Ok, so I know it's a generic armor stat template that technically druids can also wear, but can a Dev please explain to me the logic for not giving leather defence armor higher stats compared to plate defence armor to compensate for the lower mitigation values? I always thought brawler gear had higher "dps" stats to compensate for having less mitigation, but this is now not the case. This puts brawlers at a disadvantage because ultimately they need all their armor pieces to have +mitigation to have similar mitigation levels to a plate tank in mostly non-mitigation armor. Therefore their dps stats, and their avoidance through uncontested block (that's arguably not very useful on non-trash mobs) suffers. Personally, although hard content currently requires tanks to have plate level mitigation, I would be satisfied if leather defence armor got one extra offensive stat. Another (slightly less satisfying) option would be to include block and mitigation on the same piece. The best option would be higher +mitigation values on the mitigation armor to make it easier to get to a decent level, but I can see plate tanks complaining about that (although I would not, and I have 2 plate tanks and 1 leather).
Brawler items have never been given more stats than plate tank items as far as I'm aware. The weakness of lower base mitigation is made up for in other ways. One minor factor in that equation is how leather classes have innate greater avoidance than plate classes, but most of it just comes down to class and alternate advancement abilities. My Monk can be practically immune to physical damage for a good chunk of time.
Thank you for replying so quickly Xelgad. You are possibly correct in terms of past items not having higher stats to compensate, maybe that was all in my head due to the gap between brawlers and plate tanks not being as large as it is now. Yes a monk, who has more of these abilities than a bruiser, can avoid damage completely for a good "chunk" of time. But when that chunk runs out, they get one shotted on the harder hitting mobs because their mitigation is lower. With these named having high strikethrough, the extra avoidance attributes that brawlers have is indeed minor. Now I'm not saying that brawlers can't tank these mobs. They can, but they need a level of gear quality much much higher than a plate tank to do this, purely because of mitigation. As a result, there's less choice in equipment they can wear, and as such certain stats (dps mod, atk, ma, strikethrough, ae auto, cast speed, etc) are lower than that of a plate tank. It just doesn't seem right. Why can my beserker get all his dps stats to soft cap, with 90% strikethrough and have enough mitigation to withstand a beating in Dominion, yet my bruiser with all the mitigation pieces to get his mitigation 2000 less has way under cap on all his dps stats and 15 strikethrough!
No, I understood the point. I'm just suggesting a way to deal with it. Brawlers have ALWAYS had problems if they didn't manage to avoid the biggest hits. Just that this expac the biggest hits are lots bigger.
Why would a group choose to hurt their chances of success in a zone like Dominion by taking a brawler over a plate tank? Until healers start buffing hundreds of dps, as well as large amounts of strikethrough, ae auto, accuracy, mod, etc brawlers are going to be at a large disadvantage. Even then brawlers would STILL have a mitigation handicap, it'd just bring their dps stats back into the range plate tanks enjoy all the time.
I had assumed mitigation was the reason for the differences below back when talking with our brawler, but if not, the 42 attack speed and 42 dps mod difference is only worth +5 defense on the plate BP? Sad considering you can get +28 defense from a single white adorn.
You really should try bringing a brawler to Dom and then come back and say that. One of the smoothest/fastest runs I've healed was with a monk tanking. Did it surprise me...yes it did.
Monk Monk Monk Monk Monk. The innate avoidance doesn't really do much when mobs are getting their strikethrough values back up to absurd levels, but anyways~ There was a time in Sentinel's Fate where brawlers saw a huge amount more of gain on the +Mitigation increase stat since it raised a flat amount of mitigation compared which gave us some 530% more mitigation and plate tanks some 180-200ish % more than what is implimented now. Now I know I haven't played in months but would it not be right to assume that our gear is NOT equal because plate tanks have more base mitigation to amplify with the Mitigation Increase stats meaning they get more mitigation from the same values of mitigation increase gear?
our innate avoidance bonus comes from defensice stance. Last time i checked, my SK, zerker, Guardian all have their own benefits on their defensive stance. to say the imbalance of mitigation values is made up by brawler defensive stance is plain silly. Besides what does it matter when every relevant named in ToV flat out ignores avoidances unless you have a striekthrough immunity up. And newsflash, guardian can go immune to strikethrough longer then Bruiser, care to elaborate the logic behind that ? And last point for now, monks get 50% strikethrough on myth buff so they have to reforge less stats then Bruiser. Not saying the myth 10 sec parry/heal bruisers gets is not good. in fact, it's a fantastic ability, especially since its instant cast, but we do have to get that strikethrough somehow. I mean hey, maybe you just really don't want Bruisers to tank anything, but it would be appreciated if you just stated the intention of this class then. Monks and Bruisers are not the same btw. So maybe if you are doing fine on your monk, you might want to try out bruiser.
@ Strac ""Monks and Bruisers are not the same btw. So maybe if you are doing fine on your monk, you might want to try out bruiser."" This statement is 200% my point. Xelgad plays a Monk. Comparing a Monk to a Bruiser is like an apple to an orange. Yeah there both fruit but by no means the same. On a monk, you can reach softcap on more stats then you can a bruiser due to 50% innate ST on a monk. A monk has longer duration on most of there temp buffs and if chained correctly, you have a 15 second hole between temp chains, as a Bruiser, we get 34 seconds combined time on our avoidance temps and thats about it. Unyielding Wield has an extremely LONG cast time and being that this was our " Mythical " skill, it was supposed to bring us on par with Monks Tsunami, now that we both get avoids from AA's " Tag Team/Bob n Weave/Empenatrable " monks still have the upperhand again. As for gear goes, Brawler gear as ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS had more DPS Enhancing stats on it vs Plate Armor. Also, as Corry stated earlier, with the change that occured to %increases to mitigation values, this put plate tanks way ahead of the curve in mitigation values because we no longer get the boost from the starting at a lower value. Speaking for avoidance and mitigation, our MT Palli has 89% Avoidance in Raid with 139% Block Chance in raid " 69% Uncontested Block " and sits around 19k constant Mitigation "no temps". My Bruiser sits around 14k Mitigation in raid and 93ish% Avoidance. Were is this innate greater avoidance than plate classes. Putting the exact same stats on both archetypes of gear gives plate tanks the advantage over brawlers because now, we dont have anything " EXTRA " over a plate tank to bring us up to par. Especially now since Plate tanks are getting almost the same avoidance stats as brawlers.
Not entirly accurate, armour has been simular but not identical over the years but brawler weapons in recent times have had a distinct amount of block chance% on them over plate shields when duel weilding. You could weild 2 weapons which added 40%+ block chance to a brawler, that has been taken away this xpac and now all stats except mitt stand on equal ground. In fact until the Fabled quest 2 hder we even lost defensive stats to plates on 2 weapons vs shield, there are shields out there with 30% block on them while 2 brawler 1 handers net you about 10% mitt 10% block, or if you dbl the effect up 20% of either mitt or block. But until the 2 hder collection we also lost defensive stats on weapon slots. And avoiding an attack entirly such as brawler temps do is not unique to our class and this xpac with the huge melee hits and over the top mob strikethrough simply gives more mitt , damage reductions, and self heals that the plate tank classes have an advantage not made up anywhere on brawler gear or abilities. With out the block advantage we are forced to totaly 100% TANK gear turtle up in every slot including jewerly, and as such we end up with lower dps stats which create a problem on there own in generating hate as brawlers have no self siphons or transfers, reductionsof any significance. You can work around it and make due, but there is a disadvantage there with out a doubt.
You've missed the point too. I never said brawlers can't do it, but that monk I bet everything I own had to have the top gear available to do it. Whereas a plate tank can be solo healed in half dps gear that isn't all gemmed out (I have done this personally). Also, monks have a few more abilities to counter hard hitting single enemies than bruisers, so you can't lump both brawlers in the same category. Also, I bet that monks dps stats were suffering because of all the mitigation armor he had to wear.
Correct, it's been emphasised much more because it is no longer a rare event at getting one shotted, it's the norm due to mob strikethrough and size of hits. Mitigation is king in this xpac, and brawlers are therefore at a disadvantage because they get nothing to compensate for their lower mitigation. Every other plate tank gets immunities to damage in AAs. Brawlers may get longer lasting ones (with bruisers having less than monks), but when they're down, we're in trouble, because of the mitigation handicap. Full mitigation gear makes it possible, but we then suffer on all the other stats, including block, compared to plate tanks.
As I see it, there are 2 separate problems being addressed here and they both need to be addressed aport. 1st Problem, Brawler Itemization for Years has been used as a crouch to help equal Brawler and Plate tank abilities, and when ALL items are equal it is being shown that Brawlers are still much weaker then Plate tanks in the same rule. This may need to be addressed with gear changes or with Class ability changes. 2ND Problem, Bruisers have problems tanking. I know that monks have problems with some abilities but Bruisers have much more problems. I think a large problem that Bruisers have is the do not have an identity. Bruisers try to compete with Guards, Monks and Palls for the MT position but also have more of the tools to make then an OT and Compete with SK’s and Zerkers. If Bruisers where spesificle designed to compete with MT or OT positions and then saying they are not as good in the other rule as the other types is fine, but they are not as good in ether rule as any of the tanks for the rules. I do not have any ways to address Bruiser AA/Ability problems, I do have a list of Monk problems I have been thinking about that should use addressing and would help us get on par with Guards and Palls for the MT position when we do not have Involns up.
Funny thing is, I wrote my post right after completing the zone tanking on my bruiser, so yea, assumptions etc. Can it be done? Yes. No one is stating it can't be. What's being pointed out is a brawler (specifically Bruisers) has to gear, spec and adorn outrageously defensively to do what plate tanks can do with a mixture of gear and spec. I either swap out every single piece of gear I can to a +mit piece, or rely on a lot of luck to get some of the named down. Tenacity is virtually useless because you go through all 3 triggers in <10sec, and we don't have nearly enough immunity temps to survive the interim. And yes, brawlers did have a dps stat advantage over plate tanks on armor pieces prior to ToV. Maybe to emphasize the fact brawlers rely completely on their melee dps to generate hate? PS, having to chain temps to survive is not fun. Please stop designing content that way.
The key problem is our passive wards and damage reduction proc AA's kept us alive for the for the last 3 expansions, then they cut us at the knees with the 10 second nerfs at the beginning of this one. They don't want to address it, because someone somewhere thought this was good idea because we were having heal parses higher than druids going into this expansion, but now that wards are laughable compared to hots they don't want to man up and admit their mistake.
