Brawler
Who am I?
About me, Chimi.Chunga
I’m just a brawler that started in NA for a year and then moved to the EU for almost 2 years. I just generally enjoy the way the class plays and always strive to push it further.
I have got console first (NA/EU) Bahaar clear with some useless titles to go with it.
I have achieved rank one twice in the last two months I was in North America and have consistently achieved 1st-4th on EU leaderboards depending on how active I was during that season, so if you wanna listen to me that’s up to you.
What is the brawler Class?
The brawler is a DPS type tank that maintains its aggro by consistently dealing damage providing little to no utility but makes up for this through personal damage and debuffs towards the boss, due to the autoblock nature this class is safest and easiest to learn among the 3 tanks but can output the most damage, competing and even beating damage dealers in DPS under the right scenario.
Responsibilities
1. do not die – you can not do anything while dead if some dungeon mechanic keeps killing you go research it up.
2. hold aggro – because without holding aggro, you are not doing your role correctly and the boss is probably spinning.
3.positional – you have to make your damage dealers’ lives as easy as possible which means making sure they have as much uptime on the back of the boss as possible.
4. debuffs – you have two core debuffs with a brawler one being jackhammer which reduces boss endurance by 1.5% per stack for up to 8 stacks, for total of 12% that should be up 24/7 and never fall off (20 seconds uptime); the second debuff being rhythmic blows which should be used during burst/enrage phase to further reduce boss endurance by 8% for a total of 20% when paired with jackhammer.
5. Enraging the boss – boss can be enraged with the skill infuriate which increases the damage taken by a considerable amount and lasts around 36 seconds, when a boss leaves enrage you will have to deal 10% of the bosses hp for him to re-enter his enrage phase for another 36 seconds. etc you manually enrage at 100% boss loses its enrage at 79.4%, you will have to get the boss down to 69.4% for him to be enraged again.
As of now on console, most bosses should be enraged at the start of the fight with the only exception being rampaging rrk9 which should be instantly enraged after the first natural enrage at 94% wears off (pretty much every other boss will enrage at 90% if there is no infuriate used at 100%.)
6. DPS – Lastly you can now focus on your DPS. This should only really be thought about once you have achieved everything above this since even though your main role is to tank the boss(aggro), the second is to provide as much support to your DPS as possible (debuff uptime, positionals, enrages) and lastly you can focus on personal DPS.
Rotation and skills
Skill breakdown and glyphs
This skill applies up to a maximum of 8 stacks with each stack reducing the boss’s total endurance by 1.5% for 20 seconds (12% total), it’s pivotal that this buff never falls off the boss at any point due to the significant amount of damage boost this provides for the team
You only need 1 tick of 8 to hit to refresh this skill duration mid-fight and it is recommended to only use as few ticks as possible, then animation cancels due to this skill’s terrible damage per frames.
Instantly generates 1500 rage and another 1000 rage on top of that after 20 seconds ( 50 rages per second) once 20 seconds have been reached and you have not been in combat for 30 seconds it will start to decay back down to 0.
Our core defining skill will add a frontal block effect to all your damage skills (including bullrush) this will also provide extra buffs like increased power, threat generation, crit factor, 30% extra cdr and ability reach by 10% but at the cost of reducing attack speed by 10, this skill will constantly consume rage at a rate of 250 a second so its important to keep attacking the boss with skills consistently to generate more rage then we lose, leading to hopefully 100% uptime on this skill.
Our basic attack skill that replenishes mana upon use, not used but once more skilled can be used for accurate and slight movement adjustment to dodge mechanics or better position yourself
If the counter is activated right after a special combo shall be performed based on how many punches were used before the counter in sequence
This is our manual block skill, one of our few skills that have frontal defence while outside of growing fury, this skill can also be used as an animation cancel for other skills but will require to be animation cancelled by something else due to its long animation. This skill with glyphs also gives us a chance to gain a strong power buff for all skills if we manage to perfect block with it (perfect blocks are blocks that happen within 0.5 seconds of an attack)
A long animation that has a frontal block which can be useful for scenarios where you need to block attacks outside of growing fury, can also knock upon the 3rd
Hit
Inside of growing fury, there is little to know
to use this as it has low damage per frame.
This is our main DPS skill without it brawlers would not be much. It has about a 1 second cast time with a cd that starts from the beginning meaning technically the cooldown is 1 second lower than shown.
has heavy post damage frames so try to use an animation cancel to cut it short
As our initiating skill it does quite a large amount of damage at exactly 0 seconds making it our highest DPS skill when the boss is triggered with it, it will instantly provide 1500 rage on impact.
You are in iframe status once you have left the ground
If you cast this skill inside of growing fury it will disable growing fury and it will have to be recast
Do not use this skill mid-fight for the boss as you are immobilised for 3 seconds which can be costly as a tank.
Our first bread & butter skill that we use every 4 seconds
This skill provides us with a nice 25% damage boost to the next one-inch punch/haymaker/piledriver cast although the damage of this skill is low with a long animation, it can be cancelled out after the first hit ( of three) to make it a great quick buffing skill.
Our second bread & butter skill that we use every 4 seconds
A quick kick that can cancel animation of every other skill is one of our main skills that contributes a decent small percentage of our damage, this skill is what will primarily be used to cancel dashing strike early.
Never use piledriver during rhythmic blows as piledriver can not be animation cancelled by RB.
a decent animation cancel that will have to be cancelled itself due to its long frames after the damage has already been registered, it provides 100% reflect damage so in a situation where you have to choose between one inch/haymaker and counter punch always use counter after two reflects it scales way higher than other skills.
a skill that instantly allows us to get up after being knocked down.
will give maximum aggro for about 5 seconds once 5 seconds have elapsed it will decay to whatever you are currently producing, great skill to make the boss look at you again after dropping aggro to dying/rotation stutter or DPS did a big hit vs what you were currently doing.
This is our enrage skill generally used at the start of the fight to initiate the burst phase.
If you enrage while enrage is already up the boss enrage timer will be reset back to 36 seconds.
The next natural enrage will always be 10% from the most recent enrage ending so if you manually apply the enrage it will be 10% from when it runs out.
Pvp skill We will do a backflip animation, suspending the target who are already in the air for even longer and stop the target from being able to retaliate for 3 seconds if performed successfully
This skill is locked only until you knock down an enemy player/boss which you can use to knock a target into the air mostly a PVP skill
A skill that quickly hit 6 times and finishes on the 7th hit with an uppercut
Long post frames so need to be animation cancelled preferably after the last hit registered
Decent sustain with health glyph around about 20% hp on the cast with a 5-second cd
Is actually our highest damage skill per cast (not including divine wrath)
Rampage consumes rage to cast but this is fine due to our chest roll allowing for rage gain back during the cast but excessive use of this skill without proper thought can a still drain your full amount of rage quickly
Self-heal that consumes rage is generally not used due to factors like 50% potion/ healers/ rampage heal
A skill that travels 7m long frame count but can travel 13m with much fewer frames if cast within 0.5 of another skill meaning should always be cats quickly after another, this skill also has animation cancel superiority and paired with how quickly the animation plays is out best animation cancel skill.
The ultimate skill that gives us an 8% attack speed and damage buff for 4 seconds, per cast with the skill being able to be cast up to 5 times for a total 40% attack speed and damage boost, not only that but every cast of the skill is a double hit (left and right hook) with each separate hit reducing the cooldowns of all skills by 1 second, using this to our advantage the main goal is this use as many skills in 4 seconds as possible then by recasting this skill help those same skills come off cooldown quicker allowing for much faster and smoother rotation.
Rhythmic blows apply an 8% endurance debuff on the first cast, while inside growing fury allows for great burn phases
Once the first cast is done, the skill will need to be recast again within 4 seconds otherwise ability will go on cooldown early and you will not be able to reach your damage peak of having 5 stacks of RB.
Rhythmic blows have low animation cancel superiority so it can’t be used to cancel stuff like rampage and piledriver making it probable that you will not be able to recast skill in time and lose it.
Skill cooldown starts from the last cast, not the initial hit of the first cast.
With our iframe skill, we get 2 charges on a shared cd,
Once we use one iframe we have 8 seconds to use our second iframe, if not used the stacks will be refilled back to 2.
A skill similar to haymaker but is much faster, stronger and damage is split into two parts, if this skill is off cooldown generally want to use this first over haymaker.
+++ special mention of a passive skill called self-control, while above 50% rage you get an 8% damage boost which is quite large. This is the reason we roll for rage gain on rampage on our chest top roll.
Opening
We need to Build a full rage bar by using mounting rage this will put you at 1500 that will steadily go up to around 2500 after 20 seconds before it starts to drain itself, you should then use divine wrath which on impact will instantly generate another 1500 rage putting you at 3000 rage
once this is achieved use growing fury then aggro shouts into enrage, once enraged jackhammer hits the boss applying 8 stacks of the 1.5% endurance reduction (12% in total) followed up by rhythmic blows to apply another 8% endurance reduction for a total of 20%.
+ make sure you aggro shout before getting enraged as this will put you at maximum threat for much longer, which as long you are doing rotation fine you can hold aggro (in frost metal gear with no stigma and aggro crystal I have held aggro from great reapers,valks and zerks at gold stigma or higher).
Rotation
Rotation is mostly dependent on what the boss is doing and what you have available but mostly changes depending on what u want to get a perfect block on
(for me I prioritise flying kick to get a passive attack speed buff) but can change depending on what the boss is doing.
Version 1
Dashing strike > Roundhouse kick > one inch punch (if up) > haymaker > flying kick (if up) > jackhammer (only after flying kick) > rampage > counterpunch
Version 2
Dashing strike > Roundhouse kick >jackhammer > one inch punch> flying kick (if up) > haymaker > rampage > counterpunch
Version 3
Dashing strike > Roundhouse kick > flying kick >one inch punch (if up) > jack hammer haymaker > rampage > counterpunch
There can also be different scenarios.
Scenario 1. multi-hit attack is coming up:
Dashing strike > roundhouse kick > jack hammer/buffer > one inch punch > counterpunch > flying kick > haymaker > rampage
scenario 2. Low rage ( 800 or less) due to not being attacked enough/boss being a sandbox and using rampage:
Dashing strike > roundhouse kick > one inch punch > haymaker > flying kick >full cast jackhammer > piledriver.
Explanation
Scenario 2. will allow you to gain a large amount of rage at the expense of damage but in doing so will put you at above 50% rage and can safely use rampage again without growing fury deactivating although may go below 50% rage losing damage buff
buffer means using jackhammer as filler skill until the right moment for the multi-hit attack which sometimes might need a full cast, sometimes might be one tick but what’s important is that at any time through The buffer cast animation you can cancel out of it with one-inch punch or counter punch to get a perfect multi-hit reflect attack of one-inch punch and counter-attack together.
You should get the general idea of how the rotation should look like with this, brawler is all about using the most appropriate skills at the correct time meaning our rotation shifts about quite a lot but generally, all skills shown here should be used.
counterpunch and rampage can be interchanged/swapped if you can see a good multi reflect opening for a counter punch.
Glyph video link
Gear
Race
Brawlers have a choice of three races and honestly, this does not matter too much. You can choose what you like, me myself being a female human but popori and Elin also be fine, if you are still looking for the race that will give you the easiest time pick Elin, since, against some hitboxes, humans can tend to be pushed slightly to left or right when iframing straight through the boss and slightly faster animation speed.
Crit factor/power
Brawlers have a base crit of 50 (written in white) and we need an additional 90 (green number) to reach a crit factor score of 190 for consistent crits on our main damaging skills, we gain the last need of 50 from being inside growing fury which provides another 50 crit factor, as for power you want to have as much as you can get once the desired crit factor has been reached.
Tl:dr get green stat to 90 crit factor (105-115 in csnm). this will only be important with a priest, mystic provide more than enough crit factor
Stigma
For stigma you will want all 7 of your stigmas to be the soul type since this gives you access to the cooldown reduction line, using this cooldown reduction line you can achieve some really impressive feats.
-There is no specific amount of cooldown to aim for just as much as possible.
You can also run defence stigma for damage dealt to the target that you have most aggro on (which as a tank will be 24/7) but this only scales well when boss fights don’t last any longer than 35 seconds otherwise just go soul stigma.
Don’t go attack stigma.
Gear
Necklace – pumped necklace with 4 power roll
Brooch – want to roll 3 power and 2 power (3 power and 6 crit factor if no bracelet equipped yet)
Ring – pumped ring with 4 power and 0.4 crit power
Earring pumped with hp 4% and endurance 4
Boots – endurance by 4, movement speed by 6% and total mp replenishment
Glove – power by 5, crit by 9, attack speed by 2.25%
Chest – rage gained from rampage, decrease damage from frontal attacks, decrease damage taken, decrease damage from enraged monsters and decrease damage from the monster with the most aggro towards you
Weapon – 7.2 Cdr (twice), enrage 9.6, crit power 0.3, damage to most aggro by 8.6
Circlet – get an improved transcendent circlet to increase apex skills(this is a typo should say all skills) by 1.5% damage with a 4 power roll on it since a majority of our damage come from haymaker. Also since only 2 of our 7 most used skills are apex/awakening skills
Bracer – can’t change stats so try to get 1 from the free battle pass at level 20
Mask – only want energetic getting as close as possible to 3 lines of 3 power rolls with crit
power being a decent second and crit factor being a meh third alternative roll on your energetic mask
Belt – want to roll 3 power and 2 power ( 3 power and 6 crit factor if no bracer equipped yet)
Innerwear – power innerwear of which the highest amount you can obtain with BIS(best in slot) being 18 power
ETCH
-weapon and glove should both be energetic
-All jewellery should have pumped etchs
-Boots and chest should have pumped ( crit works to start with since way much cheaper but once enough gold collected go for pumped)
Crystals
Weapon crystals: pounding, pounding(threat if new/learning), focused, wrathful
weapon dyads: posidely so you take reduced damage while the boss is enraged
Weapon crystals slaying: slaying, furious, focused, wrathful
Armour crystals: hardy x4
Armour dyads: knockdown damage but can be anything u prefer nothing else will affect damage
Message me on discord for any corrections or additions that can be made to this guide on discord: vusa#1290
Special thanks to the people who helped me with my brawler skills and gameplay:
The Resurrected guild
Zenae
Ora
Brun.hild
Zannithe
Frank