Just as the title says, I was just wondering if Brawlers are even viable right now. If so, what does one focus on in terms of stats....from first to last. I'm assuming Brawlers are rarely used as a MT in raids? Lastly, is there a good place to determine the differences between the two, and if they would ever be raid viable, which one is best. Lastly, are they any good at PLing friends or are the other tanks better. Thanks
Yes, both Brawlers are viable in Heroic and Raid content. Bruiser may have it harder then monk, but they are both viable and seen if heroic and raid tanking. when you get geared both are good at PLing and i will need to get back to u about the Differences if no one gets to it first
From a Bruiser standpoint: There's nothing we excel in anymore, except maybe shiny farming. But even monks can do that. AE aggro and dmg berserkers are more reliable, single target pretty much every other tank is just as good if not better then Bruiser. We're supposed to be the AE/dps counterpart of monks, but in reality SoE has no idea what to do withBruisers and what role to give them. Monks are a primary choice for MT with their advantage of going immune to incoming mellee dmg longer then Bruisers can, but that seems to drain all the brainpower from devs and nothing left to invest into Bruisers. You'd think as leather wearer we'd excel at doing dmg over the plate dps tanks ( berserker/SK),you know, since we trade in heavy mitigation armor for being nimble and agile....but alas, we get to use the same items as plate tanks and get absolutely nothing in exchange for the weaker mitigation on armor. Point being; since the implementation of an automatic loot generating software, leather tanks are pretty much screwed, since we don't get any brainpower investested into itemization anymore that would differentiate us from plate tanks. You might be able to do the job as brawler, but with the same gear/knowledge you will be a better SK/PAL/BER/GUA, simply to the fact the loot software favors plate tanks. We all get to use the same items. Except Plate gets more mitigation on their armor. they get the same block tho, since there's no brawler-only items giving extra block/dmg output potential. Wouldn't recommend a brawler for current game.
... no no no no. There is nothing wrong with a bruiser or their abilities. Strac no offence, but your issues are based on the fact that you're wearing 6/7 pieces from last expac.... using pow bruiser cloak. If you upgrade to the new armor and get all mit pieces you will see a BIG difference in the class, and that is with heroic armor. Des Hen, Brawlers are great for any position needed on a raid. I'm bias towards bruiser and believe they are the superior tank, but its a matter of opinion. If you want to roll a brawler, I suggest bruiser. Get your hp as high as possible and use nothing but mit armor if you plan on tanking with ease this expac. as for agro management. 5m or less bruiser is very strong, outside of 5m its iffy. Single target IMO a bruiser can out perform any tank in the game at agro management. However, a tank is only as good as the rest of the group and the classes in that group....
Could anyone elaborate on the differences between the two.....pluses and minues. Thanks, The skills of the Bruiser look nicer, but my goal is Raid tanking....and if Monk is better.....
Monks – we have probably a better temp rotation against Physical Attacks. Vs non-Physical Attacks we only have the 3 trigger Death Save and … 1 Stone Skin that requires us to not be attacking with anything other than Taunts and Auto Attack. We have, I think, the most Single Target Snaps out of any tank, in this Xpac this is not a problem. But our AoE agro can be hard to control. We do get Hostility and DragonFire, between these to I do not normally have to much AoE agro. But if there are multiple mem-wiping mobs, it is very hard for me to deal with. The only tool I have as a monk for this is Mantis Leap and 3 Blue AoE Attacks, since normally they are not linked and Provoking Stance will not help. Bruisers – get more Stoneskins then monks (I do not know what types), also they get more self heals, But less Involns. They also get several Blue AoE taunts and Snaps.
Monks are awesome tanks, they just have the widest player skill variance. Monks specialize in active defenses, using temporary buff rotations to remain immune to melee damage for approximately 50% of all fights. Between rotations, we have a very nice death save, some reasonably fast-refreshing stoneskins, and a very nice mitigation buff that can bring us around plate tank values and has a nearly 90% uptime. As far as aggro goes, again, it's all active. We have by far the most single-target snaps in the game, and the combination of Mantis Leap and Crane Flock can grab a LOT of MOBs very efficiently, both of which have quite reasonable recharge times. Monks don't really look all that great on paper, but in practice they are amazing, IF you use your abilities properly and communicate well with your group. Let the healer know when your temp chain is ending so that they can cast their temp buffs on you to hold on until your next immunity cycle. Do this properly and you never have to spend time in combat without some sort of save running.
People are telling me that Monk is way better than Bruiser, but on paper I don't see why, other than a crappy mythical. What am I missing?
So basically a bruiser has a chance to proc a stone skin when a riposte goes off. The stone skin will block all damage types. Also, bruiser has stone deft which will stone skin three magic attacks. Another great bruiser ability is closed mind which is a control effect breaker that can be casted while stunned. Divide and conquer is amazing because it can force target an encounter. Wild beatings is an unlimited target aoe snap. So to sum it up...bruiser is an all in one package. Spell dmg can be avoided, physical damage can be avoided, stuns can be avoided, ae hate can be managed.....
Functionally, monks have more death prevention and temps for longer than bruisers which doesn't show on paper. In practice, it may or may not matter if you play well (I don't have enough experience to know). Bruisers rely much more on stoneskins and all-around absorbs and have less temps in correlation. With the proper gear and AA setup, either brawler is going to be a suitable main tank or a very suitable off-tank. We can even DPS if you are careful about what you are doing - but it requires different gear and a totally different AA setup than tanking, and you have to really understand the mechanics of recklessness and how to avoid getting knocked out of it all the time. There is a lot of stigma about brawler DPS - which I myself have been corrected on recently (the posts are still near the top of this forum) - which you will have to overcome. If they ever make more changes to recklessness, this will be a lot easier to deal with. Look at Silzin's sig for an example - he's got 1.86 million hitpoints now with his gear and AA setup. The last time I compared mine to his (no snickering, please ) he only had about 1.55 million. I had 400K at the time, and just by swapping AAs and adornments and some minor gear changes, I was able to get to 650K. It made a huge difference in my ability to clear content on my own. I see other tanks at level 100 still with far less than that. Once you get an HP pool like that, and get a handle on how to use your temps or stoneskins and preventions to handle the unavoidable damage and scripting - you are golden.
Both brawlers have the same death save, brawlers tenacity. Major difference between the two is the duration of tsunami
Yep, that was me not remembering correctly. Enhance: Brawler's Tenacity (which gives the extra triggers) is in the Heroic tree, which is shared by both classes, so bruisers can get 3 triggers and the extra duration too. The enhancements in the Monk tree that I was remembering were probably for Tsunami - which are different for each, as you noted, and something else (probably Will of the Heavens and the other temps). Darn you for making me check it though... because looking at the bruiser tree and seeing Fists of Fury, I now have... "Fists of anger... why?!?!" ...stuck in my head.
Never! My monk is my original character! I wasn't around at release, but she was born in March of 2005 - I would never betray or use a race change potion or anything of the sort. I do need a ninth character though (missing one for the last tradeskill class) - and I haven't decided yet on what it's going to be. I have a bruiser on Test, but I haven't played any of my characters there in a long while. I think it's still in its 20's. I think I had narrowed them down to Channeler, Wizard, Guardian, one of these three that I can't remember (Mystic, Shaman or Fury), or Conjurer. I guess I can add Bruiser to the mix since it will play differently enough, especially if I go with a race I don't already have, or another Aerakyn, or another Ratonga. Yis.
Bruiser really doesn't have a comparable version to tsunami, but I guess one could compare tsunami to the bruiser mythical temp. Monk has Bob and weave, tsunami, and tag team. Bruiser had impenetrable will, mythical buff, and tag team. While monk has the longer duration on tsunami the bruiser has reactive stone skin procs
both get Tag Team, we both have a 12 sec in Prestige left side (bob and weave or impenetrable Will) and the 3rd is Monk Tsunami and bruiser is there myth Clicky (I think)
Thanks guys for the quick responses. Although, I like the jumping to an ally skill the monk has, I am leaning towards the Bruiser. Genghes, I only have three rares atm, which three spells would you make first for the bruiser? Again, thanks everyone !
