Swordsman Archive

The answer is that it depends. The warcry nerf will hurt, but it will be far from useless when used as intended. It will allow you get out of situations where you, otherwise, may die. Besides, Warcry was a bonus for me. I actually wanted Master Brawler for Lunge2's "ranged"KD (i.e., 20m). Lunge2 followed by Hit3, Area3, or Headhit3 can be devistating, espeically against a character with low KD defenses. Add to that the fact that you get Intimidate2 and you are not losing too much just because you do not get to pound on someone for 20 seconds with no retaliation. You also get Berserk2 for those that would like to use that.

Also, people seem to forget thatthose specials are not all you get with Master Brawler. You also get plus 5 to melee and ranged defense and 2H melee speed and accuracy. You pickup +20 to Intimidate, Warcry, and Berserk, and you pickup +30 to Taunt. Additionally along the way, you picked upthe ability to target the Health (1H weapons) and Action (polearms), and you can use other weapons to add status effects we do not have, such as Stun (unarmed and polearms) and blind (unarmed) and an additional dizzy (1H). This does not even take into account that you get a variety of other weapon certs along the way, and Lunge2 works with all of them.

So if all you were looking for out of Master Brawler was the ability to whoop on someone for 20 seconds without retaliation, then it is not going to be worth the points. But if you look at the overall picture, I think it is, especially when I see an 8,300+ floaty drifting over a dead Tusken I justtwo-hit killed with a Lunge2/Hit3 combo.