Berserker changes - my view on the whole thing

[Tarannon Thorirson]

<div></div>Berserker changes - my view on the whole thing First off let me say that this is my view up on this whole thing, what i present here is by no means a complete and neccessary good comparison/compilation of the changes, but rather my attempt to see what will become of berserkers after the change. All my comparison are mainly against the guardians since they are the other subclass of warriors and the figther type we mainly will be competing against for MTing in raids and groups. Before we look up on the changes it can be useful to see what berserkers got at live now. At this point we are versatile to some degree and can offer groups and raids several benefits. In plain groups, for all intents and purposes, we can tank as well as any other tank classes, guards tank better then us prolly, but in plain groups this makes little difference. In small groups i would even dare to say that the berserker is a better tank due to his/her increased dps when being hit. So first off we can say that we offer very good tankability to plain groups atm, but we can also add other benefits. First thig that comes to mind then is HP buffs, and yes i know that some of these buffs werent supposed to stack at all, and haste. These 2 "utilities" or whatever they might be called makes us very useful in a plain group even if we do not tank. Further more, due to our hastes we also bring in a very good dps. This all differs a bit when raiding, in raids we mostly take the backseat to the guradian, but due to our HP buffs, haste and dps we still are able to contribute significantly to raids.         So to sum it up, we mainly offer this to plain grouping and raids atm:         * very good MTing in plain groups and excellent tanking in small groups         * good "utility" while not tanking         * very good dps. Now onto what i expected to come of the changes, and this will also serve as an explaination as to why i deem the changes to berskers mostly negative. I expected us to keep some our diversity, meanig that we would still keep some HP buffs, hastes and good dps so that we could offer more to a group then tanking. But as the changes stand now, the only thing we can offer, with in certain modifications, is tanking. Not only does this one dimensional take on berskers dissapoint me, but it also creates a real problem when grouping. So how does these changes create a real problem in grouping, and more so in raids? Well first off the competition for one Main Tank spot in plain groups just became way harder, we now have atleast 4 subclasses, maybe 6 depending on monk/bruiser changes, competing for one spot in a plain group. And with us not having other benefits to offer then tanking, and guardians out tanking us, where will this leave us? We can no longer benefit the raid/group with hastes, HP buffs, and our dps will likely be very reduced. A closer look at our new skills and how these compare to other tank types, mainly guardians. DISCLAIMER: many of these comparisons lack in many areas, the biggest deficit is not having screenshots of all the berserker skills upto 50 and that the comparison screens do have a inconsitency in skils/CA quality, meaning that id have to do with what was on the forums, and thus there are comparisons between apps and adepts of varying quality. But these screens still show the general gist of the skills and we are able to see how things shape up. Things we lost Things we gained:     We lost all our HP group buffs, we have on live HP buffs worth upwards 1k in HP, even though these are bugged and not meant to stack they still will feel as a real loss. We lost most of our hastes, the hastes we now get are not permament, with the changes on test increases in attack speed now only have percentage chance to go off, which is a significant change from the permament hastes we got on live. Due to a decrease in autoattack and our hastes you will see a very significant decrease in berserker dps. So what did we gain? well except form a whole new class, we did gain mostly in the area of tankability.     we gained a individual health regen in blood rage and a group health regen in screaming fury, both are reported to stack. This looks like a nice feature and is useful in soloing, but will this add any usefulness to grouping or raiding? I guess time will show, but i doubt those regens are going to make a big difference in groups or raiding. We also got some strength group buffs in tides of war and another one, nice to have a group strength buff, but yet again time will show how useful these truely are. We also gained some tankability in our defensive stance and some offensive qualities in our offensive stance, i will look closer on those in seperate paragraphs. Wont be gettin into the damage on our combat arts, going to be way to much to write about, and noone would ever read such a lengthy post methinks.. already pushing it i guess <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Our defensive stance/our defensive capabilities vs. other figther types: Our defensive stance is called Reckless stance, at app 1 (only screen of app 1 on the forums while writing this), gives us a increased defense and parry of 4.9. It also increases our mitagation vs. slashing, piercing and crushing of 248. It also increases mitagation vs. cold of 496. So how does this compare to other figther types? If we look at the guardians defensive stance, called fortified stance, be aware that this screen ive used for comparison are of adept 3 quality, but it is till useful for comparison. We see that this stnace gives guardians a increase in defense of 10.4, mitagation vs. crushing/piercing/slashing of 616 and mitagation vs. heat of 1232. We can also look at the paladins defensive stance, shining beacon, which gives us these numbers, this screen was of the stance at adept 1 quality so it gives a bit more useful info, increased defense and kite shield of 7.3, mitagation vs. crushing/piercing/slashing of 372 and mitagation vs. heat and divine damage of 744. So what kind of conclusion am i able to get out of these numbers? Mostly that we have had our offensive qualites with group utility greatly reduced for not a very significant increase in tankability. If we start to look further into the guradians skills list it soon becomes apparent that berserkers will take the backseat in taking in both plain groups and raids. I can support this upon other screens of guardians buffs, commanding presence for one increases the guards mita vs. crushing of 560 and against slashin/piercing of 700, guard also got a mix of buffs that both increase max heath and defense, and all in all it seems to me that berskers are inferior to guardians in MT both in groups and raids. So the main consequense then is that we will be spot fillers, but this time around without out useful "utility" such as hastes and HP buffs, we do also not bring comparable dps to justify us taking a spot from a real dps class. Links to the diff resources i have used: guards: http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=3&message.id=15088&page=2 paladins: http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a290/blackweb1/EQ2_000011.jpg What about our taunts? we used to base some of our agrro management on dps, how does still look now with decreased dps?   My other main concern is that we seem to have not gotten any significant increase in our hate generation through our taunts, and if we do compare our taunts to guardians, which again we will be mainly competing against, we will again see that we completely will take the backseat in aggro management. At live we do have a significant dps generation that helps us out grealty in keeping aggro and getting aggro back, but with the decrease in our dps at test you would think that our taunts would get a proportional increase as our dps is reduced. Guards got a whole array of different taunts that increase hate over time and increases hate instantly, berserkers main taunts are, these are tier 4 as i lack anything else from test, sunder: increases hate with 481 (adept 1), mad cry: increases hate with 360 - 440 (adept 1) and promise of violence: 17-52 dmg and hate of 410. At the moment of writing the servers are down and i do not have access to the live numbers of these taunts, but i do belive that there is hardly any changes to them at all. If we do look up on the guardian taunts we see yet again that we lack comparable abilites, and that despite that we have had our dps adn group utilty greatly reduced. We can for example compare taunting assult (guardian tier 5 adept 3) with promise of violence (tier 4 app1), do not that there are some significant differences in tier and skill quality, but it still gives a general idea of the diff between the 2 skils. Taunting  assault does dmg range of 135-226 and has a hate increase of 712, while promise of vilence has a damage range of 17-52 adn a hate increase of 410. Deafen, a tier 5, adept 3 guardian skill increases hate of 131- 160 every 5 second and lasts for 20 seconds. We can also look at protect, tier 5 adept 1 guardian skill, that increases threath of 1132. NOw these comparisons arent really meat to be a serious comparison of the differences between guardians and berskeres, but rahter to illustrate the poin i am trying to make that with our group diveristy and usefulness being removed we are goin to lose out on the main tank spot that we are supposed to have in competition with guardians, and soemtimes maybe even other types. And, i will say that yet again, as spot fillers wit no real use since we will not be mting, and with nothing really to bring to groups or raids when not MTing. Our offensive stance: I will only offer a few words on out offencive stance as this post are becoming excessively long already, the main point to remember here is that the offensve stance required for our other offensive skills has an aoe effect, which is an effective killer in any groups that got crowd control, thus a whole line of offensive skills are useless if you got any kind of crowd control as just ahving up the offensive stance and taking hits will break mezz all over the place. Nice eh? Conclusions: First of all i would like to point out that this is an incomplete analysis of our class benefits befre and after combat chnages and how the new stuff will affect us, many of my comparisons are crippled by imcomplete information and difference in skill quality. But yet i think im able to get a general picture of how the changes are going to affect us, the bersker will become less attractive in groups because they will be loosing much of their current group utilites such as haste, dps and HP buffs. And as the other figther types are made into more tanks too, the competition for one tank spot will increase significantly, where we will loose out to guards as MT in raids and groups due to their better tankability. We will also loose out spots in group in competition to other figther types because they can offer better group utility, a berserker not mting cant offer the old benefits any more and will be edged out by paladins still having wards and heals and bruisers and monks offering way better dps. All this has to be taken a bit of scepticism as not all the figther changes are done yet, but i can tell you now that i am not looking forward to being a one dimensional fighter type that only has tanking to offer to a group and, tanking thats mediocre compared to for example guardians. Except from that i apologize for my doom and gloom, but at the moment i am not able to see much positive in the coming changes. Oh yes i seem to have forgotten to mention the fact that there is a nasty rumor going around... apparantly there is not even a level 50 berseker at test to test out all the changes!!! how on the earth are we going to get good testing of the changes then? If soe decides to copy a level 50 berserker over to test so we can get some good quality testing of these changes i will be more then willing to spend someof my time doing so. If you did take your time to read this rather excessive post, i want to thank you for letting me share my view up on things, and as i said please bear in mind that this post is not neccessary in any way a good analysis of the changes and how they will affect us. Cheers List of links used: http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=3&message.id=15088&page=2 http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=4&message.id=13484&page=2 http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=10&message.id=13383 Thorondor - level 50 berserker <div></div>

[DasanW]

<div></div><p>Tarannon;I could not agree more.  I think you very eloquently relayed what a lot of us are looking at, and wondering where we are going.</p><p>  I think one of the most damaging items of this revamp is our offensive stance, which is supposed to be the class defining ability, that will be totally useless where there is a necessity of crowd control.<span>  </span>In addition, if I remember correctly, it is also complete AoE, not just ‘encounter’ only, meaning all the junk grey mobs around get added into the frey.<span>  </span></p><p>  I really love my Zerker, and was ready to accept some change, but after looking over what is currently planned (and noted could change) is a frightful thought to what we have all spent a considerable amount of time obtaining.<span>  </span></p><div></div>

[crazyvoodoose]

sad really all we can do is tank... so whats that mean every raid will only have 2 tanks and all the other tanks can just sit raiding out. It seems very shortsighted imo

[Ol'b]

<DIV>Someone explain to me why they think we are better tank now?? As far as im concerned we are still gonna need a Gaurd in grp to hit 80 mit cap , and comon what in the hell makes u think a gaurd or pally is ever gonna let u tank over them>?</DIV>

[Sambora]

<DIV>Ya, how the heck are we going to become better tanks?  I can already hold aggro just fine.  Are they going to give me more HP's now?  Am I going to be able to do a /respec once these go live?  I mean, I am use to my toon that I have been playing for 9 months and I have made choices along the way, be it gear or weapons.  Am I going to have the opportunity to change any of this?  Or is SOE just going to sodomize my and your characters without the decency of asking us for a reach around?!!!?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Well I guess I could always catch up on some reading while I wait for a real game to come out.....VANGUARD!!!</DIV>

[Svan]

<DIV>puting the crap rank of my tier4 skills up to tier 5 adept3 guardians skills does not make a good comparison at all.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>any conclusions of how zerkers and guardians will stack up against eachother in the end-game based on the information here would be extremely skewed.</DIV>

[KittenClaw]

<div></div>Ol'boy Did you miss the fact that they took anchor away from guardians and gave it to us? What about the hitpoint buffs, and the mitigation buffs? Did you overlook Havoc? The list goes on... I really like most of the changes Berserkers will now be the main raid tanks vs crushing mobs, and more than likely on most raids Guardians will be guarding the berserkers. You ask who would allow us to be the main raid tank? Any one who knows how to raid, and wishes to have a successful raid will now have a berserker main tank and a guardian main assist, if the combat changes remain anything similer to what they show now. Who would allow a Paladin to main tank on a serious raid? Paladins cannot hold the taunt worth a hill of beans. Paladins are not meant to be raid tanks. They can tank in groups, but frankly why should they if there are other people who do it better and are available? It seems to me that people are looking for something to complain about, I mean the changes look great to me, for berserkers... If you ask me the only ones with any complaining rights are guardians who didn't read the discription of their class and went off of what other players said when they made their character. Of course, I am a level 45 kerra Berserker and I cannot really see what has been done to most of the spells I use. I have only been playing since around the beginning of May, so perhaps I am not as set in my ways as some who have been playing from the very beginning. I don't think that SOE is trying to mess up the game. I think they are trying to improve it, or at least make it better resemble the vision they had when making it. They have been working on this revamp practically since launch, it hasn't been a secret. The only thing I really don't like is the buff Tides of War changing from a speed increase to a strength buff. What use is more strength if we are tanking? Correct me if I am wrong please, but I believe that strength is going to effect how hard you hit and the amount of power you have. How does that improve our tanking abilities? To the person who stated that they would forfeit their plate armour for chain, allow me to say this: If I wanted to wear chain armour and be DPS I would have made an assassin, a ranger or even a monk/bruiser as they are a scout-fighters. I wanted to be a tank, so I made (and I quote the NPC that you spoke with to choose "warrior"at level 9) a meat shield, and I chose the path of the warrior. Why would they make a "meat shield" wear chain armour? That is not logical.  Think back to the day you chose which type of fighter you were going to be. When you chose the path of a "meat shield" you chose a warrior. If you read the description of your class when you picked it from the NPC at level 19 you will recall that it asked you two questions. 1.) Do you want to prevent your allies from taking damage? If you picked this one you became a Guardian. 2.) Do you want to be at the front of the fray receiving and dealing damage? If you picked this one you became a Berserker. It seems to me that they are just making our classes better fit the class description. I picked berserker from that description, not from what other players told me guardians and berserkers were. If you want to be DPS, play a scout. If you want to be a tank, well, I think you might have picked the correct class. <div></div><p>Message Edited by KittenClaw22 on <span class=date_text>08-08-2005</span> <span class=time_text>03:15 PM</span>

[Styk]

No offense Rashema but i really dont think you have seen how well Paladins can tank at the end game on raids, it just takes MORE PLAYER SKILL to tank with a Paladin since there taunts aren't as direct as  warrior taunt is. So yeah i would say wait a little on your "assumptions" on any tank class before saying they "CAN'T" do anything <div></div>

[KittenClaw]

What raid would use a paladin as a main tank, what mob? Seriously, I have raided x2 mobs with paladins as a MT and well... the agro flaked like crazy. I know a lot is player dependant but Jesus Christ himself couldn't play a paladin to tank some mobs well. <div></div>

[-Aonein-]

<BR> <P>Whole problem is, every other class out there has a high lvl class in test relaying numbers and *FACTS* back to there class forums except for Berserkers.</P> <P>Im currently trying to get a copie of Taemek in there so i can crunch the numbers and we can see for ourselfs what the hell is going on with high lvl Berserker Combat Arts, but im still yet to get a reply from a Dev / GM about it.</P> <P>I wont be holding my breath.</P><BR> <p>Message Edited by -Aonein- on <span class=date_text>08-09-2005</span> <span class=time_text>01:18 PM</span>

[Hier]

<DIV>First off im a chat room kinda guy so i dont post here often.. but i would like to see more people talking about this "change" when they are playing in test.. Ol'boy you in test. cause iv seen a ton of posts by ya that is neg towards the Class. just a question <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>PEACE</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>and remember it's just a <EM><STRIKE>game </STRIKE>virtual world made by SOE</EM></DIV>

[Stormka]

<P>Seems to me you're looking at the glass half empty mate.</P> <P> </P> <P>Few facts for you to cheer you up;</P> <P>1) All mez spells have an "immune to AoE" component to them, this currently works just fine in live....shame it doesn't apply to HO's. Your AoE attacks therefore make <U>NO</U> difference to CC, unleash it and enjoy.</P> <P>2) All the defensive stances have identical numerical components, they differ in the resistance supplied - SK is disease ETC ETC. Since there is no ramping of CA over level the ramping between CA quality is much steeper, if you had Adept 3 of the zerker CA it'd have the same numbers you quoted.</P> <P>3) It's been stated that every tank will have it's day raiding, see point 2 to support this. Broadly this seems to be the case so far as the changes have gone. Zerkers to tank cold, SK for disease, Pally for divine ETC. Each has something to bring to the party and as it stands the MT group will need to be hand picked for the mob, the guard shouldn't be the auto choice anymore because there may be better candidates for the job.</P> <P> </P> <P>laters</P>

[tbotus]

I couldn't agree more. What I think we need to see is more Berserkers opening their eyes to the changes, and fewer Guardians playing Microsoft as their monopoly comes to a swift close. Wanted great DPS? Should have played a scout. Wanted great DPS as well as great tankage? Should have played Morrowind. Case closed. Enjoy the combat changes. <span>:smileyhappy:</span> <div></div>

[Tarannon Thorirson]

<div></div>thanks for the reply stormkhan It does indeed cheer me up a tad to know that mezz now is immune to the aoe component of our offensive stance, that does change things to the more positive. And it also cheers me up that all the defensive stances have the same numericals and only differs in the specified resistances, at without a doubt it does seem that tanks are going to having niche mobs that they specialize in tanking. But is this neccesssary a good thing? It will be a welcome change to raids if the resitance bonuses work as intended, but it will be a bit annoying if you need your niche tank to tank specific mobs in plain grouping, this might actually throw a real damper on grinding xp. But my core concerns still remain, we will be competing in plain groups for one MT spot and we will likely loose out to the guarding due to his better skillset for tanking, unless ofcourse it shows that our offensive stance brings a nice increase into MTing in plain groups so that we can increase the kill rates in grinding slightly over the guardians. Now swanny kinda came down hard on me for comparing the skillsets between the different classes regardsless of only having aviable info on the in varyiing quality, but this i pointed out thourgh my whole post, and it was my intent to substantiate my claims of us having a inferior skillset for both mitigation and aggro control. If you study the guardinas tier 5 skillset for mitagation and taunting you will see that, you can see that here: http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=3&message.id=15088&page=2. Now i am not arguing that we are supposed to having an comparable skillset as guardinas, but im trying to point out that with the loss of our group utilites that we currently have on live, we will have nothing else to offer to a group then tanking. And i fear that we will loose out on the MT spot quite often to guardians. Where does that leave the berserker? From my point of view, no where, but that might be a bit  harsh. But if we look up on the other figther types, they will have other things to offer groups even if they are not tanking, paladins will have wards and heals to mention a few, and can work as a support healer, dont know SKs well enough to comment on them, and bruisers and monks still wil have enough dps to offer a group to justify their spots when not tanking. So my main concern still remains, it seems to me that berskers wil mostly loose out to guardians on MT and we will have very litte to offer a group in return to justify our non tank spot in a group. Granted we will get our 5 mins of tanking specific mobs in raids cause of our resistances for sure if things work out as inteded, but this does not put me at ease. Again thanks for the productive input stormkahn, and i hope we can get more posts like that on this topic. Cheers <div></div>

[CherobylJ]

<P>Tara (OP)</P> <P>Very nice sum up.  Will be interesting to see how this plays out; all I personally plan on doing is play the game and see what happens.  The current level of hysteria about this kinda reminds me of late Nov last year when the pile of Bers nerfs went through.  Sky didnt fall then and I dont think it will now.  But if will be a *different* sky.</P>

[-Aonein-]

Heya CherobylJoe, how you been, long time no see man.

[Sambora]

<DIV>What the F...guardians are supposed to be the ultimate tank!! PLAIN AND SIMPLE!  So now every raid mob is going to be catered to a particular class?  How [Removed for Content]' lame!</DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

[CherobylJ]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> -Aonein- wrote:<BR>Heya CherobylJoe, how you been, long time no see man. <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>Doin great bro...very glad see you back here man :smileyhappy:</P>

[Styk]

Rashema ive seen first hand a Paladin tank, Zalak, Meeting of the Minds and Darathar and kept agro, you obviously have had some pallies who werent as well versed.... Currently it takes more effort to tank as a paladin compared to a berserker or guardian.... but it can be done , depends all on the player <div></div>

[Stormka]

<P>Still reckon you're being pessimistic mate.</P> <P>Day to day play in EQ2 differs greatly from EQ1 because there are no must have classes. EQ1 was Tank + cleric + 3 DPS, if they already had the tank then my Pally wasn't wanted, pretty sad really but hey. Similar problem in EQ2 rainding. EQ2, I've never seen so many disparate groups going into battle, more than the odd one without a healer either. I dunno, maybe your server is different but on RE we just get 6 guys together and go rumble, biggest meathead (if any!!) to the fore and play the tactics by ear.</P> <P> </P> <P>Now we're all got an offensive stance too, not MT? Nevermind, lets ditch the defense and crank up the DPS. Now there's always going to be cases were some particular class is more desireable, but the way things are shaping up there's no reason to think Raid A or group B is unplayable because they don't have a Guard tanking.</P> <P>Zerkers look like they might be the vs cold + vs numbers kinda guys, sounds OK, it's a niche. Here's hoping they cater to that niche sufficiently for the players to enjoy it. </P> <P>I don't have a zerker btw, I'm just trying to figure out the big picture and get a feel for which tank does what after the revamp. I know we've got some more changes coming but as it stands things look pretty even. Every tank seems to have a bunch of CA that are comparable (stances, armour donation, group buffs, taunt) but they've all got something defining that nobody else does or at least as well.</P> <P>The SK view looks like modest DPS, life taps that are worth it including group wide ones, STR debuff, disease resist and  solid tanking. Dunno where that leaves us on a raid, maybe the arch lich will be a specialty?</P> <P> </P> <P>Let the dust settle, all tanks are being kept in step afacs, find your niche and play to it's strengths.</P> <P> </P> <P>Raise Hell.</P>

[Nazo]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Stormkahn wrote:<BR> <P>Zerkers look like they might be the vs cold + vs numbers kinda guys, sounds OK, it's a niche. Here's hoping they cater to that niche sufficiently for the players to enjoy it. </P> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <DIV>Problem with niches is SoE expansions tend to follow themes. So you will see quite similar mobs with similar skills in an expansion most of the time. Now I would hardly expect to see Cold Nukin mobs in <STRONG><U>Desert</U></STRONG> of Flames  :smileyvery-happy:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>So niche advantages like this may make u desirable sometimes but may totally be useless next 3 expansions. Time will tell.</DIV>