So SOE advertises that Zerkers are the heavy damage dealers - but now SOE says - no they should fall behind other classes that are not even noted to be heavy damage dealers in the desc.??..?? I feel that this was a bait and switch myself and have shelved mybeloved Zerk.
I can easily play Devil's Advocate from both sides of the fence here. I'm not taking any sides cause really, it doesn't concern me since I don't work for SoE and I don't play a zerker. That taken I do have some facts I know about the class. For 19 levels a berserker is a warrior. Given the same race, level, equipment, and trait picks, a berserker and a guardian are exactly the same. Same AC, same hitpoints, same everything. The differences come after level 20 in the form of powers. Both get offensive attacks, that is a given, the differences are from the buff's given to each class. Guardians get buffs which add to AC (and thus makes them take less damage), their block/parry rates, and buffs to hitpoints so they can survive longer. The guardian buffs are suppose to drop their attack rate for this increased defense as well. This works very well for guardians up until around levle 40 when there are items in game that allow guardians to make up for that "lower" offensive output. Berserkers get buffs which make them deal more damage. These buffs have the adverse effect of lowering AC, block, and parry rates. Generally speaking, the guardian "taunts" after level 20 are suppose to be more effective for taunt only powers to make up for their lack of damage output for holding agro. Berserker "taunts" are suppose to be less effective as they would use damage to hold agro. I believe the way SoE views the classes is that every 5 to 10 levels they would diverge more but it would be a "slow" divergence. Meaning a Guardian at level 30 is not much more "defensive" then a Berserker at level 30 and vice versa. At level 40, the differences would be greater. Same thing for level 50. This holds true for many archetypes. They don't get fundementally different until during the 40's and not the 20's. This really didn't hold true for berserkers and guardians during the 20's. This is because the berserker buffs were a bit "too" potent and the ability to stack buffs where I, and many others believe, SoE never intended. SoE intended for berserkers and guardians to remain relatively close. Maybe at level 50 a berserker might do 10% more damage and have 10% less damage mitigation. The problem was SoE screwed the pooch. They royally screwed it. The damage output of a Berserker after level 40 was INSANE. Parse log after parse log proved it. A well equipped and well played berserker could out damage ANY class in the game, except assassins if they got everything just perfect, on a consistent basis. This was wrong and yes it needed to be fixed. The other thing SoE did wrong was name the class BERSERKER. I think they messed up royally there. Perhaps they should have switched berserker with bruiser for names. Bruiser sounds like a mean version of a guardian that does a bit more damage but is still a big hulking guy. I picture a Bruiser as that big mountain of meat that greets you at the entrance to a popular night club. It's all about image and SoE messed this up. By calling the class Berserker and using the descriptions they gave, they led people on. THIS along with the fact that the powers which stacked for insane damage made people think, "Hey, my original idea of what this class would be like is exactly right." People hear see the name Berserker and think crazy damage, both given and taken. People got in the game and found out... Hey, the berserker is a class that has crazy damage, both given and taken. Perfect! Now, SoE screws it all up AGAIN and tries to revamp and fix their previous mistakes. Why they are doing this now and not back in beta.... UGH. They are changing the berserker class to what they originally intended, slightly dishing out more damage then a guardian at the cost of taking slightly more. Which is all good, but this came without warning, testing or anything. Rightly so, the customer base is upset. SoE, think about it this way. You've had YEARS to balance the classes. You've had internal testing, open betas, and hopefully, if you are following any programming model like CMM (Capability Maturity Model) or something, you have a testing section and a QA section. You have procedures in place to catch screw ups like this before this happens. Doing a major high wire balancing act by going from one extreme to the next is NOT THE CORRECT WAY TO BALANCE. You had YEARS to balance it before now and you failed to get it right, do you think we beleive you can "FIX" it in a single patch? Do you think customers have faith that you can even do your job correctly and fix it at all? This same business model and practice astounds me. I run a CMM 4 shop. I've done game development, and ran made my own MUDS back in the day. I KNOW better then to do this. Many of your customers KNOW better. They aren't taking things "personally" as Moorgard put it. I left EQ1 because of broad sweeping changes to classes that made no sense. Only to find out years later those changes get reverse because SoE had no clue how their own game works when played by real people. Seriously, do yourself a favor SoE. Get someone with some real business, gaming, and programming sense to run SoE. Or at least be somewhere high in the management to make a difference that matters. You have a great game on your hands but if you keep screwing things up, you are going to lose MILLIONS MORE SUBSCRIBERS like you did with EQ1.
I'm okay with the damage a Berzerker does. They SHOULD be less than bruisers and monks. However, with that damage reduced, they offer less to a group. They need to have that void filled to bring them back in line. For example, if you want a tank, you will pick a guardian over a berzerker. There's no plus or minus here, guardians tank better. If you want a melee that can deal some damage, you will pick bruisers or monks, they do more damage. There's no reason for someone to say ... you know what... we need a berzerker. They now say ... I guess we can take the berzerker and make the best of it.
Thank-you for posting, Moorgard. And thank-you for apologzing for not speaking to us all sooner. =) I appreciate that, and am sure most people do. One of my two mains is a zerk, and hey, we still do the most dmg of any heavy armor class guys. There are other classes with stranger or worse problems than us. Lets just kick back and ride this one out, and see where it goes.
Berserkers should do a bit more damage than a guardian, since they do not tank quite as well as the guardian. This required that several berserker abilities be adjusted. While no class likes to have their damage output reduced, change was needed for the health of the game. I regret that we didn't provide more warning that these changes were coming, especially when they affected so many players. These quote comes from Moorgard on the forums. This is truly unfortunate since I really enjoyed my Berzerker (I really felt the class fit me and my personality) and he will never be anywhere near the same again. Like I have said in previous posts I could have cared less about the nerf to aggro it was about the damage. Moorgard says I should do a bit more damage than a guardian?....um I should do much more than a bit more damage. The Devs also really need to looking into changing their description of the Berzerker as there current one is in no way an accurate portrayal of what this class has become. The only person I strike fear in now is the groups willing take my liability on. I dont do enough damage to warrent a spot as a dps and I cant tank anywhere near as well as a guardian. I am really not sure where I fit in now or if I have the desire to start a new toon. Starting a new toon puts me so far behind the people I like to group with plus I have no idea what I am wanting to play. I just find it very sad that I have let Sony stick it to me so many times but I still continue to return and say "Thank you Sir may I have another"
Nerfing sucks. But you zerks have to realize something. It's obvious to me what the goal here is in this game. I've been playing since beta and just recently cancelled my account because i finally realized what their idea of "balance" is for this game. Balance in EQ2 is about removing any kind of unique ability or class trait that could be considered as advantageous or unique or even useful. The idea here is to water everything down to the point that all the classes are basically the same just have different names for their abilities and a different spell effect. Everything that made classes unique and interesting in EQ1 is GONE in eq2 in order to acheive this ultra water down vanilla class system. It should be pretty much obvious to you if you even think about it that this is their goal. There are only 4 classes in the game, that should tell you something right there. Anytime you see a class with a skill in this game that gives them an edge, i'd expect it to be nerfed.
I wanted to say thank you for the Official response first off. Here are some of my questions. 1. How do you determine the DPS of a class? 2.Does SONY have employees that parse damage? 3.Do you use the best avalible equipment based on lvl? 4. Are you basing DPS on skills that currently work? or all skills avalible? I've been parsing fights for weeks and I havent seen any problems with DPS compared to other classes. Everyone has fights where there DPS hits spikes, all comes down to how much power you want to burn. I'm a lvl 27 zerker. And I think that the majority of the posters here are lvl 20 -35. I've seen posts about zerker DPS being super high in the end game, but from what i can tell that has nothing to do with us in the 20's -30's Yes, I hate having something and then having it taken away. But if you could just give us a few Ideas on how you came to the conclusion rather then just personal observation I think it would lay to rest the majority of the berserker community. Thanks , Curious lvl 27 Berserker
I knew our DPS would get nerfed, i knew we were a tank not a dPS class-i ignored the description, i learnt to do this after playing paladin in EQ1 for a few years. However, they have gone to far, the 'slightly better than guardians' for damage is only just true if lucky, in non MT position we are so pointless its not even funny. The big problem is Guardians are not 'slightly better at tanking' the difference is VERY noticable while their damage is effected almost unoticably with a lot of their defensive buffs. For the berserker to actually outdamage a guardian now we have to use all our skills available and considerably decrease our already inferior tanking ability. You said as a ranger things were hardly great but you enjoyed the class-well the berserker is not fun to play anymore, not because our DPS is no longer ridiculously high but because the imbalance between the zerker and guardian results in the berserker being a redundant class. People here have said they still prefer a berserker to tank, well i cant thing of any situation where you would want this unless you are grouped with an ncompetant guardian. Do i want berserkers put back how they were? No, well yes but it wasnt exactly balanced....mainly because of the aggro though-you cant go complaining too much about DPS being greater than others till SOE get off their [expletive ninja'd by Faarbot] and fix everyones skills, cant get a true picture till then, and thats the big mistake, nerfing skills to death before fixing all the bugs with other skills Do i want Guardians nerfed? No, i think they are fine, they do the job they are supposed to, there is nothing wrong with that, there is no reason for them to be nerfed, especially not nerfing them in response to berserkers being nerfed in order to 'bring back balance' that wont work because then the pally/sk would be better, so they get nerfed, then the monk...and it just becomes one big nerfing session which results in tank classes being no fun and very unbalanced against all the other classes-like in EQ1 The berserker needs to be looked at more, but until they fix everyones broken skills real nerfing cant be done because they have not got enough info to know how it will effect the game balance once everyone skills are working as intended, they nerfed bloodlust and changed its description, what they should have done is change bloodlust into the description it originally gave and NOTHING else.
Dashel, I am not going to respond to your post, because I am tired of stupid forum arguments on the Internet. You didn't have a word in your response even remotely related to the subject, it was all a personal attack against me. No matter how much you will try to hold this against me, you probably know that most internet arguements end when moderators shut them down. I dont want this to happen to this thread, because there is good information in here that needs to be displayed. ... and please dont respond to this post, as I will not respond to any of your post... ever! This ends now (if not, it ends after your next post, because I am done, and it takes two to continue). Remeber: http://www.accesswave.ca/~shawnbrockley/ret***ard.jpg (remove the three ***'s in the link) Message Edited by Thooor on 01-11-2005 07:43 AM
My ramblings... As a level 31 berserker, I ask...Where are all these uber offensive buffs? Our offensive buffs are so minimal as to be useless. Battle Chant (Adept 1) adds what, 8 str? I guess you all mean Bloodlust as it adds offense to the group, but that was not our primary use for it. I sure see a whole lot more defensive buffs for us than offensive, though they are self only...Fury, Weapon Shield, etc. For a large part, I can solo better than a lot of other classes, just have to know my limits. I've tried using all the skills that have a chance to make us go berserk, and the only reliable one is Enrage. This can only be used when tanking. So, we do more dps when tanking. When not tanking we can't go berserk and up our dps. Brawlers are the top tanks now. Thats just not right. Top dps and top defense. My guardian friend and I were grouped with a brawler last night, who was tanking. We left as we both felt completely useless. Here's how things used to work when we grouped together. He tanked and I was crowd control. If the mobs turned on our healer, I could get agro back on me instead relatively easily. If we had a big group, he could take the "leader/boss" and I could get all the rest. If the fight was tight, I could berserk and up the dps to finish the fight faster, at the sacrifice of him not tanking anymore. If the healer was OOP we could switch tanking as needed. In fact, now SK's have the snap agro that we used to. It was a good system, I was the perfect back up tank to him. Now I either tank from the start or not at all. I can keep agro with enrage, mad cry, etc, so I'm a guardian now. I understand the need for class balance, but there is also a need to understand the game and group mechanics. We are moving down the path of the "Perfect Group" again. Anything else will not work, if this keeps up. ONE tank (in order of preference: Brawler/Monk, Guardian, SK, Berserker, Paladin), shaman, druid/cleric, scout (for evac), necro (best int class dps), bard (buffs and regens). The more patches and "fixes" the more out of whack things are getting. Can we get a vision of the future of all the classes?
I'm sorry but you mean the classes STILL aren't balanced? OMG what was beta for? This game is turning into another SWG disaster. You say since it is all PvE it makes it easier to adjust well adjust it already and leave things alone. When may we expect all the balancing to be finished so I can subscribe again to try EQ2 out? Will you be done balancing 18 months after release or just like SWG still balancing? Make a plan and stick to it already.
Ohh i totally agree with this - coming from SWG this is definetly dejavue. I feel like a creature handler or a commando now... =(
I have to say i am more than a little consfused then. If Guardians are supposed to have the better tanking abilities .. and Zerkers are supposed to lag behind the hand to hands classesin damage dealing.. exactly what is it were supposed to excell at? Whats the point of playing a Zerker (other than the RP element)? More to that, why do we have (in my opinion) better agro holding abilities than the guardians ? If their job is to be MT, be able to take the hits, then they should be the best at getting agro. IMO we should be having less AC and be able to basically "go berzerk" and inflict alot of damage. This isnt the case as I see it. So basically my question is if monks etc etc are the DPS of melee and Guardians are the tanks.. what are we ? What do we excel at ?
I am very disappointed now, it's been days that I am reading posts on the forum. SOE reduced the damage of the berserker like we were a god like class. We were not. We are not a #1 tank and not a #1 DPS either. So we are what? A tank with a little more DPS? Gardian are dancing now while our class is getting weaker. :smileymad:
The developers in EQ1 never had a clear vision of what berserker's were and as a result they are a gimped undesirable class (sorry if I offended any EQ1 zerkers here) how could you expect more here, after all it's SoE right? The real answer would be to just make one class in this game 'the all in one' that can barely heal, barely tank, barely damage - that seems to be the goal by the dev's. They have already taken all challenge out of the game, with tethered mobs; watered down classes; every encounter boringly predicatable... The game is starting to NOT be fun; that's really too bad it had alot of potential...
