Some Testers out there? (Gu51)

[Syracus]

<p>Hallo loved Berserkers out there.</p><p>I was wondering that on "In Testing feedback" there is so little response  to be seen from the view of us Berserkers.</p><p>( i reading so much from SK / Pala )</p><p>I have down only a littel testing for my self, for more i have no time at all at the moment.  Are there some deeper testing Berserkers out there.</p><p>I know that we cant change the upcomming LU51 and i have no problem with that in generally, but i hope we can bring Aeralik to some deeper look at our class before the Lu comes out:</p><p>- from a Berserkers point of view we need:</p><p>- fast stancechange from off to def to match the role as an more dmg orientated tank to the defstancestanking thing</p><p>- adjustments to our defstance (skillpenalty) and better skillprocbonus (setbonus tso2/vp4) to have an better to hit rate as is it now</p><p>Greetings Gronkh</p>

[Obadiah]

<p>I have tested some, not a ton. I hope to get a better feel for normal group scenarios today, but we'll see. For now it's just been solo and duo stuff to test the ridiculous claims made about duo-ing with healers being impossible or even in any way more difficult.</p><p>The fast stance change impacts everyone, not just us. Personally I would PREFER a fast change. Someone suggested being able to switch to Defensive Stance fast, but having a cooldown before switching to Offensive. I like that idea best.</p><p>With the changes to tanking TBH I don't really care about +Crush/Slash/Pierce anymore, be it on Def Stance or the set gear procs. I'd rather see something else on that proc entirely. I miss more. No big deal. I'm also not as reliant on hitting the mob anymore either. Now .... Aggression being only 16 instead of 32 .... that's a rip off IMO.</p><p>EDIT: As of today our group taunt takes twice as much time to cast too. That's not helpful.</p>

[Elanjar]

<p>They increased the cast time on that again? Pretty sure I need that faster recast on taunts to keep up enough HPS since I'm not aloud to hold agro via damage (ie the zerker class since as long as i can remember).</p><p>WHAT THE HELL SOE???</p>

[Xalmat]

<p>They increased the recast time between stances, not the cast time. Basically, if you're in a stance, you click off your stance, you have to wait 5 seconds before you can put on another stance.</p>

[Obadiah]

<p><cite>Xalmat wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>They increased the recast time between stances, not the cast time. Basically, if you're in a stance, you click off your stance, you have to wait 5 seconds before you can put on another stance.</p></blockquote><p>Group taunt, not stance. Yesterday they increased the casting time of the group taunt.</p><p>Now ... it's not the end of the world ... 0.5 seconds instead of 0.25. But that is twice as long.</p>

[Xalmat]

<p>Ah, well that was easy enough for me to miss, I guess.</p>

[LygerT]

<p>i don't really have much time to test these days, or give input.</p>

[ZerkerDwarf]

<p>What we really need is a persistent melee skills self buff. I just don't get the reason why we don't get one. Guardians can hunker down in def stance and keep their hit rate.</p><p>Now (i.e. soon) with LU 51 we are forced to use def stance in hard instances and raid zones.</p><p>Why the heck don't we get a melee skills buff? We are offensive tanks. That implies HITTING the enemy. Missing the primary target as a berserker you also don't hit, damage and aggro the mobs around.</p><p>Just replace some useless stuff from the EoF or TSO (berserker line) by a melee skills buff (5 points per rank).</p>

[Obadiah]

<p>We don't get a melee skills buff because we get DPS and Haste instead.</p><p>Couldn't care less about a melee skills buff now anyway since autoattack isn't going to account for a majority of my hate anymore.</p>

[Syracus]

<p>Hmm ......we ne no adjustment to hit rate ?</p><p>As i remember one post in testfeedbacks we have the smalest +agression in defstance from all tankclasses.</p><p>We get some plus on our procs (if its procs) and i think we should have even in defstane the highest (melee)dmg potential from all 4 plate tanks and for that you must hit the mob.  That 0,5 dmg multiplier in def stance hits us hard enough.</p><p>As an Berserker i wont be an pure "meatshield"  <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" /> <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" /> <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" /></p><p>Gronkh </p>

[Bremer]

<p><cite>Kurgan@Everfrost wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>We don't get a melee skills buff because we get DPS and Haste instead.</p><p>Couldn't care less about a melee skills buff now anyway since autoattack isn't going to account for a majority of my hate anymore.</p></blockquote><p>I don't think that's correct. Instead of</p><p>DPS + 50 % hate gain + 20 % hate transfer</p><p>a tanks hate is now made up of</p><p>(DPS - 23 % autoattack DPS) + 8 % hate gain - additional melee misses for Beserkers + taunts.</p><p>As ist seems to me, with no means to improve our taunts and our single target hate gain intentional weaker the only way to improve our hate gain is dropping tank gear for more DPS gear even further enhancing the defensive gap to other tanks.</p><p>Just as example, Paladin's or Guard's single target taunt on test now generates ~10k hate every ~4 seconds while the Beserker taunt has ~5k hate every ~6 seconds. So just the single target taunt allready generates 2.5k threat per seconds versus under 1k threat every seconds from our taunt. For AE taunts its 3k/8 seconds = 400 threat versus 8k/8 seconds = 1k threat (biggest joke: while the single target tanks single taunt power cost was cut in half the Beserker AE taunt power cost was even increased by 25 %).</p><p>So just with two taunts a Paladin or Guard generates ~3k hate per seconds while Beserker only has 2k/seconds.</p><p>Guardians have a higher melee skill in def stance and can get Strikethrough in their Shadow tree, so they'll have a noticable better hit rate vs orange mobs easily compensating the 25 haste/dps in dimishing return. Beserkers could always only compensate their weak CAs with auto attack DPS in off stance, which is no longer possible. So Guardians are on par with autoattack DPS, have harder hitting CAs and can taunt for at least 50 % more.</p><p>They'll also benefit more from the ~20 % taunt amount on the new Dirge buff because they have more and bigger taunts, they got more items with + taunt (eg the easiest to get first two TSO set items, forearms and shoes, have both a +base taunt bonus adding to + 15 base taunt for the whole set while Beserker only gets 11, Guardians even get + max crit on their forearms and the whole Beserker set has only one crit bonus as 6 piece bonus and only for the off stance).</p><p>For raiders these fighter changes currently really look more like another RoK, just with the difference that Guardians are not the only tank ahead of Beserker in terms of survivabilty due to the changes for Paladin and that Guardians now also are far far better in hate generation.</p><p>But at least we are better at picking up the adds that deal no damage and live for 10 seconds at Xebnok. Horray!</p>

[Obadiah]

<p><cite>Bremer wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Kurgan@Everfrost wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Autoattack isn't going to account for a majority of my hate anymore.</p></blockquote><p>I don't think that's correct. Instead of</p><p>DPS + 50 % hate gain + 20 % hate transfer</p><p>a tanks hate is now made up of</p><p>(DPS - 23 % autoattack DPS) + 8 % hate gain - additional melee misses for Beserkers + taunts.</p><p>As ist seems to me, with no means to improve our taunts and our single target hate gain intentional weaker the only way to improve our hate gain is dropping tank gear for more DPS gear even further enhancing the defensive gap to other tanks.</p><p>Just as example, Paladin's or Guard's single target taunt on test now generates ~10k hate every ~4 seconds while the Beserker taunt has ~5k hate every ~6 seconds. So just the single target taunt allready generates 2.5k threat per seconds versus under 1k threat every seconds from our taunt. For AE taunts its 3k/8 seconds = 400 threat versus 8k/8 seconds = 1k threat (biggest joke: while the single target tanks single taunt power cost was cut in half the Beserker AE taunt power cost was even increased by 25 %).</p><p>So just with two taunts a Paladin or Guard generates ~3k hate per seconds while Beserker only has 2k/seconds.</p><p>Guardians have a higher melee skill in def stance and can get Strikethrough in their Shadow tree, so they'll have a noticable better hit rate vs orange mobs easily compensating the 25 haste/dps in dimishing return. Beserkers could always only compensate their weak CAs with auto attack DPS in off stance, which is no longer possible. So Guardians are on par with autoattack DPS, have harder hitting CAs and can taunt for at least 50 % more.</p></blockquote><p>I'm not saying autoattack damage isn't helpful, I'm just saying it's not accounting for a<strong> majority </strong>of my hate anymore.</p><p>I'm also not saying I PREFER having the DPS & Haste over the +Melee skills, but that's what Berserkers have always had instead. We're not going to get both, they're not going to get both. I'm less concerned about it now than I was before this change. I still like +slashing gear, sure. But I like +Aggression gear more now if I'm tanking. I still like having a Warden or Dirge too, but I also don't feel nearly as dependant on the former.</p><p>Not sure where your TPS numbers came from, but the low end on my single target taunt is 6600, not 5000. Just my two taunts are ~2700 TPS without buffs from anyone else, and I get another 1000 from the CAs with hate tied to them. That and procs and CAs are going to wind up accounting for more hate than my autoattack damage.</p>

[Bremer]

<p>"Berserkers are group target (or AE) tanks. They'll be excellent at off-tanking, but by no means does that mean that they can't be the main tank in appropriate situations."</p><p>Lol, just found this in eq2players. "They are worse at gaining and maintaining hate of a mob and worse at surviving the mobs hitting them, but by no means does that mean that they can't be the main tank." These guys are really funny.</p>

[Bremer]

<p><cite>Kurgan@Everfrost wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Not sure where your TPS numbers came from, but the low end on my single target taunt is 6600, not 5000. Just my two taunts are ~2700 TPS without buffs from anyone else, and I get another 1000 from the CAs with hate tied to them. That and procs and CAs are going to wind up accounting for more hate than my autoattack damage.</p></blockquote><p>In def stance with some points spent on the taunt mod in str line my M2 single taunt shows 4.4-5.4 threat on the test server.</p>

[LygerT]

<p>you should care about hitting the mob, quite a bit you should.</p><p>first off we're berserkers, we are 3rd of 4 on the survivability table now(yes guard still only have a slight edge and honestly i have seen SKs take hits as well and maybe better than guards now), perhaps even 4th. now you will probably see guardians out DPS us in defensive stance because their CAs hit harder and they have a self attack skill buff to help their aim on a mob. so where does that leave us? pretty much with pallies. we may still be ok on AE mobs but they still lack in raid content, guardians still got hit pretty hard but i honestly say they will fare better than us through this, pallies will have to relearn to play completely and still need a small bump to survivability and well, SKs are overpowered. even though SKs deserve the bump, they will eventually need to be brought back down to earth.</p><p>so overall i see us in third place in tank and DPS category after the changes to being forced to tank in defensive with our only shining area being on AE encounters where we still are only ranked #2 behind SK.</p><p>the only way things will get addressed is if people go out and address them, i don't have time to anymore so, well, you guys are on your own now.</p>

[Obadiah]

<p>No one said they DIDN'T care about hitting the mob. Before this update we had inherently lower melee skills than Guardians. After this update we still have inherently lower melee skills than Guardians but it makes <strong>substantially less difference. </strong>Once I'm buffed, even if it's just Templar/Dirge and no Warden, I would posit that the hit % difference that would be made up by a little more slashing is crap. If you throw a Warden in, it's nothing at all.</p><p>As for the taunts, you're right Bremer. Either they changed the single target amount after I took my numbers, or I was smoking crack the day I jotted that down. Still.... I've got 4248 to 5192 single target (M1, not M2 for me), 7098-8676 AE. Compared to the Guard ST and AE that's 2945 TPS for us, 4396 TPS for them. Although, admittedly those numbers are also skewed because the display is based on MY Aggression which is inherently 16 lower than Joe Guardians. So in reality it's going to be more like 4586 for them based on Xalmat's chart of the difference Aggression makes as it gets higher.</p><p>So ... I guess what I'm saying there is, I find the disparity between the TPS of those two taunts from 1 fighter to the other to be slightly worse than you've stated. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /> The same 3 to 2 ratio, but (at least if my math is right) it's a difference of 1500 TPS rather than 1K. (I've assumed both tanks have Int line all the way)</p><p>Now, is this a measure of the TPS we can generate? No, not really. You'd have to look at a lot more than that, obviousy. Maybe that disparity would grow worse, maybe not. Unfortunately I for one won't be able to tell until it's live. Until it's too late. Although I agree with what someone else said somewhere that this is probably the heaviest tested non-expansion GU ever, the end results specifically for the purposes of raids will take a bit to see.</p>

[Bremer]

<p><cite>Kurgan@Everfrost wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Although I agree with what someone else said somewhere that this is probably the heaviest tested non-expansion GU ever, the end results specifically for the purposes of raids will take a bit to see.</p></blockquote><p>I fear the worst. There is hardly anyone on Test, so noone is testing this heavy changes and the very idea contains a major flaw with the intention to give the defensive tanks also the best hate. It seems that after they took the right direction with the start of TSO to bring tanks more closely together they now make a 180° degree turn to put the tanks further apart.</p>

[LygerT]

no, they're just tweaking them for their roles which is AE vs ST. balance still needs to be made between each of those classes though. i still envision we can MT single targets ok but it won't be as easy as it will be for a ST tank, which is how it should be but conversely you won't see too many guardians tanking multiples. you can accept one way or the other, you just can't ask for both or you will open up the debate that guardians should have more AE capability.

[Elanjar]

<p>Any tank can tank heroic encounters though and thats the only place you see AE encounters. I've never seen a group refuse a guard just because I said I was up for tanking an instance.</p>

[LygerT]

<p>but why would a group say go into befallen with a guard tank over a zerk? i'm not getting your argument. so you want it so that ST tanks absolutely can't hold AE aggro whatsoever? then they will say we should never hold aggro on our primary target, which is a fair trade now isn't it?</p><p>i love my class but you guys are making no sense here.</p>

[Elanjar]

<p><cite>Lyger@Mistmoore wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>but why would a group say go into befallen with a guard tank over a zerk? i'm not getting your argument. so you want it so that ST tanks absolutely can't hold AE aggro whatsoever? then they will say we should never hold aggro on our primary target, which is a fair trade now isn't it?</p><p>i love my class but you guys are making no sense here.</p></blockquote><p>No that wasnt what i was saying... I think theres a bit of confusion cause this thread is all over the place.</p><p>Um I think the point I was making is that people say AE tanks have an advantage since TSO is all AE, and I was just commenting that we dont really. I dont get rejected anymore because they want a guard, and visa versa. Perhaps its just my guild but if a group say need tank and both me and one of the guards pipe up at the same time, they take the guard. And a lot of them maintain that guards are just plain better tanks than zerks in all situations.</p><p>When I rolled a zerker it was cause I wanted to be a dpsing juggernaut. I imagined end game tanking "zerker style" that being kill the mob before it kills me. AE is cool and I dont mind it being our class defining feature I'm just sad to see our "dps" or "offensive" tank advantage disappearing. We do still do more dps but I wouldnt call it even close to significant. And nearlly all our defensive/tank-ish abilities have such extreme costs (power-wise) if feel a tankability disparity.</p><p>PS I love the zerker too. Havent ever had as much fun with any other class. <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Hardain]

<p>Only heroic content is AE oriented, raids are purely(95%) just single target crap.</p>

[Obadiah]

<blockquote><p>I think the point I was making is that people say AE tanks have an advantage since TSO is all AE</p></blockquote><p>Poppycock!</p><p>We get this expansion where heroic instances (lots) have a<strong> fair and balanced mix</strong> of AE and ST and everyone keeps saying that it's all AE. Or it's 95% AE. Or it's a vast majority AE.</p><p>Hornswaggle!</p><p>Well enjoy it while it lasts now that the general population has ensured the next expansion will be as balanced as RoK was in that sense.</p>

[Bremer]

<p>No matter how many multi encounters there are, in the end you are still killing single targets one by one. This AE/single target idea is just plain stupid.</p>

[Obadiah]

<p>I dunno, hasn't it always been that way really?</p><p>I mean, in the past Berserkers, SK's, and Paladins were all more AE/AoE centric than Guardians. Yay, Rampage! Now all that's changing really is which classes are put into which buckets, and the fact that it's an "official" designation rather than just being a known truth, but not an official label. Right?</p><p>I wonder if Aeralik had never said "You guys are AE, you guys are ST" but made the same changes, if the conversation would be different.</p>

[LygerT]

<p>yep, people tend to find things to complain about. the only thing that is really scheduled for changing is that you will do less dps as a tank and be more forced to taunt to maintain aggro. that is a whole different argument for us though, as far as AE versus single target goes, nothing has drastically changed in a number of years.</p>