Hello, first time poster here, and i just couldnt stay away after the recent humiliation of our Berserker class. They say we are supposed to tank less than guardians because we do a tad bit more damage, well both being warriors shouldnt we tank and mitigate exactly the same as a guardian where differences being we bring offensive buffs to a grp and they bring defensive buffs. I mean where does there ability to absorb come in to the balancing act? ally or whatever it is? we dont get anything like it, except for intervene. If it were truly balanced between the two warrior types, we would tank identically and the differences between the two would be the style of buffs brought to the table, and one being able to absorb incoming damage, where the other dishes it out. So what is being said is guards get better ac, better hp, better mitigation, the ability to absorb incoming damage to fellow grp members, and in return, we get SLIGHTLY more dps, lower ac, lower hp, and lower mitigation. I dont know what balanced means to some , but to me, we have just got the shaft, and a big hairy one it is....... Rhamuses 24 Berserker/post patch wanna be a** kicker Message Edited by Roid on 01-10-2005 09:59 PM
You know what, I couldn't thank you more for doing this favor for me. With this I was finally able to press the cancel subscription button and go buy World of Warcraft. I have absolutely no respect for your company anymore and will not waste another dime on it. This game was NOT ready for release you greedy pricks. You haven't even started to tune the game and just throw nerfs around like crazy and already have plans for an expansion? You are making the same mistakes again whenever you took over Everquest and screwed it up. I wish you would sell the game back to people who actually care about it instead of using it as a money tree. I held on for so long because I wanted to believe that you guys would grow up and learn from your mistakes but obviously you don't. Only a fool would try the same thing over and over again and expect different results. I'm just happy you showed your utter stupidity now instead of later so it would make it alot easier to say good0bye to the few people in there I have actually enjoyed playing with. You are welcome for the $140+ I sent you, don't expect anymore till you can show me you people will grow up.
Don't get lost in translation here. As a guardian, I would be glad to have a companion class that could tank like us. There are times I die, and would love a competent replacement. Also many times I don't want to tank, just kill and get exp. This doesn't happen often, however. Berzerkers don't tank less than guardians. Your skills take away your life occasionally, and you have offensive style buffs. This doesn't mena you tank less, it just means you tank different. Most of a guardian's abilities don't add to their defensive, it adds to other party members. Most of the time zerkers don't need to protect someone else because they wont lose agro. AC, mitigation and hitpoints are so very close with guardian are berzerker, it's almost the same.
Not to sound rude or anything I'm sure the devs are doing there best. But you guys are saying how Bezerkers are suppose to do this high dmg and all and I in a way agree with you but while you are complaining how berzerkers are suppose to do huge damage I haven't heard one complaint about them being able to wear heavy armor when I think of a berzerker I think of someone in leather or maybe chain at the most that sacrifices his body to unleash powerful attacks. So you should be thankful for the areas you do get its just a game please try to enjoy it.
Now, I don't complain much, and as a matter of fact, this is maybe my 1st series of posts to these forums in response to these recent changes. But, I considered the changes made to the beserker class worthy of a post. Now, for all those guardians out there who think their class isn't overpowered, you are keeping your mouths shut about the perks of your class, to prevent the devs from nerfing you, as you are overpowered as well. There is definitely a class balance issue here, and I am unsure of what the answer is. I do know that beserk should not stack as it did before. When beserk stacked, it caused alot of damage and a helluva increase in attack speed. To say the class was unbalanced is not correct, as there were other mitigating factors to consider: When a beserker goes beserk they get the crap beat out of them by mobs because their defense goes down when they are beserk. This requires a ton of power in healing from the healers, much more than a guardian would need, or another type of tank. The thing that made this class viable as a main tank on multiple mobs was it's ability to go beserk and do enough damage to the mobs before the healers ran out of power. Was being able to go beserk and stack the beserk procs twice a bit much? Why yes it was. Would allowing us to go beserk and stay/maintain the beserk proc once during a fight be too much? I am not sure, but we can't tell because now we hardly go beserk 3 or 4 times during a multiple mob group fight. So, there really is no way of testing it. Right now, the beserker class is a guardian without the defensive capabilities, taunting power, or DPS. I wonder where that puts them. Guardians should be happy they have not been nerfed. As their defensive abilities and damage abilities are insane considering they are supposed to be a defensive class. They can put out a ton of dps even while using a shield and a 1 hander. Should the guardians be nerfed? No, but the balance of classes is now destroyed when comparing a beserker and a guardian as main tanks. Did I expect to get beserk nerfed? No, as that is what my class was designed to do. Did I expect them to let the beserk procs keep stacking so you can have 2 at a time? No, I expected them to fix it so that only one beserk would be up at any given time. Do I expect some guardian to post a reply saying that I should have known that my class would be nerfed? Why yes I do. Basically, because guardians are out of balance in the scheme of things anyway. Did I ever complain about this before? No, because I was planning on playing a guardian because, frankly, they get the best of both worlds: excellent defense and excellent dps. Why do I keep playing my beserker? Because I finally reached a level where I learned how to balance out the use of the beserking skills and the defensive abilities of the class to be a viable main tank. Was I a better tank than a guardian before the patch? No, I think I was just a bit worse than a guardian before the patch when I was the main tank. Am I as viable a main tank as the guardian after the patch and hotfix? Not even close. The inability deal out more damage to mitigate the damage taken definitely nullifies this classes' ability to be a good tank against anything. So, should they tweak the beserk proc rate again? Yes, I think they should definitely take another hard look at it. If they don't make necessary changes to bring the class back in balance, we all should have been guardians and received the best of both worlds. Do I think that Sony is fighting a political battle with the other classes that claimed they should be doing the most damage? Yes. What I ask it that all these people playing the other classes, were they playing their classes properly? Or using the best upgrades? As it stands now, you have destroyed the fundamental ability of this class to mitigate damage, and that was going beserk to deal out more damage than is being taken. AC is nothing for the beserker class, it does not help them in any form at all. I have tested after the patch using the same weapons, a shield a 1 hander.. it doesn't matter, nothing we do to increase defense will mitigate damage taken, regardless of whether we are dual wielding, using shields or using 2 handers. We take the same damage and more damage the more AC items we add. As I have stated, this classes main ability to mitigate damage taken was to deal it out. When you removed this ability from our equation, it had a pervasive impact on this class. It was designed by YOU to do damage, and all of it's abilities were designed to compliment this beserk state. You must now completely re-evaluate and change this class.. Taking beserk away from the beserkers, is like taking the guardians AC/defense buffs. That is how the guardian mitigates damage: by using superior AC and Defensive buffs. The beserker mitigates damage by doing damage. This is so fundamental, I find it hard to believe you designed and then changed it without realizing how pervasive this change would be on this class. You made a change to this class, one that completely destroyed it's balance, to appease other players. You designed it correctly, and balanced it correctly when you implemented it. And then you tell us that we were sacrificed for the greater good? What greater good? Everyone else's egos? And then you say you balanced the classes with this decision? Damage mitigation is fundamental to every class. Each class had it's own form of mitigating damage: guardians had superior AC, defense, and incredible defense buffs to mitigate damage; bruisers and monks have AC, avoidance and avoidance buffs to mitigate damage as well as dealing out consistenet damage; beserkers had mediocre AC(that wasn't even a factor when beserking, as they got hit like they were not even wearing armor anyway), a handful of mediocre defense & ac buffs ( that decreased damage dealt out. And were not effective as the mob still hit you as much anyway), and besrking to deal out a ton of damage. See how logical that is? Now, remove avoidance from the bruiser and the monk.. what is left? An unbalanced class. Now, remove Ac and defense buffs from the guardian. What is left? An unblanced class. Now, remove beserking( hi damage output) from the beserker. What is left? An unbalanced class. This is fundamental to all classes. I am waiting for a change to be made that will compensate beserkers for the incredible amount of time spent playing a class that you dismissed with the wave of a hand. I am sincere when I tell you that your game is not so great that I would consider staying no longer than it takes for my current subsccription to run out. Your game is not the only thing on the market now. There are many other games worth spending our time and money on. Well, I had to edit this post to include something insightful: By nerfing this class into non-existence, you have destroyed the replayability of your game. Instead of people saying, "Wow, I think I'll play a beserker after I level this current class of mine to 50.", there will be no such thought. Congratualtions, you have detracted from the longevity and replayability of your game. :smileysurprised: Message Edited by Tanta on 01-10-2005 10:25 PM Message Edited by Tanta on 01-10-2005 10:26 PM Message Edited by Tanta on 01-10-2005 10:28 PM Message Edited by Tanta on 01-10-2005 11:10 PM
Holy cow! I can't stand by idle and not speak up anymore. What you, the devs, have done to the berserker class was destroy it. What is the role of a berserker in this game? Slightly more dps than a guardian? What is slightly by your definition? 10% more? I parse my damage with a fellow 50 guardian every here and there and the difference between our damage is minimal at best. I know full well how to properly play my class as a berserker before anyone speaks up and flames me. The current berserker is nothing more than a confused tank. The hugely overnerf of the skill 'rampage' makes it not even worth using. What is 1000-1600 damage to 5 targets with a 60 minute recast as a level 50 skill? That is complete garbage. It almost seems as if no balance was in the decision making of nerfing this skill when it was done. It's just a slap on the wrist for all the berserkers who used it when it used to be godlike. Now we must live with a skill not even worth using to make up for it? The way I see it is SOE enjoys pumping out flavor of the month classes - berserkers being the choice to be from launch until now. Now in order to keep their customers doing something productive they want us all to reroll as a new class and level back up to 50 all over again. Two recent patches have redefined tanking in EQ2. One that dates back about a month and a half which made it so a level range of 6-8(30-45 points of slashing, crushing, piercing/defense) levels made it so the player isn't able to land many of their hits on a red-conned mob or VICE VERSA and the other was the big patch last week that gave brawlers innate shields. Your so called highest dps fighter/tank monk and bruisers are the absolute best tanks in the game besides going against raid mobs simply because their own passive avoidance(defense) is so much higher than any other class. An ungrouped level 40-50 monk/bruiser is able to tank and defeat a blue-conned double up mob if they chose any race with an innate defense skill modifier. If you pair a monk or bruiser with a guardian and any other class that is able to raise the 'defense' stat of the monk then fighting white-conned mobs without even taking any damage is very much possible. Which brings me back to flavor of the months. All the brawlers rising up in levels will slowly adjust to their amazing tanking abilities without taking any damage. Suddenly, one day the devs will realize that they made a mistake once again with their beefing up of one class and proceed to nerf them. What's left? A lot of ranting in the brawler sub-class forums. Quinnyfer, an almost ready to cancel subscription berserker. Guk
Well, did you ever stop and wonder how protective that armor they wear is? It provides so little damage mitigation, that it is nothing more than show. Play a beserker and you will see how little help armor is for a beserker. Like I have said in other posts, it is nothing but window dressing. They may as well have let us wear only light or medium armor. I would definitely make that sacrifice to have our primary form of damage mitigation back. The simple fact is, that AC/armor has minimal effect on our damage mitigation. Beserking and dealing out damage in a short period of time is the way a beserker mitigates damage.
Sorry to you guys for feeling a hard nerf like that. =( But if you think about it, it does make sense for your damage to fall in between defensive tanks like the guardian, and light, offensive fighers like brawlers. I think SOE has the right intention. My friend recently turned berserker, and so he never really knew what things were like pre-nerf. But we group every night, and he still does very well as our tank (little more maintenance for me to heal than a paladin would be though), and likes his class. So at least in the low 20's things seem ok. To be honest, I get the impression that mage classes are the ones that need the most attention at the moment. =/
I really can't imagine why someone would play a berserker thinking they were a dps class. Its always been said the game's classes was built like an inverted pyrimid. You start out very similar to everyone and slowly branch out while keeping your basic skills. For example, you begin as a fighter: "Fighters enjoy the think of the fray, often absorbing the brunt of attacks while taking the battle directly to the enemy..." ie. Front line melee class, usually tanking. At level 10 you become a warrior: "Warriors utilize heavy armor and weapons to safeguard their companions and inflict damage upon opponents. the stand bravely at the forefront of battle, striking fear into the hearts of their enemies." Again, we're talking about a tanking roll using heavy armor. Why heavy armor when warrior still use chain, i don't know... maybe becuase its heavier than anyone else at this point. You've spent 20 levels as a tank, 40% of your career, there's really no reason to expect that overnight you suddenly are no longer a tank and become a dps class. Probably the biggest problem with the berserker class is the name itself since I don't know anyone who hears "Berserker" and thinks, "oh, that's a heavy tank". They probably should have called the class "Avengers", "Aggressors", "Armsman", "Warlord", "Weaponmaster", or any other name that might still sound like a tank with an offensive edge to them. The name "Berserker" sounds way too much all out damage with zero ability to withstand it which is very much NOT the class SOE created zerkers to be given the context of them being a member of the fighter tree, not to mention the warrior branch. The name might give cause to think they're dps but thats where it ends. Now that being said, if indeed zerkers are getting mauled in combat as badly as they say (I haven't played one and don't group with any often, but likewise have no reason to doubt them) then there probably are other problems that need to be fixed in conjunction with the nerf. Taking things away and not fixing other issues IS nerfing, even if its for balanace. You can't claim you're "balancing" the class if you only fix the broken things that give too much power without fixing the broken things that weaken.
Well this is an interesting read, in a sad way. My good friend is a berserker, but she has been on extended vacation for over a month now and doesn't realize her class has been nerfed. To my knowledge and understanding of a berserker in general, from books, from pencil and paper role playing, etc, berserkers generally were a "barbarian" type people (but not always) who wore animal skins as armor, and KICKED A-- with weapons, often while doing a little bit of physical harm to themselves from being in a berserk state, draining their own power, AFTER coming out of berserk. I've always just expected a berserker to be a powerhouse in the damage department. Generally they killed their foe fast enough before they could do fatal damage to the berserker. Thats how they "tank" things so to speak. As far as eq2 is concerned however, and take this with a grain of salt, a tanks job is to .. well... tank and keep aggro. As a paladin, my dps is probably the lowest of all the tanks out there. I mean really, its pathetic. BUT I do a decent job of holding aggro and taking a beating while doing so. I dont play a berserker so my question is, beyond having a damage decrease, do you guys have a problem holding aggro and taking hits? I'm not trying to be the devil's advocate, but I know it must seem that way and I apologize. I realize before, part of keeping aggro WAS dps. I guess I should look up the skill list for you guys. You continue to get taunts and such right? Or is it almost purely damage? Seems to me that if they decreased your damage output, and since that was your way of keeping and holding aggro, they should at least give some more defensive and taunting type skills to make up for the loss of dps. Its unfortunate and I dunno how my friend is going to react to her class not rocking as much [expletive ninja'd by Faarbot] anymore. =(
This is just horrible. I'm sorry, but the changes they have made to this game since Release have made it so hard for me to want to even login. I had a great time playing the game in Beta because it was all new and I was able to help find out problems with the class. Well the game goes live and there were somethings that were fixed and changed since the end of beta. I was having a fun time playing the game and heck the Blood Rage fix didn't even really bother me. Yeah I admit that was a bit overpowered, but when yall changed it you did seriously make it not really worth using. All I can say though is now you have really gone to far. No other class has been hit as hard as the Berserkers as of late. Seriously guys you are making it no fun to play this game for people who chose Berserkers. I mean come on can we have some Devs/Designers at least SPEAK with the class beforehand and ask us what we think? Maybe see if we can come up with changes to help you? Instead of just saying "Bah do we care what the players really think? Lets just do this and not even consult with them." This is what pissed off most people in Everquest. You are just doing the same thing here and making this game into EQ1 with a new name. I'm sorry though instead of making the game more fun to play you have made it less desirable from patch to patch.
Thanks for the post Moorgard. The fact remains that a lot of people are now not enjoying the class they have put time and effort into. Your actions have ruined the enjoyment of a large number of people, people lets remember, who pay money to play this game. I am very disappointed with what has happened, i sincerely hope you and the other dev's re-consider what you are doing. The game is turning into more and more of a grindfest, the tradeskill nerf, us zerkers and then whatever plans you have for the other classes. I hope that you can understand that beserkers now have no role in the game, either solo or in groups. My level 20 Templar alt now solo's better and is much more welcome in groups. Please for the sake of the people who love their characters reconsider what you have done.
come now, fix. THEN nerf. Berzerkers were working fine within the description that they have been given. Why not make necro spells work instead of nerfing zerks?
Thank you Moorgard for an answer I do appreciate that. Only Bruisers and monks outdamage us?? around the 30's scout classes outdamage me with 50 % guess we have to deal with it to lev 40 or reroll ... sad to see if ya can't fix one class (guardians) nerf the other (berzerker). currently guardians outdamaging us is surely not balanced. Sad to hear this but I will stick with zerker to far with it and my artisan class.. lets hope they do not nerf the 40's to hard. still have hope.. lets hope I do not lose my hope anymore. I do also hope they will fix bloodlust proc rate to a few times during group battle where I am not mt. all I ask. Message Edited by Scrying on 01-11-2005 10:01 AM
Unforunately, it is a little more fundamental than that. We are not able to mitigate damage like guardians through defense and AC. Our few defensive and AC buffs are nothing akin to the guardians. The problem lies in our classes primary ability to mitigate the damage taken: And that was by delivering damage to our foes in battle, and delivering it rapidly before we were killed. Wearing vanguard/plate armor throughout my career as a beserker, I can say that while beserk, and now after our berserking ability has been taken away, we take more damage now than before against solo mobs of any level, and group mobs because we cannot mitigate the damage dealt to us by doing enough, fast enough. That was how this class was designed, to kill it's opponents before it killed them or sucked all the power out of the healers keeping it alive. It becomes painfully obvious how serious the impact is when you gauge an even level beserker and an even level guardian and parse the damage dealt, the damage taken and the power used by the healers. Suffice it to say, the beserker class is considerably out of balance now. Refer to my post above, it is quite lengthy and discusses the logic behind damage mitigation, and why this is so fundamental to each classes success and balance in the overall scheme. I extend my sympathy to your friend.
Thanks Moorgard... I don't like your answer, but I'm glad you took the time to inform us. At least now I know I shouldn't expect dps increase for berserkers, so I'll reroll and avoid the frustration of not knowing where I'm going. P.S. I don't like the answer because I'd prefer berserkers to deal the dps the did, and see our tankage nerfed, but that's just me, so I guess I'll go play a rogue. It's a shame really, because there is no way in EQ to get a high damaging, heavy armor warrior (albeit poor parry/defense to limit their tanking ability... say like a warrior who whould wear heavy armor but doesn't bother to defend himself in his rage, like a berserker *hint*). I mean come on, heavy armor for the look, high damage for the gameplay... why is it always impossible ???
