Berserker feedback and ideas

Peerless warriors of varying types, from hulking armored dreadnoughts to stealthy light-footed nightblades.
Spidercat
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Re: Berserker feedback and ideas

Post by Spidercat »

So, I've been playing a berserker for a good number of months now. Going through numerous combat zones, and a few sparring cvc sessions to try to get oriented with the class. Mostly went with the two handed approach for the specialization, and don't really have experience with the weapon and shield version.


berserkers are a warrior specialization that is extraordinary at the start of the game. However, they probably rank with guardian as the least useful class at the moment heading into the later game stuff and CVC situations. One of the major contributions to this is their fury mechanic Early game, this resource is amazing, when chopping down mostly mindlessly swinging nethrem, bandits and infested. You get to hit hard, enemies don't hit as hard, but hit you to generate fury. You hulk out, and smash!

this all changes when most mobiles, and especially players, remember they have class abilities. This is where the problem of fury just being a damage booster falls flat hard. And how the fastest way of generating fury is a bad idea. berserkers eventually suffer situations where for whatever reason, fury doesn't seem to generate fast enough to get some of their skills online. In situations where they do get it up, they're not really using it because they're having to flee fights after getting staggerlocked into oblivion, and having the entire kit shut down due to -35 balance. Sure, fury is maxed, but you're hitting nothing with your -8-13 rerolls. All that strength, none of the accuracy. Worse, if the target has passive defenses when you do manage to hit.

As well, the damage boosts from fury don't seem that noticeable. Sure getting more strength is nice, but when rolls aren't that high compared to defenses, you're not really landing a telling blow for it to matter. One's mostly trying to setup rerolls in their favor and basically functioning as a worse dreadnought without armor deflection and the super useful stability ability to maintain momentum. by the time you land a big hit, the target was mostly already dead from all the shield bashing, tackling and staggering blows. The Fury did not really contribute much if it generated at all. And honestly, most weapons that work with our abilities already do way more than enough damage. It's just that most of the damage isn't coming through too well.

Speaking of worse dreadnoughts, we do share the same weakness in our tactics, with lowered defensive rolls. For berserker, this looks to provide oppertunities to get hit a bit for fury generation. In practice, I wonder when this stagger will end? Lowered defenses opens one up to many more disruptive attacks, firmly planting rerolls into the negatives and promptly exposing us to more damage due to are already low defenses. If one survives, they're not going to fight, but run away.

Also, as a general note in combat. I'm noticing that defenses trump offense in a lot of calculations. One can get some sky high combat maneuver defenses while the same can't be said for offense, and the agility stat seems to play a far larger bonus to it before considering other abilities. calculations for shield block and dodge have their max sitting at 975, while melee and ranged can go only up to 800. this is also ignoring the auto defenses some specializations and mobile abilities can employ to outright negate a successful attack. All classes tend to suffer some difficulty in this, but with berserkers being portrayed as the hyper offensive class, it doesn't help that they're swings can't match defenses. And unlike classes like Nightblade/marauder/duelist, they have no ability to try to disrupt defenses with various class features or 600 stealth, nor have the autodefenses and stagger resistence of guardian/Dreadnought.


Probably not an easy way to try to overcome some of these shortcomings. Some of it is mostly due to how the combat system currently work, and berserker literally having no defenses nor midigation for being staggered and balance management. though this is more sensible for other specializations to focus on, especially mighty walls like dreadnought and Guardian.


one approach that can help is probably changing the bonus fury provides, and increasing the number of events that can raise it.. Damage does not provide enough of an incentive to really raise it, but accuracy. One gets way more damage and successful contact when rolling more rerolls rather than damage bonuses. Marauder has shot up in effectiveness recently due to how fast rerolls can be brought up with shameless oppertunist. Sure, there can be a slight damage boost, but that never means much if blows can't properly connect. Though, other than just giving berserkers rerolls to the moon like marauder, something a bit more thematic. As fury increases, add +5 to fury, then divide the result by 10. This is your offense minimum for combat maneuvers and attacks that negative status cannot take below. All other rolls such as defenses are still thrashed into the negatives, but that just means the berserker is just ignoring everything your doing to them to murder you. This would encourage a berserker to stick in a fight where they may of been disbalanced and hit with fairly annoying maneuvers and hurt, being able to take full advantage of their fury bonuses now that they can hit something.

however, rather than a berserker wanting to stick themselves to be at +3-4 rerolls all the time at max fury, there also might be a need for some thematic fury spending abilities with imediate or delayed payment in fury. Obvious imediate payments could revolve around recovering faster from disadvantageous positions, probably focusing on balance as the big one. Delayed payments can revolve around more offensive stuff, with one obvious one coming to mind is a true berserk state that let's you go wild for around 6-8 seconds, but draining all your fury at the end. Just enjoy more offensive bonuses, and 2-3 seconds of roundtime to get all your attacks in before eating the payment and some negative statuses and energy loss.


lastly, we need more oppertunities for fury generation. Right now, you get very little fury for attacking, and a sizable amount for getting hit. However, there should be more situations where fury should go up, especially with non-damaging maneuvers. Especially very annoying ones that would normally piss off a person such as dirt kick and being staggered. The liberi taking turns tackling and dirt kicking me really should have an unhappy berserker trying to go for their heads when they get the next chance to attack.


Note: I have mentioned nothing about druidry abilities. that is a completely different topic of suggestions due to the fact two other specializations share abilities. If I were to give any comment, any ability that looks like it'd fit in a more savage approach to druidry should have the option to substitute fury in it's calculations for druidry ability in some way, or special maneuvers while any fury is active (such as a certain ice themed one). However, since one has the option not to grab any druidry abilities for their berserker and purely be a warrior, that should really be the focus of this.



TL-DR: Fury being a damage boosting resource is amazing early game, but becomes mostly impactless on its own later on. Providing a change to help with accuracy and more useful abilities to spend it on can do a lot to help it, especially if expansions are made in generating fury.


P.S: We all know we want someone to ram Baako's combat maneuver defense with 1500+ in angry rage.
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Karjus
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Re: Berserker feedback and ideas

Post by Karjus »

So, what on earth are you doing to get -8 / -11 rerolls?

At maximum negative balance (-25), you have -2 rerolls for basic attacks. That drops down to -1 pretty quickly, and then 0 negative rerolls. The amount of rerolls you get for circling doesn't adjust with balance, though the amount of rerolls for feint will change (from 0 to -2). Are you fighting with every body part fractured?

I am also not a fan at all of these massive reroll stacks that Marauders currently have, or the idea of more classes getting them. It was something special for Nightblades (who have to deal with huge consequences for it, IE: weapon limitation, armor, risk, etc) and Duelists (who have to remain in combat a while, and are in serious danger of being one-shot and also armor limitations.) Riding currently has a few, with limitations once again and likely needs looking at.

While I'm not saying Berserkers definitely need tweaks and buffs, I find the idea that they don't do enough damage because they can't hit, hilarious. They have access to one of the best staple abilities in the game that needs a nerf that provides 1 reroll and that alone is huge. Until recently, Guardians/Marauders didn't even have that beyond Truestrike for an actual attack, and neither do non-Warriors.
- Karjus

Speaking to you, XYZ says, "Never bother to wash it. It gets dirty again anyway."
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Vaelin
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Re: Berserker feedback and ideas

Post by Vaelin »

Ability: Savage Swing

IC: Do a particularly devastating strike the more unbalanced you are.
OOC: An active ability to do a melee attack giving extra damage and attack rerolls the lower your balance is. Uses 1 fury, costs double the energy.
Minimum balance required: -10
Cooldown: 30 seconds

Ability: Overpower
IC: At the cost of a berserker's rage, they will commit to a full body tackle with a high chance of knocking their target down.
OOC: Uses fury to attempt to knock down an opponent with a high chance of success, also does moderate damage on both combatants.
Minimum balance required: 5 Cooldown: 30

Ability: Enrage
IC: Harness the fury at the cost of one's sanity.
OOC: Gain fury using sanity. Sanity loss can be helped by meditation.
Cost: 30 energy and some sanity. Cooldown: 30 seconds
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Spidercat
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Re: Berserker feedback and ideas

Post by Spidercat »

Getting hit, a lot. Usually, the -8 rerolls are what happen when one attempts to stick out a fight and try to regain balance. Just more attacks that smash limbs when blows do land. this leads to the situation of fury not being used, spending more time running, or trying to regain control of the balance situation and not actually attacking. Also, the consequences of generating a resource more through getting hit. The usual time I can get a ton of fury to actually hurt things is after surviving an ambush on a non-vital limb. All other times, I'm being battered too badly to consistantly fight back without staggering and my accuracy being at -2 or -3. And mobs even on their own have a tendency to suddenly follow up strikes with staggering blows, feint and like to keep balance low. It encourages fleeing from the fight to regain balance without it being constantly reset, and the fury dwindling off.

Also, fury does seem to not provide much of a damage bonus once rolls start getting higher. it's evident strikes that connect better lead to more damage, and the fury doesn't compensate if you hit with high fury, but barely much roll difference. And this becomes more likely if one's getting struck enough to drop into negative balance where recovering that takes importance over hitting stuff with 25 fury.

I want it more that retreat isn't the default response when one finds themselves beaten and capped out on fury. I just thought having it be a bit thematic for the berserker to more likely stick it out by having their offenses stay positive even when defenses are non-existent. The opponent can land big hits on the lack of any defenses, but the berserker can basically dish it back going full attack at this state.
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Karjus
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Re: Berserker feedback and ideas

Post by Karjus »

You're able to wear armor that is better than ridgeleather, you've all the offensive abilities of a Dreadnought and more, up until recently you had even more offensive abilities than a marauder.

I'm struggling to understand the situation.

EDIT: Fury is also bugged currently. It raises your maximum rolls for defense.
Last edited by Karjus on Sat Mar 26, 2022 1:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Speaking to you, XYZ says, "Never bother to wash it. It gets dirty again anyway."
Speaking to XYZ, you say, "I hope you don't treat your ass the same way."
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saladbowl
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Re: Berserker feedback and ideas

Post by saladbowl »

I used to play one. In comparison to Dreadnoughts: Berskerers don't have access to a passive defense which nullifies incoming attacks, or Armor Deflection which can halve attacks which do slip through, or Stability. Or two counter-attacks which often stagger on hits which do pass Blade Catch. Fury lowers their defense over the course of combat for bonuses I didn't find worth the risk. Because Fury can tick up while getting hit, it can cause you to explode and die far quicker when under stagger and low balance.

Berserkers are pretty much a downgrade of Dreadnoughts in my opinion. The latter lets you have your cake and eat it too regarding defenses and damage output.
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Karjus
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Re: Berserker feedback and ideas

Post by Karjus »

saladbowl wrote: Sat Mar 26, 2022 1:17 pm I used to play one. In comparison to Dreadnoughts: Berskerers don't have access to a passive defense which nullifies incoming attacks, or Armor Deflection which can halve attacks which do slip through, or Stability. Or two counter-attacks which often stagger on hits which do pass Blade Catch. Fury lowers their defense over the course of combat for bonuses I didn't find worth the risk. Because Fury can tick up while getting hit, it can cause you to explode and die far quicker when under stagger and low balance.

Berserkers are pretty much a downgrade of Dreadnoughts in my opinion. The latter lets you have your cake and eat it too regarding defenses and damage output.
Blade Catch/Armor Deflection/Stability are all very good. There's still the fact Fury is bugged, and doesn't lower defenses though, and a Berserker *technically* has more offensive/damage power than a Dreadnought.
- Karjus

Speaking to you, XYZ says, "Never bother to wash it. It gets dirty again anyway."
Speaking to XYZ, you say, "I hope you don't treat your ass the same way."
Vaelin
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Re: Berserker feedback and ideas

Post by Vaelin »

I do think that most of the offensive abilities need balance, and with the only command to regain balance for Berserkers is circle, it really gets hard to get enough footing to use Mblow, cleave, flurry? Especially if you get staggered, knocked down a lot?
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Spidercat
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Re: Berserker feedback and ideas

Post by Spidercat »

The issue isn't a lack of offensive power though. It's the ability to currently use it. Fury just buffing damage by a minor amount isn't worth all the downsides the tactics brings at the moment, and this is with the mechanic bugged. that just means the expierence will be even worse when it works right.

Currently, something like Shameless does more than fury currently does, is far easier to setup than building up fury, and comes with no downsides to building up advantage and leads to far more consistant high damage. For the dreadnought discussion, this is only the case right now until more armor types are released. And armor defenses don't really matter much if you're in negative rerolls on defense and being slapped around for full weapon damage. negative rerolls really account for way more damage reduction/increase than armor does in a number of cases, if people can attest to all their 1-5 damage armor chinks on bad rolls. Guardians and Dreadnought get a number of tools to resist losing balance (ignoring bugs with tackle/shield bash right now if one lows roller than 50%) that helps them keep or regain momentum on their offense and defense.


berserkers basically trade all the defensive advantages dreadnoughts get at the moment, for offensive abilities that pale to other classes, have longer build up times, and currently are the most vulnerable to having their momentum smashed and unable to use their damage boost at all. It is very common in CVC and in high level zones for a berserker to have all the damage, none of the accuracy to make use of it. And once fury works properly, for the opponent to be enjoying the fury benefits only.
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Karjus
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Re: Berserker feedback and ideas

Post by Karjus »

A hugely powerful ability that is obviously over tweaked and nerfed doesn't mean that they need to start becoming the standard.

Also, make your mind up. You complain about offensive power, then say it isn't the issue, then ask for rerolls on the attack and utilize hyperbole as a basis for it without actually testing what your abilities are actually doing (RE, Fury effecting defenses).

Things I actually agree on?

Fury needs to be more useful, and likely needs to be easier to build, but also easier to spend. A higher pool could be good as well, especially if there are more abilities using it.
Being hard CCed, especially vs multiple opponents can be dangerous. Personally, stagger-locking/knockdown locking are things I'd like to see the game move away from unless you're fighting tons of extra opponents.

Actual suggestions? Have Fury offer resistance to stagger/knockdowns, but every time it does so, fury is used up. Allow it to assist with further rerolls for mental abilities, but also it gets spent. Have lowered defenses, but also you start taking less energy damage from attacks. Have an ability that lets you ignore wound penalties, for the cost of fury.
- Karjus

Speaking to you, XYZ says, "Never bother to wash it. It gets dirty again anyway."
Speaking to XYZ, you say, "I hope you don't treat your ass the same way."
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