Imagine a scout class that can only wear cloth. essentially no mitigation. And the rest of the stats on all gear is IDENTICAL to that of the chain using scouts. Or leather using Clerics. That get NOTHING extra over the plate equivalent. You get the drift. That's exactly how brawlers feel like. It's madness isn't it, thinking a bit more about it ? Point being, if you want to keep leather tanks, in particular bruisers, to be a viable tank, you need to create separate leather tank templates for your loot-generator software. Is the complaining about Brawler only loot too much ? You had a great system back in TSO, sharing loot tables cross-archtypes !? But no, every expac you have to invent the wheel again don't you ? Been a loyal customer to the EQ franchise since 1999, but honestly i'm getting sick of your biased game developing. Is it that difficult to not actually realize what would happen to brawlers with their innate lower mitigation if you give them and plate tanks identical items to use ? all the % based mitigation increase would widen the gap even more ? Guess it's all about the cheap fast buck these days. No heart and soul going into game development anymore. WTB time potion for 1500 SC to go back to a time where balance was a core element to D&D type genre
All I know is, I'm having a fantastic time playing my dirge and zerk this expansion, while my bruiser sits in the guildhall making a brisk profit brokering, and crafting gems & adorns for people who can consistently play the higher content. But after 10 years in EQ2 and almost 15 in the franchise overall, I'm used to having half my toons idle during any particular expansion, until they catch up 1 expansion later when the cycle flip-flops.
Not saying this is right, but it is and has been true since release. Most if not all the classes have had their "moment to shine". The Brawlers wasn't too long ago. This is the Xpac of the Bezerker. Ride it out or not..... it is what it is.
While that's true the imbalance has entered a new realm now. There have always been ups and downs from class balance issues, and from fight mechanics favoring one or the other, but now a third factor is heavily screwing brawlers: loot. SOE's new system of 'choice' (lol, more like lack of choice) has taken needed stats away from brawlers and forced us to compete at a disadvantage. It makes no sense at all to give equal stats on everything *except* give plate tanks a passive advantage in base mitigation (that further compounds the difference in mit % increases). It makes no sense to give equal stats on everything when some classes depend on more stats than others (AAs/buffs/hate transfers etc all offer stat advantages to some and not others). If they intend to keep this loot system going forward brawlers are looking at being disadvantaged forever. And that is simply unacceptable.
(assuming brawler avoidance is contested, and that deflection is the contested stat,) how much deflection does a brawler need vs a lvl 98/100/103 monster? how does this compare with plate uncontested shield avoidance? A while back, I knew a player with a guardian and brawler, who mained the brawler at first. He did a test against contested avatars with his brawler better equipped at the time, and his guardian (some heroic stuff he threw together). After the brawler registered significantly greater hits taken, he switched to the guardian permanently.
Avoidance for Brawlers is a lot more complicated then i am ready to dive into atm... the Main stat that Brawlers use for Avoiding Attacks is Uncontested Block, (Also Riposte is a decent %). our base Deflection give our Block something to modify to give us the Uncontested Block.... Raid mobs have a lot of Strickthrough Making my 60% Uncontested Block only block about 30% of attacks. Some one else may be able to link a Avoidance Brake Down and how it all really works.
