ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

I'm a new player. First run through using Berserker. I kept seeing comments about how Combat Veteran is useless. I thought it was a great tree, and maxed everything out in it early on. Because early on, healing, stam regen, spell saves ... that's what a Berserker needs.

Then I hit the Prides in the east and I was really struggling. That's when it dawned on me that I had 1000+ hp, but my Combat Veteran healing was only pumping like +10hp/turn regen. I know healing modifier helps ... but even if I had 200% healing mod that would be 10hp * 200% = 20 paltry hp a turn.

What was saving my bacon the most was infusions (heal, regenerate) and the Conditioning > Vitality skill that bumped my heal/stam regen up when I went below 50%.

That guy ended up dying. I thought I was making a tank ... but he couldn't tank.

I made another berserker and ignored Combat Veteran. My healing mostly comes from using my Category Points to get 2 more inscriptions (Cornac... so I've got heal, regen, regen, wild + 1 other utility slot). Vitality still kicks in and saves me some. Bloodthirst tree kicks in and helps me. Stamina regen is all about pumping my Willpower (to inc stamina) and Berserker's Strength > Relentless Fury on auto-run when I go below 30%.

By ignoring Combat Veteran, I freed up 20 class points... which I tossed into Superiority (Shattering Blows) and a few other combat skills here and there.

This guy is doing much better.

Ok... I searched for "combat veteran" on the forums, and it seems folks are just asking to have it as an unlockable for other classes (eg: demonologist).

Has anyone drafted up a better version of Combat Veteran that would actually be useful?

For starters, make Quick Recovery (hp) and Fast Metabolism (stam) %'s of total health / stamina instead of fixed #'s. The fixed #'s are great early in the game, but as you start hitting 1000+ hp later in the game they're quickly over-shadowed and worthless... even with healing mod (which I'm not even sure impacts stamina regen).

At first I thought perhaps a +1% / level to regen rate (eg: 1000 hp character would get Quick Recovery level 1,2,3, etc of +1% total, +2% total, etc which would be 1000 * .01 = +10hp, 1000 * .02 = +20hp, etc).

But, then you add in healing modifier, and that can get abusive (with a +5% of total hp as a regen/turn with a +100% healing mod... you could end up with like +10% of total hp.. essentially recovering all hp in 10 turns.. just from Quick Recovery. With other skills added in that boost regen more, that would just be insane).

. I figured if maybe then they were just +0.5% .. so level 1, 2, 3, etc would be +0.5%, +1.0%, +1.5%, etc. ... It would let it scale with health/level.

Another way it could work is to be more powerful the less health you have... IE: inversely proportinate to health.. perhaps like level 1 of Quick Recovery will give +0.9% / level of total health if you're around 10% health left. It will start to scale down from there... 0.8% at 20% health, 0.7 at 30% health, etc...

At level 5, it would give +0.9% * 5 = +4.5% of total hp in added regen factor... and that would scale down to +0.1 * 5 = +0.5% when around 90-100% health.

So... something like this...

[ 1 - ( current health / max health ) ] * 1% * ( # of levels in Quick Recovery )


eg: for 1000 hp character...

10% health @ 5 levels QR
[ 1 - ( 100 / 1000 ) ] * 1% * 5 = [ 1 - .1 ] * 1% * 5 = 0.9 * 1% * 5 = 0.009 * 5 = 0.045 = +4.5% total hp * 1000hp = +45hp/turn


That way it lives up to it's name .. Quick Recovery (but not a quick FULL Recovery, since it tapers off quickly). (This is sort of what Borderlands 2 did with some skills, like Axton's health & shield regen skills that would impact him more in emergencies when they were drastically low).

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I'd like to say that Fast Metabolism should work that way, too. And that maybe Unending Frenzy shuold be reworked, too... but eventually you reach a point where Stamina is not an issue. With 60 str, 60 con, 30 dex ... I started dumping all of my points into Willpower, and stamina is not an issue. Relentless Fury kicks in when it gets low, and even with its set stam regen amount it's enough to bump me back up. Other skills kick in to replenish stamina, too...

So... in a way... the stamina skills are kind of pointless... at least for a berserker. Quck Recovery doesn't scale well, making it moot. Fast Metabolism and Unending Frenzy aren't needed due to other stamina regen skills being better. There's 3 skills that are pointless in the tree unless reworked.

The last, Spell Shield, sounds good to a newbie... I mean... a grunt warrior's biggest issue is spell damage, right? Those pesky mages, right!?

No.

It's mind damage. It's elemental damage... it's all the damages that are not Physical Damage that get through and just beat the living you-know-what out of you. I took on the Naga area, and got absolutely obliterated due to all the psionic damage. A horde of wyrms come at me, and I get a bit cringy as their breath weapons roast me. I've been snatching up "+resistance" gear, and I still get beaten up, b/c there's SO MANY THINGS TO RESIST, and most gear only has like 3-4 resists on them and then only 1 or maybe 2 of them are high enough (like +20% resist) to be worth anything.

So, the Spell Shield skill feels pointless... it only bumps up Spell Save.. and that doesn't seem to impact psionics or non-spell elemental things. Plus, by the time you start to get to late game, you end up with gear that has quite a few aux buffs to it that increase Spell Save anyways. So, layering more on top is just ... meh.

The skill needs to either encompass more (Spell & Mental) .. or just be more broad-based... like +X% to all resists (maybe "level x 4"... so +4%, +8%, etc.. max of +20% to all resists).

Here's the main issue... combat for the berserker boils down to nothing more then "hit something... get torn to shreds... pray to god you heal up in time ... you heal up.. ok, hit it again ... you didn't heal... ok, pray to god you can retreat in time to lick your wounds."

Berserkers don't seem to have enough recovery, especially when everything non-physical seems to just get through and tear them apart. They're sort of glass cannons. And the attack skills have "diminishing returns" on them so bad that there's no point buying many up past level 3... and the recovery skills are lackluster (with Combat Veteran being the big sore spot, even with high healing mod factor).

There's just some imbalance.

I guess I should mention...

What's bothering me is that Berserker seems to focus a lot around "Do lots of damage, soak lots of PHYSICAL damage with armor... get screwed from everything else."

Armor / Defense-wise, I was able to tank the Orc Berserker prides with little to no difficulty. The Berserker is designed to best other warriors. He can punch through their defenses, his armor can soak the physical damage. He can shrug off pins and such.

But, the Mage / Necro prides... holy cow!

When 4 mages show up, or they show up in tandem with wyrms ... you just get eaten alive. Your only fallback is your HP. Your resists aren't so-so... I'm not sure if spell saves impact resisting elemental damage or not (maybe just from spells and not wyrm breath?)

So, my concern is that .. HP is a berserker's last line of "defense"... and have a ton of HP is like the only thing standing between you and death when it comes to dealing with many mages and wyrms and psionicists and blight and such. They bang on you for so much damage, b/c it's non-physical and armor/defense doesn't seem to come into play at all.

So... all this incoming damage goes right by your defenses... and it just nails you.

So, your HP drops like a rock.

Then you look at HP recovery skills for a Berserker... and they're not that great. A few skills like in Conditionig help. But, Combat Veteran seems like it's supposed to be the tree for Warriors / Berserkers to be their "last line of defense / recover your HP and stamina after getting hammered"... and they're dropping the ball in that dept.

So then I have to rely on my inscriptions / infusions to carry that job... they have to do all teh healing for me. I feel like that's sort of missing the point of the character. The Berserker has an immense HP pool, but lacks skills to pump it up fast enough to keep pace with combat.. so it's "hit, infuse heal, hit, infuse regen, hit, hit, wild infuse, hit, infuse heal". Most healing skills available to Warrior / Berserker are just pointless, which forces you to become an infusion spammer.

But... because you're having to spam your infusions so much, you get locked up with Infusion Saturation... which keeps you from healing fast enough... and then you get overwhelmed.... all because your healing relies mostly on infusions... and not reliable, passive skills that SHOULD be doing that job instead.

So, Combat Veteran needs an adjustment... it's supposed to be passive tanking mostly.... kill stuff, quickly recover from the combat to keep on going....

So, the healing needs to scale with size of hp pool (thus being %-based). Or, heck, even mod the skill to make one be +% to healing mod. Let the last skill stop adding an amount of paltry stamina per kill... and instead be a passive that adds +10%, +20%, etc to healing mod. Let warriors end up with a passive, +50% healing mod buff via a skill.

They just need SOMETHING to a) recover from battle faster, b) avoid unavoidable stuff more (elemental damage, mind, blight, light... all non-physical damage that their hp has to soak b/c their skills don't really help them in that regards).

Re-reading my last post...

I think what's bothering me most is you have Armor .. and that helps soak Physical Damage.

But, the only thing that can soak non-physical damage is ... resists... "shield" spells/barriers...

Some of the non-physical damage thrown at you is on-par with the damage amount you get thrown at you from physical attacks. But, I'm strutting around with my Tarrasca legendary armor just laughing as physical blows bounce off me... even when they connect they get soaked by my armor and armor hardiness. this greatly reduces the amount of physical damage that gets through.

But, with resits in the +30%-50% range... I get NAILED by a bunch of mages throwing fire and ice at me. There is no Armor or APR or Armor Hardiness for that ... there's just resits .. and that's basically just damage reduction.

But, the game has Physical Damage Resist reduction amounts. Which makes physical damage just another thing ot "resist" IN ADDITION to having defense and armor (which then makes it seem like overkill... you defend first to avoid the hit, then you can resist the physical damage, then you cut it down with armor... then it gets through).

But, there's nothing like that in regards to non-physical damage... AND, enemies can have resistance penetration advantages.... which negate your resists!

I'm sporting 50% fire resist, then someone with 20% fire resist penetration nails me... my fire resist is basically 30% now. They toss a 500 point fireball my way... there's 350 damage I'm eating ... that I have no "armor" or "defense" to avoid or stop... only resists.. which they negated... which then seems like a DOUBLE penalty (no armor + they can negate my resists)

So... I'm stuck trying to keep my HP pumped up to "soak" all this stuff I can't stop. And the skills to recover HP are lackluster... so, I'm stuck juggling 5 infusions trying to keep my HP up to kill things in a timely fashion.. .because you don't want to end up with LOW HP warning and see your infusions on 5 turn cooldown and a 5 turn Saturation penalty up in the corner. That means you're screwed.

But, I'm in taht boat, because the skills to recover HP fast enough to be a proper tank are lackluster.

And, side note, I'm just playing Adventurer mode.

I can't imagine playing some harder mode. It already seems unfair as it is.

Such threads have come up before.

There are two issues here.
First is that Berserker is rather offensive focused.
The second is that Combat Veteran really do much.
The third issue, is that you have assumed that Spell Save protects from magical damage, and that armour only works on physical damage (it actually works against any weapon damage).
It is important not to get the first two issues mixed up, especially since Combat Veteran is available to other classes.

What you are doing here is trying to fix Berserker by making Combat Veteran solve its problems, which is not really the purpose of Combat Veteran.

I haven't seen you mention unstoppable on either of your posts, did you check what the skill does?

I did. I've got it maxed, and it's saved my bacon a few times... but only in situations where there's mobs I can actually kill and heal from once it wears off. It gives me that little last bit of "oomph" I need to wade through the crowd.

However, Unstoppable doesn't help in situations where there's like boss mage characters. I'm currently stuck in the slime tunnels with Xerewe the Neverdead level 61 Lich King dude. (I think the name is randomized.. seems like a random unique boss character).

This guy... holy cow. He is just obliterating me. He punches through all my resists. Constantly Dooms me so I take damage non-stop. His stupid shadow orbs that he summons use something called "Fade" that essentially goes "oh, we're going to ignore all damage you do".

I feel like the game is going "you've gotten too powerful, so we're just going to out-right cheat to defeat you now."

I can use Unstoppable.. but if I can't gank any of the minions he's summoning it's pointless. He constantly freezes me or pins me down (which I'm not sure how is possible since I've maxed out my Conditioning tree which should get rid of that.)

I tried to hit-n-run... I've got Steamroller & Giant Leap prodigies. My hit is to Giant Leap into his face, then Rush away to hide. If that doesn't work, my boots can Blink me away (but it's random and sometimes end up near him again). This works a bit, but his shadows track me down, his Doom is constantly nailing me, and it's like he gets MORE powerful the more damage I do to him, becuase eventually he just goes "ok, I've fooled with you long enough, I'm just gonna nail you for 1000+ damage in one-shot and make it impossible for you to recover."

It's pointless. I can't recover life fast enough if I have to use my infusions to do ALL of my life recovery (because Combat Veteran tree sucks). I can't avoid spell damage / elemental damage / etc when I have to build up resists to do so, and everything has penetrations that basically wipe out any resists you have.

This is just another game where mages end up OP at high levels, and the counter-balance for warriors to deal with them is not there.

It's also annoying how skills "diminishing return" as you level them. They should INCREASE their returns. I should be excited to get something to level 5. It should become more powerful and make me salivate at what it does. Instead, level 4 and 5 on most skills taper off so horribly it's jsut pointless unless the skill has something amazing like lower cooldown or increased range/radius.

There needs to be more innate ability for warriors to deal with a) magic / elemental / non-phys damage, b) recoop their hp. Having to rely solely on infusions / runes or this stuff is pointless, b/c you get saturated. Having to rely on totems and charms is pointless, b/c some of those put all your other charms on cooldow for 10 turns. EVERY SINGLE TURN enemies are doing massive amounts of stuff to you, and you're sweating as you watch the infusion / rune / charms countdown slowly and wonder if you'll be able to make it... because THOSE are the only way you can counter magic / hp recovery.

It's dumb. I'm a warrior / berserker. I shouldn't be scrambling to cast spells to try to counter non-phys damage or heal myself all the time. I should have better passive skills that let me shrug things off or recoop my pools.

Unstoppable is great. But, when you've got a level 61 bad-a** hammering away on you... it's pointless. When the timer is up...you're dead regardless.

Meanwhile, other warriors, berserkers, assassins.. they can't get through my defenses. I kill them 9 at time without breaking a sweat. My phsyical power, phys dmg, armor, and defense nails them. I've got a tier 5 weapon with elemental burst that crits almost every hit and covers a 5 square radius. Add that in with Shattering Blows, plus a Ring of Elemental Fury (which converts all my damatge to elemental) and the Elemental Crown that exacerbates elemental damage and cuts elemental reistances on enemies... I'm plowing through non-mage enemies.

But, mages show up ... gee, they have shields. Gotta pound through that. Then they case thigns that put everything on you on cooldown, or prevent you from using a skill, or prevent you from moving, or IGNORE ALL YOUR DAMAGE .. it's just unfair.

You don't have to kill that (or most) enemies.

i think that quick recovery is fine
the second talent could stand to give hp regen based on total hp and constitution
something like: .5% of max hp added to life regen at level 1, and 1% of max hp added to life regen at level 5
each point of constitution after the tenth would add .25 life regen at level 1, and .5 life regen at level 5

so if you have level 5 fast metabolism, 60 constitution, and 3000 hp, then you'd get an extra 150 hp regen per turn from level 5 fast metabolism at 250% healmod; it'd be even more at 1.3 mastery

but if you have level 5 fast metabolism, 14 constitution, and 160 hp, then you'd just get an extra 3.6 life regen at 100% healmod

it may make madness alot harder, but madness is designed to be unbeatable anyway lol

as for spell shield, its fine the way it is given the way that saves work

maybe unending frenzy could use some sort of buff so that its worth more than one point though; not too sure what
maybe it could be a temporary speed boost after killing something that stacks with blinding speed

Combat Veteran is really underrated and mostly fine. Quick Recovery is good as it is. Fast Metabolism could maybe give 3% healmod per point but anything more would probably be overdoing it. Spell Shield could give 3-5% fire/cold/lightning/arcane resistance per point in addition to the spell save. Unending Frenzy could give 50-100% more stamina.

Yeah the stamina recovery one is fine, i put 5 points on it on my last brawler and i didn't feel bad doing it