidation
16th: Skill Feat: Group Coercion; Class Feat: Overwhelming Blow
17th: Ancestry Feat: Relentless Wings; Armor Mastery; Legendary in Athletics
18th: Skill Feat: Legendary Professional (Monster Lore); Class Feat: Bloodline Breadth or Master Sorcerer Spellcasting (not sure)
19th: General Feat: Toughness; Legendary in Occultism; Versatile Legend
20th: Ability Boosts: STR, INT, DEX, X; Skill Feat: Cloud Jump; Class Feat: Ultimate Flexibility (Determination);

[shroudb]

Kyle_TheBuilder wrote:

So here is my build. Please note this is my first ever attempt to optimize build in PF2e so I will welcome all feedback/suggestions to it.

The goal of the build was to be Intimidation/Knockdown build to keep freighten condition going to keep enemies flat-foot (Shatter Defenses) and get bonuses from Fearsome Brute. Intimidating Glare/Prowess/Battle Cry are to demoralize, hobgoblin ancestry Remorseless Lash is to upkeep freighten with every strike and Agonizing Rebuke to keep that 1d4/2d4/3d4 going every turn for additional damage over time. To that I have Knockdown/Improve Knockdown to inflict prone. So: freighten, prone, flat-footed, damage over time + fearsome brute bonus. I also took Scare to Death and Terrified Retreat. I feel like I miss Intimidiating Strike, but with Remorseless Lash I felt It might be too much clog of Initmidiation things, but let me know your opinion. Also if you think that Intimidating build is overrated (mostly it's just -1 to stuff, sometimes -2 in first turn) and not worth all the focus: let me know, I could give up Intimidation idea and go for different ancestry, like Human, Ancient Elf etc. and pick up Fighter feats instead while keeping spellcasting dedication. I am still lacking "real-testing" experience

I took Hobgoblin+Tiefling as my goal was to make Oni-like character (brutish tiefling) so it's flavour but also Hobgoblin naturally works best with Intimidation builds and Tiefling give access to Wings for flying, hooves for extra speed and Dimensional Door spell (though I could get 5/ fire resistance instead maybe).

Couple general feat boosts like Fleet, Fast Recovery etc.

Weapon will be Maul so I can benefit from it's prone on crit, which will allow me to save Knockdown that turn or prone on AoO so in my turn I can focus on mauling prone enemy.

Now, elephant in the room. I took Sorcerer dedication as WIS and CHA are my secondaries (WIS obviously for Will saves, CHA for Intimidation) since True Strike seems to be very good at setting up big Power...

I'd really try to fit in at least combat reflexes in. It's just extremely good.

Sudden charge is also very nice, especially in the early levels, but it's something you can retrain out of it when you get a bit higher level and you get access to more move speed increases. Fleet, a wand of longstrider, and bounding boots being the common ones that would allow you to usually reach the target in one go (or if you can't it means that the enemy is so far ahead that probably rushing in isn't really worth it).

As far as your actual character, You'd need 14 cha to pick up sorcerer dedication at level 2, and at that level you would only have 12

speaking about the spellcasting archetype, you've listed at 6 that you would get heroism, it's actually level 8 when you get the 3rd level spellslot (unless you mean that eventually you will get that spell out of that feat)

From an optimised perspective, I don't think spending a General feat to grab Powerful leap is good enough. To begin with, Powerful leap is just not that strong as a skill feat (it only affects Leap, while with your Quickjump feat most of the time you will be doing Long Jump for far more effect). And general feats in general is much more valuable. As an example, you could pick Ancestrp paragon, pick up Hooves from tiefling, and get a +5 to your speed (leaving your level 9 ancestry feat open for higher level ancestry feats). Or you could pick up Adopted (especially if there's a human in your party, by level 11 you would have spend enough time to justify mulching over part of the human culture) and then pick up the extra level 1 class feat, which could be the sudden leap using either an Ancestry feat, or a 2nd General feat (by picking ancestral paragon feat) And etc.

Another option would be to pick up Toughness at level 11, since you are delaying it till extremely late for some reason and it's quite strong even early on, and instead of grabbing it at level 19, you grab Canny acumen at 19 to boost your Will saves to Master up from Expert.

You could grab both by delaying Scare to death by 1 level and grabbing it at 16 and using your 15th level general feat for a general feat as well.

For reference, Fleet and toughness are the usual 2 feats you grab at 3 and 7, there might be some others like shield block, initiative and some proficiencies for access to things, but you have all those covered by being fighter. Fast recovery, while I also like it personally, is not considered one of the "optimised" picks (although, once more, i also think it's pretty good).

As a sidenote, I know you haven't put in equipment, but at level 17 basically everyone gets an Apex item, which boosts your main stat by +2, so in your end scores you should really count your strength as 24 for calculations and etc.

p.s. keeping a -1 on someone for the entire combat is extremely potent in pf2. Think of it as if everyone in the party is under heroism vs that foe. All of his DC will be 1 lower, his AC will be 1 lower, his attacks will be at -1, and etc.

[Kyle_TheBuilder]

shroudb wrote:

I'd really try to fit in at least combat reflexes in. It's just extremely good.

Sudden charge is also very nice, especially in the early levels, but it's something you can retrain out of it when you get a bit higher level and you get access to more move speed increases. Fleet, a wand of longstrider, and bounding boots being the common ones that would allow you to usually reach the target in one go (or if you can't it means that the enemy is so far ahead that probably rushing in isn't really worth it).

As far as your actual character, You'd need 14 cha to pick up sorcerer dedication at level 2, and at that level you would only have 12

speaking about the spellcasting archetype, you've listed at 6 that you would get heroism, it's actually level 8 when you get the 3rd level spellslot (unless you mean that eventually you will get that spell out of that feat)

From an optimised perspective, I don't think spending a General feat to grab Powerful leap is good enough. To begin with, Powerful leap is just not that strong as a skill feat (it only affects Leap, while with your Quickjump feat most of the time you will be doing Long Jump for far more effect). And general feats in general is much more valuable. As an example, you could pick Ancestrp paragon, pick up Hooves from tiefling, and get a +5 to your speed (leaving your level 9 ancestry feat open for higher level ancestry feats). Or you could pick up Adopted (especially if there's a human in your party, by level 11 you would have spend enough time to justify mulching over part of the human culture) and then pick up the extra level 1 class feat, which could be the sudden leap using either an Ancestry feat, or a 2nd General feat (by picking ancestral paragon feat) And etc.

Another option would be to pick up Toughness at level 11, since you are delaying it till extremely late for some reason and it's quite strong even early on, and instead of grabbing it at level 19, you grab Canny acumen at 19 to boost your Will saves to Master up from Expert.

You could grab both by delaying Scare to death by 1 level and grabbing it at 16 and using your 15th level general feat for a general feat as well.

For reference, Fleet and toughness are the usual 2 feats you grab at 3 and 7, there might be some others like shield block, initiative and some proficiencies for access to things, but you have all those covered by being fighter. Fast recovery, while I also like it personally, is not considered one of the "optimised" picks (although, once more, i also think it's pretty good).

As a sidenote, I know you haven't put in equipment, but at level 17 basically everyone gets an Apex item, which boosts your main stat by +2, so in your end scores you should really count your strength as 24 for calculations and etc.

p.s. keeping a -1 on someone for the entire combat is extremely potent in pf2. Think of it as if everyone in the party is under heroism vs that foe. All of his DC will be 1 lower, his AC will be 1 lower, his attacks will be at -1, and etc.

Thanks for feedback, I am making changes right now. I totally missed that I need 14 CHA for sorc dedication. Now it moved everything, tough I have class feat at 2 free for maybe Brutish Shove and then I could take Powerful Shove instead of Fearsome Brute maybe... But then I don't know where I should fit Combat Reflex. I could get General Feat: Adopted Ancestry (Human) and then get Natural Ambition: Sudden Charge.. Though if we are at Adopted Ancestry, Dwarf would be nice too for more Health combined with Toughness.

I start to wonder if True Strike is worth really all that hassle of fitting spellcasting dedication. Maybe I should just grab something like Blessed One which immidietly gets Lay on Hands and take Rejuvenating Tough at level 18 to get 10 Temp. per turn for 10 turn to be even more beefy.

[shroudb]

Kyle_TheBuilder wrote:

shroudb wrote:

I'd really try to fit in at least combat reflexes in. It's just extremely good.

Sudden charge is also very nice, especially in the early levels, but it's something you can retrain out of it when you get a bit higher level and you get access to more move speed increases. Fleet, a wand of longstrider, and bounding boots being the common ones that would allow you to usually reach the target in one go (or if you can't it means that the enemy is so far ahead that probably rushing in isn't really worth it).

As far as your actual character, You'd need 14 cha to pick up sorcerer dedication at level 2, and at that level you would only have 12

speaking about the spellcasting archetype, you've listed at 6 that you would get heroism, it's actually level 8 when you get the 3rd level spellslot (unless you mean that eventually you will get that spell out of that feat)

From an optimised perspective, I don't think spending a General feat to grab Powerful leap is good enough. To begin with, Powerful leap is just not that strong as a skill feat (it only affects Leap, while with your Quickjump feat most of the time you will be doing Long Jump for far more effect). And general feats in general is much more valuable. As an example, you could pick Ancestrp paragon, pick up Hooves from tiefling, and get a +5 to your speed (leaving your level 9 ancestry feat open for higher level ancestry feats). Or you could pick up Adopted (especially if there's a human in your party, by level 11 you would have spend enough time to justify mulching over part of the human culture) and then pick up the extra level 1 class feat, which could be the sudden leap using either an Ancestry feat, or a 2nd General feat (by picking ancestral paragon feat) And etc.

Another option would be to pick up Toughness at level 11, since you are delaying it till extremely late for some reason and it's quite strong even early on, and instead of grabbing it at level 19, you grab Canny acumen at 19 to boost your Will saves to Master

...

There's an extra error in your build, totally rectified though with some modifications: Fiendish wings is level 9 ancestry feat, not level 5.

Also, i don't know a single GM that would allow "Monster Lore". That's just extremely wide. Unless you mistyped and meant Warfare lore or something. You are also not legendary with any lore for Legendary professional. You can get a free scaling lore if you spend a General feat into Additional Lore though.

keep in mind, for Adopted, that you specifically can't pick stuff based on physiology of a race. Some GMs (including myself) would count dwarven stoutness to be part of their physiology, and thus not applicable to be picked through Adopted.

I think that simply changing your 7th and 11th general feat (alongside with the charisma swap at 1 to enable sorcerer) would be enough to have a pretty solid build.

Here's a just slightly modified build as an example:

You can start with a:
18/10/14/10/12/14 initial stat line, and this will enable Sorcerer at 2.

then pick up something like this:
1st: Class feat: Power Attack; Ancestry feat: Lash
2nd: Class Feat: Sorcerer Dedication Shadow
3rd: General Feat: Fleet
4th: Class Feat: Knockdown
5th: Ancestry Feat: Agonising Rebuke
6th: Class Feat: Basic Sorcerer Spellcasting
7th: General Feat: Ancestrap Paragorn (Hooves)
8th: Class Feat: Shatter Defenses;
9th: Ancestry Feat: Fiendish Wings
10th: Class Feat: Improved Knockdown;
11th: General Feat: Toughness
12th: Class Feat: Fearsome Brute
13th: Ancestry Feat: Fiend's Door ;
14th: Class Feat: Combat Reflexes (i'd probably swap this with Fearsome brute in order, i value 1 extra reaction more than +3 to damage, just wanted to keep the original build as intact as i could)
15th: General Feat:Fast Recovery; Improved Combat Flexibility (Whirlwind Strike)
16th: Skill Feat: Scare to Death; Class Feat: Expert Sorcerer Spellcasting
17th: Ancestry Feat: Relentless Wings;
18th: Class Feat: Master Sorcerer Spellcasting
19th: General Feat: Acumen (will saves);
20th: Class Feat: Ultimate Flexibility (Determination);

I took out Overwhelming blow because i don't particularly like it.
a hidden side effect (for the newer players) is that Stunned has the "you cannot act" text, which means that if you use it, you cannot use your reactions till the start of your next turn, and with Combat reflexes, that means that while you may get an auto crit (if you hit) not only you spent the entire turn doing so, you also lost 1 action from the next turn, and you also lost up to 2 more strikes with your Attacks of Opportunities.

So you basically spent 4 actions and 2 reaction for that possible crit.

Ofc, you can always pick it up through your Capstone feat, although i thik that having an open "up to 18feat" gives extreme flexibility to pick up every day what you think you are going to need that day (including possibly not picking wirlwind as an example if you are prepping for a boss battle that you think will not have adds and etc)

Since you are already grabbing legendary Occult, i'd look at some of the skill feats there as well instead of legendary professional for some added flexibility. Grabbing stuff like pseudo augury effects, sponaneous Lore skills to use in a pinch, and etc. Some are pretty good for utility for once per day/once per hour actions. Speaking about Consult the spirits, Automatic writing, and even maybe Disturbing knowledge for AoE fear if needed.

[Kyle_TheBuilder]

shroudb wrote:

Kyle_TheBuilder wrote:

shroudb wrote:

I'd really try to fit in at least combat reflexes in. It's just extremely good.

Sudden charge is also very nice, especially in the early levels, but it's something you can retrain out of it when you get a bit higher level and you get access to more move speed increases. Fleet, a wand of longstrider, and bounding boots being the common ones that would allow you to usually reach the target in one go (or if you can't it means that the enemy is so far ahead that probably rushing in isn't really worth it).

As far as your actual character, You'd need 14 cha to pick up sorcerer dedication at level 2, and at that level you would only have 12

speaking about the spellcasting archetype, you've listed at 6 that you would get heroism, it's actually level 8 when you get the 3rd level spellslot (unless you mean that eventually you will get that spell out of that feat)

From an optimised perspective, I don't think spending a General feat to grab Powerful leap is good enough. To begin with, Powerful leap is just not that strong as a skill feat (it only affects Leap, while with your Quickjump feat most of the time you will be doing Long Jump for far more effect). And general feats in general is much more valuable. As an example, you could pick Ancestrp paragon, pick up Hooves from tiefling, and get a +5 to your speed (leaving your level 9 ancestry feat open for higher level ancestry feats). Or you could pick up Adopted (especially if there's a human in your party, by level 11 you would have spend enough time to justify mulching over part of the human culture) and then pick up the extra level 1 class feat, which could be the sudden leap using either an Ancestry feat, or a 2nd General feat (by picking ancestral paragon feat) And etc.

Another option would be to pick up Toughness at level 11, since you are delaying it till extremely late for some reason and it's quite strong even early on, and instead of grabbing it at level 19, you grab Canny acumen at 19 to

...

Thanks for follow up. I took some inspiritation from your proposition and changed around stuff. Note about your proposition: I can't take Master Spellcasting as it requires Legendary in Arcana/Occult etc. and I won't have that till level 19 since I have to first get Leg Athletic and Leg Intimidation, though in theory I could delay one of those, but I think they are more important. But I can take Bloodline Breadth which essentially will give me 4 more slots for True Strike.

Also I changed Occultism to Arcana bloodline (Imperial) casue I found out that I can easy expand my slots for True Strike by buying Ring Of Wizardy but it only works with Arcane tradition.

Also I took Adopted Ancestry for Dwarf Mountain's Stoutness which will double Toughness benefit, though there might be other option. And yes, you are correc with Fiendish Wings, I swapped those around. And took Savage Critical instead of Overwhelming Blow.

I am also considering swapping Weapon Specialization from (Hammer) to (Polearm) to have better reach, though I don't know if it's worth without Lunge/Lunge Stance.

Here is revised build:

Ancestry: Hobgoblin (Versatile Heritage: Tiefling)
Ancestry Feat: Remorseless Lash
Background: Warrior (Trained in Intimidation and Warfare Lore)
Class: Fighter
Initial Ability Scores (2x Free): STR: 18 (22); DEX:10 (12) ; CON:14 (20) ; INT:10 (12) ; WIS:12 (18) ; CHA:14 (18)
Initial Skills: Trained Athletics, Intimidation, Warfare Lore, Deception, Arcana, Acrobatics
Initial Feats: Intimidating Glare, Power Attack, Attack of Opportunity, Shield Block
2nd: Skill Feat: Titan Wrestler; Class Feat: Sorcerer Dedication Imperial
3rd: Bravery, General Feat: Fleet; Expert in Intimidation
4th: Skill Feat: Quick Jump; Class Feat: Knockdown
5th: Ability Boosts: STR, CON, WIS, CHA; Ancestry Feat: Nimble Hooves ; Fighter Weapon Mastery (Hammers); Expert in Athletics;
6th: Skill Feat: Terryfing Resistance; Class Feat: Basic Sorcerer Spellcasting (True Strike, Blur, Haste/sig)
7th: Battlefield Surveyor, General Feat: Toughness ; Master in Intimidation; Weapon Specialization
8th: Skill Feat: Intimidating Prowess; Class Feat: Shatter Defense
9th: Ancestry Feat: Fiendish Wings ; Combat Flexibility (Furious Focus), Juggernaut; Master in Athletics   
10th: Ability Boosts: STR, CON, WIS, CHA; Skill Feat: Battle Cry;  Class Feat: Improved Knockdown;
11th: Armor Expertise, Fighter Expertise, General Feat: Adopted Ancestry (Dwarf); Expert in Arcana
12th: Skill Feat: Terrified Retreat; Class Feat: Combat Reflex
13th: Ancestry Feat: Mountain's Stoutness ; Master in Arcana; Weapon Legend
14th: Skill Feat: Wall Jump; Class Feat: Expert Sorcerer Spellcasting (Stoneskin, Death Ward, True Seeing)
15th: Ability Boosts: STR, CON, WIS, CHA; General Feat: Scare to Death; Greater Weapon Specialization, Improved Combat Flexibility (Whirlwind Strike); Legendary in Intimidation
16th: Skill Feat: Group Coercion; Class Feat: Bloodline Breadth
17th: Ancestry Feat: Relentless Wings; Armor Mastery; Legendary in Athletics
18th: Skill Feat: SOMETHING; Class Feat: Savage Critical
19th: General Feat: Acumen (Will Saves); Legendary in Arcana; Versatile Legend
20th: Ability Boosts: STR, CON, INT, DEX; Skill Feat: Cloud Jump; Class Feat: Ultimate Flexibility (Determination);