Introduction
Welcome to our Dark and Darker Fighter guide for beginners. In this guide we’ll be covering all the basics you need to know to get your adventure started in Dark and Darker. The Fighter is a strong melee class with a knack for every form of combat. The Fighter is a very flexible class that when equipped with the right perk, has access to all weapons in the game.
Pros
- Jack of all trades
- Can equip most items
- Sprint skill allowing great movement
- Great for solo and group play
Cons
- Gear dependent
- While flexible, has less identity
Skills
Skills in Dark and Darker are the core abilities each class has unique access to. Currently you can select two of the following skills to complement the playstyle or build choice you prefer:
- Victory Strike
- Sprint
- Adrenaline Rush
- Breakthrough
- Taunt
- Second Wind
- Perfect Block
- Shield Slam
Victory Strike
Victory Strike is a buff-type skill that makes your next attack deal 20% additional damage. If this skill kills an enemy, you regain 5% of your health.
Sprint
Sprint is a fantastic movement skill that – as you have probably guessed, allows you to sprint for a duration, giving increased movement speed.
Adrenaline Rush
Adrenaline Rush grants a steroid burst of 15% speed and attack speed for 6 seconds, suffering a movement speed penalty at the end of the duration for 2 seconds.
Breakthrough
Breakthrough serves as a type of cleansing skill, allowing you to remove all movement speed debuffs.
Taunt
Taunt much like traditional RPG games, grabs the attention of monsters and pulls their aggro to you. This skill also improves your defense stats. Also grants 10% Magical Damage Reduction.
Second Wind
Second Wind is a health regeneration skill, allowing a 40% health regen buff for around 12 seconds – currently, this can remove the Adrenaline Rush debuff too.
Perfect Block
The next block/parry has greatly improved impact power for 6 seconds after activation.
Shield Slam
Using the skill inflicts 25 physical damage on the player and reduces the movement speed of the hit target by 10% for 2 seconds.
Skill Recommendations
For starting out and the foreseeable future, we recommend using Sprint and Second Wind. Both of these skills are just too powerful as a baseline to give up for the others. Sprint allows you to engage or disengage with ease, chase down to finish kills or dodge in and out of combat. While Second Wind allows you to keep in the fight without having to rely on other sources of healing. It should be noted however that popping potions alongside Second Wind provides a tremendous amount of healing per second.
Perks
Perks in Dark and Darker serve as unique passive traits. Each class can slot up to 4 perks once they reach max level:
- Barricade – increases your physical defense by 5% when using a shield or defending
- Counterattack, If you parry you receive an increase to movement speed and attack speed for 3 seconds
- Combo Attack – successful hits increase your damage in a 3 second window
- Defense Mastery – receive 10% more Armor Rating on equipment
- Shield Expert – gain 5% extra movement speed while your shield is up
- Dual Wield – increases action speed by 10% if you’re holding a weapon in both hands
- Projectile Resistance – reduces damage taken by ranged projectiles by 10%
- Shield Mastery – Increases movement speed by 10% when in a defensive stance, and when a defense is successful, the time taken for the defense action is reduced by 50%
- Swift – allows a 20% movement speed penalty reduction for armor, also gives a movement speed boost with heavy armor equipped
- Slayer – Can not wear plate armor but gains 5 weapon damage when holding a weapon in each hand.
- Weapon Mastery – all primary and secondary weapons become available to use that are not usually native to the Fighter. You also receive a 20% damage penalty as a result
- Adrenaline Spike – When the fighter’s health reaches below 40%, the become flooded with adrenaline and gain 155 action speed for 12 seconds.
Perk Recommendations
Currently, we recommend taking Weapon Mastery, Combo Attack, Projectile Resistance and Swift. However when starting out in your adventure and you are leveling your Fighter, we suggest starting with Weapon Mastery. This is due to the fact that you can pick up a bow and safely clear rooms early on.
Spells
Currently in our Dark and Darker Fighter guide, the Fighter has no access to spells, but this could change with the addition of artifacts or scrolls. Check back here in future updates!
Weapons
The Fighter is a weapon master, having access to a plethora of weapons:
- EVERY weapon in the game due to the Weapon Mastery perk
Exclusive to Fighter, however:
- Falchion
- Halberd
- Longsword
- Spear (although Ranger has access to this with their Spear Proficiency perk)
Starting out, we recommend taking either an Arming Sword and Shield or Longsword as your melee option and a Bow as your ranged option. You can activate a parry styled block with the Longsword.
You can however, use basically anything you like. We do believe though that having a melee and ranged option is a currently overpowered playstyle.
Stat Priority
Different stats in Dark and Darker have different properties, as a result we recommend prioritizing the following stats on gear:
- +All Attributes
- Physical Damage Reduction
- Movement Speed
- Strength
+All Attributes is a no-brainer, allowing you additional stat points in every stat is huge value. We recommend both Movement Speed and Strength to give yourself decent mobility and health pool/damage. Physical Damage Reduction allows the Fighter to become a tanking monster, able to fight off entire teams of Physical Damage-based players. As a result of this, Physical Damage Reduction finds a strong spot in the Fighter’s priority list due to countering the current meta. The current meta is a heavy play-rate of Rangers, other Fighters and more.
How To Play Fighter
In this Dark and Darker Fighter Guide, we will focus on the fundamentals. Ultimately as a Fighter you will provide melee damage and serve as a frontline to teammates but also serve as a ranged poke. Dark and Darker is a very brutal and unforgiving game, as a result mechanics such as friendly fire is on. This means as a Fighter you have to be careful when swinging your melee weapon.
PvE
When dealing with PvE mobs throughout your dungeon run most mobs can be taken down fairly easily with a single swing or at most two to the head. It is important against any mobs to take a swing and immediately move out to avoid taking unnecessary damage or block with a shield. Due to Weapon Mastery on the Fighter, you have access to Bows. Take absolute advantage of this and use Bows to clear out mobs from a safe distance.
As a Fighter you have Second Wind available to you, so if you happen to take damage to PvE you can at least top up for free! However, bring a few Campfires with you!
PvP
Fighting with teammates versus another trio can get hectic quickly, with the Fighter use this opportunity to start most fights from range with the Bow. As a result of poking down targets with the bow, you can then pivot to being the melee frontline, and use Sprint to push into the enemy team! As a Fighter you set the pace and pressure of the fight due to this, learn to capitalize on ranged punishment and when to switch into melee to push! Remember that you can soak damage for your team and use Second Wind to keep in the fight.
Solo
When you are playing solo however, you have to pick your fights a little more carefully. The aim of the game when solo is to find the perfect opportunity to take out a player instantly without the enemy teammates reacting to it in time. Looking for favorable odds is key. Fortunately as the Fighter you have so much versatility in your kit due to Weapon Mastery that you can find a playstyle that suits you and solo play more! Having the ability to use a Bow and a Sword and Shield for example allows you as a solo player to potentially pick off opponents with a Bow and put the pressure on, or leave the players low enough to pursue and finish them. Remember to abuse Second Wind and Sprint to turn an otherwise disadvantaged fight into a potential win!
Playing as a Tank
A strong way of playing Fighter in group play currently in Dark and Darker is the full plate tank build. This build revolves around using a Longsword and a choice of either a ranged weapon or Falchion & Shield. The key to this playstyle is the use of stacking Physical Damage Reduction on plate armor. With this set-up, you are almost immune to Rangers or other melee characters. As a result, be aggressive and push up as a frontline and soak the initial push. It should be noted that with a Cleric and/or Bard with you, you are also an unstoppable killing machine!
We hope you enjoyed our comprehensive Dark and Darker Fighter Guide for beginners! To check out other class guides and more, click here.
Dark and Darker’s next Playtest is coming 6th February, with many potential changes and additions discussed in our Q&A Recap.