First let me start with the back story. i have an 80 myth 200 AA dirge with full PVP gear etc. I have an 80 t2/pvp gear fabled Bruiser. 80 t1 shard gear necro. and a 75 melee spec warden. and a bunch of toons >70 I know a lot of changes are going to happen given the new expansion coming out so everything i say and all the responses are subject to change. That said I rolled my dirge in the early years of EQ2. Im on a PVP server. I am a casual raider and like to pvp but the majority of my play time is spent in small groups with 2-4 RL friends running instances attempting content that we prolly shouldnt be able to handle just the 4 of us. up until lately ive been forced to tank even as my dirge, or we kite the mob. I decided to roll up the bruiser which is fun since its a dps class that can sort of tank/ a tank class that can sort of dps. I love the bruiser but im never going to raid with him and anytime i see the parse i wish i parsed higher and anytime i see a plate tank i wish i could take a hit better. Now The bruiser is my toon i want to PVP with run around with and deck out as much as possible sort of my personal side project. my necro is just an off shoot dont really care all that much, i like to melee... bringing me back to the dirge, i do okay dps and everyone loves me and i always get a raid spot. but im tired of being everyones B**** increasing peoples dps by 30-50% and doing an okay amount on my own. what i want... a class that can put out some respectable dps without being avatar equiped. has some utility and fun factor IE stealth, feign death etc. aoe dps is nice but not a necessity of mine. and given the roll if it in my group of RL friends where i may have to pitch hit tanking. which class does the scout community vote for? so far im thinking either the bruiser, or one of the rogues, maybe a predator but im leaning more towards rogue over the predators. I love the dirge but hes kinda restricted to just raiding and some pvp now and then at this point, until the expansion anyway. any thoughts or input or ideas please let em fly.
Roll a brig or swashy. Swashies have more AE dps if thats your thing, but I love my brigand. The only thing i hate is after you get Walk The Plank, most AA's are crummy. Brigs and Swashies can sometimes off-tank and I know a few that can full-on tank groups. I will mostly talk about brig as I have never played a swash. I love my brig debuffs. I can solo extremely efficiently due to a huge amount of stuns. Most fights i never even get hit by the mob because I just use Walk The Plank (Turns the target away from the rogue so that you can backstab it) and then with my 3 main stuns I can keep the mob turned away from me for the entire fight while they can't do a thing. We absolutely decimate mitigation to make other classes and ourselves do a lot more damage. I would say Roll a brig or a swash. You wont be dissapointed.
I love my Swashy, but if you're doing a lot of one on one combat, the brigand is the better way to go. They both bring important debuffs to a group and do good dps. As a broad generalization, brigs debuff defense, swashies debuff offense. The swash does transfer hate which is important for grouping (your tank will thank you). But I have to admit, I think I'd give the edge to brigs when soloing.
Thanks for the feedback thus far, i have been leaning towards a rogue. and they do seem fun and it was my class in eq1. i had a 60 brig that i betrayed to swash a few days back to try it out and im liking it thus far, but in reading the notes of upcoming changes to rogues makes me skeptical also i know if one wants to tank they should roll a tank and in reading the rogue forums anytime someone brings up tanking as a rogue they get yelled at but which rogue is better at it. looks like the brig has a lot more potential for mit and the stuns would help with not taking damage. but the swash has the aoe dps which is nice for hate gain in addition to having more frontal dps as supposed to backstab dps that the brig has which they would not be able to utilize if tanking.
curnalsanders wrote: The people on the rogue forums probably just don't like people talking about tanking because they are narrow minded fools. Rogues can tank pretty well and I think brigand might be slightly better for survivability but swashy would be MUCH better for holding aggro and still doing good DPS.
