ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

I managed to get 2 brawler characters to respectable levels (although one was lost due to freak save incident that made the character impossible to continue...) so here's some of my opinion on the class and the talents (except grappling tree or parts of talents that synergize with grappling tree, haven't touch that yet)...

Basic gameplay

One of the things I've noticed with brawler is that to take an advantage of its ability, instead of normally try to fight only one enemy at a time, the class encourages you to actually fight multiple enemies at once to get the maximum benefit for some of your talents...but the weird thing is that the class lacks abilities to hurt multiple enemies other than Roundhouse Kick (good skill) and Spinning Backhand (hard to take advantage of)...

Another one is that the class, unlike all other stamina-based class, is heavily skill-reliant for its damage-dealing...good thing there's some talents to help with that...although you can only really do that after something like at least level 10 when you can get Relentless Strikes to lv 3...

Talents

Pugilism
Double Strike: your old basic attack for building up combo...not worth level up much though, damage increase per level is low...
Body Shot: strike and daze? I think it's not useful in the beginning since most of the time you'll only fight one enemy...it's way more useful later though when you got enough defensive talents to fight multiple enemies at once and want the benefit from Tactical Expert while reducing damage done to you...
Rushing Strike: Awesome, period. The range might be worse than standard Rush but stun instead of daze, low cooldown, better damage, makes it probably the best skill for this tree!
Flurry of Fists: better version of Double Strike with 3 attacks and higher base damage...not worth level up though...improvement's too low...

Finishing moves
While all of the talents in this tree have their cooldown decreased for each level-up, sometimes it's just not worth leveling up though...will state later why for each talent...

Uppercut: another standard, stun with increased duration for each combo point...not really worth leveling up...only damage increase...if the base stun duration is increased by 2 > 2.5 > 3 > 3.5 > 4 it will be much better...but that might be too overpowered, still...
Spinning Backhand: this combine with Rushing Strike gives this class a lot of mobility, although you can only take advantage of it in open spaces, it sucks hard when you fight in close range without many ways to increase distance between you and enemy, because then it drains all combo points without giving any advantage...not really worth leveling up...
Relentless Strike: Awesome, plus necessary...since this class gobbles huge amounts of stamina, this talent is practically need to be chosen...lv 1 is useless though...
Haymaker: Sucks, period. Damage is too low and improvement is also too low...maybe it's better if each talent level increase the damage per combo point or doing some effect is good too...

Unarmed discipline
Push Kick: Looks okay, but knockback distance should scale with talent level...
Defensive Throw: Another awesome talent...this thing helps a lot when fighting multiple enemies by dazing the guys around, making you able to take advantage of Tactical Expert without taking too much damage...can't comment on its synergy with grappling though...
Breath Control: More stamina regen is better, but I didn't use it...don't have enough stamina to sustain it with Exploit Weakness at the same time...
Roundhouse Kick: Good talent...good damage and hit 3 enemies at once is good...

Unarmed training
Unarmed Mastery: basically good old Weapons Mastery for fist...you'll need points in here though since normally unarmed damage is not high...
Steady Mind: increase defense and mental saves...more defense is always good but I feel like it's 1-point wonder...
Heightened Reflex: Awesome skill, helps a lot with long-range projectile and bolt dodging, but another 1-point wonder...
Combo String: good...although 3rd points and up should only be put later...

Conditioning
Physical Conditioning: more armor is always good, but I feel that more defense is better though...
Firm Footing: Knockback resistance is not bad, although sometimes you might want to keep it intentionally low to use Rushing Strikes and Spinning Backhand effectively...
Iron Skin: Awesome, more resistance from Con is always good...
Unflinching Resolve: make the recovery % scale with some stats? Stun resistance is always nice though...

Tactical
Tactical Expert: Woot! Boost a lot of defense and helps with Counter Attack and Defensive Throw...THE talent that makes the class able to (and SHOULD) fight multiple opponents at once...
Counter Attack: Extra damage is always good...plus, it counts at hit for Exploit Weakness too...
Set Up: Initially I don't think it's a good skill but I've changed my mind: it's awesome! Defense increase is good, crit increase is good, and saving throw reduction means it's easier to stun or daze them...yeah!
Exploit Weakness: Reduce resistance = more damage = good! Lv 1 is useless though...

Random stuff + Conclusion
It's surprising I could take down Ukruk with brawler! The massive defense increase probably helps a lot...

Overall it's a very fun class, but some of its primary talent are just not good enough to level up much...hopefully they'll get buff later...I'll try grappling later too...

I agree that pugilism and finishing moves need to be looked at. I think I mentioned in the other thread you posted that I've seen a lot of characters max the same two skills (rushing and relentless).

I'm going on vacation today and will take another look at this thread when I get back. If I have time I may post some ideas earlier then that but won't have time to get anything coded until I get home.

Thanks for the feedback.

Back from vacation but I haven't felt much like coding (plus the kids have been keeping me busy). Still planning to rebalance some of the Brawler talents as soon as I get inspired (hopefully over this next week).

If anyone has any further feedback they'd like to add I'd appreciate it.

In terms of stats, they have a disadvantage as a lot of weapons can give +6 to at least 3 attributes. Also the whole armor system is revisited, so perhaps having skills that can add hardiness. They can't wield metal armors, but we already have skills to add armor, though the focus is more on defense for them I guess.

Also I didn't get the feeling i'd ever be able to do the 1000+ damage regularly that a lot of other classes can do. Though it could be that my build wasn't that optimised for damage. He was about lvl 34 or so.

The stun effects that the brawler has, as well as a decent amount of movability makes it very versatile. Generally speaking I really like it.

Some ideas for a few changes. This will make getting combo points a bit harder without investing talent points. Also will make finishing moves usable without talent points, benefit more from talent level, and still have combo points factored into the effect. Rushing Strike would be removed but the class wouldn't need to spend a category point to get Rush (instead Dirty Fighting would be locked). Spinning Backhand + Rush should still give the class plenty of mobility.

I'm still pondering the generic trees but leaning heavily towards something like this for Pugilism and Finishing Moves.

Pugilism 2.0
Double Strike (second cp at tl 4)
Relentless Strikes (lowers cooldowns and recover stamina on cp gain; maybe make this passive?)
Spinning Backhand (hits multiple targets, tl increases range and tl 4 lets you get up to 2 extra combo points if targets are available)
Flurry of Fists (additional cp at tl 3 and 5; 3 cp total at tl 5)

Finishers 2.0 (remove cd scaling and change cooldowns, allow abilities to be used without cp but at much lower effect)
Body Shot (cp + tl determines stamina drain and daze) 6 cd
Concussive Punch (hits target for full damage, hits all targets in a radius of 1 around the target for cp + tl weapon damage) 6 cd
Uppercut (cp + tl determines stun duration) 12 cd
Haymaker (chance to insta-kill. gain stamina based on tl and cp on kill) 10 cd

Close Dirty Fighting tree, open combat techniques active tree.

Thoughts?

For damage stuff, like haymaker, make each combo point give big difference. Often combo points are kinda meh. I just need 1 or 2, and I don't care because I combo for the attack's effect rather than it's extra damage (in most cases).

The class doesn't do a great amount of damage (vs other classes) by lvl 30 (pugilism wise).

Also... you want to take away the strongest skill the brawler has? Yes it was imbalanced, but just take it's cooldown to the same as rush.

Relentless strikes as a passive! Yes please!

Also it felt to me I was a lot more keen to spend the points on the awesome generic skills than my class skill points*. I'd suggest possibly making unarmed training a class skills instead of generic, it'd be in the spirit as archers and slingers have their weapon skill improvements on a class tree and not generic.

*: I focussed a lot on the tactical tree, and got a variety of the pugilism, but not all very high, as the damage didn't seem to scale that much. Generics the conditioning tree.

BTW: Unflinching resolve wording is ambigious. It sounded to me like I'll only be gaining the stun resist after I lost that much damage. I'll just put the stun resist first. Grants X% stun immunity. \nAfter being hit for <snip>...

The bonus damage on Haymaker was pretty good I thought, 10% per combo point is decent isn't it? Adding an insta-kill effect and some stamina recovery when you kill someone with it should make the talent a lot better. For everything else I was pretty much thinking talent level + combo point duration on effects. So Body Shot at tl 6.5 and 5 combo points could daze for 11 turns (maybe it's cooldown should be 12 though in that case) and Uppercut would stun for 11 turns. Concussive Punch should give the class some extra AoE without forcing people to spec into whirlwind kick. For that I was thinking 10% of damage to the primary target would get spread to adjacent targets for each talent point and combo point (so 115% at tl 6.5 with 5 combo points).

Rushing Strike there's really not a place for unless I remove Body Shot (note that next Beta daze and stun won't be nearly as similar as they are now and daze might be a lot more useful). Plus if the class gets access to Rush easier they really don't need three close in talents do they?

I'll consider making unarmed training class and fix the description on unflinching resolve.

As to comments about damage keep in mind that the class has weapon speed between 0.8 and 0.6. So while you're doing less damage per attack you should be doing good damage per game turn. If it really is to low I'll consider adjusting it but so far most people seem okay with the damage they're doing. The Relentless Strike change to a passive would basically be so they could get their talent cooldowns down to their weapon speed.

*note* These changes probably won't make it into b26.