I'm a sad monkey

[ShinGoku]

I agreeded to pvp some folks on my server for giggles with my 70 monk.I ripped thru the zerkers, the pally and the casters but of all those things, the thing that killed me?A damned brigand....The fight was over in less than 20 seconds..I asked him to go again and switched to full defense, again dead super super quick.I'm so bummed that a scout can kill a tank so quickly.

[Siatfallen]

The brigand in question is likely using band of thugs and a lot of spike damage. Kick up Tsunami as soon as combat begins (the thugs will riposte themselves to death), and use all of your CAs that do not stun daze or stifle in the time tsunami is up. You want him to hit you so you can autoattack. If you are specced for crane flock (wis line), throw this in quickly as well, and remember to place the sparkling cobra on him fast (-defense = more of your swings hit), as well as soaring dragon. Do not use Dragonbreath, it makes him land fewer attacks for you to riposte.Then, as soon as tsunami goes down, throw rescue on him (it snaps his target to you and makes him unable to change targets for a little bit, I think it's 5 seconds, maybe less), FD (he loses target, cannot retarget you due to rescue effect. Note: With Mongoose stance up, this procs an effect that makes him lose target anyway, in which case you do not really need to FD), pop up immediately, and whack him for the short amount of time until he can hit you again. Then toss in all the stuns, stifles, dazes and whatever else you have been holding back. Of course, space the attacks so the stuns do not overlap. If they all land and with perfect timing (and 8 points in crane sweep in the wis tree), that's another 7 seconds where he does not hit you.So, ideally, 22.5 seconds into the fight, he has yet to hit you once (10.5 seconds on tsunami (ad3), 5 seconds rescue, 2.5 seconds assailing jaguar, 1.5 seconds soaring eagle, 3 seconds Crane sweep). Realistically, you can and will take some damage in this time (AE effects while the whole recue/FD thingie was running for one), but should still be quite okay; the brigand on the other hand, likely not so.Should the fight drag out, remember that you can fear the brig to make him run for a bit at this point (but your CAs will be coming up again shortly, some of his are on longer timers so it's likely not a good idea unless he's yet to use them at all), you still have a heal handy if he gets a few high-damge CAs in, now that you will be taking damage, rooting yourself for extra mitigation may (or may not) be a good idea.I don't know, maybe the brigands I have been against have suffered from severe suck-ness (I do not PvP much to begin with)... But I've not had a problem with them. Swashies are more of a pain.

[ShinGoku]

Nice!!I tracked him down again btw, he was fully fabled and his str and haste were higher than mine when fully buffed!!

[mattmandude]

The key factor to beating assassins/brigands is to anticipate when they're going to try to hit you with all of their CA's, and that's when you want to hit tsunami.I say this because sometimes the good scouts will charge a monk, land one CA, and if the monk is kind of new he'll usually pop tsunami, and the scout just hangs back until it's done.For brigands specifically, I always have potions that cure stun/stifle, because 90% of the time a brig unloads all of his CA's after he gets you stunned, so I can usually just use a potion and hit tsunami.Another thing, once you use all of your CAs and are waiting for them to refresh, root him (if you have the ability) and just kite him until they refresh. Don't stand there poking him with auto attack while he beats the living [Removed for Content] out of you <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />-Hope that helps =)