Bruiser Guide & Build – Everquest 2
Welcome to our Bruiser Guide and Build for Everquest 2, updated for Visions of Vetrovia!
The Bruiser is a hand-to-hand combatant that can either fit in the role as a DPS or as a Tank. Bruisers are not top-tier tanks but can work as off tanks and will work fine as a tank in casual groups.
This guide is meant as a general guideline to building your Bruiser, and you might want to make changes for certain content or roles. Due to the fact that updated information is limited in Everquest 2, some parts of the guide might be outdated but this build will still help you in building and playing your Bruiser. Remember that you can always swap out certain things to suit your playstyle.
For the latest Everquest 2 news, go to the MMORPG.GG EQ2 Hub.
Bruiser Guide Index
- Race
- Deity
- Gear
- Stats
- Adornments
- Consumables
- Mercenary
- Familiar
- Mount
- Abilities, Combat Arts & Rotation
- Ascension Class
- AA Build
Best Bruiser Race
What race you choose has very little impact on anything in Everquest 2, but there are some races that will give slight advantages. The below are all good choices for a Bruiser.
- Sarnak
- Ogre
- Troll
- Barbarian
- Iksar
- Froglok
- Dwarves
- Human
- Kerra
- Half Elf
For a full list of racial traits, go here.
Best Bruiser Deity
What deity you follow doesn’t make a huge difference in EQ2. The following are good choices for Bruisers:
- The Tribunal (Neutral) – For Tanking
- Bristlebane (Neutral) – DPS and Utility
- Rallos Zek (Evil) – DPS
Gear
In this guide, we won’t go into the specifics of gearing.
When you first zone into Svarni Expanse at the beginning of Visions of Vetrovia, open Tishan’s Lockbox that is on the ground in front of you to get your full set of 120 gear. Then complete the timeline to gear upgrades, and then you can move into heroic dungeons and raids to further upgrade your gear.
Use our EQ2 Platinum Guide if you need more plat to upgrade your gear.
Stat Priorities & Reforging
- Fervor
- Reuse Speed (200% Cap)
- Casting Speed (200% Cap)
- Potency (No cap)
- Crit Bonus
- DPS / Weapon Bonus Damage
- Ability Doublecast (125% Cap)
- Strikethrough (100% Cap)
- Haste (200% Cap)
- Multi Attack (2995 Cap)
- Flurry (196% Cap)
- Accuracy (100%)
- Ability Mod (No cap)
- AE Auto (100% Cap)
- Recovery Speed (100% Cap)
For tanking, you will also want to get Hate Mod to at least 50% as well.
Adornments
When starting out you will want to get Adornments to get Casting and Reuse Speed to 100%.
After that, you should focus on getting Potency and Crit Bonus as high as possible.
As a tank, you can also get some with Hate Mod.
A good guide for Adornments in Visions of Vetrovia can be found here.
Consumables
Consumables provide quite big stat bonuses but some can be expensive. Use the best that you can afford, depending on what you are doing. For example, for raids, you want to get the best consumables possible, but if you are soloing, using the cheaper ones is fine.
- Food: Karuupa Candied Kumquat
- Drink: Vetrovia Midnight Vintage
- Potion: Dreadfell Powerlink
Mercenary
At level 100+, you should always go with a Healer mercenary as the other options don’t really scale well after that. The mercenaries from the latest expansion are the best.
- Dakshesh, the Displaced – Comes with the Premium and Family & Friends versions of Visions of Vetrovia
- Kelvend Bledso
- Lilac Laviara
Remember to train and gear your mercenary.
Unlocking your mercenary to be hired from anywhere will unlock the Mercenary Battalion buff. The strength of the buff will depend on the Mercenary’s rank, what expansion it is from, its rarity, and the number of unlocked mercenaries. Learn more about the Mercenary Battalion buff here.
Familiar
For your familiar, you can either spend DBC to try to get a good one or you can do the daily Familiars Wild quest. Familiars provide a huge buff to Potency and Crit Bonus Overcap.
Level up your familiars by feeding them other familiars.
Mount
For your mount, the most important thing is to train it to increase its rank and unlock all the barding slots. Unlock all the extra barding slots by doing Overseer and from achievements (more info found here)
- Barding: Potency
- Saddle: Ability Doublecast
- Hackamore: Ability Doublecast
- Reins: Mount Speed
- Breeching: Ability Mod
- Strirrup: Crit Bonus
- Shoes: Fervor Mod
Abilities, Spells, Combat Arts & Rotation
There are a lot of skills, spells, and abilities in Everquest 2 so having a set rotation isn’t always ideal. You should always adapt to the situation. The following is a general guideline for a Bruiser.
Buffs (Keep up)
- Bodyguard (Tanking) or Smoldering Fists (DPS)
- Bob and Weave
- Manhandle
- Brutality
Short Duration Buffs (Use before combat and keep up during combat)
- Lightning Fists
- Bruising Spirit
- Knockout Combination
- Rock Skin – When Tanking
- Stone Deaf – When Tanking
Single-Target Rotation
The exact order of the rotation is not important but try to keep debuffs and DOTs up.
- Sonic Punch
- Uppercut
- Blaze Kick
- Devastation Fist
- Merciless Stomp
- Eye Gouge
- One Hundred Hand Punch
- Roundhouse
- Meteor Fist
- Shoulder Charge
- Sucker Punch
- Pummel
Your AoE rotation is the same but start off with Beatdown and Savage Assault.
Taunts (Use when tanking)
- Slurred Insult – Threat
- Abuse – Threat
- Goading Gesture – Threat
- Rescue – Emergency Threat
- Divide and Conquer – Emergency Threat
Survival
- Ignore Pain – Self Heal
- Indomitable Will – Self Cure
- Intercept – Protects a party member
- Shrug Off – Protects a party member
Ascension Class
What Ascension class you pick as a Bruiser will come down a lot to play style.
- Etherealist – Also a good choice for DPS
- Geomancer – Decent DPS and Utility
- Elementalist – Good choice for DPS
- Thaumaturgist – Decent DPS
Bruiser AA Build
The following AA build is a generic starter build for the Bruiser, feel free to change it up depending on your playstyle or the situation.
If you need to level up quickly or max your AAs, check out our EQ2 Leveling Guide.
Brawler Tree
- Favorable Wind 1/10
- Pressure Point 4/10
- Relentless Punches 10/10
- Claw Reversal 8/10
- Chi 1/1
- Tiger Reflexes 8/8
- Baton Flurry 4/10
- Mantis Star 4/10
- Mantis Bolt 10/10
- Deflecting Pincers 3/10
- Crane Sweep 2/10
- Crane Twirl 10/10
- Crane Growth 10/10
- Crane Flock 1/1
- Swift Wings 8/8
- Brawler’s Tenacity 2/2
Bruiser Tree
- Enhance: Ignore Pain 5/5
- Enhance: Abuse 5/5
- Enhance: Merciless Stomp 5/5
- Enhance: Indomitable Will 5/5
- Enhance: Feign Death 5/5
- Enhance: Shoulder Charge 5/5
- Enhance: Eye Gouge 5/5
- Enhance: Uppercut 5/5
- Enhance: Intimidate 3/3
- Enhance: Rock Skin 5/5
- Enhance: Stone Deaf 5/5
- Enhance: Close Mind 5/5
- Enhance: Knockout Combination 5/5
- Enhance: Sucker Punch 5/5
- Bodyguard of Stone 1/1
- Soak Hit 1/1
- Fists of Fury 5/5
- Mind Over Matter 5/5
- Defensive Aggression 5/5
- Reveral 5/5
- Aggressive Beatdown 5/5
- Wild Beating 1/1
Shadows Tree
- Hearty Constitution 5/5
- Enhanced Mind 5/5
- Offensive Prowess 5/5
- Battle Hardening 5/5
- Sneering Assault 1/1
- Tactical Precision 5/5
- Blazing Cobra 5/5
- Thunderous Strike 5/5
- Deflecting Blow 5/5
- Aversion 5/5
- Inner Focus 1/1
- Deadly Assault 5/5
- Bruising Fury 5/5
- Hardened Skin 5/5
- Adrenaline Rush 5/5
- Martial Leap 1/1
- Staggering Blow 1/1
Heroic Tree
- Ability Aptitude 10/10
- Expertise 10/10
- Critical Genius 10/10
- Lightning Reflexes 10/10
- Enhance: Brawler’s Tenacity 10/10
- Hostility 10/10
- Combat Mastery 1/1
Dragon
- Quick Regeneration 5/10
- Armorbreak 4/10
- Resurgent Counter 5/10
- Fierce Roar 10/10
- Forward Stance 10/10
- Ancient Advance 2/10
Prestige
- Deep Blows 5/5
- Field Commander 3/3
- Vicious Combination 1/1
- Combination King 2/2
- Bruising Power 1/1
- Battlescarred 3/3
- Pulverize 3/3
- Debilitating Power 3/3
- Broken Limbs 3/3
- Battering Onslaught 1/1
- Brutal Counter 1/1
Prestige Bruiser
- Adamantine Skin 1/1
- Enhanced Vigor 8/8
- Imbued Sight 5/8
- Undeniable Power 5/8
- Accuracy from Strength 1/1
- Power from the Soul 1/1
- Diamon Flesh 1/1
- Martial Vigor 5/5
- Body and Mind 5/5
- Power Throug the Pain 3/3
If you have any questions or suggestions for our EQ2 Bruiser Guide, leave a comment below!
