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

It is well known and well documented that you don't need the AA to have Berserk save you from Death's Door. Don't have to keep it a secret. SOE may change it some day, but then just respec then. It's not like we have a good use for 70 points in EoF AAs.

Ive just started raiding tiny bit (soh) and I was either used for tanking thrash mobs (which was tanking with dps and not taunting abilites) or most often as simple dps class in melee group. I cant dish out as much as swash and rangers (pvp/ quenos) however i am not that far away from them in dps(still 500 dps less or so). So what zerker (imho) is t2/t3 scout in plate with few taunts instead of detaunts.

Cant complain in group instances if i can use my aggresive stance (i got m1 t8 defensive stance and it just simply isnt worth using as i cant hold agro with it - aggresive stance holds my agro well enough though). Where it comes to raiding and tanking nameds there, we are really... just a ... dps that could be replaced with better dps.

Hello all,

I'll try to keep this short and sweet.
I agree pretty much with a majority of all of this. I'm not going into detail, because frankly it's been done enough already. Beating a dead horse here.

This is in regards to the comment about keeping the post free from abusive text.
While I agree that a little bit of harmony goes a very long way, I think it's silly to suggest that the Devs are going to get offended at what we say/think about this whole debacle.

The Devs should be professional enough to not even acknowledge the average temper in posts. There is obviously already enough information in these threads that could lead a deaf blind dead man to the source of the problem.
I think one of the main issues with this game, and these forums, is the lack of concern from the Devs. At least that is how it all appears to us. As mentioned Thousands of times prior... a simple "Yes we are looking into it" would do to set most of our minds at ease for a bit.

Being completely ignored and actually 'taunted' by Devs in threads is just ridiculous. That right there shows the utter lack in professionalism. Yes this is a game, but the bottom line is it's a Product that Paying Customers are currently unsatisfied with. Game or not, it needs to be addressed rather than ignored.

While I'm not trying to derail this thread, I do want others to understand that this mentality that we have to walk on eggshells because the devs might do this or might do that is the absolute wrong mentality to have. No we shouldn't storm their castle, but in return I feel they owe the community much more than the community is currently getting.

sucks donkey balls seeing people still leaving the class/game and it won't end 'til something happens.

and the comments in dev chat weren't exactly what we wanted to hear.
we all know "small changes" mean things like a 5% reduction of the power cost of adrenaline or a +10% bump in aggro production of our mythical or insolence. none of which even would come close to bringing up the negatives of the class balance like survivability for newer zerk tanks or snap aggro that we sorely lack.
so uh yea, expect to see more betrayals/quitters coming.
yes, the problems are small to us but that is like saying "revamp" coming from a dev knowing how small most changes are.
we aren't far from guardians, that is correct. but to do what we do everything has a negative attached, which is fine but the gaps aren't making this class worth a [I cannot control my vocabulary] as it progresses through the expansions and it loses more of its flavor with each.
we might be able to tank mob "x" with 15% less survivability than a guardian but hit juggernuat(a good chunk of our DPS) and your mortality rate takes a dive, hit temp mit and defense buffs and aggro takes a hit(compared to guards tanking in tower fully offensive), a chanter not paying attention to our adrenaline macro when we hit adrenaline and run out of power relying on autos to keep aggro while we chew on shards and hearts which also drop our autos out of effect temporarily resulting in less aggro. i could go on and on but you get the point why zerks keep disappearing, while some are content with being DPS or have some of the best healers to make up for the survivability gap, it just gets old after a while.
sounds stupid in vent calling out "adrenaline up" so we can get a power feed to take a hit or 2 for a few seconds.

one other thing, since this has seemed to have died and i need to put a fork in it...

this has annoyed me for quite some time and probably has for many others as well:
casting juggernaut; you must be berserk to cast the ability, but if berserk drops while casting guess what? it cancels the casting of juggernaut... this has annoyed the [I cannot control my vocabulary] outta me for some time, since when you apply juggernaut it goes the same color as if it is unavailable and some of us tend to use clicky zerk for adrenaline moreso than for juggernaut since juggernaut outlasts adrenaline. of course you can look over to see if your self buff window shows the buff or not, if you have it scrolled to the right length or not or you can assume it went up.
it wouldn't be an issue, if the particle effect was always visible but yet another bug it doesn't always show the ghostly horned helmet over our head.
yep it's a minor [I cannot control my vocabulary], but since we aren't getting [I cannot control my vocabulary] anyways i may as well add it to the list.
still waiting for a real response instead of a dodgey 2 second reply, then i might not sound so annoyed.

Okay I didn't read the whole post, but I like Bremer's list and I hope it is an approach that is noticed and appreciated by the devs. I still have my zerk at 75 sitting on the shelf waiting for the day that they fix him. Since Kunark was really a big boost for guards, I'm really hoping that the next expansion will help swing the pendulum back the other way.
One thing I find interesting about our latest skills in comparison to Guards is that anything that spells such as Adrenaline and Juggarnaught are so heavily penalized that they are really pretty useless when tanking. However, Guard spells that absorb more damage and provide more benefit, such as ToS have no negative effects.
I also don't understand why the difference in the epic weapons. It's been apparent over the last few GUs that the devs are trying to steer zerks more towards a dps role. That beeing what it is, wouldn't it make more sense to remove the shield requirement for zerkers in order to dual wield? Instead it seems like any class sets typically generate more hate, which is counter productive to the goals of the devs. If the zerk community has been willing to take a backseat to Guards in the tanking role, then at least we should get some help by providing gear that doesn't generate MORE non damage aggro.
Just a couple of my own, not entirely thought out, thoughts. Hopefully some good things will come for us in the next XP.

Thanks again for organizing the list Brem. I love my new Dirgem, but sure miss my old grumpy zerker.

SugarGirl wrote:

Fixed that....or, hm, ok, might be correct. The major part of the zerk community is now Guards anyway and those that are left want stuff like to use scout poisons instead of getting fixed, so these people would really willingly step back for a Guard and that not because they have no other choice.

The fighter class design in the last two expansions can just be described with two words: plain stupid. There is absolutley no intention recognizable to do anything for class balance.
In March, when it seemed for two months so, that the responsible designer (Aerilak) was finally willing to fix classes I made the thread to propose some rather simple fixes for problems that are obvious for anyone who spent 5 minutes on the fighter class system.
But since Aerilak came here to the board to ensure everyone that he has absolutely no plans to fix anything anytime no matter how broken it is I don't know if this thread still serves any purpose. If I had more time I could extent the thread to problems with half our spells, buffs and aa trees, but there is no point in doing it if even the simple fixes aren't done, why would he spent time on redesigning half the class.

You just have to look at the laughable change to our epic with GU47. Obviously this is everything we can expect, so this whole thread is absolutely pointless, the responsible guy just gives a **** about our class.

Bremer wrote:

YYeah I know we've been asking to be fixed for a very long time now. I used to frequent the zerker borads and I'm sure you could find hundreds of my posts from way back when. It's a shame, because I actually have a lot of respect for Aaerlik, but I often think that the design of the fighter classes has been so mucked up that there's not much hope of fixing it without a very large headache. No matter what you do, there will be whining... In this case the whining would probablty come from the guards if they lost their preferred tank role, and seeing as how their numbers have only increased in the last two expansions, you can probably bet that this is the largest and loudest community.
I recall when the TS system was mucked up like this under Beghen... and it gives me hope. Once they moved Beg out and brought Dominous in, she brought a lot of fresh ideas and hard work to make tradeskilling rewardable and useful again. Perhaps Aer could take some cues from her and put the same sort of effot into the fighter classes. I don't think that Aer is a bad dev, just a burnt out dev who's day is overwhelmed by more griping than praise... such is the life of a god, huh?

he's no god and i won't act like he is one. he could take the time to fix tank balance but chose not to, BUT you don't see the class he plays suffering now do you?
balancing the tanks certainly wouldn't be easy but fixing some of the things each tank class has that was killed in RoK couldn't hurt now could it.

Awesome. It looks like someone at SOE actually read the post and skipped about every point that mattered and ended at our non permanent HP regen buff and made it permanent with GU47.

Hurray, the class is saved.

(added complaint about the new 20 % hate gain effect on the weapon)

20%? Jeez, that's a lot of freaking hate. Too bad about that cap, eh? I will say that making Blood Rage permanent falls squarely into the "It's about time" category. What year was it when all the other buffs became permanent? That change makes me hopeful . . . perhaps this means we can expect an Adrenaline fix about the same time Diablo 3 is released. Although, then there's the Master's Rage change. Hmmm. Where's that middle finger smiley.....

Live Update #13 (Desert of Flames) (September 13, 2005)

Hey, only 3 years after all other buffs from all classes. I think that's ok. The combat changes with EoF were made barely 2 years ago, so let's see if this will take them as long as fixing the buff to adjust Beserkers to these changes.

Made an overhaul of most points, removed some stuff, added new, added Open Wounds to minor issues, replaced VP set part with Exp05 set wish list because the VP is lost anyway.

Minor GU48 update (updated Adrenaline and Juggernaut)

Can anyone please explain to me what exactly is so wrong with zerkers?
You have the best plate tank DPS and probably the best DPS period when tanking, as brawlers are forced to use their defensive stances when tanking anything remotely challenging.
You have good surviability and are only behind guardians from what I can see.
Your aoe dps is the best among all tanks and your AOE aggro is very good as a consequence.
The only issue I can really see is that you lack some sort of snap aggro and that guardians dps are currently overpowered at the moment.
If I were a raid leader I would much rather have a zerker offtank then any other class in the game, because your DPS is so much much better then paladins and guards will struggle with AOE aggro and with transfer/buffs aggro should not be an issue anyway.
The only thing I can see where the other tanks are better then you are guardians MT raids and paladins might have a slight advantage in instances when no threat transfer/hate buff is in the group.
I personally think the issue is that right now guardian dps is to high, there is a lack of aoe fights, and you lack a means of snap aggro.

evilgamer wrote:

Bremer wrote:

Sorry, I won't add Brawlers to the State of the BESERKER class thread. Try your luck in their forum.

Bremer wrote:

I concede your defeat.
I believe Lyger is correct, Zerkers are a great class, that just needs a few tweaks here and there ( snap aggro for one) and are currently suffering because guardians have become a bit overpowered.