Rogue/Brigand/T2 scout concerns - long read ahead! Sorry for the text but I love my brigand and I really miss playing her. Mint stated on Discord to post class-specific feedback/suggestions here, so here we go. Prelude: I will say that in a heroic standpoint, brigand is still ok when played aggressively/well geared. My feedback below pertains to raids, where there is no need/real interest anymore to bring along a brigand. TLDR - please explore ways to make brigands wanted/needed in group and raid content. Brigands bring nothing overly valuable to a raid aside from dps - no reset, no raid fervor, no permanent transfer. Debuffs are not high enough to make a difference and are duplicated on weapon procs/scepter clickies/scout poisons. Brigand dps took a large hit with the nerf to autoattack damage and the removal of recovery speed, so the only thing we bring is a shadow of what it used to be and doesn't stack up to other T1.5/T2 enough to warrant a spot. I am writing this as someone who loves their brigand, but due to server population/recruiting woes is forced to play a tank because it brings more value to the raid than my brigand. I hope this feedback from an active raider is helpful in some way! I want to be wanted in groups/raids Overall class identity - what is the intent for the brigand going into 2021-2022? Previously, they were the class with the most debuffs to max hp% plus defensive debuffers, which has been removed in favor of increasing incoming damage. The problem with this is that there is a cap to this debuff, and when most raiders have at least one Anguish proc on a weapon and pretty much everyone has a scepter a brigand's value is diminished from a debuff standpoint. I just want to say that I *love* the original identity of the brigand class - dirty fighting, mean, nasty, stripping a mob's defenses to utterly annihilate them during that brief window of time that they are vulnerable. I know some of my fellow rogues (mostly swashies, I honestly only know of one other high performing brigand on AB) just want to have more dps, and forget the debuffs - they want to be made equal with all the t1s - but I am less interested in that. I think that would be too homogenous, and what I love about EQ2 and what keeps me here is the originality/class identity. The AA changes to effectiveness did NOT increase debuff values (is this intended? I feel like during beta we were told effectiveness was supposed to boost debuff values as well, but it doesn't), so when raid targets have hundreds of thousands of combat mitigation (300-440k) brigands do not put a dent into this. During olden times, a brigand would macro to tell the raid when their debuff chains were running so that the raid force would do full burn while mob's defenses were crippled. It was a skill check and communication check. Every raid that wanted to progress had a brigand. The guilds that communicated and worked together performed better. Now everyone loads up on procs and scepters (and scouts with poisons) and just replaces that spot with another T1 dps and has the same kill times. Perhaps as a potential solution, if it isn't too game breaking, is to allow the debuff component of an ability to doublecast and be impacted by effectiveness/fervor. Brigands still have the beefiest debuff values - letting them double cast might actually make a dent in combat mitigation and see some benefit to bringing a brigand along. Raid low on dps because there's not a lot of ptw present? Bring that brigand to help beat that rampage timer. With all that said, I don't feel that "debuffs" are enough to warrant a spot for a brigand. I know the game design has shifted over the years and you guys have tried to move away as much as possible from "you must have X class to proceed". At the end of the day though, especially in challenging raid content, there is a time limit to kill things and in order to do that, you MUST do dps. DPS - I know the dps tiers were out the window a long time ago, but as someone who has been playing since 2004 and remembers the old tiers I still view summoners and rogues to be comparable in terms of utility (moreso in favor of the swashy with the reset on demand, hate transfer, and raid fervor buff), yet it is not at all possible for a rogue to match the dps potential of a summoner (necro particularly), AND the rogue has to be in melee range to do their damage thus at higher risk and is susceptible to dps loss from jousting scripts. The removal of recovery speed as a reforging or AA option for rogues has greatly impacted their dps potential. I think for the cast/recast times that brigands currently have their CA damage isn't in a bad place, but the dps potential for brigand was always based around how much they could cast while Double Up and Dance of Metal were up (with DoM doing max dps if you can get 8 attacks off during its duration - which is not currently possible with 0 recovery speed - not even with 30 recovery from the temp adorns you can wear). Rogues also did get a sizable contribution to their parse in the form of autoattack damage, and that went out the window with RoS. Suggestion - I'd like to suggest providing an AA for rogues that gives us back recovery speed. Perhaps instead of Capo Ferro adding a small amount of ADC to the amount of Sailwind, it adds 7-8% recovery speed per rank. Edit: I understand that recovery speed as a whole is entirely going away in the next expansion, so I don't know how to compensate for latency now. Perhaps allow rogues (and perhaps assassins) to have their CA recovery time default to 0.25 seconds. Or extend the duration/change the ruling on Dance of Metal that instead of increasing damage over 8 procs as long as you can get all 8 off in 10 seconds (impossible), that it's just an ability like Lightning Fists for monks where it triggers x number of times within a set period of time (and increase the damage so it is comparable to Feedback Loop (it seriously takes a lot of AA points to get this, it should absolutely be worth it/monster) and increases in damage, if ascensions are being phased out). Another thing that might be neat is to change Dance of Metal to a buff, either instead of or in addition to a proc, that lowers base cast times or reuse times (kind of like how Crimson Swathe does for Barroom Negotiation) for the duration. For reference, when the brigand uses Crimson Swathe, it removes the reuse time for Barroom Negotiation/Forced Arbitration, for a duration of 9 seconds. For 9 seconds, the brigand can cast BN/FA as many times as they can/server allows, which is generally 4-5 times depending on lag. To keep this from being grossly OP it would probably have to be restricted to certain combat arts though. Additional options for valuable utility - allowing rogues a way to have some means of Bulwark. My thought was to add a proc to the rogue defensive stance that would proc a combat mit debuff/damage like Bulwark of Order, and also a shorter Bulwark. It would be somewhat RNG, but should proc frequently enough that you could have a rogue in a raid group that could protect their group if someone in the group got hit by Bulwark and there was no fighter present, and said rogue was actively participating in combat. Obviously there would still be benefit to having a fighter instead; they'd have longer/better Bulwark and can cast it on demand, as well as providing group Synergy for fervor and ADC, but more options IMO are always better. And anything that could speed up looking for groups would be also terrific.
While I am in no position to offer any great feedback I will say that I do like your post. I've been away from the game a long time and been reading posts for the past six to eight months to gain any insight to the game. While your entire post is great this is what really meant something to me. "I just want to say that I *love* the original identity of the brigand class - dirty fighting, mean, nasty, stripping a mob's defenses to utterly annihilate them during that brief window of time that they are vulnerable. I know some of my fellow rogues (mostly swashies, I honestly only know of one other high performing brigand on AB) just want t o have more dps, and forget the debuffs - they want to be made equal with all the t1s - but I am less interested in that. I think that would be too homogenous, and what I love about EQ2 and what keeps me here is the originality/class identity." You said it better than anyone so far. This "homogenization" is a thorn in the games side across the class spectrum. I remember back when individuality existed that the brigand was probably the best one on one scout for ripping through an enemy quickly. They could do this rather on a consistent basis not needing to wait nearly as long as the Preds for their huge hitters to refresh. It would be nice to see the originality of these classes shine again. Thank you,
I've been playing a raiding brigand for a very very long time, and I sat out this expansion entirely. Just not worth the pain of playing a class that has been "Dispatched". Hoping against hope that the next expansion makes the class relevant again. Either make our debuffs good enough to matter at least in raid, or boost our dps enough to make it competitive, but do something. I'll ignore group content...
I was a Swash for 8 years and suffered thru the downfall of the Swash class. I lost any chance of getting Raid guild/raid participation until I was requested to betray to Brigand to get a raid spot. That was 5 xpacs ago - now here I sit as a "once was great" Brigand watching other classes get all the love. I have come to really enjoy and have pride in this class, but sadly it seems like betraying is the one of the only alternatives for progression and enjoyment I made several - entirely ignored - posts such as this - last xpac and believe it is not so much wasted breath but impossible to fix - I posted a few Swash CA's that are virtually Identical to Brigand CA's and tried to point out that the decimal place was move to 5 decimal places on Swash CA's while Brig were capped at 4 The 2 classes were very competitive "once upon a time" and maybe a grave stone is in order As stated in your very well thought out narrative - Brigands have no value anymore Restoring even a modicum of DPS would be at least a start..... I really believe your post was sent here so as to sweep it under the rug It sucks but I don't think the developers can do anything but wait out what few of us that are left to: A. Betray B. Roll a different class (as you have done) C. Stop playing
