The Future of the Bruiser [Archive] - EQ2 Forum Archive @ EQ2Wire

Quicksilver74

06-24-2008, 11:42 AM

Where do we want to see bruisers in the next expansion? What role do we think they should be filling most often? With the next expansion slowly approaching, and new AA choices on the horizon, bruisers are in need of a more clearly defined direction. We have some tanking ability, and some DPS ability, but being split in these 2 areas is a weakness. Bruisers need a focus towards one or the other. If the focus is on tanking (or off-tanking), then we will need more survivability. As leather tanks, we base our tanking on avoidance rather than mitigation, but this has always been a problem, especially when plate tanks can reach higher avoidance rates than brawlers. I would like to see AA choices adding more Uncontested Riposte. 10% additional uncontested Riposte of frontal attacks would greatly increase our survivability and would also have some synergy with our Retribution of Stone Ability from the Bruiser Tree. We also need a Save vs. Death ability for ourselves. As an avoidance tank, we always run the risk of getting unlucky and getting double-attacked for high damage, resulting in us going from green to dead. Either allow Altruism to be placed on ourselves, or grant us an additional Save vs. Death ability. If our focus is to be DPS, there are a few things to consider. We are not likely going to be higher DPS than Assassins and Wizards, so our DPS should be a bit more creative. I'd like to see us bringing more DPS to our groups and Raids. Our current Raid Buff is underpowered, and should be improved to give Accuracy and/or DPS modifiers to the raid. Also I would like to see some additional Abilities added through AA for our groups. Perhaps the ability to make Knockout affect our entire group or raid, or a Raid-wide heat damage proc that procs from any successful attack. We can really use more DPS abilities that benefit everyone and will help us to be wanted for raids. Additionally, the Brawler Strength AA line is essentially useless to us if we wish to use our epic weapon. This issue has been mentioned many times, but I always feel the need to bring it up again, in a way to say "We have not forgotten". I'd like to see either a full revamp of the STR line, possibly allowing 1-3% Double-attack per point, or perhaps the same line, but with a weaker modification for those who use weapons. So my question to the rest of the bruiser community is this: "Where do you want us to be in the next expansion?"

Tanino

06-24-2008, 12:39 PM

I posted some ideas in the Proposed Brawler archetype adjustments thread, but honestly I don't see SOE changing anything for us.I think the last change that they made was to add the Venomous Chitin Bo as a quest item, but as a class they haven't changed a thing in a long time and I don't think they have any intention to. The armor selection, weapon selection, etc, etc is very low as well so there is nothing that is promising currently for the brawlers that I know of. Twisted Club would be promising in SOH if the damage rating was a little higher.... around the low 90's or so if we were tanking. Still doesn't solve the mitigation issue though but I am not even going into that.

evilgamer

06-24-2008, 12:55 PM

<cite>Crabbok@The Bazaar wrote:</cite><blockquote> Our current Raid Buff is underpowered, and should be improved to give Accuracy and/or DPS modifiers to the raid. Also I would like to see some additional Abilities added through AA for our groups. Perhaps the ability to make Knockout affect our entire group or raid, or a Raid-wide heat damage proc that procs from any successful attack. We can really use more DPS abilities that benefit everyone and will help us to be wanted for raids. </blockquote>That is my biggest gripe atm about the brusier class is that our raid buff is so garbage compared to what monks get.I personally think it should be changed from +CA/ +taunts/detaunts to +dps/ +CA damage.Since they wont nerf coercer/dirge hate stack, the +taunts/detaunts is completely worthless. They were going to make it so dirge and coercer hate transfer didnt stack any more and our cry line was supposed to fill in the gap making us more raid worthy. But everybody screamed on test and it was never implimented leaving us with a raid buff nobody could care less about.

Quicksilver74

06-24-2008, 01:21 PM

I agree that the taunt/detaunt effectiveness is almost completely worthless now. If they REALLY wanted to keep our raid buff as a hate modifier, they could add something like this to it:Modifies all Taunts to include 1 additional hate position increase.Modifies all De-Taunts to include 1 additional hate position decrease. That would actually rock. Might be a touch overpowered, but would be nice.

Aonach

06-24-2008, 02:33 PM

We don't want to be tanks, there are far too many tanks in the game already. No end game raid guild is ever going to select a bruiser as their MT when they have guardians and zerkers available and as a group tank we rock already.I've posted some stuff on the thread about the proposed changes. I think we need our raid viabilty to be increased and we aren't going to get that by SoE giving us straight buffs to do it, that would annoy all the scouts. What we need is a raid wide buff that makes us required on a raid instead of a monk, or better still beside one. We also need a group only buff that stops the raid leader sticking us in the "fat kid" crap group. If we get buffs we can do leet DPS 5K+ spikes and 4K+ ZW.We don't need anything new really, we just need the stuff we have already sorted. Except the entire AA line that is totally pointless. Sort STR line, make it viable and useable only in a riad enviroment if it makes SoE feel better.

Quicksilver74

06-24-2008, 05:01 PM

In your line "We don't want to be tanks".. I'll say that is a bit misleading. Granted YOU may not want to be a tank, but some bruisers probably DO want to be tanks. Some folks will play the whole game without ever raiding, sticking to solo and group instances. Perhaps some bruisers enjoy being a group's tank. You are correct that bruisers have no place as a raid MT. The game has 6 Tank Classes, and only Guardian is a raid tank. In the raid world, it is the other 5 fighter classes thet really often get the shaft. Every Scout is useful to a raid. Every priest is usefull to a raid. Only 1 - 2 fighters are usually needed for a raid however. It would be great if all fighters had AA options give them a serious utility spec. Sometimes I wish I coudl give the benefits to my group that a berserker gives his group. Sometimes I wish I had a monk's raid haste. Sometimes I wish I had a Shadowknight's Death March ability for my group to take advantage of. We absolutely need some utility. I love using my avoid buff on the main tank, how about something extra in relation to that? Perhaps an ability that lets me "phase" out, so that I can throw my avoid buff on the tank, and still stand within range of him on hard fights where I would normally have to stand back due to AoE and Frontal Barrages? I also imagine a bruiser picking up a scout, and "Hurling" him at the enemy, stifling the scout for the 3 second duration, but resulting in a Massive, un-mitigatable damage blast when the scout impacts the mob! Lots of ideas... so many ways to make us better. Most of the ideas I have revolve around group/raid buffs though.

Pnaxx

06-24-2008, 05:17 PM

I see the point that, if we are gonna skew one way or the other, tanking seems to be fine. It's utility for raids, we should be giving serious offensive utility. That would be our lack thereof.

evilgamer

06-24-2008, 05:36 PM

<cite>Crabbok@The Bazaar wrote:</cite><blockquote>In your line "We don't want to be tanks".. I'll say that is a bit misleading. Granted YOU may not want to be a tank, but some bruisers probably DO want to be tanks. Some folks will play the whole game without ever raiding, sticking to solo and group instances. Perhaps some bruisers enjoy being a group's tank. Aye, I rolled my bruiser specifially to be a tank with a fury duo. I didnt roll any of the other tank classes because the traditional tank/healer duo lacks dps. By playing a dps tank and a dps priest fury, we did quite well together. You are correct that bruisers have no place as a raid MT. The game has 6 Tank Classes, and only Guardian is a raid tank. In the raid world, it is the other 5 fighter classes thet really often get the shaft. Correct, but monks get in on all sorts of raids do to their utility. All the fighter classes should offer enough utility so that it justifies bringing at least one of them to a raid.Currently the most raids bring a guard, a monk, and then another zerk,guard,pally offtank.Monks and guardians are fine as is.zerkers, bruiser, paladins, and sk need more utility to justify giving them a spot.Make it so chanter/bard buffs are raid wide, the classes that dont need the hate buff can just click it off, that way raids no longer feel necessary to roll with 2 dirges and 3 illiys. Next give the fighters good enough buffs to make them actually useful. Like the monk buff presently is, not this silly taunt/detaunt crap nobody currently cares about.Yes some classes are overpowered in the raid situation, most notably dirges and illusionist., those two classes can just take up 5 of the raid slots themselves. Every Scout is useful to a raid. Every priest is usefull to a raid. Only 1 - 2 fighters are usually needed for a raid however. It would be great if all fighters had AA options give them a serious utility spec. Sometimes I wish I coudl give the benefits to my group that a berserker gives his group. Sometimes I wish I had a monk's raid haste. Sometimes I wish I had a Shadowknight's Death March ability for my group to take advantage of. We absolutely need some utility. I love using my avoid buff on the main tank, how about something extra in relation to that? Perhaps an ability that lets me "phase" out, so that I can throw my avoid buff on the tank, and still stand within range of him on hard fights where I would normally have to stand back due to AoE and Frontal Barrages? I also imagine a bruiser picking up a scout, and "Hurling" him at the enemy, stifling the scout for the 3 second duration, but resulting in a Massive, un-mitigatable damage blast when the scout impacts the mob! Lots of ideas... so many ways to make us better. Most of the ideas I have revolve around group/raid buffs though. </blockquote>

Aull

06-24-2008, 06:10 PM

Good posts here guys. Monks have always had their nice group support/utility what ever it needs to be called but was never really taken into account till this expansion. With the addition of peel and then tsunami monks are a great class to have with any group or raid.Brusiers on the other hand have never really had any so called group utility/support ever. This was fine back pre ROK because bruisers could do one thing better than most fighters and that was dps. With the invent of these longer delay harder hitting weapons monks and berserkers self buffed are actually doing better dps by a far margin over a bruiser since a bruiser cannot self buff any auto attack. Aonach has mentioned many times the "fat kid" crap group and I know what he is saying. Most of the raids I am on I am being "weeded out" so another fighter or scout can be in that spot and have all the wonderful melee buffs. I find what Crabbok said "every Scout is useful to a raid" very true. Utility, great dps, and can take a hit better than a bruiser.Now I personally like tanking but I will probably never see my bruiser tanking any raid and I am cool with that. Guardians rule that department. However being able to dps better and offer a raid a benefical dps increase buff would really help get the bruisers on track. Also Aonach did mention bruisers having a group only buff that would raise raid leaders eyebrows and make them rethink not having a bruiser in a particular dps group. My temp group buff is.......50% double attack and +50 dps mod.....15 sec duration.....60 sec reuse. Just a mini crane flock somewhat, just not the 100% double attack and not multiple targets. Combo that with a dirge (chime of blades) and see if brusiers wouldn't be back on the list for raidsWill be back later. I do think there are some excellent ideas here. Crabbok I haven't forgot about the strength line either!!! Keep spamming that!!!

Aull

06-24-2008, 07:16 PM

<cite>Crabbok@The Bazaar wrote:</cite> <blockquote>I also imagine a bruiser picking up a scout, and "Hurling" him at the enemy, stifling the scout for the 3 second duration, but resulting in a Massive, un-mitigatable damage blast when the scout impacts the mob! </blockquote>ROFL. Good one!

jaguarjp

06-24-2008, 10:56 PM

First of all, if this has already been suggested, my apologies. I've read through much of the forums, but I haven't scoured *all* of them...The impression I'm getting is that Bruisers are plenty adequate as a group MT for casual grouping, and most or all Heroic instances. But we are not desired on raids for MT duty (for obvious reasons associated with avoidance tanking vs. Named mobs, bleh), nor do we have impressive raidwide buffs that would deem us a utility class "must-have".So - how to soup up the Bruiser in the raid scenario, *without* making him overpowered in group or solo play??Here's one thing that could help: A type of buff (make it Achievement Point purchased, so the non-raiders wouldn't feel like it was unneccesarily forced upon them), that would either add DPS to the Bruiser **based on how many people are in the raid**, or would have some other group-wide or even raid-wide benefit, again, **based on how many people are in the raid**.See what I'm getting at? I don't really know where you draw the line with the actual numbers (I've got a 80/140 PvE Bruiser, but I don't raid), but for some examples:1> A self-only buff that adds +10 CA damage per person in the raid - so on an 18-person raid, that's +180 CA damage. Adjust the numbers as needed, but the point is that it's a buff that is essentially useless solo, not overpowering in a 6-man group, yet still impressive in a raid.2> A group-wide buff that adds 0.25% melee & spell crit per person on the raid - so for that same 18-person raid, that would add 4.5%.3> A raid-wide buff that adds +3 CA and spell damage per person in the raid - so in the 18-person raid, everyone in that raid would get +54 CA and spell damage.Well? What do you all think? My examples are rough, and could definitely be tweaked, but the underlying principle is what I'm excited about.

Aull

06-25-2008, 01:18 AM

Very nice thoughts. 1> A self-only buff that adds +10 CA damage per person in the raid - so on an 18-person raid, that's +180 CA damage. Adjust the numbers as needed, but the point is that it's a buff that is essentially useless solo, not overpowering in a 6-man group, yet still impressive in a raid.This is very great suggestion and while it maybe rough I really like this input. It could even be revolutionary. Definately unique.

Quicksilver74

06-25-2008, 01:21 AM

I see where your going... but i'm just not sure about abilities scaling based on the SIZE of our raid, since just about every raid is 24 people. There are other ways perhaps that you can give a bruiser a buff that will benefit more depending on the amount of people you have though... Imagine this:Spark of the JuggernautTarget: RaidConcentration: 1Duration: Until CancelledEffective Radius: 50 MetersEffects:On a successful attack this spell has a 2% chance to cast Juggernaut Explosion on Raid Members. Lasts 5 seconds: - On every Successful Attack this will deal 200 Heat Damage to Target. The Idea of this spell... is that if you are solo, you can occasionally proc a buff that deals extra damage for you for 5 seconds. It also affects yoru group or raid, both allowing them to proc it... and each time it procs it affects the entire raid as well, so therefore the more people you have, the more chances of everyone reaping the benefits. The Trigger chance is very low... because with 24 people trying to proc it, it will likely still go off quite often. I'd expect this buff to do equivalent raid damage equal to chime of blades.

Aull

06-25-2008, 01:26 AM

Awesome move there Crabbok. This is a great idea. Very well done.

Aonach

06-25-2008, 05:47 AM

Ok I acknowledge my "We don't want to be tanks" is misleading, what I meant is we don't need to be buffed or given more tanking abilities in raids instead of more utility, dps. I think most people understood my point from the posts that followed. TBH and I know this is controversial but there is no way now or in the future that I can see that any end game raid guild is going to need both a bruiser and a monk. I really think that SoE need to bite the bullit with a couple of classes and just merge them and be done with it. As an ex end game monk now bruiser I think the brawler class is screaming to be merged imho.

Quicksilver74

06-25-2008, 09:24 AM

Merging any 2 subclasses is risky. That's not what I"m after here, but I have thought about it. I think merging bruiser and monks, if done right, would result in an amazingly overpowered brawler class. I'd like to see them takes monks and bruisers in 2 different directions, and allow enough AA custimazation that raids would see a serious benefit from having both a monk AND a bruiser. Think about it, we have 24 classes in the game, and 24 slots in a raid, yet raid guilds want 2 dirges, 2 troubs, 3 illusionists..... something's not right here. It's your fighter classes (and often summoners) that tend to get the shaft on raid desirability. It'd be amazing if every class could bring something "Game Breaking" to a raid. Having 3 illusionists is fine, but maybe if you have to have only 1, and bring in a shadowknight and a bruiser in their place, the raid gains DPS through other buffs and in different areas... to make up for it.

evilgamer

06-25-2008, 11:31 AM

<cite>Crabbok@The Bazaar wrote:</cite><blockquote>Think about it, we have 24 classes in the game, and 24 slots in a raid, yet raid guilds want 2 dirges, 2 troubs, 3 illusionists..... something's not right here. It's your fighter classes (and often summoners) that tend to get the shaft on raid desirability. It'd be amazing if every class could bring something "Game Breaking" to a raid. Having 3 illusionists is fine, but maybe if you have to have only 1, and bring in a shadowknight and a bruiser in their place, the raid gains DPS through other buffs and in different areas... to make up for it. </blockquote>I agree, chater and bard buffs need to be raid wide.It completely silly that 4 classes out of 24 can take up 1/3 of the raid slots. 2 dirge, 2 troubs, 3 illy, 1 coerc

Tanino

06-25-2008, 01:08 PM

If we get a very good raid wide buff, that will just ensure that we have 1 bruiser in the raid and that is it. If we get something additional to what we have, then it needs to be group based buff so it will encourage more than 1 bruiser be in the raid. Only other way is if it's a knockout combination raid wide buff that is activated that two or more bruisers can cycle.

Aull

06-25-2008, 01:13 PM

Agreed Tanino. The bad thing about a raid wide buff is simply what you stated only 1 bruiser will be needed. A nice group buff would allow 2 or more bruiser to be considered in a raid instead of just one.

evilgamer

06-25-2008, 03:35 PM

<cite>Aull wrote:</cite><blockquote>Agreed Tanino. The bad thing about a raid wide buff is simply what you stated only 1 bruiser will be needed. A nice group buff would allow 2 or more bruiser to be considered in a raid instead of just one</blockquote>A nice group buff and nice raid buff would overpower us.24 classes, 24 raid spots. There should be no reason that raids should need to bring more then 1 of each class to a raid. Obviously if they are short on one class they could substituteIf raids start using 2 bruisers that means another class would get the shaft.Which is exactly how it is now with raids rolling with 2 dirges, 3 Illys, 2 troubs.4 classes are getting shafted because of this, bruiser being one.I personally think 1 good raid buff is all we need.That and make bard and chanter buffs raid wide so raid dont feel the need to include 1 in every group.

Aull

06-25-2008, 05:08 PM

You make a strong and very good point Evil. As is stands now bruisers do have a raid wide buff. While it isn't a strong buff it will add points to taunts/detaunts and a + what ever increase to damage on combat arts depending on lvl of the ability. My question is why is it that bruisers have only a raid wide buff but not one group only buff or utility as it currently is in game? Correct me if I am wrong on that. Maybe there is something I am missing. If bruisers having both a raid wide and group only buff/utility will over power the bruiser class then I would have to ask are monks overpowered? Monks have one of the greatest most beneficial raid wide buffs in game atm than supports both melee and casters ( bruisers only help the melee with theirs), plus have a utility in group feign death and targetable heal even though both have a long reuse timer. It only stands to reason why monks are sought after where bruisers are still kickin rocks.I understand what you are saying about pushing out other classes. I have been in a few raids here lately where there have been three monks on the raid just so each can be in a separate group for the group fd. I thought it was crazy having it set up that way but it did pay off once.I am not calling for nerfs on monks or anybody at all but trying to get something highlighted for the bruiser class needs to happen. If dps increases are going to make a bruiser overpowered but bruisers still are not given ONE group buff/utility then bruisers might as well be replaced with monks for the plain and simple truth that we see mentioned in all these posts over the past 6 months.I am talking serious. If having a knowledge of the two brawlers classes that exsists currently all things being equal, being equally well played, and again knowing the benefits and disadvantages of both brawlers which one has the best class abilities for grouping and raiding. Who would be chosen and who would be left behind?Please do not take this as a flame Evil or anyone else reading it. I enjoy reading your posts Evil keep em going. It is just my opinions. I am not wanting a nerf to the monk class at all and I am pleased to see that monks are actually doing well in this expansion. Just would like to see my bruiser actually be a benefit to my group/raid mates.Thanks

evilgamer

06-25-2008, 05:25 PM

1 needed raid buff or group buff is all we need.No class should ever be so overpowered in raid content that raids feel the need to include 2-3 of them.I think bard and enchanter buffs need to be raid wide. Its completely unbalanced for raids to use 4 bards and 4 enchanters.What would people say if it was 4 brawlers and 4 crusaders. They would be screaming "nerf", but for some reason people seem to be used to 4 bards and 4 enchanters and think that is ok.Really only coercers are balanced in reguards to raids between the bard, illi, and enchanter classes.

Tanino

06-25-2008, 05:32 PM

What about adding increases spell damage by 112 as well? That would add casters and help with poison damage as well?

Quicksilver74

06-25-2008, 05:57 PM

Adding spell damage to our raid buff would not make us needed. I think our raid buff needs to add something for both casters and melee alike, but not straight damage. perhaps CA and spell re-use timers, DPS, Doubleattack and Spell Double Attack, or Melee, ranged, spell, and heal crit chance. Crit woudl be excellent atm because the only static buffs to crit come from bards, and giving a bruiser a crit buff would help off-set the bard-need mentality. I disagree with Evilgamer that a group buff plus our raid buff woudl make us overpowered. I think that totally depends on how strong the buffs happen to be. If our raid buff were left as is.... then they could easily add a group buff to us without making us overpowered. Or they could improve our raid buff, and give us a minor group buff. How about a raidwide Sanctuary? How bout a groupwide Knockout? How bout a Sngle Target Chi-like Ability? How about a Hate-Dump. Long recast, dumps 90% of our current threat onto target Ally! That would be amazing!

Aull

06-25-2008, 06:55 PM

I like the thought of having a possible 8% reduction to combat arts and spell reuse timers for a bruiser at the master lvl. That would be a great ability to have. Also adding a chance to crit for a group would be more like an ability for a bruiser to have.

ganjookie

06-26-2008, 04:01 AM

I want to summon throwable pies!

Quicksilver74

06-27-2008, 11:12 AM

I doubt we will see another reduction to combat art recast timers, as we already have that from the AGI line. Yeah I would like to see a little more, but I think to gain any more, you would have to get it from gear. I also wouldn't mind seeing an AA stat that raises the base damage of all our CA's that isn't affected by the cap.

Aull

06-28-2008, 12:07 PM

Lots of great ideas. I personally feel that if a bruiser's dps isn't potentially the highest of fighters then they should be able to give a group some sort of dps increasing ability for a short while similar to a dirge having chime of blades. I think that bruisers are the only fighters that doesn't give a single group buff at all. I would be cool with that if my bruisers personal dps was higher than the other fighters (zerkers and monks in particular) as a trade off but that isn't the case. When other classes are doing equal/better dps and can tank or offer better benefits to group or raid then a bruiser will loose out for what I am gathering.I honestly feel that dps was the only distinguishing factor that a bruiser had that justified them as being along on raids pre ROK since bruisers didn't have anything else to offer. Now with time and expansions bruisers and a few other classes as well are slowing loosing footing on what made these classes special.Keep up the great ideas.

Novusod

06-29-2008, 05:59 PM

In the two years I have been playing Bruiser and other classes as well I think there is a proper place for the bruiser that is both fair for the other fighter classes and pure dps classes. Overall the place I see the Bruiser fitting in as being able to Tank about as well as Berserker but having less dps than Berserkers. Bruiser wouldn't be the best tank and we would be the best dps but we would have some really worthwhile utility. Overall balance is achieved though a good combination of Tanking survivability, dps, and utility. 1. Our dps in Solo and Heroic situations works a lot differently than it does in raids that come out very unfavorable to the way bruisers dps. It feels like I am fighting with one hand behind my back when ever I raid. a. Devastation Fist: this ability which is so awesome in heroic mobs is totally [Removed for Content] against epics. Devastation fist should work on the same principles as it does in heroic mobs by doing a percentage based damage to non-named epic trash and adds. I think 5% would be fair for epic trash and adds. b. Stomp: this ability is broken in raids because it requires that the mob be stunned for it give its' damage. The stun requirement should be removed when damaging epic mobs.c. Manhandle: this is a combination taunt and damage proc that Bruisers are not allowed to use in raids unless we are tanking. We can't even run shifty and manhandle at the same time. My raid leader doesn't even let me use it unless I need to pick up agro. To fix this remove the taunt and increase the damage or make it work like our epic: in front of the mob it taunts while behind it does extra damage. 2. On the tanking front I have no VP gear yet I can clear Maidens with only one healer. With AA spec I can get over 60% avoidance in offensive stance. In heroic content 60% avoidance IS 60% avoidance but when it comes to epics that same 60% avoidance is more like 5% avoidance so it is pretty much means one shot equals dead. If epics didn't ignore our avoidance it wouldn't be so bad. No fighter should just go SPLAT the instant an Epic mob touches us. Our vigorous spirit temp should be either faster recast or good until canceled so we can take a huge hit and not die.3. In order for Bruisers to have acceptable utility we need to have decent raid-wide buff and good group buff.a. My best idea for a raid wide would be a 5 second percentage proc of either stone deaf or closed mind. Call it courage of the dreadnought.b. For a group wide I would suggest KO combo affecting the entire group when cast. This would give us a mini dirge like CoB.

Quicksilver74

06-29-2008, 07:42 PM

Double stomp works on epics, it doesn't require them to be knocked down first. I like the idea of groupwide knockout, but for raidwide I want something more DPS oriented, or a 3-Trigger, raidwide altruism. Adding "Until Cancelled" to our Spirit line would do alot for our tanking... but I just feel the game has too many tanks as it is. I'd much rather brawlers become dps and leave warriors and crusaders as tanks. I really want to see raids use 24 different classes someday. That would be true balance to me.

Aull

06-29-2008, 10:55 PM

Over all great ideas Novusod, but I do disagree with the "Overall the place I see the Bruiser fitting in as being able to Tank about as well as Berserker but having less dps than Berserkers." Ok not so sound bad here but if bruisers were able to tank about as well as a zerker but did less dps than zerkers would hurt bruisers even more. Heck we are already in that condition now. In my opinion bruisers should just be out dpsing zerkers to begin with. A zerker or any plate tank should be better for taking those hard hits, but allowing leather to not dish out more dps concerns me. In my eyes berserkers should be able to out tank bruisers, but bruisers should be able to out dps berserkers. There should be a trade off. I find three areas for most fighters and those are survivability, group utility/support, and dps. If you guys see other areas that I didn't list please bring them to my attention. Anyway if a tank has very high survivability and decent group utility/support then I would be lead to believe that dps should be only modest since the other two areas are stronger. Having all three areas strong would just be overpowering. Since a bruiser cannot offer a procing group haste/dps mod, a group stamina, strength, agility, or avoidance buff, an occasional heal, nor can we group fd, it would lead me to believe that bruisers should a) be able to do a great job tanking or b) have very strong offense. With bruisers wearing leather I would think it shouldn't be the best suit of armor for tanking or taking hits, but since it is lighter than plate and chain it should allow for stronger, quicker attacks and recovery.I do agree that manhandle would be a simple and easy fix for our personal dps. Make it a direct damage only proc (maybe 200-600 damage) and remove the taunting aspect of it. It would be easy to impliment into game that wouldn't be a huge new introduction. Your are so right on the "no fighter should just go SPLAT the instant an epic mob touches us". This is a huge AMEN brother!!! Keep a preachin the truth!!! Our avoidance should mean something.A group knockout would be cool but I would be afraid we would loose our own self ability since both would be on the same timer possibly. Maybe a 15 second 20% to criticals and 50% double attack would be cool too.Devastation fist on raids is a dps set back if you ask me. Being able to hit the mob for what most of my combat arts hit for then stifles me for 10 secs is just unholy.Thanks for posting.I must admit when I am in a group with same buffs and I see.......berserker 2654.54.......monk 1801.76.....bruiser 1912.69 I get jealous is all since I can't offer any other means of service to my group other than dps.

Toliandar

06-30-2008, 01:31 AM

Only level 38 now but here is a thought/suggestion for the direction the Bruiser.The advantage of a monk are buffs, thus I think the advantage of the bruiser should be debuffs. Now I know we have a few debuffs already, but I think the bruiser should get some kind of unique debuff. Perhaps a flat out damage decrease, double attack decrease, or maybe a slow debuff are a few examples. These could potentially aid in bruiser tanking as well.

heelena

06-30-2008, 07:40 AM

We are bruisers and we crush: therefor i would like to have a buff called:Panzerfist:decreases the enemies armor with every succesful attack by -15that means, if i hit a mob and do 100 succesful attacks, he will loose 1500 points of his armor. a very nice tool for long epic fights. and i think it would be a very nice tool for raidleaders as well.

Aonach

06-30-2008, 01:31 PM

I think we really need to stop beating the tank drum. We have enough metal tanks already on a raid, with the proper buffs these metal tanks can out DPS us as well as out tank us. We cannot compete with them as tanks and frankly we shouldn't want to. A lot of people are talking about getting one shotted from epics, well tbh you really shouldn't be getting one shotted, especially if you have your mythical, it might be nice to make it a little bit easier to swap buffs etc before you snap that agro from the squishies but really that is all the tanking change we need.It's the fact that these metal tanks can out DPS us that is the major concern and the reason they can do it is because they are always in groups with all the buffs. We need SoE to give us something that not only makes us viable on a raid but makes us viable outside the crap group where the poor pallies get placed. There have been many things said already that will help but I'm worried that the good ideas will get lost in the "we want to be able to raid tank" posts.For example, I'm a T8 raid geared bruiser and one of the top guilds on my server are looking for a monk, in discussions with them I tried to find out why a monk and not a bruiser, their answer was simple. Monks have spell haste and peel. I can out DPS a monk on a raid but I have nothing to bring to the raid as a whole so I'm never going to get in.Give us something that at least makes us as viable as a monk is all I am asking for.

Quicksilver74

06-30-2008, 01:49 PM

Agree that we need to stop beating the tank drum. I honestly think that we are mostly fine in the tanking department. If we could tank better that STILL would not make us wanted in raids. Raids have a GUARDIAN tank. Not a bruiser. We "CAN" tank anything with the proper buffs and good players in raid, but a Guardian is the supreme tank. Giving us plenty of tanking ability will not make us usefull. We need Utility! A Key Debuff would be fine. How about a 10 second duration Epic Stun that ignores an epic's Immunity to stun? How bout an awesome group buff, like Accuracy, strikethrough, crit, doubleattack or something extra! How about a group buff that gives all group members 1 additional concentration slot! I mean theres so many things they could do with us... outside of tanking. our tanking is fine as it is.

Tanino

06-30-2008, 03:55 PM

I will continue to beat the tank drum, because it is honestly needed more than anything else. Our dps would be alot higher especially on named mobs if we could stay alive from an AOE. It does alot for our dps when we have to run to the other side of the room with the casters to stay safe. Intercede will almost kill us, drag will kill us if we don't get a ward by the time mob hits us once, and the same thing for D&C.Yes the mythical solves alot of those problems because it is targeted at making us better tanks, with the damage reduction, taunt and other items.... but then I don't have my mythical yet. Who know's if I ever will either.

Aonach

06-30-2008, 04:09 PM

I'm sorry but if you are dying to AoE, drag or intercedes you really need better resists and better gear, all the tanking abilities in the world won't keep you alive.

Aull

06-30-2008, 04:14 PM

Yeah I just do not see bruisers being a raid tank. Just to many fighters competing for that spot as it is now. I do agree that some utility would be grand and many wonderful ideas have been mentioned here in this post and many previous posts as well. If utility cannot be reached then again the only way I see a bruiser having any meaning would be as 1st) a strong dps class, 2nd) as a decent tank, and dead last in utility. I wouldn't ask that bruisers have strong dps, strong tanking, and decent support/utility cause that to me would make us somewhat overpowered.With all things being equal and plate tanks are still equaling or beating us in dps I find that very disturbing. I see this more so with zerkers than the other plate fighters but still I can't find reason as to why this is allowed to be so. Not that I want zerkers or any other plate fighters nerfed, but it just doesn't make sense with the tanking abilities they have.A signature debuff would be cool too. Most people know those brigands for dispatch and how wonderful it is to have them on a raid just for the debuffing power they have.I am not asking for bruisers to have scout dps nor do I wish that bruisers could tank as well as a guardian. However as it currently is scouts have super dps and believe it or not can actually take hits better than brawlers can in the epic/heroic environments. That being said I see no reason why we couldn't see a better increase to bruiser dps as a solid reason for having a bruiser tag along.

Aull

06-30-2008, 04:22 PM

<cite>Tanino wrote:</cite><blockquote>I will continue to beat the tank drum, because it is honestly needed more than anything else. Our dps would be alot higher especially on named mobs if we could stay alive from an AOE. It does alot for our dps when we have to run to the other side of the room with the casters to stay safe. Intercede will almost kill us, drag will kill us if we don't get a ward by the time mob hits us once, and the same thing for D&C.Yes the mythical solves alot of those problems because it is targeted at making us better tanks, with the damage reduction, taunt and other items.... but then I don't have my mythical yet. Who know's if I ever will either.</blockquote>Agreed. This to me is something in our bruiser tree that needs modification. This could potentially be a great line if it could be reworked to where the last ability in sacrifice would allow the bruiser to absorb a large portion of the damage instead of having another fighters intercede on us. Again this line has great potential but as it currently is it is garbage. The rest of the bruiser tree I can live with and seems well done.If this aa line was reworked to where it actually had some valid use it would be a good step in the direction of utility/support.

Novusod

06-30-2008, 05:55 PM

I am going to continue to beat the tanking drum because the dps field is even more crowded than the tanking slots. Just ask some Assassins, Brigands, Rangers, or Wizards what they they think about Bruisers getting a dps boost. Some of these classes think we have too much dps already! They we tell you we are tanks not dps. As I said on the flames forum dps is a lost cause for us because a high dps bruiser is unfair to other classes. We have gotten dps boosts in the past but every time we get into the high range of dps class everyone starts crying for nerfs. You guys have been beating this dps drum forever and it has gotten you no where. The devs have to look out for the needs of the entire community and if we paint ourselves contrary to those trends then of course those the bruiser is just going to get left out in the cold again. Do NOT let history repeat itself. The one exception to this I can see would be making devastation fist into trash and add clearing utility tool.When I go SPAT because an epic wacks me even the guardian goes "[Removed for Content]" and the healers are like "w.t.f." There is absolutely no excuse for the Bruisers' poor survivability against raid mob attacks. There are mobs like Master P that require multiple tanks to avoid the curse. Some raid guilds use brigands and swashbucklers to pick up the agro on either this mob or other encounter adds. If scouts are filling in for the "limited tank" role then something in not right when there are pure tank classes out that should be doing that job. Pure tank classes are kept out of raids mainly because they lack utility not because they lack dps. To be slated in a tank the bruiser first has to be able to get the job done. I think the fair place for a bruiser is being able to tank as well as a Berserker only having less dps but more utility for the sake of balance.

Toliandar

07-01-2008, 06:13 AM

Sounds like the bruiser (and possibly brawler to a lesser extent) requires improvements to both tanking and dps.Perhaps the bruiser should have a debuff that only applies when tanking (eg. targets agro on you receive a 10% decrease to accuracy), which would be a quite a strong debuff; in addition with more general passive debuffing. Perhaps we should get a buff that procs random debuffs - slows, dmg decreases, AC decreases, whatever. Key word, it procs from a widelist of debuffs. The two can be combined - when targeted chance to proc increases. These debuffs of course would be short duration (maybe 10 seconds) with a fairly high proc rate. The balance being able to have one up continuously, with occasionaly 2 (especially whilst tanking).Would have to make sure that the debuffs are fully stackable with other debuffs (I have no idea how debuff stacking works in EQ2).EDITAs for out right tanking survivability. A key feature of our monk archetype has been natural AC. Basically, the AC of plate, with extra dodging, but less hp. It works really well.

Tanino

07-01-2008, 09:06 AM

<cite>Toliandar wrote:</cite><blockquote>As for out right tanking survivability. A key feature of our monk archetype has been natural AC. Basically, the AC of plate, with extra dodging, but less hp. It works really well.</blockquote>Maybe it was suppose to be that way, but clearly not the case. If you don't take shields or bucklers into consideration, in defensive stance we are closer to chain armor than any other. For example: Quarrelsome Tunic with 311 mitigation * 1.25 = 388.75 mitigation. Coat of Impetuous Strikes which is the equivilent scout chest piece has 380 mitigation without any modifiers. Now if you add a buckler or shield into the equation we are not even close to chain and actually closer to leather healers when all is said and done.Our avoidance is still the highest but other classes are getting very close to ours with all of the gear that is dropping out there. The HP side though we are very close to other fighers with the only other tank class clearly higher than ours being the Guardian, but we are about on par with the Crusaders.Now don't get me wrong, I do not expect us to have plate armor mitigation but even changing the modifier to 1.30 instead of 1.25 would be nice, with potentially a boost to all resists not just poison.

Aonach

07-01-2008, 09:09 AM

<cite>Novusod wrote:</cite><blockquote>I am going to continue to beat the tanking drum because the dps field is even more crowded than the tanking slots. Just ask some Assassins, Brigands, Rangers, or Wizards what they they think about Bruisers getting a dps boost. Some of these classes think we have too much dps already! They we tell you we are tanks not dps. Frankly I don't give a "monkeys hairy rear end" what wizards or scouts think about what we should and shouldn't get. It's not up to them to balance the game and they should concentrate on their own class instead of moaning about what other classes get.As I said on the flames forum dps is a lost cause for us because a high dps bruiser is unfair to other classes. We have gotten dps boosts in the past but every time we get into the high range of dps class everyone starts crying for nerfs. So it's acceptable to you that both Zerks and Guardians can out dps you AND out tank you? I'm afraid that is far from acceptable in my book.You guys have been beating this dps drum forever and it has gotten you no where. The devs have to look out for the needs of the entire community and if we paint ourselves contrary to those trends then of course those the bruiser is just going to get left out in the cold again. Do NOT let history repeat itself. The one exception to this I can see would be making devastation fist into trash and add clearing utility tool.We aren't beating the dps drum, I think if you read you will find we are beating the utility drum. The simple fact of life is we are not needed as tanks because raids already have enough tanks. Raids could always use more dps but we aren't a dps class either. So that only leaves utility. We need to be able to grab snap agro from squishies and survive long enough for a proper tank to get agro back - scouts can already do this so it's not a lot to ask for. We need to do the equivalent amount of DPS as the other fighters on the raid - no more , no less - but more importantly we need to be able to bring something to the raid that justifies our position on it.When I go SPAT because an epic wacks me even the guardian goes "[Removed for Content]" and the healers are like "w.t.f." There is absolutely no excuse for the Bruisers' poor survivability against raid mob attacks. There are mobs like Master P that require multiple tanks to avoid the curse. Some raid guilds use brigands and swashbucklers to pick up the agro on either this mob or other encounter adds. If scouts are filling in for the "limited tank" role then something in not right when there are pure tank classes out that should be doing that job. Pure tank classes are kept out of raids mainly because they lack utility not because they lack dps. To be slated in a tank the bruiser first has to be able to get the job done. I think the fair place for a bruiser is being able to tank as well as a Berserker only having less dps but more utility for the sake of balance.Ok I can't speak for going splat because it doesn't happen to me very often, granted occasionally I will get one shotted but not often. I think the fact that most if not all bruisers on here are dying when they have to take agro - for whatever reason - is that you are in a "no buff" group. You are probably self buffed, in offensive stance and wearing dps gear. I have said before, the only tanking ability bruisers need is something that will enable us to quickly go from dps mode to tank mode and back again. Our mythical helps ofc but isn't quite enough and doesn't help raiding bruisers that don't have it yet.If you want to go head to head with a place on a raid with a zerker then I think that is the death knell for the bruiser class. The only 2 encounters that bruisers should need to tank currently are sisters and P'Tasa and if you can't survive them then your doing something very wrong already.</blockquote>

Aull

07-01-2008, 10:45 AM

The drum that I am pounding is called the "w.t.h drum". I don't think for a minute that a zerker/guardian should be able to take hits and dps they way they do (buff grouped), and bruisers not have something inside them that makes them go hummmmmmmm. Many disagree that giving a bruiser any form of self dps mods will be asking to much. If that is so, then how since we currently cannot tank like zerkers/guardians (and we shouldn't), yet they can dps right along side of us, and we also do not have any utility at all. If we "can't" get utility and we will never tank as good as plates then the only other option is to strengthen dps or we will continue this downward spiral into oblivion.I can understand the points that are mentioned here in this thread and I agree with most of them all. Most every post made here has great info/suggestions and that is cool. I am not trying to gripe but maybe "MY" perception of the bruiser class is way off base. Maybe bruisers where never meant to be a tank or have any form of dps or have any benefits to having them in groups. I pound my drum. W.T.H have I?

Quicksilver74

07-01-2008, 10:59 AM

I would add Maestro to that list. It is clear to me that several of the posters here want increased tanking ability, but rest assured that increased tanking alone will just make you a better tank that brings nothing to a raid while the guardian tanks. I don't think there is a single bruiser that would disagree with the fact that we need more utility. I am in favor of utility in the flavor of a DPS-themed mechanic, IE a groupwide Knockout, or DPS buff. This is because I typically hear people ask to swap the bruiser in their group for a zerker... because he gives that group more dps benefits than a bruiser gives them.

Aull

07-01-2008, 01:35 PM

I am sorry for getting off topic with my last few posts. Without having a single group buff at all we as bruisers are often over looked when its comes to being an absolute benefit to a group/raid. I think that a group wide knock out is cool but sometimes on raids memeber are completely drained by mobs that leech power and then that would make a group knockout less beneficial. I would personally like to see a constant buff such as an increase to crits and maybe a slight increase to double attack. This way we would still be offering a buff even if completely out of power. Maybe this ability could be a proc chance of 2.0 ppm for say +8 to crits/ +15 to double attack that lasts for like 10 seconds at the adept III lvl and maybe +10 to crits/+18 to double attack at the master lvl in the lvl 71-80 range of course.I think that would be more in line for a bruiser group buff allowance. Again a group knock out would be cool too, but in certain situations (like oop) it wouldn't mean much. Anyway that would be what I would lean more to is a buff that enhances auto attack without use lots of power.Thanks

Tanino

07-01-2008, 04:26 PM

I was typing all type of junk but I will try and keep this one short <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> All other fighter classes have 2 to 3 group or raid buffs, but brawlers only have 1.... problem... definitely.Which combat art bonus is missing out of all of the fighter classes to my knowledge? Double AttackProblem with using double attack as a buff? Our strength AA line unsuccessfully does the same thing, so stacking the same thing wouldn't make sense. Does the strength line need to be fixed..... yes, yes, yes, yes. That one is another very simple fix that SOE can implement.... after that I think everyone can revisit the topic of what our dps output is and so forth. Yes we still won't have a group buff, but fix the obvious first and after that we can see what group buffs we can put into play..... but it may require some sacrifices on our existing self buffs or non-buffed dps in order accomodate it.

Toliandar

07-02-2008, 04:08 AM

I for one believe caution should be used for this push for some kind of buff the bruiser brings. IMO it is simply to close to monk territory, who are also from what I gather, cautiously included in raids. Is it a case of the bruiser that needs refining or the brawler archetype as a whole? I personally think it's the latter. Give the brawler what it has traditionally possessed. Plate AC (through natural AC), leather avoidance, and dps above the warrior type, but below the rogue [scout] type. The cop out is hp, which the brawler has generally sat just below knights. It's the backbone attraction of the brawler. Can tank, though the risk of running out of hp is significantly greater. Can dps significantly above warrior and especially knight types.The ratios I keep in mind are generally as followed. I don't include arcane/divine casters as I don't think they are relevant to the discussion.Defense: Guardian = 1.1, Berserker = 1. Crusader/Brawler = .9 Scout = .66Offense: Crusader = .85, Guardian = .9, Berserker = 1.05, Brawler = 1.25, Scout = 1.4Utility: Warrior/Brawler = 1, Crusader/Scout = 1.15Note, I consider snap agro generation to fall in with utility, defense as the ability to soak damage, and offense the dealing dps ability. Thus, crusaders have best utility amongst fighters (shown especially in agro generation), warriors the best tanking ability (with guardian edging out over zerker), and brawlers having the best dps dealing ability amongst fighter.It's really the berserker class that has the chance to mess this up. WoW has this problem with offense specced warriors (who I consider the equivalent of a berserker) and VG just cut the class out completely. Even DND (barbarian) can have problems as they are a class in general that tends to scale out of proportion with these ratios.I think in EQ2 the problem is more with the brawler, and is just emphasised more with the bruiser (due to the bruiser falling below the standard on utility, where the monk is on par).Again, I believe fully stacking debuffs are what is needed for the bruiser, rather than increasing buff power (which I consider monk territory).

Tanino

07-02-2008, 10:51 AM

I know when I was still able to use the strength line, it was nice being able to throw in Pressure Point, Baton Flurry and Eye Rip all back to back to give some pretty nice debuffs. The refresh timers on Pressure Point and Baton Flurry were the same and relatively quick, so it was probably one of my most used hits besides Hammer and Front kick.Right now I am just stuck with crane sweep which is nice and all but mainly just used to pick up adds or to put in a little AOE damage. A strength line with weapons would definitely be stronger on a single target than the wisdom line, but the wisdom line would surpase it on multiple targets. It would actually give us an opportunity to use that AA mirror for once if they would change the strength line.Brawlers as a whole need a revamp, I don't think it's exclusive to just Bruisers.

Quicksilver74

07-02-2008, 11:00 AM

True the Brawler STR line needs to change to allow us to use weapons. Especially since we are the only class who has only 4 KoS AA lines available to us if we wish to use our epic weapon. What I am hearing fairly consistently however, is Bruisers crying out for utility. I can respect that some would rather have a debuff rather than a buff, and thats fine. The only problem for me, is trying to find a good enough debuff that would be unique. Something to make us stand out. I want raid leaders all over the world saying "Hey we better get a bruiser in this raid, so we can have X".

Aull

07-02-2008, 04:13 PM

What about a % to hit increase and % to crits for group buff? Make it a proc 2.0 ppm. Any suggestions?

Junaru

07-02-2008, 05:19 PM

I like a lot of the ideas given. What would also help is take the idea from set bonus. Increase DPS/healing/regen for each class you have on the raid with a larger bonus for having all 24 classes. Something like this would not only help out Bruisers but every other class that gets left behind.

Aonach

07-03-2008, 03:58 AM

I love the idea of a raid getting a bonus for having a member of every class on it. It's never going to happen though because that is way too much like hard work for SoE to balance the game that finely.Good idea though, lets take it one step further and have a raid wide Heroic Opportunity type event that if every class can pull off 24 hit HO then we get some kind of leet raid wide buff. Now that would be special and fun ^.^

Sajiin

07-07-2008, 04:51 AM

I agree that we need more utility, any raiding guild will not want a brawler as their Mt and besides most guilds already have their MT firmly in place so we will just go through the pain that platers feel that don't have that spot. I personally would like to be considered DPS/utility in a raid (what can I say I like being in the top 3 on the parse). And I agree w/ Crabbok our tanking is fine we just need somethin to get outta the last kid picked group or the good luck group 4 we don't have a healer for you guys group. "ooh that looks like certain death send in the brawler" <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

TruhlsRu

07-13-2008, 03:04 PM

Having played a bruiser since launch I feel that we have all felt the nerf bat more then some. People have groaned and moaned about our our class being too powerful and we get nerfed. SOE prefers to look at us as the "red headed step child no one wants" then too look at us as a viable class. For those beating the " We need to be better tanks drum" I say this to you we are decent or slightly above decent instance and group tanks. Our avoidance helps us out emmencely and with the right gear and AA spec we can tank any instance out there. I have tanked all the instances except RE2 because I havent tried and can tank them really well. Even with our AA specs and gear we lack the great taunts the other classes have. We really have 2 taunts and if the right AA we can have 5 being the ability to change our hate spot by one, Divide and conquor and drag. Now I know rescue is useful but the reuse timer on it is too long so it doesnt make for a viable solution. Almost all of our aggro comes from our DPS output supplemented with taunts. Since classes like brigands, swashies, assassins, wizards and warlocks can do sooo much DPS its hard for me sometimes to hold aggro from them.. especially wizards and warlocks. If we are going to be tanks then offer us something more to help with aggro or allow us to be in defensive stance and still be able to do high DPS so we can hold aggro a bit easier. I know our epic helps us as does the mythical but its a proc base, not a constant effect. I can think of one item off hand but cant remember the name of it that allowed us to gain hate with every hit we did, it wasnt percent based and I think that should be incorperated into our epic/Mythical instead of a proc chance. Our avoidance should also be considered since we will never achieve chain or plate mitigation EVER and we arent supposed too. For those beating the " We need better DPS drum" I say yes we should be able to do more dps but over the long haul. We have probably some of the best burst DPS in the game but with a cost....long reuse timers on just about all of our combat arts. If I remember right is about 35-45secs per combat art on reuse even with our batton flurry which most times tends to get debuffed off a mob in a lot of cases. Our AoEs which can be powerful are on such long refresh timers that they can be a bit of a hindrance to us if not careful. It is a shame to see plate tanks out dpsing us by such a wide margin, even in a 6 man group. I have a full set of tank gear and a nice set of DPS gear and the difference is noticable but not by much imo. In offensive stance with DS gear I can self buff haste to 32, DPS is 25, double attack is 8% Crits at 44% and Damage modifer is 460 IE + whatever to combat art damage. But to see a plate tank running around in defensive stance and out dpsing me is a shame really. We are leather wearers and bruisers/monks should be the top of the tank DPS tree period. We should swing faster and hit harder then any other tank class for the simple fact we wear leather and have low mitagation. The STR line is useless to us, has been since the claymore line came out really. I heard a rumor once the Devs tried to implement weapons onto the strength line in test but the test community complained so loudly they nerfed it the same day and took it out. It would be a start to us by fixing that line to allow us to use our epics/mythicals and such with that line, otherwise replace the line entirely. For those beating the " Bruisers need to be a better utility class drum " I say AMEN. We have nothing to offer a raid and very little to offer a group outside of our Burst DPS and Altruism if you have gone down that line. D and C is use less to bruisers in offensive stance and DPS gear because we just cant take the beating when half a group of mobs suddenly switch to us and beat us down.. lets forget about using it on raid mobs, 3 hits..maybe 5 tops and we go Splat. Drag is a useful utility and I use it often, even on rids.. good for peeling mobs away from the other squishies of the raid force. Monks Peel is better but since the Peel nerf its more on par with D and C. As it has been stated in other posts our only raid wide buff is useless. It offers nothing to anyone but a paltry 98 combat damage modifier at Adept III. We need more utility by far. Anything to make us more viable to a raid force would be nice. Whether it be a crit chance/ DPS modifier... which by the way is what rumble was before they nerfed and changed it. though it was self only. A few debuffs added to our arts would be nice as well but not heat damage procs, most high in raid mobs have high tolerance to it. The brawler tree in a whole should be tweaked some, Str line being reworked all together. The bruiser tree is ok, but if they give us some nice utilities then by all means fix it... honestly anyone here actually use the interceed part of the tree? In the end I would have to say those of us who have played bruisers for years and hung on despite SoE's lack of support for us are to be commended. Those who betrayed to Monks.. well people are entitled to change. Lets se if SoE will listen to us and I say be damned what the other classess have to say about us, otherwise we will be the best soloers in the game, be decent to above average group tanks and the fat kid with pimples sitting on teh bench crying when we dont get picked for raids other then to be a "filler" spot until some class deamed more important comes along and we get bumped.-chuckles - I apologize in advance for typos and grammatical errors

Aull

07-13-2008, 04:01 PM

Great post TruhlsRuhk. I really do agree with the dps paragraph. As bruisers we do have some decent combat art damage, but where we are lacking is auto attack modification. Bruisers were monks that have gone to the dark side, but appearently in the cross over bruiser forgot how to modify auto attacks. From what I have seen bruisers have about three or four combat arts that will hit for about 500-1300 more damage than similar monk combat arts but bruisers have 15-30 seconds higher refresh timers on those arts. All other combat arts between the two brawlers are very similar in damage and refresh timers.Now once a brusier has combat arts cooling down he/she must rely on auto attack damage and this is where the bruiser falls behind with 4 second or higher delay weapons. On the flip side once a monk has combat arts cooling down he/she must rely on auto attack damage and this is where the monk will rule. Bruisers can only modify haste/dps through equipment while a monk can hasten auto attack self and with equipment sometimes reaching well above +140 haste and 25 dps mod.My question has been for a long time is why can monks self haste to over 100 points, yet a bruiser cannot even self modify dps mods to say 75 points? I feel that since ROK this area is where the bruiser has fallen hard in the dps department.Thanks

Roldor

07-15-2008, 03:47 AM

Some thoughts in order of preference...1. Raid enhancing ability - Change Gut Punch, remove the daze and replace it with an effect that cripples the mobs defences e.g. Decrease mitigation by 2000 and decrease defence/parry/deflection by 50. I'm thinking kind of like Dispatch, not an equal to dispatch but balanced competitively none the less.2. Raid tanking ability - Change Retribution of Stone AA. Scrap existing AA and replace with, every time the Bruiser Deflects/Parries/Ripostes an attack there is a 50% chance to proc stone skin, duration 20 seconds, recast 3 minutes, Bruiser is dazed for the duration. I'm thinking this ability should be comparable to a Monks Tsunami or Guardians Tower of Stone/Dragoon's Reflexes. The purpose of this ability is to provide the bruiser a quick emergency buff to fire off when needing to pickup an epic after the MT has gone splat.3. Raid utility - Change Soak Hit AA. Scrap existing AA and replace with, 3% damage absorption added to the Bruiser's Shake Off ability.4. Change Rock Skin. Reduce the mitigation amount and change the side effect to a Daze. e.g. Mitigation Increased by 600, duration 30 seconds, caster dazed for the duration of the CA. The current stun effect makes this CA not worthwhile casting, there is little point in having a godly mitigation if you are unable to hold agro (Relying on Divide and Conquer for a few seconds doesn't really cut it imo).5. Fix the strength line. There are many threads with good suggestions on this, enough said.- Roldy

Senr

07-18-2008, 11:12 AM

I think what we bruisers need to do is focus more on the areas we're different than monks. Monks are desireable in raids; we're not. Monks suffers from the STR AA line being useless for them at the current end-game. Monks have the same issues with being avoidance tanks in a mitigation tank world. We bring Altruism, so there is no advantage to them there.They add haste/spell haste, where as we add taunt/detaunt and CA damage. This is a no-brainer. Taunts/detaunts are a small portion of aggro control. DPS is much bigger. Haste/spell haste adds to everyone in the raid, including healers, and adds more than +CA damage. Single items have almost (+100 isn't uncommon) as much +CA damage (+112) as we provide, and that benefits casters in no way. They have group FD, where as we have Close Mind. Theirs saves a group from death, while ours make us immune to control abilities briefly. I like Close Mind and use it a lot, but it makes me no more desireable on a raid. Group FD... well, still not exactly huge, but more raid friendly than Close Mind.Their heal is targeted. Ours is self-only. Again, no-brainer as far as what they bring to a group. Ours may let us tank just as well as monks, but if they aren't the tank, then this gives a huge heal periodically.Monks have Tsunami; we get Sonic Fists. Sonic Fists is useless once a fight has began. You would have to back up to use it, and then back in again once you'd done that. If it did a LOT more damage than it does, I'd probably skip it. Limited use for pulling a mob at least. Tsunami, however, allows a monk to grab aggro and stay alive while the MT gets ressed and back into the fight. Or at least long enough for healers to get some heals to the monk. Sure, we get Tsunami (more or less) with our Mythical. But few bruisers will ever have their mythicals, since they don't get to raid a lot. Monks have a health->haste self-buff that is permanent. We get a punch from behind that does decent damage. Ours helps us DPS, when we're not tanking (or if we have Eagle Claw AA) where as theirs helps them in every situation. They just do more damage.Monks offensive stance adds haste. Ours adds a fire proc. Again, I'd take haste over a proc every day of the week. Where as we both have a temporary mitigation buff that stuns us, their second one just roots them, where as ours drains health. If we're looking for a temporary bonus to mitigation, it seems likely we're not in a position to trade health for it.It just seems that in most of the situations, they have the better end of the difference between us.