Ok, I'll make one less go of this... Aint a thing in there about raid desirability. If you still dont get it, I'm afraid I tried.
Dragorn, you come off as rude, insensitive and have the uncanny knack of addressing the brawler community like we're stupid. But... You're honest, straight forward and you know your [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn]. I like that. :smileyhappy: I agree completely with this statement - and many more you've described. I hope we do get our mitigation and avoidance looked at in EoF. I hope everyday.
The problem is not that we are fighters. It is because we are not scouts. Yes you want moe dps. fine. Ok lets say SoE Decides to increase brawlers dps. Do you expect to do more DPS then assasins, then wizards etc? I can assure you Brawlers will never be T1 DPS. It was never intended to be. So lets say they increase our dps. WHY WOULD A RAID GUILD TAKE A BRAWLER over an assasin, who will always produce more DPS. Fact is we won't be taken and will still be useless. Utility in the form of increasing the raids overall DPS, comparable tanking, and sufficeint direct DPS is what brawlers need to be viable. If brawlers where the only class to overcap Haste/DPS or some such and classes are able to cap thier haste/ DPS easily in raids. A brawler setup in the proper group adding 24% additional overcap haste/DPS to each other class in that group will increase the overall raid dps more then just adding in another dps class. Look at the impact brigands debuffs make on the raid DPS. You do not need to have direct dps to impact on a raids functionality or be useful. utility in the form of debuffs and buffs can have a significant impact on how a raid performs. Each one of us chose a brawler and here is the simple fact of life you need to deal with. You will never be the best tank, you will never be the best DPS. If you think you need to be the best TANK or the best DPS to be useful on a raid then you might as well make a new class now.
I picked a brawler knowing full well I wouldnt be a raid tank, knowing I wouldnt be T1 dps, knowing there would be limited spacing on raids. I picked brawler because I truly wanted the hybrid nature, a decent amount of both, and of course the holy feign. I love brawler abilities. I picked the monk over the bruiser because of the motif, which I still hold true to. I picked a summoner over a sorcerer for very similar reasons. It's what I like. However RP and Motif vs ability can only be withstood for so long. Take my Fury, who was once a 70 Warden. The warden had a wonderful motif for a long time. But, a long series of neverending nerfs and inconsiderate craptastic destruction of Warden RP and Motif made me finally switch. This thread is hopelessly hijacked at this point.
I never once said we should out dps a scout BUT being somewhat good at dps and somewhat good at tanking isnt working. People want to be better tanks well if we are made better tanks its really not going to change the want or need for more then 1 brawler. After 2 years of playing this game i highly highly doubt everyguild is going to go. oh brawlers are better at tanking then they used to be. !!! Lets just make them tank instead of guardians and berserkers and paladins and shadowknights!!! Ya thats a great idea. Well now you got 3 classes are are just as if not more useless then we were. ( except zerkers because they can out dps scouts ). Our dps will never be T1 dps and will never be better then a scout i never once said it should be BUT there needs to be something done to give us a use. I mean Scouts not only do better dps then us there utility is greater also. They get so many poisons that do different things to the mob thats 6 assassins could be doing 6 differet debuffs just from poisons to the mob. As sucky as being a buff bot might be i did somewhat enjoy T5 having a 1k mitigation buff that i could put on the tank. Yes 1k is a little extreme BUT we do need something to contribute to the raid along with slightly better dps. Even if monks got some type of defensive buff that would help the tank out and bruisers got some type of offensive damag increasing stuff that would possibly create a want to have atleast 1 of each in a raid. Plus of course being able to do decent dps etc. I just honestly dont think the whole tanking thing is working for us. When we became tanks is when we became more and more unwanted. As time goes on its getting worse and we are getting less usefull and less wanted. When you see GROUPS saying Looking for tank anything but a brawler on more then 1 occasion thats pretty low.
There are three separate questions here. 1. Are brawlers balanced relative to other tanks (or DPS, or utility) for game-wide, non-raid content? 2. Do brawlers have a role in a properly constituted raid force? 3. In both cases, are monks balanced relative to bruisers? I think that the answer to all three questions, at least at level 70, 50 AA points is no. 1. This is the closest question. Warriors can hold aggro better than brawlers, and can out DPS them. Mitigation, in general, works better than avoidance, particularly against yellow and orange MoBs. That said, our utility, particularly FD, makes brawlers great for soloing at all levels. 2. Brawlers are marginalized on raids. We are not the best choice to tank 98% of raid mobs, and, even spec'ed out for max damage, we are mediocre DPS at best. Our utility and buffs are marginal. 3. Bruisers are superior to monks in almost every scenario across the game. DPS, tanking, whatever. This is just wrong and should be corrected. What to do about 1? Either buff brawlers or nerf warriors. In particular, warrior DPS is broken relative to brawlers. No way should a zerker be able to hold aggro, mitigate damage AND DPS better than a brawler. What about 2? Seems to me that one solution to this would be to about double the effectiveness of AAs, but make tanking and DPS AAs mutually exclusive. So, we could go down an AA path that would allow us to tank really well but would keep our DPS low, or we could go down a DPS path that would put us up near scouts and mages. And 3? I have no specific suggestions, but overall the balance between brawler sub classes needs to be improved.
Make a berserker. They seem to being pretty good when it comes to being the best at dps and tanking atm...
Wow dragorn i almost agree with you. here is what i think. Keep brawlers as comparable tanks for add pick ups etc.(not the best tank skills like Tower of stone set guards apart from bruisers), keep brawlers as sufficeint DPS below rogues but around bard DPS. Give brawlers 1 utility for raid guilds to say we need a bruiser to increase Raid DPS (ala Dispatch), We need a monk to keep the tank alive (ala massive debuffs from swash). We don't loose anything this way we don't interfere with other class roles. and we keep sufficient DPS tanking and raid desirebility.
I wouldn't say bezerker are the best overall tank, but they do tank and DPS far better then they should. I was always under the impression by the eq2 dev team that paladins were ment to be the second best tank. And we see what a good job they did on that. As far as DPS gos many beleive Warrior DPS to be far better then it should be particularly zerks. While few are chanting for a nerf to zerks. We wouldnt mind adjustments made to other classes to compensate for the warriors far better AA tree's. Which really is what all this came from. The warrior AA tree was far better then anything the brawlers or the crusaders recieved. +mitgation AA, + double attack w procs and wpns, +DPS. Etc. It offered warriors a clear option of becoming a better tank or better at DPS and agro. Imho no changes shoudl be made to the Kos AA tree until we see what mess is created by the EoF subclass and belief tree's.
Well, seems like this thread is starting to go in circles, so since it's kind of turned in to an opinion thread, I'll give mine I realize there are fairly significant differences between the 2 brawler classes. However I think the main issue even above the differences, is the "need" for brawlers. (yeah, I know, another circle). Which is why I think this thread got hijacked and tuned into a "needed" class discussion. Because it's the real issue. I really don't care about the differences too much between brawlers. I play a 70 monk with 48 AA's just for the record. I also have a 70 assassin. In my guild, my monk is never really asked to come to a raid. The guild usually wants me to bring my 70 assassin or 69 illusionist. It's just a fact. I didn't roll my monk because I wanted to tank. I wanted to dps mostly and just like the "character" of a monk. Honestly, I still make the dps list 98% of the time. First is assassins, then summoners, then wiz's. I'm usually right under them about 7 or 8 on the list. I think that's reasonable since I'm not pure "dps" or "tank". The thing that DOES irritate me though, is the fact that our zerkers now are reaching top 5 consistantly on the dps list. Outdamaging everything other then assassins, and summoners. it's usually 60/40 the wizs make the top 5 only a touch more then the zerkers. So yeah, a plate tank should NOT be outdamaging virtually all scouts and brawlers, and maintain superb tanking mit at the same time. Our MT is a zerker, it's not him doing the uber damage "usually". It's the other 2 zerks in offensive duel wielding that tear past the scouts and brawlers, and even the MT on occasioin. So yeah, I say give us brawlers something else to help the desireability factor. Like one post above said, presure points, etc.....DEBUFFS would be my guess for a good start if they don't want to up our dps. Virtually everyone of my assassins CA's have some sort of debuff/dot on them, not to mention all the poisons assassins get. So give brawlers debuffs of one sort or another on each CA and all of a sudden our desireability goes up. Either that, or since quite a few of the Monks CA's have some sort of stun/knockdown/stifle, make it affect Epic targets...thus "desireabliity" on raids. My assassin is boring in group situations, yet a blast in Raid's. My illusionist is way more fun in group situtations and very boring in Raid situations. However I love playing my monk in both situations. So give brawlers some other reason to be at a raid is all I'm saying, and appears most of the brawler community feels the same way.
This is a hot topic (again), so I guess adding to it (again) might possibly bring some attention (never) to a situation that is in dire need of a well thought out (hahaha- good luck) fix. I apologize for the sarcasm since it isnt constructive, but it is honestly to the point that without some wry humor I cant even stand to approach this subject. I think my first ever forum post was on this exact topic 4 months out of beta. So to approach the OP's point first so as not to be accused of derailing, brawler balance. I am going to make a few huge assumptions, mainly because there is no official statements I can draw on that cant be twisted or reneged in a moment. I will base my assumptions on general feeling in the forums for the past year +. Intended 1. Tanking- Monk > Bruiser 2. Damage- Bruiser > Monk 3. Utility- Monk = Bruiser Tanking To make a balance work, Monks need a comfortable edge in tanking that is equal to the Bruiser edge in damage. Monks need to find a sustainable mitigation advantage and a sustainable avoidance advantage. Avoidance changes are obviously not as critical since the avoidance tanking system has been disfunctional. Mitigation is the biggest sticking point for monk tanking. Having scouts tank equally to a monk, simply due to mitigation difference, is beyond ridiculous. Without the ability to sustain mit levels higher than scouts for all brawlers, and the ability for monks to sustain higher mit values than bruisers, their is no way to balance this issue currently. The Monk mitigation + root ability was mentioned in an earlier post. It is useless when compared to the mitigation + health drain. It has a painfully long cast time, it is short duration, you cant use it to pull, and it is much weaker. Making it a toggle ability and much stronger could help, but that is just a thought. The brawler heal abilities are also off. Monk version = longer recast, weaker effect, target others, mana free. Bruiser version = shorter recast, stronger effect, self only, low mana cost. The only advantage the monk version has is the mana free cast, I personally consider the ability to cast on others or self only an even trade. Both styles can give you problems or cause complications when using the ability. The weaker effect and longer recast seems excesive penalties to pay. If they dont want to be able to heal 5000hp on a guard with a monk heal they should add different heal amounts if the monk uses it on self or on target. Damage Damage seems to be inline when comparing brawlers to each other. It is a bit off when comparing brawlers to others. Some issues to fill this area. Bruisers hate their proc buffs. Monks think their haste is a dead end ability. Utility Utility also seems balance between the two. Giving monks a bruiser ability that dead ended at 50 seemed like a backhand to the face, but it was nice to get something. Ok now derailing to raid usefulness. I dont have any clue how to do this well. I feel bad that the developers painted themselves into such a sad corner. The best I could come up with is debuffing abilities. Give monks abilities that debuff att speed, dps, str, int, and attack skills. Give bruisers abilities that debuff, mit, resist, wis, agi, and defense skills. This would give them added utility and increase their ability to do their respected job focus in smaller groups as well. Problem with this is that if you make the abilities stack with scout, mage, and priest ones.....bring on the cries of content being marginalized and huge nerfs all around. Or watch as enemies have their difficulty cranked up so the change is moot, and we all remember how well this worked when they decided avoidance was overpowering. In fact, dont remember, go play and see how it feels seeing as this is ongoing. Anyway I am going to wind down now. BUT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD this is a real issue, please dont let this go another 9 mos with no corrections. Az Nek 70 monk
No offense but it's always been a hot topic.. just an overlooked diluted one....\ For way to long. This should stay at the top of the heep.. and I feel all monks should voice on it. It will most likely as we know *track record* in hand do anything.. but atleast it's a somewhat step in the right direction. Again I thank Mr Gaige and others I back about this long and needed problem. and appreciate their knowledgeable input, that is all from me! MONK ON! lol Puab Closk FTW! Don't concentrate on the finger or you will miss all the heavenly glory! Message Edited by HydroTsunami on 09-20-2006 08:54 PM
I think the big problem is that monks are the hybrid in EQ2. In EQ they had a very easily definable role. Problems: They (brawlers) cannot tank as well as other fighter classes (or even some scouts). They (brawlers) cannot DPS as well as scouts (and even some fighters). Their (brawlers) utility, while greater to themselves than others, is still underwhelming. Does that just about cover the issue then? Performing under par in just about every area rather than excelling in one and lacking in others or coming out about even all around? (and yes, under par is still "all around", but you know where I'm going).
"SOLO" yes, "GROUP PLAY" (aka also ROLES) no... - X group, looking for tank... - I'm a monk, can I join? - You can't tank there, we only have one healer.. - Y group, looking for DPS... - I'm a monk, can I join? - Heh, your DPS not well enough, may be if we can't find other 8 classes.. It is sad to hear many guilds booting their monks & SK's for they don't need them in any area. Message Edited by selch on 09-23-2006 06:47 AM
What I meant was if you are unhappy with the class, then hang up the GI for awhile until its fixed. Don't play a class that you are dissapointed with because that's just a waste of time and energy. What I DO think is that a thread needs to be started that includes a list of consolodated issues that the community has about the monk class. The thread title should be something not accusational or whiney. The more facts the better. Everyone should try and contibute as much as possible, so that it is obvious it is coming from the majority of the community.
