[Hessah]

Mages are probably fighter's natural enemy class, the base M Def of a fighter is so poor, and you cant +9 that in a gear.. (though you can get it in jewelleries now which helps)

You did well as a 1H fighter though, I didn't think their dmg was good enough to kill xD What's with people asking you to drop your shield? Why don't they just tell you to go naked against them? LOL

You should be able to find some CC parties to level.. if you can tank and you got a good enough cleric (don't even need to be an awesome cleric, coz u won't die that quickly) your party should get through quite easily...