Vinka@Antonia Bayle wrote:
Just because brawlers have historically been behind does not mean we will or should always be behind. The fighter revamp would have made us capable of raid tanking--maybe not guardian or shadowknight quality, but we would have been able to hold our ground. They should bring brawlers up to the same level as plates, and let player skill, not class be the determining factor in who gets the MT slot.
...or, even better, give tanks very different abilities and design content in such a way that makes different classes of tank better for different encounters, such that the MT position has to rotate occassionally.
For example, raidboss A has an ability that fears fighters in the raid semi-constantly. Now you want a crusader tank
raidboss B doesn't hit particularly hard, but has a buff on him that gives him a 20% chance to cast a curse on his target that drops their mitigation to 0 (not by a % or a flat debuff, but all the way down to 0) with each successful melee attack. Avoidance tanking is the best way to go for him, so you need a brawler here.
And of course, straight-up hard-hitting mobs encourage a warrior.
The reason this is hopefully not going to happen is that in fact, the majority of the playbase does not want brawlers to be a tanking class on par with plate fighters. See the poll on that-other-forum's bruiser section, the numbers really do speak for themselves.Until such time as the brawlers by a vast majority prefer the tanking role, I don't see it happening. At the moment, the balance is even leaning slightly the other way. Most seem to want to remain hybrids, though, and it is little wonder: That's the historical role of brawlers, and there's little reason the class should not be functional and competitive within that framework, bad design decisions aside.
To insist on a mainstay raid tanking role is, to my mind, to ask for a removal of the core identity of the class.