Brawler Archive

Excellent post, Faethor! 5 out of 5. Let's hope we get some Dev attention soon.

Master unarmed brawler here ... Faethor's post took the words right out of my mouth. A few key points:

First and foremost - Fix the unarmed stun attack. When successful, the target never skips a beat. What's the point?

Lower the HAM costs for brawlers

Give each skill tree in the brawler class a dodge or block skill.

Give brawlers the ability to counterattack.

Unarmed attack speed should be faster

We've got to have some defense bonus.

If we can't out damage the other classes .. and our job is to go toe to toe ... and armor is more of a hindrance than help because of our high HAM costs ... we become a low damage, vulnerable punching bag.

I've recently joined a PA, and the PVPers in it are extremely excited. Quite often in he chat channel they do talk about how they "own" brawlers in PVP, and there is no way brawlers can compete with them unless the brawler somehow surprises them.

Faethor, excellent post. I would support you 100% for the Brawler corispondent (sp?) (I think that is what it is called). I am training to become a Master Fencer, and the Melee class are so out of wack. They need to defenatelly help us melee fighters out. They also need to do something about that shooting through the buildings and mountains like someone described, because that way we stand a better chance than a 99% chance of defeating them. We also need more defense or strength. Most of the armor is pointless cause it just lowers our stats so that we die quicker. The range fighters have nothing to worry about cause they just sit back and let us die while they shoot, do more damage, take more damage, and dont have any risk because of us brawlers. Devs really need to take a look at our profession.

i haven't read this thread much, but my friend is a master brawler and all he does is gets 3.5k exp per monster on naboo where i barely can scrape out 500 even doing 5-600 dmg per mindshot.... he will solo 20 scyk on tat w/o even trying .... now there is something that is wrong

however it is funny as hell when he hits somebodies pet for 2.5k dmg in town and everybody goes WTFX

I have to firmly disagree with most of the post on here. I play a brawler, and I die only every once in a great while. Perhaps what you folks are lacking is simple attack stratgey when engaging your foes.

First off you have to realise - that a brawler is not a speed hitter, and secondly the skills are just that skills - not your main attack. Case in point: When i first played a brawler i was often jamming that berserk key, the result - my action pool dips too low, and the MOB incaps me for not having enough 'buffer' points to survive the battle. The point was that I was using too may action points by using berserk - so I eased off and just let my charater attack normaly. It has appeared to work not too badly. the skills help you out, enhancing your attack. It seems alot of your focus on berserk because of the extra damage and hits it gets you - perhaps you should try some of the other skills such as warcry & intimidate. While it may appear that these skill do nothing, they lower the defence and make the enemy somewhat easier to hit. Which in a way, makes it somewhat like beserk but not as powerful but yet not as draining to the pools.

On a another note, another poster stated that you get no melee bounses to def. That is only true of the unarmed section of the tree - not for the whole of it. I don't know if anyone else noticed it, but the unarmed tree actually 'leap frogs' a bit in the usable skills department, undoubtably to make up for the lack of better weapons, the devs, perhaps have tried to give unarmed aspirants techniques soonerto make up for the lack of damage (I'm not a dev nor will pretend to be one).

On draining pools, make sure that you check your armor - if it doesn't prevent some percentage of melee damage, it's absoultly worthless to you. For instance up until a short while ago, I was running around with bone armor. I couldn't figure out why my pools would drop so drasticly after, what was supposed to be an easy fight - not to mention the reduced dmg that I was dealing. Once I took it off the was a big difference - I hit more often, and used less pool points durring battle. Now i'm not advocating that you should all ditch your armor, just becareful what your wearing - it does make a difference.

Be careful on what you fight - I found the this to be the most valuable, stay away from A)flying creatures B)Pack type animals (unless you are sure you can handle more than one) C) Red labled aggies. I'm sure some of you might be calling me a wuss or something like that but eh, pick your fights carefully! I had to learn the hard way sometimes - just because that MOB cons blue means you will automaticly win, look around and be aware.

In a past post, someone has mention that the brawler cannot target pools just like the marksmen, while this is true in a sense that you cannot target the pools as easly as a marksman there is a work around. While I'm not absoultly sure, at some point each type of brawler gets a some kind of hit to a certain area, what I like to do ( because I am a polearm) I normaly open with a polearmhit1 and see what pool it damages if it hits the action, I use my leg hit to kill the action pool, if hit something else I just stun and hit with polearmhit1 and regular hits to keep my action up.

Anyway, i hope this has helped someone, if it's all old news to you folks - hey sorry, i am a cluess n00b when it comes to SWG esp. in the particular details of stats etc.

Well good luck to y'all

Scott.

Ozossk - starsider

Almost an Expert 1H Sword here. Everything Faethor said is ABSOLUTELY correct. Good Class design requires that benefits have tradeoffs. Traditionally, in MMORPGs, if you could output damage then the balance was that you would have less HPs then those with low damage output, etc. When I picked the "Fencer" path, I pictured a high defense character who could avoid alot of hits and thus have an effectivce higher HPs then other classes. Instead, Marksmen have the high DPS, but also have the exact same HP/AC stats. It makes no sense whatsoever from a design perspective. This is too bad, since everyone else seems to be going a generic Master Marksmen route b/c of it - with good reason.

Call me Crazy, but one of the really cool thing about the Star Wars movies was the strangely anachronistic "Swords" in a Sci Fi setting.

/sigh

Sorry but I have to call BS on the Master Brawler doing 2500 damage hits. I have Master Unarmed and good knucks (16-109 dmg 2.7 Speed) and I am lucky to hit for over 300 when berserked.

I also have to point out that all the peeps that try to say brawler isn't broken suggest the same thing -attack easier melee only mobs that dont'assist each other'. In otherwords - bottom feeding.

I was in Mos Eisley the other day and some marksmen were kiting squills into town near the spaceport. There's a crack in the wall there that they can go through but the Squills can't. I tried to join in but took so much damage I had to back off. The marksmen were all sitting a safe distance back shooting at the stuck mob. They laughed at me because I had to rest. I beserked on the squill 3 times and had no Health left at the end - I got about 500 XPwhen the Squill finally died. The marksmen who laughed at metook NO damage and got thousands of XP.

Yesterday I was on my way back into Anchorhead from a Rebel destroy mission. I wasn't paying attention and an Imperial mob for someone elses mission Agro'd to me. I didn't think this was a big problem -he was white to me so I decided take him out. Then mob then started to kite me uphill.The mobwas faster up the slopel than I waswith Exploration 2 so I decided to make a run for it. I thought I'd hide in a ravine but the mob just shot me through the ground even though it didn't have LOS. I then tried to burstrun but could not get out of his range before getting incapped and then deathblowed.

I was hunting Spined Snakes today on Lok. I would start with my standard combo (Attack - Follow - Unequip Knucks - Stun - Blind - Reequip Knucks). Thesnake was 2 meters away but keptmovingjust a bit every so often. My character wouldn't attack because he kept moving to keep up with the mob. The whole time the snake was hitting me. I tried to stop following and move up but then the snake would move out of range. Every time I movedto get into range I stopped attacking. Finally the Snake was so hurt it decided to run for it. I have to follow and kill it or get no XP - but the snake keeps attacking me while it moves away. This same thing happened several times with the snakes and any other mob that moves in combat.

I created a new character - a brawler marksman and tried fighting many green and blue mobs both unarmed and with the starting pistol. What I found was that the marksman could reduce the amount of MELEE damage he received by about 80% by kiting. This also doubled the damage he was able to do toMELEE opponents. I tried dueling several pistoliers and master pistol users with my good character and found that kiting not only prevented me from landing 80% of my shots - it gave them ample time to hit me with multiple special shots to the same HAM pool. Even starting in close range, I could only hit them once or on rare occasions twice. Doing max damage I'd need to hit the same pool 3-4 times to put them down, but because I hit random pools the odds of this happening are 1 in 81 tries. They needed to hit me about the same number of times but could make it work every try because 1> They weren't getting hit & 2> They can target specific pools.

These are just some of the kinds of frustrating experiences thatMOST brawlers are having in the game. This is why brawlers that want to join high level hunting parties, or solo destroy missions with ranged mobs or even go overt for PVP are getting so frustrated.We don't want to bottom-feed.We don't want to learn 4 other professions or carry a gun just sowe can be viable as a brawler.

WEwant the devs to FIX the problems.

There have been over 1300 posts on this forum so far. I'd be very surprised if at least 75% weren't either expressing concern for these problems or agreeing with someone who did. This isn't whining -these arerational observations with REPEATABLE examples about a FRIGGING HUGE imbalance in the gameplay that has so far been completely ignored by the devs. The problem is NOT that brawlers are weaker than melee mobs. The problem is that kiting by marksmen and ranged mobs makes them MUCH better than brawlers and melee mobs. This gives the marksmen an advantage in PVP and PVE because they can take out much tougher melee only mobs than brawlers of equivilant skill. I think that marksmen should be bettern than brawlers as long as they can keep their distance. The problem now is that marksmen are better at ANY distance including toe-to-toe where the brawler should be better.

It says on page 99 of the SWG manual - "However, those characters using ranged weapons are extremely vulnerable to melee attacks." Maybe it's just me but I don't see that happening. FWIW - Here's what I think needs to happen:

1. Allow brawlers to attack (normal and specials) while moving (like marksmen and ALL mobs can).

2. Make /follow keep us at our weapons IDEAL rangeif we are attacking the target being followed.

3. The melee vs ranged damage multipliers need to be 3x for pistols, 3.5x for carbinesand 4x for rifles.

4.The success rate for specials like /Berserk needs to be increased (when was the last time you saw a marksman's /mindshot fail 5 times in a row?).

Thanks for reading,

Akuna

I totaly agree. I am a Brawler. I use the pole as my main weapon. And I am always getting knocked to my ass. I have messed with my stats trying to find the perfect link between mind and body. But if I gain in mind I lose in health or Action and i'm still screwed. SWG really needs to do sumthing bout this. I set there and watch Marksman take out mountain Squills. So i decide to jump in and help out. I got 2 good shots in on him and then the squill is on my like toast and jam. I've always used my actions and healed my self and now my mind is low. So I get knocked to my ass and he slains me while the rest of the marksman shot away til he dies. Now I love the brawler, but if I want to go after big game ..I can't and it sucks. Hopefully SWg will fix this issue and update the classes.

I think the idea of adding blocks and such are a great idea and to speed up the attack. And like everyone has said..we are the only class that fights up close.

Just so you know I'm a master polearm brawler working on my novice pikeman. I can take small game without any problem. But If i want to go out with a grp of ppl and hunt big game I can't. Cause I always die. Now you can say I suck at fighting but I can take 3 jabba thugs on at the same time and usual;ly come out safe.

Just to be clear - my bottom-feeding comment was not partiuclarly directed at KillJoy. I actually thought his post wasvery well written. He's right in that we should have to pay attention to what we're attacking. I just think the marksmen should too.

Akuna

ye i totally agree im a novice teres kasi and i dont do near as much damage as my brother and hes only advanced that pisses me off and the action cost is messed up too

Great thread, Id simply be echoing whatmany folks here have eloquently pointed out about how ineffectual and outclassed the Brawler proffession is, so Ill spare you my in-depth experiences.

Im currently grinding it out in expert unarmed. What im finding to add insult to injury is thatnow I apparently need a vibro weapon to be effectual at *UN*-armed.

*UN* armed.

So uhh..I need to equip a weapon to be at all effective and competative with my peersin a "weaponless" skill path?

....

This, as well as a myriad of other flaws thatso many of you have pointed out, is something that should have been resolved in beta. How could a skill path that is so glaringlyunbalanced and ungratifyingmake it into the final product ? I can only hope that the developers do recognize how the unarmed skill path is in sore need of re-construction, and reward for its risks. Without trying to sound melodramatic- my question to the Dev.'s is this:

How much to you plan on punishing and penalizingfolks who pursue this skillpath. The coststo the H.A.M. pools of the specials, the damage they take in combat, and penalizations from armor, make this proffession noteven remotely enjoyable to play.Please..give it a try, I hope you enjoy cloning facilities, medical clinics and cantinas..because youll be seeing more of them than exp, I guarentee you.

Re-posting this gain with a few additions I have taken from other posts here. I am not letting this die thread die.

I am a Master Marksman, Novice TKA, I was a Master 2 handed brawler.

The brawler class, although very fun is completely outclassed by anyone carrying a gun. Guns are far more powerful then melee. The brawler class is poorly implemented and completely unfinished.

I have become a master marksmen in less time then it to took me to reach unarmed master or 2 handed master. That should make it apparent that there is some real work needed with the brawler class.

I can sit out at 64 meters and 1 shot kill most mobs and 2 shot the others, with LOWER HAM costs then my brawler special moves. I can spam my special moves becuase I take 0 damage, with 0 risk making it 0 downtime. I can take out a lair with my rifle in under 1 minute. It takes me 10-15 minutes going unarmed to take out the same lair . I usually get incapacitated once as I get MOB pops on me plus a couple lair spawns. With my rifle any one of them would be dead in 1 shot.

If for some chance a MOB jumps me I can use warning shot or threaten shot to make them run away in fear then pick them apart. If a humanoid jumps me I can use suppression fire to drop him to the ground then pick him apart. Oh but wait theres more, I even have pointblank shot so I don’t suffer any accuracy loss while in close range with my rifle. Now where is my brawlers 64 meter headbutt attack special?

Brawlers on the other hand have to run in and engage, taking all the risk and killing themselves with there own special moves. Which cost more then my gun specials by the end of a fight. Costs me 120 for bersek (When it works), 105 for unarmed hit 2, 60 for body shot, 90 for head shot. Brawlers are taking all risk with more than twice the damage a gun carrying class is. If we use berserk we can take upwards of 4 times the damage. Its become very annoying having to constantly run back to town to heal because you have no way to avoid damage like a marksman.

My accuracy in melee range is –5 when unarmed or using an axe, it is -6 using vibro knucklers. My pistol is +10. Kind of silly. If I can use my rifle to get a +50 to accuracy at an optimal range of 35 meters why can my brawler not receive the same kind of bonus at optimal melee range. Instead my brawler takes a penalty for being at optimal range for his class profession but a marksman receives a bonus?

Why does my unarmed skill not get a specific pool hit? My 2 handed gets a mind hit, if I had gone 1 handed I would have action hits. I know unarmed receive the status effects, but they do not work. My stun attack NEVER stuns my opponent. However with my carbine I can stun a MOB almost constantly, yes stun at point blank range. Not to mention make him run around in circles with warning shot and threaten shot and I can use selectable action pool attacks.

I was always told never to voice a complaint without some constructive ways to fix them so here they are.

1. Lower the HAM costs for brawlers by 50% at least for all brawler in all skill trees. The cost is far to high.


2. Fix the accuracy in melee range, melee should receive a bonus for being at optimal melee range just as marksman do. Not a PENALTY!


3. Increase the brawler melee defense in all skill trees, or at least place the skill into the level 4 slot so that people are not abusing the defense by taking just novice brawler. As it stand I take no less damage then any other profession. The idea of making people take more damage because they are holding a gun is dumb. The amount of damage you receive while holding a gun in your hands wont increase 3 times if you get hit with a club. Just give brawlers the ability to take more damage and remove that.


4. Give each skill tree in the brawler class a dodge or block skill. A skilled brawler will actually learn how to develop this not so unique skill of their profession. Again place this in the level 4 slot so people do not abuse this by taking novice brawler.


5. Give brawlers the ability to counterattack. MOBS counter attack me all the time, avoiding my hit then actually hitting me, why can’t I counterattack them? A little kreetle can counter attack yet a master brawler like myself cant. Heh!


6. Ranged attack accuracy while moving should drop by 500 at least. This prevents kiting, by PCs and NPCs. If you cant rework the code to prevent PCs and NPCs from attacking when they are moving (except brawlers of course) then just decrease the accuracy that all PCs and NPCs have while moving an obscene amount. Kiting became such a huge issue in EQ all sorts of fixes were put into place to reduce it. Here its highly encouraged with the way the game is coded. If the marksman cant kill me before I get to him he deserves to die.


7. Pointblank attack should be removed as a skill THIS DEFEATS THE NEED FOR A BRAWLER. If I can do 500 points of damage in melee range with a gun why the hell be a brawler with all the other problems the class suffers from.


8. Fix the unarmed stun attack to actually stun because it does not, but I can with my carbine.


9. Give the unarmed a lower level weapon to use like Brass knuckles that a novice engineer can make. The lack of any kind of unarmed weapon until a weaponsmith makes such a high skill level is an amazingly ignorant oversight.


10. Unarmed Hit should target health, Unarmed stun should target action, and unarmed blind should target mind. An unarmed fighter is no less a marksmen with his fists then a marksman is with a gun.


11. Fix shooting through hills and mountains. As a brawler this is one of the worst problems. In a PVP game proper terrain usage is a must for brawlers vs marksmen. With a radar for marksmen to see me and the ability for them to shoot through the hills/mountain I stand no chance when they can hit me for 1000 SELECTABLE mind pool damage before I can get to them.


12. Berserk is totally out of control and implemented poorly. We already lose all of our special attacks and add to that the penalty MOBS never missing us and taking double damage. With some of the other ideas implemented above changing berserk to something like +25 damage, +25 Accuracy, -50 Defense would be better. It should also last twice as long as it does now.


13. Unarmed attack speed should be faster. If a pistol can do as much and more damage, and attack as fast as unarmed attacks, then unarmed should at least be able to attack faster.


14. Give us a /stick command that keeps us at an ideal range for our held weapon. The /follow;/attack just doesn’t work very well for unarmed. We still suffer from being out of range becuase or increase the range of unarmed melee attacks.


15. The success rate for berserk MUST be changed. When was the last time you saw a mind shot/health shot/action shot fail 5-6 times in a row? And lower the HAM cost, its 30 more points for berserk then it is for my single shot kills of mind shot.

Make changes similar to these and brawlers can actually be brawlers and not cannon fodder all the time.

Then again we could all just go be Creature Handlers. Have 3 pets with 9000 plus HAM pools, name them Larry, Moe, and Curly then proceed to own the Tusken camp solo. Nothing like having a 24000 HAM wall of pets doing all my xp hunting for me. Never having to worry that the MOBs will ignore my invincible unable to die pets and come after me because the AI is so poor. But berserk was way over powered and was nerfed so bad it does more damage to us then mobs do. Then again I could stay a brawler and take dirt naps constantly because we are so over powered and feared.