Any brawlers/bruisers/monks out there?...

[Jerhico]

Is he going Bruiser or Monk?

Fact is, weapons are nearly always better than fists, and by a large margin. Bare fists are not even dual-wield weapons and count as a one-handed attack.

The debate will end for him when he reaches level 20 anyway, as his class weapon (if he's a monk) will be Makato's Bo Staff of Striking.

Bruisers have an advantage using fist-based weapons (fistwraps) at later levels since they have some fist-specific buffs. Monks do equally well with fist, staff, hammer, mace, or flail-based weapons.

The general consensus is that there is no real advantage to dual-wielding as it does not affect weapon proc rate with it's faster hits, but does increase riposte chance, particularly if tanking.

A high Damage Rating staff is a good choice, and if he goes dual-wield, he's better off grabbing what he enjoys.

Fistwraps can be purchased fairly cheap from the broker or even an NPC seller in the city of his alignment. Fistwraps turn fists into dual-wield and there's no graphic for them, so they appear to be bare fists. (They used to look like oven mitts).

Crafted weapons of a given tier and of like quality all have near identical damage ratings and do approixmately the same amount of damage over time. Thus, crafted fistwraps, cestii, spiked cestus, fighting batons, quarterstaves, bo staves, knuckles, maces, hammers, and flails do not have an advantage over one another besides stats and delay-affected riposte rate.