Compiled Bruiser Issues

[Cornbread Muffin]

We are fortunate enough to have devs that read our board and tend to act on suggestions every now and then, so I think a consolidated list of what we think is wrong would be nice - both for us and them.

The information is spread across three posts as this was the only way I could get links to work. Clicking a TOC title link will take you to the appropriate post.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS:

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General Issues:

1. Avoidance vs. Mitigation
2. T1-T6 Itemization
3. Offensive Stances and Procs
4. Weapon Selection and New Skills

Combat Arts:

1. Knockout Combination
2. DPS Buff Scaling

Alternate Advancement:

1. Strength Line
2. Lack of Defensive Advancements

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Avoidance vs. Mitigation

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Under construction. Feel free to post comments below while I find the time to cover this huge issue. Specific things I would like to cover are avoidance's uselessness vs. higher level mobs, mitigations inferiority vs. lower level mobs (seems to be an overall scaling issue with the two), the lack of tools for some/all healers to cope with the huge HP jumps avoidance tanks make without blowing through all of their mana, and the "luck" factor playing a major roll in combats.

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T1-T6 Itemization

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In short, the leather itemization of tiers 1-6 when compared to that of plate tanks is simply horrible. There are only a few non-rare crafted armors of any value throughout the entire span of 60 levels, and what is there is meant to be shared by both tanks and wisdom casters. T7 appears to have corrected this but something still needs to be done for all the up and coming bruisers. Suggestions: More common leather drops all around. Some common monk/bruiser only items. More leather gear with +sta.

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Offensive Stances and Procs

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Under construction. Feel free to post comments below while I find the time to cover this issue. Specific things I would like to cover are the disparity in usefulness between the monk offensive stance and the bruiser offensive stance due to the proc change, hate gain due to the proc change, and the general weakness of our current offensive stance proc in its overall addition to our damage. Currently I am parsing Engulf as 1% of my damage. Any more parsed evidence to agree or disagree with these numbers would be great.

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Weapon Selection and New Skills

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Bruisers have been given the Piercing and Slashing skills, and *some* (but not all) new weapons actually use these skills. Many still use the crushing skill and simply use the slashing or piercing damage type. The main issue, however, is that unless there is some retroactive "unlocking" of piercing and slashing weapons to us by changing the restrictions away from setups like "Berserker, Guardian, Paladin, Shadowknight" - the only net effect to the Bruiser is that we have to work up two more skills. There is no real benefit to this change.

Message Edited by Cornbread Muffin on 03-16-200610:53 AM

[Cornbread Muffin]

« Up to TOC | » Down to Alternate Advancement

Combat Arts:

1. Knockout Combination
2. DPS Buff Scaling

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Knockout Combination

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Reports suggest that Knockout Combination is not stunning on 100% of successful CA hits. It appeared to only be about 25% stun rate. Knockout Combinations description shows a 100% rate.

Source: | Report of CA being broken |

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DPS Buff Scaling

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This buff doesn't scale well - because it barely scales. There is only a 3% upgrade per tier, and the M1 of a given tier is the same DPS modifier as the Adept 3 of the tier ahead of it. As such, it isn't even worth upgrading to higher, more expensive tiers.

Source: | Poor scaling discussion thread with screens |

Message Edited by Cornbread Muffin on 03-16-200610:48 AM

[Cornbread Muffin]

« Up to TOC | « Up to Combat Arts

Alternate Advancement:

1. Strength Line
2. Lack of Defensive Advancements

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Strength Line

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The strength line of AAs is a point of contention amongst brawlers. The issue with the strength line is that it requires one to be unarmed. While you do gain nice bonuses through the line for doing so, it is unlikely that it will make up for both the loss of weapons and the loss of AA points to spend elsewhere. This will especially be true as more and more tiers with greater and greater weapons are unlocked as unarmed fighting falls further behind. You can already tell a huge difference between unarmed fighting at level 20 vs. unarmed fighting at level 60. What you lose at level 60 is far greater than what you lose at level 20.

Another issue is the removal of the unarmed proc from the Bruiser offensive stance just prior to releasing AAs that require one to be unarmed. That removal, in addition to the chance to procs in LU20, produces a situation where both our offensive stance and the strength line of AAs is weaker than the equivalent for a Monk. These issues are covered in more detail under Offensive Stances and Procs in the General Info section. Source: | 1: Report of Monk DPS | 2: Report of Monk DPS |

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Lack of Defensive Advancements

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The Brawler AA options are entirely geared towards improved DPS output, with some generic "+X to avoidance skill" AAs thrown in there. While improved DPS is nice, the issue is that the Bruiser is intended to tank. We do a fine job of this in most situations, however the disparity between brawler, warrior, and crusader defensive AAs (especially ability AAs or passive AAs that are not +skill) will make the selection of a Bruiser as MT an even more rare occassion than it is now - especially on raids.

Message Edited by Cornbread Muffin on 03-16-200610:47 AM

[Danter]

My thoughts on the various subjects:

 

Avoidance vs. Mitigation -> We have no way to improve mitigation through AAs.  Warriors do.  A lot of Warrior equipment also focuses on adding additional mitigation where leather armor almost always doesn't.  Crusaders can equip symbols in the ranged slot, many of them which have much better stats than a pouch and many have mitigation on them.  Also, in higher level zones, mobs are hitting for 2-4k per shot, which makes a warder almost necessary.

 

T1-T6 Itemization -> KoS seems well done from what I've seen.  My only complaint is that the devs allow too many classes to equip "Brawler-like" items.  Ex.  Manacles of the Dark Squall.  T1-T6 as mentioned sucked unless you raided and even if you did raid, there wasn't as much variety as plate and Druid gear.

 

Offensive Stances and Procs -> Blistering Fist's Engulf parses at like 5% of my damage at Adept 3.  Provoking Stance is at about 2-3% at Master 1.  Rumble is at about 2-3% at Adept 3.  I don't even bother going in offensive stance anymore, I just stay at combined because it's not worth it.  With the current +12 crushing I have from weapons and gear, I don't miss mobs too much anymore out of Master 1 Provoking and if I'm not tanking and peal aggro, it's no big deal for the healers because I can take a few hits.

 

Weapon Selection and New Skills -> I think the main problem is that 99% of the Brawler gear that raises offensive skills is +crushing.  Example, I have +12 crushing from my gear.  Why in the world would I even consider using a slashing or piercing weapon once these changes take place?  The +12 crushing is very important because it lets make tank out of defensive with a decent chance of landing my stuns.

 

Knockout Combination ->  I love the Knockout Combination change.  If you read the description, it says that it deals damage off every combat art and has a chance to knock them down, so I think this is a display bug rather than a bug in the art.  No complaints here.

 

Strength Line -> Monks are reporting great gains with this.  Bruisers are at a big disadvantage because of the lack of haste.  If our offensive stance was changed into +DPS rather than a proc, this skill line might benefit Bruisers more.

 

Lack of Defensive Advancements -> I think the main problem here is we have no way of knowing what caps are in place defensively.  I heard there was a 40% deflection cap, but at 65 and with Master 1 Retribution, I sit at 44% deflection and that's with no AA points in deflection yet, which I plan to put 8 into it.  If there is a soft cap in deflection at 40%, it needs to be raised.  I think the Devs have done a good job with our gear by putting a decent amount of +deflection and +defense in a lot of our T7 gear.

 

-Kald, 65 Bruiser Permafrost

[Cornbread Muffin]

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Danterus wrote:

 

Knockout Combination ->  I love the Knockout Combination change.  If you read the description, it says that it deals damage off every combat art and has a chance to knock them down, so I think this is a display bug rather than a bug in the art.  No complaints here.

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Right. It may be a display bug (meaning it is supposed to stun 25% of the time, it just doesn't say that) or it could be a CA bug (it is supposed to stun 100% of the time but doesn't). We just don't know which.

Otherwise, the new and improved Knockout Combination is 23490839384% better than the old one. This seems like a lot, but a stale ham sandwich rated in as 23490938190% better than the old one. It sucked that bad.

[Ashdaren]

I have to recognize the effort you have put into this compilation. Thank you

I don't have the time or ressource to comment them right now but I overall agree with most of what you stated.Keep on the good work

[sarsippi]

How come these will never mention anything thats overpowering for a bruiser? lolI mean, seriously, I dont care for the AP choices much, mostly cause of the weapon or no weapon requirements. And I dont like that against an even or higher con mob that I will take a pretty good beating. Or that leather armor looks boring and dull and crafted rare leather never looks any different, except a slight change in tint. But you know, I like my bruiser, I think he kicks some major [Removed for Content], lol. And I think there are things that make him a bit overpowering, but im not gonna say what, lol.

So unless you're willing to point out some advantages that the bruiser has I dont think you should start a thread on disadvantages. I mean, sure, some of those things you mentioned would be nice to have fixed, or tuned, but at some point we gotta lose some advantages. They wont just buff us up like you suggested. So what are you willing to lose, as a bruiser, to gain these things? I'd rather remain how we are instead of risking any loses to what we already have.Though, I will also agree on defensive AP's. We seriously lack on that. As a supposed tank class and all we have are some that boost are base skills. Which, I have no idea how much they effect but I know at like lvl 63  4 to deflection raises my avoidance by .6% ( or close to). And our 1st rank of deflection is 1.5. That doesnt seem worth it at all to me. Even if it added like 1.5 each time that would be 12 to deflection. Thats 2.4% overall avoidance. Wooo, for 8 AP points... that doesnt seem worth it to me.Anyway, thats all for me.. toodles

EDit: at lvl 63.1 I get 2.6% avoidance with 13.9 deflection. And 4.4% directly to deflection.

Message Edited by sarsippius on 03-15-200601:21 AM

[Jhoric]

Two Bruiser issues that I have had recently deal with FD and Stone Deaf.

FD: Actual fail rate is way too high. There has to be something wrong or a mod that they are not telling us about. It used to be based on other things, but now it's supposed to be straight %. My Adept 3 Stilled Life is 94%, yet while in SC today I've failed about 50% of the time. I remember when DoF first came out my Adept 3 Stop Heart (84%), failed at least 50% of the time as well. Maybe I'm just always unlucky, but to always be unlucky? on something that is supposed to succeed 94% of the time? What are the %'s for the App IV, Adept 1, Adept 3, and Master 1 of the lvl 70 FD, Last Breath? I would love to see how many times I fail if it were at 99% or even 100% hehe.

Stone Deaf: This spell works well... when it works, which is most of the time, but sometimes (especially in duels), it doesn't work. I was in SC earlier and the same mob that the first 2 hits were absorbed, the 3rd one went straight through. I walked into Harla Dar the other night and his hit completely ignore a fresh Stone Deaf. I inspected Stone Deaf and it says as I thought it said, absorbs 10% of my total hp for up to three hits. Then it says "Upgrades to this ability increase the chance that this effect will absorb higher level sources of damage," but there is no upgrade line to Stone Deaf atm right? Like Close Mind used to be? Though perhaps I should just keep quiet before they nerf this too.

[Cornbread Muffin]

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sarsippius wrote:

How come these will never mention anything thats overpowering for a bruiser? lol

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The simple answer is that isn't the purpose of this thread. :smileyvery-happy: I enjoy my Bruiser a great deal and we are a very solid class (though I certainly wouldn't say overpowering). If every class were as fun to play as this one EQ2 sales would be higher. That said, there are definately issues with the class and there always have been. Some of these are the occassional bug (which usually get fixed in a decent amount of time), but some are also core issues behind the class. Despite our power, there is definately room for a list of our problems. If nothing else it makes it easier for the devs to come and see what gameplay issues we discuss.

 

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Jhoric wrote:

 

...absorbs 10% of my total hp for up to three hits.

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I think you are reading this wrong. If a hit would deal greater than 10% of your total HP then the spell will absorb it. So if you have 4k, a hit for 399 would go through but a hit for 401 would be blocked. It will provide you this function up to a maximum of three times.

 

As for the FD, have you gathered any statistical data on this? If I recall correctly, in the past Stop Heart did have a bug with it but I believe it has been fixed. I'll see if I can verify a problem tonight. If I can, I'll put up my results in the combat arts section.

Message Edited by Cornbread Muffin on 03-16-200611:16 AM

Message Edited by Cornbread Muffin on 03-16-200611:16 AM

[Jhoric]

That's what I said hehe, just in a different way. Mobs (usually epic) and in duels, this spell may not work at times, is what I'm seeing, especially against epic mobs.

[Arathy]

This should get a sticky..

[Echgar]

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Fentan99 wrote:This should get a sticky..

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Ok :smileyhappy:

[Maelwy]

Here's another issue - Aggro Management -At level 67, we still only have 3 taunts, 1 single, 1 aoe, rescue.  We have our roughhouse proc as well -The Roughhousing proccing taunt is however greatly outdistanced by the similar monk skill. (their proc is 50% I believe, ours is 25%, plus their haste buffs ensure that theirs will go off much more often than ours.)Some proposed fixes -Increase our proc rateChange the proc to encounter taunt, not targetGive us an out of encounter taunt, so I can finally trade in my Woven Vulcanized Boots from Lord Nagalik...(grey and outdistanced statwise, but still key to holding aggro)

 

Message Edited by Maelwys1 on 03-20-200603:34 PM

[Gungo]

You know i think if they made roughhousing a 50% proc rate it would help bruisers immensly in areas they lack specifically agro (aoe and orange con).

[Aburai]

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Gungo wrote:

You know i think if they made roughhousing a 50% proc rate it would help bruisers immensly in areas they lack specifically agro (aoe and orange con).

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If the proc rate was increased I'd reckon that the damage portion of the proc would either dissapear or be made very small, which I could probably live with since if you wanted the damage proc I guess you could go down the stamina line in AA's to get the additional Proc.. /shrug.  I have to agree though, holding group aggro with my Bruiser is a lot harder ( harder = A lot more work and power used ) than holding it with my Berserker.Personally instead of Direct Damage I wish the Quarrel line would give us a few seconds of DPS boost each time it went off, that'd be cool :smileywink:

[Maelwy]

that would solve a portion of our hate issue, and our dps/haste issue.So...ideally - Roughhousing would proc 50% of the time, for its current level of hate (encounter would be nice), and boost our haste 20% for 5-10 secs or so.

[Owa]

Thank you for taking the time to put together this thoughtful and cogent post. I'm back doing T5 stuff at the moment and am not really able to comment on some of your points - but I'm grateful that issues such as AAs, stances and equipment for T6/T7 etc are being discussed   - and hopefully by the time I get there (again) you'll have everything all fixed. :smileywink:

What I can say is that I agree with the argument that our offensive stance is pretty worthless since LU#20 - and as the most offensive of all the fighter classes, a busted offensive stance is particularly worrying.

I also remain as unconvinced as many other Bruisers by the weaponless approach of the Strength AAs. The loss of resists, STR, AG, STA, Health, Power and various other great bonuses weapons confer seems a high price to pay merely for some as-yet unspecified raise in DPS - especially as [as we're often told] we're not supposed to be primarily a damage-dealing class.

 I'd like more Brawler items - there's always been a real disparity between what Brawlers and every other fighter class gets in terms of  decent equipment [especially fabled] - but after playing this long I'm kind of used to it and frankly I'm more concerned with the balancing of our Combat Arts.

 

[Parasite]

Hya there

Would be nice indeed to have an additional encounter hate proc.As it stands i'm having a very hard time keeping mobs on me , even tough i use both my AE and group taunt to keep the mobs on me , one big AE from a mage and byby agro. Really annoying and a stain on our class if u ask me ....

Greetz

[Parasite]

Add to Issue list.

 

BRUISER identity CRISIS !

 

I have no idea what AA Line i should go just because i have no idea what my main role is at the moment.

Specialy for raids i have a hard time finding my place.

 

And then there is the instances like HoF where mob hit as hard as T6 epics or even harder where us leather monkeys have a real hard time tanking.

Shure we might be able to avoid a large portion of the mobs auto-attack, but CA are on another table and are much harder to resist.Unless the mobs are green or blue they almost land them every time. And this takes out a large portion of our HP.

 

Don't get me wrong , it can be done !!! But why would some1 bother getting us as MT if there are just as many Tanks LFG as DPS ?

How Many Bruisers tank the new T7 Raid zones and if so what gear are they using and can they define why they aren't better of letting a Plate tank do it ?

I am really confused and no longer know what i am in this game ...Think i will go DPS untill i got me some T6/T7 Fabled Gear i guess.

Greetings

Daveke

 

 

 

[Ishya]

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Jhoric wrote:

 

...absorbs 10% of my total hp for up to three hits.

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I think you are reading this wrong. If a hit would deal greater than 10% of your total HP then the spell will absorb it. So if you have 4k, a hit for 399 would go through but a hit for 401 would be blocked. It will provide you this function up to a maximum of three times.

 

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it only absorbs magic hits, melee hits will go trough anyway

[Siberia2]

It's probably 99% False, but I can't help think of it when FD Fails. What if there is some internal combat art proc rate for CAs with an innate % chance to do something, I.E. FD, that is similar to cast time in the regard that a casting time of instant will actually make the % chance lower than stated?

[Dracor]

My Feign fails too often as well.I have Master level of the third one you get, which is a 76% chance to Feign. Except that all too often, I go three, four, even five times in a row where it fails. With a 24% failure chance, attempted twice, that means I should have only a 6% chance that I won't Feign them off the second try. But it is WAY above that.Sure, you can get unlucky runs, but there is no way in hell it happens this often. There is something more going on.

[Gungo]

the 97% master 1 works great i think i have only failed once in the week i had it.

BTW you can add to our offensive stance that it does not proc on ranged atks.. Bug? oversight? i dunno but haste works on either melee or ranged for other classes offensive stance.

Message Edited by Gungo on 06-29-2006 01:37 PM

[TheSummoned]

Doubt this thread will get updated anytime soon seeing the last time the OP visited the forums was 17th of March...

[Maelwy]

it was off to a great start too.  OP does seem to have abandoned it tho...

[Cornbread Muffin]

I returned to the game a few weeks ago and come to find this thing is still stickied - the moderators really do ignore this forum =/.

 Well, since it is up here already I just might update it once I get back into the swing of things.