Bruiser Build Guide for Gloomhaven: Bounding Bully & Bastion
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Bounding Bully Build
- Bastion Brawler Build
- Level 1 Cards
- Example Level One Hand
- Openers
- Strategy for Leveling
- Level 2 Level-up Choice
- Level 3 Level-up Choice
- Level 4 Level-up Choice
- Level 5 Level-up Choice
- Level 6 Level-up Choice
- Level 7 Level-up Choice
- Level 8 Level-up Choice
- Level 9 Level-up Choice
- Perks
- Items
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Introduction
This guide will be much cleaner to read if you disable print layout (in the “view” menu).
Characters in Gloomhaven don’t have a fixed gender, so that you can roleplay your character as the gender of your choosing. I played my first Bruiser as a man, so I’ll be using he/him pronouns. Feel free to choose a different gender for your Bruiser!
The Bruiser, true to his name, is a class that loves to get up close and personal with his enemies. Using his high health and modest hand size, he’ll be the first one into the fray. He’ll move up close, knock enemies around, disable them, all while tanking quite a few hits himself. He’s one of the most straightforward classes in Gloomhaven, while still managing to be one of the most interesting. Each of his tools is simple but also unique, meaning you have a high degree of versatility when choosing your hand for the scenario. Long resting with the Bruiser will always be painful because you need to pick which card to lose, and every card you have brings something unique and powerful to the table.
Even though the Bruiser is simple, there are still a few different ways you can build the character. He’s going to be successful no matter what you pick, but sticking to a theme will give the Bruiser just a bit more consistency. As such, there are a few builds you can examine when leveling up your character. You certainly don’t have to follow any of these builds; you can blend them together, make modifications, or else simply read the card analysis and then make your own decisions. The Bruiser’s actions are all strong in a vacuum, so you really can’t go wrong.
The first build, the “Bounding Bully”, combines the Bruiser’s ability to quickly reposition with his ability to knock enemies around. With this build, you’ll be initiative dancing like crazy, pushing enemies away and running backwards to avoid hits, then running back in with a disarming hit. There’s a subtheme for this build available only from level six onwards that allows you to convert your movement into extra attacks.
The second build, the “Bastion Brawler”, stands his ground right from level one. He aims to absorb the majority of the enemy’s attacks, and reflect a chunk of the damage with retaliate. This build can absorb all of the enemy hits if you support it with other classes that grant defensive effects, or it can aim for a more moderate stance, looking to avoid damage and tanking only when necessary.
Bounding Bully Build
Summary
The Bounding Bully combines mobility, push and pull effects, and AoE abilities to knock enemy heads together. You’re happy to take a hit here or there, but it’s not your main goal, just a means to an end. Your primary objective is to find patterns in enemy positioning to efficiently and effectively hit groups of enemies. When they aren’t lined up, you can push them around until they are. This build is an especially good choice for a new player, as it doesn’t rely on fancy combos, and it’ll help you to feel powerful and effective while teaching you skills such as initiative weaving and damage mitigation. That being said, don’t sleep on the Bounding Bully as an experienced player, especially once you get to level six and can convert some of your jumps into damage.
Build Highlights
What are the tools that make the Bounding Bully so successful? Firstly…
Line ‘em up…
The Bruiser has plenty of abilities that allow them to push or pull enemies. Depending on the scenario, this can be used to maneuver enemies into traps or hazards, and depending on the enemies, this can be use to push enemies away and avoid attacks. Alternatively, he can work to move enemies into the patterns for himself and for his allies.
…and knock ‘em down…
The Bruiser has several AoE patterns right from level one, and gains a few more as they level. After using forced movement to create a pattern, the Bruiser can deal immense damage to the enemy forces. He doesn't have many large attacks like the Silent Knife, but once his AMD improves a bit, he’ll be much more effective against a crowd of weaker foes.
…while jumpin’ ‘round.
With several abilities that explicitly reward him for large movement, the Bruiser has an incentive to move far. He has several early options for converting his movement into raw damage, which is emphasized even further at higher levels.
Best Friends
This build is strong on its own, but some parties work better than others. If your party has these things, you can expect your build to be even more impactful.
Allies with AoE patterns. Your pushes and pulls are only going to find value around half the time if you’re only using them for your own purposes. Traps and hazardous terrain are the easiest way to compound the value, but you can’t bank on them appearing in every scenario. Instead, you can use these to line enemies up for your allies in order to deal extra damage. Classes like the Spellweaver and Cragheart have enough abilities that care about patterns that you’ll be able to massively improve their prospects.
A tanky friend. This build is happy to take a hit here or there, but it’s not your goal to absorb the damage for your whole team. If you’re taking the full force of the enemy team each round, you’re going to drop quickly. Ideally you’ll avoid as many hits as you can, but inevitably damage is going to slip through, and you can’t afford to take it all. Convince an ally to help you absorb some of the damage, either directly by taking hits themself, or indirectly by contributing additional crowd control on the deadliest foes.
To Push or not to Push?
The above emphasizes two ways to enable your AoE abilities: moving yourself into the best position offered by the enemies, or forcing the enemies to form a pattern closer to where you are now. At lower levels, you need to combine these two paths, but as you level, you can specialize somewhat. It was possible to present this as two distinct builds, but as the playstyles are very similar up until level six, instead the two versions will be presented as variations on the same build. The leaping variant will emphasize your own movement, and at level six, picks up a transformative loss that changes the way you approach combat. The shoving variant will still take some movement, but will prefer abilities that push the enemy around, and will emphasize AoE abilities just a little bit more. There’s a ton of overlap, which is why the builds are being presented as one. You should definitely mix and match, taking the cards you find most interesting or those that mesh well with your party; this is just two of the many ways to play!
Level 1 Cards
Core Level 1 Cards
Attacks
Movement
Utility
These are your cards that you will bring to every single scenario, until you gain a few levels and find stronger replacements. You’ll be sorting cards into three major categories: attacks, movement, and utility. Some cards will have the flexibility to be used in multiple roles; as these arise, they will be marked in yellow.
All four of these attacks are easy picks from level one. The three AoE patterns each represent 6+ damage, which is amazing so early, and with just a bit of work, Balanced Measure is in the same ballpark. You probably want one or two more attacks to round out your hand, but these are the ones you should emphasize whenever possible.
Overwhelming Assault isn’t particularly great movement, but it’s a jump movement that provides the wind you need for Skewer. You’ll keep this one around for as long as you keep Skewer around, and typically drop them both at the same time. Provoking Roar, meanwhile, has the pull necessary to enable all three targets on Sweeping Blow.
As far as utility goes, Eye for an Eye is such a powerful action on bottom that it makes its way into your core cards even though your goal isn’t to tank and heal. You shouldn’t really ever be using the top of this action intentionally; even against high shield enemies, you have better tools.
Example Level One Hand
Attacks
Movement
Utility
You’ll need four more cards to round out your hand. Shield Bash and Grab and Go round out your movement. Shield Bash is a good pick for the quick initiative and extra bit of tankiness; you aren’t trying to absorb an entire room of hits, but it’ll help a lot for the inevitable attacks you will take from time to time. In a perfect world, you’ll want to use the top of Grab and Go to loot whenever possible; but for scenarios with longer movement, you’ll need to prioritize its bottom action to get you from place to place. Don’t be afraid to use Sweeping Blow for movement as well if you find you’re still not keeping up.
This means you have just one more card to take. All of the remaining cards are worth considering, depending on what types of threats you’re facing. With a few hard hitting enemies, or in smaller parties, bring Warding Strength for the top disarm; if you expect to take more hits than you would like, or in quicker scenarios, bring it for the bottom to tank up. If there are some enemies with 2 or more shield, Trample will find immense value; if not, it’s an easy cut.
Fearsome Taunt is great for when there are slow moving melee enemies where a push three is likely to block a hit. If none of the above apply, then Spare Dagger is an incredibly flexible card. It goes in utility, since its primary use isn’t raw damage but flexible damage.
Openers
Here is an example of what your first few turns of a rest cycle might look like. You don’t have a ton of setup to do, so you can use this when starting the scenario or when bursting into a new room.
Turn One Turn Two Turn Three
Top Action
Bottom
Action
Especially when opening a new door, it’s safer to let the enemies come to you for a round. Ideally, you can convince one of your ranged allies to open the door, step back, and toss in a long ranged attack. By acting slowly, the enemies will hopefully approach before your turn, allowing you to have a round of safety. Use Overwhelming Assault to slowly leap into the best position and cleave 2-3 enemies for three damage each. Try to get two adjacent enemies if you can, so that they’re lined up for next round. Using the wind, you’ll get to Skewer on turn two. It’s very likely that you’ll need to move to get two targets out of this; Shield Bash lets you do it quickly and protect yourself all the while. Then, on your third turn, use Grab and Go to line up a large hit with Balanced Measure. You can use your boots to make this an attack five, which will hopefully finish off the final foe. It’s tempting to charge into the new room with Balanced Measure, especially once you get the perk for an extra movement following long rests. You’ll easily be able to find a target, but make sure that you can handle the onslaught from those enemies. Hitting for 6 or 7 isn’t worth it if you have to pitch 2-3 cards to damage.
Strategy for Leveling
Unlike some of the more complex classes, the thing that makes the Bruiser special is the large number of unique and fairly independent abilities. Most abilities offer something that works without needing support from other cards, so there’s almost no card you won’t consider. That being said, both versions of this build prioritize AoE abilities very highly. The leaping variant also prioritizes anything that offers movement, whereas the shoving variant prioritizes - you guess it - push and pull abilities. As mentioned earlier, mixing and matching to align with your party or playstyle is heavily encouraged. Both variants pick the same cards until level four, although they use the cards somewhat differently, so if you’re starting at level one you have until then to get to know the class.
Level 2 Level-up Choice
Level 2 Hand
Attacks
Movement
Utility
Intimidating Growl works well whether you want to push using the top or sprint using the bottom. It’s tempting to use the bottom before you rest to get an extra movement, which will add +3 to your balanced measure hit after resting (between the ability, the perk, and your boots). Just make sure you don’t do this when the number of cards before resting is odd. Losing one card to rest and leaving this card up will end you with an odd hand size, which means you get one fewer turn in the next rest cycle. It’s definitely not worth losing a turn for one extra damage, so you should only leave this active if it won’t cost you a turn.
Level 3 Level-up Choice
Level 3 Hand
Attacks
Movement
Utility
Hook and Chain replaces Shield Bash. Without shield stacking, a single shield isn’t going to make a big enough difference to bother planning around, and while fast initiatives are important, they aren’t something you’re lacking. The top of Hook and Chain can be nice when breaking into a new room, ideally paired with Grab and Go for the big move and slow initiative. That will allow you to perfectly react to the enemy’s position and line up another AoE attack - perhaps full targets on Intimidating Growl. However, remember that the main draw is the bottom action. Don’t stress about always perfectly lining up 4+ movement hits (although they are nice when you can get them). If 2 movement and two hits will take out a big threat or line up another AoE, then you should take what you can get.
Level 9 Hand
Brute Force is the long-awaited two shield card. With this, you can finally muster up four shield for the turn before items and other assistance. This action is ideal to pair with Fearsome Taunt, so that you can redirect attacks towards yourself, or with Crippling Offensive, so that you can move into the fray and muddle the threats. With enough attacks, the movement here can be impressive, and you can use the pushes for a number of uses. The push on allies is tough because, if you’re pushing them out in front, they’re surely taking the attacks instead of you. More commonly, you’ll use the riders to put enemies in their place, either for your own AoE abilities or for those of your allies. If this is paired with Immovable Phalanx, you can convert every movement into an attack for one since the limitation is once per turn, not once per round; but then either you’re skipping Defensive Tactics or you’re setting up two persistent losses on a ten card class, which really only works for a very short scenario.
Bounding Bully:
Shoving: With all of your AoE picks, the bottom of Defensive Tactics should find excellent value each cycle.
Leaping: Both halves of Skirmishing Maneuver increase your mobility in powerful ways, and line you up nicely for your signature loss next level.
Bastion Brawler: Defensive Tactics makes up for all of the middling picks up to this point.
Level 6 Level-up Choice
Level 6 Hand
Shoving
Attacks
Movement
Utility
Run Through is the top upgrade to Skewer. You can still run both, and you should absolutely plan to when the majority of the enemies have shield, but most of the time it’s becoming less and less interesting to require a two card combo for an AoE hitting for just one extra damage. As a result, unless there are an abundance of shielded enemies, you can bring the more flexible Spare Dagger instead, cutting both Skewer and Overwhelming Assault.
Leaping
Top Actions
Bottom Actions
Utility
Immovable Phalanx slots into the utility category. You’ll typically set this up on turn one, and then plan to stay up front as a powerhouse for the rest of the scenario. The line between attacking and moving begins to blur with this build, so the categories will change to instead emphasize top and bottom actions, with the understanding that at any time you can stand your ground and convert a move on either half into an attack. Balanced Measure and Intimidating Growl swap places to make better use of the new persistent loss. After using top actions to deal a ton of damage, the bottom of Balanced Measure becomes an absurd attack. However, at this stage three small attacks on a monster are likely to pull well with your modifier deck. Spare Dagger is let go at this point; it was mostly kept around for the bottom attack, which is of course now redundant.
Mid-Build Reflection
The playstyles have diverged to the point where it’s worth examining how each build would approach busting down a door. The pushing build is the one most similar to how you would play at level one.
Shoving
Turn One Turn Two Turn Three
Top Action
Bottom
Action
Note that there really isn’t much difference from turn to turn. This is build that has a ton of ways to do the same thing: move, pull monsters into formation, and then hit two or three of them. The biggest thing to pay attention to is what position you can create for the monsters, whether it makes sense to go fast or slow, and when the added effects (pierce, muddle, push, and undamaged) are most appropriate. Recall that you can use the push from Intimidating Growl to line up enemies for turn two, and the slow-fast initiatives mean that it’s unlikely the enemies will move in between.
Leaping
Turn One Turn Two Turn Three
Top Action
Bottom
Action
Here, assume you’ve already taken a turn to set up Immovable Phalanx. Using the movement boost from your long rest, and jump boots if necessary, take the best hit you can using the dash on Hook and Chain. It doesn’t much matter where you end up, because the attacks on Skirmishing Maneuver don’t require any pattern. Your main goal here is to use the movement in the middle to align for an AoE next turn, but if the situation calls for it, you can use it to back away, or simply convert it to a fourth hit for the turn. Since you’ve moved reasonably quickly, you can expect some enemies to cluster around you, so make sure you’re topped off on health before attempting this plan. The following round, use Sweeping Blow on those neatly clustered enemies for a ton of damage, then double down with the bottom of Balanced Measure for a massive hit. At this point, you’ve been the center of attention for a while, and without shield stacking, you’ll likely need to rest up, using Push Through to get you healthy again. Depending on the threat level, you can use the bottom of Eye for an Eye for extra healing, to move to safety, or even for converting a basic move into damage, using Immovable Phalanx once more.
Level 7 Level-up Choice
Level 7 Hand
Shoving
Attacks
Movement
Utility
The bottom of Let Fly is another push that’s likely to prevent some damage, and the top is the perfect situational loss. With this many ways to be impactful on bottom, Spare Dagger has outrun its usefulness. You’ve nearly always got something better to do on bottom than a single weak attack, and the ranged attack and initiatives are both outclassed.
Leaping
Top Actions
Bottom Actions
Utility
Leaping Cleave was fine but it’s certainly outclassed at this stage. Swapping in Run Through is a significant improvement, offering more damage, more targets, and some potentially relevant pierce. It might seem a bit redundant with Skewer, but while having two great yet similar tools is unusual for the Bruiser, it’s definitely not a bad thing.
Level 8 Level-up Choice
Level 8 Hand
Shoving
Attacks
Movement
Utility
Frenzied Onslaught finally bumps out Grab and Go. You can still bring it for easier scenarios, but between your loot perk and your constant moving, you should be able to get enough gold to buy and enhance. You should now be able to more or less stand your ground for two rounds, moving quickly on the second to land a huge AOE hit and heal for the damage dealt.
Leaping
Top Actions
Bottom Actions
Utility
The bottom of Frenzied Onslaught is a significant upgrade to Eye for an Eye with the absurd damage you’ll be dealing on top. It will let you stand your ground, converting more movement to damage, and then heal up fully. It’s definitely fine to use the top for damage but since you can’t convert both moves it’s only a bit more damage than your AOEs, so unless you’re in a boss fight trying to bring down a single target, the heal is going to find more value overall.
Level 9 Level-up Choice
Level 9 Hand
Shoving
Attacks
Movement
Utility
Brute Force is a persistent you’ll want to set up first thing each scenario. It adds ridiculous value to your push and pull actions, which means you’ll be using the top of Intimidating Growl and the bottom of Run Through much more than you would at level eight. The forced movement damage is not limited to once per round, so you should aim to push or pull as many things each round. When performing multitarget abilities, you can always choose your targets in any order, so push in such a way that you maximize your damage on the most important targets.
Leaping
Top Actions
Bottom Actions
Utility
Face Your End is a straightforward upgrade to Sweeping Blow. It does the extra damage without requiring undamaged targets, and you get a few pulls first to position the targets perfectly. Don’t be afraid to use your moves as moves if it helps you to line up your incredible AoE actions! It’s ok if you skip using Immovable Phalanx for a round if it lets you line up five top attacks.
Perks
The two builds diverge late enough that there is only a single difference in perk order.
1. The obvious first choice is ignoring negative item effects. Adding two +1s is almost good enough on its own, so you should definitely snag this first.
2. The first time you line up two perks at once (such as completing a battle goal while leveling up), you should take the loot perk. It’s great value both for looting and survivability, even with the starting hide armor.
3. Since you plan on taking hits, it’s extremely likely that the shield and retaliate modifiers will find value. The retaliate modifiers are more consistent, since they stick around until used, but the shield ones have a higher ceiling. You can take these in whichever order you prefer. It’s worth noting that, if you know you have a retaliate modifier to spare, you can plan a round where you use that to activate defensive tactics, rather than a card. It’s not extremely consistent, and only gives one shield, but it can occasionally be worth planning around, especially at early levels where you don’t have that many defensive cards.
4. An occasional heal is fantastic, especially for removing wound and poison.
5. The stun, disarm, and muddle modifiers will give you a lot of survivability. It’s possible that the stun or disarm could mess with your retaliate, but you can always choose to skip them if need be.
6. Your allies will likely appreciate having a strong opening to the first room. You can’t use this yourself, since your first turn is always setting up Defensive Tactics, but you’re getting diminishing returns on the rest of your perks from this point on, so unless you know that nearly all of your party will need the round to set up, take this next.
7. Similarly, the perk for movement after long resting isn’t likely to be a huge deal, but it will occasionally let you get into better tanking position, and it’s better than the rest of your options.
8. The heals are very likely to find value no matter when you pull them, so you should pick those next. They fail when you’re full health, but then you’re probably winning the scenario anyway.
9. Grab the +3 next for some raw damage. If you have an ally who is constantly granting you strengthen, consider picking this up earlier as a second pseudo-crit.
10. Even though the push might not find much value on the leaping build, additional damage is still worth picking up, so snag these now.
11. Since your goal is usually to kill what you hit, stuns and disarms lose a bit of value. Of course, many large enemies won’t be killable, so these perks aren’t worthless. Still, you prefer anything that bumps up your damage to perks that stall the enemies. They’re still worth taking, but they’re the last picks.
Items
In order to keep this spoiler free, the item recommendations will be split into several sections. After an initial suggestion for level one items, spoilers will be given through prosperity three, five, seven, and nine, with a round for high reputation items, and then one final round including random items and item designs. Each section will get its own header, so if you don’t want to be spoiled on items, please stop reading before you reach the spoiling section.
Initial Purchases
If you’re starting at level one, there are a lot of things you want. The rulebook recommends Weathered Boots and a Healing Potion, which is almost certainly the best choice. Winged Shoes are great for Hook and Chain in particular, but for most other purposes, the extra movement is more valuable and more flexible. As tempting as it might be to begin with armor, wait to pick that up until you have the perk which lets you ignore negative item effects; you can’t afford the negatives.
Prosperity ≤ 3
Boots: Weathered Boots and Winged shoes are both straightforwardly excellent. I would typically go with Weathered Boots, but if you’re trying to line up a big Hook and Chain hit, Winged Shoes will usually go further towards ensuring that you always have the space to run.
Hands: In true Bruiser fashion, you’ll want a weapon in one hand and a shield in the other. The heater shield is the only option, but once you get some reputation, you can choose to replace your poison dagger with either an iron spear or jagged sword. All three are great, so pick what suits your party’s needs. Iron Spear in particular can be great with Hook and Chain to give you more flexibility in lining up the big sprint, although it will be harder to pair with Balanced Measure.
Chest: Hide Armor into Chainmail is the only reasonable choice. Even though tanking isn’t your main concern, it’s still important to use your HP as a resource as efficiently as possible.
Head: Iron Helmet is essential. Not having to fear a crit changes which risks you can take. It might only block one crit every other scenario, but that one blocked crit will usually save the scenario. Spoiler alert: you’re not really considering anything else, ever. It’s that good.
Small Items: Healing Potion is your top priority. It’s extremely efficient for someone who will spend most of their time in the front line. You can also pick up a stamina potion to buy an extra turn or reuse a particularly nice AoE ability, or a Power Potion for the turn where you manage to pull off four attacks (between an AoE and the bottom of Spare Dagger).
Prosperity ≤ 5
Boots: Endurance Footwraps are valuable since you’ll have a good number of big moves, but they’re expensive. It’s perfectly ok to skip them and keep your existing boots and prioritize your money elsewhere.
Hands: Battle-Axe can also be sweet to double a seven damage Balanced Measure hit. If that doesn’t sound good, you can grab a Tower Shield and Light Targe (if you’ve got the reputation).
Chest: No change
Head: No change.
Small Items: Adding a Major Healing Potion is a no-brainer.
Prosperity ≤ 7
Boots: Steel Sabatons are incredible. You won’t always be able to stand still, but there will be enough rounds where you don’t need to move that these will provide insane value. They’re very expensive, but well worth it.
Hands: Heavy Mace is very high value, if you wanted to bring that with an offhand shield.
Otherwise, no change.
Chest: No change.
Head: No change.
Small Items: You certainly want a Major Stamina Potion. Strategist’s Ring can be used to quickly drop Defensive Tactics while still getting a full turn, or even later on to drop an extra bit of shield on a critical round.
Prosperity ≤ 9
Boots: No change.
Hands: No change.
Chest: No change.
Head: No change.
Small Items: Ring of Haste will let you drop an extra shield or retaliate on a particularly dangerous round.
High Reputation
Boots: No change.
Hands: No change.
Chest: Platemail is the obvious upgrade to Chain Armor.
Head: No change.
Small Items: No change.
Additional Items
NOTE: THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR ALL ITEMS IN THE GAME. PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK
Obviously, there’s a lot of items here and you might not have access to them all. Here are some of the ones that you might like in each slot, in decreasing order of priority.
Boots: Charged Boots and Boots of Bracing are both amazing for the leaping variant; since you’ll often stand still and use your move actions for damage, you aren’t playing very suboptimally by standing still for a few rounds each cycle. You can also consider Gust Striders if you’re not bringing Skewer or if you have both sources of wind.
Hands: There are a lot of cool damage items, but tanking items are usually more efficient. The Spiked Shield is an excellent pick. Harrow Hook is also insane, letting you reposition while still using a bottom ability (or converting that move to damage).
Chest: Swordedge Armor if you’ve found it; otherwise, no change.
Head: Necklace of Teeth can be an alternate to the Iron Helm, letting you heal off the damage as you go.
Small Items: Heart of the Betrayer is a sweet choice, blocking a hit and dealing some damage back. Steel Ring blocks less damage and doesn’t hit back, but is much cheaper.
Enhancements
The only good option at lower levels is extra healing on Eye for an Eye. None of your low level shield or retaliate options have enhancement capabilities, for good reason, so if you’re low level and fully kitted out, you can enhance some of your movement cards to provide a bit more flexibility. If you do hit level six, extra shield on Immovable Phalanx is a powerful but expensive option, as are the shields on Crippling Offensive and Brute Force.
Bastion Brawler Build
Summary
The Bastion Brawler leans hard into the tanking side of Bruiser. You have a decent amount of shield and a bit more retaliate, making you the tankiest character of the starting six. You don’t have quite enough longevity to absorb every hit in a four player party, but between shield, crowd control, and other similar effects, you should be able to provide your team with the space they need to whittle down the foes, all while dealing a respectable amount of damage yourself.
Build Highlights
Bruise-less Bruiser
The Bruiser has a ton of defensive abilities, even at level one. By tanking up as much as possible, the Bruiser can absorb enough damage to let the rest of the team play more aggressively, dealing much more damage without the need to properly defend themselves.
“...makes the Whole World Blind.”
Since you’re planning to take most of the hits anyway, you might as well put up some retaliate to dish out some damage. You’ll need to find a good balance between fully shielding and fully retaliating, because you won’t always be able to do both.
Dazed and Confused
The Bruiser has just enough crowd control to make sure that if there’s a particularly threatening enemy, it won’t plow through his defenses. Stun, disarm, immobilize, and muddle the largest threats for as long as possible, while letting the smaller ones bounce off your defenses.
Best Friends
This build is strong on its own, but some parties work better than others. If your party has these things, you can expect your build to be even more impactful.
Glass cannon allies. All of this tanking won’t kill the enemies, even with maximum retaliate. You’re going to need your allies to finish the job. Encourage your allies to play riskier, since they rarely need to worry about taking hits.
Tank enablers. You can tank a decent amount, but at higher levels you just don’t have enough shield to handle every hit, especially in a larger party. If any of your allies can grant you extra shield, curse the enemies, or otherwise offer you more damage mitigation, you can go from a great tank to more or less unkillable.
Level 1 Cards
Core Level 1 Cards
Shield/Retaliate
Crowd Control
Healing
These are your cards that you will bring to every single scenario, until you gain a few levels and find stronger replacements. You’ll be sorting cards into three major categories: Shield/Retaliate, Crowd Control, and Healing/Utility. Some cards will have the flexibility to be used in multiple roles; these will be marked in yellow.
You’ll take every instance of shield and/or retaliate at level one. This gives you two different ways to shield for one while you use your top action to attack or to retaliate. This isn’t quite enough mitigation to handle everything yet, which is why you’ll need to rely on allies, crowd control, and good old fashioned initiative weaving to survive. Once you gain a few levels, you’ll have the tools to push through.
For Crowd Control, you’ve got Sweeping Blow, an AoE muddle that’s perfect for starting a new room, and Warding Strength, a top action disarm that deals fine damage. It’s tempting to drop Warding Strength instantly for the shield and retaliate - and if the first room is a swarm of melee, you should do so. However, if a room has at least one heavy hitter, or enough ranged enemies that you expect the retaliate to not find value, then the disarm will do enough work that you should delay Warding Strength for a while. You’ll still activate it at some point until you cut the card, but there’s no rush; it’ll find the same value later on.
Eye for an Eye is incredible on both halves. It’s in the utility category for now as your only real source of healing for a while, but the top is your only way to get two shield in a round, and gives you a retaliate as a nice bonus. It’ll bounce around from category to category as you level, but you should definitely use both halves as needed. In general, the top is better when you’re working to tank a bunch of smaller enemies, and the bottom is better when there’s a few big hits where one shield doesn’t quite cut it. Finally, Grab and Go is an obvious choice, with a bit of healing, a bit of looting, and a late initiative with a big move that’s perfect for cracking open doors. You can potentially drop this on harder scenarios, but otherwise it’ll be a staple for quite some time.
Example Level One Hand
Shield/Retaliate
Crowd Control
Healing
Other
You’ll need three more cards to round out your hand. The Overwhelming Assault into Skewer combo isn’t bad, but it requires too much precise positioning, which this build doesn’t really have time for. Similarly, Balanced Measure requires you to use a large movement during combat, which contests all of your excellent defensive bottom actions. This leaves Leaping Cleave, Trample, and Spare Dagger. These are all flexible cards that deal decent damage without having to invest too much work in positioning, which leaves your bottom actions open for tanking. If the majority of the enemies are shielded, it can be worth dropping two of these cards for Skewer and Overwhelming Assault, but unless the pierce is finding consistent value it’s simply not worth it. A few of these cards are slotted into a temporary “Other” category, since you don’t have ten cards yet that fit the strategy. That will quickly change, so that last category will only last a few levels.
Openers
Here is an example of what your first few turns of a rest cycle might look like. You don’t have a ton of setup to do, so you can use this when starting the scenario or when bursting into a new room.
Turn One Turn Two Turn Three
Top Action
Bottom
Action
If the enemies are close enough that you can’t avoid hits by initiative weaving, you should skip turn one and move straight to turn two. Otherwise, go slowly and let them run up. You can disarm an enemy if there is one hitting harder than its buddies; if not, simply use Sweeping Blow or another attack to soften up the crowd. Once it’s time to take hits, you want to try and pair two tanky cards at the same time, so that you get as much value as possible from tanking your hits. You can use double retaliate with a shield on the first turn, since you’re likely at or close to full health. Then, on your second turn, you can use double shield and retaliate, using a healing potion if necessary to stay on your feet. If there are only one or two enemies left at this point, then instead use Eye for an Eye to heal, and use any of your top actions to attack - perhaps Spare Dagger, if the enemy isn’t nearby. Tanking and Retaliating is more effective the more enemies there are, and the weaker they are, so don’t be afraid to back off from the full tank strategy if the enemies are too few or too strong.
Strategy for Leveling (repeats content)
Level 2 Level-up Choice
Level 2 Hand
Shield/Retaliate
Crowd Control
Healing
Other
Juggernaut isn’t technically shield, but it blocks damage, so it gets to live in the top category. Be careful not to let it trigger on small instances of damage, and it will do incredible work. If you anticipate lots of weak attacks in the first room, use the top action to position yourself, perhaps paired with a bottom attack or heal. Trample is an easy cut; even when there is shield, your retaliate will cut through it much more elegantly.
Level 3 Level-up Choice
Level 3 Hand
Shield/Retaliate
Crowd Control
Healing
Spare dagger isn’t bad, but it’s the last card in the other category, so you’ll have to live without. Meanwhile, Unstoppable Charge is a strong attack that you can use until the last room, where it earns its place in the Crowd Control category. You can use it earlier if there are well-positioned enemies, or if it looks like the stun will prevent a lost card. However, since the effect is one-and-done, it’s usually going to be better to save it for as long as possible.
Level 4 Level-up Choice
Level 4 Hand
Shield/Retaliate
Crowd Control
Healing
Push Through gives enough healing that you are now mostly ready to commit to full tanking, rather than a hybrid. While it would be ideal to use it between rooms, don’t be afraid to use it mid-combat if it means you can tank for another full round. You get to drop Leaping Cleave, leaving you only with cards that shield, retaliate, disable, or heal.
Level 5 Level-up Choice
Level 5 Hand
Shield/Retaliate
Crowd Control
Healing
With your signature persistent, it’s time to ensure that you play at least one shield or retaliate card each round. Dedicating Eye for an Eye to this category means you’ll have four to work with. In earlier rooms, this typically means you can play one each turn (other than the first) for consistent low amounts of shield and retaliate. Once you go a few rounds, and have less turns per cycle, you can start using Eye for an Eye for healing again, and you can stack your shield and retaliate effects for higher impact. The cut here is situational - typically, Sweeping Blow is the weakest, but if you’re facing swarms of weak enemies, cutting Juggernaut might be better, as the damage blocks are strongest against a few large enemies.
Level 6 Level-up Choice
Level 6 Hand
Shield/Retaliate
Crowd Control
Healing
More shield from Immovable Phalanx lets you switch from spreading it out to stacking it up more rapidly. Provoking Roar is the cut here - unless you’ve got an extremely weak room, one shield isn’t going to cut it, so you’ll want to emphasize shield abilities over retaliate abilities.
Level 7 Level-up Choice
Level 7 Hand
Shield/Retaliate
Crowd Control
Healing
While retaliate on a top action is underwhelming, as a bottom action it’s quite potent. Paired with the best initiative to date, Selfish Retribution is an excellent addition to the build. In most scenarios, try to pair the effect with a top action shield, to give yourself sufficient survivability.
Warding Strength is the cut at this stage, since you have enough defenses that the disarm gains diminishing return. It can still be worth considering against particular hard-hitting enemies, or those with multitarget, where it’s worth spending a whole turn to prevent the attack over simply tanking up.
Level 8 Level-up Choice
Level 8 Hand
Shield/Retaliate
Crowd Control
Healing
Eight shield/retaliate cards is what you like to see. You have enough shield options now to play one every single turn, and two most turns, which gives you insane survivability. The two healing from Grab and Go is has certainly fallen off, although feel free to bring it back for easier scenarios for the loot.
Level 9 Level-up Choice
Level 9 Hand
Shield/Retaliate
Crowd Control
Healing
Unsurprisingly, Brute Force slots right in with the rest. It’s actually Juggernaut that you drop, rather than one of your remaining level 1 cards, since they both provide shield, and that’s something you aren’t willing to compromise on. At this stage, it’s unlikely that you block four hits large enough to justify using Juggernaut for its loss, and if it does seem like that’s going to happen, you can use Unstoppable Charge to stun the culprits.
Perks
1. The obvious first choice is ignoring negative item effects. Adding two +1s is almost good enough on its own, so you should definitely snag this first.
2. The first time you line up two perks at once (such as completing a battle goal while leveling up), you should take the loot perk. It’s great value both for looting and survivability, even with the starting hide armor.
3. Since you plan on taking hits, it’s extremely likely that the shield and retaliate modifiers will find value. The retaliate modifiers are more consistent, since they stick around until used, but the shield ones have a higher ceiling. You can take these in whichever order you prefer. It’s worth noting that, if you know you have a retaliate modifier to spare, you can plan a round where you use that to activate defensive tactics, rather than a card. It’s not extremely consistent, and only gives one shield, but it can occasionally be worth planning around, especially at early levels where you don’t have that many defensive cards.
4. An occasional heal is fantastic, especially for removing wound and poison.
5. The stun, disarm, and muddle modifiers will give you a lot of survivability. It’s possible that the stun or disarm could mess with your retaliate, but you can always choose to skip them if need be.
6. Your allies will likely appreciate having a strong opening to the first room. You can’t use this yourself, since your first turn is always setting up Defensive Tactics, but you’re getting diminishing returns on the rest of your perks from this point on, so unless you know that nearly all of your party will need the round to set up, take this next.
7. Similarly, the perk for movement after long resting isn’t likely to be a huge deal, but it will occasionally let you get into better tanking position, and it’s better than the rest of your options.
8. The heals are very likely to find value no matter when you pull them, so you should pick those next. They fail when you’re full health, but then you’re probably winning the scenario anyway.
9. Grab the +3 next for some raw damage. If you have an ally who is constantly granting you strengthen, consider picking this up earlier as a second pseudo-crit.
10. Even though the push might not find much value on the leaping build, additional damage is still worth picking up, so snag these now.
11. Since your goal is usually to kill what you hit, stuns and disarms lose a bit of value. Of course, many large enemies won’t be killable, so these perks aren’t worthless. Still, you prefer anything that bumps up your damage to perks that stall the enemies. They’re still worth taking, but they’re the last picks.
Items
In order to keep this spoiler free, the item recommendations will be split into several sections. After an initial suggestion for level one items, spoilers will be given through prosperity three, five, seven, and nine, with a round for high reputation items, and then one final round including random items and item designs. Each section will get its own header, so if you don’t want to be spoiled on items, please stop reading before you reach the spoiling section.
Initial Purchases
If you’re starting at level one, there are a lot of things you want. The rulebook recommends Weathered Boots and a Healing Potion, which is almost certainly the best choice. Winged Shoes are great for Hook and Chain in particular, but for most other purposes, the extra movement is more valuable and more flexible. As tempting as it might be to begin with armor, wait to pick that up until you have the perk which lets you ignore negative item effects; you can’t afford the negatives.
Prosperity ≤ 3
Boots: Weathered Boots and Winged shoes are both straightforwardly excellent. I would typically go with Weathered Boots, but if you’re trying to line up a big Hook and Chain hit, Winged Shoes will usually go further towards ensuring that you always have the space to run.
Hands: In true Bruiser fashion, you’ll want a weapon in one hand and a shield in the other. The heater shield is the only option, but once you get some reputation, you can choose to replace your poison dagger with either an iron spear or jagged sword. All three are great, so pick what suits your party’s needs. Iron Spear in particular can be great with Hook and Chain to give you more flexibility in lining up the big sprint, although it will be harder to pair with Balanced Measure.
Chest: Hide Armor into Chainmail is the only reasonable choice. Even though tanking isn’t your main concern, it’s still important to use your HP as a resource as efficiently as possible.
Head: Iron Helmet is essential. Not having to fear a crit changes which risks you can take. It might only block one hit every other scenario, but that one blocked hit will usually save the scenario. Spoiler alert: you’re not really considering anything else, ever. It’s that good.
Small Items: Healing Potion is your top priority. It’s extremely efficient for someone who will spend most of their time in the front line. You can also pick up a stamina potion to buy an extra turn or reuse a particularly nice AoE ability, or a Power Potion for the turn where you manage to pull off four attacks (between an AoE and the bottom of Spare Dagger).
Prosperity ≤ 5
Boots: Endurance Footwraps are valuable since you’ll have a good number of big moves, but they’re expensive. It’s perfectly ok to skip them and keep your existing boots and prioritize your money elsewhere.
Hands: Battle-Axe can also be sweet to double a seven damage Balanced Measure hit. If that doesn’t sound good, you can grab a Tower Shield and Light Targe (if you’ve got the reputation).
Chest: No change
Head: No change.
Small Items: Adding a Major Healing Potion is a no-brainer.
Prosperity ≤ 7
Boots: Steel Sabatons are incredible. You won’t always be able to stand still, but there will be enough rounds where you don’t need to move that these will provide insane value. They’re very expensive, but well worth it.
Hands: Heavy Mace is very high value, if you wanted to bring that with an offhand shield.
Otherwise, no change.
Chest: No change.
Head: No change.
Small Items: You certainly want a Major Stamina Potion. Strategist’s Ring can be used to quickly drop Defensive Tactics while still getting a full turn, or even later on to drop an extra bit of shield on a critical round.
Prosperity ≤ 9
Boots: No change.
Hands: No change.
Chest: No change.
Head: No change.
Small Items: Ring of Haste will let you drop an extra shield or retaliate on a particularly dangerous round.
High Reputation
Boots: No change.
Hands: No change.
Chest: Platemail is the obvious upgrade to Chain Armor.
Head: No change.
Small Items: No change.
Additional Items
NOTE: THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR ALL ITEMS IN THE GAME. PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK
Obviously, there’s a lot of items here and you might not have access to them all. Here are some of the ones that you might like in each slot, in decreasing order of priority.
Boots: Charged Boots and Boots of Bracing are both amazing for the leaping variant; since you’ll often stand still and use your move actions for damage, you aren’t playing very suboptimally by standing still for a few rounds each cycle. You can also consider Gust Striders if you’re not bringing Skewer or if you have both sources of wind.
Hands: There are a lot of cool damage items, but tanking items are usually more efficient. The Spiked Shield is an excellent pick. Harrow Hook is also insane, letting you reposition while still using a bottom ability (or converting that move to damage).
Chest: Swordedge Armor if you’ve found it; otherwise, no change.
Head: Necklace of Teeth can be an alternate to the Iron Helm, letting you heal off the damage as you go.
Small Items: Heart of the Betrayer is a sweet choice, blocking a hit and dealing some damage back. Steel Ring blocks less damage and doesn’t hit back, but is much cheaper.
Enhancements
The only good option at lower levels is extra healing on Eye for an Eye. None of your low level shield or retaliate options have enhancement capabilities, for good reason, so if you’re low level and fully kitted out, you can enhance some of your movement cards to provide a bit more flexibility. If you do hit level six, extra shield on Immovable Phalanx is a powerful but expensive option, as are the shields on Crippling Offensive and Brute Force.
Openers
Here is an example of what your first few turns of a rest cycle might look like. You don’t have a ton of setup to do, so you can use this when starting the scenario or when bursting into a new room.
Turn One Turn Two Turn Three
Top Action
Bottom
Action
If the enemies are close enough that you can’t avoid hits by initiative weaving, you should skip turn one and move straight to turn two. Otherwise, go slowly and let them run up. You can disarm an enemy if there is one hitting harder than its buddies; if not, simply use Sweeping Blow or another attack to soften up the crowd. Once it’s time to take hits, you want to try and pair two tanky cards at the same time, so that you get as much value as possible from tanking your hits. You can use double retaliate with a shield on the first turn, since you’re likely at or close to full health. Then, on your second turn, you can use double shield and retaliate, using a healing potion if necessary to stay on your feet. If there are only one or two enemies left at this point, then instead use Eye for an Eye to heal, and use any of your top actions to attack - perhaps Spare Dagger, if the enemy isn’t nearby. Tanking and Retaliating is more effective the more enemies there are, and the weaker they are, so don’t be afraid to back off from the full tank strategy if the enemies are too few or too strong.
Strategy for Leveling
Leveling for this build is fairly straightforward: you will pick up every shield and retaliate option that you can. When you aren’t presented with one, and can’t go back for one, you’ll instead pick up healing if possible, or crowd control. Remember: you have a lot of tools that deal damage, but your goal isn’t to dish it out, it’s to take it.
Level 2 Level-up Choice
Level 2 Hand
Shield/Retaliate
Crowd Control
Healing
Other
Juggernaut isn’t technically shield, but it blocks damage, so it gets to live in the top category. Be careful not to let it trigger on small instances of damage, and it will do incredible work. If you anticipate lots of weak attacks in the first room, use the top action to position yourself, perhaps paired with a bottom attack or heal. Trample is an easy cut; even when there is shield, your retaliate will cut through it much more elegantly.
Level 3 Level-up Choice
Level 3 Hand
Shield/Retaliate
Crowd Control
Healing
Spare dagger isn’t bad, but it’s the last card in the other category, so you’ll have to live without. Meanwhile, Unstoppable Charge is a strong attack that you can use until the last room, where it earns its place in the Crowd Control category. You can use it earlier if there are well-positioned enemies, or if it looks like the stun will prevent a lost card. However, since the effect is one-and-done, it’s usually going to be better to save it for as long as possible.
Level 4 Level-up Choice
Level 4 Hand
Shield/Retaliate
Crowd Control
Healing
Push Through gives enough healing that you are now mostly ready to commit to full tanking, rather than a hybrid. While it would be ideal to use it between rooms, don’t be afraid to use it mid-combat if it means you can tank for another full round. You get to drop Leaping Cleave, leaving you only with cards that shield, retaliate, disable, or heal.
Level 5 Level-up Choice
Level 5 Hand
Shield/Retaliate
Crowd Control
Healing
With your signature persistent, it’s time to ensure that you play at least one shield or retaliate card each round. Dedicating Eye for an Eye to this category means you’ll have four to work with. In earlier rooms, this typically means you can play one each turn (other than the first) for consistent low amounts of shield and retaliate. Once you go a few rounds, and have less turns per cycle, you can start using Eye for an Eye for healing again, and you can stack your shield and retaliate effects for higher impact. The cut here is situational - typically, Sweeping Blow is the weakest, but if you’re facing swarms of weak enemies, cutting Juggernaut might be better, as the damage blocks are strongest against a few large enemies.
Level 6 Level-up Choice
Level 6 Hand
Shield/Retaliate
Crowd Control
Healing
More shield from Immovable Phalanx lets you switch from spreading it out to stacking it up more rapidly. Provoking Roar is the cut here - unless you’ve got an extremely weak room, one shield isn’t going to cut it, so you’ll want to emphasize shield abilities over retaliate abilities.
Level 7 Level-up Choice
Level 7 Hand
Shield/Retaliate
Crowd Control
Healing
While retaliate on a top action is underwhelming, as a bottom action it’s quite potent. Paired with the best initiative to date, Selfish Retribution is an excellent addition to the build. In most scenarios, try to pair the effect with a top action shield, to give yourself sufficient survivability. Warding Strength is the cut at this stage, since you have enough defenses that the disarm gains diminishing return. It can still be worth considering against particular hard-hitting enemies, or those with multitarget, where it’s worth spending a whole turn to prevent the attack over simply tanking up.
Level 8 Level-up Choice
Level 8 Hand
Shield/Retaliate
Crowd Control
Healing
Eight shield/retaliate cards is what you like to see. You have enough shield options now to play one every single turn, and two most turns, which gives you insane survivability. The two healing from Grab and Go is has certainly fallen off, although feel free to bring it back for easier scenarios for the loot.
Level 9 Level-up Choice
Level 9 Hand
Shield/Retaliate
Crowd Control
Healing
Unsurprisingly, Brute Force slots right in with the rest. It’s actually Juggernaut that you drop, rather than one of your remaining level 1 cards, since they both provide shield, and that’s something you aren’t willing to compromise on. At this stage, it’s unlikely that you block four hits large enough to justify using Juggernaut for its loss, and if it does seem like that’s going to happen, you can use Unstoppable Charge to stun the culprits.
Perks (continued)
1. The obvious first choice is ignoring negative item effects... (content continued in original document)
Items (Spoilers)
In order to keep this spoiler free, the item recommendations will be split into several sections... (content summarized)
Enhancements
The only good option at lower levels is extra healing on Eye for an Eye. (summary)
Openers (additional)
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Core Level 1 Cards
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Example Level One Hand
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Level 2 Level Up Choices
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Level 3 Level Up Choices
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Level 4 Level Up Choices
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Level 5 Level Up Choices
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Level 6 Level Up Choices
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Level 7 Level Up Choices
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Level 8 Level Up Choices
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Level 9 Level Up Choices
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Perks (Summary)
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Items (Spoilers)
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End Notes
This guide consolidates the Bounding Bully and Bastion Brawler builds with detailed breakdowns across levels, card interactions, and strategic play.