The leap in the brute force time going from 11 character passwords to 12 character passwords is huge, especially for passwords with numbers, lowercase and uppercase letters. Even without the special characters, the increase is from 10 months to 53 years.
Generally speaking, I use 14 digit, random passwords with the mix of upper/lower, numbers and special characters. A Cyber expert I work with recommends the same but ONLY written down a piece of paper. I no longer allow passwords to be saved via browser either.