Berserkergeddon - More Changes I Want to See

[Davion Fuxa]

I don't see how cunning relates to Berserkers. Sure critical hits are nice, but a real Berserker cuts enemies in two with just raw strength.
Cunning implies careful planning, not charging in a slaughtering anything in the way.

It seems like it has been a recent trend among developers to have Berserkers act as Debuffers - disabling their opponents and finishing them off. Most such talents fall under the Cunning stat in Tales of Maj'eyal, and they do have Dirty Fighting as a tree (I personally can attest to how powerful it is from my Shaloran Berserker playthrough).

[HousePet]

I happen to think that dismemberment is an excellent debuff, and all you need is strength.

[grobblewobble]

I do think Berserkers could do with a slightly more time limited Unstoppable however.

In my opinion, if unstoppable gets a nerf, shortening the duration is not the way to do it. Shalore is already the best race for Berserkers because of the strong synergy with Timeless. If the standard duration is shortened, timeless is going to make even more difference than it does already. It will basically punish every race except Shalore.

A much better nerf would be to limit the amount of damage that Unstoppable can soak. As it stands, you can take millions of damage while you're unstoppable and it will have absolutely no effect. That is the reason it is imbalanced. It also makes many other gameplay mechanics largely irrelevant (like con, hitpoints, shields, armor, defense, resistances, everything). That's kind of sad. Not to mention that it feels very unrealistic. Hey, that nuke that detonated on my head? Oh, I was unstoppable so I felt nothing.

So if there has to be a nerf, just impose some sort of upper limit. For example, unstoppable could mean you die at -X life, or it could temporarily double or triple your max health, or something like that.

[donkatsu]

I do think Berserkers could do with a slightly more time limited Unstoppable however.

In my opinion, if unstoppable gets a nerf, shortening the duration is not the way to do it. Shalore is already the best race for Berserkers because of the strong synergy with Timeless. If the standard duration is shortened, timeless is going to make even more difference than it does already. It will basically punish every race except Shalore.

A much better nerf would be to limit the amount of damage that Unstoppable can soak. As it stands, you can take millions of damage while you're unstoppable and it will have absolutely no effect. That is the reason it is imbalanced. It also makes many other gameplay mechanics largely irrelevant (like con, hitpoints, shields, armor, defense, resistances, everything). That's kind of sad. Not to mention that it feels very unrealistic. Hey, that nuke that detonated on my head? Oh, I was unstoppable so I felt nothing.

So if there has to be a nerf, just impose some sort of upper limit. For example, unstoppable could mean you die at -X life, or it could temporarily double or triple your max health, or something like that.

This was my inclination as well. I think if you made it an Other type buff you could end up with a balanced Unstoppable, but it would still be lame. The offensive design equivalent would be, "for 8 turns you aren't allowed to use any other offensive talents and all your offensive passives are disabled, but this talent oneshots everything". That's boring. Good talents have interesting interactions with other talents, Unstoppable has no interaction with anything.

[edge2054]

I do think Berserkers could do with a slightly more time limited Unstoppable however.

In my opinion, if unstoppable gets a nerf, shortening the duration is not the way to do it. Shalore is already the best race for Berserkers because of the strong synergy with Timeless. If the standard duration is shortened, timeless is going to make even more difference than it does already. It will basically punish every race except Shalore.

A much better nerf would be to limit the amount of damage that Unstoppable can soak. As it stands, you can take millions of damage while you're unstoppable and it will have absolutely no effect. That is the reason it is imbalanced. It also makes many other gameplay mechanics largely irrelevant (like con, hitpoints, shields, armor, defense, resistances, everything). That's kind of sad. Not to mention that it feels very unrealistic. Hey, that nuke that detonated on my head? Oh, I was unstoppable so I felt nothing.

So if there has to be a nerf, just impose some sort of upper limit. For example, unstoppable could mean you die at -X life, or it could temporarily double or triple your max health, or something like that.

Yeah, I'm digging this idea too. Giving unstoppable a die at based on max health would make max health a lot more meaningful.

May have to rename the talent though to Mostly Unstoppable

[Fortescue]

I do think Berserkers could do with a slightly more time limited Unstoppable however.

In my opinion, if unstoppable gets a nerf, shortening the duration is not the way to do it. Shalore is already the best race for Berserkers because of the strong synergy with Timeless. If the standard duration is shortened, timeless is going to make even more difference than it does already. It will basically punish every race except Shalore.

A much better nerf would be to limit the amount of damage that Unstoppable can soak. As it stands, you can take millions of damage while you're unstoppable and it will have absolutely no effect. That is the reason it is imbalanced. It also makes many other gameplay mechanics largely irrelevant (like con, hitpoints, shields, armor, defense, resistances, everything). That's kind of sad. Not to mention that it feels very unrealistic. Hey, that nuke that detonated on my head? Oh, I was unstoppable so I felt nothing.

So if there has to be a nerf, just impose some sort of upper limit. For example, unstoppable could mean you die at -X life, or it could temporarily double or triple your max health, or something like that.

I hate Unstoppable for all the reasons you stated. Let's make a petition to remove it from the game.

[Davion Fuxa]

I don't think Unstoppable should necessarily be removed. While it might come off as unrealistic that you can somehow shrug off the most lethal of attacks, it 'does' lead to the Berserker thematically jumping into the fray. I personally have a Heroism infusion on the current Berserker I have for example that lets me go below 500+ or 600+ hitpoints, but that doesn't lead me to do stupid things like jump into the middle of the room and try and kill everything in sight.

I sort of wonder if it should borrow from the Cursed playbook in regards to how Rampage works. Rampage is a Cursed talent that essentially let's you 'go on a rampage'. Certain actions let you extend Rampage's duration. This might be an idea for Unstopable - make it so that it's duration gets extended by killing some enemies or taking a certain threshold of damage while Unstoppable or something around that theme.

[Jurriaan]

One thing I'd love to see is an ability to pull enemies in to get them killed. This is the Riot ability in the Barbarian addon.

The alternative to a berserker that rushes around is the berserker that uses his/her special warcry to get enemies closer in.

1/5: pull enemies in from 3 squares away, 1 square closer
2/5: pull enemies in from 4 squares away, 2 squares closer
3/5: pull enemies in from 5 squares away, 3 squares closer
4/5: pull enemies in from 6 squares away, 4 squares closer
5/5: pull enemies in from 7 squares away, 5 squares closer

or something like that? In the Barbarian addon this also dazes enemies, but I mostly kill them in a single turn and don't really know if that helps any. This might be a good fit for the last talent in the Warcries. Just add this ability to the existing description and call it 'Gathering Cry' ?

[Fortescue]

Jurriaan, one of their locked existing abilities does this already, but it is in a tree not many people seem to like Look up Battle Call.

http://te4.org/wiki/Berserker

[Jurriaan]

Ah - that is indeed a tree I think I don't bother with.

[Fortescue]

To play with some lore! Unstoppable and Shattering Shout are Garkul specialties in the lore, so now I'm retconning Berserker to include reference to Garkul as an inspirational supreme warrior.

The gameplay stuff I'm all down with, but Garkul inspirational to non-orcs? No way.

Garkul was created specifically as a leverage against the player's backstory, to deconstruct the notion of player-as-hero. The idea is to make the player worship the enemy's heroes more than his own. Incorporating Garkul into a western class background breaks that apart, whilst also making no sense from a racial and cultural perspective. Garkul was, after all, a terrorizing force who murdered hundreds of thousands.

Well, I don't disagree with any of this. The only reason I didn't think it was a conflict is because your player character doesn't know what talent points or categories are They don't yell UNSTOPPABLE in combat and suddenly can't die

But I can see why this would be a confusion point for players all the same.

[emblempride]

The only reason I didn't think it was a conflict is because your player character doesn't know what talent points or categories are They don't yell UNSTOPPABLE in combat and suddenly can't die

Dude, you're missing out on like half of the fun of the game there! If you aren't yelling out what you're doing in the game Dragon Ball style then are you actually playing Tales of Maj'Eyal? A hidden secret in the code is that you get extra in-game points if you yell out your actions really loud IRL, even more points if you're not even playing the game. You actually automatically win with the character that is at the top of your saves atm if you do this at a funeral or wedding. I don't think DG would ever reveal it himself, but just look in the game man. My only experience is that I tried Python literally one time like 2 years ago, so I think I know what I'm talking about when it comes to code.

"GREATER WEAPON FOCUS!"
"RUSH!" (and then The Temples of Syrinx plays, you don't actually rush to your target for 120% weapon damage)
"SWITCH PLACE!" (because the enemy would never be able to guess your next move, right?)
"CURSE OF IMPOTENCE!" (male enemies would have even more of a reason to fear Corruptors thanks to misunderstandings if they actually yelled this out in-game)

Everything can be made more fun actually if yell out what you're doing as you do it in ANY instance.

"EAT BACON WITH EGGS!"
"DEFECATION!" (comes automatically at talent level 6.5 don't cha know)

... I'm sorry, I laughed at your comment and ran with it, off of a cliff.

Side-note: Someone, please make an unarmed Saiyan or Namekian addon. It's an international imperative if only due to sheer awesomeness,

[stinkstink]

Side-note: Someone, please make an unarmed Saiyan or Namekian addon. It's an international imperative if only due to sheer awesomeness,

Could just port over another Hengband class.

[Fortescue]

"RUSH!" (and then The Temples of Syrinx plays, you don't actually rush to your target for 120% weapon damage)

I want this to happen really badly.

[Fortescue]

Revision of proposed changes incoming. Edge has talked to me about implementing Primal Hunter. Shibari is on board with some concepts, but hasn't had time to look at things yet. I'm proposing sharing Unbreakable Body with Bulwarks. Cunning as a requirement has been dropped from all categories, this will just be Strength and Constitution focused now.

More suggestions are welcome.

Combat Techniques and Combat Veteran are back as core abilities, Unbreakable Body is likely moving to Berserker's anemic Generic side to give more choices over there. Shibari also suggested it go there locked, which I don't really know how I feel about, but hey whatever gets it in the game.