Can we stop using the term "Bruiser"?

chipndip1·Jan 27, 2018·55 votes·4,064 views

We got fighters. Not "bruisers". Bruiser is confusing for people and lumps Jax in with Darius. For the sake of clarity, we should use the actual champion sub class classifications that were designed by Riot

102 Comments

AFilthyCaitMainJan 27, 201839 votes

Yes please.

You have Skirmishers (Fiora, Yasuo, etc)

Divers (Camille, Vi, Irelia, Diana, J4, etc)

Juggernauts (Illaoi, Darius, etc)

This would add so much more clarity to things

Diamond2KappaJan 27, 20186 votes

Apparently bruiser = diver

but if thats the case, most bruisers are pretty good rn hehe

redniwediSJan 27, 20184 votes

Depends who you ask. Back in the day it was used for tankier people in the Fratmog's era, so by that definition it would best fit Juggernauts.

chipndip1Jan 27, 20187 votes

{quoted}

Apparently bruiser = diver

but if thats the case, most bruisers are pretty good rn hehe

I understood "Bruiser" as an alternative word for "fighter"

So it SHOULD be Divers/Jugs from that understanding, but people lump Fiora and Jax with them and it just doesn't make sense anymore.

ThefrostyvikingJan 27, 20181 votes

If you hit on google you´ll include Leo/shen/sion and some others there too.

junglerboy16Jan 28, 20182 votes

That's because they're all tank primary, fighter secondary.

TerozuJan 28, 20182 votes

thats flat out outdated info

junglerboy16Jan 30, 20181 votes

Well I'm not the one updating Riot's website, just explaining why you see them on Google.

TerozuJan 30, 20181 votes

Riots sites dont say that. Wikia is not a Riot site.

VexingRavenJan 28, 20182 votes

{quoted}

Yes please.

You have Skirmishers (Fiora, Yasuo, etc)

Divers (Camille, Vi, Irelia, Diana, J4, etc)

Juggernauts (Illaoi, Darius, etc)

This would add so much more clarity to things

What makes Fiora and Yas not divers while J4 and Diana are?

koshkyraJan 28, 20181 votes

What does riven fall under? I cant tell if shes a diver or a skirmisher, she's sort of both.

PaffWasTakenJan 27, 201833 votes

Bruiser is not a champion subclass. Its a build path. For the sake of clarity, let people use the terms that were used since almost the beginning of the game

chipndip1Jan 27, 201810 votes

{quoted}

Bruiser is not a champion subclass. Its a build path. For the sake of clarity, let people use the terms that were used since almost the beginning of the game

Then you can't fix "Bruisers" because then you're just fixing items that divers, jugs, and skirmishers may take.

IllivashiJan 27, 201810 votes

{quoted}

Then you can't fix "Bruisers" because then you're just fixing items that divers, jugs, and skirmishers may take.

Which is exactly what the "Bruisers" are asking for, that and an actual key stone. Hence the "fix bruisers"

ThefrostyvikingJan 27, 20185 votes

Except there is no way to do anything like that, because if such a thing could be done then the ones who do work would become insanely OP.

As a matter of fact, more melee champions work and can succeed if played well generally compared to not, volibear and aatrox being examples of those who don't work so well.

So instead, specify which champs you think lacks a keystone and you might get somewhere.

Brain Errör 404Jan 27, 20185 votes

Aatrox wants a serious word with you http://na.op.gg/champion/aatrox/statistics/top.

On that note, there are fixes to it. Because BRUISERS as a whole are garbage right now. The divers, the fighters and most of the juggernauts are straight garbage. It's NOT just Jax, Fiora, Riven, Yasuo etc. It's also Vi, Darius, Ren, Ire, Trundle and a few others who I'm probably missing. Build paths for bruisers are trash and all the people that rely on them make it very difficult to do anything at the moment.

Tanks beat you in lane and out sustain you as well as have more impacts in fights, peel better than you do and to top it off even split better than you do. As a top laner, if you can't team fight or your kit doesn't allow you to teamfight well then you're useless. Better pray your team can do well without you as you just keep the enemy tank busy and stop him from getting to the fight.

ThefrostyvikingJan 28, 20182 votes

Alright so aatrox has indeed found success with new runes, it's just taking a while to show becuase of his low playerbase x)

Fighters is the overall name for divers+juggernauts.

Divers oveall are doing well, at least the ones who are jungling, but several of the laning ones are also doing well, like pantheon, riven and kled.

Juggernauts, Shyvana is a beast, but she jungle's though, and udyr is just 2 spots below her on the top 10 junglers winrate wise, ' Darius,illaoi,Nasus and Garen are doing fine.

Trundle and Mundo are doing poorly.

=Majority of toplane juggernauts are doing well, and they evidently find a lot of

But do keep in mind, that jungle has always been a problematic "lane" in the sense that pretty much only the top 10, their counters, and picks that fit well into a teamcomp are successful, everything else just get's outperformed, outjungled and crushed.

Doesn't mean that they are bad, rather it might just mean that competition is OP, similar to what so often happens in botlane, i firmly believe that Vi, hecka, kayn, lee and wukong are such picks.

Tanks don't just beat anyone in lane, go check their matchup statistics for it, there are some general counters like malp beating attackspeed reliant champs pretty hard but he get's run over by ability users.

The most played tank, maokai is almost the opposite though, does well into ability users but struggles more with auto attackers, maybe because abilites are easier to interrupt?

Incidentally, darius, a juggernaut, does fairly well or at least goes neutral into tanks, and illaoi is apparently winning pretty much all the tank matchups, too slow to dodge the nightmare fuel.

And it's bullshit that tanks beat you at splitpushing when playing a skirmisher or a juggernaut, they evidently can't crush the juggernaut 1v1 and the skirmishers all scale into the heavens post some point and just run anything that walks down 1v1.

*As long as this something is not Nasus, he is the king of that.

What i see many toplaners do, particularly Renekton/riven/ camilie or fiora players do, is that they dive into enemy minions to try and trade, only to eat CC with their faces and end up stunned with minion aggro, then they end up taking a metric ton of damage and are forced to recall, while doing really little damage back.

Does that mean that it's impossible to win the matchups? No, rather, there are just some key things to keep in mind.

Dont get minion aggro only to get CC'ed among them early, minions do a ton of damage.
Tanks are sad if you dodge or negate their CC, i myself have been running the precision tree´s stacking tenacity+merc threads whenever i feel that enemy team has too much CC. ' '

So the idea is that a Tank can' beat you 1v1 unless they can get a huge lead in health with their CC rotation, so some health, sticking ability, resistance shredd and ability to stick to them and keep dealing damage and you´ll win pretty easily.

That kinda thing is why Jax beats maokai for instance, but since he can't deal with malphite auto attack slow he loses that one instead.

And why both malp and maokai lose to illaoi, anything that goes near he while lacking mobility kinda just loses by default.

Automated RivenJan 28, 20182 votes

{quoted}

Then you can't fix "Bruisers" because then you're just fixing items that divers, jugs, and skirmishers may take.

Well most of the problems with bruisers are that their build path is almost 3k gold more the other champions in the game.

Who Fed RuJan 27, 201815 votes

Bruiser

Velzard of KozJan 27, 201817 votes

Edgy

Tails9016Jan 27, 201813 votes

Pretty sure Bruisers build some defense, so not too edgy.

~~Help me make better jokes please~~

ChaddyFantomeJan 27, 20182 votes

{quoted}

Pretty sure Bruisers build some defense, so not too edgy.

~~Help me make better jokes please~~

Idk, this item might disagree. item 3076

Tails9016Jan 27, 20183 votes

That's a pointy boi, not an edgy boi like item 3748 or item 3031

5000000000000000Jan 28, 20183 votes

Don't bruisers build at least one of these bladed weapons? item 3071 item 3748 item 3078

Tails9016Jan 28, 20182 votes

But are they truly edgy if they don't grab at least 3 or 4?

~~Let's ignore the fact that Trinity is made from 1 blade, a hammer, and the sheen of your current weapon~~

5000000000000000Jan 28, 20182 votes

Just a little edgy then

MorganFreemanBotJan 27, 201811 votes

Bruisers are tanky damage oriented melee champions.

They're the melee characters who won't melt you as soon as they set eyes on you, but are still dangerous enough - damage wise - that they can't be ignored. They're also tanky enough that they can take a hit and keep on trucking, but can't survive lock down focus fire.

This is in contrast to tanks, who are dangerous because of the CC and other augments they bring whilst being a neglible damage threat, but also capable of weathering a storm of focus fire and coming out alive.

It's important to realize that bruisers were a specific design paradgrim, but they're one which Riot has made attempts to distance themselves from. There was a time in league when there were three types of melee; tanks, bruisers, and garbage (melee carries).

Basically, back in S1 and S2, riot just couldn't get melee to work. If you delt damage you had to be ranged, if you were in melee you had to have insane amounts of defenses - and build nothing but defenses - so that you could survive more than a few seconds. Sound familiar?

This lead to the design of the original bruiser, Xin Zhao. A champion who was given everything. Built in healing, built in hard CC, built in slows, extremely strong scaling with multiple sources of damage, built in tank steroids, high base stats. Champions born of this ideaology are familiar problem children; Irelia, Jax (pre rework / removal of dodge), Jarvan, Olaf, Shyvana, and probably one or two more I can't remember.

This class of champion quickly took over league, giving birth to the 'meta golem'. They all functioned basically the same and liked the same stats, so literally all of them built the same thing.

Bruisers, as a concept, stopped being released in.. Season 2, I believe? The last one I can think of is Hecarim, who shifted away to become a bruiser carry. Kled probably the closest we've been to a 'bruiser' being released in a long time, and they took great care with him.

Anyway, circling back. Bruisers pretty much took over league for quite awhile. They had to be nerfed, then their items had to be nerfed, then they had to be nerfed again, and then their items had to be nerfed again. They completely invalidated tanks for a lengthy period of time, and that's kind of the threat they've always posed. Bruisers have proven extremely problematic when overtuned, which has led to numerous instances of them being dumpstered. "Better nerf Irelia", "Olaf'd", and originally "Xin'd" are phrases for very, very specific reasons. As a class bruisers have probably been nerfed more than most roles in league combined.

As I said, there hasn't been a legitimate bruiser release in a long time. You will notice that current melee are either tanks (self explanatory), or lighter 'skirmishers'. I'm going to talk about the second of those two.

Yasuo, Kayn, Riven, new Fiora, and a few reworks (yi) have been Riot's attempt to successfully implement damage oriented melee without falling into the trap of bruisers. Basically they've done this by taking melee carries and making them more 'bruiser like', but moved them away from a dependency on auto attacks.

Let me clarify the above statements. Auto attacks are still important to 'skirmishers' / 'slayers' or whatever they're called, but they cannot function solely based on that. This is important because traditional bruisers (Shyv, J4, Jax, Irelia, Xin, Darius) had kits which were designed to supplement and augment their autos, but it was still their basic attacks which did all of the heavy lifting and supplied the lion's share of their damage. This is why Garen was a non-functional champion for years prior to his rework.

New not-bruiser melee is higher damage potential than bruisers, but intentionally laiden with damage which requires skill expression behind right clicking really hard. They're tankier and tougher than a majority of ranged and given defense TOOLS, but absolutely lack the innate burleyness and base stats required to benefit from primarily tank builds. Make no mistake; Yasuo, Kayn, Riven, Aatrox, (new) Fiora, and (new) Yi are supposed to be replacements for the bruisers of old.

The bruiser class of old has been reimagined into the Juggernaut line. Immensely tanky melee 'carries' which deal gigantic amounts of damage, but lack the tools (hard CC and mobility) to properly apply it. This is why older bruisers which were not touched - or considered - during the Juggernaut reboot have been recharacterized as such; champions like Trunde, Shyvana, and Mundo.

This still leaves several champions out in the cold. I'd argue the most noticeable of them being J4, who is going to require a pretty pointed rework into either the Juggernaut or 'light fighter' camp before he'll stop being a balance concern.

Now, where does this leave us? Why do we still have problems?

Well, Riot made melee work before but they did it at the expense of the entire game. They've recently been jumping through hoops - as detailed - which have made melee more healthy for the game.

The problem is that, in doing so, they've backtracked. We've returned to an earlier state of the game where melee must be a tank, or else they're told to pack up their shit and go home. But Riot is close, closer than they've ever been, to actually achieving the balance which they (claim) to desire. I think that the primary thing holding us back is the dogged single mindedness on League games revolving around Marksmen. If we can escape that, I think we can hit a new golden age.

TotalJerkJan 28, 20181 votes

Bruisers, as a concept, stopped being released in.. Season 2, I believe?

Aatrox Gnar RekSai Illaoi Kled Camille Kayn (Darkin) ?

I know you explained most of those, but Gnar RekSai Illaoi and Camille all still combine some amount of tankiness and damage.

MorganFreemanBotJan 28, 20181 votes

{quoted}

(Darkin) ?

I know you explained most of those, but and all still combine some amount of tankiness and damage.

It's important to note that these champions incorporate elements of bruiser design (I touched on this), but not the entire concept. Going to re-quote myself here to answer this:

"New not-bruiser melee is higher damage potential than bruisers, but intentionally laiden with damage which requires skill expression behind right clicking really hard. They're tankier and tougher than a majority of ranged and given defense TOOLS, but absolutely lack the innate burleyness and base stats required to benefit from primarily tank builds. Make no mistake; Yasuo, Kayn, Riven, Aatrox, (new) Fiora, and (new) Yi are supposed to be replacements for the bruisers of old."

This covers Kayn Gnar Aatrox Camille . Gnar is a little odd, because he has the base stats but only in a temporary form which he has to build up towards; he's super delicate at a baseline. Camile, also, had to get the shit nerfed out of her before she was even close to balanced.

To elaborate a bit further on 'elements of bruiser design':

With the exception of Illaoi, the above champions are the 'light' bruisers I was talking about, with the exception of Kled. They have kits which derive a majority of their damage from non-auto attack sources. The ones which are auto attack centric are designed with said autos being given 'windows of power', which we hear Riot talking about these days. I.E. Gnar's lethal autos in his mini form will, eventually, turn him into a form with neglible autos; Kled's massive on-hit shred cannot be controlled, Aatrox sacrifices his sustain (and hurts himself) in order to make his autos truly lethal. So while these few lean heavily on their auto attacks, there is a way to out-play / control said auto attacks...

As an aside, the whole concept of auto 'windows of power' on autos would be a great level with which to bring ADCs into line.

Beyond that, they lack tank steroids. Again, Gnar has his uncontrollable one and Camile had to get the absolute balls nerfed out of her. Beyond them, though, none of those champions have a passive skill which grants them free resists / health, or a button they can press which grants them free resists / health / damage reduction. What (some) of them do have is health gained through offense, but this ties into their 'tankiness' having counter play. Lock Raast has massive in-fight sustain, but if locked down / kept at arm's length he melts. Illaoi is a monster in her tentacle nest, but if taken out of it / unable to slam people, she has nothing to help her survive.

TL: DR What you're referencing is new bruiser design. It's close to, but distinctly different from, the problem children of old; and you can peel back the layers and see Riot's design process on trying to get melee to work as a concept.

SpecterVonBarenJan 28, 20182 votes

Isn't the new Urgot, essentially a bruiser?

94372148Jan 27, 20188 votes

Yes, please call them "champions that die to ADCs standing still and right clicking in 1 second."

Tanks should now be called "champions that die to ADCs standing still and right clicking in 2 seconds."

PurpleKingCrazyJan 27, 20187 votes

Bruisers are generally regarded as Tanky fighters. They are typically fighters who build tanky items but then have one or two offensive items in their path. They don't go full tank or else they are weak, and they don't go glass cannon or they die a lot (you may certainly try that on Garen , it can be fun)

Yasuo and Fiora are not bruisers. Jax can build bruiser but he's not one. But one champion does not have a class make.

Taliyah

DraehlJan 27, 20186 votes

I think the broader concern isn't even "bruisers" but rather the limited/non-existent viability of anything trying to build half tank. In this meta it really only seems viable to go full damage or full tank on an inherently tanky champ. Otherwise you still go splat and just do less damage.

ThefrostyvikingJan 27, 20182 votes

Riot couldn't figure out how to make tanks unique compared to say divers or juggernauts building tanky so they went out of their way to make tanks super tanky and give marksmen specialized tools to keep tanks from going insanely OP.

It's just an issue of said tools working just as well on the divers and juggernauts, who didnt get any tank steroids, which in turn makes them die pretty dang fast when a strong marksman rolls out equipped to kill a tank.

So then it becomes more efficient to just outright murder the marksman or the support, and trust that you´ll succeed.

BeersteinJan 27, 20185 votes

{quoted}

We got fighters. Not "bruisers". Bruiser is confusing for people and lumps Jax in with Darius. For the sake of clarity, we should use the actual champion sub class classifications that were designed by Riot

Riot should use the one we created. Bruiser.

chipndip1Jan 27, 201813 votes

{quoted}

Riot should use the one we created. Bruiser.

It's too damn broad. Like, Jax is way more mobile and scales way harder than Lee Sin, but they're both labeled "bruisers" because of the items they may build, and it has nothing to do with who the champs are and how they play out in the game. That's the problem.

OxyrottenJan 28, 20184 votes

Bruisers isn't a game specific term, you say bruiser and anyone who games in general has an idea of what you mean. Or at least a basic concept.

You say slayer and your either talking about a band about to break up or a cheerleader with a chainsaw and a lollipop.

You say juggernaut and they picture a mutant that get's knocked out by running into a wall (are you triggered? I'm triggered, REEEEEEE).

You say diver and someone will wonder what scuba diving in the midnight sea has to do with the conversation.

You say fighter and I am picturing a master of swords and bows and axes in medium to heavy armor off in search of dungeons to crawl and dragons to slay.

Bruiser is a general class concept, it is broad yes but it is generally used and generally understood. Riot just wants to establish it's own terminology for industry competition purposes. I don't see why we can't use bruiser and the sub-classes to be more specific.

Jerry SeinfeIdJan 27, 20183 votes

if we can rename fighter to bruiser cuz it just sounds better

macromiteJan 28, 20183 votes

actually while we are at it can riot stop calling tanks tanks and start calling them walls? because that is a more accurate classification of what the class seems to be meant to do.

Not damage and undying, utility and undying.

DJOKERJan 28, 20183 votes

#Fix Top Lane

What Is SmiteJan 27, 20182 votes

People won't stop using the term bruisers, for those of us who played from the earlier seasons (Beta-3) the term bruisers defined champions who were bulky and could dish out damage as well. This did include the juggernaut champions, light fighters were champions like Tryndamere and Fiora, while tanks were Shen, Maokai, and other similar champs.

So in terms of asking people to stop using the term bruisers, I have to tell you no. I'll speak however I want to and if you don't like it then just don't reply.

ValyrianBladeJan 28, 20182 votes

Imo bruiser is a superclass, it contains multiple of the classes you want people to use.

When i want to say skirmishers+fighters+juggernauts+divers, i just say bruisers and am done that much easier.

Basically means melee, neither full tank nor full damage, commonly found in top Lane, champions.

Sora OmoJan 28, 20182 votes

When Poppy isn't an assassin we'll use Riots classification system

chipndip1Jan 28, 20182 votes

[{quoted}](name=Noburu Ryu,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=O5zK2gXP,comment-id=001d,timestamp=2018-01-28T03:03:22.851+0000)

When Poppy isn't an assassin we'll use Riots classification system

So right now...

Nea104Jan 28, 20182 votes

Can we have true TANKS, and not disgusting champions doing tons of damage having tons of HP/defences?

Ahri BakaJan 27, 20181 votes

TBH I Have no idea what's the difference between Divers , Bruisers , Skirmishes , Juggernauts and Fighters they all looks the same to me , except that not all fights would be tanky

chipndip1Jan 27, 20183 votes

[{quoted}](name=Hikari Sakata,realm=EUNE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=O5zK2gXP,comment-id=0009,timestamp=2018-01-27T20:34:41.854+0000)

TBH I Have no idea what's the difference between Divers , Bruisers , Skirmishes , Juggernauts and Fighters they all looks the same to me , except that not all fights would be tanky

Divers: A bit of mobility. Not super tanky. Stuff like Lee, Wu, Vi, and Diana. They jump in, but don't have enough mobility to jump out.

Bruiser: No idea.

Skirmisher: Melee carries. Pretty nimble. Pretty squishy. Stuff like Yasuo, Riven, Jax, and Fiora.

Jugs: Super tanky. Low mobility. Pretty high damage output in most cases. Stuff like Garen and Darius. Even Mundo and Trundle to a degree.

Fighters: Umbrella term for jugs and divers. Divers and jugs are sub classes of fighters.

Oakleaf RangerJan 28, 20181 votes

I like it and it sounds better. Plus if you really want a definition it can be summed up as melee champions whose main contribution is damage (as opposed to tanks) that build damage and defensive items to varies degrees but never just one.

It works because that's literally every melee champion that's not a tank/catcher or assassin.

chipndip1Jan 28, 20181 votes

{quoted}

It works because that's literally every melee champion that's not a tank/catcher or assassin.

That's exactly why it DOESN'T work. There's a massive difference between Yasuo and Lee Sin, or Master Yi and Trundle, or Garen and Jarvan. You can't lump ALL THOSE CHAMPS under one banner, otherwise it becomes difficult to address them in small groups. "Bruiser" as a term addresses a good damn deal of the melee roster all at the same time, and that'd defeat the purpose of using the term to differentiate champs from others that aren't similar to them.

TotalJerkJan 28, 20182 votes

Lee Sin is an early game assassin that transitions into a bruiser lategame.

Yasuo and Master Yi are Skirmishers/Melee ADCs. Also, they are NOT bruisers.

Trundle and Garen are Juggernauts

Jarvan is a Diver

Bruiser is a collective term, not a specific subclass. Just like there are tons of different types of mages; Ryze, Orianna, and Ziggs are all mages, but they all bring some completely different things to the table.