Dueling Brigands.

[Rayche]

Ok, so what classes do we perform well against in duels? I keep dueling a friend's Brigand and he wipes the floor with me. He has this ability to constantly wipe my target and even with a "/tar <name>" macro I can only get in a few hits before he wipes it again. My best run against him has gotten him down to about 60-70% before I hit the dirt. I tried using Phalanx (Root) and backing up to debuff him, but he appeared to resist everything, so I can't count on that. I'm thinking about SoWing up Dogdog and myself, popping on the JBoots and aggro kiting his [Removed for Content]. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> What are some good tricks for duels? (I did manage to beat a Templar friend, but man that's a long fight lol.)

[SonnyA]

<p>You should be able to wipe the floor with any melee class, since you can heal and they can't.</p><p>When I duel a brig, I use the 5 secs before the fight with bolster and group ward. I enter melee with the brig, who uses the first few seconds to debilitate, stun and backstab. As soon as you're out of the stun, cast Balm to remove the debuffs (you can move around while casting that) and then ST ward yourself. Constantly keep up ST ward and spam Ancient Balm as soon as it's up. Keep up DPS debuff too (soul line).</p><p>For DPS, I use a blackscale maul and combat arts from the Combat line in the mystic tree. The AE ability is especially good.</p><p>But the secret to winning any duel against a melee class are the following three items: Signet of Light from Darkness, Crown of Enlightenment and Tunic of Shadowed Songs - combined with Ancestry. All you have to do is stand there and heal.</p>

[Greggthegrmreapr]

the hard part is trying to heal yourself when they are in offensive stance.  30% chance to cast interupt is nasty

[SonnyA]

Not really. We do it while he's stunned for 7 seconds <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Well, even without the stun proc, I don't find that it's a problem to cast my heals. And it's not a problem that he deaggros either. I get the target back when they hit me.

[Rayche]

Well I feel silly now. I feel like I should be mopping up the floor with him, but he just grinds me to a pulp. I hadn't used Ancient Balm on myself though as I didn't consider any of his debuffs to be that bad. What do they use that's so deadly? I can't wait to fight him again <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Sydias]

<cite>Gojirax wrote:</cite><blockquote>Well I feel silly now. I feel like I should be mopping up the floor with him, but he just grinds me to a pulp. I hadn't used Ancient Balm on myself though as I didn't consider any of his debuffs to be that bad. What do they use that's so deadly? I can't wait to fight him again <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> </blockquote><p> Debilitate (physical mitigation debuff ~ 2K)</p><p>Dispatch (debuff of every resist ~ 2.5K)</p><p> These 2 together are a huge chunk of your defenses.</p>

[Eldril]

Actually you are wrong...both debilitate and dispatch reduce your physical mitigation to about -2500 (PvP environment). Restrain is what drops your resists but that shouldn't bother you in the case of 1 vs 1. I don't use crown of enlightment...and I certainly don't know how effective it is after its nerf on PvP. However, I don't have much of a problem if I am repared to fight a brigand. What I found a good tactic to use in general even when I was fighting them on my swashy was backtracking (in other words try to walk backwards). Brigands most deadly attacks are positional...that means if you snare them and try to backtrack you limit the number of backattacks that they will execute on you. Every single fight you will see it is a time fight...who actually lives and who dies in a particular amount of time. So every little time you can buy yourself can change the tide of the fight. If you want to beat one btw a must is Tunic of Shadowed Songs (the proc is considered melee hit so 100% crit) and the Signel of Light from Darkness. If you don't have both I wouldn't consider fighting the brigand especially if he is good equipped. So use your spear root attack and try to re-ward/torpor yourself....if you have to use your mez when the thugs come out....and as an added bonus if you are fae (woohoo) try to use your blink too....should give you time for at least 1 ward.

[Rayche]

Hmm, I think I may have goofed. He might be a Swashbuckler. (I get those two confused a lot) Does this change the tactic much?

[Greggthegrmreapr]

get away...  especially if they pop inspiration

[Eldril]

What Denna said....get away while their inspiration is up. Perfect Finesse, Ruthless Cunning and En garde won't hurt you as much and they are on bigger durations...but Inspiration is gonna kill you combined with those skills...so just root/mez or whatever and run...if you snared pop Ancient balm and cure it and proceed with running for 13 seconds. Then you shouldn't have a problem. If you are a fae use blink too<img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Rayche]

Is there a particular message or graphic when they pop inspiration? (What's the recast on that?)

[Eldril]

<p>Yes the recast on it is 3 mins down to 2 mins 20 seconds with EoF AAs so it shouldn't be cast twice in your fight. The icon is a white-ish buff with 2 or 3 blades one near the other...really cannot remember exactly haven't been on my swashy for over 4 months now. Anyway, try to avoid it at any cost....it will be tough too with reach...but you get the idea...try to avoid it and stay alive...don't think of engaging till it goes away.</p><p> P.S Btw this will change a bit in the future since the 100% chance procs change from next GU and don't proc off second attacks or dual wielders <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>