EverQuest II Brigand Guide

EverQuest II Brigand Guide by Damari

Utilities.

We can track, disarm, evac, solo and group stealth.

Equipment

We can use Chain Armor, leather armor or cloth.  Yes there is nothing wrong with choosing leather or cloth for better stats if that’s what you want.

We can use single handed, dual weapons and round shields.  We utilize slashing and piercing as our primary skills.  Yes, it is sensible to use both types (slashing and piercing) at the same time.

We can used ranged weapons.  Yes we can use a bow but our single combat art skill will not work.  You must use a throwing item like a satchel or bandoleer.

Ammo and auto attack.  If you only want to use your CA, tin ammo is suitable at any level as the damage is based off the CA, not the ammo type.  For auto-attack damage,  the higher tier ammo will do more damage.  For example, at 400 str, auto damage for feyiron ammo is about 110-130 damage while fulginate is about 140-170 damage.

What are Brigands

This is better explained in many countless threads but I’ll summarize it here.  We are a Tier 2 DPS class.  What makes us ‘special’ is that we have several good debuffing attacks, several stuns and several interrupts.  Brigands are good at making an NPC vulnerable.

Brigands vs other scouts

vs Swashies.  We share a lot of the same skills though their CA’s are on quicker timers and they have two AoE’s.  Check their board for details.  Are we better than them…. No, its all about players ability to play the class

vs Rangers and Assassins.  They are T1 and therefore have a higher DPS.  As a sacrifice, they have less utility (fewer debuffs).  Are we better than them…… No, its all about the players ability.  Note.  Some Brigands can and do outperform some rangers and assassins but this is due to a) equipment and b) skill.  put two average players together, one playing the assassin and the other a brigand, and the Tier difference is correct.

Vs Bards.  (Quoted From Crimson Dragon’s post found later in this thread)  “bards have a completely different feel to them, and someone new to the game wouldn’t necessarily know that. they’re not all that great by themselves, but in a group, they are pretty powerful. they won’t often be infringing upon the dps of the “top-tier” dps classes, but to say that bards don’t do damage is a bad mistake. that said, bards focus more on buffing their group and debuffing encounters than they do simply on damage.”

Brigands Vs Bruisers

I have written a brief summery on the class differences further in this thread.  Play both, I do…

Race

I picked the iksar for racial bonuses to defence, agility and alchemy but any race can be a Brigand equally well so go with what tickles your fancy. While the racial bonuses don’t really contribute much to the overall performance of the class it does add some flavour.

(This link http://www.eq2arcanum.com/static/RacialTraditions.php may not be completely uptodate, don’t blame me).

Stats

Not going to post to much on this because each player has their own view on stat performance.  For me, I have different equipment sets which change my stats based on my playing situation.  For example, when grouped, I focus on pure strength, when solo, I’ll vary the equipment with more stamina and for raiding I boost my agility for the extra power.  I also tend to favor higher mitigation equipment over stats but thats a personal choice.  Also, when grouped at higher levels, its quite easy to reach your capped stats so look at your group make-up and swap equipment for best performance.

Strength.  Our DPS stat, most important.  Wer’e there to do damage, this stat is the key.

Agility.  Boosts avoidance and increases our power pool.

Stamina.  Our HP.  Debatable if this needs to be high unless soloing cause you souldn’t be getting hit.

Intelligence.  Apparently raising this stat will increase the proc rate from poison and weapons. 100 points in INT will raise the proc damage by 10%.

Wisdom.  Used to be our dump stat when AR was effective.  Apparently 100 points of WIS adds about 250 to all your resists.

So choose your stat make-up accordign to your play style.

fluff skills

Level 20 we get clobber.  Simply awesome!

Level 40 and 50 we get a wood elf and ogre illusion.  (See following posts on useful applications for these illusions).

These can be bought from the skills vendor in SFP on the boat

Poison

Player made poison comes in a variety of types and is highly recommended.

For all your answers on poison/potion questions follow this link http://www.eq2alchemy.com/

Also, Agra’s T7 poison tips and tricks can be found here http://oz.cx/eq2/poison_primer.html

References

For Details on our CA’s, check Next-Historys http://eqist2.sakura.ne.jp/db_brg/index.html