I'm currently playing through the game on each class, and I will be sharing my thoughts with regard to character builds. Today we will be looking at the Fighter class, which is a melee-focused hacky slashy guy. Their dedicated weapons are melee (one-handed), heavy melee (two-handed), and polearms (two-handed, longer reach). Fighter has much more of a focus on using your weapons as all of their skills are on medium to long cooldowns.
To become a Fighter, you must reach level 10 as a Novice and obtain the quest "Strength and Honor" from Enok, then read the tome he gives. This cannot be undone, so make sure this is the class you want.

Somewhat paradoxically, despite being the dedicated tank role, Fighter seemingly has less self sustain than the other two available classes.

I've decided to introduce a 5-point grading system for each skill to give a better idea of what I think of each one. A 1 (●○○○○) means it's almost never worth taking, and a 5 (●●●●●) means it's almost always worth taking.

I will be updating these guides as my opinions and the game itself changes. If you have any criticisms or thoughts of your own, please feel free to share them.

In games with limited available slots for active abilities, I find that there's one primary rule you need to follow: Use your abilities, or lose them. If you find that you aren't using an ability often, it's almost always better to swap it out for another ability you will get more use out of.

Experiment. Try different stuff. Learn what you like, and what you don't like.

Your choice of race is largely inconsequential as it only dictates what skill you start with permanently unlocked in your book. All racial skills are able to be learned via scrolls.

I picked Chang, mainly because I'm based and like mousegirls, but also for their Sturdy skill, which is very useful for a tanking playstyle.

As a Fighter, your primary stat is strength, which is what all of your class skills scale off of.

Because of the fact that you're going to be up in the enemies' ass all of the time, vitality is also incredibly important. In fact, just for the lulz I went with a full vitality build. 10/10, no notes, would throw my face repeatedly at enemies again.

No other stats really matter much for Fighter.

Fighter has a couple of skills that are split between either two-handed weapons or one-hand and shield. It's important to keep that in mind when picking your skills.

●●●●○ Execute - Newly added skill, carried over from what was originally a classless skill. This does very good damage and is a dash which pierces targets. I think this was a vast improvement over the original skill and makes for a good filler ability on both single and multi target.

●●●○○ Stomp - Basic AoE skill, and also slows enemies and reduces their defense. A decent pick.

●●●●● Rage - As I said in my Mystic guide, buff skills like this are easy picks. The only time where you shouldn't take them is if you're coordinated and stacking multiple classes.

●○○○○ Lethal Strike - I want to like this, because it's the only sort of mobility that Fighter gets, but I just don't. The amount of damage it gives you just isn't really worth the slot imo. The update originally made this into a passive which I actually thought was great and worked way better for what it was trying to do, but unfortunately this change was reverted. The now-12 slots we have could make this possibly worth taking but I just don't see it.

●●●●● Blood Gush - Damage over time skills are typically very strong in games like this, and this one is no exception. Very good option.

●●●●○ Cyclone - Incredibly strong ability if you know how to use it right. Does very high damage if you trap enemies in the spinning blender of death, and still does really good damage even if you're not good at that. Requires two-handed weapons though.

●●○○○ Shockwave - This mostly seems like stomp but worse. It has a further range plus a coin flip on a stun, but does worse damage and has a slightly longer cooldown. It also requires a heavy melee.

●●●○○ Shield Bash - Stuns are good. Just make sure you use them. As long as the enemies are grouped together it can hit multiple. It's essentially an extra defensive that does decent damage. Recommended if you're going for a shield build.

●●●●● Bulwark - Very good passive. Reduces the stamina tax from blocking, and at max rank increases the parry window and the stagger on enemies post-parry.

●●●●● Reflect - Does thorns damage on block or parry, and increases parry window and stagger time. It's very strong.

Fighter surprisingly does not suffer from the same issue as other classes currently, as available options to them (however few they may be) are actually rather strong.

●●●●○ Sturdy - Very good tanking ability. Makes it so that for 8 seconds you auto-parry all attacks, effectively meaning you're invulnerable for 8 seconds. Though, unparryable attacks will still only be blocked. Also, if the enemies are being very mean you might end up sort of stunlocked because of the parry animation interrupting you.

●●●○○ Inner Focus - Guaranteed crit on your next attack. It's not as good as on bandit imo, but anything that hits for a lot a single time (Like Execute, Stomp, or a heavy melee charge attack) actually works for this quite well.

●●●●● Recovery - This is going to be the one of the ONLY self healing sources you get besides consumables.

●●●●● Strength Mastery (previously Weapon Mastery) is now just straight up good. You get bonus damage and charge attacks on anything that scales off Strength.

We also got two new classless skills you can learn from Enok (both Strength scaling):

●●●●● Multi Bash - Crazy good. Does a lot of damage, has a pretty short cooldown, and can hit multiple targets.

●●○○○ Taunt - Very situational. It's a taunt, and has a higher def reduction than stomp and for longer (likely stacks too) but more than twice the cooldown. If you're going for a tank build specifically this is pretty okay.

In no particular order:

Actives:
Multi Bash
Execute
Blood Gush
Cyclone
Recovery
Rage
Shield Bash
Stomp
Taunt

Passives:
Bulwark
Reflect
Melee Mastery

I primarily use a two-hander for damage, and switch to sword and shield to pop defensive and crowd control skills. You basically just use all of your offensive stuff on cooldown, but prioritize Multi Bash and Cyclone as they're your highest damage dealers by far. Try to keep Rage up at all times. Sturdy if you get into trouble.