Shield and dual-wielding question.

[Tanus79]

<p>I've been reading alot of posts about how Brigands do alot of damage by their default attack and how to time it with our skills, but I was wondering when we do use our skills are we using both weapons for the attack or just one?  I hope that made sense. I'm probably playing my Brig wrong but I seem to spam the skills/spells when soloing and was curious if I'm doing more damage because I'm dual wielding or is it just my main hand weapon exucuting the attack?</p><p> I ask this because I mainly solo and I've been looking at the line that gives us a benefit to using a shield (at work and forgot what line it is) and I'm always thinking about respeccing towards a shield. Are there any other shield using brigs out there and how do you like it?</p><p> I'm currently a 44 Brig and can not seem to solo the Greenblood bouncers in the Feerrott, their Heroic blue triple ups (soloed not grouped together) to me and maybe their not suppose to be soloed at my level but I keep thinking a shield will give me that extra defense to survive while I"m waiting for my skills to become reusable; especially if our skills only use the main hand weapon.</p><p>Any suggestions or experiences with this completely confusing post will be appreciated.  Thank you</p>

[Kaldrin]

It's a good thing you can't solo the triple ups. Heck I can't even solo a blue triple up with my Necro and tank pet maxed out with perceptor's. And I've never seen a briggy wearing a shield on my server...

[Tanus79]

<cite>Kaldrin@Befallen wrote:</cite><blockquote>It's a good thing you can't solo the triple ups. Heck I can't even solo a blue triple up with my Necro and tank pet maxed out with perceptor's. And I've never seen a briggy wearing a shield on my server... </blockquote>Lol, yea I thought I wasn't suppose to be able to, I always hear certain classes saying they can solo so-and-so Heroic mobs but couldn't remember what the general difficulty for Brigs capped at. I've never seen a Brig with a shield either that's why I'm even more interested in trying it. However, usually when you don't see a certain class specced a certain way it's for a good reason. Well if I don't get any answers I'll try some experiments soon and see what I get.

[graewulf]

<p>My Brig is shield spec'd (STA line). I like it a lot. I did it mostly for RP reasons (I like the 'Mercenary' title <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> ), but I have absolutely no problems soloing whatsoever. Lots of extra HPs, better defense, and a nice DPS boost. I'm sure dual-wielding (or single weapon WIS line spec) does more damage, but I like the look of using a shield. He's only 37 currently. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Tanus79]

Thanks Graewulf, nice to see another Brig who's interested in the Stamina line, hope I'm not taking your originality away from possibly speccing it myself. When I get home tonight I'll kill some mobs while dual wielding then go respec stamina line and kill the same mobs and I'll see what I get. I'll post what I find, if any one cares, either way it will be fun and nice to see what differences there are.

[Rubbertoad]

I am a Dual Wield STR/Agi line Brig and i was 49 when I took that green blood out. General rule of thumb with ^^^'s is 7-9 levels above. Although, I am soloing 57 and 58 ^^^'s at 62/63.So, with our stuns I think as an aggressive model, 4-5 levels is doable. I have no idea about a shield WIS/STA line, but I would like to try out the double attack spec when I'm 80.Tethys

[Keleran]

I played Str/Sta for pretty much all of my levels.  Of course, with Kunark and the additional AA, I've expanded in to Agi, but for the most part, here's what I found with regards to the Sta line and the use of shields..What you get out of using a shield is really dependent on your play style.  If you solo or tank in a small group the majority of the time, it's definitely the way to go.  The bonuses definitely increase your survivability, especially when fighting multiple mobs.  If you're focused on raiding, or playing in a group where there is an established tank, and your main job is DPS, stick to dual wielding.Personally, using a shield was perfect for my play style.  On raids, I switched to dual wield, and granted, I did a bit less dps than other str/agi specced brigands, but it really didn't hurt me that badly.  Your hp bonuses still apply when you aren't using a shield, which is also nice.  I'd suggest giving it a try as you're leveling up right now, and then possibly re-speccing once you get to the upper end of the game.

[rvc]

<p>Im a 48 Brigg did the stein of moggok Quest solo was around lvl 44, 45 when i did it and heres how,  Str, Agi specced.  Upbraid before engage,  Sap(stun), Mug, Torporous strike, traumatic swipe, Dirty blow(stun), desperate thrust, craven delight, shiv, walk the plank(directional root), concealed blade, waylay, murderous rake, cheap shot(stun),gambit----run---snag, snarl(snares)  yep used em both, range dmg him while snared, when snare breaks rapid throw, Trickery(trained this as my M2), by now hes around 25pct health your Dirty blow is prob back up and your ready to start another CA chain  Dirty blow, desp thrust, craven, shiv, etc, etc, sap may come back up while your chaining your CAs. </p><p>   I Dunno how other brigs set up is.   I play on Negafin ive got one button for all my CAS.  My understanding has been it goes first CA then last CA then goes down the line top to bottom in a macro if you spam the button.  My macro at 49 looks like this  Bushwack(1st CA if im stealth), sap(1st CA if not stealth),  mug(3rd),  torp strike(4th), traum swipe, dirty blow, desp thrust, craven delight, shiv, walk the plank, concealed blade, waylay, murderous rake, cheap shot, gambit, agg assault, evasion, rapid throw, shadow slip, bushwack,  mug(2nd CA).  Interesting thing about this macro is if targets are out of range you will automatically rapid throw them, walk the plank them or perhaps even evade them, shrug seems to work great pvp.  </p><p>Anyhoo this is prob old school info for the vets, /shrug thats how i did it meebe it will work for you.</p>

[Jeffmaster]

A well played and equiped brig can handle white even sometimes yellow 3x heroic mobs. I've done it countless times...

[Kaldrin]

<cite>Jeffmaster wrote:</cite><blockquote>A well played and equiped brig can handle white even sometimes yellow 3x heroic mobs. I've done it countless times...</blockquote>I've noticed it depends entirely on the mob. I've seen some triples that I could probably take solo, but then others who almost kill an entire group of 5. There's a wide variety of stuff at that level.

[Light_Journey]

<cite>Kaldrin@Befallen wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Jeffmaster wrote:</cite><blockquote>A well played and equiped brig can handle white even sometimes yellow 3x heroic mobs. I've done it countless times...</blockquote>I've noticed it depends entirely on the mob. I've seen some triples that I could probably take solo, but then others who almost kill an entire group of 5. There's a wide variety of stuff at that level. </blockquote>That's it exactly.  I've been playing EQ2 since launch and mobs (of the heroic variety) come in many flavors.  Some have high mit and lots of hit point, some are low mit and few hit points, some hit hard, some don't <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />Whenever I see someone (of any class) say "Yeah, class X is great I can solo heroics!" I always ask myself which heroic are they soloing? <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />I wouldn't worry about intentionally soloing heroics though.  My approach to it is... if I need the mob and can't get a group, I try it.  Most of the time I get killed <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" /> (cause they're named) but sometimes I can pull it off by duoing it with my warden.  Every now and again i come across one that would eat a group of 5 (as it was said earlier in the thread) for breakfast).Sheild vs DW, STA vs. whatever other line out there I think is a matter of personal preference and gear.  If you go down STA but have high crits, haste and DA's through gear, you might approach DW (or exceed) DPS.

[Gisallo]

<cite>Rubbertoad wrote:</cite><blockquote>I am a Dual Wield STR/Agi line Brig and i was 49 when I took that green blood out. General rule of thumb with ^^^'s is 7-9 levels above. Although, I am soloing 57 and 58 ^^^'s at 62/63.So, with our stuns I think as an aggressive model, 4-5 levels is doable. I have no idea about a shield WIS/STA line, but I would like to try out the double attack spec when I'm 80.Tethys</blockquote>I'm only guessing because I just started a Brigand but I was assuming at least +4's were doable.  I started soloing Kunark with a 64 Ranger and the only "legendary things he had were Raincaller and the Black Sash Heritage quest item.  I wasn't even wearing Mastercrafted (though I am now at 72).  By using snares traps and stuns I was soloing quiet well against solo mobs at +4.  With the multiple stuns a Brigand has I was assuming that 4 ups would still be possible and I am so far (at level 20) seeing that this is right (you can't afford to miss with your attacks though <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />)

[Junaru]

<cite>Gisallo wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Rubbertoad wrote:</cite><blockquote>I am a Dual Wield STR/Agi line Brig and i was 49 when I took that green blood out. General rule of thumb with ^^^'s is 7-9 levels above. Although, I am soloing 57 and 58 ^^^'s at 62/63.So, with our stuns I think as an aggressive model, 4-5 levels is doable. I have no idea about a shield WIS/STA line, but I would like to try out the double attack spec when I'm 80.Tethys</blockquote>I'm only guessing because I just started a Brigand but I was assuming at least +4's were doable.  I started soloing Kunark with a 64 Ranger and the only "legendary things he had were Raincaller and the Black Sash Heritage quest item.  I wasn't even wearing Mastercrafted (though I am now at 72).  By using snares traps and stuns I was soloing quiet well against solo mobs at +4.  With the multiple stuns a Brigand has I was assuming that 4 ups would still be possible and I am so far (at level 20) seeing that this is right (you can't afford to miss with your attacks though <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />)</blockquote><p>Any ranged classes can solo RoK well. RoK mobs hit like trucks but if you can keep them at bay you don't need to worry about it. </p>

[TheSpin]

A solo brigand absolutely does not need the shield line. Soloing with a brigand is all about the stuns.  I simply do not stand face to face with a difficult mob at all.  A brigand can theoretically solo any non caster mob without taking damage in an ideal situation.

[Fatuus]

<cite>Tanus79 wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I've been reading alot of posts about how Brigands do alot of damage by their default attack and how to time it with our skills, but I was wondering when we do use our skills are we using both weapons for the attack or just one?  I hope that made sense. I'm probably playing my Brig wrong but I seem to spam the skills/spells when soloing and was curious if I'm doing more damage because I'm dual wielding or is it just my main hand weapon exucuting the attack?</p><p> I ask this because I mainly solo and I've been looking at the line that gives us a benefit to using a shield (at work and forgot what line it is) and I'm always thinking about respeccing towards a shield. Are there any other shield using brigs out there and how do you like it?</p><p> I'm currently a 44 Brig and can not seem to solo the Greenblood bouncers in the Feerrott, their Heroic blue triple ups (soloed not grouped together) to me and maybe their not suppose to be soloed at my level but I keep thinking a shield will give me that extra defense to survive while I"m waiting for my skills to become reusable; especially if our skills only use the main hand weapon.</p><p>Any suggestions or experiences with this completely confusing post will be appreciated.  Thank you</p></blockquote><p>Your post has 2 parts to this to answer. </p><p>Part 1) Your ability to hit a mob with a "Combat Art" is based off of several factors. One of these factors is what weapon type you are using in your primary slot and what + to that ability do you have (Ie: Slashing, piercing, or crushing if you want to use a spoon or a teleporting hammer).</p><p>Brigands do modest damage with their autoattack (what you refered to as default attack I believe). Most of your damage does come from Combat arts. For me, about 65 to 75% of my damage generally comes from combat arts. Some info for you I will share <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />.</p><p>1) I use the term generally because how much damage you do with your autoattack is greatly affected by how much DPS and Haste mods you have. Also, as you go higher in haste and DPS mods...there is a diminishing return on haste / DPS mod (due to the scale) and an increase on the low end. Example: A haste of 100 would give you an actual haste of like 95 whereas a haste of 27 gives an actual haste of 30. So if I do 700k autoattack damage and 2.5 million damage on the zw...a real increase of 25% haste or DPS mod should yield an additional amount of damage. The trick is the damage done with this increase is dependent on what your BASE damage would have been without any mods...in my case it would probably been around 450 to 500k. So for round numbers I can expect an increase of about 125k to my zone wide dps with a real 25% haste or dps mod. If you figure your cap in real modifications I believe is around 140% (assuming you have an insane like 200 haste). That would mean if I maxed my autoattack damage (which its very hard to get 200% haste AND dps mods)...it would be roughly 2.4 million damage from my autoattacks assuming I did not have to sacrifice any melee crit amounts in my current setup to get there...this also does not including poisons which are counted as non-melee damage. </p><p>2) Things that greatly affect your autoattack damage...haste, DPS mods, the level of the mob, your + to slashing/piercing, the weapon you are using (if your weapon has a broad damage range and you have a high melee crit amount...you will do more damage on your autoattack), and how debuffed the mob is. Melee crits greatly impact the damage you do with an autoattack since on an autoattack on a crit the damage you do is max damage + 1 or damage + 30%...whichever is greater. It is painful for me when I go thru my combat logs and see an autoattack (non-melee crit) that lands for 500 damage...yet the lowest critical melee hit I have is around 1500. </p><p>3) The timing of your Combat arts is done to maximize the ability of your autoattacks to land.</p><p>Now on to the part where you asked about the shield information.</p><p>Use of the shield is nice, but not particularly necessary for soloing purposes. Most brigs go down the AGI and STR lines when grouping which I maxed out a little on my normal setup. I dumped an additional 16 or 17 aa in the INT line since it helps dps more then the STA line does (Bootdagger rocks).</p><p>However...when soloing the agi line (except for the first aa ability) is pretty pointless to have since you are not always behind the mob (especially on multimobs). That is why some go down the sta line or the INT line for the FD ability.</p><p>What makes the STA line exceptional for is tanking. On my brigand in the "tank" spec I use which is a combination of the str, sta, and agi lines I have self buffed almost 10.5k hit points, 51% mitigation, and almost 59% avoidance (versus a lvl 80 mob). The STA line also essentially gives you 2 more "taunts." As most tanks will tell you, they don't hold high end aggro from their ability to taunt...but their ability to dps. However, the last end ability is nice since it helps you keep aggro better versus group mobs, aka multimobs since every other attack they hit you with increases their hate to you by about 500. This is very similar to one of the agro generators Guardians have. In a normal group setup with a templar and defiler as healers in the group, I had 61% mitigation and an avoidance around 68%...pretty nice setup for surving hard stuff. Granted...it doesn't make you a better tank then a good fighter, but it makes you a much better tank then a crappy fighter. The STA line also helps you autoattack more by increasing your dps mod by 64 (self) which helps to compensate for a lack of a second weapon (basically your autoattack goes down probably about 20% versus 50% without the dps mods). In my tank spec I have tanked successfully every instance and Chardok (deep regions) with great success. Now versus epic mobs...most of my ability to hold aggro, have survivability, and dps goes right out the window...but against heroic mobs we shine. Any brigand can tank a mob thru dps...but surviving longer fights is greatly helped by this spec.</p><p>In your post you are a lvl 44 brigand...most of your abilities you will use for dps maximization will come to you by lvl 58. When you reach level 65 you get another ability (thugs) which is helpful for soloing purposes since I use them as cannonfodder (damage the mob a ton and when my stun, root abilities are expired I use my dehate drop and let the thugs take the shots not me. Thugs do very little dps...really they only help with debuffing the mob.</p><p>Hope this information helps.</p><p>If you want more information on the brigand class...including tips and tricks I recommend going to <a href="http://www.eq2flames.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.eq2flames.com</a> and check out their brigand forum...just don't ask people what the best brigand spec is since most will admonish and scold you severely</p>

[Fatuus]

<cite>Gisallo wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Rubbertoad wrote:</cite><blockquote>I am a Dual Wield STR/Agi line Brig and i was 49 when I took that green blood out. General rule of thumb with ^^^'s is 7-9 levels above. Although, I am soloing 57 and 58 ^^^'s at 62/63.So, with our stuns I think as an aggressive model, 4-5 levels is doable. I have no idea about a shield WIS/STA line, but I would like to try out the double attack spec when I'm 80.Tethys</blockquote>I'm only guessing because I just started a Brigand but I was assuming at least +4's were doable.  I started soloing Kunark with a 64 Ranger and the only "legendary things he had were Raincaller and the Black Sash Heritage quest item.  I wasn't even wearing Mastercrafted (though I am now at 72).  By using snares traps and stuns I was soloing quiet well against solo mobs at +4.  With the multiple stuns a Brigand has I was assuming that 4 ups would still be possible and I am so far (at level 20) seeing that this is right (you can't afford to miss with your attacks though <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" width="15" height="15" />)</blockquote>Its difficult to solo against higher lvl mobs then 80 unless you can "Kite" the mob. This is due to the fact that any mob higher then your level has an increased chance to resist your Combat art stuns, attacks, and your autoattack will miss more.

[Tomanak]

<cite>Jeffmaster wrote:</cite><blockquote>A well played and equiped brig can handle white even sometimes yellow 3x heroic mobs. I've done it countless times...</blockquote><p>Please note SOE this is not typical. Please dont nerf the rest of us because some of us can apparently solo yellow heroic ^^^S. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>Personally a yellow ^^^ hits me so hard I cant stun/heal enough to offset the damage, but then again Im not an uber brig either <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Jeffmaster]

<cite>Ortello@Butcherblock wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Jeffmaster wrote:</cite><blockquote>A well played and equiped brig can handle white even sometimes yellow 3x heroic mobs. I've done it countless times...</blockquote><p>Please note SOE this is not typical. Please dont nerf the rest of us because some of us can apparently solo yellow heroic ^^^S. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />" width="15" height="15" /></p><p>Personally a yellow ^^^ hits me so hard I cant stun/heal enough to offset the damage, but then again Im not an uber brig either <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />" width="15" height="15" /></p></blockquote>Like I said <b>A well played and equiped brig</b> ... I get owned on some mobs as well....and other times i kill them without them even touching me once...