Revision - fighter - Monsters & Memories Wiki

The Fighter is the dedicated tank. The official archetype phrase is Armored Juggernaut, and after the rework the class is described as holding the strongest aggro control tools in the roster. It fights exclusively with melee weapons, using a shield for tanking and dual-wield or two-handed weapons for damage, and it has no magic at all.

Field	Detail
Archetype	Armored Juggernaut
Roles	Tank, Melee DPS
Playable races	Deep Dwarf, Deep Elf, Dwarf, Gnome, Goblin, Halfling, Human, Ogre, Troll, Wood Elf
Armor and weapons	Fights exclusively with melee weapons, using a shield for tanking and dual-wield or two-handed weapons for damage. Earlier class documentation, written before the 2026 rework, describes Fighters as able to wear all armor types and wield all weapons.
Rework status	Detailed rework published and shipped to the closed beta servers in update 0.27.0.0 on August 4 2026

Identity and role

The rework reshaped the Fighter into a dedicated tank: more taunts and threat tools, more tanking problem-solvers, more retaliation, and in exchange overall damage output comes down. The team set an explicit benchmark for where that leaves it, which is unusually specific for a pre-release game: Fighters should do more damage than most tanks, but less than a damage-centric class like the Ranger or the Monk.

Two other properties shape how the class feels. It operates on a shared cooldown pool that forces meaningful choices in each combat cycle rather than a fixed rotation, and it performs best against melee opponents, gaining value when defending because of its retaliatory mechanics.

The rework also added weapon-type requirements. A number of Fighter abilities now require a specific weapon type, so you either choose a loadout around your weapons or carry several and swap based on the encounter. See Items and Equipment.

Playable races

The Fighter is open to ten races, the widest list in the roster: Deep Dwarf, Deep Elf, Dwarf, Gnome, Goblin, Halfling, Human, Ogre, Troll and Wood Elf.

That list covers the full designed race roster. Deep Dwarf and Troll are designed but are not among the races playable at Early Access launch on October 1 2026, so the practical choice at launch is the remainder of the list.

Vengeance

Vengeance is the Fighter-exclusive mechanic added in the rework, and it is granted automatically while you are in any of the three stances. Taking damage gives a chance to generate a Vengeance stack, and the stacks are spent on three abilities. Vengeance stacks fade relatively quickly, so they are a reactive resource rather than something you bank.

Spender	Cost	Effect
Frenzy	Consumes all Vengeance	Deals Weapon Ratio Damage up to five times, one weapon strike per stack, and increases Attack Speed. Higher baseline damage than before the rework.
Cleave	Consumes one stack	A two-handed frontal cone that hits up to three targets.
Second Wind	Consumes one stack	Short-term regeneration. The amount healed scales with Stamina.

Stances

Stance	Effect
Offensive Stance	Retained from before the rework.
Defensive Stance	Retained from before the rework.
Tactician Stance	New. Grants resistance to Root, Stun and Incapacitate. Useful for pulling, for specific encounters, and likely for player versus player combat.

Melee abilities

Ability	Effect
Rend	Now has a chance to reset Cleave and Feint in addition to Frenzy and Shield Bash.
Cross Cut	New. Requires dual-wield. Weapon Ratio Damage plus Physical Damage per equipped weapon. Shares Rend's cooldown, with more raw damage but no cooldown resets.
Feint	New. Deals damage, decreases Agility and knocks the target off balance. Shares a cooldown with Frenzy and Cleave. Monks can take advantage of the off-balance state.
Shield Bash	Now interrupts spell casting. It shares a cooldown with Shield Block instead of with Frenzy.
Kneebreaker	New. Decreases the target's Movement Speed.
Kick, Clobber, Disarm, Armor Break	Retained from before the rework.

Threat, defense and pulling

Ability	Effect
Taunt	No longer shares a cooldown with Unnerving Shout.
Shouts	All Shouts now share a single cooldown.
Shield Block	Requires a shield. Temporarily absorbs damage.
Juggernaut	A high-level alternative to Charge: immobilises, temporarily increases your Threat generation, and reduces damage received.
Vanguard	Decreases an ally's Threat generation, which stops them pulling aggro off you.
Challenging Arrow	New. A high-threat pulling option that deals marginally more damage than the base Shoot ability.

Challenging Arrow matters because only the Archer and the Ranger get ranged auto-attack. Everyone else who wants to shoot uses the Shoot or Throw ability, and the Fighter's version is built for pulling rather than damage.

Playing a Fighter in a group

Class details below come from the ability rework that rolled onto the closed beta servers through 2026. The developers state plainly that there is a high probability some aspects will change before they reach the beta servers, so treat specific ability behaviour as a snapshot of the beta build rather than a settled launch state.

The Fighter is the class a group brings when it wants the pull held and the damage eaten. The armor class rework that made plate more effective at reducing incoming damage landed in its favour, as did the shield effectiveness tuning happening alongside the class work. Its threat tools, particularly Vanguard, are aimed at the specific problem of a damage dealer pulling aggro in a camp.

It is not the only tank. The Paladin adds healing and resurrection, the Inquisitor adds anti-magic control, and the Shadow Knight trades some mitigation for damage. The Fighter is the one with no magic and the best threat control. See Classes, Combat, Grouping and Death Penalty.

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