http://te4.org/wiki/Brawler
For an example character, see:
Knuckles II
For some reason, ToME still has the character at Level 39.
This build is written for 1.25 Normal Roguelike.
Goals
You want to be an exceptionally mobile, exceptionally lethal melee combatant. You want to have a good and easy time throughout the game, with a decent chance of success in the post-game.
Racial Choices
Skeleton – 5/5
This is a Skeleton Brawler guide. Take a skeleton. Do it!
The XP penalty sucks, but hey - you can't have everything.
As for reasons, here are a few:
- Bone Armour is amazing on a dex-based character.
Reassemble is nice later on, and it lets you cheat death. Once.
Resilient Bones can help with status effects.
The Stats and HP gain are nice.
Alternate Racial Choices
Cornac – 5/5
Cornacs make very nice brawlers as well if you want to go for antimagic. They level quickly, the extra category point allows for early grappling (which is nice!), and they are actually allowed to use infusions and go AM.
Thalore – 4/5
As with many classes, Thalore are a decent choice as well. The additional resists and disease immunity are excellent. The XP penalty hurts, however.
Halfling – 3+/5
Halflings have nice stats for a brawler, with good HP growth, and the ability to get rid of status effects. However, Duck and Dodge will not be needed (unless you plan on tackling atamathon with a high-defense build), and you will have 100% crit chance in the late game anyway. I also envisage them as having a particularly nasty fighting style when it comes to enemies bigger than themselves (which are most).
Shalore – 3/5
Somewhat squishy, Shalore are still a good option for brawlers; however, you already have Blinding Strikes (making Eternal Grace somewhat superfluous), you have no shortage of class points, and you ARE short on generics. You also have no Unstoppable (nor anything that comes close in terms of brokenness when combined with Timeless). That being said, Timeless is still excellent as debuff removal and to reset your cooldowns. Again, you won't need the crit chance, though the crit damage is nice.
I might underrate Shalore, as I have not played them as a brawler yet.
Dwarf – 1/5
Nice HP. Stone Walk is great. The saves are nice. Apart from that, they do not offer much besides an XP penalty. Skip them.
Yeek – 1/5
So. Squishy. You will not have the willpower to make Dominate work, you don't need the willpower they start with, and you definitely do not want the 7 hp/level.
That being said, the global speed bonus is awesome, and they could potentially work nicely late in the game. I guess.
Higher – 1/5
They offer nothing you want. There are a few funny combinations with spell procs and Born into Magic, I suppose, but they are not worth taking a race for. However, they are probably still preferable to Ghouls.
Ghoul – 0/5
The HP are nice, as are the immunities. Apart from that, Ghouls plain suck as brawlers. You don't need Retch. Most of your combats will not last longer than 2-3 turns. You don't need Ghoulish Leap, as your mobility is excellent as is, and you certainly don't need Gnaw either.
No.
Attributes:
Dexterity and Cunning all the way. You can get Constitution and Strength via your passive. When both are maxed out, start pushing Con until Thick Hide 5/5, then invest in Strength for even more damage. Keep Con-boosting items to get Thick Hide earlier.
Class skills:
Technique - Combat Techniques (Class, 1.1 mastery)
Rush - 5/5
Precise Strikes - 5/5
Perfect Strike - 1/5
Blinding Speed - 5/5
Rush is one of your three mobility skills, and an excellent tool in general. Rush one opponent to daze him, kill another, come back to the one you dazed. Or just kill the one you rushed in the first place. Precise Strikes adds amazing amounts of critical hit chance and accuracy once you have a decent amount of dexterity. Perfect Strike can be very useful, but is probably fine at just one point. Blinding Speed is one of your basic tools and just plain amazing. You might want to skip it if you go Shalore, though.
Technique - Combat Veteran (Class, 1.1 mastery)
Quick Recovery - 0/5 or 1/5
Fast Metabolism - 0/5 or 1/5
Spell Shield - 0/5 or more
Unending Frenzy - 0/5
You might have stamina probems in the beginning, but later on, fights will be over so quickly that any point spent on stamina regen is probably wasted. If you feel like it, get some Spell Shield once you run out of places to put your Class points, as your spell save will be abysmal.
Technique - Pugilism (Class, 1.3 mastery)
Double Strike - 4/5 or more
Spinning Backhand - 4/5 or more
Axe Kick - 3/5 or more
Flurry of Fists - 4/5 or more
All of these are amazing. Their damage increases with your Dexterity, to the point where Double Strike does ~120% damage per hit; a Double Strike proccing Flexible Combat can hit for ~3k damage at the end. Spinning Backhand is your second mobility skill. With its low cooldown and ability to hit multiple targets as well as adding combo points, it is an amazing skill. Axe Kick completely locks down almost any enemy for longer than you usually need to kill them. Flurry of Fists can hit for upwards of 6k easily with Flexible Combat. It also adds 3 combo points. Max them all eventually if you have spare points.
Technique - Finishing Moves (Class, 1.3 mastery)
Uppercut - 1/5 or 2/5
Concussive Punch - 1/5
Butterfly Kick - 1/5 or more
Haymaker - 0/5 or 5/5 eventually
Uppercut is very nice early and midgame, stunning opponents quite reliably for 3+ rounds even with only 1 point invested. Concussive punch's damage seems to random for my liking, and trash basically clears itself once you have a few points in Counter Attack. Butterfly Kick is excellent and your third mobility skill. It is basically a controlled phase door that deals very decent damage as you land. A few points decrease the cooldown drastically, so if you find yourself using it often, invest them. Haymaker is all or nothing. If you get it, invest 5 points in it. The damage is excellent, especially if you run with a gauntlet instead of gloves.
Cunning - Tactical (Class, 1.3 mastery)
Tactical Expert - 2/5
Counter Attack - 3/5 or more
Set Up - 0/5
Exploit Weakness - 5/5
Tactical Expert is good, however, you will rarely have enough enemies next to you for long to justify more than 2 or maybe 3 points. Counter Attack destroys most melee enemies, including vermin, ghouls and elite orc berserkers. I feel like ~50% counter attack chance is enough, invest more if you want more. Set Up seems next to useless for this build: you don't need the crit increase, and your defense will be very high without it. It also uses a turn, which you'd rather use to actually kill something. Exploit Weakness is essential. 5/5 it, preferably before Dreadfell.
Technique - Grappling (Class, 1.3 mastery, locked)
Clinch - 0/5 or more
Crushing Hold - 0/5 or 3/5 or more
Take Down - 0/5 or 3/5 or more
Hurricane Throw - 0/5 or 3/5 or more
Grappling is not meant for this build; however, you have one spare category point and a lot of class points to waste. If you get it, get it early. Take Down in particular is amazing in Daikara and Dreadfell Vaults, as it can basically depopulate entire vaults with but one critical Take Down. Follow that with a Hurrican Throw, and you've got yourself a room full of corpses. Clinch and Crushing Hold go together; if you get Clinch, you will want a decent amount of points in Crushing Hold. You will not need both past the early game (where they will be weak due to scaling) until you get to the Peak, where Grappling is very strong, silencing, slowing, and deflecting damage onto one of the the mages.
That being said, Grappling can be awkward to use at times, and you'll be fine without it.
Technique - Unarmed Discipline (Class, 1.3 mastery, locked)
Combination Kick - 5/5
Defensive Throw - 0/5 or more
Open Palm Block - 0/5
Roundhouse Kick - 0/5
I tend to unlock this category for Combination Kick alone. It does a shitload of damage and deactivates enemy sustains. 5/5.
Defensive Throw is okay if you have points to spare; however, most enemies it will reliably work on are no real threat anyway. Get it if you have taken grappling, though, as the combination makes fighting individual caster enemies hilariously easy. Open Palm Block sucks; you waste your combo points - and a turn! - for a more or less negligible damage shield. Roundhouse Kick just doesn't do enough damage to be worth investing in. It also pushes enemies away, which you usually do not want either.
Cunning - Dirty Fighting (Class, 1.0 mastery, locked)
Dirty Fighting - 0/5 or more
Backstab - 0/5 or more
Switch Place - 0/5 or 1/5
Cripple - 0/5 or more
I would suggest unlocking this rather than Grappling. Dirty Fighting is nice; if it does not stun, it is a free hit that can trigger Flexible Combat and apply on-hit effects. It is also excellent to disable bone shields if you have enough different sources of damage. Backstab's critical chance increase is useless. The stun proc could be nice, however, you tend to disable opponents rather nicely by killing them, and many opponents you cannot kill quickly will have stun resistance. Switch Place can be useful, particularly if you don't have teleport and get surrounded. Cripple is great. Combined with Blinding Speed and your generally high attack speed, you can kill most opponents before they have the chance to get more than 1 or 2 hits in.
Generics:
Technique - Combat Training (generic, 1.1 mastery)
Thick Skin - 5/5
Armour Training -1/5
Combat Accuracy - 1/5 or more
Weapons Mastery - 0/5
Dagger Mastery - 0/5
Thick Skin is mandatory. Armour Training can stay at 1 since you will be using light armour. Combat Accuracy is more or less optional. Get enough to hit. Always. Early on, you will want a few points. If you feel like keeping them flexible, do it.
Technique - Mobility (generic, 1.2 mastery)
Hack and Back - 1/5
Mobile Defense - 5/5
Light of Foot - 0/5
Strider - 0/5
Hack and Back can save your life, but you will not be using it often. Mobile Defense makes light armour viable, 5/5 it eventually. Light of Foot helps with stamina problems you do not have, Strider would be nice, but you don't have the generics to spare.
Technique - Conditioning (generic, 1.1 mastery)
Vitality - 1/5 or more
Unflinching Resolve - 4/5 or 0/5
Daunting Presence - 0/5 or more
Adrenaline Rush - 0/5 or 1/5
Vitality is very strong early on, especially on a skeleton with no regen infusions. On non-skeletons, you might want to invest a few more points, as getting rid of wounds, poisons and diseases can be a lifesaver. Unflinching Resolve helps with status effects and thus can save your life. You can probably skip it if you get decent saves and/or have some other way of getting rid of status effects (Indomitable or Timeless, for example). Daunting Presence is nice if you have decent saves; you might as well skip it if not. Adrenaline Rush can be good backup in case you run out of stamina. I never take it on my brawlers, though.
Technique - Unarmed Training (generic, 1.3 mastery)
Unarmed Mastery - 5/5
Unified Body - 5/5
Heightened Reflexes - 3/5 or more
Reflex Defense - 5/5
All of these are excellent. Unarmed Mastery should be maxed asap, as it increases all your damage. Unified body allows you to keep pushing Dex and Cun, while at the same time maintaining enough Str for higher tier armors and Con for, well, survival. It also ensures you will deal amazing damage in the late game. Heightened Reflexes further adds to your mobility and allows for matrix-style projectile dodging even without Slow Motion. Reflex Defense shaves a good bit of damage off of an nasty hit you might suffer.
Technique - Field Control (generic, 1.0 mastery)
Disengage - 0/5 or 1/5
Track - 0/5 or 1/5
Heave - 0/5 or 1/5
Slow Motion - 0/5 or 3/5 or more
Disengage and Heave are next to useless for a brawler. Track can be excellent if you have the patience for it, play on Nightmare or higher, or just want to scout out vaults. Slow Motion is fun, the sustain cost is heavy, though, and would require some Stamina-increasing items so it won't cripple you.
Cunning- Survival (generic, 1.0 mastery, locked)
Heightened Senses - 0/5 or more
Charm Mastery - 0/5 or more
Piercing Sight - 0/5 or more
Evasion - 0/5
Heightened Senses is very useful in the early and early mid game, and becomes less useful as areas become more open and better lighted. Charm Mastery is great if you have activatable items with useful effects. Piercing Sight should be gotten from an escort, if at all possible. With your high cunning, 1/5 will do a lot for your invisibility detection.
Escorts:
Thieves are excellent. Use them to get Piercing Sight and Heightened Senses.
Warriors Get Vitality or Unflinching Resolve. Those are spare generics, basically.
Temporal Explorers are more or less useless for you. Betray them if you can, get cunning in both cases.
Alchemists are excellent if you want Stone Alchemy (which is a decent option, really). Else betray them if possible, and get dex either way.
Anorithils offer cunning, mainly. If you can betray them, get Track.
Paladins are nice for Chant of Fortitude or Chant of Fortress. Both are great, though I suggest taking the former. Betraying them sucks.
Get Premonition from Seers. It's fantastic.
As for Sages, they offer a nice +2 to dex or cunning, which is not too shabby, really.
Infusions:
Skeleton:
Shielding, Shielding, Teleportation, Heat Beam, Controlled Phase Door
Non-Skeleton:
Shielding, Heroism/Shielding, Teleportation/Movement, Physical/Mental Wild, Regeneration/Healing
Antimagic:
Regeneration, Regeneration, Heroism, Physical/Mental Wild, Movement
Get a teleportation rune or movement infusion as fast as possible. Teleportation can save your ass, even though you will probably not need it much (if at all) once you get to the East. With your high damage and good mobility, you can usually handle whatever you teleport into as well. If you can't get teleportation, get a movement infusion.
Keep a physical wild or heat beam rune around to handle stuns and dazes at all times.
Shielding runes don't blow turns and effectively give you a larger hp pool when popped at full health (thus helping to prevent instagib). Get 2 if you are a skeleton.
A heroism infusion is absolutely amazing if you manage to find a decent one, offering both a nice damage increase and amazing survivability. If not, get a second shield rune. Or both.
Prodigies:
Flexible Combat. Get it. It's amazing. It will trigger on 4 out of 5 double strikes and will generally do much for your damage output. It is also excellent for applying status effects, Exploit Weakness and (possibly) Backstab stuns.
Crafty Hands. If you took Stone Alchemy, take this. You don't really need another prodigy, and this one will offer a lot both defensively and offensively, depending on your gem loadout.
Swift Hands can be great if you want to apply different debuffs from different items. It also allows you to swap in a teleportation torque or amulet when it's needed, equip a Ring of the Dead, or change your resistance loadout depending on the enemies you are facing, all without losing a turn. One particularly nice application is equipping gloves with the "of Sorrow"-suffix to cast Ruined Earth.
Steamroller is a lot of fun with this build, but you don't really need it. It does not help too much with the final fight (which you should be able to handle anyway), nor with Atamathon or Angolwen. If you want to do Farportals in the late game, consider this strongly.
Draconic Body is your defensive prodigy of choice together with Draconic Will and Spine of the World. The latter especially more or less ensures you can handle any fight without suffering physical effects.
Equipment:
Your most important piece of equipment are your gloves. Look for high base damage first, followed by useful procs. Among those, Greater Weapon Focus is an excellent choice, as are status effects such as Slow, Silence, Damage Reduce, Insanity or Blind.
Buy a random artifact gauntlet from the Merchant as soon as you can, it will make a huge difference unless you already have excellent gauntlets.
I am undecided between gloves and gauntlets in general. The attack speed that gloves offer is certainly an advantage late game, but the difference in damage per turn should not be that big in the end, considering that your skills profit from the higher damage of gauntlets. Basically, do not choose by type, but rather look at the complete package. The Tier 5 unique gauntlets are pretty strong, for example.
Apart from that, you want (physical) damage resistance reduction first and foremost, followed by other offensive stats such as increased physical damage, crit and crit damage as well as dex, cunning, and defense. Another thing to look for is elemental damage on hit, as that helps a lot in getting rid of pesky Bone Shields.
Do not neglect your resistances, though. You should try to get them as high as possible, especially blight, fire and cold.
The Bloodcaller ring is very useful; the healing is actually considerable.
Skill order:
At the beginning, get Double Strike, Rush, Uppercut and Spinning Backhand and Tactical Expert to level 1, as well as Vitality and Unarmed Mastery.
While leveling, priority is on getting Double Strike, Spinning Backhand and Rush to level 2-4. As soon as you can, get points in Axe Kick, Counterattack and Butterfly Kick.
With your generic points, max Unarmed Mastery as fast you can and put points into Unified Body and Mobile Defense, eventually maxing both.
If you are a skeleton, get Bone Shield to 3 quickly as well. If not, get your racials depending on their usefulness. Level Thick Skin as you can and Combat Accuracy as you need.
Try to hit 5/5 in Exploit Weakness as well as 4/5 or 5/5 in Blinding Speed before Dreadfell. Get Precise Strikes when you feel it offers enough benefit to offset the lowered attack speed.
If you are a Skeleton, consider getting Vile Life.. The first skill is indepent of spell power and offers additional healing, and late in the game you might be able to afford spending a few points on this.
I keep this vague deliberately, as I think skill order depends on preference, equipment and race, if you want a more detailed progression, let me know and I will try to provide one.
Alchemist Quests:
Foundations > Fox > Mastery > Brawn > Focus.
You can never have enough generic points, and you don't especially need the class points.
If you can, get either the Lifebinding Emerald (if you can make use of it) or the Elixir of Invulnerability to help with Atamathon or Angolwen.
Early game advice:
As a skeleton, play carefully in the first dungeon, shield (or Bone Shield) whenever you see anything remotely dangerous and use heat beam to get rid of stuns. Also use your phase door rune. It can buy precious time when things get rough.
After the starting dungeon, check shops for cheap hp items as well as decent shielding runes and maybe a teleportation rune (and infusions if you happen to be a fleshy).
Do the Trollmire, including Bill. Keep buying hp items and runes/infusions while finishing the T1 dungeons.
Also check Last Hope (and, if possible, Zigur) for good gloves or gauntlets. Once you get a decent pair of gauntlets, you should be able to handle everything the game can throw at you.
At level 9, my last brawler had 390 hp, 45 damage, 44 accuracy, 125% attack speed and 20% critical chance. Needless to say, I did not have any problems finishing my T1 and T2 dungeons.
How to play:
Shield immediately whenever you feel threatened (or use a regen infusion if you have Fungus). Charge or Spinning Backhand spellcasters; they should die with the first Double Strike throughout most of the game.
Use Axe Kick to disable enemies. You can split your disables: charge one enemy, Axe Kick a second, use the combo point to stun a third, or use Flurry of Fists to kill one and Haymaker to kill a second. Use Bone Shield judiciously.
Butterfly Kick allows you to "blink" past enemies, enabling you to kill casters hiding behind enemies.
As soon as you get Flexible Combat and have a decent crit chance and crit damage, most enemies will melt as soon as you bump them, making the East almost incredibly easy. I used my Teleportation Rune once past dreadfell when I charged into a vault full of horrors and did not encounter a single truly dangerous situation past that point. Most stair and orb guardians died within two rounds of combat.
Your defense makes most melee opponents a trifle. If you stack enough of it, it can help a lot with handling Atamathon as well.
Problems:
Multiple stunning and/or confusing opponents that are also hard to kill. This is rare, but it can happen. If it does, try to kill them one by one. Draw them around a corner to do so. Teleport away if you need to, or move away if you can.
High damage reduction This is usually more a nuisance then a serious problem, since enemies that survive the first few turns are usually stunned, slowed, concussed and/or otherwise disabled. However, enemies with high physical resistance and high resistance to all damage can take so long to kill that you run out of stamina, making it hard to keep them controlled. Stack resistance reduction if you can.
Vor Pride entrance and similar situations, unless you stack resists. You can die quickly to a barrage of magic, especially if the mages are invisible and keep porting in and out of the room or are otherwise hard to reach. Try to position yourself so you break line of sight to some of them, or make sure you kill or disable as many as possible as fast as possible.
Overconfidence. You will get used to everything dying around you, and you might forget you are not actually invincible. High Orc Pyromancers, Great Wyrms and the like can still blast you to hell.
So this is my brawler guide. I hope you find it to be useful and you have as much fun with your brawlers as I had with mine.
I finished the game with two brawlers so far, this one being the stronger of the two, and I am truly amazed at the build's power.
I am quite sure, however, that there is a lot to be improved, as I still consider myself an intermediate player at best, so take any advice offered with a grain of salt, and feel free to offer additional advice and correction where needed.
