Brawler Fix-Suggestions?

[Zabjade]

Give Monks a Raid Utility.

Better aviodance or some mitigation/resists

Make Devastation Fist affect Heroics and Epics but at a Leser level for each tier.

Can anyone think of anything else Bruiser or Monk?

Note to self betray Test Iksar Bruiser from Neriak to Qeynos see if the questline works.

[Cocytus]

I'd say monks and bruisers are about even on raid utility. I'd also say monks are fine on DPS, you just have to get the right weapons.

IMO bruisers need something to match the monk haste for health-over-time buff. A single back attack simply -does not- cut it.

[Zabjade]

Umm no Bruisers actually have a Raid Utility. We also have a problem of dying faster the mages when the AoE's hit or the lucky punch.

The correct weapons there is the rub.

[Navino]

I would also like to see a haste health-over-time buff for Bruisers. I find myself losing DPS, because the high-end weapons from EOF are 2.5s delay. I have 26 haste from my Cloak, and that's it. I'd like to be able to reach 100 haste at least. Monks can self buff haste to 100+, whereas only Bruisers can self buff dps by 25 or so. I mean what is that? Give us 100 dps ffs, or atleast give us an amount of haste on our offensive stance / mid stance. I'm BARELY used in raids as it is, due to Bruisers having nothing useful for a raid, give or take the encounters I am required due to AA utility. Bruisers need to be given something that makes them wanted as much in a raid as any other class. To quote my guild members, "Bruisers are a solo class, no use." - It's basically true. 50% heal with AA lines, dps +25% on all CAs, Knockout combo for constant stunning, procs on the offensive to get the mob down even quicker.... I don't want to be a solo class, and Bruisers used to be useful before the combat changes, and now i'm just rubbish. I mean, I can play my class well, with minimal buffs i'll reach 1.5/1.6 every other fight, if I use my procs, but they're not always up, whereas a Monk's haste is always up.  Bruisers are a hybrid class, yeah. Can tank, offtank and dps. 1) We're out dpsed and out-debuffed by scouts. 2) We're out off-tanked by Berserkers, Pallys, SKs, Guardians, whatever. (Even Brigs / swashies can off-tank) 3) We're out MT'ed by Guardians / Berserkers, who're preferred due to Mitigation buffs, ToS, Reinforcement, etc etc. Okay, so i've just pointed out there's an alternative to the Bruiser. Why are we in the game? Too many classes, and Bruisers have been left out. We suck. To conclude,   ... Haste, more dps, health-over-time buff?   Those are my two cents.

[ShinGoku]

What Monks / Bruisers need is both an armor review and a an almost complete AA re-write! At most lvls monks and bruisers have some very lame armor to choose from, if this could be addressed it would be a help! The AA lines as they stand are rubbish when compared to zerker / sk / pally / guard AA lines. Zerkers get an end line AA that removes all negative effects from their various stances i.e. no loss of dps when in defensive and no loss of defense when going offense.  SK's get a crit boost down thier STR aa line thats the same as the one found on our INT line, but to a fighter, STR is more important that INT!  I'm sure theres more but I'm meant to be working now so will need to think What do we get on the KoS tree thats really worthwhile um.... If I sound a little bitter its only because I had imagined greater things for my monk once I hit 70 :p

[lilmohi]

Navino wrote:

I would also like to see a haste health-over-time buff for Bruisers. I find myself losing DPS, because the high-end weapons from EOF are 2.5s delay. I have 26 haste from my Cloak, and that's it. I'd like to be able to reach 100 haste at least. Monks can self buff haste to 100+, whereas only Bruisers can self buff dps by 25 or so. I mean what is that? Give us 100 dps ffs, or atleast give us an amount of haste on our offensive stance / mid stance. I'm BARELY used in raids as it is, due to Bruisers having nothing useful for a raid, give or take the encounters I am required due to AA utility. Bruisers need to be given something that makes them wanted as much in a raid as any other class. To quote my guild members, "Bruisers are a solo class, no use." - It's basically true. 50% heal with AA lines, dps +25% on all CAs, Knockout combo for constant stunning, procs on the offensive to get the mob down even quicker.... I don't want to be a solo class, and Bruisers used to be useful before the combat changes, and now i'm just rubbish. I mean, I can play my class well, with minimal buffs i'll reach 1.5/1.6 every other fight, if I use my procs, but they're not always up, whereas a Monk's haste is always up.  Bruisers are a hybrid class, yeah. Can tank, offtank and dps. 1) We're out dpsed and out-debuffed by scouts. 2) We're out off-tanked by Berserkers, Pallys, SKs, Guardians, whatever. (Even Brigs / swashies can off-tank) 3) We're out MT'ed by Guardians / Berserkers, who're preferred due to Mitigation buffs, ToS, Reinforcement, etc etc. Okay, so i've just pointed out there's an alternative to the Bruiser. Why are we in the game? Too many classes, and Bruisers have been left out. We suck. To conclude,   ... Haste, more dps, health-over-time buff?   Those are my two cents.

Last i checked (and its been a while) monks and bruisers were pretty evenly mached with possibly a slight edge to bruisers.  So giving bruisers a massive haste buff will be completely unbalancing.

As you said we are a hybrid and as such we aren't (nor should we) the best at anything.  We do better dps than the other tanks (usually) and we tank better than the scouts.  So in that i say were fine.

The only problem i've had with my monk on raids is that in offensive mode we are too vulnerable to ae attacks.  But if were not in offensive mode we are doing less damage than the plate tanks.  I seriously think that even scouts in offensive mode are less vulnerable to ae's due to their higher mitigation.   Personally i think avoidance tanking is a flawed concept and they should just do away with it and give monks innate mittigation like they had in eq1.

[Shaolin Sam]

No offense intended to anyone posting here but I think bruisers are just fine as they are (speaking on the DPS Front). I can parse around an average 1800-2100 on normal encounters and can hit a high roughly 4800+ on speedy multi-mob encounters on raids (with the raid killing them fast, of course and I'm talking zones like Deathtoll / MMIS / FTH / etc).

I don't see where our DPS needs to be tweaked at all personally though, heck... I'm always a fan of "more is better".

[Navino]

Shaolin Sam wrote:

No offense intended to anyone posting here but I think bruisers are just fine as they are (speaking on the DPS Front). I can parse around an average 1800-2100 on normal encounters and can hit a high roughly 4800+ on speedy multi-mob encounters on raids (with the raid killing them fast, of course and I'm talking zones like Deathtoll / MMIS / FTH / etc).

I don't see where our DPS needs to be tweaked at all personally though, heck... I'm always a fan of "more is better".

I'm curious, what raid setup do you have? If you're given : Berserker (War cry), Fury (Agitate), Inquisitor (Fanaticism), Illusionist (Illusionary arm / Rapidity), Dirge (Tombs and str etc etc) + you Yeah, you'll parse that high. If you're parsing that with a normal setup? Your scouts / mages aren't doing enough dps. =P If I use Craneflock, aye, I hit 2.3k on a multimob. I parse more than Guardians, more than Berserkers (occassionally they get one over on me, especially on multi-mob encounters), but feel that if I was a monk, with the weapons and setup I have now, i'd parse more due to the haste. I think the Bruiser class could do with revising.

[Zabjade]

Both classes need revising, we bring nearly nothing to Raid we can't take damage vs garunteed hits of Heriocs and Epics (Some Ki armor would help or Gi's that actually have some mitigation, more gi's in general) Most leather I find is for the Wisdom Classes that wear it.  Hats/Headbands are especially hard to find for the Brawler outside of the class hat and a few High end drops.

Fabled gear might be good but to get it you have to be in a raid and to get in a raid for a brawler you have to already have the fabled. talk about your catch-22.

[Navino]

Has there been any information released on what sort of Benefits the Bruiser AA lines in Ruins of Kunark gives? I'm curious, because I'm hearing so many different things like 'We're becoming uber dps, complete class revamp, suddenly raid worthy', etc. Does anyone know / share any information they have?

[Madmoon]

Zabjade wrote:

Make Devastation Fist affect Heroics and Epics but at a Leser level for each tier.

You want to one-shot an Epic?  Uhm... no.

I would like avoidance to function on par with mitigation.  So that if a monster punched 10 times for 100 points damage each time, a 50% mitigation platehead would have 500 points of damage (hit every time, but at 50% reduction in amount of damage received) and an avoidance brawler would have 500 points of damage (hit only half the time, but for the full amount.)  Make plate all mitigation, no avoidance, cloth all avoidance, no mitigation, and slide leather and chain along the way.  Or better yet - get rid of the whole nonsense, have only one armor characteristic.

In the end, a brawler, crusader and warrior should all be able to stand against any Epic, allowing for similar eqipment.  But this won't happen, because they would have to redo all combat - again.  They gorfed it when guardians and berserkers got to such high mitigation and avoidance that they can stand there so much easier against an Epic than brawlers can.  Even if my suggestion were implemented, only one of those five hits from an Epic would one-shot a brawler.

Maybe we could have a new ability, one that gets our leather up to plate levels.  B-u-t... then our solo and group strength would be unbalanced.  We are already much more able, there, than a similarly equipped platehead.    I don't envy SOE.  Making brawlers on par with plateheads for raids while not unbalancing the rest of the game is a tricky bit of business.

[Cusashorn]

The problem with avoidance is currently that all the other tank classes easily have just has high an avoidance as the brawlers. Our guardians and berzerkers in our guild have a natural 60% avoidance, and get raid buffed far beyond us brawlers.

If we have to take a full hit, then we should have a natural avoidance rating in the 80% range.

[Arsmaxx]

this class is not broken in any way..lol

[mr23sgte]

Popsi@Nagafen wrote:

this class is not broken in any way..lol

Thanks I needed a good laugh before I left work, you are sadly mistaken with your analogy.

I can only assume you are not playing a Brawler class in EOF raid zones, there are a ton of posts in the Monk forums, so Dev's feel free to head on over for ideas. The last Dev post our class got was on our toliet bowl brush epic weapon lol

[Zabjade]

Madmoon wrote:

Zabjade wrote:

Make Devastation Fist affect Heroics and Epics but at a Leser level for each tier.

You want to one-shot an Epic?  Uhm... no.

Umm No I do NOT want to Oneshot an Epic, I wouldn't mind being able to use it with a Lesser Effect like 10 or 20% Dev's choice on final amount, on a Heroic maybe 40-60%

[snip]

[Novusod]

In the brawler class forums I suggested that the raid utility they give to monks would be an group (AE) Tsunami and Bruisers would get a group (AE) stone deaf. Brawlers just need a role because right now they don't have one. The role I see brawlers filling is that of the group protector. A group wide Tsunami would allow monks to protect their group members if they pull aggro or get an add without having to build hate for himself by taunting or using rescue thus allowing for quicker recovery by the main tank. The bruiser group wide stone deaf would allow other melee classes to beat on major AoE mobs for longer periods of time and allow the group's healer to focus on healing the main tank rather than healing the group from AoE damage.

[Tyrion]

Cusashorn wrote:

The problem with avoidance is currently that all the other tank classes easily have just has high an avoidance as the brawlers. Our guardians and berzerkers in our guild have a natural 60% avoidance, and get raid buffed far beyond us brawlers.

If we have to take a full hit, then we should have a natural avoidance rating in the 80% range.

By natural avoidance you mean self-buffed? Can you post a picture of that please? I've never ever seen even the most high end warriors with that kind of self-buffed avoidance, even with a Tower shield. And 90%+ warriors use bucklers anyways, so that's a better staging point than Tower shields.

So many brawlers claim Warriors can reach super high avoidance levels, but I never see screenshots. If you can post screenshots of a self-buffed warrior with that kind of avoidance, I'll understand...

[Nerill]

Yes, currently the Brawler classes ( Monk / Bruiser ) absolutely need to be worked on. For Group based content .... we are just fine. However, for raids .... we are completely borked ! Out-tanked by Plate Tanks and some Chain classes Out-DPSed by any decent DPS class ( including Zerkers ) Out-Utilitied by any classes with utility Ask ANY of the top raiding guilds ( and even your average T7 raiding guild ) if they like having a Monk / Bruiser on their raids and what we bring. Your answer in most cases - "We don't have any Brawlers" or "Bruisers can at least "drag"" or "If there is room, they can tag along" There is a 5 page thread on the Monk forums with ideas on how we can be improved so that we are at least desired on Raids. It would be nice if some of the ideas could be implemented and tested on the Test server.

[selch]

I think it is almost time for a Brawler boost like enchanter boost.

[Navino]

I'm in a pretty much top end European guild, and to make our raids the best they can be ...We don't use me. Lol. I'm used for the Drag utility on selected fights, and I may get dragged in for the odd instance. I feel I could be given a lot more for my class, to match my playing skill, because I feel like I've wasted the past year and a half learning to play my class to the best of my ability, to find that they suck [I cannot control my vocabulary], and have no use in raids, that whom's job could be done by an alt, and only used in selected fights. If it be DPS increase, Group -ward type buffs (group avoidance, group temporary 100% riposte, etc?) I'd be happy. I'm in one of the top guilds, and I sit out for 50% of raids, if not more. I like to be able to show my skill, and do so when actually given a position in the raid. I out dps "X" dps classes, but I'm not put in over them, because my debuff doesn't match their's or something, therefore, I'm not put in, despite forking out a bit more dps. It's awesome. I'm useless, and my guildies let me know it, all the time. Anyone else suffering the same?

[Zabjade]

I lucked out being denegrated, Both guilds I joined both split up leaving me incharge by being the sole active participant. I think they left me alone most of the time about my class as I was a Writ completing machine, which is I guess good when they wern't raiding, but I was definatly never in the first group always 4th group and I could never take a hit. so Fall of the Pheonix wasn't used that often, not that it is needed anymore anyway outside of a group as most raids are in zones with no repop.

Sometimes it seems that Dev's dislike brawlers in general and Monks in particular other then possibly Vhalen

(The only thing we out-do any class on is LORE: Silent Fist,  Ashen Disipline, The Wistleing Fists, Swifttail Clan, Followers of Wu, and several Monkish books)

[Couching]

Tyrion wrote:

Cusashorn wrote:

The problem with avoidance is currently that all the other tank classes easily have just has high an avoidance as the brawlers. Our guardians and berzerkers in our guild have a natural 60% avoidance, and get raid buffed far beyond us brawlers.

If we have to take a full hit, then we should have a natural avoidance rating in the 80% range.

By natural avoidance you mean self-buffed? Can you post a picture of that please? I've never ever seen even the most high end warriors with that kind of self-buffed avoidance, even with a Tower shield. And 90%+ warriors use bucklers anyways, so that's a better staging point than Tower shields.

So many brawlers claim Warriors can reach super high avoidance levels, but I never see screenshots. If you can post screenshots of a self-buffed warrior with that kind of avoidance, I'll understand...

We don't need to give you a screen shot but you can check in combat discuss forum of brawler thread. One of the replies from a guardian has admitted that he has 73% avoidance in raid. Moreover, he is not top-end geared. Seriously, brawler has no role in high end raid. If you haven't been in high end raid, it's hard for you to understand. For example, anyone claimed that brawler has fine dps is silly if you know how good other fighters can be. I will try to let you know what problem brawler has in high end raid. First, brawler should be top on dps list of all fighters. Do you agree or not? Reason? It's simple since brawler is worse tank comparing to plate tank. We are less solid as plate tank and the trade off is we should have better dps, if we are also at bottom of dps comparing to other tanks, why do you want to invite a brawler in high end raid? What's the fact in high end guild now? The dps list of fighters in high end guild is: (I got this rank from guardian forum posted by top end guardian world wide) Berserker Shadow knight Guardian Bruiser Monk Paladin That's why brawler is broken. Moreover, we are not only at bottom of tanking and dps, we are also at bottom of aggro control. We have  ZERO passive taunt comparing to other plate tanks. We have only 1 encounter taunt. It's impossible to let brawler alone as off tank to hold multiple-mobs off 3k+ dpsers. The only role of brawler in high end raid should be off tank. Brawler is broken since we are losers in every aspect comparing to other fighters no matter in dps, aggro control or tanking as off tank. What should it be? Brawler should have better dps or/and agro control than other fighters since we are much fragile. There shouldn't be a perfect class or it obsoletes every class. When plate tanks can tank better, deal more damages and hold mobs better, what's the purpose to have leather tank in this game anymore? Brawler needs a boost so that we can be an adequate off tank in high end raid. We are not asking to out tank plate tank or out damage scouts, but we should at least out tank scout and out damage plate tank. It's called balance.

[Zabjade]

Yes for use Avoidance needs to be fixed or we are given some Combat-form of Mitigation that is worth something. Most of those Named's do NOT miss and cut through avoidance altogether.

Also something would be Helpful would be more leather gear for Monks with more resists most of the Gi's I have even the ones that are still white to me I don't use as they help me very little.

[eyes007]

I don't care so much Warriors can get 60% avoidance but when they hit 70% thats really really bad. You start hitting the diminishing returns curve at around 68% and after that you go into elite levels of avoidance. Any non-brawlers that hit that are a worry and do make the brawler complete waste of time.

I say forget avoidance because it's still borked and unreliable as it stands anyway and give back the vigorous buff to it's original level of 1300mit or so, 700 is pathetic. Give us a self haste buff of 25% (making it 48-50% for most users without that cloak from Mayong) and make the Mountain line (for the life of me I can't remember the bruiser equivalent, the stunlocked mit buff 2300 I believe, that all you can do is single taunt) a slow instead of a stun, or make it an area affect taunt that DoTs every 6 secs.

If you notice, I'm not asking for big changes, just some slight changes. I personally find nothing totally despairing about brawlers (although i really do talk mostly of bruisers) but would like to modify some of our tools to make them more useful. Hell, if Brigands can offer no direct buffs to the raid, then thats what they should do with bruisers, leave the dps as a side bonus and give bruisers debuff worthy type stuns or DoTs or something. A bruiser with ultra debuffs would make the class way more challenging and finally an option for raids.

[Cornbread Muffin]

Here are the steps I would take to fix brawlers and tweak the other fighters in the process:

•  Improve Brawler DPS compared to other fighters - This could simply be a boost to brawlers, or it could be a nerf to other fighters, or it could be a mixture of both depending on where Sony wants fighters to sit. The problem with lowering DPS for other fighters is that a lot of agro comes from DPS so if a reduction in damage were to occur I would suggest a matching increase in taunt power to go with it. Taunts over time might be a good replacement. SKs are probably fine, but Zerkers and Guards are too high compared to SKs and Brawlers. Paladin could use a boost in this department as well, but I would leave it less than the SK and review their utility (heals, wards, buffs, etc.) to make sure they are an adequate replacement for lost DPS. As it stands, most classes give up huge amount of important stuff (tanking ability, dps, agro control) for small amounts of other things that aren't actually useful in small amounts (pally is a perfect example). I'm sure it looks balanced on paper, but in practice this is a game of specializations and small amounts of side abilities are not a proper way to balance large amounts of key abilities. I think the best solution would be to tweak guard/zerker down ever so slightly and brawler up a good bit just os the brawler doesn't get too close to the scouts. Then again, there is a pretty hefty gap between scouts and fighters so it might not be necessary at all.

• Improve Brawler agro control - Brawlers simply do not have the tools to hold agro properly on multiple mobs. This is not an easy fix, though, because a brawler holding multiple mobs is a dead brawler in a hurry so without some boost to tanking the ability to have multiple mobs on you is wasted. For agro control I would get a two-for-one deal and increase their ability to do AOE damage (thus helping their DPS as mentioned above) and increase the hate gained from the Roughhousing/Dragon Stance hate-proc line. Perhaps look at making those lines proc encounter AE hate and not just single-target hate. I would add a passive taunt to their defensive stance to help make up for the loss in hate gain coming from lower DPS. There are many ways to improve the agro control, but I would be very careful about boosting each item listed above so that the agro control isn't *too* good. It should be adequate, but need not be ridiculous. I think the Berserker should have better AOE agro and snap agro control than any tank (short of a Pally with amends on a Warlock I suppose) so that they have a good place as superior off-tanks.

• Improve Brawler tanking - If Brawler agro is to be increased so that they can hold multiple mobs they need to be able to tank multiple mobs as well. I do not think their tanking needs to be as good as that of the other four tanks as the loss in tanking is made up for by increased DPS and that keeps with the intent of the class. It should take more power from the healers to let you tank, but you should be able to actually tank stuff. As it stands Brawlers die far too quickly, usually too quickly for the healers to react so to fix this I would give brawlers a larger hit point pool. That way when the healers see your hp go down it isn't 100% -> 3% -> dead. I understand that with high end fabled gear a brawler can get within a several percent of the mitigation of a plate tank but most people do not have (and never will have) high end fabled gear. I would probably tweak the curve a bit so the gap is larger and tweak plate tank avoidance so the gap is larger as well, but that is a much more sweeping change than any of this other stuff so I won't go into that here.

• Improve Brawler utility - A brawler will never be a main tank on a raid. A brawler is very unlikely to be an off tank on a raid. A brawler should not out-damage scouts and mages on a raid. A brawler should not out-buff buffers nor out-debuff debuffers. What a Brawler should have is some defining raid ability that makes people say "wow, I'm glad the Brawler showed up tonight...what a difference he made!" I think the best ability for this is is Novusod's suggestion of group-wide Tsunami and group-wide Stone Deaf. All of a sudden both brawlers (not just one or the other) become tactically useful on a raid. Since I'm talking about other fighters as well, the Paladin also needs some superior utility in a raid. In addition to the buff/heal increases I mentioned above more powerful agro management might be nice, or perhaps a way to dump the agro he has gained (likely through amends) onto a raid friend.

I envision the Guardian as the superb main tank due to his defensive abilities. The berserker should have a spot as the superb off tank by being able to gain and hold AE agro very well and in a hurry. The SK can post respectable dps, is a plate tank to boot, and should offer some utility in the form of damage ouput increases (ala Death March). The Paladin needs higher dps and better buffs so he is worth having in place of yet another healer, but should also offer some form of utility above what [Removed for Content] healer-like abilities can bring and I think agro management (which is perhaps the superior form of protection in the game) is a good candidate. Brawlers, like the SK, will be the higher DPS fighters but lack the tanking ability of plate so should have higher DPS. Their utility is a pair of very nice group buffs useful as a stop-gap after a MT death or as tactical replacements for jousting.

[Foretold]

I read a thread in the monk forum that suggested dropping the reuse timer on brawler CAs to 20 seconds from the current 30 seconds.  Someone suggested that the OP post that idea here, but I didn't see that he (or she) had taken that suggestion.

That alone would be a major boost to our DPS and would go a long way to helping brawlers have greater utility in raid situations.

As an aside, I belong to a wonderful guild that welcomes me in raids because we often have a hard time filling out a 24 - toon group.  I'm afraid that as our raids get more popular (they are getting there) my monk will be looked over in favor of some other toon.  Here is the joke that monks are - below is a signature my guild leader made for me.  It wasn't meant to be mean - just a joke - and I really did laugh so hard I fell out of my chair.  Its the regular signature I use on our guild forums....

That about sums it up.  Devs, please.  Give us a bone.  Give us anything.  Even just a hello on this thread to let us know you READ this...

I'd really like to get some utility before my raid spot is taken

[mr23sgte]

I think changing CA timers would make us too powerful as solo (see nerf)

I think we should have our self str buff changed to group ...the tsunami idea sounds great!

There are tons of idea in several posts, just need to see some changes happen ...............

A funny story is when I was in a small pick-up group with my lowbie Coercer last night - they actually wanted the Necro pet as a tank instead of the same level bruiser. Thats the bad rep brawlers have ....just makes me sad.

[Foretold]

Hereo@Unrest wrote:

A funny story is when I was in a small pick-up group with my lowbie Coercer last night - they actually wanted the Necro pet as a tank instead of the same level bruiser. Thats the bad rep brawlers have ....just makes me sad

Wow.  That's depressing.  I'd have left that group.  In group situations, brawlers are great tanks.  Their only problem is lack of a RAID UTILITY.  Its nice to know that the RAID UTILITY stigma has filtered down now to where idiots would rather have a PET tank than a brawler.

No that's not depressing any more.  Now that I think about it, I'm [Removed for Content] off.  UGH.

[Zabjade]

Yeah, that fustrates me as well. Unfortunatly I think it is encouraged by devs who don't even seem to acknowledge the problem. with the upcomming AA revamp we can hope, but I doubt we will have much of hope, (although if they remive the empty hads requirement from the STR line that would be a baby-footstep start)

[Nerill]

Cornbread Muffin wrote:

(A lot of very nice ideas and a pretty good summary of what the Monk / Bruiser communities are looking for !)

Nice post, brother !