My Brigand Seems to really Suck.

[Umbrage]

<p>Im a vet of this game.  Been playing for years. </p><p>My Brigand is level 32 and he is totally Adept3 or Master spelled.</p><p>He is in the Frostfell Legendary level 32 chain.  Decent jewels with About plus 30 to combat arts.</p><p>He is using only Handcrafted weapons.</p><p>He has plus 10 melee crit.  22 AA's so far.</p><p>Now he simply sucks.  He gets his clock cleaned half the battles.  He dies repeatedly.  He is constantly rooted, stunned and this is by a SINGLE usually even con or Blue.</p><p>I have gone totally down the Strength line for the melee crit and defense with 4/1 in agility line.  Nothing spent yet elsewhere.</p><p>He is so worthless that Im thinking of stripping him selling his junk and rerolling to something else.  I played a Brigand on the pvp server and did very well.  I just rolled this Brigand on the pve server and he is absolutely the worst toon in the history of toons.</p><p>Has the Brigs been nerfed of late or what in the hello am I doing wrong?</p>

[Anfauglith]

<p>First of all, scouts need good weapon over anything else to be efficient...your armor is good but your weapon sucks big time in comparison if they're handcrafted.</p><p>Also are you using poisons? mastercrafted poisons for lower tiers are worth nearly nothing and will help you a ton. For solo vitality breach is best once you reach 52...but before that you should use caustic.</p><p>Brigands usualy have more troubles soloing from lvl 40 to 49 than other classes...then we get out big debuffs at 50 and 55 and start to rock real bad.</p><p>Brigands are still one of the best soloers as long as you stay with single mobs and don't go for groups of mobs.</p>

[Dareena]

<p>No, Brigands haven't been nerfed recently.  We're still the same old thugs that we've been for a while.</p><p>But what are you doing wrong?  That's a hard question to answer.  The poor quality of weapons is one issue that has already been addressed by a previous poster.  Yet from the little information that you've given us, it's hard to say what your exact problem may be.</p><p>Perhaps you're used to the playing style of a high level brigand.  When you're used to having dispatch and double up, there's a noticeable play stytle adjustment from your previous levels.  The same happens when you get the Ruse line (which is our top damage hit version of Rescue).  If you're already used to a high level character of this class, one potential problem is that you're playing the character like your PvP one and not like your current capabilities.</p><p>Past that, I don't have a clue.  If one of us could watch you actually play and observe what you're doing, then we could give more specific pointers.  But it's hard to provide a miracle cure towards generally non-specific symptoms.</p>

[Umbrage]

<p>Using poisons and ebbs.</p><p>What seems to be the problem is:</p><p>Miss, miss, miss, miss, hit, miss, miss, miss, hit, hit, miss, miss, miss, miss......on and on and on.</p><p>For whatever reason this brigand cannot learn parry, defense, slashing and piercing.  I have stood their for hours in fact I gainned two levels letting varmits beat on me  and me beating back and I fall farther and farther behind in my stats.</p><p>I rolled another brigand and his slash, parry, defense and pierce gains on par with his level.</p><p>Im wondering if this toon is bugged.  He simply cannot learn a durn thing.</p>

[Rolande']

<p> That is one of the biggest issues with leveling characters now, you level so fast that you cannot catch up on your skills. The devs really need to make the first 30 levels like automatic skill ups, at that point you have to spend more time to level and skillups arent a big issue. Use gracelessness to help your hit ratio, it wont make up for a huge disparity in low skills.. but it will help some.</p>

[Anfauglith]

<p>As a brigand. it's normal to have quite a lot of skill lag from lvl 10 to 45 if you don't do anything about it.</p><p>For the slashing and piercing skills, bring out tin weapon (bought at some merchants in starting zones) and go hit a training dummy if you have a guild hall (you can try to get one in an open guild hall from another guild if yours doesn't have one).</p><p>For the def and parry skills, get some food, stay in def stance, pull half a ton grey mobs, and yell for help...then stay in the middle while they hit you.</p><p>Edit: I'm not sure if grey mobs work anymore...if they don't then just stand next to a group of 2 arrow down green mobs without engaging combat.</p>

[Morgonn]

<p><cite>Umbrage wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Has the Brigs been nerfed of late or what in the hello am I doing wrong?</p></blockquote><p>You aren't doing anything wrong from the description you gave.  One suggestion: try a shield secondary.  I know a lot of brigs say you lose dps. Mine didn't , he's level 66 now and soloing Kylong Plains without a problem.  After about level 45, it gets a LOT easier for brigs.  Don't give up, just try something different.  The above suggestion about poisons is an excellent one also.  At 50 you get to use Vitality Breach poisons and an AA will let you boost both damage and heal on them.  This is a huge plus.  Brigs absolutely rock and my little rat has quickly become my new main.  Good luck to you and don't give up. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></p>

[Anfauglith]

<p><cite>Morgonn@Guk wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Umbrage wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Has the Brigs been nerfed of late or what in the hello am I doing wrong?</p></blockquote><p>You aren't doing anything wrong from the description you gave.  One suggestion: try a shield secondary.  I know a lot of brigs say you lose dps. Mine didn't , he's level 66 now and soloing Kylong Plains without a problem.  After about level 45, it gets a LOT easier for brigs.  Don't give up, just try something different.  The above suggestion about poisons is an excellent one also.  At 50 you get to use Vitality Breach poisons and an AA will let you boost both damage and heal on them.  This is a huge plus.  Brigs absolutely rock and my little rat has quickly become my new main.  Good luck to you and don't give up. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>Yeah going for the sta line is most likely the best possible way to solo, the reason people say you loose dps is 'cause once you start grouping, you loose a bit...and if you raid (and possibly get good weapons) it's even worse.</p>

[wellehad0]

<p>to the OP</p><p>it seems you are having the same problems as i was when i switched from a swashy to a brig in my early 60's.... i could not solo as good to tell you the truth i stunk.. now after 3 weeks i can DPS and solo way better then my swashed ever dreamed.. just rember stun, debuff, debuff then unload on the mob or player...</p>

[Kalvaine]

<p>Put 5 points into your Agility line and get "Walk the Plank". It gives you one more stun AND turns the mob for you so you don't have to move around as much.</p><p>I would try going down the two best DPS lines, Strength and Agility. The way a rogue fights is "kill quickly". The endline ability in Agility makes you pump out more damage alot faster.</p><p>Another tactic you have in tough fights is your snares. When you're out of CA's to hit, throw the 1 or 2 snares on them and back off. Walk them around for 5 to 10 seconds, then finish them off when some CA's become available.</p><p>Also, spend the cash on two Mastercrafted weapons with a 4-second delay.</p>

[Skywarrior]

<p><cite>Falbian@Everfrost wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Also, spend the cash on two Mastercrafted weapons with a 4-second delay.</p></blockquote><p>QFE</p><p>Armor is great and all but these are what get you through the fights.  My 74 Brig alt leveled very handily using two MC stilettos with appropriate adornments (inexpensive ones at that).  Most solo fights simply do not last long enough to worry about armor mitigation, as long as your armor is decent and has level appropriate stat numbers for brigs.  Leveling my brig was a lot of fun.  He just makes solo mobs evaporate.</p>

[jaguarjp]

<p>When you are ready for your Brigand to not suck, you will do all of the following things (you may be doing some of them already, and some of them have been mentioned):</p><p>MC weapon (s) or Frostfell equivalent, adorned with Vampiric handle(s) to drain life.</p><p>MC poisons.</p><p>Pull solos with Stamina hex doll for amazing physical mitigation debuff.</p><p><strong>Lock combat exp</strong> because your achievement point : adventure level ratio is not good right now. Quest like a fiend and you will reap the rewards, and still level. If you just zoom up in levels, you will be weak in every way.</p><p>Get Walk the Plank, and set up your CA's to follow a logical progression of keeping the mob facing away from you & stunned long enough for you to cycle through all of your back attacks.</p><p>Every time you level, go out and max your defensive and offensive skills on gray or green mobs before you attempt to tackle any new content.</p><p>Consider Wisdom line for Fencer - I used it from about level 22 till level 70, and it really enhanced my survivability.</p><p>Make a long-term plan with respect to your Achievement Point placement - I basically went Agility to get Walk the Plank maxed, then added to STR for crits... *UNTIL* I had enough points to get to the endline Wisdom ability, and then I dropped STR to go Fencer. At level 70, I had 20 points banked, and dropped Fencer to dual wield, and picked up Agility and Intelligence to endline (FD for the win), and put the rest back into STR for the crits again.</p><p>At level 32 you should be a freakin monster - you just got into a whole new tier of gear & poisons, plus at 30 you got a 4-second stun. When you set up your CA's the right way, most solo mobs should be 50-100% DEAD by the time you've cycled through them once.</p><p>Edited to summarize what happened: You rolled up an alt and expected to play using the same playstyle that worked for you in the past - however, due to the changes in leveling, you are now gaining levels about twice as fast, and so your skills & AP: adv. level ratio are suffering. This is getting you killed.</p>

[TuxDave]

<p>My latest brigand at lvl 41 and my first ever melee dps class has died a total of 3 times.  Some personal pointers.</p><p>1) You saw your piercing/slashing/whatever skill was low, that's definitely a big first problem.  I suggest getting a dual wield fast melee weapon, get a training dummy and afk for a bit.</p><p>2) Parry/defense is nice to have but as a statement to how easy it is as a brigand, things died so fast without hitting me that my parry/defensive is something around 130/190.  So until you start hitting harder content, it doesn't really matter to get a shield or not.  Just blow up the mob as fast as you can.</p><p>3) Respec your AAs to get the agility line walk the plank first.  That will make your levelling a ton faster as you get the mob to turn around, do all your rear combat arts/stun comboes in all while getting bonus damage procs since you're hitting the mob from behind.</p><p>4) Buy some poisons, they help a ton.</p><p>Hope it helps.</p>

[Grumble69]

<p>About the only time I had trouble with my brig were in the levels right before x2.  That's where you could feel the gear getting a little old.</p><p>MC weapons, MC poisons, and AAs are the backbone of your offense.  Ad3s on your main combat arts; masters are not necessary.  Once that's set-up properly, the mob just won't be hitting you that much.</p><p>EDIT:  and another tip--you can use up to 3 different poisons (just got to be different colors).</p>

[jaguarjp]

<p><cite>Grumble69 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>...EDIT:  and another tip--you can use up to 3 different poisons (just got to be different colors)...</p></blockquote><p>Even though the original poster hasn't replied in this thread for a while, I wanted to clarify this statement, because I had trouble with stacking poisons:</p><p>I don't think you can stack 3 of them until level 50 - or, it just may be that there isn't a different colored poison available, besides the two you could use already, until tier 6.</p><p>And by "color" we don't mean the vial's color, as an icon - we mean the color of the buff that displays, once the poison is applied. I use Vitality Breach, Warding Ebb, and Essence of Turgur - these three poisons, when applied, display buff icons that are red, yellow, and dark blue, I believe.</p>

[Umbrage]

<p>Update.</p><p>I do belong to a guild that has training dummies.  I spent one entire day.  8 hours with training dummies and finally was able to max out my Piercing, Slashing and Ranged.</p><p>Once I was able to get those maxed out the Brigand started rocking as I remember them from times past. </p><p>However I still have concerns because the Brigand just does not seem to learn weapons.  I will level and still havent gainned a simple 5 points in piercing or slashing or range.</p><p>The main problem for me seemed to be the severe lack of weapons skills which cause me to miss as many as 4 to 6 times in a row before Id actually hit something</p><p>I did level lock some and Im now level 37 with 32 AA's.  The AA's obviously make a huge difference but in the initial post I was mainly complaining about the lack of ability to learn weapons to keep up with advancing.</p>

[Rashaak]

<p>Your skills will go up eventually. They will even out as you level higher and takes longer to level. Right now...lvl 1-50 are fairly easy to reach, so you will level quicker than your skills upgrade. You honestly don't need to worry about your slash or pierce to much anyways, unless you are just trying to melee without using your CA's which you don't need to worry about until your raiding tbh.</p>

[big perm]

<p><cite>Umbrage wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>What seems to be the problem is:</p><p>Miss, miss, miss, miss, hit, miss, miss, miss, hit, hit, miss, miss, miss, miss......on and on and on.</p><p>For whatever reason this brigand cannot learn parry, defense, slashing and piercing.  I have stood their for hours in fact I gainned two levels letting varmits beat on me  and me beating back and I fall farther and farther behind in my stats.</p><p>I rolled another brigand and his slash, parry, defense and pierce gains on par with his level.</p><p>Im wondering if this toon is bugged.  He simply cannot learn a durn thing.</p></blockquote><p>I've had this same problem on 2 of my toons, and I believe a toon can be bugged in this way. My problem was with swimming. On just about every toon i've ever had my swimming skill would keep up with my level just from swimming for quests and stuff, other toons I couldn't cross a creek w/o going up 3 skill points. But on 2 of my other toons swimming was insanely slow. Was tired of getting smoked by my group in the water, so solo I would just go places and swim, i'd swim for hours, auto run on doing circles, swimming up and down, all over while watching tv or a movie and might get 10-20 skillups in 2 hours. My current toon is going through this same thing, I think he's at 36/310, and this is after swimming for hours.</p><p>Ironically, both toons are amphibians. One is a froglock, the other an Iksar.</p>

[ChodeNode1]

<p>My own experience over the weekend from leveling up a DE Brig in Neriak up to 26:</p><p>I used no resources from other characters other than backpacks and harvesting utensils. No problems at all leveling. There were a couple times when single-up even-con's weren't doable because of my weapon skills not keeping up. I could only find hemotoxins cheap and didn't have money for MC poisons/gear/CA's. I had no issues getting up to 25.  My only deaths were either a) on purpose to save travel time or b) being careless about other aggro mobs wandering around. Once I got the hang of my CA's, I was taking down the occasional single-up even-con mob - it just took careful planning.</p><p>Edit: Just on a side note, I'm finding the Nek Forest quest timeline to be pretty fun. There are so many places in that zone that I never even knew existed and never would have been to if it weren't for those quests. I say its a darn shame how many cool places never get used. Is there such a thing as a server where some content is locked for certain periods of time to force people out into these areas?</p>

[ezekier]

<p>its gotta be gear, im 35 with full mastercrafted, adorments, experts etc. etc.  and i can solo 35^^^'s no problem. as for pvp. i have problems with crusaders and healers 1v1, anything else i do pretty well.</p>

[jaguarjp]

<p>As fast as leveling is these days, I can totally see them changing it so your skills all go up to their max for that level, as soon as you ding, OR they might just change the RNG for skillups such that you have about a 1 in 10 chance for getting a skillup, each time you use the skill.</p>

[Kylere]

<p>I would listen to the prior comments as many of them have a great deal of value. I cannot stress the importance of taking that AA slider to 50/50 or even more into AA. A level 35 brigand with 70AA walks like a god next to everything of his level, and he is well on the well to being level 80/200 instead of 80/50.  If you are underAA'd at higher levels it will show dramatically. The benefits they give you at lower levels simply cannot be understated, no one in the game had 100 AA at level 40, and the game was not designed to challenge them. I actually had 50 AA before I left level 25, and there was no level range approriate mob capable of killing me.</p><p>In the end, remember the brigands are short ranged wizard with better armor, and spells that really work well only from a flanking or rear position. Wizards are not primary tanks for a reason, nor should brigands try to be, you have to use your stuns and position the mob properly. It is a lot of work, more than many are happy dealing with.</p>