Half the man I used to be ... (maybe a quarter of the elf actually)

Discussion in 'Berserker' started by ARCHIVED-Dak-Dod, Sep 19, 2005.

  1. ARCHIVED-Dak-Dod Guest

    Have played the changes for a bit, have dueled and have soloed around some on my main character a level 50 zerker. Sure, the game is certainly harder and to me that is a welcomed change ... I remember talking to friends about how "candylandish" EQ2 was.

    After the changes I didnt feel all that gimped until I started to measure myself against the other fighter classes that berserkers were nerfed to bring in line with. Of course I didnt know any better and thought all tank classes where having it just as hard as I was. But now I know that isnt the truth of the matter, I was under the impression that all tanks were going to be somewhat all on equal footing and each have there moment to shine on raid mobs.

    My toon is pretty average, I have mostly a full set of ebon except maybe gloves, braciers and boots ... I have an assortment of jewelry I can switch around to change stats and resists. I have a nice big imbued cedar tower shield used mostly with the SM, Drayeks fabled 2 hander and a fabled 2 handed blunt. I also have 2 cedar imbued batans a decent piercer dwer and other misc gear weapons to play with. All of my CAs are atleast app4 most are adept 1 with important skills made as adept 3s as I can afford, important being rampage, anarchy, tides of war a few others with my newest being boil blood.

    Well, I know yellow +++ mobs are supposed to be hard and rightly so. I am giving it my all in full defense, shield, taunting like a mad man and sticking rampage, frenzy and an assortment of my stuns and damage dealing CAs and such in as I can, grouped with a 50 Inq, 50 wizzie and mid 40 something assassian killing yellow and white +++ mobs and struggling to survive and keep aggro.

    Our 50 Sk logs in with his 50 coercer friend and we all relocate to the living tombs, Me in still full defense start pulling mobs as we make our way down. Me 50 zerk, 50 inq, 50 wizzie, 50 SK, 50 coercer and swapped assassians but was more or less the same level. Pulling yellow +++ from around the market area and I am still getting beat down laid upon me and even died once or twice. The 50 inq that I duoed with from level 1 to 50 sends me a tell "I just cant keep you healed like before." after I died the last time.

    Our level 50 sk in mostly rubicite armor and mit, avoid and HPs lower then mine asks me if he can tank so I dont get all the debt. im like sure ok ... then I stood in awe as his life never fell below 75% fighting these yellow +++ mobs. Wow, is all that came to mind ... I mean I know I was getting nerfed because berserkers where from what I have read to powerful, but [expletive ninja'd by Faarbot] ... I thought we was getting balanced with the other fighter classes not nerfed to the point of not even coming close to being able to compete with other fighters in lesser gear.

    So I start the parcer up to see my dps in a non tank role out of curiousity, many mobs around and coercer mezzing, NO aes at all ... NO offensive stance just plain jane auto attack and CAs .... I am hitting 70 dps and am like second to last above the Inq with my fabled axe ... SK is hitting like 118 with shield and SM, parse another fight I go all out without AES and hit 78 DPS and the SK hits like 119 dps, about this time I cant help but think how gimped I am and what a sad sad day I have found myself in. No I didnt try my DWs, we pulled an epicx2 that was smakin the unholiness even out of our SK and he ysed his cool [expletive ninja'd by Faarbot] evac skill .... but I cant see the DWs would make that huge of a difference anyways. Maybe I am wrong ... but I really dont think so.

    Anyways, tonite, I was hoping that maybe because my wis was low it affected my resists that it was my fault that I was suckin major butt, So I talk with my friend the SK somemore and we end up dueling 2 times ... this time I used my DWs in offesive stance. Rampage-frenzy-stun-stun-stun ... he dropped me without hardly loosing any life at all. Well, the second time I probley didnt really even try as hard anymore ... recast my buffs, went defense and was still DWing and he owned me without dropping below 95% ..... haha ... how pathetically sad can it get ?

    I had hope that my first thoughts about the combat changes and reading how our CAs had changed would be wrong that this was a needed nerf to the zerker class to bring us more in line and on even ground with the other fighter classes. I just dont see it ... with the Brawlers having the highest HP pool, avoidence and DPS with their heals and mezzs and the uber lifetaps/heals and utilities of the crusader classes I am still trying to figure out where in my skill book the master 1 vaseline was missplaced too ....

    But hey ... maybe I am not doing "something" right to be majorly outtanked and beaten in a duel by a even leveled opponent with lesser gear and stats. Im sure in the duel I could have kept changing weapons and gear until I found the right combo, maybe, just maybe I could have got him to 50% *gasp* woo hooo fun times !
  2. ARCHIVED-Memmoch Guest

    Unfortunetly you also are witnessing and experiencing just how gimped berserkers have become. I'm giving SOE 2 weeks to brings us back in line tanking wise with the rest of the tanks then I'm punching out, screw this [expletive ninja'd by Faarbot], I'm not paying for a gimped class. Rest assured though man, before long sony's employee's acting like player's will flood here yelling about how good the berserker class is now and how they can tank epicX2 mobs solo =P.

    I'm starting to bug report every time I log in that I can no longer take nor give the dmg compared to other tanks. Because that is the only thing I can come up with....somehow they bugged our ability to take dmg......../shrug
  3. ARCHIVED-Bravesinger Guest

    I am not sure how you manage to make so low dps...I have been in a few groups with a parser, and when I MT in defensive stance, my dps is 150-250. When I am not MT and we fight groups of lvl 58 cyclops, my dps can get close to 1000 when I use offensive stance and Rampage. I use RGF or Prismatic 2-hander.
    Yes, we have a hard time keeping aggro. Before the revamp I hardly had to cast a taunt. Maybe a single one to pull, but my dps usually did it all. Now I constantly taunt to keep aggro. Even when we fight single target cyclops, lvl 58+++, I use Bully, Fearsome Shout, and Violent Promise (Now got the lvl 52 update Brutal Pledge). And I constantly use them. Luckily they are very fast to cast, so I have also time to do some of our other attacks, but when I am in defensive stance alot of my attacks are resisted.
    I am grouping with the same 4 people all the time, and the 6th char in our group varies. We are a bruiser, a coercer, a warlock, a templar and me, a berserker. When we have one more healer I use offensive stance. Then I have no problem keeping aggro. But my hps are droppping fast. If it looks critical, I can instantly go defensive stance, and they will have time to heal me up. When we have only 1 healer I am in defensive stance. The bruiser gets aggro from time to time, but he has an attack, that lowers him on the hatelist, and then I instantly regain it. When I chaintaunt, the warlock never gets aggro.
    One major problem in killing groups of mobs is when I pull a group of 5 and use Fearsome Shout to get aggro. If all of them resist it, I can recast it after 3 secs, so it is no problem. The problem comes when 3 of them resist it. Then it is on a 30 sec reuse timer, and I have to go offensive stance for 3 secs and use an AE to get aggro. That can give me problems, but luckily I play with some skilled players.
    So my conclusion is this: Don't give up. Chaincast taunts, and you will be ok. I read about aggroproblems in another post, and one of the replies was good: Not only berserkers have to relearn how to play our chars, but also the dps classes must learn how to play, so they don't constantly draw aggro.
    Hope that helps you. Taunt, taunt and taunt again....

    Bravesword
    lvl 52 berserker
    Splitpaw
  4. ARCHIVED--Aonein- Guest

    Ive no clue how you got such low dps ethier, with my pristine imbued cedar batons, T5 rare, i do 120 dps with just auto attack self buffed on lvl 48 - 49 ^ mobs, no CA's. With CA's i can get around 140 - 150 dps np. Its easy to stand there and parse out 78 dps when thats all you want to do.
    Memmoch wrote:
    I'm starting to bug report every time I log in that I can no longer take nor give the dmg compared to other tanks. Because that is the only thing I can come up with....somehow they bugged our ability to take dmg......../shrug
    Why? because you cant solo Broodmother in EF anymore? or cant solo ^^^ encounters? or cant 1 group epic x2 / x4 encounters anymore?
    The game needed to become harder, it needed to become a challenge, if you want a button mashers game that requires little thought and you have time to watch TV while tanking or playing go play something else.

    Stop coming here making yourself look like a idiot Memmoch, honestly, get your strats together, change strats if they dont work, and roll with what works.

    Its funny how all the people who join the Server wide channel get enlightened on how they can improve or we show them where they could be or might be lacking then come back and go wow, it made so much difference. Ive even helped a few Berserker out on EF, they were close to hitting cancel till i offered them some ideas, and now they love it.

    Time to rethink how you go about things, the strats that worked pre patch out going to work now. Improvise, put in some effort. If you think WoW or Vanguard are going to be any easier, then go try it. You will be surprised, lol you think agro is hard to control here.....
  5. ARCHIVED-RafaelSmith Guest

    Interesting.

    Im a Guardian and in my normal group of me, fury, coercer and defiler im parsing 120-130dps when in offense stance and around 90-100 in defense.

    I know Zerkers should be doing better than that at least.
  6. ARCHIVED-MillsFairchild Guest

    I'm a bit puzzled as well. I tank just fine. Myself (50 zerker), a Ranger (51), and a Mystic (47) have NO problems soloing white/yellow ^^^ mobs. The mystic rarely burns more than 30% health keeping me up. Same can be said when we replaced the mystic with a Templar (50)... they rarely dropped below 90% from heals. And that's while giving up a shield in favor of a big 2-hander.

    Don't assume I'm geared up with fabled/masters either. If you've got a full suit of ebon, you're much better off than I am.

    Low DPS? While I'm tanking I can easily put out 150 - 220 DPS against a single mob. More often than not it's on the high side of that. At the end of the fights, after all the CA's, taunts, and buffs I'm usually around 50% power.

    /shrug. Keep playing around. Maybe there's something else you can try... because I find it hard to believe our experiences could be so different.
  7. ARCHIVED-Sokolov Guest

    I tank the level 58s in PoF at level 50. They hit hard and but I can survive with just a Templar.

    With Rampage I've parsed over 350 DPS on a single mob while tanking, and usually do at least the DPS of the Conjurer fire pet.

    I think we are fine ;)
  8. ARCHIVED-Dak-Dod Guest

    Bravesinger wrote:I am not sure how you manage to make so low dps...I have been in a few groups with a parser, and when I MT in defensive stance, my dps is 150-250. When I am not MT and we fight groups of lvl 58 cyclops, my dps can get close to 1000 when I use offensive stance and Rampage. I use RGF or Prismatic 2-hander.


    When I parsed and got 78 dps I was not tanking or using my offensive stance. I was however using every buff I had, I wasnt using my offensive stance because the Coercer was Mezzing mobs and our offensive stance procs an AE. I was using a 2 handed fabled axe Drayeks axe (spelling may be off) and also using any CAs that did not have a taunt attached to it or any AEs.

    Bravesinger wrote:Yes, we have a hard time keeping aggro.


    I actually didnt have any issues with aggro when I was tanking, I was using Offending Defence (master 2) *edit: waid wall earlier by mistake* alot and all my damage and taunt Aes as soon as they refreshed.


    -Aonein- wrote:Its easy to stand there and parse out 78 dps when thats all you want to do.


    I respect you Aonein, but hinting at the suggestion I would purposely sabatoge my own DPS is a pretty crappy thing to say ...


    MillsFairchild wrote:I'm a bit puzzled as well. I tank just fine. Myself (50 zerker), a Ranger (51), and a Mystic (47) have NO problems soloing white/yellow ^^^ mobs. The mystic rarely burns more than 30% health keeping me up. Same can be said when we replaced the mystic with a Templar (50)... they rarely dropped below 90% from heals. And that's while giving up a shield in favor of a big 2-hander.

    I wish I knew exactly what it was I am doing wrong then, the difference in me tanking yellow+++ and the sk tanking the yellow+++ was not just a little ... it was majorly huge, I was in the red almost every fight and/or dieing in full defense with shield and sm and the sk same level as me never ever dropped below 75% in health. Same group, same healer and me with better gear and stats ....

    EDIT: wow, multiple quotes on these boards is a pain =p
    Message Edited by Dak-Dod on 09-20-2005 07:15 PM
  9. ARCHIVED-N7649U Guest

    That level 50 SK would be me. I have known taz long time, he is a very good friend and a good zerker. He has always been our MT. I admit what I saw was disturbing. One thing he might have left out is that I had 400 more HP than him because I think the Inq forgot to give him 1 buff. But I highly doubt much of Taz's problems are cause by Taz's playing. Beyond saying that I dont want to start any zerker vs sk threads! Everyone deserves the right to be a viable tank, I know what it is like to not have tank lovage. I went from November 04 to Sept 05 being a blacksheep. Hang in there, SOE eventually fixes the classes.

    Gorn 50 SK
    Blackburrow, Officer of Ruin
  10. ARCHIVED-Sokolov Guest

    While I can certainly appreciate you vouching for your friend, his experiences do not necessarily indicate we need fixing, especially when the rest of us are doing just fine.
  11. ARCHIVED-Azril Guest

    The problem with market +++ if im not mistaken is that they hit disease dmg only. Mitigation means nothing against them, only disease resist and avoidance. Try tanking mobs that do melee, you will find you tank better.
  12. ARCHIVED-Sabin the Great Guest

    I appreciate you comin in here for your friend but I just want to throw a few things out there. Even people who were good players before might not be completely used to the new changes. It might be easier for a SK to tank the mobs because of self warding, life taps etc., but I haven't had many problems myself. At level 50 I was tanking ^^^ level 58 and 59 groups in a trio with a warden and a warlock (they were 54) and I didn't die until we got an add and even then it was only once.
    A note about the dps: There is no way you should only be doing 100 dps when tanking unless all your aoe's are down and you're turtling in defensive stance, and even then you better be completely stunned stupid. One thing I would suggest would be to get framiliar with ways in which you can make the most out of the stances you have. For example. If it's a single target mob, start in offensive stance with weapon guard on, on run up Raging Press (formerly Blows) the mob, Frenzy, Vanquish, Wallop, etc, etc, until it becomes unstunned, then switch to defensive stance and root yourself with Offending Defense. That way you're giving yourself a chance to proc when the mob will be stunned (5ish second stun duration when landed), and making yourself more difficult to hit when not.
    I can only speak for myself, and for what I've tanked (I tanked everything this side of Vox / Kra'Thuk before the patch) but I have no doubt that we will have a spot tanking in raids. If you had to ask me now I would say it wouldn't be MT'ing (that'd be for Guards mostly, maybe a pally if magic resist is needed, but I don't know yet), but Tanking the Adds and absolutely destroying them sounds just about right to me.
    And if you want to see pictures of what our dps can look like, send me a tell or a PM and I'll link you some post change DPS shots that you probably won't believe.
  13. ARCHIVED-Dak-Dod Guest

    ok, wanted to clarify a few things here ... was going from memory of the nite before when I said 78 dps ... here are the actual Parses, my log file is some 200 megs and is a mother to open and search thru ... this is with a Coercer mezzing and me not tanking, using any stances (our offensive stance procs an ae) or using any AEs or CAs that taunt and using a fabled 2-handed axe ... Gorn was using a shield and screaming mace. I opened the parcer as we was clearing the way to the x2 epic we should have left alone =p

    You say to the group,"/g GRP 24650:2379:632.1

    HH Callran 1201:paralyze
    (wizard)Callran 7478:0:191.7
    (shadowknight)Gorn 5568:2379:142.8
    (coercer)Squeek 5343:0:137.0
    (berserker)Tazkven 2900:0:74.4
    (40 something assassian)Endo 2453:0:62.9
    (inquisitor)Lileena 908:0:23.3
    a serpent of immortality:20"

    You say to the group,"/g GRP 7171:666:398.4
    HH Squeek 1290:psychic wail
    Squeek 2597:0:144.3
    Tazkven 1471:107:81.7
    Endo 1130:0:62.8
    Callran 1079:0:59.9
    Gorn 894:559:49.7
    Lileena 0:0:0.0
    an ara' dal metallurgist:8"

    You say to the group,"GRP 24926:3664:530.3
    HH Callran 2891:ice comet
    Callran 8239:0:175.3
    Gorn 5836:3101:124.2
    Endo 3864:563:82.2
    Tazkven 3589:0:76.4
    Squeek 2921:0:62.1
    Lileena 477:0:10.1
    a serpent of immortality:17"
  14. ARCHIVED-Dak-Dod Guest

    N7649U wrote:

    That level 50 SK would be me. I have known taz long time, he is a very good friend and a good zerker. He has always been our MT. I admit what I saw was disturbing. One thing he might have left out is that I had 400 more HP than him because I think the Inq forgot to give him 1 buff. But I highly doubt much of Taz's problems are cause by Taz's playing. Beyond saying that I dont want to start any zerker vs sk threads! Everyone deserves the right to be a viable tank, I know what it is like to not have tank lovage. I went from November 04 to Sept 05 being a blacksheep. Hang in there, SOE eventually fixes the classes.



    Gorn 50 SK

    Blackburrow, Officer of Ruin



    Hey Gorn ! Thanks bro =D



    Azril wrote:


    The problem with market +++ if im not mistaken is that they hit disease dmg only. Mitigation means nothing against them, only disease resist and avoidance. Try tanking mobs that do melee, you will find you tank better.



    ... you are right, they do hit hard with disease ... I have got to lighten up my log so I can search it easier. I did get some wisdom items the next day to build my arcane resists up but have yet to test them out. I am thinking I would like to get atleast 100 wisdom ....





    Sabin the Great wrote:



    I appreciate you comin in here for your friend but I just want to throw a few things out there. Even people who were good players before might not be completely used to the new changes. It might be easier for a SK to tank the mobs because of self warding, life taps etc., but I haven't had many problems myself. At level 50 I was tanking ^^^ level 58 and 59 groups in a trio with a warden and a warlock (they were 54) and I didn't die until we got an add and even then it was only once.

    A note about the dps: There is no way you should only be doing 100 dps when tanking unless all your aoe's are down and you're turtling in defensive stance, and even then you better be completely stunned stupid. One thing I would suggest would be to get framiliar with ways in which you can make the most out of the stances you have. For example. If it's a single target mob, start in offensive stance with weapon guard on, on run up Raging Press (formerly Blows) the mob, Frenzy, Vanquish, Wallop, etc, etc, until it becomes unstunned, then switch to defensive stance and root yourself with Offending Defense. That way you're giving yourself a chance to proc when the mob will be stunned (5ish second stun duration when landed), and making yourself more difficult to hit when not.

    I can only speak for myself, and for what I've tanked (I tanked everything this side of Vox / Kra'Thuk before the patch) but I have no doubt that we will have a spot tanking in raids. If you had to ask me now I would say it wouldn't be MT'ing (that'd be for Guards mostly, maybe a pally if magic resist is needed, but I don't know yet), but Tanking the Adds and absolutely destroying them sounds just about right to me.

    And if you want to see pictures of what our dps can look like, send me a tell or a PM and I'll link you some post change DPS shots that you probably won't believe.

    Sabin
    Server: Steamfont
    Class: 51 Berserker
    Artisan: 50 Armorer

    http://eq2players.station.sony.com/en/pplayer.vm?characterId=212472208



    Well, actually I was tanking white (50) and yellow (51+) +++ mobs but with low, low wisdom ... I am truly thinking that is what my problem was, with all the changes and such happening I never put much time into wisdom increasing items. Besides cold none of my resists were above 1k and a few were below 500 ... disease being one. Sk's have a natural resist to disease in their defensive stance so that would explain why exactly the difference in his and my damage tanking was so huge .... but after Gorn handed me my [expletive ninja'd by Faarbot] twice from a duel the next day I made this post thinking I was totally gimped, but thats really for another thread =p

    Your switching of stances tactic is pretty clever ... thanks for the tip =D
  15. ARCHIVED-GurgTheBashur Guest

    See...now this is what I don't get...

    I may only be a level 43 (thanks to the bonus XP...I went from 35 to 43 before it wore out, mostly soloing), but, after spending about an hour adjusting to the playstyle required, I did BETTER than I had, pre-patch...signifigantly so.


    The thing I noticed, screwing around dueling, was also that I beat the tar out of every zerker within 4 levels of me that was a single-wielde or one-hand-and-shield user, despite the stuns, I pounded guardians up to two levels above me 3 out of 4 times (had at least 25% power and 43% HP when fight ended, if I won, if I lost, it was because they landed a good stun on me when I was in front of them, before I could recast weapon shield, and didn't have superior agi), and consistantly lost to pallies near my level because they could chain-stun, and self-heal...unless I worked them until they were out of power themselves.


    From what I see here, the complaints are coming from Zerkers using one-hand-and shield or two hand weapons...and what you guys miss is, since the patch, our greatest advantage is our attack speed enhancements and our counter-attack buffs...at least when it comes to the melee portion of our fighting...our stuns suck (only serving to interrupt casts, they don't actually halt the mob's melee attacks, or those of other players, when dueling, I've found), we have no self-heals, just the ability to boost our in-combat recovery, and our agi-boosting buffs reduce movemtn and/or attack speed, completely negating the effect of most of our standing buffs, which proc berzerker on us, which is intended to ACCELERATE our attack speed.

    And the problem is, IMO, that you're negating the attack speed enhancements yourselves, by using slow two hand weapons with big dmg, or slow one hands and shields, and trying to use the stun that ONLY helps by interrupting casts....in duelling, what I was doing that was so terribly effective against other zerkers, was using dual imbueds (started out with heritage tomohawk and a gleaming strike imbued spatha, both being the highest dmg rating duals I could find with fastest strikes, at 1.2 seconds per swing), I would target my opponent, pull out bow, and start off with a ranged attack, then run in, and start hitting in melee mode, holding down one of my directional buttons, so I ran constant circles around them...from there, all I did was mouse-click skill attacks, and re-cast my weapon shield as neccessary...if I started having issues (about the time I knew my opponent's AoE skills like whirlwind would be coming up), I'd run out of range of most melee skills, and fire another arrow. This functioned to maximize my attack speed as much and as often as possible, keep me out of line for THEIR skills (which mostly require they be facing their opponent, basically, in order to land), and let me land enough melee strikes of my own to proc gleaming strike a number of times per battle.
    This ALSO works on melee mobs...and isn't as effective on the casters, generally (who don't always have to be facing their target to cast on them with their big hitters)...what works when dueling casters, on the other hand, seems to be very similar in basic tactics...but using the interrupts, like the two main HOs, the whirlwind-type skills (which have "knockdown" as a side effect), the cries and yells (which have "interrupt"), and so on (best one I had against a caster was a 4 hit kill in which he didn't get a single spell off....duel began, I hit with arrow, using hunting arrow, so I got pierce AND slash damage, immediately clicked my weapon shield, melee, and began casting on furious rush as I ran up on him, hit him right as I ran past, with FR, got a gleaming strike proc with that first hit, triggered whirlwind IMMEDIATELY, and nailed him with it right as I finished pasing him, and, by the time he'd recovered, hit him with a very nice assault proc...BOOM, he was dead, all spells interrupted before they could cast...but I'll admit, most times, a nuker kicks my tin-can butt, simply because 80+ wis can't stand up against 150+ int and HUGE AoE nukes, if they manage to fire them off without being interrupted)



    I dunno, maybe I'm having a unique experience...but I suspect, based on the fact that I have yet to lose a duel with a single-weapon-wielding berserker of similar level (and more importantly, similar level equipment) that the answer is exactly what I've been hinting at...we're meant to take advantage of our attack speed capabilities and our casting interrupts as much as possible...which doesn't happen if you go with the huge single-hit-damage, but slow-striking weapons.
  16. ARCHIVED-Ethelwolf Guest

    The Berserker group regen is not working, but the self proc one is, that why were all gimped. The regen were supposed to have is pie in the sky BS. I regen health just as fast with my destructive adept 3 off as I do with it on.
  17. ARCHIVED-xandez Guest

    Message Edited by xandez on 09-21-2005 09:34 AM
  18. ARCHIVED-GurgTheBashur Guest

    kk...4th attempt at this. Server being funny.



    Skills fire at same rate, and do same damage from skill at same skill level, regardless of weapon held.


    So all we need to do is compare melee dmg, imbued weapon procs, and countering-strike occurrances in a theoretical duel to show why you're wrong.



    Take out two zerkers in a duel, who are EXACTLY matched, except for weapon choice. One has a two-hand weapon that does 50-100 dmg per successful hit, and has a 2.5 second swing time. One has duals that do 20-30 damage per hit, and 1.2 second swing time. Now, in all honesty, at 43, I average 35-40 dmg per melee hit against white con mobs, but these figures were about right when I switched to duals permenantly, back in my mid-30's.


    In a 60 second duel, 30 seconds can count on to be spent under berserker proc, having recieved a hit to trigger it...

    So we'll examine out two-hand user first...he hits 80% of his swings, swings once every 2.155 seconds under the effect of berserk, and once every 2.5 seconds normally, giving him 13.92 swings under the influence of berserk, and 12 under normal conditions for the remaining 30 seconds...so he'll swing 25 times in 60 seconds, and land 20 of them. Each successful hit averages 75 dmg alone, with these figures. So his pure melee dmg in 60 seconds is 1500, on average.


    Dual user, in comparison, swings TWICE every 1.2 seconds for 30 seconds (once with each hand), and twice every 1.034 seconds for the 30 seconds he's under the effect of berserk, and averages 25 damage per successful hit. 29.01 hits under 'zerk PER WEAPON, for 58 swings total under the proc, and 25 swings PER WEAPON, or 50 total, under normal conditions. That's 108 swings, 80% success rate, 86.4 (call it 86) hits at 25 damage each, for 2150 total dmg.


    BTW...if they BOTH got lucky, and proced berserk back to back...spent the whole 60 seconds under the effect, that's a worse disparity: 1670 dmg with 27.89 swings and 22.7 for two hander hits, and 58.02 swings per weapon (116 total), 98 hits, 2321 dmg, for dual-wielder.




    OK, so now we have 20 hits/1500 dmg for two-hander, and 86 hits/2150 dmg for dual user...let;'s calculate Imbued Weapon additional damage. Gleaming strike procs 5%, or 1 in 20 swings per imbued weapon...which is 1 in 20 swings for the two-hand user, but works out to 1 in 10 swing of his total swings for the dual user. GS does about 200 damager per proc, on average.

    So now your two-hander has 1700 dmg in 60 seconds, with one proc of berserk (1500 melee, one proc of GS), while the dual user has 3750 (2150 melee, 8 procs of GS)...let's do the "they lucked out, and STAYED under the effect of berserk, constantly" figures...1670 melee and 200 GS proc dmg for two hander (chances of getting his second GS proc in two extra swings are a mere 10% now) for 1870 total damage and 2320 melee and at LEAST 1800, with an 80% chance of it being 2000 dmg from GS procs for the dual user...so MINIMUMS for both, under this are 1870 and 4120 dmg respectively, in 60 seconds....these are MINIMUM figures for the conditions set.


    Ok...so how much does weapon shield help? Well, at lower three apprentice levels, it only counter-attacks 3 times, averaging 80 damage, and only alsts 30 seconds, if not triggerd, before recast...so a max of 6 countering strikes from it. At higher levels, it will counter 10% of the time the 'zerker gets hit, still averaging about 80 damage, unless it's master level.

    So our two-hander adds 8 countering stikes to his damage totals under one proc of berserk for both, and 9.8 (we'll be generous, and call it 10) under back-to-back 'zerk procs. That's 640 under one, and 800 under constant, for total damages, INCLUDING imbued strikes, of 2340 for one proc of berserk and 2670 for constant procs for him. Our dual user, on the other hand, will only get 2 countering strikes in the 20 hits under one 'zerk proc, and PROBABLY only get two under constant, since is opponent only hits 20 or 22 times, respectively...so her only adds 160 dmg to either total...for a total of 3910 dmg with ONE proc of berserk, and 4280 for constant.


    So, in the end, in a 60 second fight, with everything else ABSOLUTELY matched, a 2 hand user with a 2.5 second swing and a 50-100 damage weapon vs a dual user with 1.2 second swings and a 20-30 damage weapon gives the dual-wielder an advantage of between 1570 and 1610 damage in the same time period.




    NOW do you see?
  19. ARCHIVED-Pin StNeedles Guest

    OMG Gurg... Where do I begin?
    A 50-100 damage, 2.5sec 2H weapon would need to be compared to two 12-24 damage, 1.2sec DW weapons if you want to be 'fair'.
    If you want to compare it like that, try with 18 damage per hit on the DW (ignoring the DPS boost with berserk that acoompanies the haste).
    By your example, that's 1548 vs 1500 damage, with the disparity being due to your choice of numbers and truncation.
    80% hit rate on 116 swings is 92 hits, not 96.
    At 18 damage per hit, this is 1656 with DW, compared to 1650 with 2H.
    No.
    Gleaming Strike has an adjusted chance of firing of 5%. This is 5% chance to fire every 3 seconds of unhasted, auto-attack swinging.
    This means there is a 4.167% (5% * 2.5 / 3) chance to fire on each swing of your sample 2H weapon, and a 1% (5% * 1.2 / 3 / 2) chance to fire on each swing of your sample DW weapons.
    So you will average to 0.83 procs of Gleaming Strike with the 2h and 0.86 procs of Gleaming Strike with the 2 dual wields (actually, you have exactly the same chance, but your above truncation has again biased it - it's deliberately set up to be balanced this way).
    So, call it 1700 (2H) vs 1750 (DW) due to the truncation for the 50% berserked example, and 1850 (2H) vs 1856 (DW) for the 100% berserked example.... In other words... Equality when measuring auto-attack swinging.
    Weapon Shield/Guard/Aegis only EVER procs 3 times. It is a 100% chance of firing 3 times, then it drops. It's constant, equal DPS.
    So, up to here you've only considered damage output from sources which are completely balanced and equal between set-ups.
    There are only 2 real differences between DW and 2H setups are:

    1) DW will pause more during long-cast CAs, lowering DPS (however, this is greatly reduced with the revamp, so can be mostly ignored);
    2) Procs have the same chance to fire per swing on combat arts as they do on auto-swings. i.e. 4.167% vs 1% using your example weapons. So use 100 combat art swings and you'll get 4 vs 1 procs of Gleaming Strike in the setups in the favour of the 2H setup.

    Thus, 2H is better DPS.
    The question is.... Do you?
  20. ARCHIVED-Dak-Dod Guest

    I tanked a few hours last nite with my new improved raised wisdom and I could certainly see a difference fighting yellow +++ with disease damage, wanst the exact same mobs but was the same con, level and arcane damage. Also, my DPS was pretty nice with 1 hander and shield ... I really have no complaints, well ... other then when we are in a situation where we are not tanking and cannot use our AEs .... which could be a raid situation ... your dps will be pretty low.

    Hopefully this thread will help someone else who forgot to raise thier wisdom as well .... the difference it makes is huge.
    Message Edited by Dak-Dod on 09-21-2005 04:01 PM