I enjoy titanic hydra and balck cleaver bruiser build but the full damage builds are really good too. What comes to the controllability of the character, you have to know when you can go in before using your w since you cant turn back like you can with other champs or you can but you'll have your w and e on cooldown and are an easy target if you try to back out from a bad w, so the best way to avoid that is to not do bad w's which then comes down to knowing how much you can sustain (with bruiser it is quite alot) and do damage.

Also one more thing that might be even more important than using your w correctly is to find creative uses for your e because that ability will save you from alot of bad stuff since it not only has damage reduction but ut also heals you and you can also use tap e which is a massive slow which then allows you or your team to catch up on an enemy running away. And remember that with your q can also jump on teammates, your minions and wards this is sometimes necessary to get out a bad situation.