Fighter Build Question

[Jaesun]

I have a Level 5 Barbarian and here are my current stats:

STR 20 DEX 20 END 12 SPEED 18
INT 8 WIS 12 PER 16 CON 16

Heavy Armor 3
Swords 4
Bow Weapons 2

Amulet of Accuracy (+3 To Hit)
Sword: Iron Falcata - Base Damage 3

ToHit Ability 12

I only use the bow to damage enemies from afar and then use Sword to finish them off.

Currently when fighting say Thugs, with my Sword I am only at a 50 - 60% chance to hit (in daylight). I am just having a difficult time killing just 1 of them.

I'd assume continue to pump points in to STR/SPEED/DEX, or just focus and keep spending all points into DEX to keep raisng my ToHIT?

Any suggestions?

[rayres]

First of all, your endurance seems quite low, which means your hitpoints are low. If you cant hit more than 60% of the time, you should be able to win, using healing potions. Well, there are a few of things you could do:

1) make/buy ogre strength potions and keen eyesight potions (+8 chance to hit), as well as leatherskin potions. If you want a spoiler, I can post the recipes for ogre strength and keen eyesight.
2) buy healing potions at lvl. 2 strength
3) If you can kill one of them, then you can do "hit and run" - kill one, run away into another zone, heal, then come back.
4) use archery attacks from far away
5) use predator sight potions and fight in darkness; they get a to-hit penalty, and you attack as normal (or so I've heard).

Rob

[soma]

My barbarian character was tough at first but was an absolute powerhouse between level 10 and 16. I remember levels 4-8 being pretty tough.

Here's my build:

Level 16

STR 27
DEX 32
END 20
SPD 25
INT 15
WIS 15
PER 17
CON 17

Swords 30
Light Armor 10
Dodge 16 (10 base, +6 from amulet)
Bow Weapons 11 (7 base, +4 from bracers)
Alchemy 13 (7 base, two +3 rings when mixing)

ToHit 29
Max Damage 34+2
Armor Rating 37
Dmg Reduction 8%

Elements 36%
Toxins 51%
Magick 38%
Disease 41%

I used alchemy a lot, even around level 7, to mix level 2 and 3 healing potions. The low endurance is a problem but I used two +20 HP rings from level 10 or so onward which helped a lot. Enemies rarely hit me with the high dodge and stats.

[Jaesun]

Light Armor 10

Interesting... any reason you are not using Heavy Armor?

[syrio]

I've been doing some testing. It seems that concentration contributes to hit chance just as much as dexterity. The % is the chance to hit the first salamander outside the starting hut. There's 1 level difference between the two weapon skills, and the difference in hit% is 3. I'm not sure if any other stat has any effect on hit chance.

7dex 28 conc - 6sword, tohit 10, 72% - 5 short blade, tohit 9, 69%
28dex 7 conc - 6sword, tohit 10, 72% - 5 short blade, tohit 9, 69%
22dex 22 conc - 6sword, tohit 11, 75% - 5 short blade tohit 10, 72%

[Jaesun]

1) make/buy ogre strength potions and keen eyesight potions (+8 chance to hit), as well as leatherskin potions. If you want a spoiler, I can post the recipes for ogre strength and keen eyesight.
5) use predator sight potions and fight in darkness; they get a to-hit penalty, and you attack as normal (or so I've heard).

Alchemy 13 (7 base, two +3 rings when mixing)
I used alchemy a lot, even around level 7, to mix level 2 and 3 healing potions.

Hmm I have avoided taking Alchemy mainly in my desperate need for money (doing all sub-quests, fully exploring areas, only spending money on armor/weapons/demon oil) I sell everything, including all the reagents I find. That or I am just getting terribly bad random loot drops. And potions are just too expensive.

I think this is the problem. It seems that potions and or Alchemy are basically required for melee classes. Which is fine, I just had not planned on that.

[agnari]

my first exploration toon was sword and while i found a couple good ones the damage wasn't that remarkable - some monsters down right 0 type of damage.

second is using a cleaving weapon and fairing much better.

[just]

Heavy Armor 3
Swords 4
Bow Weapons 2

Are you not spending your points? Looks like you never spent more than your starting points on these...

As a mage I had some serious trouble against thugs as well, I just try to make sure I only have to fight one or two of them, and then I rest to regain mana, and finish off the rest of them.