Hello. Anyone who follows the 'in testing feedback' forums probably knows by now that I am (as most Berserker players are) massively opposed to the current test fighter revamp going live. This is not intended to be a thread to reiterate that. What I want is to hear a definition of the Berserker class. I will start with my own, along with a very rough mechanics breakdown of what that means to me. I am hoping to start similar threads in all of the fighter class forums, and see about presenting it to Aeralik as another example of how wrong he is to forcibly redefine our characters out from under us in the way he is trying to. What is a Berserker? A Berserker is a frothing homicidal maniac with an axe. A Berserker is a warrior so absorbed in the flow of battle that his body will continue fighting even after any medic in the land would have long declared him dead. He is an unholy, fearsome, howling monstrosity charging his foes and breaking their morale through the sheer terror and ferocity of his assault. What does this mean to me in EQ2 Terms? A Berserker as a fighter keeps the attention of his foes by tearing a bloody swathe through them, and roaring his madness as he does so. This means that 70% - 80% of our aggro should come from our damage output, and that between damage and taunts, we should be able to hold off of most DPS classes without using snap aggro unless they have fired a major damage ability. We are too potent to die even when 'dead'. This means to me that while our outright resistance to being damaged should be lower than other tanks in comperable armor (we just don't focus on our own defense while in a killing frenzy), that our survivability should be higher than seems possible within this fighting style. Our primary effective fighting style should be focused more on offense than defense. What does this mean to me in terms of our relation to other fighters? 1 - We should be the most offensive of the plate fighters, perhaps matched by shadowknights, with different means to the same end. 2 - When it comes to damage with a weapon, we should be the most potent of the plate fighters against a magic resistant mob, we should be able to outdamage a shadowknight, whereas against a more physically resistant mob, they should outdamage us. 3 - We should hold aggro against packs of enemies better than a single enemy. One enemy faced with many sources of pain and death coming his way will maintain the presence of mind to consider all of the damage sources better than a group when mass panic begins setting in due to the sheer ferocity and terror of our presence. Keeping single target aggro should require more focused effort on the part of the player (learning CA rotations to maximize single target damage, and knowing when to weave in taunts for best recycle, along with needing to snap more often against a single target high DPSer than against AE) Likewise, it should require less focused effort to hold while in offensive stance than when in defensive, however both should be possible. A Berserker that has become cautious is less elementally frightening, but he is still a canny foe who is learned in the art of injuring his enemies in the ways that will be most effective. 4 - We should be easier to damage than the other plate fighters, but not necessarily easier to kill at the same time. Something like allowing us to continue fighting while purple and an extended purple range (probably via AA) would be in line with this, but in simplest terms I feel that our overall survivability should be on par with Shadowknight, or slightly higher before lifetap is factored in, while being lower than the more defensive focused fighters. 5 - Where we should sit on a DPS scale: Against a raid training dummy (doesn't exist, but should for testing these things), with all gear, player skill, and dps buffing being equal - An offensive stanced berserker should sit higher than all priests (including dps focused furies and inquisitors), both bards, and both enchanters. (Enchanters need to have their controller roll fixed for this to be viable of course). If resistance to magic and melee are equal on the mob, they should be parsing identical to the offensive Shadowknight, higher than the Guardian or Paladin, and lower than Bruiser and Monk. A Defensive Berserker should be sitting around equal with the offensive priests and bard/enchanters. To me, this is what a Berserker should be. Other than the way survivability is done mechanically currently, the imbalances that exist in the DPS of fighters overall right now, and the fact that defensive tanking isn't working properly for ANY fighter, this is largely where we sit on live. The Berserker is the personification of unbridled aggression and fury. They are fearsome opponents, especially when facing many foes at once. Berserkers stand at the forefront of battle, unleashing their devastating rage upon the enemy while keeping unwanted attention away from their allies. I went ahead and grabbed the initial class description off of the character creation screen. As an additional point to this exercise, how many of you were influenced in any way by this description when you made your character a Berserker? What do my fellow Berserkers think?
I agree with you some what on your descriptions. Honestly I don't want to make this a this vs that post but I do think that in terms of dps you are correct. Warriors do not have the abilities to heal, ward, or leach life (except maybe with equipment). Other than that warriors fight with two weapons, one, or weapon and shield. To me both warriors should be able to do more damage cause that is all they are trained to know. Warriors do not practice magic to heal or inflict damage. They just fight. Since the warriors can't heal themselves damage should be where they accel incomparison to the crusaders all things being relatively equal. Sorry but my sk right now is able to both heal and inflict nice damage where my zerker is just inflicting comparable sometimes less damage than my sk. Again I would think that since my zerker can't honestly heal in the magnitude that my sk can then the zerker should inflict more damage to compensate. My zerker is on the shelf atm. No reason to play the zerker when my sk can do more aoe and single target damage and stay alive much easier doing it with the wards/lifetaps.
Aull wrote: i'm glad someone finally admitted it, it's gone to the point so many expansions of being given and taken away that the i can't continue to fight forever like this. all of the work that has been put into the coming fighter changes, i can't envision them being abandoned and i haven't seen the main highlighted point of issues with this class being noted and fixed. by continuing to note them down as time goes by i feel more like a whiner than someone who just wants to see some things balanced out in different ways. i have a job, i don't need a second one that doesn't pay. SKs are the new flavor, guard vs zerk vs SK aggro is another fight, pallies have their own issues to resolve. things were more balanced when we had more distinct differences in tanks but content was where the main issue lied. now things have changed, if they continue down this path they need to consider the possibility of just merging tank classes and truly finding a better balance instead of creating one overpowered class every xpac.
My issue isn't one of 'which fighter is overpowered', it is in response to the Fighter revisions as currently designed. If you got rid of two factors, it would accomplish the STATED goal of the revision: Allowing tanks to tank defensively and live out their 'primary roll' as narrowly defined by Aeralik. Factor 1 - Get rid of the taunt removal and detaunt on offensive stance. First of all pissing a mob off less when you are hurting it more is completely idiotic. Second of all, it removes an entire playstyle from the game that SHOULD exist, and makes the name of our class into an outright lie. Factor 2 - Unlink the recast timer on stances. There is no reason why a fighter should be forced to 'decide how they will fight' in advance. It also is in direct opposition to Aeralik's original stated goal of allowing an offtank to 'provide DPS to the raidforce then switch to pickup an add'. A position he suddenly changed with NO explanation whatsoever, simply a statement that completely contradicted his original statement.
Berserker-a blood crazed monstrosity of a warrior, fighting with a demonic fervor, seemingly immune to pain, and impervious to death, wielding even the most unruly of items as a weapon, dealing incredible amounts of damage with the rage of a frenzied bear. Simply put.... weapons-not particular, but bigger is better; the idea that bigger=more damage, whether true or not, doesnt matter, we're not thinking here....just a matter of "big make big bash" rage-piss me off, I dare you, and you wont know what happened damage of a frenzied bear- do i really need to explain this??? "hulk smash" blood crazed monstrosity-see above 3 explanations demonic fervor-I know..sounds like I'm saying SK...but no, lets face it what would you think if you saw this fighter, with that crazy look in their eye, using whatever was convenient as a weapon and just mowing through mobs like jason at camp crystal lake???? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Now, thats what I think of when I think berserker....minus a few particulars in detail, as in what they wear, tho that really doesnt matter, theyre crazed and pissed...and dont really care what they're wearing if anything at all. As we stand in game-2nd rate damage at best, low survivability, inability to control hate, and the new "fix" for fighters is gonna make us just one of 6 different molds of the exact same thing!!!!! a REAL fix=keep the hate increases and bonuses added in with the test updates, that is a GREAT idea. =bad idea-combining buffs, LEAVE OUR BUFFS SEPERATE, we like them, and they work that way =bad idea-all tanks must be in def. to tank--ok, let me reiterate-BERSERKER, emphasis-BERSERK =survivability-it works, leave it alone, we can alll be happy =for the love of all that is good evil and neutral, put some more 3s delay OH weps in game, because not all zerks are tanking, as they dont see the point. =do something about our DPS, in the optimal group setup, non mythic avg gear, tanking or not, our DPS is second rate on a GOOD day, but somehow, if we manage to survive pulling an entire room, and all procs are in our favor, we MIGHT get some pretty good DPS. =many of us have sat here and played, years and years, and now, we see this latest and greatest fix as a brand new fighter only version of the late GU13-combat revamp. only a much much more horrible version. we dont want to be like guardians or sk's or paladins or monks or bruisers, if I wanted to be an SK I wouldnt have deleted a dozen or more of them, if I wanted to be a guardian, I would HAVE one. STOP COOKIE CUTTERING THE FIGHTERS, we're not all the same class, we are different for a reason, KEEP THEM DIFFERENT, its why some of us are SKs and others are Pally's, or Zerkers, or Guards, Monks, Bruisers. =it was hard in RoK to really get into playing my zerk, finally with TSO I was really diggin it, then the speak of the fighter fix, I checked it out.....felt like a big /wrist was in order. blanket "fix" is not the answer. Anyways, bit off on a tangent, but that basically covers it all. In many ways, we're good like we are, theres still some bugs that need fixed, but the biggest problem in the game is this +++++++++I JUST STARTED PLAYING YESTERDAY AND I'M LVL 80, WHATS A TAUNT?? DETAUNT?? CURE??+++++++++
To roughly summarize the historical figures of the term in my own words: Berserkers were warriors who fought with frenzied rage in battle without regard to their own lives or others as they were known to turn on their allies in the heat of battle. Their rage normally started out as almost a physical illness, thought to be drug induced, eventually turning into a loss of human reason while replacing it with animal behavior. This behavior extended outside of battle as well giving the berserkers incredible strength with flushed faces, wild eyes, howling and an immunity to pain or even physical damage in battle as they would fight only in bear or wolf hides instead of regular armor without being hit. This also lead to the belief that they were shape-shifters, especially werewolves, and/or spell casters as they seemed to be supernatural. This also lead to them being relegated to the second to the bottom of the social class. They were often shunned and avoided which, in turn, encouraged the berserkers to resort to theft and murder to get what they needed/wanted. Okay, so there's the historical reference. The EQ2 reference for Berzerkers, along with the rest of the fighter archetype, that helps players decide what they want to play are shown here and I won't get into arguing over the archetypes and what they should do and I also know that classes will change over time since MMOs are far from static (courtesy of EQ2i): Here's a good summary of what the Fighter Archetype is thought to be (again from EQ2i but shared by many folks in the game if you ask them): Fighters are the most straight-forward classes to play. They have terrific defense, so they can withstand a lot of abuse from enemies, but they also have decent damage output. They can switch between two stances at will, choosing between higher damage output or higher defense. Combat is interactive and (unlike some other games) each fighter class has several utility abilities. Berserker: offensive warrior Guardian: defensive warrior Paladin: the healing tank Shadowknight: the tank-mage Monk: group-friendly light tank Bruiser: high damage light tank Okay, so there's the definitions for you. Mind you, the original Everquest classes that shared similar names/abilities worked differently back then then they do now. Do I claim to know how to balance the classes? No. Am I saying that I hate everything about what's going on? No. I'm just a player with a love for the game (more than just the mechanics involved) so I wanted to throw in my two coppers since I'm not in any school of thought or camp. I have been on the Test Server. I am for and against some of the current state of things and the changes depending on which ones they are. I've already voiced my opinions on them. Here's my issues with the way things seem to be now and where they are headed keeping in mind that we are discussing class definitions and not delving into a general discussion of the game, etc.: There are three classes under the Fighter archetype with six sub-classes in total meaning that there should be SIX different styles to fit various roles. Saying that all six types of Fighters are tanks and that they all have to main tank in Defensive Stance effectively kills off-tanking as they would want to be in Defensive Stance to control the adds effectively (or in no stance to avoid the hate decrease in Offensive stance) but are not contributing much in the way of offense. However, even going down the pure DPS route still relegates fighters far behind the 'classic' DPS classes. This makes all fighters try to be the same mechanically. Also, there seems to be an inconsistency with the 'roles' since there seems to be the 'Single Target Tank'/'Main Tank' classes and the 'Multiple Target Tank'/'Off-Tank' classes that clearly point out that only 2 classes are needed because one role is better in certain situations than the other and there's one class that does said role better than the others. Having played all of the Fighter classes and seeing their 'less-than-stellar' damage abilities along with noticing how most of the classes share vary similar mechanics, some doing better than others, only one role of 'Tank' is really necessary with the current builds/abilities of all of the fighters. Now, with that said, it seems like there are some classes that are just better than others at the 'Tank' role and since the 'DPS' role is already spoken for by another class, it seems frustrating to say the least. So to sum this whole post up: The reason I play this game is variety it offers to allow me to do my job in a group setting and also soloing. If there's no difference in the mechanics, then really there's one class to play out of those six posted above that'll get the job done and the rest are just weak versions of the same class. I'm not saying which class is the best or whining that the class I like sucks, etc. I'm simply pointing out things that I see.
The personification of unbridled aggression and fury. I'm sorry, I know it's old news. That just cracks me up. Lowest Aggression score of all Fighters and a misspelled title.
zerkers were offensive warriors, somewhere along the line we got mixed up in things. mobs hit hard enough now that offensive warriors still need to survive a group of adds. so focus is changing and all tanks are listed into groups of AE and single target but the offensive vs defensive still is skewed between the classes. so the definition i still see for us is offensive but how could you be an offensive fighter and still have some decent survivability in TSO? it's not an easy question to answer. i think they tried to do well by allowing tanks to actually take hits and manage aggro defensively since mobs are progressively getting more difficult and hitting for more which makes the offensive fighters obsolete. but if it's the case then our skills need to evolve to reflect the change, i can think of a small handful of abilities that still define us as offensive fighters and some that are missing that set others apart from us.
What is a Berserker? A Berserker is a frothing homicidal maniac with an axe. A Berserker is a warrior so absorbed in the flow of battle that his body will continue fighting even after any medic in the land would have long declared him dead. He is a unholy, fearsome, howling monstrosity charging his foes and breaking their morale through the sheer terror and ferocity of his assault. ---------------------------------------- 100% Agree with you! This is why I picked the class from game launch, this is why I will NEVER stop playing the class....nerf it ALL YOU WANT ! I will NOT trade in my muscle car (Berserker) for a slow gas guzzling suv (Guard). Make me wear plate or fight with only a loincloth on but make my enemys FEEL it when I hit them! -H.Rex
Lyger@Mistmoore wrote: Then you go find a foe you are still strong enough to smash until you are in a position to fight it the one way you know how. I agree that defensive stances needs improvement, it is largely worthless on live now. My berserker still manages to get by in offensive. I bring what I have to in order to get the job done, I am restricted to easier content for longer than a comperably equipped defensive tank, an that is fine. I also lay waste to my enemies much more effectively than my defensive cousins. The horrible weapon skill penalties associated with defensive stances are one of the biggest problems. They never should have been there in the first place. If taunts had been kept scaling (or were repaired) and the dps penalty were there instead, Defensive would have been a hell of a lot more useful and used much more often. The problem is, I am betting that samples of 'who fights in what stance' were done on a simple check the code level, which does NOT give useful information. How many fighter do you know who solo in defensive? Hell, I died hundreds of pointless deaths on my guardian when I started him before I figured out that the only way to solo and survive was to step into offensive. (Was i in a meatshield mindset or what?) If I am tanking content where it is feasible to do so easily, or I trust my healers, I tank in offensive. If I am having aggro issues, I tank in offensive. I try to make sure I have the tools I need to make a group work. On the other hand, if I am getting hammered like nobody's business, I step back into D-stance. If my healers aren't cutting it, or can't possibly keep up, I step into D-stance. It isn't like I never use it. Every raid MT I know when fighting names or non-weak trash tanks in D-stance. In most difficult group content, tanks are in d-stance. Only people who are dripping in Avatar gear and top-end raid gear step into offensive and never leave it unless they are aiming their play locations purely at staying in offense. I mean, if our characters were truly berserkers, we wouldn't even HAVE a defensive stance, but we would also tend to turn on our allies when all of our foes were felled. I will say this much, with our AE damage eating as much as a 70% reduction on test this week, plus all our taunts being made more resistable AND weaker, we are becoming less and less viable with every passing moment. I am sure mythical equipped raid geared zerks with enough AA to buy TSO late abilities will be fine. The Myth generates a ton of aggro, as does the ability to gain aggro by triggering Adrenaline. On the other hand, not all berserkers have these things. Some of them are sorely behind on AA and instead of AA being neat things to enhance our characters, they are becoming what the devs stated they never wanted them to be when KoS launched - Requirements to perform our class functions. It isn't as bad as EQ1 AA yet, but it is going the wrong way fast, and Aeralik looks like he's hitting the gas when he should be slamming on the brakes.
the tso snaps suck due to resistability on live zerks all around bring less than an SK but we can still bring some mediocre dps while in a completely squishy role, the SK is our supposed different equivalent now but not quite equal. the changes on test are hideous to even look at and with every update things look even worse.
well believe it or not i finally hit 80 WOOT ...... after 4 yrs 7 mths 23 days and ... ohh heck i finally made it Now i started this toon in Mar. 2005 and i will admit i am a on-par beserker, and i am a fairly casual player dont raid that much ( not wanted or needed or dont have a spot ) and now seldom tank, if at all, i honestly dont know enough to really know what is going on with the beserker but i do know that it has become a more of a challenge,, as of now i am doing fair at holding my own with most mobs love the AE attacks need a couple more though. When i first started him out it was beutimus i had no prob standing on my own, finding a group, or even tanking when i had to or wanted to, but with every change, every update, well you get the picture.( sissy) To me the definition of the Bezerker is what drew me to it in the first place .. damage elite... power ... devistation .. and total disreguard for the rules, .. there should really be no defensive stance for the beserker he is a Offensive tank (or OT ). A powerhouse of destruction who may not hit the top of the parse or even post in it but when he hits his target or targets (from his AE attacks) the heavens shudder with fear wondering if they are next on his to do list .. THAT is a Beserker
I don't care about lore and all that stuff. I want to be able to be a viable tank. And not whatever you call that Beserker on the Test severs, whose DPS, hate gain and surviabilty all completely suck.
New definition of a Berserker: You know, LAST year when I canceled my subscription it was sort of a small and petty reason. It was just being completely ignored re: Adrenaline, which was eventually fixed (albeit not how I had hoped) once I PMed the right person instead of that Aerrogant [sic] guy. This year the cancellation is for pretty much everything. Any benefit we bring to a raid is brought better by a [lesser-geared] Fighter of another type. This next update finishes the job that TSO started in that sense. It's a complete erasing of the role. Worst ST hate of any Fighter, most resistable taunts, medium survivability, lowest utility, and soon to be the lowest DPS of all with the possible exception of Guardians (assuming all are in Defensive Stance). Berserkers are now heroic instance tanks. If I had any other class my alliance needed I might stay, but my Necro is #2, and life sucks donkeys there too. My regret is that I may have rambled a bit in the exit surveys so the feedback, being too verbose, won't even be read.
Lol, yeah. That big white cat is probably the Guardian protecting the defenseless Beserker from those evil epic mobs...
well, at least i know i'm not crazy now. the differences become much more noticable as you get closer to the top. mainly because of the hybrid role SKs have where there is much more room they have to grow with where zerks have been capped in everything for going on over 2 expansions now. it was the same way when guardians started to creep into cap with dps and haste buffs as well as crit which we had buffs to keep us above them, class defining abilities that mean less over time. now being forced to tank defensively and having defensive abilities that have stiff penalties is destroying the desirability of the class. add in that we offer less AE hate on test well, that doesn't leave much left for the berserker class. maybe someday things will get fixed so we have some form of real usable role but as time goes on i'm starting to think that will never happen before it's a ghost town here. in heroic we still do fine but for raiding there just is no benefit to having a zerker anymore, we are now the SK of the plate tanks. this is no exaggeration of the truth and i just can't deal with the BS anymore.
A berserker shouldn't be thought of as a brainless pile of raging meat filled up with drugs. There do not need to be white bubbles around his mouth. Neither out of nor in combat. A berserker foremost should be thought of something whirlwindish on the battlefield. Not neccessarily storming into enemies brainless and without thinking or having thought in advance. Storming, swiftness, rage, ignoring pain, multiple strikes however should be the terms to be applied to a berserker. A berserker is not a bruiser (not meant as EQ2 term) or mad killing machine that has never seen a school or temple from inside. He might even have a monkish character but using berserkish attributes and fighting techniques within a battle. He has learnt to channel rage onto multiple foes; he uses wildness and whirlwindish techniques. Nevertheless the fighter revamp is going to turn us into sitting ducks. That was slightly off topic and those background ideas do not influence actual gameplay; I just wanted to have it said.
I just rolled a zerk and came here and read this thread..... What a bummer. I wanted an offensive tank aka a fury warrior. If the zerk is broken what pray tell is the most offensive melee (non-scout) class now? Mind you, I wanted to roll a good toon as my other ones are the baddies(wizard and brigand.)
