Need a bit of help with my Fighter.

[MagesRequiem]

I've been seeing a lot of 2h Sword and Axe Fighters walking around. Rarely do I ever see a Sword & Shield Fighter walking around. I only know of one high leveled 1h Sword Fighter. And I read that thread about "1h Sword, 2h Sword, or 2h Axe" and I read that just using the 1h Sword would be the best way to go. Speed and defense are what they have. And for my build i'm going pure SPR until it reaches 25. Then i'm going to go pure END for the rest of the game.

But, i'm really worried about not being able to deal a ton of damage. I'm not always going to be in a party and if I go soloing I don't want to sit there for hours trying to hack away at something. My defense will be great but what about power? Should I go 1:1 STR and END? Or should I just stay pure END? I figured I could just use rings to boost my STR and not worry about it seeing as how STR is the fastest thing to go up when you're a Fighter. But... I still do worry about it. Help me stop worrying so much and tell me if this is any good or if I should do something else.

Also, what skills should I empower? I've never really been able to figure that out so I never bothered using them. I would greatly appreciate it if you could help me out on this as well. Thanks a bunch.