Class advice needed

[GastonPhoebus]

<p>My Guild has been without a regular Swashbuckler and Brigand for some time, and though we do manage to raid successfully I decided to semi-retire my Coercer and roll a Rogue.</p><p>I selected a Swashbuckler as I had played a Brigand once upon a time to about level 45 and decided there was something about the class that just did not hold my interest. This was probably close to 18 months ago, not sure if the Brigand class has changed much in that time.</p><p>Well, just as soon as I get my Swashbuckler to level 55 my Guild recruits a very well-geared Swashie and one of our on-again, off-again Swashie's starts raiding again and one of our guest Swashies from another guild decides that he wants to raid with us every week! If I continue to level my Swash we could potentially be looking at 4 Swashies for a given raid, lol! My Guild is not asking me to betray, it's more that I want to feel like a significant contributor and the mob can only be so debuffed with 3-4 Swashies, heh. </p><p>I am considering betraying to Brigand but am concerned I won't like the class as much as I do the Swash.</p><p>So, here are my questions, and I would appreciate any help, insight, suggestions you may care to offer:</p><p>1. How many Swashbucklers in an EoF raid are too many?</p><p>2. I love my Swashbuckler.  Does Brigand feel very different (I will be raiding regularly in EoF content and Kunark)? I know this is subjective, but I am sure many of you have great experience with both classes and can offer some insight.</p><p>Thanks so much for taking the time to respond! I will eel?be posting this on the Brigand forums as well so that I can garner the greatest amount of feedback.</p>

[Laereneth]

<p>Well, I can't answer how many Swashies are too many for a raid, but I can answer your question about the play style of both the Swash and Brig.  I myself, after 70 levels of Brig just betrayed to the Swash about 3 weeks ago due to the opposite issue you are facing...too many Brigs and no Swashies in my current raiding guild.</p><p>There is a bit of difference in the feel of how they both are played, but at the same time they are very similar. The differences lie in the types of debuffs, buffs and some attack CAs </p><ul><li>The Brig tops the defensive debuffs, the Swash tops the offensive debuffs.</li><li>The Brig has a couple more back attacks and more stuns/rooting attacks while the Swash has a couple more non-directional dependent attacks.</li><li>The Brig has double up to repeat the last CAs in the last 2 seconds, the Swash has a haste proc buff.</li><li>The Brig's self buff does STR and Mit, the Swash STR and AGI.</li><li>The Brig is a little more single target focused while the Swash has more AoE capabilities.</li><li>They both have back attacks, and the same rogue AA tree.  Thus, if you go AGI, you'll still be getting behind for the back proc.</li><li>As a Brig, most the raid dps will be relying on you for your Dispatch to be macroed in raid.  As a Swash, you will be called on to AoE immune (AA ability) your group occassionally.</li></ul><p>That's a start, and I'm sure some more Swashies and Brigs can add to this.  I myself, found both to be enjoyable for their own nuances.</p><p>Laer</p>

[Shackleton1]

<p>1) Swashbuckler debuffs don't stack with one another. Swashbucklers still do good dps, but strictly speaking I don't think you'd really want to have more than 2 in a raid.</p><p>2) Honestly, the biggest difference in "feel" I think is that Swashbucklers have a cooler class hat <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> I think I would prefer to be 1st brigand than 4th swashbuckler, though.</p>

[Luk]

Betray to Brigand, do you really want to smell that bad?

[RaunII]

<p>how many in a raid are too many? depends on who is the guild raid leader....if the raid leader is mt or ot he will want more swashys to keep a constant stream of offensive debuffs on the mob to help lessen the damage he recives...now if the raid leader is a DPS class, expect them to use more brigs in a raid to keep constant dispatch up...</p><p>in the end you really only need one or two of each per raid...after that its just filler.</p><p>i personally would never betray my swashy to a brigand just to fit the needs of a raid guild...because i am never in the same guild for very long, they all break up and go elsewhere with my luck, so screw them. this guild i am in before they fractured and everyone left, several officers told me i should betray even though we only had a few swashies in the guild and i was the only one that showed up every night...</p><p>my point is...just be careful...there are lots of guilds out there, and you have to ask yourself if its worth the pain of betrayal and playing a class you dont like just to be needed in a guild...</p>