Berserker ideas. Rage and Roar.

The hit cap actually seems fairly low. Especially when rage is considered. That makes a lot of sense now. I would believe the dam cap is similar to hitroll. I have never seen a boost past a certain point. (I've never had 80 damroll)

What about removing the cap on berserkers when raged?

Also, I have seen berserker skills fail at very high proficiency (over 100%, it was rage). It is unheard of that a self affecting skill would fail at that proficiency for any other class.

@Trick - a couple of things:

• As Mudder said, rage doens't give fourth attack.  However, panic might be what you're think of.  Panic is for all intents and purposes - almost the equivalent of haste with a dam roll bonus.  At the cost of you must be blinded, of course.  I wouldn't both attempting to 'game' that either - I've tried Taking off my light. using blindness potions then curing at the start of the tick (to get the rest of the tick panic'd) doesn't work as there seems to be a check every round;
• Hit/dam caps - that's very interesting with the breakpoints of 53 then 65.  If that was true it would be very useful knowledge for melee players....  I was under the impression that 60/60 hit/dam was the cap where linear returns ended and diminishing returns kicked in.  You're right that it was done in 2.0 - because ogre warriors started to realise that just loading hit/dam made them strong enough to overcome their magical vulnerability by brute force;
• I don't believe ogre warriors are OP btw - just.....the magic vuln is greater than aff spell.  Ogre warrior vs shaman is a bitch of a fight.  Ogre warrior vs invoker, far more even;
• A more minor factor - pugil.  Lots more attack with a staff then a berserker.  More of 'the weapon is viable on warriors' and 'the weapon isn't viable on berserkers' here.

Berserkers vs Warriors

Why do they feel so different?  Defense mostly - at least at the times when equally equipped.  Warriors have four defenses - the most of any melee.  Berserkers have three - two when they rage (which is often).  Having twice the defensive skills makes a big difference in melee outcomes.

Blind fighting is next on the list of 'better defense.'  Dirt kicked warrior?  Almost no -hit and close to nothing happening to hamper them melee wise.  Berserkers?  Hit less and get hit more.  A lot less and a lore move - I have stats from some of my battles.  IIRC panic (+1 attacker per round +dam) was the answer to this ie you blind a berserker and they get more chances to hit you.  Which they need because they are going to miss a whole lot.

I don't see warrior lores as being a huge defining factor - no more than haymaker is on a berserker.  That is to say, both are powerful and when used correctly definitely give opponents very, very bad outcomes

L-A

As far as I know, you're way off with caps and deminishing returns, Trick. Then I also do not see us giving out the correct numbers...

Deminishing retruns start WAY before 50.

I'm almost positive in my numbers. Morlhach, can you clarify?

You've inverted some numbers, buddy - 

But at the same time, those aren't correct anymore. They were a year ago.

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.

rage bringing zerks bellow 0 hp when it falls is a cornerstone of the class mechanic (like drain in unholy strength dk's).

the zerk gets a lot death preventing rolls and this do or die is the appeal of the appeal of the class.

Sure rage is risky, but you get a lot out of it. Yes your skills work better, but you get a massive Hit/Dam bonus and HUGE damage multiplier, on a class with dispel and meele attacks.

When I can defeat decked Ogre Warriors and other characters with my crap meele class skills without using rares, then there is nothing underpowered with the class.

Sure, I don't like 0 hours anger rages, and Zhruong can't play them like that,  but I also can't play Necros, and Morlhach can't play BLM's.

I think the "problem" with zerks, is that they aren't for everyone. They are powerful, just look at Nugget the Ogre Warmaster.

But they require a completely different mentality.

A very good player that gets decks on most characters can have very large assurances that he will not die for a very long time. Even if things go wrong they can escape.

A zerk doesn't has this. Zerks can deal a HUGE amount of pain in the blink of an eye, but if the stars align badly they can also slowly cook for 20 rounds to their death while having no way to prevent the grave.

This is very counter-intuitive for an experienced player, who is used to invest in decking his character and expects back a certain amount of survivability. Gear will increase your strength but not prevent death.

Also, I never ever seen any cap on hit/dam roll. Sure there are decreasing returns, but if you aren't over 100 it's always an interesting investment.

I have never seen damage increase from damroll over 45-50. Never realized that until this thread.