I did read a snapshot of Kander saying in discird that shields will be fixed in the next expansion officially. I would like to believe that but given his track record of saying things and not being able to deliver later, i have no faith in that. After all, did he not say that this expansion we were getting an AA revamp and we all know how that turned out...
A bit at the start of the xpac, and some more we're currently in the middle of, disguised as ethereals. Perhaps wave 3 will revamp the dragon tree? I wouldn't put it past them to then at the start of the next xpac just make those changes universal.
I don't see a reason why a tank class would want backstabs. You're a tank. Tank the mob. If you want to sit behind the mob and dps, play a scout.
That is like telling a Paladin if they want their heals fixed they should play a healer or telling an SK if they want to use magic they should role a mage. Do you understand there are hybrid classes in the game? Bruiser is the hybrid of fighter and scout. Bruiser has had a back stab for 17 years since EQII was in beta back in 2004 and had backstab component to their epic 1.0. This is not some new I am asking for. These abilities have not kept up with the game's stat inflation and as a result Bruisers have become irrelevant. The FIX is to give Bruisers a hard hitting backstab that matters in current content.
Sucker punch was for use after you'd spun the mob, which was part of the bruiser's normal rotation back in the day. This often had the hilarious side effect of your raid taking the frontal cone in the face and everyone yelling at the bruiser. Fist of Gorynn isn't a backstab. It's a proc which behaves differently depending on whether you are in front or behind the mob. Just because something does that, it doesn't make your place behind the mob, it just means if you happen to be behind the mob, you don't build unwanted additional hate. Boneshattering Combination does something similar. The bruiser's problems have zero to do with these two crappy abilities, and bruisers absolutely do not need a heavy backstab, they need solid tanking and hate generation abilities which would give them a fighting chance beside the other tank classes.
Sounds like you never played a Bruiser before. Eagle Spin never worked on epics. If a raid ever ate a frontal cone it was because someone ripped aggro. Or sucker punch itself ripped aggro off the MT and the Bruiser got blamed for hitting their heavy backstab. Eagle Spin was also been changed so it no longer has a spin component to it. Now it also just says: "Must be flanking or behind." I am a full time raiding Bruiser in a high end Guild. For 99% of the time I do NOT tank anything. We have excellent plate tanks for that job. My role is what I call "DPS with extra responsibilities." I am there to pick up extra adds if needed and take care of stray bulwarks. I have cleared everything flawless except for Emperor (Hardmode) which nobody has killed yet. I know what Bruisers needs to be viable in raids and it is not better tanking or aggro management. What Bruisers need right now is harder hitting backstabs similar to Hadooken.
I do feel for you. You've nailed your flag to the mast and stuck by it for so long, but you're almost entirely alone, and although you perform this role, that doesn't make it the intended role of the class. Fighters are tanks. The classes are not balanced, and some tank classes are vastly more effective than others. But a fighter's primary role, is getting punched in the face by the mobs and taking it like a champ. I think the wording of your statement is wrong. It isn't Bruisers who need harder hitting backstabs, it's you who needs it to perform your role in your raid more effectively. I expect others out there would like to see the Bruiser be a viable tank again and have the tools to perform that more traditional role effectively. Frankly if you're not the number 2 tank in the raid, you're probably there for synergy or friendship/reliability, as why would you take a bruiser to backstab a mob when you could take another sin? Sorry but that's just where the game is right now.
Seriously what do you know about the intended role of the class? I have been playing this game since day 1 and know the history. When the game first came out there were two brawlers Monk and Bruiser. It was specifically stated by the devs Mooreguard and Blackguard that the Bruiser was intended to be the more offensive of the two. For the first 10 years of the game's history the Bruiser would out parse a Monk. This was balanced because the Monk had superior defenses such as Tsunami. Bruisers got DPS oriented skills such as KO combo which is now a worthless skill. Then for the last 6 or 7 expansions Bruisers pretty much got nothing while Monks got all the new cool buffs. Though things have started to get better for Bruiser since the partial revamp back in March. But damn straight the classes aren't balanced. When a Monk can both out DPS and out Tank a Bruiser there is a problem. No class should be completely dominant in both fields. I am okay with Monk having better defenses because that is what their class was always designed to be from the beginning. That is their intended role. Monks are the defensive brawlers and Bruisers are the evil aligned (chaotic neutral) offensive brawler that fights dirty and has backstabs. If you want to play turtle tank than that is a Monks' job or for a plate tank. Bruiser is mostly DPS. Not saying they can't tank at all. Bruiser was never really designed to be the MT or the OT. There is nothing wrong with playing a 3rd tank. There are many fights where there are too many adds and tank swaps to be handled by just 2 tanks. There is always one fight per expansion that hard requires three tanks. This is why you don't overfill your raid with assassins. There are other roles to fill and Bruiser fits into that tanky DPS role nicely. The problem is the balance. Monks are too strong and Bruisers are too weak. The fix is to give Bruisers more dps. It is my view that the DPS should come in the form of a backstab otherwise it would be over powered.
I doubt they'll dedicate any significant dev time to a class played by 3 people worldwide. I'm really sorry man, I love your passion and dedication, but well, our guardian finally gave up and swapped to zerker a while back. I think it's only pride that stops you seeing the sensible thing to do. The class is dead and irrelevant and played by so few it's far more likely to stay that way than get any kind of fix. A betrayal is a simple thing to do, and you could be having a far more fulfilling experience playing a monk.
You assume many things and are of course wrong about those assumptions. They have already spent considerable Dev time making changes to Bruiser. You obviously missed the patch notes from back in March when they boosted up 15 different abilities. Then in July they fixed a long standing bug with Boneshattering combination that significantly increased my parse. Bruiser is probably 90% fixed at this point but getting that last 10% remains a thorn in my side. I will never stop advocating for class balance. Bruisers will get the respect that they deserve when they are out parsing Monks like they used to back in the day. I think that day will come again fairly soon.
I read many years ago on eq2 Flames that the bruiser was by design to be akin to a Muy Thai fighter martial arts. Their abilities were focused on precise and powerful attacks that brutalized their opposition. Many believed that the bruiser was a bar room fighter but that title more suited the brigands. Bar room negotiations ring a bell? Anyway the lines began to blur over nine years ago. I’m not sure if it was new developers or class envy but the identity of all the fighters began to be marred with the illusion of so called balance. I have said this before but why have six fighters if they will all be equal in defense, offense, and utility? Each one way back then were definitely unique. An argument that I always heard was “bruisers are a tank class and should not be dpsing as high as they are” yet not many complaints were made for those two rogues and their ability to definitely be dps and could tank relatively as good as bruisers could. I started the game as a berserker and really enjoyed the class. A few months later I rolled a shadowknight and it too was fun. Then I rolled my bruiser and honestly fell head over heals with him. Leveled them all up and the bruiser was my go to if another dps was not able to fill that slot in a group better than my sk or zerker could do. After TSO the tables started changing and the bruiser began to fall behind. Apparently this is still the case in today’s game. I’m with Obano on this. The bruiser should be by the original design the greater offensive fighter of the archetype.
Fixing shields after having acknowledged they been broken for 1½ expansion is nice I suppose (Should have been fixed within a month of learning about it). I just have to wonder if it will even make a noticeable difference with how raid content is tuned now. It also does nothing for bruisers at all.
Can you please please bump the guardian's dissociating limbs and taunting strike damage/threat up? Been saying this since BoL, it is just unfair compared to zerkers equivalent. Our spike damage are so reliant on procs/buffs from other classes and our highest hitting stuff are the two taunts with combat arts not even appearing in top 10 of the parse for the most part. Falling on deaf ears no doubt but can use this to bump the thread up..
I guess if Obano wants backstabs he can get backstabs. The rest of the playerbase that wants to actually tank will betray to monk, since they so defensively (and offensively) superior. Have fun being the only person in the game playing your class because the balance changes you've asked for only benefit you.
I was just talking to another raiding Bruiser yesterday and he told me he betrayed to Monk because he wanted to parse higher. If Bruisers could out parse Monks there would be a lot more of them. Just saying. Nobody rolled a Bruiser because they wanted to be a leather wearing guardian.
Well, monks parse way too high for a tank, so there's that. Just like zerks offer way too much utility for a tank. Maybe, if tanks were tanks again with lower than T1 dps and less useful utility than the utility classes, tanks in general would feel a little more balanced. Pushing to be OP is as laughable as Dragon fire ever was.
Maybe Monks do parse too high but I would rather not call for nerfs but instead buff the classes that need help. Bruiser is still one of the classes that needs a boost. Many of the roles are being blurred at the moment. If a utility class can parse as high as a Zerk then the whole point about Zerks having "too much utility" becomes moot. It is their niche and shouldn't be taken away. Other fighters should be as desirable as Monks and Zerks. I don't think any fighter is OP at the moment. Tanks are still getting the short end of the stick as far as raid representation goes. Most guilds only run 3 fighters / 4 at max. If fighters were genuinely OP guilds would be running a lot more of them and they would be the most popular classes. Instead players avoid fighters like the plague and we have a game wide tank shortage. The real meta in this game is scout-healer-mage with an odd tank thrown in as an afterthought. This needs to change. I am not an expert on what other tanks need but Bruiser needs something that can compete with Dragon fire on the parse. This is the main reason I advocate for a hard hitting back stab. It is the one thing a Bruiser really lacks right now is a hard hitting CA.
I don't understand why you're pushing for scout like abilities on a tank? Has your entire time in EQ2 been spent not actually tanking? It seems strange to me that you're pushing for a t1 class as a tank. That's not your job, and simply because Monks are in a silly place doesn't mean that a bruiser should also be in that realm just for the sake of parity. On top of that, idk any bruisers but you that want to play a tank and NOT tank. Seems backwards.
