Guild Wars 2

I was talking to a friend about what we thought could be expected for future expansion packs and while it was all just for fun and blow our imagination on something, we came to the idea of what a really clever class could be.
We started off with just thinking about what kind of weapons might be added in the future content, things like Flails, Two handed Axes, Nunchuks, Brass knuckles, and Gauntlets.

After a bit of just letting our imagination run wild, we thought up a class that could take a newer concept to GW2 and it reminded us a little of the assassin from guild wars 1 but with a little bit more of a warrior/beat em up feel to the cake.

We came with a class that we called Brawler and it would focus on weapons that dealt with hand to hand combat.
Brass Knuckles
Spiked Gauntlets
Bladed Bracers (Gloves with blades on the forearm)
and a few more that has slipped my mind for the time being.

They would wear Medium armor would play similar to how a melee ranger plays but with a lot more options on their play style. Some of their moves doing evade while they activate. They would have a lot of rush down skills but not so much in the options of escape, so instead of them becoming a hit and run sneaky sneaky class, they would rush their opponent in force.

For their special F-Key mechanic, we put together something again similar to the warrior but instead of it being a burst attack, it’s more a build up of strength that can become a short burst of power instead of an attack. You would have 4 bars (Similar to how the adrenaline bars work) and they would build based on you hitting and would lower based on you getting hit. When one bar fills it can’t be dropped below it so once you build up a bar you won’t have to worry about it dropping down.

For every bar filled they would gain a permanent stack of might (Similar to how the Guardian’s Aegis virtue works) adding up to 4 applicable might that they could sustain should they be able to clearly build it up to that point.
The F1 skill being an activation skill and based on how many of those bars are filled up, they could activate it and lose all the build up to gain a few seconds of fury with the current might they had built up. (2 seconds per bar filled)

Example:
Having two bars filled would yield 2 might and activating the F1 would grant you 4 seconds of 2 might and 4 seconds of fury.
While having all four bars filled would grant you 4 might and when F1 is triggered, you’d get 8 seconds of 4 might and fury.

They wouldn’t hit as hard as a thief or warrior without their stacks but could do some decent rush down burst should they have been able to build up their bars. Whether to activate the special ability for a quick burst or to keep it built up for some added over all strength would come down to how the player plays and how good they would be at building it up. (Seeing as it would decrease from taking a hit)
It wouldn’t be wise to throw out all the build up for a short burst if you have trouble getting it up there in the first place, but for those who time their attacks to take advantage of the evasive part of some of their skills and could build it up more easily, they could find ways to work with the short burst that it could offer.

I think this would be a great addition to the classes in GW2 and could take a middle ground between the warrior and thief and ranger(melee) classes. Granting those people who like some concepts of the thief and melee ranger and some of the warrior something to come together on. I personally like how thief plays but I’m not a fan of the initiative mechanic, and melee rangers just lack variety in their melee capabilities. Though I do enjoy the warrior, I feel very single minded when I play it.

It was a simple idea spurred by our random thoughts as we continued to play the game we love. Any feedback on the idea would be awesome.

Thanks for reading!

Edit:
I don’t think a few grapple moves would be a bad idea either, something that stuns your opponent and immobilizes you at the same time. Though I’m sure there are better balancing suggestions out there for that.

So you want a non healing monk

If you’re referring to GW1 monks, no. They lack quite a bit in melee aside from any gimmick farming build and this would be a melee oriented class that doesn’t deal with magic (For the most part) but if you’re referring to monks we see in movies or games similar to say D&D, then yes.
I more pictured them to have more of a Boxing/Street fighting type of fighting style though.

I was referring to D&D with out the prefect body trait.

Ah, then yes I’d say something very similar to that.

One question I have for you is that would you classify this character under the adventure type or the solider type. There are already 2 solider types and 3 adventures. If the type of armor you wear (i.e. heavy, medium, light) defines if your a solider, scholar, or adventurer, wouldn’t create an unbalance to the other classes if you put the brawler into any other classification besides solider?

I do feel like a brawler class with medium armor is a fantastic idea, but i also think it should be more like a thief mixed with a guardian. That way if it came to ranged they could use a staff for the range aspect, while the close quarters would use the physical hand to hand weapons but all attacks deal magical damage instead of physical. When I think of a monk I think of a Buddhist monk who doesn’t deal with strength but pressure points and disrupting the flow of energy through the body by using their own energy and could be done from a distance.

You know, on a similar line, I’d like to see racial combat skills.
We have no stock combat abilities while unarmed, and I think it would add some flavor to have some. It would be pretty fun to be able to Hulk-out as a Norn, or maul things as a Charr, Box or go Bruce Lee as a Human, and do…something clever as an Asura.
This would certainly be something low on the to-do list as I can see, as it would pretty much be flavor only. The damage from these skills would only be effected by whatever armor and trinkets you’re wearing at the time, since you’d only be able to access them while you have no weapon equipped.
You could even add this to the drunken brawl type minigames we have, or roleplay with it for a way to settle disagreements or go feral or what-have-you.
Like I said, it would be a flavor only thing, but it would be fun. After all, more things to do are a good thing.
Not trying to thread jack you OP, but your post just made me think of this, so I decided to put it out there. :P