LU 29 and the Lost Joy of Being a Bruiser

[Carouz]

currently a lvl 70 bruiser

was at lvl 68 when LU 29 was released

not located in the U.S., so no access to SE, so modestly equipped (all adept 3 spells, mastercrafted armor and jewelry)

 

i am in a one-person guild, so no raiding experience

i mostly play solo, but sometimes group and typically play mt role

 

prior to LU 29:

my agility was high enough that my avoidance was capped at 71% (approx)

solo, was capable of surviving fights against solo yellows

as mt, was quite competent and only suffered when there were large groups of baddies (e.g. rahotep)

i felt that against a single target such as meathooks i appeared to take as little or less damage than a guardian

and many healers commented that i didnt seem to need much more healing than a plate tank

(although i still encountered many grps that were only interested in a plate tank - fine, np, we r all allowed our preferences)

 

post LU 29:

i went out with a friend simply to kill and get a feel for the changes

had already equipped a 2nd mastercrafted earring and a mastercrafted cloak (haste)

in an hour, i was naked for first time in a year of playing the game (i.e. 10 deaths), and we were only fighting small groups of greens and blues

my friend's first comment was "wow, your health goes down fast now"

when i looked at my stats, it took a bit to realize that i could get a meaningful measure of avoidance by hovering over the raw number

and i was surprised to see it had dropped to 61% (approx)

was also surprised by how much a 10% drop in avoidance effected my ability to avoid damage

then tried mting for a grp in HoF

grp had two healers

and yet, every time we tried a solo named, i died and grp wiped the first 2 or 3 attempts

previously, would have no trouble in HoF, as mostly solos and grps of 3 baddies

since then have been soloing exclusively because embarrased to tank

and i am finding that green ^^ and ^^^ solo fights r causing huge damage (need to use my heal to survive fight)

 

tried to bump up my avoid to correct problem

bought 2 agility hex dolls to replace my strength dolls

and spent all my AA points on agility

am finding that an AA point buys 5 agility which increases my avoidance by 0.1% !!!!!!!!!!

so IF it was a linear increase, would need 500 agility to recover my lost 10% avoidance

but not linear, is on a curve now, so actually need WAY MORE THAN 500 more agility to get avoidance back to pre LU 29 level (no idea what the actual number is, havent seen a formula yet)

 

and in this forum i am reading that our mit and taunts both took a hit in LU 29, which i am not in a position to confirm

 

when i read the info during the leadup to and intro of LU 29, i saw the following:

benefits if all armor matched

adjustments to stats that weakened fighters but also weakened baddies correspondingly

lots of exciting new items to bulk up with (cloaks and adornments)

 

but here is the reality from my perspective thus far:

not seeing a benefit to having matching armor

am significantly less effective as a tank or playing solo

the cloaks and adornments seem to provide small improvments at a high cost, and adornments cant be added to my mastercrafted imbued tunic, leggings and weapons

it appears i would get better bang for the buck at this time by upgrading to legendary/fabled armor and jewelry and weapons rather than paying many plat for adornments (if i could afford them)

 

so my question is, what role r bruisers intended for now?

and how do i transform my bruiser back into a toon that is fun to play again?

r we now just relegated to a dps role in groups?

am finding reduced interest among groups in adding a bruiser in the past week

and am reluctant to grp in a dps role cause if the mt leaves i get thrust into the mt role and we get wiped

 

or am i missing something?

i dont pretend to be as sophisticated a player as most that post here, maybe i am out to lunch

any constructive comments would be more than welcome

 

Shock

Bazaar

 

p.s. havent picked a diety yet (waiting til i have a better idea which will benefit me most, not clear on how to switch if i choose wrong one), nor have i purchased any adornments, and my 30 AA points r currently all applied to increasing my stats and improving my heal

 

 

[ganjookie]

I've been  thrown into a pure DPS role.  I won't try to tank anymore, until taunts/mit/avoidance are corrected. I too was naked faster then well alot of things

[Pnaxx]

Ewwwwwww.....naked Bruisers.:smileywink:

[Faelia]

I only play a bruiser as an alt so I'm by no means master of the class, but I played my Bruiser for the first time since eof came out last night.  All I can really say is wow..... I tanked about as well as I do with my Fury and that's pretty sad.  I've seen people say it's fine as long as you get full adornments for tanking, but seriously, you shouldn't need to deck yourself out with new gear in an expansion just to be on par with where you were previously.

[Ether]

Its a tremendous joke actually. I would easily surrender feign death to finally be able to tank. Im also playing essentially a dps role only. Romp through PoA the other day and our brigand was tanking better.

Brawlers really are the least impressive class in the game right now. If you play exceptionally well, a foolish raid leader might be pursuaded to let you raid. Otherwise, play your alts until they fix this mess.

[Valkea]

It's really pathetic honestly. Bruisers are already one of the least played classes. Prior to the expansion, I kept reading about how we'd get this magical fix and may even be able to live longer than two seconds against an epic encounter.... only for this nerfage to be the reality. There is absolutely no excuse for what they did to this class. The more I look at it, the more I realize bruisers have become the equivalent to Paladins in WoW. Blizzard has -no- idea what to do with them, and never will. They're somewhere torn between being a tank, and a healer. Half the players want to tank, the other half want to heal better. What SoE needs to do is define bruisers, once and for all. Either make us capable tanks, or capable DPS. Not mediocre at both, at best. Playing a bruiser, I would -like- to be able to tank an epic someday, but I don't expect that to ever happen. I'd rather be able to tank heroics all day long and still keep slightly better dps than the other warrior classes. Which I think is what this class was meant for.If it weren't for the fact that I thoroughly enjoy roleplaying in this game, I would have given SoE the finger over this. I don't want to have to play an alt until my class gets fixed. I've been a bruiser since I started playing and I love the class more than any other. SoE needs to pull their heads out of their [Removed for Content] and fix this asap. The 'fixes' on test are just adding insult to injury and it's starting to really, really irritate me.

[Devast]

i agree with the above poster, they clearly dont know the role of the bruiser. id like to go back to how it was before eof where i could tank heroics just fine and solo heroic named that were even blue con. and have more than enough dps.

[Owa]

The combat changes were supposed to benefit Brawlers' tanking ability. I can't see even the most rabid 'fanboi' getting away with saying that our tanking is improved, can you?In fact, most people are so [Removed for Content] off with their new (in)abilities now that our frankly unsatisfactory tanking of yellow/orange Epics pre-LU29 is looking like perfection in comparison.Anyone familiar with these forums will know there's been arguments since the game launched over how Brawlers should compare with plate tanks - but this the first time I can recall people have been comparing their tanking abilities with Scouts and even [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn]ing Wardens. Not a good progression in my view...Picking up aggro on a raid if the MT goes down is now nothing but a fast track to the mender's . Currently your best bet is to Feign Death and hope there's a Rogue around. :smileymad:

Message Edited by annaspider on 11-30-2006 03:20 PM

[neon_24]

ok i am not tryin to say ya'll are wrong or anything but i have actually stepped into off tank role on most of my guilds raids i completely respeced by Brawler AAs for better survivability and have the Bruiser knockouts line down to Drag and am going to fill the Sacrafice line for the 10% HP boost.

i have not had any problems tanking the new instances sans mistmoore castle but thats not an easy tank job for any of the fighter classes all in all i like what my class has turned into, i fell i contribute allot more to the raids other than mediocre DPS.

Albeit i have very good gear and adornments i just don't see what all the fuss is about personally.

[Valkea]

---

neon_24 wrote:

i have not had any problems tanking the new instances sans mistmoore castle but thats not an easy tank job for any of the fighter classes all in all i like what my class has turned into, i fell i contribute allot more to the raids other than mediocre DPS.

Albeit i have very good gear and adornments i just don't see what all the fuss is about personally.

---

The fuss is we shouldn't need raid gear and every adornment under the sun to be able to tank heroic instances like we used to.

[Ameniel]

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Devaster wrote:
i agree with the above poster, they clearly dont know the role of the bruiser. id like to go back to how it was before eof where i could tank heroics just fine and solo heroic named that were even blue con. and have more than enough dps.

---

Well, seems like they do know our role, or rather have a new one for us. They nerfed our tanking & gave us de-aggro, so now we're kind of like a [Removed for Content] scout.

Message Edited by Doomhand on 11-30-2006 03:08 PM

Message Edited by Doomhand on 11-30-2006 03:09 PM

[Devast]

warlocks and wizards can take better hits than i can in some cases. avoidance is just out the window and we are left to fend ourselves with our fantastic whopping new couple percentage points of mit. i can get up over 50% mit, but does it help? not really.and this isnt a problem just for bruisers, even plate tanks are getting the crap kicked out of them due to the crazy resist curve soe is using. i dont think avoidance or mit are factoring in much at all.

[DarkMirrax]

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Devaster wrote:
warlocks and wizards can take better hits than i can in some cases. avoidance is just out the window and we are left to fend ourselves with our fantastic whopping new couple percentage points of mit. i can get up over 50% mit, but does it help? not really.

and this isnt a problem just for bruisers, even plate tanks are getting the crap kicked out of them due to the crazy resist curve soe is using. i dont think avoidance or mit are factoring in much at all.

---

and swashie tanks are too

[ganjookie]

Naw the Warrior tanks are just tanking naked now, they have it easy.

[chOgg]

I've been thinking about this a bit, and I think that if a bruiser is spec'd for DPS and in offensive stance, then his DPS should be almost that of a scout, but their defense should be a little better than a scout.If a bruiser is spec'd for tanking and in defensive stance, then his defense should be almost that of a plate tank and his offense should be a little better than a plate tank.We wouldn't be the best at tanking or at DPS, but to make up for it, we could fill either role.I don't know if that is where we currently are, though.  I feel that in double-up arrow encounters and down, I can perform either role well.  My tanking of even-con triple-ups is okay as long as I can duo with someone that has any healing ability at all.  I haven't fought enough mobs above that difficulty to say anything about game balance, but it sound like you guys have and it is seriously messed up.Thoral, 67 Bruiser, Mistmoore

[Gungo]

---

neon_24 wrote:

ok i am not tryin to say ya'll are wrong or anything but i have actually stepped into off tank role on most of my guilds raids i completely respeced by Brawler AAs for better survivability and have the Bruiser knockouts line down to Drag and am going to fill the Sacrafice line for the 10% HP boost.

i have not had any problems tanking the new instances sans mistmoore castle but thats not an easy tank job for any of the fighter classes all in all i like what my class has turned into, i fell i contribute allot more to the raids other than mediocre DPS.

Albeit i have very good gear and adornments i just don't see what all the fuss is about personally.

---

Simply put brawlers are in such a poor area of tanking the lower end brawlers are hard pressed to ever find a group that they can tank for or that will even allow a brawler to tank. Now saying that. I being fully fabled, w godcloaks, god abilites, 75 aa's, several adornements, and fully mastered am able to tank like you, but as you said not easliy and more importantly not as well as some other fighters. I personally have no problem with my ability to solo or tank in heroic groups being fully fabled.

Personally i would love to hear what your new Tank setup to allow you to be a better offtank then a zerker, because i have completely geared and most of my aa's are pure tanking and I still do not hold a candle to tanking as well a dps spec'd zerker or defensive spec'd swash and in both those cases they can out dps me w dps in the 1600+dps range. Now i could switch to dps role acuire all the melee proc gear and pure dps aa and further hurt my tanking, but produce 1600+dps. In this case i would be even worse at tanking and be comparable dps. Unless of course the swash decided to dps spec and produce higher dps numbers w better debuffs.

[neon_24]

ok let me rephrase my prior statment i have turned more into and emergency tank / DPS life saver with the use of Drag. It is basicly a 5sec save if the MT is spikeing /usea Drag, if a mage or scout rips /usea drag. I respeced my brawler AAs down int 4/4/8/5/1 and wis 4/4/4/8. i know i have saved the raid a wipe more than once with this setup i mean haveing a mob target me for 5 secs is worthless if i cannot stay alive for that time. I am not tryin to be the new great MT for our raids but since i have changed the way i play from tryin to be a purely DPS type fighter to a more utility class i have not missed a EoF raid and when your guild is tryin to WW 1st the new content a Bruiser is usally one of the last picks for those kinda raids. Gungo i never said i was a better offtank then a zerker we have a full time zerker that dose that job just fine like i said i am a "lifesaver" so to speak i give the healers 5secs to catch up on heals when [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] is goin bad. Now i do agree that zerkers being able to pull off some of the DPS they do while being def stance tanking is kinda outta wack but thats just the way the game is right now.I guess i am just not haveing the same negative/[Removed for Content] off feeling about the changes we have come into with this expac as the majority of you guys

Message Edited by neon_24 on 12-01-2006 04:56 PM

[Gungo]

I am sorry when you said that you took over an off tank role. I took it as you took over off tankign for your raid. Which as you said is not the case. You are probably moreso a dps lifesaver as you said. It is good to hear they fixed drag 78 points atm about 3 shy from drag myself, but it was not workign in beta. If you think this ability fills our niche enough for raids to warrent takign a brawler then thats fine. But i still fail to see why avodiance should not be 20% uncontested for all fighters and not just tower shield users. I still fail to see why rogues should tank as well if not better vs brawlers. I still fail to see why zerker produces comparable dps, better tanking, and IMHO better dps buffs. It is not that i am unhappy w my brawler i do enjoy him. But as you have even noticed there is plenty of issues regarding brawlers that is "out of wack". You don't have to be negative/[Removed for Content] off to realize things are broken. You also just switched form a dps role in raids to a reaction tank. This is more rewarding imho and how i enjoyed playing my bruiser in KoS. Grabbig adds off healers/dps, interceding the MT, grabbing agro on mobs w mem wipe and fake deathing back on MT. This has changed quite a bit for me. Intercedign is still fine, grabbign agor is fine but the lack of avodiance vs epics kills me before most healers notice.

More changes are coming so lets see how this run turns out as lockeye has to now adjust the avoidance given by armour in comparision to class usage.

Message Edited by Gungo on 12-01-2006 10:44 PM

[Astery]

i also have a brawler which i dont play since the combat changes. instead i started a guardian which i can call a tank compared to my bruiser... too bad, i loved the ogre dude alot, but there is no point in wiping the whole team by trying the MT role.i'm sure chages will come, just try to be patient, because the class is total borked atm.either way, i love the guardian too

[Bad]

When it comes to tanking heroics, bruisers are doing just fine.  I've had no problem with any of the heroic EoF content.

My bruiser is an alt so I can't really comment on epics (but from what I've seen we do need improvements there).

[djinnz]

somthing is definatley up with tanking across the board and brawlers as avoidance tanks serve as a demonstration of that, what interests me with this debate and the one going on in almost every forum, is the polar opposites in views. i truly dont believe its people that can play and those that cant or whiners and fanbois, what i think it shows is the inconsistancey of these changes, depending on your gear, AA spec, play style is leading to totally different gaming experiences

 

this would be great if it was logical, but from my view point it isnt and post after post illustrates ways in which the current combat system just isnt consistant.

[Ratslave]

I taken up tailoring now... not much adventure solo for me anymore...sad thing im 7 levels to 70 for tailoring. Yea, I very upset that u have to max everything now just to get close to where you where before expandtion (Im calling it the EoF nerf).