Hatcher

Hey guys.. I recently created a Inquis. alt and have been exclusively duoing with a friend who is a Bruiser. My Inq is level 31 and AA wise I've been working down the BC line.

Now I know Clerics are pretty much the worst healer to duo with a brawler but I guess I'm a glutton for punishment and I enjoy the class.

I was wondering if anybody had any tips on keeping a Brawler up. She has good gear and is a skilled player but when we take on the harder mobs (Tempered Golem in RoV last night for example) I have been having a hard time keeping up. I have played a healer since launch but this is my first Inquis. so I don't have much experience with him.

Am I wasting my time and power stacking my reactives on a brawler? It seems like when she does get hit she gets hit hard and the reactive really doesn't help much. I find myself really having to spam my single target heals.

Any pointers would be much appreciated.

oh ya, and all my heals are either master or adept 3's

Thanks

Calain

If you have a brawler Tank it is best to increase her chance to avoid and to heal the hits she takes using your direct heals.

To do this you can use the "Forced ..." encounter debuff and the scull crack AA CA. Beside this try to have the STR / INT debuff on as many mobs as possible to reduce the incoming damage, if she is hit.
Later on you can also look for the Shield Ally AA to further reduce the number of hits.

Reactives are mostly a waste of time, 'cause during the whole duration your tank will only be hit once or twice.

Avirodar

Reactives are not a waste of time. They will still "absorb" a decent portion of the hit, meaning you have to direct heal less, and buy you more time for debuffs + DPS.

Content pending, it might be dangerous to try recasting your group reactive once combat has begun, but as the duo you should team up to make a point of getting it cast right before each pull. As each encounter is different, there is no single casting order that is a golden gift, just use intuition (and trial + error) to find out what works best.

With an Inq + Bruiser combo, you might find yourselves better off sticking to white or blue mobs... Perhaps barely yellow at a stretch. Yes, you get less exp "per kill" for blues and whites than killing yellows+oranges, but quite often you will find your over all "exp per hour" is higher as you can plough down the easier mobs.

Happy hunting.

__________________

Calain

Precasting reactives is always a good idea, but during the fight even a group reactive will heal less on a brawler tank then our small direct heal cause the reactive will not trigger enough. This is at least my perception at higher level. In full groups I have seen heroic mobs die without hitting a brawler once due to stuns and avoidance.

Hatcher

Well, after talking to her today I found out her gear was not what I thought. She is persueing tailoring and had made her MC armor for the tier before but was a couple of levels shy of being able to make her current tier armor so was still wearing the previous tiers armor. With that being said I don't feel so bad now..

I had very little trouble keeping her up against blue ^^^'s but in RoV it seems like you just turn one corner and the mobs are yellow ^^^'s.. We actually managed to take down a couple of yellows but the Tempered golem we were after was a level higher and wiped the floor with us.

So after reading everyone's advice it doesn't seem like I was to far off on my technique.. I casted both reactives before the pulls and kept my debuffs running.. Hopefully we'll see better results when she upgrades her armor.

Thanks for all the imput folks.

Blueboy

pre cast your group reactive and debuff and try to throw out everything fast to take agro. your plate will absorb well and the group reactive will work better on you anyhow then a couple seconds in the brawler will take agro and you can group direct heal yourself and him if he takes a hit in that time. then go into direct healing him. all the while targeting through him.

Jacaou

I play both a monk and an Inquis. The thing about brawler and thier high avoidance is it's incredible against blue to white 3ups since thier avoid actually works against them. But when fighting yellow and especially orange con, the mobs don't "miss" your leather wearer near as often.

Pre reactive both group and single before a tough pull and squeeze them debuffs in to ease the pain.

I know it sounds contradictive but middle stance(for the brawler) is much better overall than defensive since you need good dps to burn the mob down. In defensive your tank will miss the mob too much. Stuns, stifles, iterrupts don't work when you can't hit the target.

try this and check your tanks hit%

Advanced Combat Tracker -- An encounter parser for EQ2

good luck

Hatcher

Thanks for the tips folks.. I've certainly noticed the difference in how ofter she gets hit when the mobs yellow. With the blues it was very easy to keep her in the green but as soon as we took on the yellows it was a whole different story.. seems like every other attack landed.

I'm sure once she gets her gear upgraded we will have an easier time of it.

Thanks again.