Brawler Feedback Thread

[Banefinger]

It's okay to have a little downtime building as long as the payoff is there. It seems like the design is obvious - you build to 9, you fire off a spender, you get your three points back, then fire off another. The longer you keep doing this, the stronger you get through the innate strength buffs. This also means that if the design works, there's some skill to be had from spending and building correctly, minimizing the amount you want to use your builders. But if the class just isn't doing much damage then they're not really getting anything out of the payoff part.

The OP does a very good job of describing my problems with the class. The tiering buffs and cooldowns don't really add much on their own, and there's a lot of overlap in the functions of cooldown skills. The bonuses from the builders are just not terribly interesting either, aside from one. On the other hand, this is one of two classes whose animations and sound design really spoke to me as being properly meaty and impactful. Every helm-crusher is a treasure.

I don't agree that Fervor is not a mechanic. You need it for some skills. Ok this is not a problem and you don't have to pay attention to it on a Champ because you can use battle frenzy every 10 sec and the other skills generates enough Fervor, but it's still a game mechanic like Focus is also for Hunter, etc. For Brawler I would rather concentrate on which Builder skill to use before the next finisher, right now you have to use all 3 and sometime you don't get the bonus from the last one you used.

[Geometryisawesome]

It's a tricky line to walk, mostly because the entire thing is totally subjective.

Very true, and I probably could have been clearer that the class isn't really doing enough to make it feel worth it right now. I'm sure most people would just like an across the board damage buff, but personal preference would be for leaving the builders weak (relatively) and buffing the spenders more, but also smoothing out mettle generation somehow. Not making it trivial, but there are some good suggestions in this thread, like making revel in victory proc off crits too and things like that.

[Joedangod]

I don't agree that Fervor is not a mechanic.

It doesn't really limit the Champion in any way, mostly just stops you chaining 2 big fervour spenders in a row...instead you press another skill between them. It's like power, yes it's there and yes technically skills use up power but no, nobody is actively having to think about their power consumption.

Very true, and I probably could have been clearer that the class isn't really doing enough to make it feel worth it right now. I'm sure most people would just like an across the board damage buff, but personal preference would be for leaving the builders weak (relatively) and buffing the spenders more, but also smoothing out mettle generation somehow. Not making it trivial, but there are some good suggestions in this thread, like making revel in victory proc off crits too and things like that.

Revel in victory proccing off crits is pretty questionable as it would effectively always be on...so you're basically just giving it passive mettle generation but pretending there's player interaction involved. Weaving 2 set-ups between spenders is pretty reliable right now, the actual amount of mettle being generated is fine it just takes too long and absolutely no damage is being done in that window. Shortening set-up animations to be closer to 0.75s duration would result in snappier generation that is still primarily controlled by the player. It'd also go a long way towards ensuring the set-ups feel different to spenders, quick/light blows versus slow/heavy hits. Still need to buff the damage of set-ups on top of that but set-ups absolutely need a damage boost, you can't get away with slapping 500k tooltips on the spenders to offset the lack of set-up DPS.

[Xelander]

Changing the attack speeds and animations will negatively impact higher latency users by latency binding the output the class could do. This is similar to how Wardens currently work. Adding Revel in Victory to be triggered on Crits will across the board make the class more playable for everyone.

If we want Brawler DPS to feel more balanced we should be looking at tweaks and not wholesale changes on timings. Changing animation timings adds a whole other set of balance pass issues while passive mettle generation works within the framework of what already exists. I would want to see the Dev magnitude from the trait line changed to Crit so it is more in line with every other melee DPS, but that's a personal ask.

The majority seem to agree that adding some kind of passive Mettle Generation would make the class more enjoyable to play. The similarity to how Champs or Hunters respective point building shouldn't be the break point, Brawlers will still fundamentally play differently.

[Joedangod]

Changing the attack speeds and animations will negatively impact higher latency users by latency binding the output the class could do. This is similar to how Wardens currently work.

It's not. Masteries have an exceptionally short animation duration, far less than 0.75s which is why they're somewhat susceptible to occasionally firing in an unintended order. Latency isn't actually the cause of the misfire though, that tends to be more of a symptom of lag spikes/packet loss. A consistent connection shouldn't have any issue unless you're playing at some ridiculous 500+ ping. A 0.75s duration on the skills would be relatively safe from this issue.

And no, there is no majority here. It's the forums, virtually nobody looks at it.

[Apex9221]

Conclusion is that brawler is not worth the cost atm... Just buy it with points when it comes to the store.

[Winzhi]

Done the current endgame in both specs. While the combat animations looks awesome and the rotation is fluid I dont see why and who would bring a brawler for any raid or group content over pretty much any other melee. The class offers nothing unique other than the 3rd trait line and looking pretty. Its also kinda squishy compared to other tanks I took for a spin in endgame and dps tree is undertuned and the buffs are kinda negligible with current tuning.

Clever Technique & Precision will be obsolete and a waste of two spec bonusses once you hit a certain gear level every single expansion, I think its a pretty horrible idea to have crit and finesse rating there. Changing one to increased auto attack speed would be much better and the other maybe to lower global cooldown?

Light and Devastation is alright but I dont understand the increases to Devastate damage. You might be able to get like 9% devastate chance at the end of an expansion. I much rather see an increase in critical damage. Same with the actual trait called Devastate Damage Increase[/B]. I think its the only class in the game where you can increase Devastate damage and while its great to see new ideas I feel like wasting so much space on something that barely ever has an effect on output and is completely RNG is kinda meh at most.

My last issue is how many trait points you need to use before Latent Light becomes an okay passive. You need 11 trait points for a relative small passive damage buff and a spec bonus. That is way too much and even after spending 11 trait points it procs too little or does too little damage for the investment. Merging Light Damage Increase with the Light and Devastation spec bonus would make sense and increase that damage to +50% and add something new to use in red line. I am again much in favor of increasing auto attack and/or lowering the global cooldown for a class like the brawler class. It just seems to suit the class thematically.

On a more lore subject and class asthetic opinion its kinda odd that a brawler can wear heavy armor. One would think brawling in heavy armor would be a major PITA. I understand having the mitigation is great especially when considering the penalty when using Aggressive Posture, but I still feel like the designer of the class should have made the class light or medium based and have some way to increase our avoidance in red line taking even more advantage of the stinging nettle when soloing. I feel like this was the original class idea but maybe it was changed for landscape balancing?

[Banefinger]

First I'd say the tanking build is fun to play with cool animations and cool abilities / buff to the fellowship / raid. However there are many things to change to make it appealing vs other tanking classes.

Interrupt Skills

Cooldown needs to be reduced, it shares the longest cd with RK, most melees have 10s cooldown and it is mandatory to have a good interrupt as a tank. Work has been done in the past to balance Interrupts / Corruption skills like in patch 27.2. This class seems left alone and unbalanced.

Interrupt Skills
Beorning Vicious Claws 12
Brawler Fulgurant Strike 20
Burgler Addle 10
Captain Kick 10
Champion Clobber 10
Guardian Stamp 10
Hunter Blindside 18
LM Blinding Flash 15
Minstrel Piercing Cry 10
R Keeper Final Word 20
Warden Shield Slam 20, 2nd Interrupt with gambits.

IC Movement Speed Buff

Missing Movement Speed buff In combat. While the OOC buff is nice, the brawler needs one in combat. There are a lot of time you need it to kite. For current content as example, there are fights on 3/6 mans T3+ where you really need to kite to avoid damage. I haven't seen a tank yet able stand still and survive on T4/T5 when the dmg reductions skills are off.

Mettle Generation
The mettle generation is not enough good, same issue for DPS build.
Quick Feint, reduce cooldown, add a mettle regen over time.
Mettle Generation is an issue while kiting cause because you need to face the mobs to use setup skills and build mettle.
Mettle Shield is useless because you can't generate enough mettle to compensate in most situations.

Healing
Weather Blows cd needs to be reduced like for similar Beo/Gua skills.
Joy of Battle - Heal needs to be reworked, useless right now for a 3m skill. Boost healing, remove cooldown of 0.5s between pulses.

Other Skills
Efficient Strike : Its a top tier trait and 3m cooldown --> boosts its reduction to 2 mettle
Hasten Powerful Techniques is completely bugged and doesn't reduce the cooldown of skills.

Aggro Management
Single Target OK
Multiple Target needs to be improved. Its fine when you push "Come At Me" but after that you dont deal enough AoE dps to keep the aggro. The mettle/dps is an issue so if those are fixed it will help for sure.
A Bigger Range with Strike toward the Sky would help also. I don't know if it is as intended but 2.7m with a tracery is really small.
2 of the AoE skills are frontal + close melee range so it's hard to keep the Threat on a scattered group
Kiting is hard to achieve compare to Beo/Cpt/Gua because you can't generate threat when running and when you turn you need to wait for mobs to be in melee range.


Thank you!

[Zuckerberg]

can we please get dps that can hold up in PvMP Zone and address the fact that we dont have the buffs from gaining ranks (im sure the rank buff is an easy fix and should not take this long after release of the brawler)

[Finrowe]

Conclusion is that brawler is not worth the cost atm... Just buy it with points when it comes to the store.

Definitively.
I ll now always wait for the availability into lotro store; and it will be probably even to early for this brawler class

[drongo]

I'm guessing there is someone in the SSG team who thought having a red glove in a circle animate over the players head once a fight is over would make sense, but I'm an indie game dev and it makes no sense to me.

What does it indicate?

I also noticed yellow and orange versions.
Do they make sense to anyone else?

I get the the half circle surrounding both sides of the character indicates the amount of mettle, but sorry, these red etc circles that appear over the head of the player make no sense.

[GingerAj]

Isn't it dependant on the finisher you use - it procs one of the innate strengths for balanced/quick/heavy attacks.

As for the red circles thats when you use get serious and its showing you that you are still having increased damage.

[DarthKeryx]

Having started a Brawler a couple weeks ago - and I took him through Moria before using the Valar sitting in shared storage (because Moria is one of my favorites *and* I wanted to practice using skills before jumping to 120) - I largely agree with the Original Post.

It's hard to know quite how to combine different Set-up skills with Finishing skills. And which Finishing skills to use in different situations. While soloing - and since 2015 only play solo - I generally use the same sequence of skills. Build mettle. Dextrous Hook. Finish. And 90% of the time the mob is dead. Heck two Set-up skills regularly take out a regular mob.

I have played every class and taken almost every class to level cap. Used to group regularly for instances and raids. Used to be part of a progression kinship. Recorded and posted videos showing how to tackle endgame content.

The point is not to brag but to give some context. None of my toons mowed through Mordor Besieged and Minas Morgul (and everything else up through Moria) like my Brawler. Not even close. Small group quests? Piece of cake. The final boss in Eithel Gwaur the Filth Well? My Brawler never had a chance to kite. Just punch, punch, Finish, Finish, and *wuh-bam* it was over.

Update = Now that my Brawler is working through Gundabad he no longer mows through mobs as quickly. His gear (from Morgul) and especially the traceries in his legendary items need updating. He has had to use his self-heal a few times! Update to the update = Upgraded his traceries and he's back to being punchy.