Have you considered something like Way of Shadow Monk 9 / Gloomstalker 3?
I cant say that I have - I wanted to purely go down the Fighter route, both as a challenge and because my friends kept saying that Fighter is terrible.
Hey again nothing wrong with doing it the way you like, it just seems like a lot of resources are being sunk into making a Fighter more like a Monk instead of just being a Monk. If you did try this, and didn't like it, why not?
I would have to give it a shot first, but it does sound like its a blast. Although I'm not keen on the idea of it being "more like a Monk" as both have their own degrees of build variance and flexibility - some overlap in playstyle is bound to happen at some point. Not to mention that dude with greatsword is a fantasy that will never grow old.
Ah fair enough, this felt like a “challenge mode” to me, given the context that makes a lot more sense. And 100% agreed, a dude with a greatsword is a classic and, well, a great one XD
Congrats on your accomplishments, both in clearing it and demonstrating to your friends the power of pure fighter.
Once I get my own solo tactician dark urge run going it would be interesting to compare notes, see what encounters were particularly tough for which builds; over time I could see the info building up on an effective “morphling” build which utilizes respecs for different scenarios and thus is able to do the run in “Ironman” mode with no save scumming allowed.