Race + Stats? New bruiser...

[Zaketherake]

I recently started playing EQ2 again and had a few questions regarding bruiser. First off, does the race matter much? Would dark elf be a bad choice? Second, what are the best stats to aim for early and late level?     What level do i get to choose stats? Last, what type of weapons should i use? Hand to hand or 2hand crushing? Any info would be highly appreciated, thanks.

[Bobbette]

Race really doesn't matter in the long run.  You might notice a difference in the under levels under 10 but by the time you start adding gear and buffs those small differences in racial stats will be negligible.  I'm a dark elf bruiser and have never felt that my race has had any impact on my class' playability. Stats -- Strength for damage & power pool, Agility for Avoidance, Stamina for hitpoints.  The priority of the above somewhat depends upon your play style (strictly tanking, strictly dps, a little bit of both, primarily solo, primarily grouping) and your gear.  I originally built my bruiser to be primarily dps so I focused alot on strength, then agility, and lastly stamina.  As she's grown I've tried to round out her roles to include tanking so stamina became alot more important to me. Weapon choice is really a matter of style preference.  However I can tell you that for leveling, doing the KoS strength line with unarmed will provide you with 'near fabled' damage that will scale with every single level.  It'll also save you some weapon costs along the way.  The down side is you lose the stats, procs & adornments that weapons bring.  I don't think you really [Removed for Content] yourself if you prefer to use weapons.  There are some very good AA choices for armed combat. I hope this has helped you a bit.

[Zaketherake]

<hr />That helped a great deal! The only bit i didn't understand was about KoS Strength line. Guessing it is a quest line maybe? Could you explain that a bit further? Also, is there a set amount of strength and agility i should be going for? Or a base amount? I know every few levels i can add like +4 to a stat. I think?

[Kaycerzan]

Bobbette is right on the nail there. The AA line you want is the Strength one, you fight unarmed and as you put more points in, you will receive an extra attack that reduces their resistance to crushing ( your fists )  and another ability that increases your double attack rate all the way to 96% and adds an extra 20dps to your overall score.  It's better than most weapons you can find and use until your mid60s at the earliest. As for a base amount, not really, just know that your other stats don't affect anything you do very much.

[Bobbette]

<cite>Zaketherake wrote:</cite><blockquote><hr />That helped a great deal! The only bit i didn't understand was about KoS Strength line. Guessing it is a quest line maybe? Could you explain that a bit further? Also, is there a set amount of strength and agility i should be going for? Or a base amount? I know every few levels i can add like +4 to a stat. I think? </blockquote> Zake, I was talking about the brawler Achievement line.  You need to have purchased the Kingdom of Sky expansion to have access to that particular achievement line. There's no set amount of strength and agility though at some point you hit diminishing returns.  And I think at 70, 1000 is the cap (I know someone will correct me if I'm wrong on that) but you're sure not going to hit that at lower levels. Your equipment and buffs will add a lot to your various stats.  As you hit the levels where you can add to different stats, you should be concentrating on Str, Agi, and Sta for the reasons I listed above.  I can't really answer what stat per what level for you because it really does depend upon your play style, your gear, etc.  The good news is that you can respec those if you get to a certain level and decide you hate what you chose and want to do over.

[Zaketherake]

Awesome. Yea i figured out what you meant by strength line. Oddly, KoS is the only expansion i have. Doesnt EoF offer another AA more specific to class also? Like a whole other box of them? Yea, it's the Brawler tree, and the strength line is the one all the way to the left? Then there is the Bruiser tree, that must be part of EoF?

[Bobbette]

<cite>Zaketherake wrote:</cite><blockquote>Awesome. Yea i figured out what you meant by strength line. Oddly, KoS is the only expansion i have. Doesnt EoF offer another AA more specific to class also? Like a whole other box of them? Yea, it's the Brawler tree, and the strength line is the one all the way to the left? Then there is the Bruiser tree, that must be part of EoF? </blockquote>Yes the bruiser specific AA tree is part of the EoF expansion.  On that side you'll want to get Knockouts line to Drag at the bottom (great snap aggro tool).  5 points into buffing your heal.  And then the remaining points in Attention or some other things in Conditioning.  But frankly the points into Attention or Conditioning will be your last ones so don't sweat it now. In the KoS brawler tree, you want Strength unarmed and then Intelligence (far right) for the melee crits, the CA that turns mobs around (to get off your back attack) and the bottom ability in that tree is nice when tanking or soloing.

[Novusod]

Racial stats are meaningless because you can always increase them with gear very easily. I would recommend going Arsai bruiser because of the runspeed bonus and glide/flying abilities. They also have a +5 def racial add on that Arsai get at level 10 but other races won't be able to get off a gear based item until they are level 70.

[PhozFa]

<cite>Novusod wrote:</cite><blockquote>Racial stats are meaningless because you can always increase them with gear very easily. I would recommend going Arsai bruiser because of the runspeed bonus and glide/flying abilities. They also have a +5 def racial add on that Arsai get at level 10 but other races won't be able to get off a gear based item until they are level 70. </blockquote>um ogres get a +5 def perma ability and +5 def buff. I think barbs also get a +5 def. Tehre may be another race but I know of atleast 2 non-fae

[Korpo]

Dwarves get +5 def as a racial too, I believe.

[Madmoon]

Race does not matter.  Rumor is they are redoing all the racial abilities, because the butterflies own the only one that matters.  Who knows?  Oh, and Erudinites that become coercers, because they can then see if the monster they want to charm is a scout, mage or fighter.  But really, TRUST me on this, choose the race you like best, especially if you play in 3rd-person.  The other things are very minor, niceties at best.  Well, except gnomes and halflings.  Those are abominations as bruisers.

[Uumuuanu]

<p>Haha gnomes and halflings as bruisers, yeah, don't do that.</p><p>Besides, be an iksar and use tail slap on them!   *goes back to dreaming*</p>