Berserker weapon

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Kwai Shen, Apr 1, 2019.

  1. Kwai Shen New Member

    Rogues get rogue only daggers. Warriors get warrior only weapons. Rangers get their bows. Knights get their knight only weapons. So why don't berserkers get their own class specific weapon anymore? I'm not complaining, I'm just curious.

    Now, yes, I know. Berserkers can use the non-knight two handers just like everyone else and that's fine. It can't be "dev laziness" (not something I believe is real in any case). If the devs were lazy, the class specific weapons would have gone the way of the Dodo as well long ago.

    Anyone happen to know?
  2. roth Augur

    When Berserkers were first added to the game, the Gates of Discord expansion, they were on both general 2h weapons, and on knight 2h weapons. That lasted that one expansion.

    Devs didn’t realize at first what monsters they’d created. Berserkers were just too good with their weapons, all the time. Knights, on the other hand, suffered from generally lackluster weapon skills. That, to the best of my knowledge, happens to be why knight weapons are so much better ratio than everyone else’s weapons - the better ratio makes up for the reduced ability to get good dps out of them.

    Combine the two, however, and you suddenly have the better ratio knight weapons being used by a class that can get an awful lot more out of them. Devs responded to this sudden realization by removing Berserkers from future Knight 2h weapons.

    Coincidentally, this separation allowed devs to make the higher ratio knight 2h weapons even better ratio, to assist in things like Paladin Slay Undead, which derives its power from the listed damage on the weapon. It also helped SK’s with their riposte-based swarming combined with the 1.5/2.0 click effect.

    Now, as far as class-specific weapons go .. they create their own. All of their abilities in creating axes make Berserker-only weapons. They’ve only ever had a slight few class-specific melee weapons, however - off the top of my head all I can remember are the 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, and the RoF collection weapon (group and raid levels).
    Tucoh likes this.
  3. Schadenfreude Augur

    The revamped Trakanon dropped a Zerker only weapon and the rest of the loot table was a bit more interesting than the usual cut 'n paste items but for some reason the raid wasn't popular so the extra dev time put in didn't really end up being worth it.
  4. Morthakia Augur

    What are you looking for in a berserker only weapon?

    It would seem to me that the best path forward is not to make class specific weapons but to instead make generic weapons and enable the class to use them with different levels of efficiency. This is exactly what they’ve done — a berserker gets a heck of a lot more out of the 2handers that drop than a warrior, ranger, knight, or other class. This method limits the amount of gear that goes unused while still differentiating the classes.
  5. Tucoh Augur

    I wonder what proc would work well for a berserker only weapon. Easy choice would be some kind of frenzy-related proc.

    I don't think I'd want an aggro-dump proc, but maybe other non-boxed zerkers would. I imagine a rune / self-heal proc could be valuable in a lot of scenarios, but wouldn't really fit. A physical damage proc would be interesting, but I'd rather have it be frenzy related.
  6. Derresh Augur

    ber only weapon should be 999999 dmg / 10 delay and proc the Enraged buff from that plane of war mission.
  7. Tolzol Augur

    And we should be able to dual wield two of them!
    Gyurika Godofwar, Derresh and Yendar like this.
  8. Behelit Augur

    I've pitched for a Zerker only 2hander a few times to multiple different Item Devs, and the answer I always got was that class-specific drops end up rotting more often than not and there was no desire to create more class-specific items than already existed from the dev team.

    I think it would be cool though, there's really a ton of options on how to make a "Zerker-specific" 2hander even if other classes can use it. Similar to how all 1hp have backstab dmg and the backstab skill mod on them despite not being just for rogues, we could have a 2h with Frenzy Dmg or a Frenzy skill mod. And then as others mentioned there's unique proc options. Really I think alot more could be done with weapon itemization without actually restricting classes on existing templates or creating new item templates, and still allow for classes to feel like they have more unique options depending on the weapon they use.
    menown likes this.
  9. Ngreth Thergn Developer

    This
    and this
    And what would it be?
    Extra Frenzy damage seems something to further increase the over the top damage Zerkers do. They don't need more damage. (I Know, not you Zerker's opinion... but... )
  10. Behelit Augur

    While Zerkers might not "need more damage" at the moment, I still think its perhaps a mistake from a design perspective that every expansion new weapons come out and the upgrade comes purely from the increase to ratio. Which in turn is the EXACT kind of damage increase the Dev team seems the most against (large scaling upgrades). If you instead looked into increasing Frenzy damage through a weapon upgrade in an expansion, you eliminate the scaling of ADPS effects like bard's aria (triple attack/flurry mod) and beastlords HHE (decrease weapon delay %). This provides a controllable increase to just Zerkers on 2handers and allows you to stagnate the base weapon ratios. Instead in TBL we saw large increases to weapon ratios which widens the gap between baseline damade and ADPS-supported damage.


    Here's a Plane of Fire raid trash clear, with no adps.
    /tell Jiren Jiren -vs- Combined: A doomfire soldier: -- DMG: 1389729984 -- DPS: 325235 -- Scaled: 325235 -- Crush: 649625731 -- Slash: 450057271 -- Frenzy: 112003569 -- Hit: 96996837 -- DirDmg: 80641282 -- Environmental: 405294 -- % dmg as normal: 2.5% -- % dmg as critical: 68.3% -- Non-crit rate: 15.4% -- crit rate: 66.8% -- crippling rate: 17.8% -- Attempts: 27718 -- Hits: 25645 -- Missed: 2073 -- Accuracy: 92.5% -- Avg Hit: 54191 -- Max hit: 1595620 -- DMG to PC: 8225719

    Frenzy = 8.1% of total damage. And again that's with NO ADPS. You add in a bard and beastlord and my autoattack (Crush) is going to increase substantially while Frenzy will see NO increase from bard or beastlord ADPS.

    Given that Frenzy has been under 10% (with full ADPS its ~5% atm) of our total damage for nearly 6 expansions now, I think it would both add flavor and give more controlled increases if weapon upgrades utilized Frenzy as well as ratio (dmg/dly).

    Also given that Monk/Beast have their own 2h, Knights have their own 2h, and Rangers burn with bow, the only class that would be effected by an expansion of stagnated 2h ratios would be Warriors (which if is that large of an issue can easily be handled with a class specific AA).

    So I stand by my statement that alot more could be done with weapons without restricting existing classes on them, but still make them 'feel' more unique and special.

    Maybe there's just no time for something of that scale, I'm not holding it against the Dev team. I'm just pointing out that the current system isn't ideal, and could be improved upon theoretically anyway.
  11. Cadira Augur

    I was starting to wonder if any dev's had any idea about the class imbalance going on in current eq. Any chance yall are looking into all this this year? Lol
  12. Tolzol Augur

    I mean as soon as there is a level increase the balance will tilt back into casters favor this is how eq has always been. Only difference now is level increases only happen every 3 years now instead of 2. Only caster that really should be looked into for an increase atm is wizards cus they are hurting. (I’ll add the necro dot revamp in there also but let’s be real doubt it will happen lol)
  13. Behelit Augur

    Maybe if we had weapon upgrades that weren't purely auto attack based and weren't so effected by ADPS non level increase expansions wouldn't swing things in melee favor.

    That said most casters do very well on the nightly combined, but agreed wizards could use a slight boost
  14. Jondalar Augur

    Who is behelit?
    Behelit likes this.
  15. Nennius Curmudgeon

    Behelit likes this.
  16. Tolzol Augur

    He’s bejerit now
  17. Behelit Augur

  18. Derresh Augur

    Next expansion, class specific weapons for every class with a special unique grp buff proc. For example:

    Bard: grp +200 attack
    Ber: grp 10% crit dmg
    Wiz : grp increase fizzle rate 50%

    I think you get the gist.
  19. minimind The Village Idiot

    I understand that I've been out of the berserker advocacy scene for a while, but here are my 2 cents. I get that any change to berserkers are potentially game-breaking. That's what makes playing on cartoonishly fun. Sometimes it just doesn't feel cartoonishly fun, though.

    Berserker additions to make us feel special w/o going OP
    1. Berserker-only illusions
      • If tied to a discipline, then an "always on" disc like Disconcerting. The illusion could be a modification of current berserker race models (5 races, 2 genders) such that when burning the disc, the berserker appears emaciated (or "swole"), gets fire-eyes (a la Epic 2.0) and their armor turns to glowing red torn up chainmail (a la epic 1.0). Heaving bodies, drool, mange (Vah Shir)-- go nuts.
      • If clickable, select some of the classic berserker models from the past. I still think it's a shame that there isn't a Ra`tuk illusion (with more modern textures).
      • When in this discipline, have a small chance to proc a short duration buff on a +X dmg buff on a group member that shares the crazy illusion.
    2. More Berserkerly Weapon Graphics/Ornamentations
      • The Axe of Rallos Zek and Tetanus Massacre Ornaments in the DB Marketplace are great. They are ridiculously huge and I love them.
      • There's nothing similar for 2HB.
      • 2HP is hard to make cool because either they're huge lances (great for knights) or tiny spears. How about this: "Angry Goblins Delivery Device": A big clockwork stick with 3 stabby Goblin Rogues that are shackled at the end.
  20. Critts Augur

    I was under the impression Zerkers just dule wielded monks and had clicky Rangers.