Even with tweaked experience tables and delayed HLAs, I believe a f/m is still the best melee/tank character. Infact, I believe a F/I can take on a berserker and kensai at once. Lets say all characters have 3.2-3.5 million xp, even with GWW, 2 pure fighters cannot damage the f/i enough before the f/i decimates them with spells and improve haste. What do you guys think?

But what if we pit 2 f/m against a berserker and a sorcerer? At 3.5 million xp, the sorc will have gotten level 9 spells! Sikret has stated his preferance for the 2nd team. What about you guys?

This is the link to the post in which the character showdown discussion started.

Imho it depends on items and prebuff. Without prebuff and with good items, F/M-s would be the winner. Both would start with Stoneskin/PfMW, then hit berserker 1-2 times. Before their aura cleansed both move to sorcerer, 1 Breach the sorcerer, and they kill sorcere very fast. After this the berserker is a piece of cake.
If both are prebuffed, I think berserker and sorcerer would win. Sorcerer with SI: Divination. + Impr. Invis and and his PfMW is not dispelable by lower level F/M-s. So Sorcerer would bomb Fighter mages with spells. Sorcerer can easily dispel SI: Div from lower level mages, so they should use SI: Abj. If I would the sorcerer I wouldn't bother to bring down their defenses. I would use Greater Malison + Emotion+Slow combo from Spell Sequencer and some kind of stun/disable combo from Spell Trigger. After this I would spam Power Word: Stun, Chaos, Bigby etc. I am sure F/M-s would be down very fast after they are stunned or confused. I am not sure if Spell Sequencer from F/M-s could cause problem for sorcerer. Berserker would be immune to Emotion cause of rage.

(1) If prebuffs are allowed, the Sorcerer's team will win. Is there any doubts here.

(2) If prebuffs are not allowed, but spell triggers and sequencers are allowed, it's the same and the sorcerer's team will win.

(3) If neither prebuffs nor triggers are allowed, I still think that the sorcerer's team will win:

One of the F/Ms has to attack the sorcerer immediately; otherwise, he will open with Improved alacrity and it is game over. The second F/M needs to choose between True Sight and PFMW. Without True Sight, the Sorcerer will open with Invisibility or Shadow Door (which can be cast quickly) and will cast Improved Alacrity next round. On the other hand, casting True Sight with no buffs is almost impossible because the berserker will hit him and will interrupt spell casting process. So, he also has to cast PFMW before True Sight. In short, I don't think that the F/Ms have really much chance to prevent the sorcerer from casting his Improved Alacrity. I don't think that the F/Ms will ever find any time to cast SI:abjuration either. The protections of both of them will be dispelled with each Remove Magic the sorcerer throws and the F/Ms won't have time to start SI at all, because the berserker is there to interrupt their casting.

They won't have the time to Breach the sorcerer either, but even if they do, the sorcerer's aura is cleansed and can refresh protections with no delay. Improved Alacrity wins the battle.

First of all, I don't think these comparisons will aid character selection for IA. (Is this what you have in mind?) I will always use a 5-6 member team in IA; team play is more important than one vs one. Furthermore, I know that the IA monsters have lots of resistance to physical damage and magical.

The first scenario depicts the classic mage battle. If the F/I is high enough level to have level 9 spells, then the fighters die. If the FI fights even the kensai in melee only then the FI dies. The intelligent kensai will just run away from him (boots of haste/potions of speed) until the FI's buffs wear off (particularly PfMW) and then kill him.

In the second scenario, the sorcerer wins.

You are right without question. This thread is just for fun.