ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

Personally I do not like the change that has been made to the Berserker Rage talent.

Old Berserker talent: sustain, it increased damage and stun resistance at the cost of armor and defense
New Berserker talent: sustain, it increased damage and stun resistance at the cost of continuous loss of health

I hate this change and I feel that it ruined the very skill that the class has been named after.

1.) The old skill made perfect sense. You take a more aggresive stance and neglect your defense to kill things harder. Excellent.
The new skill makes no sense at all. Suddenly you start to lose health for no reason? Your anger makes you bleed to death?? Why?
2.) The old skill was fun! It involved a tradeoff that you had to think about. With really heavy armor you could eventually compensate for the downside and leave the skill on all the time without thinking.
The new skill is anti fun. I'm not going to use it, ever. I hate losing life for no reason.

But what I would really like to know is what YOU think. Am I the only one who hates this change, or does everybody hate it? If so, perhaps we could change it back into the good old skill. <3

Losing a bit of health every turn isn't half as bad as getting stunned or missing your hits.
The bloodthirst tree more than makes up for any losses as well so I don't see it as an issue.

how is that any fun?
you are a berserker, you have so many ways to restore health...
spilling the blood of your enemies, murdering them while unstoppable, vitality...

--firstly, you only loose health when there are enemies around, so you can just leave on and forget, it is NOT going to kill you in your sleep, unless there is some creeper watching you.

--secondly, actual loses.
and you are losing 2 % each turn. so if you have 500hp (solid mid game?) that's 10hp per turn isn't it...

-restoration.
bloodbath, in the bloodthirst category, can stack up to 29 a turn, if you crit every now and then. it lasts for 11 turns, so you have some room.

vitality in the conditioning talent adds lets say 20 (max 27, but that's at 100 con), which is already twice the established loss of health, and additional 2.2% of your max health, making it all together 3 times the loss.

then you also have fast metabolism, which gives you up to 8.9, which combined with your natural regen, also cancels out the cost.

that's still not enough? you can pick a discord category for blood splash, and gain up to 50 hp every now and then.

tht's STILL SOMEHOW not enough?! pick blood torrent prodigy! every stronger hit will cause you to destroy all enemies near you, and absorb they blood restoring you by a masive ammoun!


end. lets say you actually managed to get 2000 hp late game, and you have now 40hp per turn cost.
blood bath and fast metabolism+base regen cancels it, THEN you still have 2 ways of regaining health by being hit, and 1 extra bust on critting.

berserker is NOT hurt by any means. anty fun? MINOR inconvinience. one might even argue that he is TOO durable!.
i know something about that, i spend like 100 turns, frozen, in a room full of orc cryomancers and orc pyromancers!

that's just passive life regen.
then you have shields, flat heals and unstoppable talent...

also, apparently bulwark stil has the old berserk talent

---edit
loked up some winners with investment berserk
Bregan - 2001hp, normal adventure, 5/5 berserk
Ak - 1802hp, normal adventure, 5/5 berserk
Missing portal - 1621hp, nightmare adventure 5/5 berserk
Beudrasin - 2408hp, normal roguelike, 4/5 berserk
JR - 2182hp, noghtmare roguelike, 5/5 berserk

so yeah, 2000 hp and 40 cost on average seems accurate.

Of course you can compensate for the life loss.

My complaint has nothing to do with balance, but it has more to do with flavour, fun and logic.

How does it make sense to lose life while berserking for no reason, even if nothing is hitting you?

I am not refusing to use this talent because it cripples my character. I am refusing to use it because I dislike it and it makes no sense. And yes, maybe it does make the berserker too strong. You could argue that the downside to the talent has essentially been removed.

But maybe it's just my personal pet peeve.

Life cost would make more sense flavour wise if it was Reaver.

I always saw Berserker Rage as overexerting yourself.

I liked the old concept more. In my eyes Berserker talent is fighting recklessly while overexerting yourself is adrenaline surge from conditioning tree.