....and let's give it a zone echo
"You hear a terrifying roar off in the distance."
Why?
Area effect seems logical, but zone echo seems not needed at all. It's a silly basic skill after all.
Berserker ideas. Rage and Roar.
I'd like to see rage on fury and anger to be increased so that you don't rage then drop out of rage before the lag of entering the rage command wears off. I've seen it happen it duels against quite a few WM berserkers and I've been a victim of it myself.
Rage times for Anger and Fury are too short. My opinion:
Anger - 2-3 hours.
Fury - 3-5 hours.
Devastation - 5-7 hours.
Roar. This skill is useless for fury and anger and is just barely useful as devastation. Right now, if you are roaring then you should be doing something else. Its just not practical and takes away from the limited time in combat you have.
I'd like to see roar change to be more of an intimidation in combat. If I roar and it is successful, then the following round of combat or until a timer wears off you are affected by ONE of two possible outcomes:
You have decreased chance of defending.
You have a decreased chance of attacking.
Did anyone actually bothered to check how roar does, and Rage durations?
Anger rage:
Spell: rage : modifies hp by 416 permanently
: modifies damroll by 19 permanently
: modifies hitroll by 18 permanently
: modifies str by 4 permanently
(2/3 of the times it's zero hours, 1/3 is -1 => permanently)
Devastation rage:
Spell: rage : modifies hp by 300 for 8 hours
: modifies damroll by 19 for 8 hours
: modifies hitroll by 18 for 8 hours
: modifies str by 4 for 8 hours
Roar Anger and Devastation:
Spell: fear : for 1 hours
Spell: roar : modifies str by -3 for 2 hours
Trick, roar already does what you want by instilling fear.
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They have decreased chance of defending.
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They have a decreased chance of attacking.
AND
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Their skills have decreased chance of working.
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Their spells have decreased chance of casting.
You guys all proposing changes to roar, are actually proposing to weaken the skill.
You guys know what really is needed for Zerks? Players that actually play the class.
Which has been very recently empowered.
Although Trick is right on Anger rage duration, it could have a tweak since it's buggy and all.
I think you have those swapped. I'd be disturbed if anger was stronger than devastation.
Are you telling me the only difference between anger and devastation is 100 hp?
EDIT:
Why?
Area effect seems logical, but zone echo seems not needed at all. It's a silly basic skill after all.
Because it would be cool, f0xx. It would be cool. Besides, if it's as loud as it should be, people would hear that.
Edited
The more things you make cool, the less important the "cool" status becomes.
The rage HP modifier it's based on CON from what I can tell. My anger has lot more of it than my devastation.
Sorry, don't have a Fury zerk to post.
"In the old days", rage affects used to be weaker for Anger. A good thing it was changed to being equal.
The most striking difference between a Anger and a Devastation** rage **isn't in the numbers you see.
It's in the damage multiplier for each path. Anger got only like x1.1, while devastation got like x1.5 multiplier.
That's +50% extra damage, it's like having a vuln weapon.
You hardly notice the damage boost on an raged Anger. But you DO notice on a Devastation.
I have had Devastation zerks do 400 damage through sanctuary just in an opening double round on mages.
Edited
A few things:
Rage
-
Rage provides different amounts of hp based on rank and con;
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Rage provides different +hit +dam based on path (maybe not anymore??? Wow!!!);
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Rage enables different abilities on based on path.
Mya - there is something wrong with the stats you post for rage above. They show the same +hp for two paths? That's incorrect (or perhaps below max rank. One is below max con for sure). Also, it will make a lot more sense if you post the race (particularly the actual con stat at the time of raging). I just went through a number of my zerk logs - there doesn't seem to be a difference in the +hp between paths. It's based upon con and rank (so spend up those cps to keep con maxxed boys). 
The +416 hp gain above is the largest +hp possible of rage in the game and is race specific.
The big thing with rage isn't just the +hp and +hit/dam. It's the bonuses it gives to all the other abilities and the inability to flee.
Rage also enables many of the skills full abilities or provides bonuses to certain skills (roar being one of these).
Roar
AFAIK roar does -str and has a chance of fear and (IIRC) lagging for one round (at the cost of two rounds for 'casting'). However, there is no path that will guarantee fear/lag - despite how the help reads, devastation does not. Devsataion will 100% cause roar to land (-str) to land and attempt to case fear/lag. That's it (IMM confirmed by myself on my last devastation zerk). IIRC (as with most zerk powers) you must be raged as a dev zerk to have this otherwise it's a normal roar. I can't say for sure, but I suspect you must be raged to have a chance at fear/lag with any zerk.
Having had a dev zerk wtih 100% roar, it's not all that great. If it was 100% to land all effects - when people flee, chasing with the rage/autoattack then landing the roar (fear/lag) would be valid vs any class (esp. c/c's). This would be great on a dev zerk as when people run you can get them double rounded then trapped in combat for a round - BUT - you take two rounds lag from roar so they get a full round after they flee to run off.
Note also, you get one go at roar then you have to wait several ticks before it's timer runs out (if you get the -str, you cannot attempt fear/lag until the timer runs out). It's not a spammable skill but something of limited tactical advantage only.
Does roar need to be improved?
I'd say only for raged devastation zerks getting the 100% fear/lag while raged. However, the skill hasn't been made this way purposely when it was changed so perhaps the IMMs already discussed it. I honestly don't see it being overpowered as you need to have a certain path *and *be raged *and *get someone in the position where they are almost dead anyway. The most you'd get out of it otherwise is timing a single round of lag (at the cost of two rounds of lag yourself) once every two to three tics. Hardly a showstopper, but certainly something that can have power extracted if you time it right.
L-A
Edited
Mya -
Your rage durations are wrong..
Can we get an IMM response regarding rage durations and the possibility of increasing them?
Edited
I don't know. I played an anger zerk in the past (before changes) and I rather enjoyed the occasional 0 hour rage. I would be able to use it, get a quick burst of damage and maybe a skill, then it left and I could continue guerilla style combat.
If one has to use the relax skill (2 rounds of lag) to do that, it would almost make that tactic worthless.
What if rage was stackable? What I mean is, it starts with a low duraton and you can increase that by "raging" again.
Anger starts with 0 duration rage.
Fury starts with 1 duration rage.
Devastation with 3 duration rage.
When anger types rage again in battle, it increases duration by 1 or 2.
When fury rages again, it increases duration by 2 or 3.
When Devastation rages again it becomes permanent.
It allows for more variety with rage and as it's only a 1 round lag skill it isn't a huge hinderance. It would also help zerks to die less against high level mobs (a fairly big issue for the class since they can't pick them off one by one with ranged weapons like almost every other melee-ish class)
Edited
I personally don't like having to use a core skill many times to get an affect that should be there ANYWAYS. I think it is completely stupid that a berserker rages for a 0 tick.
Any class can use fired weapons to pull mobs.
I personally don't like having to use a core skill many times to get an affect that should be there ANYWAYS. I think it is completely stupid that a berserker rages for a 0 tick.
Any class can use fired weapons to pull mobs.
As for 0 hour rage, see a couple posts up. It assists with a valid strategy and works well with hit and run. I was trying to offer a solution for both. It's only a 1 round skill, perhaps it can be even reduced to .5 round on subsequent rages.
As for any class using fired weapons... Well, dang. Here I am being a newbie again. Thanks!
Edited
The issue is this:
You don't always rage at the start of a tick. All berserker skills work better when raged. You rage, tick hits, it falls. You then have to rage AGAIN to try to get the benefits of your skills.
Or, you rage, take some heavy hits because you lose some defenses, then rage drops on that 0 hour timer and now you just lost a ton of HP and die.
Zhurong can add his opinion on this as he is the most recent one to experience this low-timer rage.
Edited
The zero hour timer on FURY path is by far, way too low of a timer. The paths should be in sync for the ranking they fall in.
Anger should have timer 0-2. and able to relax in combat.
Fury should have 2-4 and able to relax out of combat.
Devastation should be 4-6 and unable to relax.
Rage does, in turn, increase the effectiveness of various berserker skills. If opponent A attacks me and he just happened to attacking with 5-10 seconds left on the tick, and I decided to rage and ate a ton of damage, the relaxation on the hour just killed me without me really having any opportunity to use one of my skills which may turn the battle around. In fact, I really enjoyed the berserker and the focuses that the fury path allowed me to have, but the timer on the rage is just foolish.
90% of the reason that I decided to delete was due to the rage timer. I'd rather delete than deal with the frustration and repeated losses while waiting for an attempted change to occur.
Then time it better, kinda like dirt kick.
EDIT: I will concede one point. Rage should be somewhat consistent. Dancing around from 0 to 5 is kinda insane. One needs to be able to depend on a similar range of duration so they can know how and when to use the ability.
0 - 1 ticks is great for hit and run.
2 - 4 is, to me, committing to fighting to the death (if your fighting a melee).
Though if you get one group almost half the time... Especially if only anger can relax, it really diminishes its use.
Edited
Rage being a random timer isn't a great issue. If you got a 0 tick rage once in five goes, yeah well, that's the roll. It's more that the timers are now really strange. Anger used to be 0 - 1 ticks (maybe one in ten permanent?), fury never got a zero tick and devastation almost always had 4 - 6 hours or permanent.
Now it seems like fury is getting zero hour rages every second or third try - which is confusing.
The major issue with zero hour raging is that the next round you need to spend a combat round to 'recast' it. My general opinion on berserkers is that they already have far too few combat rounds to do what they want. Mostly you want to rage (1 round), dirt kick (2 rounds) then get on with the bodyslam/haymaker/weapon cleaving. If you have cabal skills to use then you've got to decided what you prioritize. I know some people say 'don't dirt' or 'just slam them' but the stark reality is that in equal equipment at the pointy end of PK, you need to be using all you advantages - and that means being raged.
Rage being made weaker and then 'cast' up? Hell no. It's just more* *combat rounds a berserker has to spend getting to their 'base level' of power. Fighting without rage is mostly a bad option. From what I've done on zerks, you need those bonuses in combat.
Honestly, I feel rage could be set at a standard duration and let the paths decide from there ie anger can relax at any time, fury can relax when out of combat and no one who picked devastation ever planned to relax after they entered 'rage' anyway. Even setting 1, 2 and 4 (or 6) hour times on the anger, fury and devastation paths (receptively).
L-A
PS - I've thought for a while that being stunned when rage wears off should be removed (I'm sure it was for a time, but that may have been path specific). There's a number of ways to tackle this:
- Set the zerk to a pre-defined hp amount when rage would take them below zero. Whether this 1 hp, 10 hp or 100 hp depends on what you want to do - 100 hp is moderatly hard to kill a zerk and let's them rage up again to continue. 10 hp simply means that if they were on the run, they can keep running;
- (preferred) Set the zerk to the % of their hp they have when rage falls and would take them below zero. eg zerk has 1000hp base, gets 300hp on rage and rage drops at 250hp left on the zerk. The zerk has ~19% of their hp left (while raged) so they would be left with ~190hp. Sure, rage just got more powerful - but the price of using the skill is huge AND zerks need it up for the bonuses to their skills. Being raged it needed by zerks in PK - dying when it falls is just really, really hard to stomach when you're winning and the person flee's to 'try their luck on the tick' hoping you die and/or die on the opening round before you can rage again.
Edited
Most of everything L-A said is right one the money with the exception of the of the first line.
Its the other way around. One in five rage attempts is a permanent and the rest are all 0 hour. I don't know how/why/when/if it was changed, but it sure does feel like it did when I had my fury zerk.
Edited
Permanent? Maybe I haven't played around enough but my rage duration tests ran:
0 hour: 30%
1-2 hour: 50%
2-3 hour: 20%
Again, I like the idea of rage allowing hit and run tactics, as regeneration is one of a berserkers biggest allies.
I also agree with L-A's idea on rage and HP. The HP addition buffer should be a real buffer.
Warriors feel very different than Berserkers in battle. Other than the obvious skill differences, is there a reason why Warriors would be so much more viable? I'm talking about defending and hitting.
Well, berserkers originally got regeneration to compete with panic not allowing them sleep and catch ticks.
Rage timers being so low impact:
Skill proficiency, hit/dam, hp, and ultimately makes relax worthless outside of dropping panic. I'm not raging to get hit/dam. If I am competing with top PKers then that means I am equipped. If I'm equipped, then I don't need the hit/dam buff. I am raging for skill proficiency. I am raging so I land haymakers, headbutts, and cleaves more reliably. Essentially, I am trading defense for skill success.
The rest of my post is based off my OWN experiences and is in no way to be regarded as "fact":
Why are warriors better? Because of warrior lore choices and numbers.
Warrior lore - You are more diverse and capable of doing more interesting things to your opponent than trying to out hit/dam them.
Numbers - Awful hard to make rage worth while when a warrior can have the same hit/dam as you without sacrificing defenses, that he already has more of than you.
I don't know if berserkers are subject to the same hit/dam cap others are. Also, rage gives additional attacks, as well. I don't know if it equals fourth attack, but I think I remember reading somewhere that rage was equivalent to fifth attack?( Could be wrong, clarification plz?)
I, personally, haven't seen a berserker land more attacks a round than a warrior.
EDIT: Will add or adjust the post as necessary.
Edited
I can tell you with 100% certainty that rage does not increase the number of attacks. It could possibly (slightly) increase the rate of 1-3 attacks, but it never equals 4th attack and the potential increase in 2/3rd attack is very small.
My strongest warrior was doublesheath. All I needed was the correct weapon selection and I did very well. Berserkers do not fare so well under the same circumstances.
What's the hit/dam cap?
The code doesn't differentiate between 53-65. Once you're +65, then you receive a slight bonus.
So:
Soft-cap = 53.
Hard-cap = 65.
For the players that don't understand what this means, I'll explain.
Hit rate has a soft cap of 53. That means that once you have 53 hit, you've reached a limit. Anything from 53-65 is NOT going to give you a bonus. You will not see a difference between 53 or 65 hit. Once you get above the hard cap(65), there will be a a difference again.
My understanding of dam is:
There used to not be a cap on damage, but that was changed 2.0 or so and now its in the 80s.(Could be wrong, IMM confirmation needed).
Why are these numbers important? Let's take one of the most overpowered combos in the game: Ogre Warrior.
It is extremely easy to get the soft cap on an ogre warrior. I know this because I've had a LOT of them. Once you get that soft cap, you can then replace various pieces of equipment and start to stack up saves and -ac.
Why is this a big deal? Because a race that is supposed to have a glaring vulnerability to magic in exchange for hit/dam and HP is now capable of hitting that soft cap AND covering their vuln with saves EASIER than ever before.
Numbers are too easy to obtain these days.
How do we fix it? Two ways( In my opinion):
- Lower the cap. If I can't get my hit/dam so high AND saves, then I won't be so strong with the blatantly overpowered combos. Though, blanket fixes RARELY work as it tends to hamper the already struggling combos.
- Individual caps for each race/class. This is the the most time consuming, but overall most effective way of doing it.
EDIT:
These numbers don't only affect melees. Casters are capable of achieving -ac numbers that mean only the most decked characters can hit them.
Back on topic-ish:
I've had almost every warrior path at some point or another and I'd taken just about any warrior lore over berserker. Its just not the same when you can achieve the numbers.
Edited