Barbarians need love.

[daedroth]

Subject sounds like the title of a cheap romance novel eh. Not that I would know what the titles of romance novels were like.

They do need some loving though.

I was thinking:
1) Reduce the dodge nerf to (btw does the nerf apply all the time or only when flurry? It would be great if it was just when flurry was active).
2) Keep dodge nerf, but add an attack chance plus = to dodge nerf or half of it?

Also thinking of knight (although not bothered about this one).
Change the Att+ to a dodge+ to make them more tanky or an option to choose?

[NiteHawk]

Subject sounds like the title of a cheap romance novel eh. Not that I would know what the titles of romance novels were like.

They do need some loving though.

I was thinking:
1) Reduce the dodge nerf to (btw does the nerf apply all the time or only when flurry? It would be great if it was just when flurry was active).
2) Keep dodge nerf, but add an attack chance plus = to dodge nerf or half of it?

Also thinking of knight (although not bothered about this one).
Change the Att+ to a dodge+ to make them more tanky or an option to choose?

My zerker went up against Rodeo's Ninja, and honestly it was pretty even steven. Zerker did well.

The dodge I'm not sure why people think the 5% dodge is ruining the zerker, it's in most peoples heads. People think that it's for example 40% (base) -5% which is incorrect. It's a 5% multiply reduction to the agi itself, and it's not a hard value. I.E. if you have 20 AGI, then 20*.95=19 AGI

If you guys are saying that one ish AGI effects characters then surely AGI must be overpowered atm rite.

Why they aren't being used? They are boring. They are similar to other classes that can deal similar damage, and in PVP if you could get the 3 rages in a row they would be overpowered, but obviously in PVP multiple hits isn't common after 3.

They are pretty much the next class potentially I will be doing a look at though.

[Tucker]

When running a saury Zerker into a saury monk my numbers are putting them at pretty much equal, and I'm only using saury bc they tend to be the best melee vs melee 1v1 PVP class. (Before Jake reeee's out about how Dwarves with +1 end and max CHR are the best somehow- I'm not arguing min/maxing is the best in general but in this narrow scope of 1v1 melee duels being discussed it is.)

Their AC seems to be very close to equal and the only other difference which I'm not able to calculate is RH vs Rage hits. I dunno what other people think of it but I'd say Zerkers are better for PVE for raw DPS (and Rage numbers pay out more since the HR is higher vs NPC's) but Ninjers get more out of RH than Zerkers get from Rage I think in PVP by a very slight margin.

So yeah, I'd say they're relatively equal in a 1v1 but the real problem is the MR difference and dodge loss in group fights would outweigh the 8% hp bump in most cases I would think.

I mentioned in the Monk thread about how I don't see Monks as crazy OP but rather that they could use a small nerf (maybe a lil chunk of AC loss or drop the DR bonus from 7.5 to 5 or smth) but rather that with Zerkers/Cavs being a bit weak and relatively underplayed they seem like they're strong as hell. They should be stronger in 1v1 PVP by a small margin (maybe 10-15%) - I think you could buff them in some interesting ways: You could give them some natural AC, they could get an active ability like a reverse /taunt (Shout, Warcry, Intimidate) that costs a stam, has a failure chance (based off a stat?), and could reduce agi or str of one target if it passes a check against the enemies stat. It could also be an aoe intimidate that could reduce dmg by a very small % of anyone that passes the check.

This idea I like the most and is a common theme for this class - Give them a dmg steroid that scales or steps off of being in a low hp state. It'd have very cool synergy with guardians too.

The thing is with Cavs, Ninjas, Zerkers they all have such little utility and differences that if you swap the balance of power you're indirectly nerfing the other two. This could be remedied by giving some utility. Cav's can /taunt (which I think could use a small buff but thats another discussion). Ninjas should be the jack-of-all-trades but master-of-none sort of class where they aren't the best in PVP but always have a chance and are good at all aspects of the game but not great at any. Zerkers should be barely under Slayers at melee PVP kings with Slayers but could get some utility like the low-HP steroid or an intimidate since Slayers have utility with hide, sneak, and track. This way both Zerkers and Slayers could be top dogs for melee but will likely get shredded by casters and in the case of Slayers faeriefire. Ninjas still jack of all trades and Cav's (maybe with reworked /taunt) could be an actual tank class that has strong PVP all around.

[Inverno]

Or maybe a different skill. A "berserker state".

They can get a damage bonus when the HP is low (severe or critical). Something to make ppl worry about when fighting in PVP.

[Tucker]

Or maybe a different skill. A "berserker state".

They can get a damage bonus when the HP is low (severe or critical). Something to make ppl worry about when fighting in PVP.

Yeah thats what I'm sayin'

Give them a dmg steroid that scales or steps off of being in a low hp state. It'd have very cool synergy with guardians too.

It'd be interesting to have an intentionally low HP Zerker behind a guardian in fights as a strategy, and with 1v1's the Zerker is very dangerous later in the fight once dmg'd. Zerkers would only need a small buff to become a clear numero dos next to Slayers for best melee 1v1 dueling class without the major counter of Faeriefire. That bonus could tilt the scales to put them enough above Ninjas, Elders, and Cavs to be relevant while still losing to casters and slayers.

[NiteHawk]

Low HP actually sounds cool. I was thinking about doing rage that scales with success but low HP and scaling damage is a cool idea.

There used to be a system in place in my old game, it actually still exists and it's like how knights/zerkers work out in some other games. It is a bar that fills up when you attack. It actually works pretty decently now and I was thinking about it:



Like that. Which you could build up and save flurries (though it goes down slowly as you see), and then there was a rage attack that increased STR but decreased AC for 30s. I think this is pretty cool as well as overall. Right now the max 'MP' is based off wisdom like it is now.

However we could leave that for another class maybe. Depends on how people feel. I kind of am interested in low HP damage boosts. If we do low damage boost route, what would be ideal? Would it scale from 0-100% HP or would it start maybe with half HP and lower? Obviously you have to be careful on what the boost is here, a no HP zerker/guardian combo would be a very much easy thing to do.


Edit in the video obviously I mucked up on removing attacks when flurrying or raging, but you get the point.

[Tucker]

I was thinking if it scaled high enough the guard zerker combo would certainly be cheesed a bit but its a minimum two man combo and it wouldn't need to be that much damage to push them over the tops of the Cav/Ninja/Elder chars now.

I dunno how to code it best for you but if you could give it a smooth sliding scale of x-x% that'd prolly be ideal, however it might be easier and less time intensive to code it based of hp level - i.e. slightly: +1%, moderately: +2%, severely: +3%, critically: +4% as I imagine those steps are already coded in

I would recommend a very small bonus like 0-4 or something that might be enough of a buff to tily the scales and if not it'd be easy to up it a bit more. I think 5-6% might be the sweet spot here but it'd be tricky to tell without testing and is smarter to start on the safer side.

I like that mechanic as well that'd be really interesting for a new class or if there were a need down the line to expand/rebuild an existing class.

Also since I got you here you should consider buffing /taunt a little. I know Jake's mentioned it before but /taunt is pretty useless in PVE since anything that would make it an actual advantage over another class is very scary to taunt. A high CHR knight can get double tapped or just murdered by multiple monsters. It also is terrifying to taunt in a fight that has mobs in the room as well due to that (fight at OAD's/dragon). Taunt in PVP is quite useful (I consider it to be just effectively raising your ehp at the trade of 1 stam) but its scaling is pretty awkward and it makes chr not as important as it could be.

The math I've got on it is that 10 char is 4%~ and 20 is 12%~ which means each chr point is roughly +.8% damage reduction. However it seems to be that low CHR at max level doesn't fumble the skill much more than higher CHR. I was comparing Drakes to Lings to Dwarves and found that in the case of Drakes they had an example build of +1 something and have 15/20 chr or don't +1 something and get 20/20 CHR. The +5 CHR gave less EHP than +1 end and was less useful for pvp than +1 STR and AGI.

I was thinking that if you buffed the damage reduction slightly and caused it to double on NPC's as well as increasing fumble rate a bit (so that 10-15 chr characters are punished a little bit for going greedy as hell instead of rewarded). Make 10 = 5% and scale it by 1% per chr instead of .8. That'd put 20 at 15% > 12% and 23 (max possible) at 18% from previous 14.4. If it doubled vs NPCs that'd give knights a reason to use it during PVE situations as afaik noone really does unless its to protect lowbies while leveling or something. 20chr knight could actual taunt during oads since he'd have 30% DR vs bosses which still requires a priest to focus heal him but minimizes risk of getting one shot and I think would actually be used. It'd also be a slight buff to keep the class competitive and give an incentive for non-greedy min/maxing stat rolls giving the class a bit more depth.

[NiteHawk]

I get you, but please keep different things on different topics. Otherwise too much crap gets discussed that is completely unrelated and this should be mainly about zerkers atm.

Would 5% even make a huge impact though? I feel like that wouldn't be enough for the case of being critically low HP and having a damage bonus.

[Tucker]

I get you, but please keep different things on different topics. Otherwise too much crap gets discussed that is completely unrelated and this should be mainly about zerkers atm.

Would 5% even make a huge impact though? I feel like that wouldn't be enough for the case of being critically low HP and having a damage bonus.

It wouldn't be crazy big but I think it'd be enough to put them over the edge. They already have 10% from dual wielding, the highest modifier in game, the best weapon access (will be big when 2h weapons get added proper) next to bows, so even 5% is pretty strong I think. Like you mentioned they are fairly strong so they don't need a big shove to get them in good shape just a little nudge. 5% on a saury zerker with a high tier weapon is like 10 dmg~ 14 with rage. It could definitely go higher but I'd worry about starting at like 2-10% and people getting upset since that class is suddenly crazy strong - especially with the /protect strat. You could launch with maybe like 2-8 if you test it and don't find it too good then balance from there if need be.

[daedroth]

The "berserker state" has been mentioned previously here
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=171

My opinion is this:
Rage bar based on attacks the barb has landed, that depletes with time (out of combat probably - this would probably lead to zerker pkers hitting mobs to increase their rage, then running about trying to find someone to pk before their rage bar dissapeared... could make it once you are out of combat rage bar totally disappears rather than depletes), once the bar is full all your attacks become rage attacks (you do not gain more rage, but each rage attacks uses up rage).
When the bar is depleted the process starts again.

In their raged state, they would attack faster and harder, they would feel less pain, not be concerned about dodging, and possibly their attacks would be more clumsy since they are not really aiming or timing their attack - they are just attacking without focus.

Options (any combination or just the one - which would probably be increased damage):
Increased damage
Increase to AC (oblivious to pain)
Decreased dodge (they only lose dodge when they are in rage, when not in rage mode they have normal dodge, in their rage induced state they are not really thinking about dodging)
In/decreased hit rate (their rage increases the speed and power of their attack so their harder to avoid/parry/block - counter argument is their rage could actually decrease their hit rate because the are blinded with rage since they are not really aiming or being tactical, this could also cancel each other out ).
increased stamina regen speed (rage is making them attack faster)

I personally think: +damage, -dodge, +ac

I am not so keen on the idea of damage filling the rage though (it feels more icky than tactical to me) unless!... Their health level increases their rage gain, the more damaged they are the quicker they get raged (full health = 100% rage gain, each wound level adds to the 100%).