Brawler Archive
Thread: Some Observations About Brawlers & Marksmen (long but constructive)
I know the devs are trying very hard to balance all the professions. Balance is very important because all idealism aside, most people will play the profession they perceive to be 'best'. If you don't think so, just ask any beta tester about all the brawlers in beta 3 after the lunge exploit was discovered. This is a gameand as such, realism needs to be less important than balance or you'll end up with lots of people playingthe few 'best' professions. I'm sure the devs understand this andexpect that theyare looking at various metrics (such as damage per second) to help decide what is balanced and what's not. I've checked it myself and right will concede that brawlers andmarksmendo about the same BASE damage. If the classes are roughly the same though - why are the marksmen so much happier with their profession than the brawlers? To find out, you have to look at each the effects both professions tactics andspecial attackshaveondamageinflicted and received.
When not being defended by brawlers (outside of hunting/raiding parties), marksmen fighting melee opponents tend to start with a big damage special attack and then just shoot over their shoulders (with regular attacks) while they run away or 'kite'. They can do this for as long as it takes to drop the pursuing melee opponent - lowering their accuracy just increases the time it takes (not usually the outcome). There is no reason for marksmen to kite ranged opponents though so they usually just lay prone and shoot each other until one or the other dies. In hunting parties with brawlers to protect them, Marksmen tend to use a fewspecial attacks then let their HAM pools recover while they use regular attacks (repeat). They can afford to do this because the mobs are not hitting them, they're hitting the brawlers. As long as the brawlers can keep the mobs busy, they stand and shoot. If the brawlers fail to stop the mobs, they kite as described above. Sometimes you will see two or more marksmen flanking a melee only mob -it's not hard to getthe mobto walk back and forth between them, never getting close enough to attack and eventually getting killed.
Marksman vs Ranged Player or Mob = Fair Fight
Marksman vs Melee Player or Mob = Markman has Advantage
Brawlers on the other hand can not be defended by anyone, they can not kite or flank and they always take large amounts of damage from the mobs regardless of wether they're melee or ranged. When in groups, ranged opponents will even stop attacking the marksmenand start attacking the brawlers as soon as they get close enough for melee combat. Because of this, brawlers usually try much harder to end the fight as fast as possible by usinglots of special attacks. As a result, they often do as much damage to themselves as the mobsdo to them with no time to recover until after the fight. In addition to the greater down-time from damage, inaps and deaths, the brawlersfrequently lose out on experience because the marksmen will kill mobs and destroy lairs before the brawlers can even get to them.
Brawler vs Melee Player or Mob = Fair Fight.
Brawler vs Ranged Player or Mob = Ranged Player or Mob has Advantage
The bottom line is that the marksmen have a BIG advantage in every combat situation except when fighting against ranged only opponents. Even though marksmen and brawlersinflict about the same amount of damage, the marksmen will almost always receive much less damage from attacks and special moves than the brawlers do. Brawlers will also receive even more damage from kiting marksmen or ranged opponents because of the time spent chasing them and unable to attack. This makes marksmen signifigantly better than brawlers and (smuggler wannabes aside), more people will play them as a result.
The people playing brawlers are not really upset that the mobs are tough - they are upset that the mobs are tougher for brawlers than they are for the marksmen. This may be realistic, but it's not balanced, and it's not much fun for the brawlers, especially in PVP.
To test these observations, I created some new characters (brawler-marksman) and compared the damage dealt and received when using a CDEF Pistol, Unarmed Combat and a Survival Knife against various mobs and players. The damage inflicted by all of them against melee opponents was about the same. Interestlingly when standing their ground they all (including the pistol) received about the same damage. If the opponent was ranged and kited, the melee weaponsreceived about twice the damage and it took 3-4 times as long to inflict the same amount of damage than the pistol did. The damage received from melee opponents was also about 80% less when kiting with the pistol.
The problem is NOT that brawlers are weaker than melee mobs.
The problem isNOT that marksmen are weaker than ranged mobs.
Theproblem is that KITING makes brawlers weaker than marksmen and ranged mobs.
Now all the marksmen will scream that kiting is a valid tactic - one that just happens to giveTHEM ahuge advantage overus with no checks or balances. They conveniently forget how NOT FUN it was when the brawlers had a similar tactic (lunge) that gave them a similaradvantage. Some people will say 'Just get Novice Marksman', but not only is that forcing a playstyle on people, it's making the problem worse by getting more people to use the unbalanced profession as a crutch for what they really want to be doing in the game.
Sowhat canbedone tobalance things back out? Should we buff the brawler damage? Probably not - they are pretty well matched to the mobs now and it wouldn't help fix the imbalance created by marksmen being able to kite melee only mobs & players. Should we nerf the marksmen damage? I don't think this is a good idea either - if it weren't for kiting, they would also be pretty well matched to the melee mobs.
Personally, I think the answer is to increase the damage multiplier for melee & unarmed hits against marksmen (with a ranged weapon equipped) to something more like 2x for pistol, 3x for carbine & 4x for rifle. This would only hurt the marksmen_IF_ they let a melee mob or brawler get close enough to hit them. It would compensate for the fact thatthey can shoot all day long over their shoulder while running away from melee opponents. I say let them kite all they want, but if a brawler hits them, they should regret it.
For what it's worth, I also think that the special move costs for unarmed & melee attacks should be lowered to compensate for the increased damage that brawlers always end up receiving (risk vs reward anyone?).
No matter what you think about my ideas, the fact is that the devs have nerfed the brawler several times now with little or no explanation to the (now paying) players. The negative posts on this forum clearly indicate what most of us think about these changes. It's so messed upthat even people that play other professions are commenting on it in their threads. The devs thoughcontinue tosay little or nothing.
I WISH THE DEVS WOULD AT LEAST TAKE A FEW MINUTES TO TELL US THEIR THOUGHTS REGARDING THE BRAWLER PROFESSION, WHAT THEY THINK IS WRONG (OR RIGHT) WITH IT AND WHAT ELSE THEY PLAN TO CHANGE (OR NOT).
Sorry that was so long -thanks for reading,
Akuna
Nice post, good reading.
There is however still one SEVERLY unbalancing issues. Brawlers can do NO DAMAGE to a Kiting Marksman in PvP. Even using Unarmed Lunge to drop posture one level, a Marksmen who moves while shooting with do all the damage and the Brawler will do absolutely zero (unless you count the single point from unarmed lunge). The posture change can be immediately changed to Stand and the Marksman can be off and moving before the next Special attack in the Brawler's queue is processed.
It's absolutely 100% broken at this time.
-Vvex
Yeah - I guess that's right.
They'd need to put the damage back on the lunge attack for it to really work. I always thought that the better fix for lunge was to have it end with you standing in melee range of thetarget.Seemed to methatthe problemwith lungewas notthat thetarget was down, but thatthey could never hit you because you stayed out of range. I mighthave that wrong - I hated all the people that became TK just for the lunge exploit and tried never to use it myself.
I'm really trying to stay positive about it - it's hard though and getting harder every day.
Akuna
I'd very much like to see a Dev post a response to any thread in this forum.
I dont ever ask for a dev to answer my post, but I admit I'm with you in my desire to hear what the devs view on the entire brawling class is. We keep hearing about damage cuts being given to the class. What on Earth for? Point me to one single thread with a title like "Novice brawler waxing Krayt Dragons" or "Novice fencer able to kill small cites". No one, including people like me that uses ranged weaponry, thinks bralwers are too powerful. I have a personal idea for class specfic equipment that includes special kinitic and energy based armor for bralwers that would let them get close with more health and abosrb more when they got there, but that's for a different post.
The thing is we have no output from any devs regarding their view of the skill tree, or even their target for it. Just change after change, often by passing the TC in fact, with no communication. Not good.
I was just about to post something very similar myself, but you said it more eloquently than I'd planned 
I was a Teras Kasi Master during the beta, and near the end I felt they had it balanced just about right. At any kind of distance I was useless, other than lunging for 1 damage, but once i got close to someone, it was game over, the way it should be.
I've started down the same route again, but I'm feeling completely emasculated. I want to play the hard man up front in the group, who takes the damage, but can also go a bit crazy and dish it out. Action points were always an issue, but could be dealt with by clever use of the right specials at the right time, and berzerk. I might knock someone down, or use warcry, and then hit berzerk and equip my vibro knuckles (which I never used with specials, because within 4-5 moves I'd have effectively incapped myself with specials costs), and that meant that if I used my moves wisely, I was very effective in combat.
As it is now, berzerk 1 is a pile of old toss. I am just about to make Master Unarmed, so obviously I'm not expecting to be especially great just yet, but when a novice marksman with a decent rifle canconsistentlydo 450 damage with a Full Charge Shot, while I am struggling to make 180 (assuming berzerk actually works before I've wasted too many action points failing to get really annoyed at things).
My plan is to go Teras Kasi Master / Creature Handler, but with berzerk 1 being so poor now, I might be forced to rethink and go for Master Brawler so that I can get berzerk 2. I really don't want to have to do this: my power is in my fists, not some artificial tool, and I don't think I should be forced to give up creature handler and go for Master Brawler in order to be half way decent as a fighter.
Please please can we have some decent berzerk and special damage back! The only consolation for taking such a good kicking from mobs all the time was that I could do it back, and now I can't!
I dont know much about Jedi's or the end game but MAYBE melee types will have an advantage when it comes to fighting Jedi. After seeing the way the can block blasters with Lightsabers or even their HAND....
Wakrob
If some type of running speed skill were added to all Brawler skill trees and the elite profession trees that span from Brawler, the kiting problem would be fixed. Say, for example, each skill-up in the Brawler profession added +5 Running Speed. That way, you could /follow the aformentioned kiting Marksman and eventually catch him. Or, am I mistaken in that Brawlers can even throw punches while running? I've never had any problems hitting fleeing creatures while chasing them, my problem is that they get the jump start and I have to run after them because I don't use /follow on creatures. Luckily fleeing creatures have decreased running speed.
This was done for Monks in Neverwinter Nights and, I assume, Dungeons and Dragons. Maybe not for the same reasons, but I believe it would work in this situation.
Basically the devs have their head up their arse.
How anyone can run at top speed while holding a HUGE rifle and only recieve a -20 modifier while shooting directly behind them is totally beyond me.
I don't even mind doing a little less damage under the (realisim umbrella) if other things were realistic.
a) You're not going to run as fast as an unarmed fighter and while shooting behind you.
b) If a I as an unarmed fighter catches you and you're holding a huge rifle I'm not going to stand in front of it and get shot.. I'm going to knock it out of your hands and beat you with it.
c) Same goes with a carbine.. Let me punch you 3 or 4 times and we'll see if you have a +15 modifier to hit.
Simply enough people with a pistol maybe can run as fast but as soon as they **edit** near turn sideways to shoot behind them it should slow them down.. When I catch that person they shouldn't have a +15 modifier to hit mewhile I have a -5. And if the item is anything other than a pistol that person won't be holding it long unless it's superglued to their hands.
This would solve 90% of what's wrong with melee classes.
Besides Rifle and Carbine users already run like they have a stick up their _ _ _ !
Good read. Some very good points.
I don't think the devs have balancing on the top of their list yet. It is still really early in launch.