Please post or comment on berserker specific changes here.
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Less/no diminishing returns on hit/dam for berserkers. How much? Keep in mind, already less diminishing for berserkers in game.
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Berserker damage increases as health decreases. Potential ratio: (50-(current hp/max hp100).75)% increase. At 50% health, berserker deals zero extra damage. From there, increases by .75% for every health percent lost. At 30% health, deal (50-30).75=15% more damage. At 10% health deal (50-10).75=30% more damage. At 1% health, deal (50-1)*.75=36.75% extra damage.
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Rage needs to be looked into heavily for the anger and fury path. The simple fact that it can last 0 hours destroys your chances in a fight. Every berserker skill is buffed by rage, and your rage is a berserkers end. Change the rage hours longer, allow anger to be able to relax during a fight and make fury have a 50% chance to relax in a fight. How to rework this skill?
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Roar rework. How? Consider crusader balance as well. Maybe path specific roars.
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Headbutt as opener.
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Berserkers vs shields. How to upgrade?
7. Some ability to overcome the affects that often slay other melees (a way to regen their moves suddenly, some kind of malediction resistance, stuff like that). Any ideas?
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Berserkers really need to shed the perception of being only comparable to other pure melees with "huge HP and output". That's a really flawed method of building them. Just about every game with a truly successful "Berserker" class achieves it by making them more. They are strong, durable, and rely on intuition over discipline. That's the direction we should be taking as well. Rather than conflated numbers that are lost on diminishing returns, they need a real way to distinguish themselves that isn't countered easily, and unreliable even when not countered. They don't have that now, no matter the path.
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For one blindness. The first thing I do when I fight a zerk is blind. Zerks deal massive amounts of damage, but only if they can hit you. Dirting a zerk should truly be a Armageddon. Haste is great, but they need more. I would suggest giving them the high weapon of Blademaster bonus to offense, without the penalty to defense.
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Rage should totally prevent disarm. Ever. Fighting a monk, you rage, he dirts, disarms. Game over. How to deal with this?
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Zerk regeneration should totally be awesome. Not what we have now. Non raging zerks should have something akin to Ogre regeneration. Under what conditions?
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Anger and fury zerks are completely useless due to their rage timer. Increase rage timer to what?
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Maybe they shouldnt lose the amount of hp when rage wears off. @Celerity votes no because this can easily be abused to fully heal.
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Perhaps for Anger path, the rage skill lag could be made zero. Since their rage is so small, it's natural to be faster to attain. You still get 0 hours rage, but you don't lose that initial round time to rage.
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Just let them rage outside of combat.
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Rage swing doing the full dmg to everyone fighting the zerk at the very least.
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(rage) What if the main target isn't in battle for that tick, can it then allow the zerk to flee?
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What if rage was further tailored to give more visible and innate bonuses based off of the race of the zerk? When an ogre is transformed they get more hp, fires get more damroll/all bashes are firey, dwarves more magical resistance, etc.
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Since zerks can't flee and sleep easily, perhaps they can be given compensation in other areas for it? What if regeneration was changed to a manual skill activated only outside of combat that is timed to give healing bonus in pulses?
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Headbutt - I almost never used headbutt. I always envisioned people resorting to headbutts when they're immobile or their limbs are preoccupied some reason. What if it was changed to a manual skill to act as a sort of counter for initiation negation which would be intended to be used if you're stuck in combat against mobs.
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New skills and changed skills are bolded, and will be discussed at the end.
Key Berserker skills:
Level Skills
1 axe / dagger / flail / mace / polearm / shield block / spear / sword / enhanced damage / hand to hand / recall / staff / two handed
5 parry
6 fast healing / rage
7 second attack
8 dirt kicking
10 relax / swing
13 **charge **
15 trip / bodyslam
16 berserk / haggle
17 dual wield / roar
18 meditation
19 third attack
20 warcry
21 dodge
22 weapon cleave
23 shield cleave
25 lore
27 regeneration
30 ** path focus **/ instinct
33 headbutt
36 haymaker / rage focus
38 double grip / adrenaline
41 rage focus
46 rage focus
50 cripple
Weapon Cleave/Shield Cleave - Can still break burnproof weapons, but at a small chance (same as it is currently with the fury path)
Instinct - Similar to blind-fighting, but not as effective, and only for one target (chosen as an argument to the command, and requires the target to be in the same area, but not the same room). Starts off with a small effect, but the effect increases each round the berserker fights, and the effect lasts until the berserker is no longer bloody. Also provides a small (20% normal, 10% for archers) chance to dodge ranged weapons.
Regeneration - Active command, as suggest above, that heals based off of constitution score ((3 x (CON - 2))).
Cripple - 2 round lag. Deals low-moderate damage and strikes at a random location on the victim's body. Legs: Damage moves. Chest: suffocate. Arms: Lower STR, hit/dam. Head: Damage mana.
Swing - Can be entered manually even while raging, to take 1.5 rounds of lag to deal weapon damage to all enemies.
Charge - Chance to trigger RAMPAGE, STUNNING BLOW, or CONCUSSIVE FORCE. Rampage grants a 2-tick increase to number of attacks by 1. Stunning blow disorients the victim. Concussive force disarms shields. The chance of one of these affects occurring is 15%, and which affect occurs is random.
Path skills and focus:
Anger
The art of discipline and focused rage. The application of discipline limits the violent tendencies, but allows for a more practiced and precise strike while in a state of rage. Rage duration is 2 ticks (1 hour). Least hit/dam bonus. Uses weapon/shield, and is more effective at blocking attacks with weapons/shields while raging.
**Shatter Magic - **increases success chance for headbutt to shatter magical protections, and increases the damage.
Shield Bash - Same as current **Iron Fist - **Allows for haymaker to have a chance to break through shields, disarming them before contact with the victim.
Fury
The art of complete surrender to their instincts. The body knows what it needs to do before the mind ever catches up. Those that choose the path of fury learn to let go of their thoughts and lose themselves to battle. Rage duration is 4 ticks (3 hours). Moderate hit/dam bonus. Uses 2-handed weapons, and deals increased damage and defends better with all varieties of 2-handed weapons while raging.
Honed instincts** - **increases the effect of instinct, and removes the restriction of sleeping while affected by panic.
Batter - same as current.
Power expertise - same as current (devastation path).
Devastation
The art of slaughter without regard for safety. A berserker that follows that path of devastation believes in victory at any cost. The sight of blood excites them, and their lust for battle invigorates them beyond mortal limits. Rage duration is 8 ticks (7 hours). Extreme hit/dam bonus. Dual wields weapons, and does increased damage while dual wielding and raging.
**Bloodhaze - **First use - enters a state of battle lust. can be used with an argument to automatically engage on the victim and enter a rage (still lags for rage success/failure rates). Using again or after reaching a threshold of damage dealt gives a shield of hp that absorbs external damage dealt at a rate of 2 shield hp per 1 damage. Shield generation is 20% of damage dealt, and has a maximum amount of 600.
Ferocity - same as current **Rake - **Attempts to knock the enemy weapon aside, removing its attacks and chance to block for the next round, on a 2-round lag timer. While raged, chance is increased, and also grants a small chance to disarm completely (25% on success).
I feel like this would help fully flesh out the berserker, and give them a kit with a purpose and widely varying playstyle unique to them and the path they choose. I feel it really helps enforce the idea that each time they fight, they are making a gamble against death, and trying their best to tip the odds in their favor. I welcome any and all criticism. Thanks for reading!
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Give some tactical depth to Rage, imo. Go ahead and make rage last longer and let every path relax, but give them lag or some kind of penalty. Penalties could be a cooldown on when you can enrage again or a short duration paralyze or a short duration damage penalty or a short duration disabling of fast healing/regen. Say anger would have the last penalties or no penalties to relax and fury and devastation would have higher penalties respectively.
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What if instead of just increasing the +dam of the berserker, rage actually rolled damage and then bumped it up by a notch. This would mean the warrior/bard/whatever with 70 80 does not hit as hard as the raged berserker with 70 80 +1 damage category.
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While any melee should be capable of quickly diminishing the opponents health, berserkers should be the fastest tool for that job. For instance, a 2008 Trumpf Trulaser 3020 will cut a sheet of metal in half in seconds, but a 1938 Cincinnati Shear will do the same job in half a second. Brute Force. Back on Topic. Berserkers have GREAT output offensively, unfortunately so do a lot of other classes, the trouble comes from their lack of sustainability (Like the old shear above, we need our berserkers to survive through the ages). A Berserker needs the fight to end quickly. But with changes to gear in our world, they are facing enemies who hit harder, have more hit points, and a better armor class than EVER in our history. The easiest start to fix this issue would be in tuning up the berserkers sustainability. They need a skill, or skills, that would aid in their ability to overlook damage. I love it when they roar and ignore the damage, more of that would help (something similar for each race?). Perhaps one path could get a quasi-protection while raged. I also considered that we might actually change one of the paths entirely. Perhaps gear one of the paths more toward fighting magic users, call them Spell Slayers. Path of Anger, Path of Devastation, Path of ? (Hatred, Might, Unbelievers) Would depend on which God inspired you to destroy all Magic Users.
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What if berserkers healed based upon their damage? This would obviously have to be done with great care and consideration when designing, but I think the real key for a zerker in the games present state is to increase their survivability, but this needs to be done without changing the mind set of a zerker.
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what about them redirecting some of that damage they are getting hit with back at their opponent?
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Make berserkers only able to use two handed weapons.
Berserks get only like 1 attack but damage is quadrupled and cannot be parried.
Berserks get abilities that can do stuff that chain autoattacks
Make rage slow to take affect and obvious but super overpowered.
Give berserkers ability to break peoples legs so they can't flee.
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Lets add a single skill to all berserker paths, resolve.
Help Resolve
Syntax: Automatic
When a raging berserker's health is dropped to a certain point, he resigns himself to the unavoidable death. This resolve results in a sudden focus. This focus allows the berserker to forsake normal battle strategy causing his ferocious blows to ignore attempts to block or parry it.
This would mean, you can only avoid damage from a dying berserker, he would be attempting to drive your weapon or shield through you. Dodge would be the primary avoidance, but other avenues for avoidance are available.
As for at what Health level needs to be reached for it to work, I was thinking that it should start when the berserker is surviving only on his "rage bonus" HP, after all that's when he can pretty much count on not surviving.