Shouldn't it be Time for Bruiser to Shine?

Discussion in 'Fighters' started by TinyRatongaofDoom, May 5, 2021.

  1. Obano Well-Known Member

    Once again you have contradicted yourself here. You seemed to have read Twofeets' thread and then you barge in here proclaiming "i'M tHe 0nly cRusaDer." Just stop. This is the 3rd Bruiser thread you derailed since coming here. What is the matter with you.

    To answer your question as for what my healer set up was I don't remember. The healer set up was shuffled around throughout the night until we got the kill pull. It was either mystic / channeler or mystic / warden. The end result if we compare our two guild's kill pulls is you took 1/3 less damage than I did. The 650m incoming damage sustained for 27 minutes is on the very edge of what is survivable or even possible. That Trillion total damage single target on a kill pull was probably the highest ever recorded in this game's history. Any more damage and we wouldn't have gotten the kill and I would have been forced to swap Monk. Next time I will ask for the Templar and see if it makes a difference.
  2. Obano Well-Known Member

    Bruisers have "drag" which is a no power cost force target that also physically moves the mob instantly. I feel it is more reliable than Monk's "Peel" due to the no power cost which is kind of a big deal this expansion with power drains. Was very useful on Grieg's wolves early in the expansion as well as on Khati- Sha's adds that had to be separated immediately or they wiped the raid. I have also been using it on Diabo Xi Va's adds in Vex 2.

    The thing is these are lightweight adds that don't do much damage. These are the kind of things Bruisers were designed to tank. As soon as a Bruiser has to tank something hard it doesn't go well. What I want is more DPS to justify being a 3rd tank because 95% of the time I am not tanking anything. I don't want Bruiser to become a carbon copy of Monk with strong defenses. Going back to the original design document of EQ2 Bruiser was supposed to be the more offensive of the two brawlers.
  3. Melt Actually plays the game

    It doesn't help that Peel's "must not be hated" mechanic doesn't work, like, at all. Half the time you'll be watching your DPS buddy get smacked into the ground and can't cast Peel because it thinks you have aggro.

    I've been saying for a while that Drag is cool.

    Referring to Priority's earlier comment, it is definitely true that top guilds run Bruisers more often than Paladins. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Twofeets, and maybe Ingerimm? Is his guild top 10? My guild has a Bruiser pretty often, FoE has Priority, and I really can't think of any others. Paladins are... bad. They are very very bad right now. Bruiser at least has a purpose.
  4. Straos New Member

    Paladins are not great for sure and Vex raid can be a bit challenging, but with a very good Templar in the MT grp and some classes which give some mitigation buffs, a pally can get through. However, that being said, why bother with a pally when other tanks can do it better and bring other things to the raid. Bruisers are probably capable, but while monks are what they are, the bruiser is always gonna get overlooked. I think pally is currently worst tank, but that doesnt mean the bruiser is in a good place.
  5. Priority Well-Known Member

    Ok, let me break this down for you.

    1.) When presented with new I formation, I went looking for supporting evidence. I was not aware that Twofeet had joined DA as back in October, I was the only crusader being utilized in a top 10 guild that I was aware of. This has obviously changed, but just looking at achievements, he's only been in on 2/5 killable mobs in Vex 2. That hardly screams that he's a regular addition to their raid force. He's got the gear/resolve, why wouldn't they use a Pally?

    2.) I derailed nothing. You brought every plate tanks into your thread when YOU made the comparison. I told you that you're wrong. Here's why. If you combined Guard/Pally/SK together, every aspect of what makes them unique, and put them against a zerk, they still lose. All of their buffs don't not outweigh what a zerk brings to the table, the only one that can dps for crap (SK), still can't make up the difference, and defensively, they're inferior in every way. You say plate tanks, real tanks know you meant Zerker.

    3.) On a kinder note, Templars are absolutely amazing for those of us that dont have 5 deathsaves, heal on every autoattack, stupid levels of maintainable DR, and self mitigation buffs.

    I'm absolutely open to new information, but when you run around spouting "all plate tanks blah blah blah", I'm gonna say something regardless of the section or title.
  6. Lemilla Active Member

    [IMG]
    There, a 17 trillion incoming damage without dying. Not sustained on a tank though.


    A bit more seriously, I am looking forward to trying to keep our Paladin alive once we get to Vex2. The blob in Vex1 is taking quite a bit of my templar heals already with him taking around 610M sustained dps.
  7. Obano Well-Known Member

    1. You must be blind because it says Dread Army right on his signature in rather bold letters. There is also Cranked from Primal Vengeance though they have fallen out of the top ten recently. Khrawn also used to raid in Sovin NaiZ until he quit early in the expansion for unrelated reasons. You have argued with me about Khrawn in the past so I know you are aware of other crusaders existing.

    2. This is you putting words in my mouth. I never said all plate tanks are equal. What I did say is that they are all better than Bruiser in terms of defense. Maybe you disagree with that assessment but you have yet provide any proof that I am wrong. You tanked the same mob I did and took 1/3 less incoming damage then my Bruiser on the kill pull. (471m vs 651m) Thus proving my point. Wipes don't count because I was over billion incoming on the wipes as well.

    3. Maybe I will get the templar next time and won't have to work so hard to stay alive.
  8. Jalathan Active Member

    I am aware of TwoFeet, and I'm also aware that he had stated he can't stay alive as a tank past Betrayer III (I only ever made it to betrayer II on my Pally, so I know I'm not a good choice. But I also have a Guard and a Zerker and my son plays a MT zerker, I can guarantee you that he has an easier time on any mob the two of us have tanked. The Pally has limited (extremely limited) agro snaps... in fact, our best is the same one every other tank has (Rescue), our supposed version of Plant only moves us up 1 position now... it used to be once upon a time a 24 position aoe snap (made us great as OT, to be honest). I have no DRs (unless you consider heals you can't use when you are dead) and I have 1, yes 1 Death prevent that can be up and available at a moments notice... all the others are like 4 seconds and with the way mobs are in this xpac, that is worthless. I have slightly above guardian level dps, but half of the defensive abilities and I can't even dual wield like any tank not a crusader, so I either have to use a 2 hander (which slows down the only dps I have on procs) or a sword and board...

    Oh, the main thing for a crusader was to be a defensive version of the SK... except Shields have been broken since at least CD...

    Honestly, I tried to give the paladin everything I could this xpac... Jal had been my main for years and years before I took a break from the game... I've tried every xpac to bring him back only to be so disappointed that I've nearly quit the game several times and now pretty much only play on the TLE, which I even bother to play. I log in on AB do my overseers and log out.

    Again, never did I say that bruisers aren't bad, they are. But not all plate tanks are out there yucking up the fact that mitigation doesn't matter... for Crusaders, and paladins even more so, mitigation does matter... when my lower geared (barely T3) mystic has more mitigation (33188) than my +mit geared (almost t4) tank (16617), there is something seriously wrong... I know I was having to make the choice every damn raid on whether I should over play my health to stay alive or potency to hold agro, there was no middle ground... Especially as the dps increased as they got better gear... Yah, I know I'm not the best geared and wouldn't even make the alts for a top 10 guild, but I wasn't a slouch either, but after we entered Vex, I wasn't a viable option for tanking anymore, and I knew it.

    My heals were worthless (even if they worked, I don't have time to cast them to keep agro), exceptionally limited Death Saves and as it was said, Paladins were a net IN for buffs needed... plus you have to pull a solid dpser out of the dps group to support their agro via amends, thus you get lower dps over all to use them. Why in the hell would ANYONE use a paladin if they could have a zerker or a monk?
  9. Priority Well-Known Member

    You're intentionally ignoring everything I say to further your drivel. You SURVIVED with a mystic/warden. That's not even an attemptable option for a crusader. We tried it on commanders last year and it went horribly. Get a templar/mystic, run your numbers, then come see me. Kthxbai.

    Inb4 some off topic bs red herring retort.
  10. Obano Well-Known Member

    Yeah I noticed that Peel was rather buggy when I was a Monk. They should really just remove that "must not be hated" mechanic from Peel.

    An estimated census of the tanks used by top ten guilds:
    1 Paladin (Twofeets)
    1 Shadow Knight (BasicAF)
    1 Bruiser main (Obano) + 1 Bruiser alt (Powershots)
    2 Guardians (Rhita and Lampshade)
    9 Monks but possibly more than that if any guilds run two of them
    10 to 15 Zerkers depending on how many guilds are running double Zerker.

    Out of a potential 30 raid slots for tanks:
    50% are Zerkers
    30% Monks
    6.7% Guards
    6.7% Bruisers
    3.3% SK
    3.3% Pally

    There could be slightly less Zerkers and slight more Monks but I am not sure. Either way combined Monks and Zerkers would control 80% of raid slots in the top ten guilds. This leaves the 4 other tanks fighting over the scraps and arguing about which is the worst tank.

    But anyway,do you happen to have Powershots' incoming damage on "Thall Xundrax Diabo?"
  11. Smashey Well-Known Member

    It should be time.

    But it should also be time for all archetypes to be within 2-5% of each other in output and all fighters to have the same viability, but that has not happen for over a decade. I dont know who is doing the number tuning at this company, but they suck at it.

    And they simply dont care.
  12. Obano Well-Known Member

    The company is under new management so that could change at any time. Life comes at you fast.

    I got to feel sorry for the Devs though. They are stuck between a rock and a hard place. If they do nothing, they will lose players. If they change the meta too much then those playing currently privileged classes could end up leaving. The entire raid scene is kind of on shaky ground right now. But their only option is to make small tweaks here and there and not rock anyone's boat. Bruisers will probably get another round of boosts when the next expansion drops but I don't expect it to be a big one. Pally, SK, and Guard will probably get the same treatment. Vex 2 mobs will certainly get nerfed before then so the casuals guilds can make progression.
    Priority likes this.
  13. Clintsat Well-Known Member

    FOE uses two zerkers (Lamp and Dedmeat), SK (Basic) and a monk (Atris) with two backup alt monks.

    I'm not opposed to taking a bruiser but I haven't yet had one approach that was geared appropriately to manage agro and the buffs they provide just don't touch a zerker.

    I love my zerkers but the only way to "balance" tanks is to bring the other tanks' utility in line with them.
    Priority and Paragonvii like this.
  14. Melt Actually plays the game

    Powershot is around about 50% of the time, he swaps between troub and bruiser pretty regularly. Guess it's technically an alt, but.

    And I don't have a parse for that because the time they killed it with him I was gone, and the time I was around I tanked lol. I can ask them for it though.
  15. Paragonvii Active Member

    It's sad: bruisers to the point asking for a 3rd tank roll in hopes for some kind of fix. There is zero reason why a Bruiser should not bring as much value as a monk. But Bruiser is not valuable as tank or DPS...so it became a joke. Needs came but no balance. Is it okay? No.

    Why no fix? 99% of everquest population knows what I just said is FACT. 1% of people who know NOTHING about bruiser come here and say "cry me a river" or cmon it's not that bad, when they don't even care, they don't group with them and certainly don't play as one. The devs read it (please scroll up to see examples) and say ...let's move on.

    Bruisers have needed a bump for YEARS. Those loyal to the class 100% deserve it, they should be as valuable in group as any other class. In my opinion: a dps off tank class that can MT if they are geared and know the class well.

    This is not to much to ask for, it's fair.
    Obano likes this.
  16. Arclite Well-Known Member

    Not going to comment on what Bruisers are like because a) don't know any and b) frankly don't care.

    That said, if anybody trying to make a point that brawlers in general are worse off in survivability (or dps for that matter) than plate tanks and then need more mit/avoidance then please just stop.

    Whichever mechanic (or lack thereof) they have in place for tanks right now is unforgivingly biased or skewed (or my own view: broken because why bother) with Warriors being defensive champs with less than 20k mitigation and 20% avoidance, zerkers being overall superior due to dps and buffs they give. Monks fair better and would probably squeeze in above a guard and below a zerker.

    Now lets talk about crusaders, specifically - Sks are getting annihilated in pretty much all cases where the aforementioned classes would not break a sweat. The incoming damage is designed in such a way that damage reductions means nothing, there is no green health to yellow warning before death its the case of straight up getting 1 shotted. The incoming damage is just ridiculous. This is not about heals or having more mit/avoidance, this is about broken class system and fudged content design by devs who are far past the point of no return in knowing/understanding or caring how the classes work. Paladins fair slightly better than Sk but no where near where they really need to be. Sure, you can argue that Sks are overall the best dps tank in the game, edging out zerkers but what good is that dps when you are a liability in raid as a main tank and prone to dying randomly and often.

    For many years we have had disparity between tank classes but not to this level of colossal mess where there is no rhyme nor reason of being defensive at all in gear. It is about having the best stats to do dps and then select the class that can circumvent the content, namely warriors/monks.

    I seriously believe the defensive stats are disabled or on a hidden stat check and because of it, the tank classes that can stop damage altogether or absorb it or avoid it will inevitably do better than those who cannot, i.e. Crusaders.
  17. Smashey Well-Known Member

    Its what happens when your stat creep is out of control. Since release, we gained over 346% in strenght per expansion if you average it out across all expansions. There is absolutely no reason to do that. - And I am pretty sure the average is even higher because of the insane inflation in the last two expansions.

    Brawlers became god tanks that could get 100% damage avoidance for 30 seconds at one time and they had to do something so they introduced strikethrough. It kinda worked for a while, but now mobs strikethrough so much that defensive stats means nothing and in return, brawler tanks got nothing to replace being an avoidance tank.

    Damage taken and surge damage is so spikey now that playing a tank (or healer) just doesn't feel rewarding at all. Its all about rotating temps as a tank , which for brawlers hardly makes a difference except for Tsunami and pressing Bulwark when ACT tells you to do it and healers death saves are now more or completely randomly tossed on your tank instead of saved for that big attack on a long cast time we used to have.

    For plate tanks its different though. They have known shields were useless for over a year now and there is still no talks about a fix or how they plan to fix it. This should have been sorted before RoS even launched when they knew about it 8 months before RoS launched.
    Tanking and healing today have two stages: Death or Alive. Long gone are the days where it mattered what temp you used when. Gone are the days where what heal you used matters, because everything heals 99%. Gone are the days where healers and tanks would coordinate with temps/deathsaves. Gone are the days where your raid would be yellow/red health and healers would struggle to top off the group and had to make a choice on what the best option was. Today you just press group heal 1/2 or 3. Makes no difference. The exception here being vex2 with chaotic leech being so crazy that they are now forcing support and healers to p2w upgrade too.
    Priority likes this.
  18. Paragonvii Active Member

    I apologize for my last post, I just got a covid shot and I have been a touch crankier then normal lol. ANYWAY!~

    Please because this is important, for I dont know how long bruisers have been known as the diaper class in eq2. At one point (9 years ago? more?) they were a tank able class, but received repeated nerfs. In comparison to ANY tank class they now do not have the defense (its the lowest) and they produce the lease amount of damage (its the lowest). They do not get Tsunami (spelling?) and let me put it like this:

    Put a monk with SAME GEAR as a bruiser and have them tank. You will not only see a severe difference in the damage taken by the bruiser but you will see there dps is much, much, much lower. This is why there is so few bruisers in game. They have been broken for many years now and it needs to be addressed. What do they bring to the plate if they cant DPS or tank? Our good looks? People call it the "water boy class" or "holds the coffee for the tank".

    When is enough enough? There are people who really genuinely love the class for what it could be and what is should be.

    Now I see other classes that have problems will come in this thread and say well other classes are busted also. To be fair, I do not know as much about that BUT I do know about bruisers are BROKEN and so does 99% of the EQ population. If you feel like another class is broken, by all means start that thread so the devs can review. I dont think a good remedy is "we should all be broke together" or "dont complain this other class is broken also". That wont fix the game.

    Bruiser have been a busted class for how long? honestly? It does need to be addressed. I know other classes may have troubles also, but this thread was to point out a class that slipped through the cracks many years ago. I have played bruiser, I genuinely love the idea of the class. I REALLY do. But when you ask for group as a bruiser in global and everyone laughs for about 20 mins because of your class, its possible something is wrong. Is it the gear or player skill? NO. ITS THE CLASS.

    There are varying opinions as to SK, zerkers, paladin even monk ect. It sounds like maybe pallies have bit of a rough patch i cant speak for them. But I can for Bruisers. They have been voted "last place" or "second to last place" in game as a valued/ needed class for many years now.

    So I ask this kindly: if you know nothing about bruisers, please dont post here "ow its okay man, or just drop it".

    Nope. Its not okay. It hasn't been okay. If there is another class you feel is broken, I am sorry for that but there is a point to be taken from this thread.
    Obano likes this.
  19. Arclite Well-Known Member


    Sums up the game really where the lead designer is casually acknowledging something in public chat without any sense of urgency/accountability to fix it.

    Why do i still play this game :mad:.
    Priority likes this.
  20. Obano Well-Known Member

    You are in the wrong thread then. Your comment only serves to derail the topic.

    There is no such thing as "brawlers in general" because the gap between Monks and Bruisers has become a chasm as wide as the grand canyon. See Mr. Paragonvii's previous two intelegently written posts explaining what is really going on. Bruiser pretty much needs every piece of defensive gear in the game to stand even a ghost of a chance of tanking Vex 2 epics. Meanwhile Monks can tank that same stuff in their sleep while doing 2 to 3 times the DPS. The imbalance there is completely insane.
    Paragonvii likes this.