Brawler 1.0.4

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Guide

This guide is focused on a specific Brawler build. I think people are intimidated by the combo points and grappling. Fortunately, or maybe not so fortunately for the class, it can be played without these things and it's probably the strongest build too. It doesn't use combo points, it doesn't use grapples and it mostly involves punching things very fast for massive damage (I was hitting regularly for over 1k with a few hits over 3k, with 70% attack speed). Comments are welcome, please point out if a skill works better than I think it does.

Race

Brawlers have a lot of free generic points and don't need category points so we have a lot of freedom in race choice and can pick one with a good racial tree.

Cornac – 1/5 - The main appeal of Cornacs, the extra category point, is close to useless for Brawlers. Plus you'll end up with way too many generic points.

Higher – 2/5 - The regen is based on willpower which Brawlers don't have. Arcane resistance, not very useful. Not using stamina for a few turns is useless.

Shalore – 5/5 - Very good racials that are worth having 9 hp per level, in my opinion. All of them should get 5 points.

Thalore – 5/5 - 12% more damage and 12% damage reduction is good even if you have no willpower. 25 phys and mental save – sure. 10% resist all is very nice and there's 20% blight resist and disease immunity as a bonus. The treants are a good distraction. Only two of these skills need to be 5/5.

Halfling – 3.5/5 - Luck of the little folk will boost your crit chance to 100%. Duck and dodge is bad, Brawlers have good defense and don't need extra evasion. Militant mind is ok. Indomitable is good. Good hp bonus.

Dwarf – 3/5 - As a brawler you need good gloves. The best way to get good gloves is to buy unique gloves for 4000 gold from the merchant. You have to do this as soon as you get 4000 gold and come back from the Far East. This makes Power is Money not very useful for most of the game. And then you wouldn't be able to buy a 2nd unique item. So this leaves Dwarves with Resilience of the Dwarves which is very good. Stoneskin is bad. Stone Walking is good and worth 1 point. That adds up to about 3/5, only because of the 12 hp per level too.

Yeek – 1/5 - 15% global speed is amazing. Yeek summons are good as distractions. Everything else about this race works against us. Low hp is the obvious problem. Str, dex and con racial penalties add up to -10 and make our Brawler perform very badly in the beginning.

Skeleton – 4.5/5 - Excellent racials that all deserve 5 points and the tree boosted with a category point that you can easily afford to spend. The lack of infusions will require a different playstyle involving a lot of teleporting/controlled phase door.

Ghoul – 3/5 - Retch doesn't have the same defensive power as the skeleton tree. Leap is very nice. Gnaw is useless. Good hp but it only serves to make up for the 20% speed penalty. Still decent.

Stats

Dex > Cun > Con >= Str

Gauntlet damage is 40% dex, 40% cunning and 40% str.

Dexterity is our most important stat because Pugilism talents, our main source of damage, scale with dexterity. The striking stance damage multiplier also scales with dexterity. Dex is much more effective than str at increasing our damage.

Cunning gives crit, we want a lot of crit. 70%+ crit leads to a lot of damage.

Strength gives physical power, not as good as the other two. Put as little as possible in str until dex and cun are maxed. However, we need 50 str to learn the Flexible Combat prodigy so keep all items with +str to learn flexible combat at lvl 30. You may have to put a few points in str, this is fine because you'll max dex and cun eventually anyway.

Constitution gives hp and that is good but keep it lower than dex and cun.

Max out dex first, then cun. Put points in con once in a while while raising dex and cun. When dex and cun are maxed get str for more damage or more con, it's up to you.

Willpower and Magic are useless.

Skill Analysis

Skip to Skill Order if you just want the build. This part isn't too important.

Class skills

Technique / Pugilism

Pugilism skills and the striking stance are our main source of damage. All of the skills in Pugilism should be 5/5 as soon as possible. These skills and the striking stance bonus benefit A LOT from dex. Boost this tree with a category point – this is important.

• Double Strike – activates automatically, makes you punch fast and hard. Don't use it manually.
• Spinning Backhand – Excellent damage and a gap closer and even aoe. Use it the same way you use Rush to kill spellcasters. The further you use it from the more damage it does.

The other skills are self-explanatory.

Technique / Finishing Moves

• Uppercut – Good damage, 10 second cooldown.
• Concussive Punch – Bad damage, bad aoe damage, useless.
• Body Shot – Worse than uppercut.
• Haymaker – Best damage, 16 second cooldown, requires points in the previous 3 skills to unlock.

Conclusion: 1 point in uppercut at the start, max it later.

Technique / Unarmed Training

• Unarmed Mastery – 5/5, no explanation needed.
• Steady Mind – Definitely worth 1 point, maybe 2. Brawlers get enough defense from this skill and other sources, you don't need more than 2 points.
• Heightened Reflexes – Makes your turn come faster whenever you get shot at. Pretty good. Thanks lukep
• Combo String – We don't need combo points.

Cunning / Tactical

• Tactical Expert – 1 point. You will get the defense bonus for up to 2 enemies, you don't need more. If you're surrounded by 4+ enemies and taking damage you don't need more defense, you need to get out.
• Counter Attack – We don't want to have a chance to hit something when we maybe dodge an attack from a melee enemy. 1 point as a prerequisite for exploit weakness. Watch out, if you're using a movement infusion and something hits you and this triggers, it'll break movement.
• Set Up – 1 point as a prerequisite for exploit weakness, 2 points if you need more defense. I never used it.
• Exploit Weakness – Very good. Brawlers land a lot of punches and even more so with the flexible combat prodigy. Weak enemies die fast even if you do 10% less damage. Strong enemies will have their physical resistance quickly reduced to nothing. 5/5 and always keep this sustained.

Technique / Grappling

Why weaken an enemy and do damage (very very weak damage) over time when you can kill him in a few hits? We don't get this with this build. Grappling needs a serious buff especially since it's a locked tree. I would make it disable the target harder than it does already, but that is for another thread.

Technique / Unarmed Discipline

• Push Kick – Bad damage and knocks away enemies when we need to be in melee range to do damage.
• Defensive Throw – It's like Counter Attack but worse.
• Breath Control – Brawlers don't have stamina issues.
• Roundhouse Kick – Refer to Push Kick.

Technique / Combat Techniques

• Rush – Rush is good. Use this to kill spellcasters and archers.
• Precise Strikes – Good but not worth it if you can get 80+ crit chance without it. Get it towards the end of the game if your crit chance is less than 70.
• Perfect Strike – Nice for killing invisible enemies. Worth 5 points for the final boss.
• Blinding Speed – Excellent skill, get it to 5/5 after Pugilism skills are maxed. The long cooldown doesn't matter when everything is dead. Instant activation.

Technique / Combat Veteran

• Stamina – Brawlers don't need stamina. If you don't have stamina regen from items put 1 or 2 points in this before the final boss in case it takes longer than expected (it shouldn't).
• HP Regen – If your fight is not over fast you have to get out, regen isn't useful.
• Spell Shield – I don't value saves much at all and wouldn't get this, you could get it if you do.
• Unending Frenzy – Useless for every class?

Cunning / Dirty Fighting

Switch Place might save you once or twice, not worth a category point.

Generic skills

Technique / Field Control

• Disengage – Put 1 point in this. Or maybe not.
• Track – No point in this.
• Heave – We don't want to push enemies away from us, useless.
• Slow Motion – If you get Heightened Reflexes this is worth getting too. A big point investment but these two skills should let you dodge most projectiles in the game.

Technique / Combat Training

• Thick Skin – 5 points.
• Armour Training – 1 point or maybe more if you feel it's necessary. I didn't feel it was necessary or useful but if you want to spend generics here go ahead. Note that this skill does nothing at all if you're wearing a robe or light armor. As long as you have 20 armor mid-game and 30 late that should be enough. I had 30 with light armor.
• Combat Accuracy - 0 points. Or maybe 1 point and then take it out. Our high dex and striking stance give enough accuracy.

Technique / Conditioning

• Vitality – 5 points. Good for the healing modifier which becomes 30% at around 70 con.
• Daunting Presence – Not bad, -19 phys, mind, spell power in a 4 radius whenever you get hit. Far from important, get it when you want to. Set it to auto use with no enemies in view. It'll break movement infusions though.
• Unflinching Resolve – 5 points.
• Adrenaline Surge – Get it for the free power boost. Set it to auto-use when next to an enemy. I had 16 power for 9 turns. Not a priority of course but compare it to the power boost from say, berserker. It's not bad at all.

Wild-gift / Harmony

We don't really need category points so you can unlock this and put some points in elemental harmony.

Cunning / Survival

Locked and bad, don't get this.

Spells / Stone Alchemy

Good if you can get it.

Celestial / Light

Good for Providence. Don't count on heal and barrier being useful with 0 spellpower.

Skill Order

Early game skills:

• Uppercut – 1
• Double Strike – 5
• Relentless Strikes – 5
• Spinning Backhand – 5
• Flurry of Fists – 5
• Unarmed Mastery – 5
• Tactical Expert – 1
• Steady Mind – 1

You should be level 20 at this point.

The next goal is Blinding Speed. Get the prereqs and get Blinding Speed to 5.

Put 1 more point into Rush to get more range for the spellcasters.

Now we want Exploit Weakness. Get the prereqs and get Exploit Weakness to 5.

Use a category point to boost Pugilism.

You should be level 35 or so.

That's it! You're done. Get whatever you want, it won't matter much anyway.

Prodigies

Flexible Combat – This is the best prodigy to get, without doubt. It is a huge damage increase. You need to get 50 str by level 30 but you also should avoid raising str as I mentionned earlier. Collect the +str items. If you can't get 50 str by level 30, delay getting the prodigy for a while or put more points in str.

For the 2nd prodigy at level 42 you have a lot of choice. You can get whatever you want basically. Have fun. I will say this: I got Eye of the Tiger and it was largely useless. I would've gotten Giant Leap or Never Stop Running instead.

Inscriptions

Start with regen, wild, healing/shielding. At level 10 get movement. At level 20 get another movement. Get a torque of psychoportation, this is your tele. Get a physical + magical wild infusion if possible.

If you're undead get 2 shielding, 2 tele, 1 phase door. Replace the phase door and maybe tele with controlled phase door when you can.

Fight tactics

Combat is quite simple. You only have 4 active damage skills including rush. You can kill most things in the game in 1 to 3 turns. Use rush and spinning backhand to take out dangerous spellcasters first and use movement infusions to get out when needed. Against bosses activate blinding speed.

If you can't kill something dangerous fast enough, use a movement infusion to get out. Wait for skill cooldowns and go back in.

Ignore combo points, you're only using Uppercut for damage.

Extra Notes

When you get 4000 gold and come back from the Far East, visit the artifact merchant and buy some nice gloves. This is very important. You may want to buy another set of gloves with the next 4000 gold too.

Try to get 20 armor by mid-game and 30 armor later. Don't focus too much on how much armor you have, it doesn't matter when you kill anything in a few turns. You also have good defense from dexterity and skills. Don't focus too much on resists either, 50% in the appropriate resists for the area is fine. With +crit chance, crit multiplier and damage increase gear you can kill things so fast they don't have time to damage you. +Life and healmod items are good, get one of these. Get some stun resist. Confusion and blind aren't a big deal with unflinching resolve, and neither is stun for that matter. Especially with a wild infusion.

For the Alchemist Brotherhood, do not get the +2 class points and generic points potions. You don't need them. The potions that increase str and con, dex and cun and +4% crit are the best.