Brigand dps

Discussion in 'Scouts' started by Because, Jul 26, 2022.

  1. Because New Member

    brigand dps is so lacking at the moment it seems daybreak forgot about class balance
    i know assassins are going through the same thing
    but a 125 brig with most spells gm or higher should not be getting out parsed by utility IE. Dirges troubs coercers and illies
    can you try and get dps classes higher dps than util especially when the co class Swash and sin do 10x the damage its kind of pathetic how you play favorites with classes
    Vlkodlak and Igochan like this.
  2. Igochan Active Member

    It is something that is not understood. I've complained about this very thing in the general forum, and one guy told me that the brigand's function is not to be DPS.
    I really don't understand a lot of players.
    Jesaine likes this.
  3. Jesaine Well-Known Member

    This is one of those classes that I've been toying around with for the last week or so, since they became the most recent "this class sucks" topic. I had to see for myself. Got one up to level 85, and I've got to admit, I'm pretty underwhelmed at the Brig's performance. Not only is the damage not there, the debuffs don't seem to do much vs other classes like the bards.

    Igochan, the problem with that response you got is that people don't read to understand, they "read" to argue a point without understanding the point the other person is making. I agree Brigands are / should be DPS, unless they're going to tweak them into some sort of debuff specialist, or failsafe backup tank like they were at one point.

    Another big part of the problem with these discussions is that characters seem to perform differently under different conditions. People say paladins suck (for example). Not having geared up for raids, all *I* can judge on is the performance of my 120 heroic Pally who out-nukes my heroic mage by literally 10x. Apparently mages still hit like they used to within raids though. If the game handles so differently under different conditions, how does the community have a common experience to discuss? I suspect that was our issue back in the bards thread.

    Then there's the players who just make me nuts and I wonder if they're just here to troll. One guy constantly alternates between saying his class sucks and can't hold a candle to it's mirror class, AND alternatively trolling others about how he can completely dominate and out damage them. Which is it? LOL

    We had another guy arguing that tanks can't hold aggro without a massive DPS boost. That previously mentioned Pally of mine has 4 or so taunts and several attacks designed to generate aggro on top of their damage. Same with any of the other Fighter classes. Then there's the fact that virtually every class has an aggro re-direct power or two that lets them bleed off hate to the Tank. But hey, trillions of damage isn't enough. That doesn't even get into the reality that most players anymore don't remember to target through the tank to bleed aggro that way. I can literally hear the Devs' eyes rolling when they read cra... garbage like that.

    I've had people argue that crafting was garbage and interfered with their raiding, and that raids shouldn't be forced by mechanics to carry "useless" non-dps classes. Apparently the last one thinks this is Doom Online, not a MMORPG.

    My point? Yeah the game is broken (despite there being alot I love about it). The devs are never going to take the community seriously though when the messages being sent are all over the board and completely contrary to each other.
  4. Igochan Active Member

    I think the big difference from before to now is that there used to be developers playing this game. Nowadays I only know one person who does it and she is mainly dedicated to crafting.
  5. Diveris Well-Known Member

    Paladins are good right now, but they aren't out dpsing equally geared (runed) mages. Mages gobstomp everwhere except den 2.

    Taking a class to 85 isn't really an indication of how they play at cap, you don't even have access to all the aa at that level... but even at 85 brig is one of the better scouts to play.

    Brigs don't suck by any means, it's just swash is easier with near unlimited aoe resets and the damage isn't reliant on positioning.

    boss fights dps for scout atm is imo:
    Bl
    Ranger
    Sin/Brig
    Swash
    Troub
    Dirge (has higher potential than troub, but has more to do during fights)

    If the fight has 4+ adds it's not uncommon for a swash to out parse a sin and brig depending on overall group dps.

    Since when did targeting through the tank bleed aggro?.. Targeting through the tank just stops you from building more aggro on your target than the tank, assuming you are both targeting different mobs.

    Tanks need more dps, taunts are pretty useless. I main a BL/Ranger. I group with a Monk (or SK) a coercer and a swash, When I pop my temps and SS or let loose at 6 savagery.. I can't avoid pulling whatever I'm hitting (even with deaggros and - hate mod).

    Most tanks do their jobs with positional snaps, tanks are in a sad state.

    On a side note, there is a distinction between threat transfer and deaggro. A deaggro lowers personal threat, a transfer increases the tanks threat generation. Every mage/scout has deaggros.. Few have threat transfers. Only transfers "bleed off hate to the tank".

    Deaggros aren't guarenteed to get a mob back to a tank. Just maybe to the next person on the threat list.
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  6. Suidakra Active Member

    I'd still say DPS is an issue, though. I think Crusaders have an advantage from their incredible healing these days.
    I don't feel I should HAVE to throw in hate drops/reducers in a normal rotation. They should be needed for Memory wipes or the occasional "oh shoot I got aggro" moments. Sadly, I do more often if my MT isn't a crusader, and it's a "waste" of dissonance.

    But I am not a top tier raider. This is only my experience and opinion.
    Jesaine likes this.
  7. Jesaine Well-Known Member


    Valid point about the De-aggros vs Threat Transfer. I was tired and forgot both mechanics are in play within the game. :) IN THEORY, if everyone is using the provided mechanics though, the hate should filter down to the Tank... IN THEORY, lol.

    Targeting via the tank; again poor wording due to fatigue. I really shouldn't post when zombie level tired, lol. Unless they changed the mechanic since I last played years ago... Targeting the tank is supposed to have you attack the same target the the tank is fighting, AND keep you from picking up some of the hate that your attacks generate. It goes to the tank instead since you're targeting through them.

    Has it actually changed? I don't know. In alot of ways I barely recognize the game I've come back to. I still love alot of it, but other parts just have me shaking my head.

    As far as tank DPS goes, I'd say it's probably more the taunts that need fixing. I'll qualify that in three ways though. 1) I'm old school with mechanics and believe the tank's job is to hold aggro, not out DPS the DPS classes. 2) I'm frustrated by some of the players here that just rudely demand more damage for their characters and threaten to rage quit if they don't get it. 3) The statflation is already game breaking. If the situation in the highest level content is as bad as you report though, something needs adjusting one way or the other.

    That gets back to the game now playing so differently at various levels also. I could go on 100 different tangents here, but let me share the experience I mentioned with the mage (Coercer to be specific) and the Pally. Both are heroic 120s. I've left their gear plain, unadorned stock. I do use the stork and mount from the VoV collector's edition though. Both to compare on an even playing field, and because I've spent my time since returning exploring the different classes and lower level content. ANYWAY, at 120 and geared that way, the Pally's best AOE will hit for 40 billion consistantly. The best I've been able to get out of the Coercer was a 9 billion hit, and usually it's closer to 5 billion. Every class I've "test driven" with the try before you buy level 100 characters... all hit harder than the mages.

    The problem there is the game plays completely different at high levels, medium levels, and low levels, and apparently grouped vs solo also. That's caused alot of the conflict here on the forums that I've seen, and in general chat as well upon occasion.

    Great post though. I'm not surprised about the Beastlord either. Brutes in City of Villains used a similar mechanic and they were a holy terror when their version of the Savagery meter was maxed out. I've never had luck keeping the savagery bar filled though. :)
    Diveris likes this.
  8. Jesaine Well-Known Member

    That's a fair point about the hate reducers being more of a panic button than a rotation item.

    I'm not a raider either. I don't have the patience to deal with the elitist members of that community, nor the gear or experience to join the cooler raiders. :)

    Either way, throwing more DPS into the mix adds to the statflation. I think fixing the taunts and extra hate generation from various tank attacks is a better option.
    Twyla likes this.
  9. Diveris Well-Known Member

    I forgot to add, as to the tank target through thing. I have never known it to work that way. I have on single targets targeted through the tank and (in raid settings) not. With no observable difference in threat generation.

    It's not really mentioned anywhere, and no differences in ACT.
    Only things that I know effect threat generation are, heals, taunts, attacks, deaggros, buffs and hate mod. That and who hits first, even using a positional doesn't increase your threat. It just momentarily puts you at the top of the list.

    If you don't generate alot of threat after a positional you could lose a mob again quickly.

    Even in theory, using all the provided mechanics, with a good tank.. They still struggle to hold aggro. Dps is able to generate way, way more threat than a tank can reasonably keep up with.

    Even with a coercer and swash, once dps gets in the 1.5t+ dps tanks have trouble keeping up.
    Jesaine likes this.
  10. Jesaine Well-Known Member

    Hmmmm... Well maybe if the "target through the tank" mechanic isn't in the game, it could serve as a viable way to help fix the issue without FUBARing up the stats even more. :)
    Twyla likes this.
  11. Diveris Well-Known Member

    At this point there is no going back on the stats. They are currently releasing Fabled Vp and Kurn x2.. Which will bump potency up by another 25-50kish. I just rather tanks get to have fun while playing, rather than being bulwark bots.

    It is to much work for them to go back now.
  12. Jesaine Well-Known Member

    Must be nice to be a game dev. Say it's too much work and everybody falls in line, LOL. Politicians wish they had that kind of credibility. Reality is anything done can be rolled back or modified. You break it, you buy it also comes to mind as applicable here.

    The BIG element here is that the devs have been saying everything can't be fixed for years. Know what happens when you build a house on a bad foundation? It all eventually collapses. At the very least, eventually we're going to end up in a situation like Blizzard and WoW where they had to roll everything back and launch a "classic" version of the game.

    Everybody should have fun playing the game. Zero argument there. Tanks should be viable for soloing as well as raids. Trying to fix the forest fire of stat inflation with more fire though... Just asking for trouble.
    Tharrakor likes this.
  13. Diveris Well-Known Member

    I worked as a game dev for a few years. Solving this problem, with the current resources is nigh impossible.

    You have a 16+ year old mmo that has switchee ownership several times.. The game is basically a giant pile of spaghetti code.

    In order to fix the stat inflation, while also having some type of vertical, sensible progression; it would require editing every piece of gear and every encounter in the game. Or creating new tier gear that has worse stats than the gear in the gear before it and adding a gate stat.

    Neither are good solutions, reworking all the loot and encounters in game would take a team of 1000 around a solid 2 years (the current team is way smaller than that). Putting another gate stat on gear would push players away and require us to carry multiple armor sets just to be able to play... No one wants to equip worse armor to play current content (they tried that and lost ~half the player base during AOM).

    Tanks are very viable in solo play, all classes are, they are just stink in groups. So much so bulwark is a thing. Take away bulwark and a warlock can tank pretty much any current zone.

    We already have rollbacks every year.. TLE. If EQ2 rolled back live, the game wouldn't survive.

    Stat inflation is bad, but all things equal things are pretty ballanced right now.
    Jesaine likes this.
  14. Jesaine Well-Known Member

    Yah know, we got this convo WAY off track from brigand DPS, LOL. :D

    That aside... I do get what you're saying about "with current resources". The Dev team is minimally staffed, and probably under gag orders not to ***** about it also. Corporate is likewise only concerned with the profits that come with new content. I get that also, and it's why I don't give the devs any real grief. We've all had jobs where we were overworked and under-appreciated.

    Since you were a developer though, you know spaghetti code never should have been allowed to happen in the first place. Best practices dictates keeping everything as structured and documented as possible.

    Depending upon whether or not we're dealing with a compiled language, etc... for the game, it MIGHT be possible to write a "macro" that just goes through and adjusts the stats for everything (gear, spells and mobs) by whatever percentage.

    Earlier today really gave me an eye opener on just how broken the game is though. I *finally* set aside my concerns about gearing and took my 120 heroic coercer into the wilds of Luclin for the first time. Even without a single adornment and no pet out, she was 2 shotting single arrow up heroics SIX levels higher than her.

    By the same token, she got wiped out by a heroic only four levels higher just outside the starter village in Vetrovnia. Nothing is consistent anymore.

    Stat jumps of 300% every 5 levels just aren't sustainable in the long run either. The fact that the TLE servers are the most popular only goes to prove statflation isn't commercially viable either.
  15. Diveris Well-Known Member



    The problem is we are dealing with a custom engine that has been been passed through at least three different companies, through the hands of hundreds of devs and several leads... Each of which had their own management style. The scripting in this game is so intricate that fixing one thing can break something else that is entirely unrelated.

    That problem leads to workaround fixes (bugs cannot always be tracked down and squished properly due to time constrains). Workarounds lead to spaghetti code. We have a game with over a decade and a half of those fixes, lot of spaghetti code.

    Taking your 120 heroic character to Lucin (depending on if you mean ROS or BOL, I'm assuming BOL) which is two expansions old and the cap was 115 and two shotting mobs is normal, even two shotting mobs in ROS is normal at 120.. Those expansion at launch were not easy, the mobs took forever. But as we hit 120 and had access to better gear they became easy. VoV is current content, it is supposed to be hard.

    ^ mobs in overworld are not real heroics, never have been. ^^ is heroic but can be done by 2 or 3 people. ^^^ is the real heroic stuff. Mob level is also not a great indicator of mob strength, this is something that has been the game for a very long time. A level 74 mob in Kos is far weaker than a level 70 mob in EOF, same for AoM/ToT, PoP/CD ect. Progression is based on expansion more than mob level, the two things just tend to increase at the same time. Things are very consistent.

    I always got my butt kicked when entering a new expansion, but could go back an expansion or two and pretty much solo heroic zones (until bulwark). You are expected to drudge through about half of the new sig line before new mobs become easy, but are given gear that is almost the equal to heroic gear from the expansion before when you use a heroic token.

    The stat jump is larger than 300% you could of came into VoV with 200k potency and reach 800k, by the launch of next expansion I assume people will have 900-1000k potency. It's just a number though and there are factors that mitigate it such as combat mit. Most mobs will only let you use 1/4-1/2 of your potency. The only number people really look at as an indicator of gear quality is resolve, that goes up in increments of 5. The higher resolve the gear has the higher the rest of the stats will be.

    So in essence tracking your character progress is pretty easy, If you have 7-8k resolve all of your other stats are good. Compare that to back in the day when you had a bijillion stats to track and a piece could improve your class stat but reduce you mit or a much needed blue.

    You are correct that TLE is generally popular, but your reasoning for it is flawed. The people playing on TLE are already paid players. TLE dies out when a new expansion launches, people go to TLE when they are bored of the current expansion. When time comes where you have all the current gear you can get and are just logging in for weeklies, surprise another TLE comes out.

    Devs know the cycles of the game and launch TLEs to keep people paying/playing.

    In order to get a fair handle on how the game is playing, I would suggest taking a character to endgame. Group up/gear up and play. You will see things are very well balanced now, some classes are getting the short end (Assassin because of a change in mechanics that void their entire playstyle), Bards/melee healers (due to itemization of withering rune placement) and tanks due to lack of dps and bulwark. But issues like that have always been a problem, there is always FoTM classes.

    Taunts work for tanks, but have always only been half of the equation; the other half of their threat generation is dps and they could use a lift. I will go into some detail as to why:

    SK/Paladins suffer from the same things as melee priests and bards, no matter how they gear they will always have to sacrifice on either their spell damage or their melee damage due to withering/tainted blade runes. They are -65 fervor on one or the other. That is until they cap fervor then things level out a bit better for all classes.

    Zerkers/guards/monks all took a hit from melee nerfs and ca nerfs.

    Bruisers just recently took a huge hit to their dps in the form of a battery of nerfs. I think the Devs forget that Buriers are supposed to be able to keep up with T2 scouts while not tanking. I mean they even have positional aas.
    Jesaine likes this.
  16. Jesaine Well-Known Member

    I suspect we could debate a few of the finer points here indefinitely, as well as the merits of Daybreak finally Cowgirling Up and taking ownership of the state of the game's statflation and code. I think we agree on a good bit more than we disagree though. I also really appreciate that we've been able to have a thoughtful, civilized discussion on the subject. Other folks here on the forums aren't happy unless they're turning topics toxic.

    With that said, I'm going to bow out of this specific conversation and finish getting my 120 Coercer geared up. As you indirectly said, there's no substitute for firsthand experience. :)
    Diveris and Twyla like this.
  17. Smashey Well-Known Member

    1) The prestige tree.

    There is only 5 things worth taking in the Brigand Prestige tree. Blinding Dust, Gang Up, Low Blow, Strongarm and Brute Force. One might argue that Mercy or Anger is useful in a raid setup where you have no other hate transfers, but lets be honest, the overall brigand output isnt high enough to even warrant a hate transfer and the damage reduction is hardly noticeable with current tank and healing mechanics. In fact with just 12 Prestige points spent, you got everything you really want from the tree and the rest are minor passive increases or 20% reset chance on Puncture / Perforate for Strongarm and a more times than not broken group AE immunity.

    Shred is supposed to the left side nuke. Its supposed to hit super hard at 5 stacks of Thug's Poison, at current tuning it has around the same efficiency as Traumatic Swipe and Black Jack.

    While Venom Explosion is nice on paper, the tuning is awful for 3 prestige points and the back or flanking requirement is awful in heroic content where mobs die in seconds and running behind mobs its already too late to actually use it.

    Highwayman's Advance used to be 6-7% of our parse in the previous 4 expansions, now it does around 1%.

    Vital Weakness, while a decent by providing 1.5% Physical Damage increase, but it costs 3 points to get that 1.5%!

    Cover of Darkness was once upon an amazing group tool, granting the group AE immunity. However in this recent patch, it would appear that almost none of the raid encounter AEs works with it or its bugged.

    Paralytic Venom, Advance Scout, Forced Cocussion, Quick Hands, Natural Irritants, Cover of Darkness, Cunning and Decption, Exacting Venom and Shred are all a complete waste of prestige points with current mechanics and tunings.


    2) CA scaling.

    With the current tuning, a lof of our 121 to 125 combat arts still scale worse than Ascensions. Having both at GM the following abilities have the same or less efficiency than Erosion II, Domain of Earth(Ancient) and Stone Hammer II.

    Puncture, Change of Engagement, Stunning Blow, Desperate Thrust, Gouge, Will to Survive, Black jack, Traumatic Swipe, Sheenigans, Sunder (initial damage), Shenanigans and 10 point Torporous Strike.


    3) Double Up

    The level 58 temp buff "Double Up" is still used by Brigands and is connected to one of our epic 2.0 abilities that extends its duration. The issue with Double Up isnt that its there or that it performs bad per se, its the fact that its impossible to get your hands on anything higher than Expert outside of research. A lot of brigs however have no idea that the tier you have of double up is the version of CA you cast. So if you only have Expert and you want to cast Rob (Ancient) it will only cast the Expert version of Rob. This ability also caps out at Grandmaster, while our CA's can now be upgraded to Celestials. Its also completely useless once you cap ability double cast as it will simply just double cast everything instead of doing 3 or 4 casts.


    4) Band of Thugs

    This ability is our dumbfire pet that is supposed to offer us burst DPS. The problem is that they die too easy and they still dont cast Evade Blame.


    5) Comparing to the FoTY Swashbuckler.

    Swashies does AT LEAST 3-4 times more our damage currently on single target and shreds us on AE fights. They also bring enough debuffs to make up for not having a Brigand.

    Adding a brigand to the raid instead of pretty much anything else is simply not worth it currently. It most defiantly does not make sense to bring even a single Brigand instead of a Swashy because 1/4 the damage does not make up for the slighty better debuffs brigands bring to the table.

    Brigand overall efficiency:
    Jrox likes this.
  18. Diveris Well-Known Member



    Alot of the same stuff can be said about ev

    A lot of the same can be said for pretty much every class. Every class has broken AA's and messed up abilities. Researching a level 58 ability is kind of par for the course, at least they do not take to long. From my experience playing in heroics with near equally geared swashes I beat them on anything under 4 mobs. Mileage varies in raids, but honestly I'd rather have a BL over most dps in a raid anyway.

    Sure Brigs could use a buff, but so could Sins, inquis, illy and both bards. Balance will work out, maybe not right this second, but next expansion I bet all the swashies will be betraying to Brig, just the cycle of the game. My point is that Bards do not have a higher damage potential than Brigs.
  19. Unrivaled Member

    It's really hard to justify Brigands parsing as much as other scout dps classes considering the incoming damage debuffs this class offers.

    It seems like a lame reasoning, but unless they fix these debuffs which have been /feedbacked as a poor way of tuning classes since they were introduced (When these were max hp debuffs the issue was much more glaring). You're never gonna see a change.

    At the end of the day they still bring more damage to your raid through their personal dps and those debuffs, compared to bringing another dps class.
  20. Smashey Well-Known Member


    No matter how many times users keeps repeating this doesn't make it any more true.

    Raids today have so much utility and so many debuffs built into their other abilities that they can cover most debuffs that renders a brigand less and less useful. In a proper setup raid, even dispatch is hardly noticeable because the raid mobs debuff amount is capped.

    Bringing another swashy doing 1.7 trillion can never be outweight by the tiny amount brigands debuff in a proper setup raid. Or a ranger doing 3.
    Jrox likes this.