Zadira the unlucky (yet victorious) Halfling Brawler

[tylor]

http://te4.org/characters/38522/tome/f1 ... 0720ba93e5

In short, what killed me - lack of escapes, fire damage (especially DOT-s) and oozemancer stair guardian.
What saved me - Cripple both as ability and as proc on gloves.
What I wanted to have more - Nature's Cure, armor piercing, decent gear, and talent points (both class and generic).

I have chosen this race mostly because tiny halfling tearing apart enemies with bare (well, gloved) hands was hilarious. But it turns out to be quite a good option. Brawlers don't have much in crowd clearing department, but halflings (along with Tactical Expert talent) can turn crowd into an advantage. And +2 hp/level is always welcome.

I did not get Nature's Cure, because only seer I got was teared apart right at the stars by ten or so mobs, while I was confused by ghost.

Gear was not very good also. Especially gloves. I made three randarts, neither was particularly damaging. Though first (Caress) had Cripple proc, and last (Life) had 20% Battle Shout proc and health bonus, but even lower damage. Oh, and I had Spellhunt Remains, which was nice early game, but did not seem to do much to end bosses. I end up using some purple gloves I found in High Peak, that had decent damage and 10% Battle Shout. Also I found Spider-silk robe, which raised armor hardiness to 100%. It made melee much easier, but later I had to swap it around for resists.

But still, it was not that hard. I had a lot of hp and decent dps (especially after Flexible Combat prodigy). When I was losing more hp than I could immediately regen, I just ran away. Still, I was killed a lot.

First one - chest boss in Maze, did not have movement infusion or psychoport back then.
Second - 47 level high vampire in Dreadfell vault placed some huge fire dot on me.
Third - Vor armoury fire mages, again some fire dot. After that I started pumping my fire resist.
Fourth - fearscape portal. Never seen it before, came in... Well, It kind of fire DOT too.
Fifth and sixth - some crazy oozemancer naga stair guardian. First it killed me with some 1200 hp attack. Ok, I thought, wearing battle shout gloves and escaping when not in full health. And then it hit me with 1900+ attack. Mostly nature, but mixed bag. And I had 40-sopmething nature resist at the moment. How can one deal with THIS?

So, after last deaths I was really pissed, so I decided to just end this one way or another and rushed to the top. Also, I skipped couple of star guardians before that, because they had 100+ armor, so I just could not damage them. I had only 1 life left, but also Blood of Life and Ring of Death, so it was not THAT grim. Final fight was surprisingly similar to one on solipsist. Pummeling A-sorc for a while, getting to low hp when dragon mob appears from NE portal, using up all my status removers, finally finishing A-sorc, picking pearl and finishing E-sorc nearly effortlessly.

Aerwyn got to 300 or so hp in process, but somehow survived, probably by Second life.

I could not figure how to close portals. I used orbs standing on them, but nothing happened (except me losing turn)

I placed anti-magic pillar twice, when fight started and then near end. Not sure if that helped much. It seems to confused Aerwyn a lot - she just standed behind the pillar, while I was beating Eldoral to pulp.

Ok, now to skills.

As I said, I really liked Cripple. It cuts anybody's fighting ability by half, last for 8 turns and has ok cooldown.

I really DISliked Blinding Speed. Global buff speed is nice, but it has TINY duration, small bonus (just 50%, not scaling), and HUGE cooldown. It just barely make any difference. Either enemy is dead in couple of turns, or fight go on much longer than 5 turns, so it's 5% or so buff on average. And it's 7 class points total. Some say Perfect Strike is handy for Eldoral, but he is easy either way. I think he cripples himself more with invisibility of his, lowering own damage.

Other talents I liked (more or less).
Mobile Defense - must have for Brawler. With Spider-Silk Robe gives nice armor value with 100% hardiness. Was enough to get Against All Odds (even though I was blind half of time)
Combat Accuracy - worth maxing even if you never miss, for some skills. Namely,
Dirty Fighting - stuns everything non-immune with high enough Accuracy, which is great. Even with one point.
Switch place, Disengage, Heave - all of them helped me in one point or another to get out of tight situations. Got kind redundant when I got two movement.
Thick Skin, Unflinching resolve - predictably good.
Spinning Backhand - awesome, high damage, high range, can hit three enemies in arc, low cooldown.
Double Strike - not that great damage, but cooldown can be lowered to 2, and then to 1 with brawler gloves. So, you do three melee attacks per turn total, plus Adaptive Combat, for nearly 5 total.
Relentless Strike - must have for DS and SB cooldown
Flurry of Fists - nice, but cooldown too big for it to be practical. I left it at one.
Counter Strike - awesome, maxed it early. With not so much area damage, we should let enemies hurt themselves. Ad with some healing-on hit (Bloodcaller ring, Battle Shout on gloves) they could heal us too. I could just level in Sludge Nest by keeping down 5 (well, except for immobile slimes).
Exploit Weakness - awesome and must have. It is not resistance penetration, it is much better. It drops resist by flat value, even to negatives.
Rush - with spinning Backhand available, it was auxiliary - for when SB on cooldown, or range is more than 7, or daze is preferrable to extra damage. I kept hoping to find some "-rush cooldown" gear, to throw in Strider and have cooldown-less rush and Steamroller prodigy. But as I said, I was not particularly lucky with gear. So I got Garkul's Revenge instead.

Fungus and AM - good, but not THAT good for brawler. I went AM because I got Spellhunt Remains (and they were my best gloves until I returned from East and bought randart). But overall, I thing magic would be better. Brawlers are also very limited in gear departament, without adding banning magic items too. They don't have much will, and you will have to get it to at lest 45+ to avoid magic shield dropping, so you can just as well pump maging for celestial/light. And most damaging gloves are usually magic too. Celestial/light can give you more net heal/protection than fungus/am, with added effect removing of Providence. And Chant of Fortitude is rounded up nicely with Spell Shield. So, I recommend not going AM with Brawler.

Infusions - two regens (for constant healing, and access to my only heal - wild growth).
One wild. I was considering taking second, but problem is, wild only removes ONE effect, and when Indomitable and Unflinching Resolve is not enough, I usually have lots of effects on me, with wild not making much difference. So it's easier to run away and wait out, and/or use Relentless Pursuit.
Two movement infusions. It was probably a little of overkill, especially after I got Wanderer's Rest. But it sure was handy. And I could use it offensively too.