I would love to see more detailed suggestions, like Celerity's.
Berserker Changes
I didn't see all these problems when I played my zerks. though I must admit I did have major issues vs dk's, some rangers, and necros. With little in return to combat these situations it was very tough. This is why I brought up the idea about rage swing doing the full dmg to everyone fighting the zerk at the very least. What if the main target isn't in battle for that tick, can it then allow the zerk to flee?
Hit and run tactics vs zerks are also strong against them. Allowing them to rage out of combat is an interesting idea that helps against this and also gives the idea that the zerk has a transformation independent of direct combat. What if rage was further tailored to give more visible and innate bonuses based off of the race of the zerk? When an ogre is transformed they get more hp, fires get more damroll/all bashes are firey, dwarves more magical resistance, etc.
Since zerks can't flee and sleep easily, perhaps they can be given compensation in other areas for it? What if regeneration was changed to a manual skill activated only outside of combat that is timed to give healing bonus in pulses?
Headbutt - I almost never used headbutt. I always envisioned people resorting to headbutts when they're immobile or their limbs are preoccupied some reason. What if it was changed to a manual skill to act as a sort of counter for initiation negation which would be intended to be used if you're stuck in combat against mobs.
Berserker rework idea incoming in 3...2...1...
So we know that berserkers are built off of antiquated concept of how to make the big lugs unique. Just hit like trucks and trade damage, right? Wrong. With how advanced classes have become, and how many quality of life changes have gone in, berserkers have lost their niche. There's never a situation where they will outperform all other classes. That's wrong, and should be addressed. In my opinion, their reliance on a simplistic, rage-focused kit is flawed. So here's my idea on how to improve them.
New skills and changed skills are bolded, and will be discussed at the end.
Key Berserker skills:
Level Skills
1 axe / dagger / flail / mace / polearm / shield block / spear / sword / enhanced damage / hand to hand / recall / staff / two handed
5 parry
6 fast healing / rage
7 second attack
8 dirt kicking
10 relax / swing
13 **charge **
15 trip / bodyslam
16 berserk / haggle
17 dual wield / roar
18 meditation
19 third attack
20 warcry
21 dodge
22 weapon cleave
23 shield cleave
25 lore
27 regeneration
30 ** path focus **/ instinct
33 headbutt
36 haymaker / rage focus
38 double grip / adrenaline
41 rage focus
46 rage focus
50 cripple
Weapon Cleave/Shield Cleave - Can still break burnproof weapons, but at a small chance (same as it is currently with the fury path)
Instinct - Similar to blind-fighting, but not as effective, and only for one target (chosen as an argument to the command, and requires the target to be in the same area, but not the same room). Starts off with a small effect, but the effect increases each round the berserker fights, and the effect lasts until the berserker is no longer bloody. Also provides a small (20% normal, 10% for archers) chance to dodge ranged weapons.
Regeneration - Active command, as suggest above, that heals based off of constitution score ((3 x (CON - 2))).
Cripple - 2 round lag. Deals low-moderate damage and strikes at a random location on the victim's body. Legs: Damage moves. Chest: suffocate. Arms: Lower STR, hit/dam. Head: Damage mana.
Swing - Can be entered manually even while raging, to take 1.5 rounds of lag to deal weapon damage to all enemies.
Charge - Chance to trigger RAMPAGE, STUNNING BLOW, or CONCUSSIVE FORCE. Rampage grants a 2-tick increase to number of attacks by 1. Stunning blow disorients the victim. Concussive force disarms shields. The chance of one of these affects occurring is 15%, and which affect occurs is random.
Path skills and focus:
Anger
The art of discipline and focused rage. The application of discipline limits the violent tendencies, but allows for a more practiced and precise strike while in a state of rage. Rage duration is 2 ticks (1 hour). Least hit/dam bonus. Uses weapon/shield, and is more effective at blocking attacks with weapons/shields while raging.
**Shatter Magic - **increases success chance for headbutt to shatter magical protections, and increases the damage.
Shield Bash - Same as current **Iron Fist - **Allows for haymaker to have a chance to break through shields, disarming them before contact with the victim.
Fury
The art of complete surrender to their instincts. The body knows what it needs to do before the mind ever catches up. Those that choose the path of fury learn to let go of their thoughts and lose themselves to battle. Rage duration is 4 ticks (3 hours). Moderate hit/dam bonus. Uses 2-handed weapons, and deals increased damage and defends better with all varieties of 2-handed weapons while raging.
Honed instincts** - **increases the effect of instinct, and removes the restriction of sleeping while affected by panic.
Batter - same as current.
Power expertise - same as current (devastation path).
Devastation
The art of slaughter without regard for safety. A berserker that follows that path of devastation believes in victory at any cost. The sight of blood excites them, and their lust for battle invigorates them beyond mortal limits. Rage duration is 8 ticks (7 hours). Extreme hit/dam bonus. Dual wields weapons, and does increased damage while dual wielding and raging.
**Bloodhaze - **First use - enters a state of battle lust. can be used with an argument to automatically engage on the victim and enter a rage (still lags for rage success/failure rates). Using again or after reaching a threshold of damage dealt gives a shield of hp that absorbs external damage dealt at a rate of 2 shield hp per 1 damage. Shield generation is 20% of damage dealt, and has a maximum amount of 600.
Ferocity - same as current **Rake - **Attempts to knock the enemy weapon aside, removing its attacks and chance to block for the next round, on a 2-round lag timer. While raged, chance is increased, and also grants a small chance to disarm completely (25% on success).
I feel like this would help fully flesh out the berserker, and give them a kit with a purpose and widely varying playstyle unique to them and the path they choose. I feel it really helps enforce the idea that each time they fight, they are making a gamble against death, and trying their best to tip the odds in their favor. I welcome any and all criticism. Thanks for reading!
Give some tactical depth to Rage, imo. Go ahead and make rage last longer and let every path relax, but give them lag or some kind of penalty. Penalties could be a cooldown on when you can enrage again or a short duration paralyze or a short duration damage penalty or a short duration disabling of fast healing/regen. Say anger would have the last penalties or no penalties to relax and fury and devastation would have higher penalties respectively.
That way you can choose to chase enraged with the usual advantages and disadvantages or you can try to play safe, but gives an opening for your opponent.
I'm digging the ideas of regeneration as an active skill.
@Quicksilver @tassinvegeta manual regeneration? Like ferocity? :P
10 hours ago, Celerity said:
@Quicksilver @tassinvegeta manual regeneration? Like ferocity? :P
The healing from ferocity is immediate. I was actually thinking that once Regeneration is activated it would have a set time (maybe 2 ticks) before the healing pulses actually begin. It would encourage good timing of the skill to utilize effectively.
But after thinking about it again, the incentive to play zerks is mainly for there huge damage potential. Making them into a tactical class like so many others might be disappointing to the typical zerk player. Perhaps enhancing skills that gives them more damage potential rather than more healing in some paths fits them better?
What if there was a skill called Overpower that works like this regeneration idea, that must be inputted and timed to go off during combat. But instead of healing pulses it does additional blows?
If we are to look at the class as a whole, it is being coded out of effectiveness.
With the damage caps, other classes are reaching numbers previously only attainable by raged berserkers.
The caps prevent the berserker from attaining that "greater" damage while wearing identical equipment.
I offer that we should really take a look at this mechanic.
There are a lot of good Ideas above, but I offer one other alternative.
What if instead of just increasing the +dam of the berserker, rage actually rolled damage and then bumped it up by a notch.
This would mean the warrior/bard/whatever with 70 80 does not hit as hard as the raged berserker with 70 80 +1 damage category.
Make berserkers ferocious again.
Edit... I think as we make any one class stronger, another class will seem weaker.
While a change would be good, I do not think we need to overhaul the class, just tweek it to get it back in balance.
Edited
Removing the diminishing returns when raged? Currently, the returns are reduced at 25 and again at 50. What if the initial starts at 35 and again at 70 for anger path, 45 and 90 for fury and dropped completely for devastation? Or something along those lines.
I believe IMMs have confirmed before that the limits for the diminishing returns are not the same for zerks as they are for other classes.
13 minutes ago, f0xx said:
I believe IMMs have confirmed before that the limits for the diminishing returns are not the same for zerks as they are for other classes.
Did they? Must have missed it. Can you find a reference? I'm coming up nada.
Don't know about any direct confirmation, but I can say that my berserkers have always hit harder than rangers, warriors, and bards at high damrolls. At least a damage class, if not two. Consistent obliterates through sanctuary against evenly decked opponents on my last one, a werebeast devastation, compared to my human bard hitting massacres with a difference of maybe 5 damroll. Maybe I was just luckier on my zerkers, who knows. Would love to get some others to chime in there.
Zerks always have hit harder than any other class with the same stats while raged. They used to hit Anger by +(STR/4)% , Fury by +(STR)% and Devastation by +(STR + Level/2)% post most damage modifiers and pre damroll addiction.
For a FG that was +6% anger, +25% fury and +50% devastation. This on top of other damage multipliers like 2handed and Ogre/FG. A FG devastation raging was comparable to your avg30 weapon suddenly becoming avg45.
The zerks suffer from many things, but one of them is that WE the players rarely played them and don't know very well how to play them effectively. When was the last time any of us saw an Elder Zerk? The only I can recall was Nugget Ogre Warmaster, that was doing well except vs Thulgan who would rape him. I tinkered with a Moderate Werebeast Devastation that worn crap and found him to be extremely powerful in my hands. And I completely suck at playing meeles.
So I gave this topic some thought this afternoon at work. I am a one man Maintenance army in a factory of over 150 metal fabrication machines. Before you all start believing I have fallen off topic, let me explain. We have lasers and chop saws, burr belts and high density buffing wheels. The key in perfect metal fabrication is to "damage" the material perfectly. If you need to remove a lot of material in a hurry you would simply need a more abrasive machine. This got me to thinking of the berserkers and their ROLE in our world. While any melee should be capable of quickly diminishing the opponents health, berserkers should be the fastest tool for that job. For instance, a 2008 Trumpf Trulaser 3020 will cut a sheet of metal in half in seconds, but a 1938 Cincinnati Shear will do the same job in half a second. Brute Force. Back on Topic. Berserkers have GREAT output offensively, unfortunately so do a lot of other classes, the trouble comes from their lack of sustainability (Like the old shear above, we need our berserkers to survive through the ages). A Berserker needs the fight to end quickly. But with changes to gear in our world, they are facing enemies who hit harder, have more hit points, and a better armor class than EVER in our history. The easiest start to fix this issue would be in tuning up the berserkers sustainability. They need a skill, or skills, that would aid in their ability to overlook damage. I love it when they roar and ignore the damage, more of that would help (something similar for each race?). Perhaps one path could get a quasi-protection while raged. I also considered that we might actually change one of the paths entirely. Perhaps gear one of the paths more toward fighting magic users, call them Spell Slayers. Path of Anger, Path of Devastation, Path of ? (Hatred, Might, Unbelievers) Would depend on which God inspired you to destroy all Magic Users.
At first I thought you were in the wrong thread and were going to talk about 9/11 :P
When berserkers make us think of 9/11, we have completely redeemed them. lol
"Perhaps gear one of the paths more toward fighting magic users, call them Spell Slayers."
Isn't that what Anger was all about, with Headbut piercing protective shield and Haymaker piercing shield block?
You're so cute, Mya...
Anger is silly, and clunky in my opinion. It has hard headed, sure. But it also has shield expertise and offhand cleave, which are more for fighting melees or hybrids. At best, anger zerks are hybrid caster fighters. At worst, they are ineffective outside defending until they make the mistake of raging for 0 hours.
What if berserkers healed based upon their damage? This would obviously have to be done with great care and consideration when designing, but I think the real key for a zerker in the games present state is to increase their survivability, but this needs to be done without changing the mind set of a zerker. To me a berserker represents a warrior that ignores damage coming in and outputs tremendous hurt.
If the healing idea is disliked, what about them redirecting some of that damage they are getting hit with back at their opponent? Or just choose both :D
Make berserkers only able to use two handed weapons.
Berserks get only like 1 attack but damage is quadrupled and cannot be parried.
Berserks get abilities that can do stuff that chain autoattacks
Make rage slow to take affect and obvious but super overpowered.
Give berserkers ability to break peoples legs so they can't flee.
1 hour ago, Cephirus said:
What if berserkers healed based upon their damage? This would obviously have to be done with great care and consideration when designing, but I think the real key for a zerker in the games present state is to increase their survivability, but this needs to be done without changing the mind set of a zerker. To me a berserker represents a warrior that ignores damage coming in and outputs tremendous hurt.
If the healing idea is disliked, what about them redirecting some of that damage they are getting hit with back at their opponent? Or just choose both :D
Or have zerks hit harder the more hurt they are, so the most dangerous time to fight one is when it is close to death.