Playing without the Brute?

[•BpG• Cheese]

Looking at the way the game is played and progressing, is it possible to play without the Brute? As the only tank, he seems integral to the team no matter how you build it. Are there more tank characters planned?

[MonsieurFreeze]

You don't have to play with the brute, its just one of the easiest class to start with. I believe they are planning to have all the original 17 characters in the final version.

[[OTG]teuchy]

The Cragheart can soak up a fair bit of damage, especially with the right gear and potions and backed up by a character with heals (like the Tinkerer). That's mostly worked out OK for me in the early game.

[ExperimentalGamer]

There are a few unlockable classes with a good HP pool and armor. One of which can be set up to take hits really well.

Note, however, that playing the brute like a MMO tank and trying to soak up hits is a fool's errand. High HP and the armor perk lets a character risk taking hits, but taking them on a regular basis will quickly chew through your defenses. Avoiding hits entirely (through not letting the enemies get to you, debilitating status effects, or just being able to focus fire one guy into oblivion) serves you better than trying to let one guy draw aggro.

[pallandotheblue]

In Gloomhaven there is no real need for a tank. As ExperimentalGamer mentioned the best strategy is to avoid damage at all. The tank is only there to protect more quishy party members in case the damage avoidance doesn't work.

How to avoid damage
- Take a close look at the stats of the monsters, specifically movement and range. Plan how you want to play your turn in order not to be hit.
- Once the actions of the current turn are revealed, check your strategy and update as needed. Remember that you can chose in a character's turn which card to use for upper and lower action.
- If the opponents are mostly melee, don't rush at them. Go late and let them come to you. Then go early in the following turn so you can hit them twice.

I'm playing with all seven characters and I have tried lots of different party combinations. It is easy to play without Brute or Cragheart. Just look for synergies between your characters and figure out what the role should be for each party member.

[Fringehunter7719]

Of the classes currently in game brute feels distinctly middle of the pile to me.

It's definitely not too hard, and even preferable, to run without him and avoid damage by route blocking, stealth, crowd control, spreading damage around, controlled use of slow-fast initiative on consecutive turns or simply staying out of range.

On the whole I haven't really found a use for tanking per se.

[Heroine Nisa]

Originally posted by MonsieurFreeze:

You don't have to play with the brute, its just one of the easiest class to start with. I believe they are planning to have all the original 17 characters in the final version.

They better, I mean. Part of the wonders of gloomhaven is adding the "locked" stuff into the game. I personally only played the first 2 scenarios but having locked boxes and progress as you go through it was a great incentive. However game is expensive IRL so I had to pass on it.

[•BpG• Cheese]

Thanks everyone, will try and make a team without him now.
I haven't gotten to any unlocked characters yet, didn't know there were any.

[Osteorepository]

Right now there's only one character to unlock, the Triforce (most GH fans refer to unlockable classes by their symbol to avoid spoiling what they are). You unlock them in digital by infusing one of each element. I don't think you have to win the scenario afterwards, so you can just load in, drop your elemental infusion cards, and then forfeit. When other characters are added I'm sure there will be specific quests to unlock them as well.

[NZSteel]

What they said.I have played through the full campaign and forgotten circles in a 3-player group, and we always found damage output and crowd control trumped everything. Tanks have not had much love, and in fact nobody has played the brute yet (Sun, lightning, cragheart, 3-spears and tinker are all tanky in their own way though).