Brawler Archive

Honestly, I wouldnt master TKM unless you give it up latter and just want the badge. You will do much better as a Pikeman or Heavy swordsman in PvE. I HAD (until the nerf made pure melee templates worthless) Master Brawler, Master Pikeman, TKA 2/3/0/4 (got meditate to cure poison and disease and power boost), Fencer 4/4/0/0 and Sword 0/4/0/0 (both for the melee/ranged def mods and some secondary def mods) and of course novice medic. My melee defense was 181 and my ranged around 140 (I think). My def vs KD was very high, 125 I beleive but my def vs dizzy was low ( I had to make a choice on which fencer branch to master, more def vs KD or more def vs Dizzy, you can see which I choose). Anyway, with that high defense and the "old" Warcry2 and my dot weapons from the Nightsisters I was unstopable in a duel. Why? not because of my defenses, I still was hit and even KD but I could land my poison and fire mind dots and then spam warcry2 to keep myself safe. I never lost a duel until the Warcry nerf, but then it was due to the Rifleman/CM template which is supreme.

I wasnt into a template just to be uber, even though that is what a skill based system allows you to do. I wanted to follow the melee path and hence choose only melee professions to master. I even gave up medic to master another branch of fencer to increase my defenses even more but that didnt work out in the massive PvP encounters, you definitely need medic.

However, as things have changed and there is a cap on the secondary defenses (which didnt effect my template) and the melee and ranged defenses (which does effect my template) and warcry2 (which now is worthless in a duel or PvP) I really cant offer you any advice. I am pretty much giving up on melee and am trying my hand in crafting. Melee has taken a hard hit and I can only see it getting worse, thanks to the min/maxers. My theme was all about melee, I knew i didnt have the best template but it worked and was a theme. This is a role playing game, right?