Blood Rage is a very useful skill. You have to know how to use it properly. I use it for every group of mobs fight. At level 40 Blood Rage takes about 600hp from me. My HP is normally around 3500-4000hp buffed. Now the way you do this is you put your buffs on then have your healer/healers put a reactive spell on your or heal over time. Pull the mobs and let fly with your AE skills. So at level 40 I start off usually with a Stomp or Stunning Cry depending on my health. Then I'll do a Whirlwind. If I didn't have to use Stunning Cry yet I will keep that for if I need to stun a healing mob in the group. But overall when I can get about 4-6 Crazed Swings out of one use of Blood Rage (each Crazed swing doing from 70-90dmg) I think its well worth it. Think about fighting 4-6 mobs in a group. Each one of those mobs getting 300-500dmg out of a skill that only uses your health to do is worth it to me. Fine that you don't want to use it. I think your making a mistake myself. But hey the game is there for you to play your way. To try though and tell me that a skill that has still to this day been extremely useful to me is worthless I call BS on that. So last time I'm going to say this on Blood Rage. ITS WORTH IT.
Im glad its friday and I get outta work a lil early..but I have to stop and pay my mortgage..... but... I get this weekend to play because my girlfriend is out of town.....so woot here comes 30 As for the AoE proc...maybe it is good in the 30s and 40s...but it sure aint woth the 50-60 damage it does in the high 20s. Skills scale ...as we all know and some grow exponentially and some fade into crap....its all curves and relative. Some people think its useful some dont who cares and why are we making this some dividing point /boggle Message Edited by OverlordMLF on 12-03-2004 09:44 AM
If 90% don't agree with this, then I would have to be in the 10% that does. I will hit level to use this tonight (assuming Holly leaves me the hell alone), and I plan on using this for any fight with over 2 mobs (already have the adept 1 scroll). Why you would Not want to do as much damage as possible boggles my mind... heck I still use assault at level 20. I wonder though, if these threads would even be around if blood rage started out like it is now, instead of doing more damage like it did originally.
Anyone can hit 40, it's called being a good player and/or having a good group. 1 skill doesn't change that. The arguement is the skill was over-adjusted, not that the berserkers world has come to an end and we cannot tank. Don't make turn this into something it's not please.
Since I'm often the second tank in my guild groups, I find Blood Rage a useful addition to my arsenal. If I was MT, then I'm sure that my healers could handle it - the guild is lucky in that we have many healers, often three to a group, so there's never any lack of healing....
"If 90% don't agree with this, then I would have to be in the 10% that does. I will hit level to use this tonight (assuming Holly leaves me the hell alone), " How can you have an opinion, you don't use it yet and didn't before it was adjusted... :smileyindifferent:
I still dislike that it was lowered so much , but most people would be if the power of their skill was lowered to 1/3 of its original (would have prefered it lowered to 50% or 45% of prior damage). The fact is that it was very overpowered to begin with and it still is a viable skill to use. It is well worth the 20% health to use during a fight. Actually, if your healer is worth a **mods 4 teh win!!1!** you will never notice the lost hp. Also, if that 20% hp is so extremely critical to have during the fight, then you are probably fighting things that are too high for your groups level IMHO. Not once have I had a healer or groupmember complain about me using it or about the lost hp from its use. I just make sure to let the enchanter know that its up and to not bother with mez or to not be surprised when I break it It procs about 3 times per fight on average for me using my 2hander and hits in the 60s or so I believe. I use it on every group pull, main tank or not. BR, Sunder to pull, Ferocious Onslaught, then spam attacks to get the most procs possible in the time it is up. For ^^ solo mobs I use Bloodlust (doh, I really need to /bug that they dont work together) Don't use it if you don't want to, but to call it worthless or useless is silly.
"How can you have an opinion, you don't use it yet and didn't before it was adjusted... " My opinion is based on the information I have read in the threads on the subject. Could some of what I have read be misinformation? I'm sure some of it is. But based on numbers people have posted about damage it does, proc rates, etc, my OPINION is that I will be using it when I fight groups of mobs.
Gotcha. Well to each their own. I only use this skill when not MT'ing and when fighting 4+ mobs with no arrows. If we get more than 1 on a ^^ pull, chanter mez's em anyway.
In my opinion, the skill was nerfed too hard - the hps that is expended is not worth the extra damage done. Sony did what they normally do if a skill is over powered they hit it so hard it becomes close to worthless - if we continue to complain it will eventually get adjusted to an acceptable lvl. We just need to let our feelings known. Everyone has an opinion and we all need to express it in an adult manner without attacks or name calling. -Jedi-
At level 22, I am almost always grouped with a coercer, a healer, and three DPS. I can't really use this or other AE damage that breaks mez. The additional mob(s) beating on me, plus the 20% HP cost, puts too much extra stress on my healer to be worthwhile. Maybe when I have more AE abilities, using them will be worthwhile. Right now, I can't justify it.
Let that 90% go about their merry way and be all that much weaker for it. It only puts more of the spotlight on those of us who have learned to maximize the damage potential of our chosen profession. With that said, why the hell not use Blood Rage? Takes one bub of life, sure, but if my healers are sitting with plenty of mojo its worth me to use it and sit back to do a lot of extra damage and save my power for all of the buffs I keep up to improve the overall group. And in case you havent figured it out, killing faster = less power used by healers to heal.
As a disclaimer, I don't have a whole lot of experience with this, but from a Druid's perspective I'd like to share my humble opinion. As a 17 druid, I was invited by a 20 berserker last night to duo with him if I could keep him alive. Once I realized that he had to take damage to do more damage, not stay in low health (used to other RPGs, don't ask :smileytongue: ), it was fairly easy to keep him alive with ONE Regrowth (@ Adept 1 it does 77 / tick) for almost every situation, with an occasional small cure needed. Well he hit 21. And I freaked! Because I keep my combat filters on (no spam), so I only see the numbers on-screen above heads. I didn't realize he hit 21 or anything about Blood Rage, but I suddenly saw lots and lots of 35-45's flying up off the heads of the other monsters in the encounter, in addition to his normal 30-45 swing. Note, this was against group mobs which were blue ^ ^ to no arrow green to the 'zerker, but they were white-orange to me. Before I got a chance to ask him what he just did, he starts ranting and raving about how great his new skill is. Then he informs me that it costs him 140 health. My reaction? Really? I didn't even notice :smileysurprised: Now I know later on you probably fight more group orange ^ ^'s and it's a much tougher fight, but I was still impressed. A healer four levels lower with just a Regrowth and a few minor cures was able to keep a 'zerker alive against 4-5 blue group mobs without breaking a sweat. I rarely ended a fight at less than 50% power. So, in conclusion, if this game is scaled properly, as it sounds like the original poster has demonstrated, who is at 40 out of 50 experience levels, then the skill still works fine and is definitely worth it. I plan on grouping with this 'zerk a lot more in the future, so if things change I'll be sure to update. I just thought it would be good to get some feedback from the Priest's eyes. Good luck all you Zerks out there in staking your claim! Message Edited by Dagamoth on 12-03-2004 08:52 PM
I am glad there is a healer out there that understands this. Since I have gotten Blood rage I have gotten nothing but grief from healers and other members of parties. Usual comments are "You are a tank, you take damage not give it...are you a noob or something?", "Why dont you play a Scout if you want to be a DPS" or "Its too much work giving you the extra heals to keep you alive in a fight" even better if I am not main tanking...the "Why do you continue to steal aggro from the MT, I cant heal both of you." I am really hoping for a quick education of the healers about what great skill Blood rage can be instead of being screamed at for using it.
I've had another thread running on this subject, as have other people, but I guess theres always got to be another Despite positive comments on the skill from Theyne and a couple of others, I've just given up on the ability being anything more than a farming tool. I didn't have it before the nerf, so I am merely basing my opinion on use of it now. If you are fighting a difficult group, the instant loss of 20% hp is too big a penalty (if its -that- easy to recover from, go fight some harder creatures!) for the small benefit it might provide. It does come in handy when farming greys/greens to finish up old quests though.
