Brawler Class: +40% HP and a Melee-Only Kit — Worth 100 Diamonds?

The Brawler is the melee tank of 99 Nights in the Forest. For 100 Diamonds you get +40% max HP and +30% melee damage — and in exchange you are not allowed to use a ranged weapon at all. Not the firearms, not the throwables, nothing that fires or flies.

The wiki lists the Brawler as one of only four classes in the game that come with a built-in disadvantage (the others being Alien, Assassin and Cyborg). It is also the only one of those four at the 100-Diamond price point. That makes this the cleanest either-or decision in the shop: you are not comparing damage numbers, you are deciding whether you want to be a gunless walking wall.

Last verified: 2026-10-02.

Brawler Class at a Glance

The class arrived on 4 July 2025 with the Cultist Stronghold Update, alongside the Hunter class and the Juggernaut. Two sources — the fandom Update Log and the fandom Brawler page — agree on the date.

Perks by Level

Two things stand out in that table.

Level 1 is the whole class, and it is mostly a restriction. You get the durability up front, but the headline is the thing you cannot do. Everything at levels 2 and 3 is a small sustain trick on top of a kit that is already defined.

Level 3 is pure randomness. A 5% chance to nullify an incoming hit is real in a long fight and nearly irrelevant in a short one. The wiki's own cons list calls it RNG-based with a low chance of actually happening — that is the fair reading.

What You Actually Give Up

This is the part most guides gloss over, because they just say "cannot use ranged weapons" without counting the cost. Here is what that locks you out of.

That is eight of the weapon guides on this site permanently out of reach. Everything else on the site still works: the Chainsaw, Morningstar, Obsidiron Hammer, Katana, Ice Sword, Infernal Sword, Poison Spear, Trident, Scythe and even the Laser Sword.

The one genuinely funny detail: the Brawler cannot equip ranged weapons, but it can still collect Revolver, Rifle and Shotgun ammo. In a team run the standard advice is to carry ammo you will never use and dump it at the campfire for everyone else. You are the ammo mule whether you like it or not.

And the honest cost: you lose the single best tool most runs have. A Rifle one-shots things the Brawler has to circle-strafe for several seconds. If your instinct when something dangerous appears is to shoot it, this class will feel crippling for the first hour — and that instinct is worth more in a panic than 40% extra health.

How the Perks Actually Feel

+40% max HP is the strongest survivability number in the cheap tier — but understand what it does and does not do. It is a bigger pool, not a damage reduction. Against something that hits for 40, "+40% HP" means you survive one more swing and then you are dead anyway. Pair it with real armour rather than treating it as armour.

Worth knowing: the wiki records that the Brawler was shadow-buffed with 20% more health before it ever released, so the number players remember from old guides is lower than the class ships with today.

The Leather Body you spawn with is a feature, not a insult. On this site we keep a note that armour cannot be taken off once equipped — you can only swap it for a strictly better piece. Starting with Leather, the weakest of the armour tiers, means you start with nothing to un-equip and nothing locking you into a worse choice. It is the cheapest possible starting state.

Level 2's "+10% health regeneration" is unquantified. No source says whether it is +10% of your regen rate or a flat +10% per tick, and the wiki does not publish a base regen number either. Treat it as "you heal between hits instead of after them", which is the part that matters in a fight.

Level 3's 5% block is a long-fight perk. Over forty incoming attacks you should expect about two to be fully negated. Against hordes it smooths the chip damage. Against one heavy boss swing it usually does nothing.

How to Level It Up

The requirements are unusually concrete, and they tell you exactly where to grind:

• Level 2: take 200 melee hits and land 350 melee attacks. Melee-only, by definition — no shooting your way through this one.
• Level 3: regenerate 5,000 HP and land another 600 melee attacks.

The Cultist Stronghold is the answer, and the wiki says so outright. It is the only place that reliably feeds you both halves at once — huge numbers of melee enemies to hit and to be hit by, on a 20-minute reset. Every guide points there.

Bring a heal. Regenerating 5,000 HP is the binding constraint on Level 3, and you cannot regen what you do not have. A Bandage or Medkit keeps the meter moving.

Do not try to grind this on Bears or Mammoths. They are the two targets the wiki explicitly warns the Brawler should avoid, for the obvious reason that a melee build cannot kite an animal with a long attack range and high damage.

Brawler vs the Other 100-Diamond Classes

Choose Brawler if you like melee and want durability you can rely on every minute of every run. It has no setup, no trigger condition, and no reliance on being nearly dead.

Choose Berserker if what you actually need is one second life. The trade-off between them on damage is lopsided: the Brawler's +30% melee bonus is permanent, while the Berserker's only reaches a similar size at 1 HP — roughly +25–30% at the brink of death. Berserker's edge is that it is a free revive, which the Brawler has no answer to.

Choose Alien if you want a gun in your hands on day one. Its drawback is mild compared with the Brawler's lockout, and its Raygun is the cheapest ranged power in the game.

Is It Worth 100 Diamonds?

Yes, if you play melee. The class is coherent: it makes you the thing that stands in front of a wave and takes it. Every tier list we checked puts it in the upper half, and the wiki calls it one of the tankiest classes in the game — "only outclassed by Big Game Hunter in some cases."

Yes, in a team. The ranged lockout stops being a loss and becomes a role. Someone has to be the wall, and the Brawler does that job better than anything else at this price while carrying spare ammo for the people behind it.

No, if you default to shooting. This is not a mild disadvantage. Eight weapon families are gone, including the Rifle and the Revolver — and on night 20, being the one player with no answer at range is how runs end.

No, if you play on mobile or with a laggy connection. Two independent sources flag this: melee combat depends heavily on framerate and ping, and the class is harder to use at full potential on touch controls.

Buy it when you are committed to melee; skip it if you want options. Diamonds are the bottleneck either way — see how to farm Diamonds fast, and check active codes before you spend.

Tips That Change How It Feels

Get a Spear early and circle. The signature Brawler technique is to run in a circle around an enemy while hitting it with a melee weapon — mostly a Spear — so that you land hits while staying just outside their swing. The wiki notes it works best on console controllers. Every piece of advice for this class assumes you have learned this shape.

Jump to dodge projectiles. You cannot shoot the Crossbow Cultist down, so you dodge it: watch the shot, jump on the wind-up. The wiki also suggests closing the distance and strafing left and right, because ranged enemies miss most of the time when you move unpredictably. Neither works as well against aliens as it does against crossbow cultists.

Store your ammo. Ammo is useless to you and precious to everyone else. Carry it and drop it at campfire in a team run.

Prioritise Cultists over Crossbow Cultists inside the Stronghold — or clear crossbows first if you are the one holding the line and cannot reach them safely.

Always carry a heal. Between the 200-melee-hit requirement and the 5,000-HP regen requirement, this class is built to take damage on purpose.

Skip Bears, Mammoths and Alpha Wolf hordes. They are the listed weak matchups and the circle-strafe does not solve them.

Pros and Cons

Pros

• +40% max HP — the largest durability number in the cheap tier
• +30% melee damage at Level 1, permanent, no conditions
• Cannot be disabled by one-time triggers like a spent revive
• Regeneration starts sooner after taking damage, so you sustain mid-fight
• Spawns with a Leather Body, so nothing locks you into worse armour later
• 5% block chance adds real damage mitigation in long fights
• The strongest Cultist Stronghold melee class, and the fastest way to level

Cons

• Cannot use any ranged or throwable weapon — eight weapon families lost
• Level 3 is RNG and rarely changes a singlefight
• Struggles against Bears, Mammoths and pack enemies
• Melee is heavily dependent on ping and framerate
• Harder to use at full strength on mobile
• Not recommended for beginners by every source that addresses it

Where Sources Disagree

Tier placement is far tighter than the Berserker's. We found A-tier on both rblxguide's tier list and PC Gamer's, and 3/5 stars from beebom. That is a narrow band next to classes that split S-to-C. The consensus here is real: the Brawler is good, and the debate is only about how much you dislike the ranged lockout.

Nobody publishes the base health value, so +40% cannot be converted into a number. Every source gives the percentage and none gives the base max HP it is calculated from. We are not going to invent a figure.

Update on that, 2026-10-02: one source does now state a flat figure elsewhere — the wiki's Assassin cons list gives that class 85 total HP, which implicitly fixes the base pool at 100 and would make the Brawler's +40% a +40 bonus rather than an unquantifiable one. That is a single source, it is an inference from a percentage applied to a number nobody states outright, and it is not corroborated here. Treat it as a lead, not a fact.

Whether the Laser Sword is usable is unstated. It is a melee weapon, so nothing in the class description blocks it — but it draws from the same charge bar as the Raygun and Laser Cannon. No source addresses a Brawler using it, so treat it as allowed but unconfirmed.

The "+10% health regeneration" wording is inconsistent between sources. Some say a rate increase, some say the regen simply starts sooner. These are compatible — the second is probably just what the first feels like — but the underlying number is unpublished.

FAQ

Can the Brawler use throwing weapons like Kunai? No. The wiki is explicit that the restriction covers firearms and throwable weapons.

Can it use the Laser Sword? It is melee, so nothing blocks it, but no source addresses the case. Treat it as usable.

Does the Brawler still pick up ammo? Yes. It cannot equip ranged weapons but it can collect Revolver, Rifle and Shotgun ammo — useful to drop at campfire for teammates.

Where should I level it? The Cultist Stronghold. It is the only place that reliably gives both the melee hits and the damage taken you need.

When was the Brawler added? 4 July 2025, in the Cultist Stronghold Update, alongside the Hunter class and the Juggernaut.

Is +40% HP better than wearing better armour? Different axes. Health makes a bigger pool; armour reduces incoming damage per hit. The wiki's own pros note the Brawler's tankiness comes "especially when combined with strong Armour and Riot Shield" — it wants both.

Are Diamonds and Gems the same thing? Yes — one currency, two words. Explained on the Diamonds farming page.

Related Pages

• Berserker Class — the other 100-Diamond combat class, and what it trades away
• Alien Class — the cheapest class that still starts you with a gun
• All Classes — every class and its Diamond cost
• How to Get the Katana — a melee weapon the +30% bonus applies to
• How to Get the Morningstar — the melee weapon this class pairs with
• Cultist Stronghold — where the Brawler levels fastest
• How to Get Diamonds Fast — the real cost before any class buy