Berserker Revamp

[nsrr]

I've been kicking around ideas for a Berserker revamp, intended to give the class a little more variability aside from what you can get from escorts, anti-magic, etc. This isn't meant to be a complete overhaul, just a bit of an update. Current Berserker play style would remain available and almost entirely unchanged. Here's what I have at the moment:

BERSERKER REVAMP
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Tweaks:

Change Strength of the Berserker to also work with dual-wield weapons (possibly only dual-1h, i.e. no daggers, whips, mindstars). Allow Berserkers to off-wield 1-handed weapons. No off-hand penalty reduction available.

Reomove Shield Defense and Archery Training. Bizzaro builds are what Adventurer is for

Revamp Combat Veteran (Cause it's really dull. Aim is to keep basically the same functionallity and remain all passive while making talents more dynamic).
1)Grants a bonus to Con based on Str + Dex [(STR + DEX)/5]. Additionally, your life regeneration is increased by 6-12% of your Con. -- Other talents may be a bit weaker than vanilla passives without Con investment, so... have a little free Con
2)Increases your healing modifier by 8 - 24% and grants stamina regen equal to 8-24% of your life regen.
3)When you recieve direct healing you have an X% chance to reduce the duration of up to [TL] negative magical effects you are suffering from by Y turns, possibly canceling them. Scales with Defense and Con, respectively.
4)When your stamina is below 20-40%, any damage you deal that reduces a foe's current life by 10% or more will restore X stamina, at most Y times per turn. Trigger value scales with TL; stamina restored and turn limit scale with Con.

Tweak Fearless Cleave:
Now uses Movement Speed, rather than Attack Speed. -- this simple switch could change this from a rarely-used talent to one you could build a character around

--
New Stuff:

Technique/Dual Assault (STR/DEX -- unlocked, available at birth)
1)Strike with main hand and then off hand. Main hand strike has a chance to reduce all powers by [10-30%]. Off hand strike has a chance to induce [20-50]% talent failure.-
2)Strike up to 4 enemies with both weapons [35-70%]. The first enemy must be within 2 tiles, and additional targets must be within 2 tiles of the target before. Afterward, you dash to an empty tile next to the enemy struck with the fewest occupied adjacent tiles, or your starting tile, if it is most open. You cannot strike the same enemy twice -- Mostly for mobility, but you can spread some on-hit effects arround and dish out a bit of aoe-ish damage
3)Attack adjacent targets randomly for 30 - 55% damage, alternating between your mainhand and offhand weapons. You will attack [TL/2 + 3 (capped at 10)] times and may strike the same enemy up to [same] times.
At TL 5, all damage resulting from this attack is increased by 25%, and 33% of that damage is converted to (deep wound) bleeding damage. -- Bloody Butcher synergy
4)Attack for [120-180%]. Your critical multiplier for this attack will be increased by the percentage of life your target is missing.

Technique/Blood Rites (CON - HIGH REQ - LOCKED)
1)Honor the Dead
You honor those you slay by adoring yourself with their bones, blood, dust, ectoplasm, or whatever remains they may leave.
When you defeat an enemy you gain a bonus to each of your stats equal to [10-40%] of the enemy's stat for [6-12] turns. These effects can stack for multiple enemies and each enemy slain will extend the duration up to [1-3] turns, at most once per turn, and not greater than the initial duration. Stat bonuses are capped at a value equal to your Con. Does not work on summoned creatures. -- Reasons to invest in Con!
2)Gruesome Visage
When HTD triggers, all enemies within in (1-4) tiles must make a mental save against [... the higher of your phys or mind power? only phys? highest of any power?] or be Terrified, reducing each of their stats by [10-40%] of the enemy's stat for [2-6] turns. This effect can stack and each stack will increase the duration by [1-2] at most once per turn and not greater than the initial duration. Stats cannot be reduced below 5 and losses are capped at an ammount equal to your Con. -- The more you debuff your enemies, the less potential power you have to reap from them when they die. Hopefully this balances things out a bit.
3)Vital Spring
When HTD triggers, you are instantly healed for [20-50%] of the life your enemy had remaining before it was slain, at most [5-20%] of your max life. Has a short cooldown, or maybe just a per-turn cap? -- healing, cause life is always good, and it will interact with revamped Spell Shield.
4)Devour Essence
When Honor the Dead triggers, there is an X% chance for you to learn a random, active talent from the fallen enemy. If the enemy is boss rank or higher the chance is always 100% (unless they don't know any qualifying talent). You will learn the talent at the level the enemy knew it, or the level of this talent, whichever is lower. You may learn up to [1-3] talents in this manner, and cannot learn talents you already know. If you are already at the maximum, you will be given an oppurtinity to replace one of the talents you have already learned. You cannot learn talents which alter the world in a permenant way. Values scale with Con and TL -- this could be freakin' awesome... and maybe very broken XD

Technique/Weapons Master (STR/DEX (Maybe DEX only?) - GENERIC - LOCKED)
1)Attack with your main set weapon(s), then swap to your off set and attack again. Each attack will deal [75-125]% damage. You will choose the target for each attack.
2)When you swap weapons, you will gain benefits for X turns according to the weapon set your switch from, and the set you switch to. Switching from a two-handed weapon or dual-weapons will increase physical power or accuracy, respectively. Switching to a two-handed weapon or dual-weapons will increase critical power or physical crit chance, respectively. -- To be clear, this is any time you swap weapons, not just when using the first talent. Might give Quick Hands a little more use.
3)Sustain - Increases your Disarm resistance by [25-65%]. When you resist a Disarm attempt, you trigger [Talent 1] twice, at [10-25%] of the power of [T1] for free. Additionally, you may instantly cancel sustain to trigger the same effect, but doing so will double the cooldown. Activating this talent is instant, but deactivating it will take one turn.
4)More bonuses for weapon swapping, also increases the duration of the buff gained. Switching from a two-handed weapon or dual-weapons will increase phys pen or APR, respectively. Switching to a two-handed weapon or dual-weapons will increase attack speed or grant a chance for melee attacks to trigger an off-hand strike for 200% damage, respectively.
Additionally, 2H strikes from [T1] have a chance to remove sustains and DW strikes have a chance to reduce the duration of beneficial effects.(Also when deactivating T3)

Also been kicking some ideas around for a 'War Paint' tree that lets you prepare various long-ish buffs... but it takes a few turns to activate one... and can only be done while not wearing any body armor. Haven't got much beyond the concept, though. Obviously would have to have some serious buff potential and damage mitigation to be worth the trade-off.

Thoughts?

[bpat]

Dual-wielding is something that should not be supported on Berserker at all since Marauder is already essentially a dual-wielding Berserker. Dual-wielding one-handed weapons is also moving into Reaver's territory and Reaver's can only DW 1h weapons lore-wise because of their corrupted strength.

Combat Veteran's first two talents are fine as they are, especially Quick Recovery which shouldn't be touched at all. Scaling stamina regen with life regen is really bad because you can easily get over 200 life regeneration per turn which gives infinite stamina but without Regeneration Infusions and good gear you have no way good of getting stamina back. I like the idea of supporting Con more but leave the Stamina regeneration alone.

Not sure why Fearless Cleave needs a buff since it's already incredibly powerful. If people aren't using it it's because they're silly not because it's bad. Assuming it uses the movement speed from a Movement Infusion if you use it to break the effect then that's essentially an instant attack for high damage.

Blood Rites will be useless past Nightmare difficulty just like every on-kill effect is useless past Nightmare difficulty (with the sole exception of Step Up).

[nsrr]

As far as Marauder, I would argue that it should have more to make it unique itself, rather than limit other classes because they might over lap Marauder's limited set. Marauder could do a lot more with head-bash attacks, just for one example. That's a whole other discussion, though. As for Reaver, I have a problem with both the lore and the idea that only one class can do a 'thing'. As far as the lore goes... Well, I can pick up an ax in each hand. I've literally done it before. Certainly, I might not be able to do much damage this way, but it takes no mystical feat of strength. A trained warrior should not have a problem, as exemplified by every other RPG ever. Heck, in some of them Berserkers can dual-wield two-handed weapons. Anyway, off-hand penalty reduction and melee attack on spell hit make Reaver unique enough, in my opinion.

Fair point on Stam regen based on Life regen. Perhaps there could be some kind of limit set on it, though, rather than scrapping the idea altogether. Gain Stam regen based on a percent of life regen... up to a percent of your Con?

Maybe I just haven't given Fearless Cleave enough of a chance. To me it has always seemed to have too high of a cost to be worth-while. It was just an idea, anyway, my focus was really to give them broader build possibilities.

As far as Blood Rites, I'm okay with things not being viable past Nightmare. Lots of things aren't. I've only played on Insane a couple of times, though. I'm curious why on kill effects aren't viable. There are too many strong enemies and so it takes too long to kill things? What if the buff persisted until there were no enemies in sight? That's effectively how it would work on Normal and probably Nightmare, anyway. That should make it work better in higher difficulties, though it would be weak to Blindness. Telepathy of a common type or two would mostly take care of that, though.

[Davion Fuxa]

Maybe with that mindset we should get rid of Marauder (and Bulwark and Archer) and just bring back the prototype Fighter that does any and all things? It isn't like the Archmage isn't doing that already for Magic!

To be honest the Berserker is already doing enough with a two handed weapon. The classes simplicity makes it a great choice for a new player jumping into the game as you don't have that many unlocked categories to work with - though it could stand to have Archery and Shield Defense removed at this point possibly. It doesn't really need to have much added to it.

As for Fearless Cleave, its pretty damn powerful for what it is - a short ranged 'mobility' talent that can be used to get the first strike on oncoming enemies or to chase down fleeing ones trying to run away. It does have a high stamina cost but the talent isn't meant to be used continually so it serves that purpose well. It does what is set out to do.

[Derael]

To be honest the Berserker is already doing enough with a two handed weapon. The classes simplicity makes it a great choice for a new player jumping into the game as you don't have that many unlocked categories to work with - though it could stand to have Archery and Shield Defense removed at this point possibly. It doesn't really need to have much added to it.

Not sure about Archery, but Shield defense is viable on Ogre, since shields don't suffer from Grisly Constitution offhand penalty. You can get it for stun resistance and bonus armor + nice HP buff from Last Stand which can be instantly cancelled by pressing rest with no cd. The whole tree grants you around 30 armor and defense (halved when you are moving) with 12 points investment + 50% stun/knockback immunities. Repulsion is another bonus with 10+ turns daze on hit and Rush reset.

Archery indeed looks much less useful but it's still ok in early game since you can kill most enemies before they even reach you even without mastery bonuses. And in late game it's still good to start fights with melee opponents, landing some free hits before they even come closer and then quickswapping to 2H weapon. Not sure if bow counts as 2H weapon for Berserker skills though (particularly Berserker Rage), if it doesn't than screw it. But even if it does, it really is pretty bad category since skills are irrelevant for berserker (though stun and attack speed debuffs are not bad). If possible, I'd much rather have Marksmanship at 1.1 mastery instead.

[bpat]

Edit: Whoops didn't realize this was an old thread I replied to. I still maintain that Berserker doesn't need a revamp at all.

[Derael]

I though about it a bit more and now kind of agree, not about Berserker revamp, but about Combat Veteran revamp. Currently it's one of the worst categories in the game, especially last 2 talents, and Fast metabolism kinda too.

It's ok as it is for classes that have it unlocked but it's a joke for classes that start with it locked, who'd ever want to unlock it using category point?

So my suggestions on some changes:

1. Simply add a % of stamina used for sustains as regen. This way the more stamina you used on sustains the more you'll regenerate. Basically if you have very small stamina pull it will regenerate faster.

Currently it regenerates at most 3 stamina per turn and most builds only invest 1-3 points in it (usually floated). Basically at level 1 for prolonged fights (like 30+ turns) you will regenerate maybe 20-30 stamina, which is enough for maybe 2-3 skills at most (and lots of skills use 30+ stamina). In terms of prolonged fights it's nothing, and in short fihts it's totally useless. Right now it's only useful for resting.

If we change it to, let's say, 0.4% from sustained stamina per level per turn regeneration, it will be 2.6% at level 6.5. So if you have for example 200 stamina sustained out of 300, you will get 5 stamina per turn regeneration in addition to standart 3 stamina per turn. Obviously numbers should be balanced. Maybe make it so it only enables for 3 turns after succesful crit or something. And it probably has to be locked category for classes with lots of stamina based sustains, making it good option for unlocking for this skill alone.

Right now Rogues can easily regenerate 5 stamina per turn in battle with just 2 points in tempo, add there free stamina from Artificer and they pretty much never run out of it, if you don't forget to turn off blade flurry. So why warriors can't do that?

2. In addition, I think Warcries might be slightly rebalanced as well, right now Second Wind is just too good and the main reason for unlocking this tree, while having it on equipment is just ridiculously good, and it's mostly the only option to keep your stamina up outside of Relentless Fury avialble only to berserkers (that's why I'm not talking about Berserker revamp here, but about category revamp). For example Bulwarks really don't have any other options to replenish stamina outside of Warcries category, heavily limiting their options. I'm not familiar with Brawlers, but they might also have some stamina issues, etc.

3.Another option is just make it work like (at talent level 4 it also does X). So people woul be able to chose, get 3-5 points in it (depending on mastery) to mostly resolve their stamina issues ot simply skip it alltogether. In terms of average stamina per turn it obviously should be below other stamina recovery talents (since it's passive), but it might be on par with them if some conditions are met (example - lots of stamina based sustains). Numbers can easily be adjusted, it's all about the ideas.

I was very suprised that Shadowblades have this category locked, since they also have access to Duelist category and shouldn't really have stamina issues either, why would they ever need it, especially in locked state?

4. As for fast metabolism, there are lots of ways to make it much more viable, from straight up offering % HP regeneration (like 0.2% missing HP per talent level in additional to what it already does, with some cap for total healed HP to prevent vitality issues) to straight up increasing healmod by X%. Maybe again let the bonuses work only after melee critical hit or rather being critically hit to prevent abuse. But I like straight healing mod increase more since it's linear and won't become too powerful with huge HP pool.

5. Spell Shield would be fine as it is if saves become viable somehow.

6. Unending Frenzy is another extremely terrible skill, since it requires big investment of skill points to actually be useful. Maybe add some additional effect and switch places with Fast Metabolism after properly buffing it to become powerful enoguh so you'll get those 2 "tax" skills as a bonus. Lots of fighters would like to have extra 40% (for example) heal mod at the cost of ~6 generics and get some decent stamina regent and spell save as a bonus. Many would even consider unlocking this category. But there should be a bit more "interesting" effects on those skills to make it more enticing for unlocking. Right now it's just too plain and underwhelming. And you basically never fight for more than 30 turns where those puny 30 or so stamina you regenerated will barely make a difference. It'll also be nice to add updated Quick recovery as an Escort option and make it 1 point wonder (on par with chants) for classes using Stamina sustains but having no access to Combat Veteran (and possibly make it accesible as escort category).

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Talking about escorts, another category worth mentioning is Conditioning. Sure Vitality and Unflinching Resolve are staple for nearly everyone not using Trinkets or other type of debuff removal, and that's a good source of generic points for classes who have access to that category (since they'd want to go 1/4-5 anyway). But latter 2 skills are just underwhelming on anything but normal. While Vitality is famously toxic on bosses, any class without heal removal will hit a wall on Madness, and even on Insane it's extremely annoying. While Unflinching resolve is probably a bit too good as it is, as it makes physical saves even more useless with high CON granting over 50% chance of physical effect removal each turn, while at the same time it's completely overshadowed by tinkers.

I don't have much ideas about changing that category, but maybe change category order to make Unflinching Resolve rank 4 talent, while at the same time completely changing Daunting Presence and Adrenaline Surge to make them "tax" talents with still decent bonuses at low investments. And yeah, remove Unflinching resolve from escorts and change it for one of those less powerful but ultimately useful talents that can be useful to most classes + maybe one or 2 low rank talents from revamped combat veteran tree.

Sometimes I really feel like I'm losing a lot from not being able to get 5 warriors escorts to get Unflinching resolve level 5 and that's just wrong. IMO every escort should provide something useful to every class, like temporal Warden granting Foresight which is really decent at level 1 or Dreamwalk for AM. Chant of Fortress/Fortitude is another food example. Its AM alternatives are weaker but still can be used by anyone. And the common point is, extra points in those skills won't do that much. So there really is no need to safe scum for some extreme synergy.

But nearly anyone benefits just too much from extra levels in Unflinchinf Resolve, changing it qualititatively.

The perfect example of skill suitable for Escorts is Nature's Touch, since it is always nice to have at level 1, it scales quite good to levels 2 and 3, but there is not much point in maxing it. That's why if you get 3 escorts with it or get none, you won't feel too bad either way. While I think that in current metagame "Select first escort" addon is just mandatory, but for some builds "Select your escorts" also makes a huge difference which IMO shouldn't be the case (or should be "legalised" in official game, and properly balanced).

For example I've started to play Solipsist and there are so much possibilities to teorycraft with escorts but all those things are only achievable with the latter addon (you can get 5 class points from escorts or full 9 generic points, or grab tinkers and mindstars and for example unflinching resolve level 5 etc.).

Another bad example is Light tree. You can cheese yourself a category point and 6 generic points in builds utilising it simply by grabbing 5 points in Bathe in Light from escorts, unless you desperately need Providence for some reason (but then again, you can use that cat point and category points to grab Trinkets for Unstoppable force salve and some passive buffs, and to hell with providence). There are some other examples like that, which encourage scumming if you want to min-max.

I now this post derailed from the topic quite a bit, but it has some similar ideas to ones I myself had, so why not write them all here?

Overall the main point is: if category (or some talents in it) is never desirable or simply not optimal, if you are looking at locked category and can't even think of a reason why would you ever unlock it, that means the named category is a good candidate for reworking. There are lots of other categories like this besides those I've listed, but 2 of these are the easiest to rebalance since they need only some minor tweaks to be effective.

Btw, I do think using Escorts to increase class/generic points is fine, but I don't like when you basically have to do it since there are no other good options. I made solipsist example because even for this class Unflinching resolve looks extremely delicious. But it's actually one of nearly perfectly balanced classes in terms of escorts, the only disparity is between Loremaster/Tinker/Everyone else (with Sun Palading being somewhat inferior). If your build lacks generics then any escort but those 2 would be good, if it lacks class talents then Loremaster will provide those, if you want some more CC removal and insane saves then by all means go tinkers. Either way you will benefit quite a lot, if you don't get tinkers you'll have another category/inscription and more talent points to spare, if you don't get loremasters you will have more generics etc.

But warrior stands out too much since it becomes better with every point invested in Unflinching resolve. At 5 points it may easily overshadow the benefits from getting 5 other escort abilities. But if it was replaced with skill granting HP regen and healmod, I won't care too much about getting it or something else. That's whay I call balanced escorts.

Maybe I'll need to make a separate topic for those, but it just felt like a wholesome piece of idea so I didn't want to separate it in the middle. Sorry for offtopic.