State of the Bruiser for Chains of Eternity

Discussion in 'Fighters' started by Obano, Nov 12, 2012.

  1. Obano Well-Known Member

    Overall the state of the Bruiser in the Chains of Eternity expansion is very good. Bruisers will still primarily fill the role of tanking in groups and raids. The role of the Bruiser is to protect the group, control agro on mobs, and lead parties through dungeons safely. The bruiser is very good at either filling Main Tank or Off Tank roles. Bruisers have decent single and AoE capibilities to deal with a very wide range of mob encounters. What has changed recently is that bruisers can bring a lot of DPS when not filling a tank role. The Bruiser class isn't the best choice for everyone though. The Bruiser can be a challange to play but if played to the max of what it is capable of. Playing a bruiser will be one of the most rewarding experiences the game has to offer. Bruisers can do things no other class can do such as teleport with sonic fists and drag mobs away. This is what makes the class unique and fun.


    The biggest issue for bruisers is that the class is rather hard to play for new players and casuals. Bruisers do not have a lot of good abilities at low levels. The abilities that really make a bruiser shine do not come until later in the game. Bruiser doesn't get a 100% parry until level 80. Bruiser has no death save until they have 220 or so AA spent. Bruisers also don't get a good snap agro ability until 200+ AA as well. Getting to that point takes patients on the part of new players. New players need to shoot for maxing their AA all the to 320AA to get everything a bruiser needs to fully shine.

    For TANKING

    As for adornments the highest priority is white hate gain adorns for Wrists and gloves. In CoE content bruisers will also need to load up on hate gain yellow and red adorns. Balancing this with needed critical chance adorns can be a very tricky task for the casual bruiser. Try to aim for at least 40% solo hate mod so with group buffs your bruiser can reach the 100% hate gain cap.


    Bruiser and reforging: Reforging some stats to hate gain can help but I would recommend using reforging for some strikethrough. The biggest advantage a monk has over a bruiser is their 50% strikethrough epic buff. Reforging is the only possible way a Bruiser can only make up this difference. The stats that do the least for us and are best removing are AoE auto attack and dps mod. Reforge those into strikethrough, hate gain, or multi attack.


    Group make up is also very important for bruisers. Dirge for hate gain and coercer hate will make a world of difference in letting a bruiser become an effective tank. Assassin or Swashbuckler transfer also works well for a bruiser tank. Without an ideal group a bruiser is much harder to play regardless of level.
    The best single advice I can give new and casual bruiser is make sure to be in defensive stance at all times and to make sure that defensive stance is Master quality. If defensive stance drops for some reason in middle of a fight make sure you click it back on ASAP.

    For DPS

    If you can survive the content be sure to use reckless stance for maximizing DPS. With the way the new Prestige works bruisers will need to be played more like a scout. The DPS bruiser will need to stay behind the mob for the bonus damage. To achieve this Bruisers will need to drop their hate gain mods otherwise agro will be a huge issue. It is best an alternate set of gear with DPS in mind that is separate from your Tank gear. This allows the Bruiser not to be pigeon holed into one role or the other and extra flexibility.

    Tips for DPS include learning how to time temps for maximum effect. The best combo is Chi+ Crane flock+ Vicious Combination + Combat Mastery and keep them of rotation with max reuse. Since Chi has a longer cool down than VC+CM try to time the second combo with Divine Recovery since you will probably grouped with an Inquisitor. The AA used is exactly the same as the tanking build. The difference between tanking and dps is a matter of gear, adorns, stance, and combo rotations.

    My current recommended AA and Prestige build can be seen here.
    http://u.eq2wire.com/soe/aas/2168960708413

    Complaints and Recommendations:

    Rock Skin is currently useless and needs to be revamped. The mitigation is not beneficial at all in any practical sense and using Rock Skin comes with steep penalties that make it detrimental to tanking. If I were to change this the penalties would go away and the mitigation value would be changed into 25% magic damage reduction. (Please do not use this ability or it won't ever be fixed)


    Drag needs to work on more mobs then it currently does. Unless there is a script reason for a mob to be immune to drag all mobs need to be made dragable.

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  2. Buffrat Well-Known Member

    If Rock Skin were going to be 25% magical damage reduction then it should keep the penalties. Otherwise it'd be way too strong.
  3. Jokirr Member

    Agreed, would need to keep the penalties.
  4. Obano Well-Known Member

    Don't want to make this thread entirely about Rock Skin but since it was the only thing commented on I will say this.

    No other class in the game has an ability with penalties on the level of Rock Skin.
    - The monk version of Rock Skin has its' penalties removed.
    - Warriors have have a penalty associated with Dragoons reflexes but it is not half as bad as Rock Skin
    - Paladin death prevent had a penalty associated with it but it was removed
    - Dirge had a penalty with their heal but that too was removed
    - Crusaders get damage reduction without penalties and it is not over powered

    If 25% is too much than reduce it to 10% or reduce the duration but the penalties have to go. Remember this is just magic damage reduction we are talking about not straight damage reduction. The real issue is Root + stifle is just too much that it completely ruins the defensive side of the Bruiser Prestige. I will say again no other class has a penalty like this. If you can think of an example than maybe I am wrong. The idea of abilities with penalties for using them is a legacy design decision that does not work with the current game and really needs to be fixed.
  5. Erszebeth Active Member

    warriors dragoon reflexes is worthless, if you use any ability, ANY, it dispels, thus nullifying its usefulness unless solo.
  6. Obano Well-Known Member

    If you don't cast anything Dragoons Reflexes still works as a strikethrough immune 100% parry. Autoattack still works which means warriors still get a majority of their procs. If this was the ONLY penalty associated with Rockskin it would be fine. Rockskin has TWO penalties though. Rock skin also put an unbreakable root on the caster too so you can't even move. There is no ability in the game with two penalties attached to it. My point stands.

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  7. Erszebeth Active Member

    And while your not casting anything to keep reflexes going, the DPS starts ripping and dieing with a quickness, its just not realistic for a warrior to stand there and do nothing to keep strikethrough immunity from reflexes and have any real hope of holding aggro, as such its still a wasted AA.
  8. Netty Member

    I use Reflexes on most raids. Its not a waste of AA even tho its junk vs other fighters temp avoidance buffs. I would say its the other way around if you dont take this one as a raiding zerk you are just bad. Temp avoidance buffs works like a charm on CO-OPing adds. Its not a awsome ability but its not bad either. Same as rockskin imo. Its not awsome and its not bad. Best way around it would just be to remove the penalty on both of them imo.
  9. Erszebeth Active Member

    I can get behind removing penalties, most of the penalties have long outlived their usefulness, and other abilities have come that are more powerful.
    The reason I stand behind reflexes being teh sucketh, is because everytime I have used it, and seen it used, DPS starts dying, heals start dying, and the tank is forced to cut it short before its been of any significant usefulness anyways.
    As for a zerk, thats alot of wasted AA just to get there.
  10. Estred Well-Known Member

    Dragoon's works great while MTing as well but I think Guardians resist the "dps rips off me" more because of their reactive hate. You can also Taunt/Snaptaunt while Dragoon's is running. Only damaging CA's cancel the ability. Rockskin doesn't need that root attached to it imo.
  11. Makya Active Member

    On the topic of Bruiser DPS temp buffs, it is best to use Vicious Combination first as you say but hold off hitting Combat Mastery until the time left on Vicious Combination is 12-13s. This will allow you to build up the damage for Vicious Combination first and then get the max amounts on it from Combat Mastery at the end of it's run when it will be hitting the hardest.