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Brooks Cracktackle - October 14, 2018


Name: Brooks Cracktackle

DOB: April 30, 1888 (story takes place in 1919)

Element: Earth

Weapon: Heavy artillery


Playstyle: Long distance/Knockback


Maximum Stats (through Soul Triad only, no weapons)

HP

Attack

Defense

Combat Movement

100

40

0%

0%



Learnable Active Abilities:


Body


Pushback (initally unlocked) - Inflicts Stagger at close range. Can be customized so that a successful Pushback causes the victim to suffer 3x collision damage from all knockback sources for 3 seconds.

Knockdown (initially unlocked) - Inflicts Knockdown at close range.

Crossguard - A quick parry that Brooks is invincible during usage. If the parry is successful, all enemies in a sizeable area around Brooks are inflicted with Knockback. Can be customized so that Brooks is invincible for 3 seconds on a successful Crossguard, that double knockback distance and collision damage are inflicted on a successful Crossguard, and all of Brooks' abilities have 3 seconds of cooldown removed on a successful Crossguard.

Home Run - A melee attack that deals Attack x 1.5 damage and Knockback. Can have its damage boosted, its cooldown reduced and have Home Run deal quadruple collison damage.

Pickaxe - A powerful strike with the sharp edge of Brooks' artillery weapon that deals Attack x 5 damage. Can have its damage boosted, its cooldown decreased and its damage doubled during the Body Field Effect. [EDIT: As of 2019/08/06, is now Attack x 3]


Mind


Flashbang (initially unlocked) - Fires a projectile that, on collison with an enemy, wall or boundary, inflicts Blind to a very large area. Can be customized for longer Blind Duration, can have its cooldown reduced and double the area of effect to a massive zone.

Blastback (initially unlocked) - Brooks fires a wide area shot at his feet for Attack x 2 damage and uses the blast to launch himself backward, mainly for escape purposes. Can have its cooldown reduced, and can have the distance doubled while being invincible during the dodge.

Multi-Shot - For 3 seconds, Brooks' basic attack cooldown is 6 frames rather than 60, meaning he can attack up to a maximum 10 times in one second. Can have its duration boosted, its cooldown reduced and during the Mind Field Effect, can have each basic attack do increasingly higher damage.

Eagle Cannon - For 3 seconds, Brooks' attacks deal more damage the further away he is, but suffers from Defense - 100%. Can have it so that during the Mind Field Effect, Brooks loses the Defense debuff and can have all basic attacks inflict Knockback (also during the Mind Field Effect).

Heavy Focus - Brooks' next basic attack will inflict Knockback with triple Knockback distance. Can reduce its cooldown to be at a very low 5 seconds.


Earth Siphon


High Gravity (initially unlocked) - Creates a large area field that prevents enemy movement. Can have its area of effect boosted and its cooldown reduced.

Field Tactics (initially unlocked) - All living party members are dragged towards Brooks at high speed. Can have it so its cooldown is reduced, can grant the dragged party members Combat Movement + 100% for 5 seconds and can heal the dragged party members for 20 HP each.

Power Drag - Drag the closest living enemy toward Brooks. Since Brooks is primarily a ranged fighter, this would only be used to give other party members a small reprieve or so that Brooks can use Body attacks. Can have its cooldown reduced, but the skill tree also contains passives that, when the Earth Siphon Field Effect is active, allow Brooks to deal double damage with all Body attacks, and another that, during the Earth Siphon Field Effect, causes all of his Mind abilities to have 3 seconds less cooldown.

Pandemonium - A large area in front of Brooks has Knockback inflicted in random directions. Can have its cooldown reduced, and this skill tree also contains passive boosts for Collision Damage, boosting damage from all sources of Knockback collision caused by Brooks.

Black Hole - Creates a black hole that sucks enemies to its center and deals Attack x 0.4 damage every second for a span of 5 seconds. Can have its damage boosted, its area of effect enhanced and have it so that when Black Hole ends, all enemies in range suffer Attack x 3 damage and are inflicted with Knockback.


Weapons


Crossgun (default weapon) - Boosts Attack stat by 5% per weapon level (allowing Brooks' max Attack stat to reach 60). Like all default weapons, good for practically any style of play.

Plasma Shot - Causes High Gravity to inflict damage to all enemies' caught in its field, up to Attack x 1 damage per second at max weapon level. Since Brooks always has High Gravity unlocked, this is useful for just about any build.

Tactical Rifle - Decreases the cooldown on Flashbang. Even though Brooks always has Flashbang, this is especially useful if Brooks' Flashbang is fully customized for maximum Blind Duration and double Flashbang area.

Overcompensator - Brooks' Body abilities do up to 2x damage at max weapon level. Since this only affects Pickaxe and Home Run, this is useful only if Brooks has those abilities and is going for a more Body-heavy build.

Rail Gun - Makes Brooks Wind elemental as well as Earth elemental, and basic melee attacks add to the Wind Siphon Field Effect. Not so much useful for Brooks, but for assisting Cherry and/or Alberto with their Wind Siphon builds (while protecting Brooks from the Wind Siphon Field Effect's knockback).

Ultra Rifle - Boosts the damage of Earth Siphon abilities by 10% per level. In this case, this applies only to Black Hole, making it useless if Brooks does not have it, but very handy if it is the main purpose of his build.

Howitzer - While the Mind Field Effect is active, any basic attacks Brooks lands on an enemy, it will also hit all enemies in an area around that enemy with an area that increases with weapon level. Useful for Mind-heavy builds, especially with Multi-Shot and Eagle Cannon, and can make for very devastating damage output, despite the Mind Field Effect.

Ireland MRND-48 AAG - Gives Brooks the Fog of War ability, which adds an Attack and Defense buff to dragged party members for 5 seconds that increases in potency with weapon level. Best used if Brooks is playing more of a support role and has gained his other Field Tactics passives, allowing a single call of Field Tactics to heal allies and buff their Attack, Defense and Combat Movement temporarily.



Pros


Brooks is the consummate distance fighter in The Demon Rush: Legends Corrupt. His basic attack is an unlimited range hitscan shot, allowing him to attack from anywhere on the battlefield, and he can keep his distance very easily, as many of his abilities inflict Knockback (6 out of 15; Crossguard, Home Run, Eagle Cannon with Confidence Crusher, Heavy Focus, Pandemonium and Black Hole with Explosive Evaporation, plus high Collision Damage) or immobilize either by Blind or simply nullifying enemy movement, and he has Blastback for quick attack-and-escapes. He is also very versatile in how he can be customized, as while he can combine some ability sets together and chain them together smoothly enough (Pickaxe -> Home Run for big melee damage and to shove the enemy away after; Multi-Shot + Eagle Cannon for very large long-range damage; High Gravity followed by Black Hole (or vice versa) for long periods of enemy immobilization), but also benefits greatly from mixing and matching across ability sets.

Brooks has very organized ability sets: Body for melee (Crossguard's parry, Home Run's melee knockback and Pickaxe's large melee damage), Mind primarily for buffing basic attacks (damage up at a distance with Eagle Cannon, rapid-fire basic attacks with Multi-Shot and powerful Knockback with Heavy Focus) and for ranged combat (and includes what is probably the most effective and powerful tool for Blind in Legends Corrupt, Flashbang), and Earth Siphon for positioning for both allies and enemies. High Gravity and Black Hole help hold enemies in place, either to allow Brooks to attack them freely or to keep them out of the party's hair. Power Drag is useful for pulling an enemy off the party and/or using Pickaxe (before blasting the enemy away again), and Pandemonium is great for large-area Knockback (while obtaining Collision Damage passives). With the Ireland MRND-48 AAG weapon, Field Tactics can provide excellent buffs to Attack, Defense and Combat Movement to Brooks' allies while healing them.

Despite being the party's best long range attacker, Brooks can provide a lot of versatility at any position on the field for his party. Even under the Earth Siphon Field Effect (which, unlike Tara or Pound, he does not need to fully invest in to make great use of), Brooks can use the Earth Siphon Field Effect to gain boosts to his Body and Mind abilities, making his mixed builds quite useful.


Cons


As Brooks' versatility is one of his strong points, it should be noted that specialization, or more specifically, failing to include some of each ability set can be problematic for Brooks. No Body abilities? While Brooks can use Blastback to try and escape and kite while attacking, this does not work well with multiple enemies or enemies with high Combat Movement that will catch him, and he needs his Body abilities to deal with melee dangers. No Mind abilities? That means overall low damage output for Brooks, since the buffs to his basic attacks from Mind abilities are fantastic, as well as losing out on Legends Corrupt's most powerful Blind ability. No Earth Siphon unlocking? That means less Knockback, less immobilization, no team buffs and no Body/Mind boosts from the Earth Siphon Field Effect. Despite Brooks' main role as the long distance attacker/Knockback specialist, he loses a lot from overspecialization in his Soul Triad customization.



Trivia


-Brooks' playstyle in the original The Demon Rush was almost primarily long-range physical damage and a powerful Blind ability from Flashbang (also a defensive boon, as enemies could not hit Brooks and his low defenses as accurately), with the highest Attack power, average MP and Speed, and absolutely horrible HP, Defense and Magic. Though this abysmal HP/massive Attack glass-sniper archetype was used across other Dragoon games (Bethany with more defense in Skylight 1/Skylight 2: Winters of Discontent, Sean with more evasion in Skylight Freerange 1/Skylight Freerange 2: Gachduine and Lucia with Debuff/Illusion for defense in Skylight Freerange 2: Gachduine (minus the long range for Lucia outside of status ailments)), Legends Corrupt required more versatility in how characters could be customized, and needing to have 3 areas of focus (Body/Mind/Siphon) opened up Brooks to be more versatile, bringing melee, Knockback and ally/enemy positioning, though his Mind abilities keep his long distance prowess.

-With the removal of the Sword/Knuckles/Gun weapon types that all characters could use from the original The Demon Rush, many of the Gun type weapons (specifically Plasma Shot, Rail Gun and Ultra Rifle) were given to Brooks whose unique weapon type in the original game was "Artillery". The new Gun/Artillery weapons to Legends Corrupt, outside of the Gachduine reference weapon, are the Tactical Rifle and the Overcompensator.

-Ignoring Pushback and Knockdown (which every character gets), Brooks has loads of new abilities that accompany his newfound versatility, specifically Crossguard, Home Run, Pickaxe, Blastback, High Gravity, Field Tactics, Power Drag, Pandemonium and Black Hole. Home Run, Field Tactics and Pandemonium come from the Skylight series originally (across a number of entries), and Crossguard came from Dragooned (as a reference to his Crossgun starting weapon and as a way to have his heavy artillery weapon play something of a bigger role in his Dragooned playstyle). Similarly, Crossguard's Perfect Block passive is named after the mechanic that first appeared in Dragooned (and Perfect Blocking in Dragooned was needed to activate Crossguard; this is reversed in Legends Corrupt).

-Unlike the other 8 playable characters in the original The Demon Rush, Brooks did not have an "elemental focus"; in Legends Corrupt, he has had one added to his skillset (though he always Earth elemental in the original game, he had no learnable magic skills). Just as Cherry has wind, Knight has ice, Alberto has lightning, Tara has earth, Pound has nature, Cook has fire, Claire has water and Jimmy has explosions, Brooks has had space/gravity added as his, and in keeping with this theme (along with his long-distance combat expertise), is why a lot of his abilities deal with Knockback, positioning of allies and enemies, and immobilzation.








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