State of the Beserker class thread (last updated 17th November '08, TSO launch)

The list will be updated and reordered after importance as soon as problems become obvious after all changes with the TSO.
Current issues with the launch of TSO
AA trees

• Perseverance
• The constant refreshing of the buff every 15 seconds is a bit irritating. Ideally the buff should only appear at the time when the heal may not trigger.

• Debilitation line
• Except for Enhance War Pledge there is hardly any benefit from the whole line and you have to spent 20 points there to get Gut Roar. Improving negligible debuffs doesn't make them less negligible. The enhancements should improve the damage of the spells or enhance them otherwise, because as it is now they don't enhance the spells at all.

• Bulking: Beserk
• The effect should be at least as powerful as a M1 Beserk proc, if not better.

Blood Regeneration

• The spell has the same problem like HP regen, while it might be good solo its usefullness decreases with the damage output of the mob and so it has no use at all on raids. The heal amount should scale either with the mob you are fighting (solo, heroic, epic) or should be based on the received damage.

Open Wounds, Stunning Bellow, Bloodshower and Intrusion

• The one AE effect on the Mythical renders all these spells useless
• With Haste easily cappable and the Mythical AE effect there is no more reason to use Open Wounds at all. A shame that such a once great spell now rots in the spell book. Open Wounds should receive an effect of any sort to make it worth casting again.
  
• With the Epic base delay of 3 seconds and actual delay of 1.3-1.4 seconds, due to easily capped Haste, casting Stunning Bellow, Bloodshower and Intrusion with a 1.5-2 second casting time will very likely cost more DPS than the spells are doing, if the casting is not timed exactly at tenth of seconds. The base cast time should be reduced to not more than 1 second to make casting the spells worthwile again.

Vision of Madness

• I don't know one spell left in the game with a base recast of 30 minutes. All other spells with such a long recast received a reduction long ago. The recast should be reduced to not more than 15 minutes.
• Also the best times of the spell are long over. Mobs are hitting so hard nowadays that even at solo play the next hit after VoM triggers is very likely going to kill you. The heal amount of the initial tick should be increased and/or if you die again during the 5 seconds VoM lasts you should receive a seconds reanimation.

Unyielding Will (Bloodline spell)

• With the EoF tree you can enhance this spell so that Death's Door won't kill you if you are Beserk when it expires. So using the clicky Beserk at the right time would save you. Only problem is that as soon you are in a group or raid the Death's Door effect is lost in the nowhere of the effect window. Death's Door should be moved to the hostile or maintained effect window so you can easily see when exactly the buff expires.

Beserk and dimishing return curves

• Beserk is supposed to be class defining, but with just 1 haste or DPS buffer you are so far in dimishing returns that it means almost nothing to be Beserk (except that you can use one of the buffs that require Beserk) and with every new expansion this becomes even worse.
• Effects should be added to Beserk that makes going Beserk meaning something again, eg + CA dmg, + Taunt, + hate gain, + crit, + double attack, + melee skills, + strikethrough or a percentage based hit bonus, chance of immunity to fear, stuns, stiffle while Beserk.

Ram line

• Since the big stun nerf many GUs ago the spell is no longer a stun but a 6 sec stiffle. The stun was great solo and in groups, but a stiffle has no practical meaning in solo, heroic or raid play. But still this spell has the power cost of a 6 sec stun. To reflect that Ram is now just a dmg CA the spell should be brought in line with our other damage combat arts by reducing the power cost by 30-40 %.

Head Crush line

• I'm not aware that there is a benefit for debuffing focus on a mob. It should be changed to debuff something that will actually give a benefit.

Juggernaut

• With high end raid equipment you can easily cap crit, so the benefit of the spell is severely reduced but the penalties are still the same. If the penalties are supposed to be based on the benefit than either the benefits of the spell have to be improved or the penalties reduced

Adrenaline

• The spell costs 40 % of your total power for a 30 second chance (a good one, but nevertheless still only a chance ) to receive less damage. In two minutes you can burn your entire power with it with tough fights lasting 10 minutes and longer. That is not a managable amount. The cost should be reduced to not more than 20 or 30 % of your total power.

Epic Weapon


Both weapons:

• The delay of the weapon should be increased to at least 4 seconds. 3 seconds is way too fast with over 100 % haste and spells that take up to 2 seconds to cast.

i was working on a similar list with everyone's suggestions but it looks like you beat me to a stickied post..
the fact that the +5/7 DPS remains on the sets gives me the impression this whole thing has turned into a sick joke against us.
there is some easier methods of fixing things than some that you mentioned and some areas i feel are wrong such as the debilitation line with the exception of gut roar which needs an overhaul.

At least Guards have the same issues with their set, they have exactly the same stuff, just on different pieces. Except -60 seconds recast to Reinforcement there's also no good Focus effect on it.

While you are at it, I forgot to add Gut Roar. I think it is the perfect candidate to become a new defensive spell for us. Also fixed countless spelling and formatting errors.

If you think there are better ideas than mine, tell me what and I'll add them. Most if the ideas are mainly what I made up, so adding more is certainly a good idea.

Thanks for making this list, Bremer, it definitely needed to be done. I don't play a Zerker except as an alt, but my bro, who happens to be the guild MT, does. So I'm well acquainted with these issues that have been getting worse for several expansions now. I don't think my brother even looks at these forums anymore (he's convinced that SOE doesn't listen to their players at all, but I remain hopeful. Somewhat.) so I'll /sign this twice, for myself and on his behalf as well.

I want to make a few comments that don't fall into line with raiding berserkers, but that I still feel should be made.

Counterpoints:
The debuff line is not lame or weak. It is quite arguably our best line in improving soloability and even group performance. This comes with the exemption on the Ram and Head Crush enhancements, which have essentially no effect due to the combat arts they enhance being nonsensical and wasteful. Gut Roar -is- a fantastic defensive ability already in any nonraid setting. Extending functionality to more raid mobs would make it possibly overpowered, but would address the issue.

The regen line is also not lame, but it is weak. It needs to be enhanced, but it does perform very well in most nonraid situations. In anything but raid encounters I'd rather have regen over max HP. Just making perseverance turn regen into wards and double it permanently would be perfect.

Just about everything else I agree with, except I think saying we have no hate position tool (we do have rescue) is a bit misleading. It would be better to edit that to say we have no class specific hate tool.

Also two missed issues:

Berserkers live and die by their hit rates, yet have the most variable CAs, and the worst accuracy among plate tanks. Now with Adrenaline how it is even our defense is random. Accuracy and "smoothness" needs to be addressed, or at the minimum variability reduced.

Berserkers have no way to escape or avoid crowd control or any status effects.

Bremer, I agree with pretty much everything you said except for this:

"The debuff enhancer line is pretty useless. Our debuffs are very weak anyway and enhancing them by 50 % doesn't make them better. All enhancements should add dmg or anything else of any worth."

I really have to disagree with that. I mean, seriously. It's like you're saying that anything that doesn't do damage is useless and if so then that is a very narrow minded view. Plus there's the fact that all of our debuffs already do damage on top of the debuffing effect, so what exactly are you asking for? Would you honestly rather for them to take the debuffs completely off and just increase the damage on the CA's so they do nothing but straight damage? That would be lame. Our two main debuffs are not useless by any means, with or without the AA enhancements. Aside from the focus one they reduce the amount of melee damage that a mob is able to put out and and they can be maintained throughout a fight. That is a very good thing to have as a tank and we should be grateful for that. And the 50% increase you get from the AAs is not a bad upgrade either. If you just don't think they are powerful enough and you want the numbers to be increased so they do more of what they already do then fine but saying that the whole effect in and of itself is useless is not very smart IMO and it makes you look like a newb and I'm pretty sure that is how the devs are going to see it too.

I think the problem here is you're trying to compare our debuffs to that of a Brigand and that just doesn't work because a Brigand's debuffs are designed to make the mob die faster by reducing its defenses like mitigation and resists so attacks will hit it harder while ours are designed to keep us alive longer by reducing the mob's attack rate and melee damage output. The reduction to offensive melee skills is like a reversed way of giving us more avoidance and the reduction to attack speed speaks for itself - you are debuffing the mob's haste. So there really is no comparison there between the two classes' debuffs because it's totally the opposite effect. If you really want to compare Zerker debuffs with other classes then they are more akin to that of a Shaman. I also play a Defiler as an alt to my Zerker and they get several debuffs that reduce mob attack speed and melee DPS, which are very similar to the ones that we have as Zerkers, and I have noticed that when I cast those spells on mobs as a Defiler it has a significant impact on how fast my wards get eaten up when I am main healing, so you cannot tell me that those kinds of spells are useless. Plus there's the fact that the Zerker debuffs stack with the Shaman's and there really is no such thing as having too much of it, the more the better. The point being that even though the Shaman's debuffs have no healing or warding effects whatsoever they reduce the amount of healing and warding that is needed in the long run and to say that they are useless just because they don't do any healing or warding is stupid. And the Zerker debuffs work exactly the same way - just because they don't help you do more damage doesn't mean they aren't doing anything at all, they are in fact helping you tank. Seriously, you cry about Zerkers not having enough defensive abilities like other tanks but then you want them to change our defensive debuffs into offensive ones just so we can do more damage and be uber debuffers like Brigands that help others do more damage? That doesn't make any sense.

One thing I will agree with you on this topic, though, is that the focus debuff really is useless except for maybe in duels against mages and priests and the fact that it is also an interrupt. I would rather for them to change the focus debuff to a stat-wide debuff like Shaman's get that reduces all of the mob's stats by a significant amount, or at least make it so it debuffs STR and INT by a large amount, which is the 2 stats that buff damage abilities. So then it would be a debuff that helps to prevent some of the mob's damage and it would be in line with our other debuffs that do the same thing except on different levels, and of course keep it as an interrupt as well. In any case, asking SOE to totally change all of our debuffs so they will be comparable to a Brigand's is a useless endeavor and it wouldn't make sense and if they did actually do that then Brigands would scream and cry about it because then they would be useless.

One more thing I will say about debuffs has to do with the Belly Smash ability from the WIS line of the Warrior tree. That is a nice ability except for the fact that it can't be used unless the mob has been knocked down first and so that makes it pretty useless in raids and if you cast a KB that gets avoided then it doesn't count and the amount of time that you have to cast the ability after the KB has landed is too short. I wish they would change it so there was no requirement for the mob to be KB'ed before it can be casted, they should just remove that requirement altogether. They should also increase the duration because 10 seconds is a bit too short, I think maybe 15 or 20 seconds would be more reasonable. Other than that it is a nice CA and that ability is the closest thing that you are ever going to get to a Brigand-like debuff on a Zerker.

Kemt,

"The debuff line is not lame or weak. It is quite arguably our best line in improving soloability and even group performance."

I agree but it's not just limited to that, the attack speed and melee skills debuffs are just as useful in a raid IMO as they are comparable to a Shaman's debuffs that help to prevent some of the damage to the tank and they are still just as useful whether you are the MT or not.

Kemt, you are right that HP regen and the debuffs have benefits solo and in groups, but I don't think that it is right to have 2 of 4 lines with enhancements limited to non-raid play if we don't have problems in non-raid play without these lines.

As I wrote, with a hate position tool I mean a spell that can put us on place 1 or 2 of the hate list after we die, Rescue doesn't do this (on raids, in groups it does of course). On raids it's just a bigger taunt.

Infernus, you are also right with debuffs. I'm not comparing us to debuff classes, but if you have these with you I don't see much benefit from our debuffs. If you take your example, a Defiler alone debuffs 60-70 haste and DPS, Mystic should have similar numbers, a Brigand 35 haste, Swashys debuffs a lot and I don't how many classes else that debuff haste. I don't see us there doing a lot with our 14 (enhaned 24) haste debuff on top of this.
Same with melee skills. Invasion debuffs 19 (28) points. I think druids do something like 80-100.

I'll tone the formulation down a bit. I'll also add to the top that most of the points occur mainly and deal with raid situations, because in group and solo play we are fine. I'll also emphasise the problem with hit rates vs orange mobs a bit more. I think a fix for the beserk proc is the right place to fix this as well.

to back Bremer up a bit, for our debuffs to land in a raid situation, we need it to hit. Try seeing how many of them land versus an orange con mob, compared to how many other classes, specifically spellcasters, and you will see why they are nowhere near as good as many other classes, including our direct counterpart, whom if I remember correctly, reduces the amount of damage taken each hit. Considering most raid mobs kill me with their auto attack I'd be happy to have guards DPS debuff versus our haste, especially when considering how epic mobs figure out hit and damage ratios (thanks Kemt, I remember reading a post a long time ago by you explaining the math behind it). Belly smash would be a great addition to our debuffs, if any of our abilities coould knock an epic off of their feet. Does that mean I have no points in Debilitation: no went all the way down the line since raiding takes up only a small portion of the game. Does that mean they couldn't be better thought out? Focus is useless PvE and since I don't have the built in paranoia to play PvP, fix it. I used to be able to keep a mob stunned for close to 15 seconds, now I can keep it stunned/stifled for 10. And I can't do that at all to an epic target. However, HP regen is completely useless, even con non-heroic mobs hit harder than my in combat regen, much faster than it tics. Change the mechanic, or change that from being our defining area.

Overall Bremer great post made me think of some things I overlooked, like having to recast blood regeneration

Added the Unyielding will buff to minor issues.

what is our hp regen (one of them at least) was converted to a persistent HOT of same value, that would help with hate...

Nice info,
Hope it gets put to good use!

/agree

Good job man... that about covers it... and stickied no less! Makes me at least feel like we are making some progress with the devs.

Only points I would have to add to are

1.) Guardian VP set gear has the same bonuses and issues... the set bonuses and the focus line for both classes are cool and unique.. possibly not balanced but still... not something I will scream about too loud even though it does make them better at tanking... but both classes need the + DPS etc to be swapped with stats not past the caps... this isn't just a zerker issue and while I am upset guards beat us in every way shape or form I do not think we should ignore our "brothers" in this request.

2.) Debuff line... I think it's OK... personally I think it's our second best EoF tree... that isn't saying much because the whole EoF tree is basically garbage... but I would prefer they focus on the tree with regen in it. I would like to see the regen EoF AA swapped to give power like the new armor set bonus... if you have both the AA and the armor you are a huge asset to the raid so that a guild would put serious consideration into having a zerker. If that would be too much power regen... just put it on the AA line and swap the set bonus on the gear to be something more hate related like what guards got.

Besides those 2 things... perfect.

some form of self power regen would certainly be nice, considering adrenaline is the biggest mana sink in the game for what it gives. perhaps add power regen to our health regen trees, we don't need health regen wherever we look on our zerk/fighter tree and on our buff bars...
no matter where i look with our class as time goes on i start to see more overlapping abilities/stats, overlaps which continue dumb down our class and take meaning away from it.

another thing i would suggest is adding immunity to stifle/stun/mez/root to gut roar with a 10 second immunity window. this is currently one of the biggest problems with our class due to the lack of snap aggro and our submissiveness to all control effects, in turn keeps us from doing our job effectively. 10 seconds won't be a huge window but it refreshes quickly enough to still make it worthwhile and not overpowering for us.
for adrenaline i would still simply like to see one of 2 things done:
1) power cost reduced or a buff attached to regen power quicker after it is done and on cooldown.
2) make it available for its full duration.
#2 i think is what most zerks would like to see, it is only a temporary buff and still would not turn us into monsters or replace anyone on a raid. our main job as offtank is to hold a mob temporarily for the main tank or to hold multiple adds which can still hit pretty darn hard, the duration of adrenaline attached to our zerk proc makes it an undesired ability still, but one we still are almost forced to utilize and is unusable against certain mobs such as Venril Sathir.
after playing with the mythical it surely is a nice weapon(it still doesn't outshine many other classes mythicals as we had hoped it would, over cap for double attack anyone?) but the 100% AE still isn't what i envision for our mythical, you have to be careful when using it around non aggro mobs and if you turn it off you lose the 5% block... not what i want to see really, the block should be a static buff on the weapon and not attached to whirlwind.
aside from that i think our class is decent still if we can simply put aside our differences in other plate tank class DPS in our territory, that issue is much more complex to resolve.
small changes are what we need to start with and these 2 are the key things our class lacks due to no snap aggro ability, an ability to counter control effects would put us back into our role in our ability to retain aggro and adrenaline would assist in our survivability. a 10 second proc for gut roar and immunity would not make our job on avatars a trivial one but it would help us get our edge back on track for our role as tanks.

Lyger@Mistmoore wrote:

problem i have with the VP set is it still is pretty bland and many many zerks that far will still break it up because the 20% power reduction cost for adrenaline is still pretty "bleh" considering what adrenaline actually does.
the reason i would like immunity to control effects is as you will eventually see that even some heroics can lay the smack down on you if you get stunned right off the bat, if you manage to hold the mob you cannot hit your temporary buffs to save yourself and if you die you can very easily wipe the raid by putting the fight that far behind while you rez rebuff and others die in the interim. it's a point of the lesser of 2 evils that i see and i still would prefer to hold aggro through DPS than have a snap aggro tool in it's place because some of these mobs can 1-2 shot your DPS while you are still waiting for a stun to get cured or wear off.

so is this it for our feedback on reworking our class? or has everyone already given in and betrayed or quit?
or perhaps our fixes just are that simple and hopefully aren't shrugged off if not everyone comes in and adds their 2cp to overinflate the many small things we need tweaked that will make a difference.

Maybe my post is so great that there is nothing to add? (Or maybe there are only so few left of us who care...)

Anyway, I added a small introduction to the major issues part, because I think the 5 points were all a little bit isolated, but they should be seen in a greater context.

Bremer wrote:

It might help as well to be less aggressive in the way this list is written. The attacking stance that is taken with the language will cause the audience, the dev, to become defensive and debunk this argument as it is written. If you play a little devil's advocate you can easily kill most of the arguments made. If this is to remain stickied on behalf of the berserker community we might want to list proactive solutions and suggestions and not attack things that were at one point someone's "great idea" and address them in ways that aren't aggressive.

Below is my example of how to reword the manifesto that is stickied. Dev's have become trained to ignore hostile language and arguments that are based on balance issues between classes. If the arguement for your class names another class, they ignore you. They actually preface panel discussion at Fan Faire by saying basically, "We don't want to hear about why your class doesn't have x when someone else's class has Y. We won't even take the question."

The issues listed below are the areas that we, the berserker community, feel need to be addressed. The players that make up the berserker community feel strongly that our role in Everquest 2 has become less fun and as berserkers we have obtained a negative stigma from other players, that is justified. This stigma coupled with the lose of so many of our berserker brethren to defection has caused us to request the below actions.

We seek the help of the Everquest II Team, please help us.

Major Issues

• Hate Position Abiltily -
  We ask for an additional tool to allow for a hate position increase. This tool should allow the berserker to regain the top hate position.
  
  Suggestion:
  This tool does not have to be given to the berserker freely; it might also be an AA ability in the Berserker AA tree, replacing an existing power.
  
  
• Defensive Augmentation -
  We ask for an augmentation of the berserker's defensive capabilities, while not being berserk. We feel this is critical to allow the berserker class to be the main tank in an epic level raid. Help those of us not part of the "One-Half of One Percent" of players that achieve the highest levels and gear of Everquest II, to be able to fulfill the role of main tank in current content.
  
  Suggestion:
  A Defensive power that would all the berserker to better handle spike damage, that can relied on without having to be berserk.
  
  
• Restructure Juggernaut and Adrenaline -
  We ask for Juggernaut and Adrenaline to be more in-line as abilities that can be used while tanking epic mobs.
  
  Suggestion:
  Reduce the penalties associated with Juggernaut.
  Reduce significantly the power cost of Adrenaline, which stands as the highest cost Combat Art in Everquest II and the second highest ability, in power cost.
  Require only that berserk is a threshold for starting the combat art, not maintaining the duration of the combat art.
  
  
• Improve the Berserker AA Tree (EoF Tree) -
  We ask for the AA selections in the Berserker Tree to contain lines that have abilities more heavily geared towards Heroic and Epic level content. We feel that though some of the lines are good for solo play, there are no lines designed to take advantage of berserker abilities in small group and raid settings.
  
  Suggestion:
  AA Power for Insolent Gibe.
  AA Power for Taunting Defense.
  Clickable Berserk should be equal in effect to the normal berserk.
  Tweak the Debuff line to be more effective.
  Tweak the Regen line to be more effective. (We are however more-so calling for a revamp of HP regen below.)
  
  
• Augment Berserk -We ask that the Berserk Ability, our class defining ability be restructured to take into account recent changes to Everquest II, most importantly the diminishing returns structure. The net effect from being berserk is minimalized in the current system. Note: We are seeking help on the self buff berserk ability, not the group buff.
  
  Suggestions:
  Add an increase to Combat Art Damage
  Add an increase to Hate Gain
  Add a critical hit increase
  Add Immunities to effects such as: fear, stun, stifles, charms
  
  
• Change HP Regen to a Regen Ward -
  We feel that Health Regen has been tried for years and there has never been a good balance to this power set. We ask that the current Health Regen be discontinued in favor of a Ward line. Regen is another class defining ability for the berserker that has lost much of it's usefulness as Everquest II has grown. Also, Everquest II is where wards were first invented and the ward has changed and improved game play extensively, we ask that berserkers be the fighter class that includes wards as a power to continue this tradition.
  
  Suggestions:
  Change the HP Regen amount to a Ward the refreshes on the same ticks.
  Redesign the Berserker AA Regen line to reflect Ward Regen.
  Allow Regen Wards to work like Shaman wards where the remaining ward value is converted into HP, either automatically or through an AA power.

Minor Issues

Ram line

• Ram is no longer a stun effect; it is now a stifle effect. This combat art has the power cost of a 6 sec stun. The power cost should be reduced by 30-40 % to reflect that Ram is no longer a stun effect.

Blood Regeneration line

• Blood Regeneration should be changed to an "until cancelled" duration for purposes of ease of game play.

Unyielding Will (Bloodline spell)

• Death's Door should be moved to the hostile or maintained effect window so we can easily see when the buff expires. With the Berserk AA tree we can enhance this spell so that Death's Door won't kill us if we are Beserk when it expires. So using clicky Beserk at the right time would save us. Only problem is that as soon we are in a group or raid the Death's Door effect is lost in the nowhere of our effect window.

Thank you for taking the time to hear our concerns!