ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Existing Berserker is well ... Dull. People like it for Stunning Blow, Warshout, and Unstoppable mostly. Two of those things probably need nerfed, and everything else about Berserker could be made more thematic and interesting for players, as well as more powerful.

The heavy emphasis of this remake is on having more buttons to press than the 3 I named above, more rewards for going all the way 5/5 into a talent, greater mobility, and lots more encouragement to take risks by offering greater rewards for doing so. The passive portion of Berserker Furry works well with Bloodbath and should encourage players to be less afraid of taking hits.

I've spent the last 3 weeks drafting and revising this list of improvements to Berserker with the help of PureQuestion, tomisgo, DarkGod, Shibari, and others in IRC. Some or all of these changes have a decent probability of making it into the game, so here is your chance to provide feedback and possibly alter the course of where the Berserker revamp is going.

New Berserker Talent Categories

2H Weapon Assault (replaces 2H Offense)
This is a series of increasingly devastating attack techniques that require a 2H weapon to use.
Justification: The old 2H Offense category felt unfocused, this new category is very clearly about putting the hurt on your opponents from first to last talent, and about giving Berserkers buttons they really, really want to push! Screw bumping into monsters all day, leave that to games like DCSS

Fearless Cleave (NEW!)
Take 1 step towards your enemies, using the momentum to swing your weapon strongly in a 3 square arc (centered towards your move) for 110% to 210% damage. This costs 16 Stamina, but has no cooldown.

Justification: This is intended to eliminate that crappy old melee strategy of walking up to opponents until you are 2 squares away, then waiting a turn so they walk next to you and you get the first hit. Berserkers don’t wait, Berserkers rush into danger! This talent is key as heck to the new Berserker and embodies the idea of taking risks. If the monster doesn’t die, you are probably going to get smacked, but you know that, and must be fearless to use it! The lack of cooldown is because I want there to always be a button to push, but it is limited by the movement requirement because once you are next to a monster you would need to make a gap to use it again (unless you fearlessly cleave into another incoming monster!). Also Death Dance was the only basic AoE attack prior to this being added, and while this isn’t a large AoE, it will help a bit. Finally, it offers an alternative fight opener to Rush, which is more appropriate for ranged opponents anyway. It also could synergize well with Warshout!

Stunning Blow (Moved from the deleted 2H Maiming category)
Stun an enemy for 3-5 turns while doing 124% to 155% damage, 5 turn cooldown. 8 Stamina.

Justification: One of the only good attacks vanilla Berserker had (so I kept it), but I lowered the max duration because it was a tad too good. Lowered the CD because Berserkers needed more buttons to press.

Death Dance
Attack all surrounding enemies for regular attack damage, and cause bleeding damage that does 50%-150% (scales w/ effective skill level) normal attack damage over 5 turns. The cooldown is reduced by 1 for each enemy you hit with Death Dance.

5 turn cooldown. 20 Stamina.

Justification: Death Dance was effective, but boring as all get out. There was also not much of a reason to put more than one point in it. This new version needs some testing, but would be more interesting and fun. The bleed is for flavor, but also interacts with Bloody Butcher.

Execution (Replaces Death Blow)
Deals an automatic critical hit, ignoring an additional 20-100 armor, and boosting your attack damage by 1% to 5% per enemy missing hp %. For example, an enemy at 20% life would cause this attack to deal a bonus of 80% to 400% based on skill level. Cooldown of 10-6 turns. 25 Stamina.

Justification: Draining lots of Stamina to do one attack was a bad tradeoff that meant less button pushing. I added the Armor Pen as some extra insurance that the skill will still work as intended even vs. heavily armored enemies. It still has a relatively high Stamina cost, though, because it is appropriately powerful for a tier 4 attack skill. The chance of instant kill was irrelevant because once something is below 20% hp it was going to die soon regardless.

Strength of the Berserker (replaces 2H Maiming)
Justification: Sunder Arms / Blood Frenzy GONE. Instead, this is a powerful Berserker-themed utility category. The Sunders were boring, Blood Frenzy was not useful. There was really no salvaging the original category, and Berserker / Warshout needed new homes now that 2H Assault was refocused into a series of attack skills.

Berserker Rage (Berserker renamed from 2H Weapon Offense)
Sustained. Instant. Gain x attack damage (scales w/ Str) and beginning at rank 3 x critical dmg bonus (scales w/ effective skill level) per turn while sustaining. You push your body to its limit and lose 2% of your max HP per turn while Berserker Fury is active. Will not reduce player below 1% hp, will not auto-disable. Cooldown 30 turns. (keeps old Stun and Pinning resist values)

Passive. You gain + 0.5% critical hit chance for every 1% missing current hp.

Justification: Old Berserker was a newbie trap. Losing 10 armor in the early levels is too dangerous, but late game it was irrelevant. The accuracy bonus wasn’t necessary, but Berserkers could have a hard time with high armour targets. The new hp loss dynamic plays well with the new Bloodrage and helps emphasize that players need to focus on hp regen as a stat. Renaming is necessary so people know whether you’re talking about the class or this skill.

Shattering Blow (Revised Sunder Armor)
An attack for normal damage that aims for the enemy’s defenses rather than a killing blow. Reduces their Armour value by x (scales w/ strengthl), and shatters any damage shields they currently have. Cooldown is 15-5 turns (scales w/ effective skill level).

Justification: A good utility skill and one that DarkGod already revised prior to any work I began on improving Berserker.

Warshout (From 2H Weapon Offense)
Unchanged.
Justification: The only other great CC Berserkers had. Fits the theme of this new talent category nicely as well.

Relentless Fury (NEW!)
Instant cast. May be activated when the player is below 30% stamina to cause +10-30 (scaling with Constitution) stamina regeneration for 4-8 (scaling with effective skill level) turns. While this buff is active you also move and attack 10%-30% (scaling with effective skill level) faster. 30 turn cooldown.

Justification: With all these new buttons to press in 2H Weapon Assault, Berserkers are going to be a lot more pressed for Stamina. An ability that only restores Stamina is boring though, so the speed bonus was added! To prevent players opening fights with this, the 30% stamina requirement was added. This is a “glue” skill that ties the concept together by encouraging players to spend Stamina and press buttons as much possible, and will let them take advantage of Fearless Cleave’s lack of a CD even early in the game.

Bloodthirst
Available as an initial category, swapped w/ Combat Veteran Passives so players have access at level 1. This was the only flavorful, defining, and generally really great vanilla Berserker category and new players should get to play with it as soon as possible to understand why Berserker is good and what is different about it from other melee classes.

Mortal Terror
Moved to Tier 1, otherwise unchanged.
Justification: Bloodbath requires critical hits to function...

Bloodbath
Moved to Tier 2, otherwise unchanged.
Justification: See above

Bloody Butcher (replaces Bloodrage)
Passive. You gain 10-30% dmg (strength) and ignore 10-50% physical resist (effective skill level) vs. Bleeding enemies.

Unstoppable
Max duration reduced from 7 turns to 5,
Justification: due to revised Berserker Rage making those 5 turns a LOT more powerful, and it seems to be a general consensus that vanilla Unstoppable is already too strong.

Looking Forward
So, coming down the pipe and pending approval from DarkGod some time far in the future (possibly a month or more out, possibly not in time for pushing the first Berserker update) I will be introducing a Dex focused category called Primal Hunter. The most flavorful aspect of this category will be the inclusion of a Throwing Axe ability with a moderate cooldown. All I can tell you about it for right now is that it will NOT be a damage skill without some kind of melee component involved. DarkGod was very clear about that, selling him on giving any kind of ranged ability to Berserker will be an uphill battle. I think though, that it is thematic and fun enough to justify, and it will simply be another test of my ability to design something that is a good match for ToME and Berserker itself.

Short version: I agree Precise Strikes is not a super compelling reason to dump into Dex. I want to make a new advanced (locked) Dex category named Primal Hunter. There will (hopefully) be a throwing axe involved.

I have yet to come up with anything compelling regarding a new Constitution based talent category, but that doesn't mean I can't. I am currently spending most of my free time on another project for DarkGod (not Berserker related) and when that is over I have many more really cool ideas that I think the players will love once they are as properly fleshed out as Bloodied Berserker has been.

Berserkers have always been a favorite trope / character of mine, and you can bet I will be closely monitoring these changes and suggesting further refinements as necessary. It is my greatest hope that everyone playing the new Berserker has a lot of fun doing so!

I know for a fact Fortescue has worked really hard on these changes, and it shows! His passion to improve the class is really good to see. I am really happy with what he has put forward here. Being a bit of a vanilla Berserker veteran myself (cleared insane with it recently), I 100% agree that the class needs a lot of love.

What he's put together addresses basically ALL of the issues I had with the class. The changes promote aggression; you should WANT to charge into battle, and should be rewarded for doing so (of course, with an element of risk, but that's what it's all about). Also, Berserker's lacked a lot of synergy, which is fixed in a big way with these changes.

Having more buttons to press, and more abilities to choose between each turn, will add a lot of interest to the class. Managing your hp will also keep your mind in the game. I see hp management being a big part of these changes, and will be great for keeping things interesting. Being rewarded for using stamina (to access relentless fury) is also really smart- promoting ability use will make you feel a lot more engaged.

I think he accidentally omitted one of the key parts of his changes though lol. the part where you became more powerful for each % missing hp, which ties in really nicely with the Berserker skill replacement. I am sure it was just an oversight- he will be able to edit it in when he wakes up

Overall I think he's done a really good job and if these changes were to be introduced, the Berserker class would be a lot more fun.

Thanks very much for the glowing endorsement!

I've not spent much time with the Berserker, largely because I thought it was dull after a half-dozen attempts, but this looks like it would be more strategic and fun. I believe that most of the melee classes are a bit dull (although the Bulwark kind of feels like it should be dull, ha ha) and this is the one class that, in my opinion, shouldn't be "hit and run." I like what you've done here.

Good work.

Sounds really nice, though one thing that might make this rather too strong is the tree that gives stamina regen and stamina gain when killing a mob.
Can't remember their max level values but hoping they're not high enough to feed the new talents.

Overall these look like pretty good changes, I just have a few questions and comments about specifics.

Fortescue wrote:Fearless Cleave (NEW!)
Take 1 step towards your enemies, using the momentum to swing your weapon strongly in a 3 square arc (centered towards your move) for 110% to 210% damage. This costs 16 Stamina, but has no cooldown.

Good idea, but this sounds like it could be really easily abused with Never Stop Running and Adrenaline Surge for massive sustained AoE damage.

Fortescue wrote:Death Dance
Move 2 squares in straight line, passing through one enemy, and attacking all surrounding enemies (14 squares total, since you don’t attack yourself, 8 initial + 3 forward + 3 forward) for regular attack damage, and cause bleeding damage that does 50%-150% (scales w/ effective skill level) normal attack damage over 5 turns. This can stack up to 3 times, causing total damage of 450% weapon damage over 5 turns. The square you are landing in must be empty. The cooldown is reduced by 1 for each enemy you hit with Death Dance.

5 turn cooldown. 20 Stamina.

Justification: Death Dance was effective, but boring as all get out. There was also not much of a reason to put more than one point in it. This new version needs some testing, but would be more interesting and fun. Also, I like the dynamic of extra mobility while engaging enemies, but not while running away from them. The bleed is for flavor, and the stacking is encouragement to Dance back into groups multiple times (risky behavior).

This is really cool but it sounds potentially OP, like the old Death Dance combined with Fearless Cleave and Bleeding Edge that has the same potential of abuse with Never Stop Running and Adrenaline Surge. 5 turns seems a bit low for a cooldown considering it can be reduced to zero, perhaps a minimum cooldown of 2 would be fair. This talent should be used often, but not every turn.

Fortescue wrote:Execution (Replaces Death Blow)
Deals an automatic critical hit, ignoring an additional 20-100 armor, and boosting your attack damage by 1% to 5% per enemy missing hp %. For example, an enemy at 20% life would cause this attack to deal a bonus of 80% to 400% based on skill level. If you fail to destroy your enemy, you are exposed to a Counterattack 200% damage during their turn. Cooldown of 10-6 turns. 25 Stamina.

I really like this idea but I feel the talent level scaling needs some fixing since a 1% damage boost per percent enemy missing health is worthless while 5% is amazing, and talent levels reduce the cooldown too. Maybe 2-4% would be better than 1-5%.

Fortescue wrote:Strength of the Berserker (replaces 2H Maiming)
Justification: Sunder Armor / Arms / Blood Frenzy GONE. Instead, this is a powerful Berserker-themed utility category. The Sunders were boring, Blood Frenzy was not useful. There was really no salvaging the original category, and Berserker / Warshout needed new homes now that 2H Assault was refocused into a series of attack skills.

Agreed. Sunder Arms and Blood Frenzy were terrible and Sunder Armor seems to be being replaced with something much better.

Fortescue wrote:Berserker Fury (Berserker renamed from 2H Weapon Offense)
Sustained. Gain x attack damage (scales w/ Str) and beginning at rank 3 x critical dmg bonus (scales w/ effective skill level) per turn while sustaining. You push your body to its limit and lose 2% of your max HP per turn while Berserker Fury is active. Will not reduce player below 1% hp, will not auto-disable. Cooldown 30 turns. (keeps old Stun and Pinning resist values)

Passive. You gain + 0.5% critical hit chance for every 1% missing current hp.

This is cool but I feel it definitely needs to keep the stun and confusion resistance from the existing Berserker sustain since Unflinching Resolve isn't quite good enough for managing these status effects. This also needs to not take a turn to activate or it will be very annoying to use.

Fortescue wrote:Shattering Blow (Revised Sunder Armor)
An attack for normal damage that aims for the enemy’s defenses rather than a killing blow. Reduces their Armour value by x (scales w/ strengthl), and shatters any damage shields they currently have. Cooldown is 15-5 turns (scales w/ effective skill level).

Justification: A good utility skill and one that DarkGod already revised prior to any work I began on improving Berserker.

This should probably give shield penetration rather than destroying the shield completely, otherwise Berserker rares will completely destroy classes dependent on these shields such as Archmage and Anorithil. Other than that I like this new talent.

Fortescue wrote:Relentless Fury (NEW!)
Instant cast. May be activated when the player is below 30% stamina to cause +10-30 (scaling with Constitution) stamina regeneration for 4-8 (scaling with effective skill level) turns. While this buff is active you also move and attack 10%-30% (scaling with effective skill level) faster. 30 turn cooldown.

Justification: With all these new buttons to press in 2H Weapon Assault, Berserkers are going to be a lot more pressed for Stamina. An ability that only restores Stamina is boring though, so the speed bonus was added! To prevent players opening fights with this, the 30% stamina requirement was added. This is a “glue” skill that ties the concept together by encouraging players to spend Stamina and press buttons as much possible, and will let them take advantage of Fearless Cleave’s lack of a CD even early in the game.

This is interesting, if a bit strong with the attack speed boost (30% for 8 turns is really strong). Since Berserkers aren't great at managing stamina, perhaps this could have more emphasis on stamina management and less emphasis on attack speed

Fortescue wrote:Bloodthirst
Available as an initial category, swapped w/ Combat Technique Passives so players have access at level 1. This was the only flavorful, defining, and generally really great vanilla Berserker category and new players should get to play with it as soon as possible to understand why Berserker is good and what is different about it from other melee classes.

Since this is active from the start, Unstoppable will be available at level 12 which is way too early in my opinion. Keep in mind that these changes will also affect Marauders, which is probably the best class in the game, so I really don't think this category should be changed very much. Swapping Mortal Terror and Bloodbath is fine but I really wouldn't change the rest of the tree. Also, are you implying that combat techniques should be initially locked? If so I strongly disagree since Rush is a core talent for all melee classes (except Rogues but they're weird). Fearless Cleave just doesn't have the range to make up for not having Rush.

Fortescue wrote:Bloody Butcher (replaces Bloodrage)
Passive. You gain 10-30% dmg (strength) and ignore 10-50% physical resist (effective skill level) vs. Bleeding enemies.

This will buff Marauders a ton since they have two reliable sources of bleed (Sweep and Bleeding Edge).


Great ideas here overall, these changes are interesting and more flavorful than the current Berserker. I feel like Berserker will be very powerful with these changes but of course numbers can be tweaked if necessary. One issue is that there is no way I'm not going to take the Never Stop Running Prodigy considering how strong Fearless Cleave and Death Dance are because I can essentially use them every turn with instant mobility. Berserkers still don't have many good choices for locked categories since Superiority and Warcries are both terrible. A new tree with high power, high cooldown attack talents would fit well since currently most Berserker attack talents have very low cooldowns, and Warcries and Superiority could both use some buffs. I have a few ideas for these but they aren't quite refined yet, I'll post them when I do.

I want to voice my support for this Berserker revamp. It sounds very fascinating, very active, but not to the point of micromanaging buffs or anything like that.

Execution at level 1 is not just bonus 1% per missing 1%, it is still a guaranteed critical and has 20 extra armor penetration, not bad for a single point.

It is a near certainty that Marauder is losing Bloodthirst, possibly in the same patch this goes live depending on how fast we can make a new original category just for Marauders.

The pin and stun resists aren't going away, and I agree instant activation on Berserker Rage is a good idea.

Never Stop Running would be good in this build, sure, but if it is too powerful I think that is a problem with the Prodigy and not with Berserker. I mean come on, free movement? That is like being able to teleport without magic.

Bloodthirst is swapping with the Passive Combat Veteran category, not the active one (Rush).

Shield break is DG, I got no comment.

Consider this Phase 1, the locked categories will get a pass later.

Fortescue wrote:Bloodthirst is swapping with the Passive CT category, not the active one (Rush).

You mean Combat Veteran?

Anyway, I'd just like to say that these all look like fun changes. I particularly like how Fearless Cleave makes it very tough to run away from a Berserker.

The rules about bleed stacking from Death Dance seem unnecessary since the "Bleeding" effect already has an on_merge function. Or do you mean that Death Dance bleeding should be special--and, if so, why?

I don't know the internals of existing Bleed effects, was just being clear in how you should try to use Death Dance repeatedly into groups of enemies.

I think Combat Veteran Passives are called Combat Technique Passive internally, might be why I confused the names.

Faeryan wrote:Sounds really nice, though one thing that might make this rather too strong is the tree that gives stamina regen and stamina gain when killing a mob.
Can't remember their max level values but hoping they're not high enough to feed the new talents.

I don't really like that tree and I'm not sure if anyone on the dev team does. It is just really boring except for the final skill in it. Chances are this tree could be up for removal or re-imagining in the future. For right now, people would have to spend a Category point to open it up once these changes go live.

Fortescue wrote:

Faeryan wrote:Sounds really nice, though one thing that might make this rather too strong is the tree that gives stamina regen and stamina gain when killing a mob.
Can't remember their max level values but hoping they're not high enough to feed the new talents.

I don't really like that tree and I'm not sure if anyone on the dev team does. It is just really boring except for the final skill in it. Chances are this tree could be up for removal or re-imagining in the future. For right now, people would have to spend a Category point to open it up once these changes go live.

Even though it's a bit lackluster, Combat Veteran is definitely an important tree since the stamina regen is always useful and the health regen is at least useful early game (makes melee on high difficulties bearable). I suppose the last two talents could use some tweaking but the first two are fine at the moment.

They're just boring is all. That is a problem. I want it to feel good when you spend a talent point, like you're getting something fun and interesting for it, or powering up something you really like. The re-imagined effects might be similar, just more interesting.

For right now, this new Berserker won't even need to spend category points on class categories. None of the unlocks will be as good as their base skills. That is something to be dealt with in the future.

I have some ideas for fixing the locked categories for Berserkers. Dirty Fighting is fine but awkward (it requires cunning which Berserkers usually take as a 3rd or 4th stat) and Superiority and Warcries are both weak and while giving Berserkers Battle Tactics would be nice (Bleeding Edge and True Grit especially fit thematically) it would make them ridiculously overpowered. I've been thinking about the Warcries and Superiority categories for a while and I think I have some ideas to make them viable but not overpowered. If this belongs on a separate thread, let me know and I'll move it.

Warcries
Shattering Shout
Since this is a "shattering" shout, it should shatter incoming projectiles like arrows like Shoot Down does. Its cooldown and stamina cost can increase if necessary.

Second Wind
This talent fits its purpose of regaining stamina but its a bit weak since it takes a turn to use. Since its a second wind, it could give a temporary attack speed buff (20%) as well.

Battle Shout
It looks like this talent is best used at the start of fights to give temporary stat boosts. Unfortunately, its high stamina cost proves problematic and its health and stamina increases just aren't enough. It could also give a temporary movement speed (10-30%) and physical save (15-35) buff, allowing you to charge into combat and endure melee threats after using this talent.

Battle Cry
This is the worst talent in the Warcries category and it definitely needs significant buffs. Since this talent is supposed to "shatter the will of your foes," it could make enemies completely unable to dodge your attacks (including talents like evasion) and shrug off your critical strikes and also reduce their physical and/or mental save (by 10-30 each), since they don't have the will to stop your attacks.

Superiority
Juggernaut
I like the concept of making physical attacks weaker through "concentrating on the battle," but this talent is unfortunately a bit weak. Adding a chance to shrug off physical critical strikes (maybe 25-50%) would fit both thematically and practically.

Onslaught
I'm actually not sure if this takes a turn to use but it definitely shouldn't. Anyway, I'm not really sure how it works since its description is confusing but as a Berserker, you want your enemies to be near you, not knocked away, so knocking them back without any other effects isn't very helpful. Instead, this talent could add a physical attack when moving dealing a fraction of weapon damage (40-70%) while knocking them back as well could be helpful, since it would no longer be an awkward defensive talent but have an offensive component as well.

Battle Call
I actually like this talent, it's pretty strong at the moment and it can turn the tides against annoying casters. However, it sucks to call enemies into melee range only to have them attack you first. To fix this, enemies brought next to you by this talent could become dazed or disarmed for one turn, long enough for you to get the first real strike (compared to their weak dazed or disarmed attack).

Shattering Impact
The concept here is good 15 stamina per strike is unreasonable, it should be more like 8-10. If it needs any further buffs it could increase armor penetration or apply armor reduction since it has "shattering" in its name.

bpat wrote: Battle Cry
This is the worst talent in the Warcries category and it definitely needs significant buffs. Since this talent is supposed to "shatter the will of your foes," it could make enemies completely unable to dodge your attacks (including talents like evasion) and shrug off your critical strikes and also reduce their physical and/or mental save (by 10-30 each), since they don't have the will to stop your attacks.

This is perfect. As it stands... for a t4 talent, it's a complete bag of s**t. I *LOVE* the idea of countering evasion; evasion really screws you over as a zerker. Especially on harder enemies who have it at a high talent level. That, maybe along with a reduction of physical save, would be more than enough for me to use this skill often.

bpat wrote: Battle Call]
I actually like this talent, it's pretty strong at the moment and it can turn the tides against annoying casters. However, it sucks to call enemies into melee range only to have them attack you first. To fix this, enemies brought next to you by this talent could become dazed or disarmed for one turn, long enough for you to get the first real strike (compared to their weak dazed or disarmed attack).

It does need something extra. One thing that would make it great is if it could force the called enemies to only perform a melee attack on you for their next turn (or maybe, more than 1 turn scaling with talent lvl?), and an armor and armor hardiness buff for the duration.

The rest of the changes bpat has suggested are definite improvements and should be considered. Both of the trees need a lot of work to make them worth taking. Battle tactics would be a dream come true.. but yeah, way too overpowered.