pDPS Berserker Benchmarks in PvE - Bloody Roar and the Problem with Stability

[Baseraver.7241]

Hello, I am Baseraver.7241. I create benchmarks for Snowcrows on Power DPS Berserker and would like to reach out to @Cal Cohen.2358 and show how the last couple of balance patches have nerfed this power build in terms of damage output.
 

The state of Power Berserker in PvE

Before EoD released Power DPS Berserker benched 38.7k, assuming Banners and other buffs such as Spotter and Frost Spirit were present: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xK1TFk0aJOI&ab_channel=Sotym

When those buffs have been removed from the game, a portion of the lost precision has been given back to us by giving Pinnacle of Strength 5% extra crit chance (see https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/118261-game-update-notes-july-19-2022/#comment-1714541).

The new benchmark after this July Patch in 2022 was 33.2k+: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_Epd-tINeM&ab_channel=Baseraver

The big follow-up balance patch for PvE at the 23rd of August was meant to, quote:

Quote

We've also reviewed the current competitiveness of various builds (mostly power based) across each profession and are delivering targeted damage increases through specific elite specialization weapons or traits to ensure that every profession has both viable power- and condition-based damage builds.

(see: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/120020-game-update-notes-august-23-2022/#comment-1743916, in which Berserker was listed under the targeted Power Builds.)

with the only damage-increasing change for this builds rotation being: "Bloody Roar: (PvE only) Damage bonus increased from 20% to 25%."
However, the new benchmark after this 23rd August Patch in 2022 was 32.6k+, which is lower than before!

The only logical explanation for this is that Bloody Roar got changed from being a 20% multiplicative damage modifier to being a 25% additive damage modifier.
Based on the patches goal to buff builds, it is fair to assume that this functional change was not intended and this can be considered a bug that needs to be fixed.

 

Here is a video showcasing the method to determine the traits functionality and the maths behind it (Credit to Ironexus for the method):

- We chose Berserker Runes and Force Sigil (both of which have a known-to-be additive 5% damage modifier each)
- We need this to test if Bloody Roar is multiplicative or additive, since we would not see the difference otherwise.
- We used Whirling Axe right before Berserk runs out to check its damage value in and out of Berserk with the exact same Weapon Strength roll, eliminating rng.
- We considered the 300 Power loss in stats when out of Berserk in our calculations.

- The shown calculations match the damage values given by the game if Bloody Roar all of a sudden is additive.

EDIT: Bloody Roar across Game Modes
My findings towards Bloody Roar are the following:
PvE Golem Area - Additive 25%
WvW Wild Moa - Additive 10%
PvP Golem Area - Additive 10%
 

Power DPS Berserker after the 4th October 2022 Balance Patch and the Stability Issue

There is a very concerning problem for any DPS Berserker Build (Power and Condi) in PvE: The changes done to Headbutt, and I quote:

• Quote

  Head Butt: Reduced berserk mode extension from 2 seconds to 1 second in PvP and WvW. This skill no longer removes stability from the user, and it no longer deals increased damage when removing stability. Increased power coefficient from 3.0 to 4.5 in PvE only.

  If Headbutt does not remove Stability anymore, it also does not self-stun the user.  But this was an important part of Berserker rotations, since breaking out of stun with Outrage extended Berserk mode by 5 seconds instead of 1 second when not stunbreaking. And Stability is a common boon these days in PvE Raids or Strikes etc.
  Outrage does the following: Rage Skill - Break out of stun and extend the duration of berserk mode. The extension of berserk mode increases if a stun was broken. (from 1 second to 5 seconds)

 

The combo [Headbutt --> Outrage] now cannot be performed anymore when we are given Stability by our team. This reduces the duration of Berserk mode inconsistently, leading to a very frustrating gameplay experience. It also lowers the DPS if we lose Berserk at the wrong time. I tried replacing Outrage with Sundering Leap or Shattering Blow, but it is straight up worse, partially because the damage coefficient for Headbutt got buffed and partially because berserk mode duration doesnt quite fit the new rotations investigated perfectly like it used to with Headbutt/Outrage.

 

So here I present to you the current state of Power DPS Berserker: 2 Benchmarks in 1 Video showing its damage potential with permanent stability first, and then without Stability.
Power DPS Berserker with Stability: ~32.0k
Power DPS Berserker without Stability: 32.8k+

 

Conclusion and suggestions:
Problem A: The [Head Butt --> Outrage] combo is essential in PvE for berserk mode extension. Stability, frequently given by team members these days, leads to a very frustrating gameplay experience, it prevents the self-stun by Headbutt and we cannot extend Berserk mode duration properly with Outrage.

Suggestion: Implement a functional debuff, given by Headbutt with the Headbutt Icon for 1s on our buff bar. It doesnt do anything other than being functional in the following way:
If it is being removed by Outrage, Outrage increases Berserk mode duration by 5 seconds instead of 1 second.

Reason: This will make the combo independant of whether we have stability or not and fixes all the issues in PvE while not reverting Headbutts changes for PvP/WvWs sake.

 

Problem B: Power DPS Berserker still is not competitive at all with other DPS builds. Bloody Roar got changed from being multiplicative to additive, further nerfing it down.

Suggestion: Change Bloody Roar from being a 25% Additive Damage Bonus to being a 33% Multiplicative Damage Bonus.

Reason: This will make Power DPS Berserker viable whilst not touching any other Warrior Builds with the following Benchmark numbers estimated by my calculations:
Benchmark to be expected: ~37.0k - 37.5k+ DPS

A buff to 37k would be well-appreciated 😅

 (Assuming Headbutt --> Outrage extends for the full value!)

Many Warrior players want this build to be viable again.

Please help us and thank you for your time!

 

Edit: I created a Reddit Post for this issue a couple of days ago with >44.000 Views and >260 Upvotes: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/xxtc9y/pdps_berserker_benchmarks_in_pve_bloody_roar_and/

I reached out to a larger audience and called for their feedback and ideas for you and the Berserker Elite Spec.

I hope this is helpful to you. Have a nice week!

 

Edited October 10, 2022 by Baseraver.7241

[Lighter.5631]

all these changes, such long patch notes

not only did it nerf pve, it also did not make warrior any more playable in pvp/wvw

haha

warrior is such a mess now.

 

they could simply just keep old function of headbutt and make headbutt deal damage again in pvp/wvw, like they did to prime light beam and earthshaker, imagine.

but too bad they just want warrior to do single digit damage in pvp.

 

actually, berserk extension is also a not very well thought-out implementation to make the rage skills useful, when the rage skills themselves are very bad.

or they can just make 5 seconds extension base line without stun breaking lol.

 

either way, this is a hot mess

they need a better way to extend berserk without spamming utilities off cooldown

Edited October 5, 2022 by Lighter.5631

[Noz.4650]

Not that I have a better solution, but the one you suggested feels quite forced? The original Headbutt+Outrage interaction always felt forced too anyway. Would it work if Last Blaze gave rage skills the extended berserk duration and berserk had a duration cap instead?

Edited October 5, 2022 by Noz.4650

[Baseraver.7241]

3 minutes ago, Noz.4650 said:

Not that I have a better solution, but the one you suggested feels quite forced? The original Headbutt+Outrage interaction always felt forced too anyway. Would it work if Last Blaze gave rage skills the extended berserk duration and berserk had a duration cap instead?

A cap would hurt Condi DPS Berserker, though. I dont think a cap would be a good thing in general. It would be beneficial to a full bench if we did not lose berserk at all on power (currently we lose it once without stab and twice with stab).

 

Anyway, the [Headbutt --> Outrage] synergy is so obvious and natural, that I dont really see it as anything forced, and its quite easy to nail the combo, especially if the debuff would last for 1s after headbutt hits.

 

You could go and say Outrage now gives 3s or 4s of Berserk Duration per cast, independant of if it broke a stun or not. But we would still use Headbutt in this case mid-rotation tbh xD

[Noz.4650]

14 minutes ago, Baseraver.7241 said:

A cap would hurt Condi DPS Berserker, though. I dont think a cap would be a good thing in general. It would be beneficial to a full bench if we did not lose berserk at all on power (currently we lose it once without stab and twice with stab).

 

Anyway, the [Headbutt --> Outrage] synergy is so obvious and natural, that I dont really see it as anything forced, and its quite easy to nail the combo, especially if the debuff would last for 1s after headbutt hits.

 

You could go and say Outrage now gives 3s or 4s of Berserk Duration per cast, independant of if it broke a stun or not. But we would still use Headbutt in this case mid-rotation tbh xD

How would it hurt cdps? The idea would be that you could get 100% uptime with rage skills and Last Blaze by slotting enough rage skills, but I added the duration cap part in case its balanced around let's say 3 rage skills and a full 5 would get you like 30s. You know way more than me about this so I'd refer to you if the math makes any sense on that.

[Baseraver.7241]

5 minutes ago, Noz.4650 said:

How would it hurt cdps? The idea would be that you could get 100% uptime with rage skills and Last Blaze by slotting enough rage skills, but I added the duration cap part in case its balanced around let's say 3 rage skills and a full 5 would get you like 30s. You know way more than me about this so I'd refer to you if the math makes any sense on that.

cDPS Berserker benched 37.5k before this patch with 106s spent in fight with the golem.

A cap means, you cant extend berserk almost inifinitely anymore, meaning I assumed the cap you were talking about to be less than 106s. But if it is lets say 50s, then we will lose berserk at least once in the rotation, nerfing its DPS, because berserk mode is just stronger than having it down, obviously.

And if the cap would be big enough so we can stay in berserk for 106s (or whatever a full golem benchmark needs) then the cap almost lost its meaning. Thats why I think a cap doesnt really help.

[Noz.4650]

15 minutes ago, Baseraver.7241 said:

cDPS Berserker benched 37.5k before this patch with 106s spent in fight with the golem.

A cap means, you cant extend berserk almost inifinitely anymore, meaning I assumed the cap you were talking about to be less than 106s. But if it is lets say 50s, then we will lose berserk at least once in the rotation, nerfing its DPS, because berserk mode is just stronger than having it down, obviously.

And if the cap would be big enough so we can stay in berserk for 106s (or whatever a full golem benchmark needs) then the cap almost lost its meaning. Thats why I think a cap doesnt really help.

I have smoll smooth brain so help me understand the math. If there's let's say a cap of 20s on berserk but a full rotation with Last Blaze and 4 rage skills give you 23s of berserk, does it not work the same or what is my smooth brain missing? Wouldn't it mean that you had a 3s window to extend your cap?

Edited October 5, 2022 by Noz.4650

[Myror.7521]

@Baseraver.7241 tho i think make bloody roar multiplicative and not additive would not only help Berserker in pve but also in pvp. Cause in its current state it made like no real difference if you just use bloody roar or not. The dmg is only slightly higher there.

Edited October 5, 2022 by Pati.2438

[Baseraver.7241]

18 minutes ago, Noz.4650 said:

I have smoll smooth brain so help me understand the math. If there's let's say a cap of 20s on berserk but a full rotation with Last Blaze and 4 rage skills give you 23s of berserk, does it not work the same or what is my smooth brain missing? Wouldn't it mean that you had a 3s window to extend your cap?

A "Cap" of 20s Berserk duration means you cannot extend your Berserk further than a total of 20s berserk duration. 
Maybe I misunderstand you. But this would mean that you can use rage skills as much as you want, even if they would give you 50s in theory, the cap hinders you to stay in berserk for more than 20s.

And in this case, losing berserk after 20s is a very big nerf for dps.

[Vancho.8750]

@Baseraver.7241

Hi, if it is not trouble can I ask you if you can test out a Hammer build with defense, since I have a suspicion that the multipliers there are also additive in there. It can reach 40% multiplier but doesn't seem to do it and I'm not really consistent on the golem to catch the difference.

I remember that the old hammer trait also said 20% damage increase but it was way worse than Berserker's Power since it was additive and it might have been copy pasted on the new traits.
I know it would not bench much but it will be nice to know if there is a point in picking the traits for damage.

[Baseraver.7241]

10 hours ago, Vancho.8750 said:

@Baseraver.7241

Hi, if it is not trouble can I ask you if you can test out a Hammer build with defense, since I have a suspicion that the multipliers there are also additive in there. It can reach 40% multiplier but doesn't seem to do it and I'm not really consistent on the golem to catch the difference.

I remember that the old hammer trait also said 20% damage increase but it was way worse than Berserker's Power since it was additive and it might have been copy pasted on the new traits.
I know it would not bench much but it will be nice to know if there is a point in picking the traits for damage.

Cull the Weak is a 10% Multiplicative Modifier
Edit:
Stalwart Strength - 10% - Confirmed to be Multiplicative as well
Merciless Hammer: 20% - Doesnt work properly

I tested a bunch of Berserker setups with different combination on the other 2 traitlines
Defense/Strength
Defense/Dsicipline
Strength/Discipline
all perform worse than the current benchmarks with the first number being 29k and below in first tests.

Defense/Tactics hits 32k first number but thats because we get a 25% damage modifier in Tactics when target is above 80% HP, and really bad dps afterwards.

At the moment, any Hammer Berserker iteration is straight up worse.

Edited October 6, 2022 by Baseraver.7241

[Kalthea.4326]

Honestly, I've always hated Headbutt. It feels awful to use, awful to play around, and I don't enjoy having to utilize a stunbreak just to get an extension on rage mode. I feel that Headbutt would be better off as a Utility skill akin to Kick, and having our Elite Utility be Wild Blow with a higher coefficient, and a few extra tweaks. However, i realize I may be the minority in this situation, as I would also like to have an Elite Shout skill for core Warrior, which would allow for much more group utility.

[Nairolf.7024]

PVE endgame player here. Main Warrior. 2000+ Li / Fractal God

I agree with the analysis and the suggestions of the OP for the berserker in PVE :

- add a debuff on "headbutt" -> remove it with "outrage" to gain berserker duration. Solves the stab problem.
- make "Bloody Roar" a ~33% multiplicative bonus damage so that we're in line with other power classes in terms of DPS.

This build was great and fun to play before EOD. But it's now ineffective because it got nerfed so badly when banners got removed changed. Warriors used "doubled standards" to benefit 50% more from the additional stats of banners and then suffered more than others when banners got changed. Please fix this build.


 

[Vancho.8750]

14 hours ago, Baseraver.7241 said:

Cull the Weak is a 10% Multiplicative Modifier
Edit:
Stalwart Strength - 10% - Confirmed to be Multiplicative as well
Merciless Hammer: 20% - Doesnt work properly

I tested a bunch of Berserker setups with different combination on the other 2 traitlines
Defense/Strength
Defense/Dsicipline
Strength/Discipline
all perform worse than the current benchmarks with the first number being 29k and below in first tests.

Defense/Tactics hits 32k first number but thats because we get a 25% damage modifier in Tactics when target is above 80% HP, and really bad dps afterwards.

At the moment, any Hammer Berserker iteration is straight up worse.

Ty for the work and ty for confirming that there is some kind of issue with Merciless Hammer.

[Arewn.2368]

Over all in agreement with OP.

The only change I would suggest is that any additional %damage increases should be added to Smash Brawler, not Bloody Roar.

 

Though we want to stay in Berserk as long as possible, the reality is we aren't always in Berserk.

Stacking even more damage in Bloody Roar means even less (comparative) damage during our downtime outside of Berserk.

 

[Baseraver.7241]

8 minutes ago, Arewn.2368 said:

Over all in agreement with OP.

The only change I would suggest is that any additional %damage increases should be added to Smash Brawler, not Bloody Roar.

 

Though we want to stay in Berserk as long as possible, the reality is we aren't always in Berserk.

Stacking even more damage in Bloody Roar means even less (comparative) damage during our downtime outside of Berserk.

 

Good idea! Smash Brawler could use a damage modifier. At the moment we take Last Blaze on Golem Targets because the bench is so long that we would drop out of Berserk anyway even with Smash Brawler at least once, so the extra burning on Last Blaze wins.

Edited October 6, 2022 by Baseraver.7241

[Baseraver.7241]

I did more testing in all 3 Game Modes:

My findings towards Bloody Roar are the following:
PvE Golem Area - Additive 25%
WvW Wild Moa - Additive 10%
PvP Golem Area - Additive 10%

Edited October 6, 2022 by Baseraver.7241

[Jzaku.9765]

I fully agree with the premise of OP but it feels like being fixated on the bug of it being Additive vs Multiplicative is kind of pointless, they can just bump up the number on it to make up the difference, or any number of ways to buff Berserker that doesn't involve trying to fix some eldritch longstanding bug. 

As for Headbutt + Outrage, personally I'd rather be less reliant on extremely specific utilities so there's less opportunity cost for accessing the rest of Warrior's toolkit - which both DPS Berserker and Bladesworn seriously suffer from. I would hope that they squish the gap between not-berserking and berserking so it's not so brutal when you time out, or something to that effect. 

[Baseraver.7241]

7 minutes ago, Jzaku.9765 said:

I fully agree with the premise of OP but it feels like being fixated on the bug of it being Additive vs Multiplicative is kind of pointless, they can just bump up the number on it to make up the difference, or any number of ways to buff Berserker that doesn't involve trying to fix some eldritch longstanding bug. 

As for Headbutt + Outrage, personally I'd rather be less reliant on extremely specific utilities so there's less opportunity cost for accessing the rest of Warrior's toolkit - which both DPS Berserker and Bladesworn seriously suffer from. I would hope that they squish the gap between not-berserking and berserking so it's not so brutal when you time out, or something to that effect. 

I somewhat agree with both statements now that you say it.
For the first, there was a suggestion to give Smash Brawler a meaningful multiplicative damage modifier on top instead.
For the second part, I wouldnt have an idea as of now how to tackle this problem. As it is right now, we would use HB+Outrage on this build in any case for the sole purpose of using a DPS build, I believe. You want the fast access to full adrenaline + you need the stunbreak at the beginning of a fight to get your damage going asap.

Edited October 6, 2022 by Baseraver.7241

[ZEUStiger.3590]

9 minutes ago, Jzaku.9765 said:

I fully agree with the premise of OP but it feels like being fixated on the bug of it being Additive vs Multiplicative is kind of pointless, they can just bump up the number on it to make up the difference, or any number of ways to buff Berserker that doesn't involve trying to fix some eldritch longstanding bug. 

As for Headbutt + Outrage, personally I'd rather be less reliant on extremely specific utilities so there's less opportunity cost for accessing the rest of Warrior's toolkit - which both DPS Berserker and Bladesworn seriously suffer from. I would hope that they squish the gap between not-berserking and berserking so it's not so brutal when you time out, or something to that effect. 

The problem with the rest of warrior's toolkit is that it's rather bad. There's a reason why bannerslave build was completely overshadowing the dps build, and part of is that there isn't anything significantly better than banners. If you make dps utilities bad, you're practically signing yourself up to be bullied into being the quickness provider via banners again. And there aren't any other "dps utilities" other than rages skills and, begrudgingly, signet(s). Even physical skills are not worth it, because anet is too afraid to give Peak Performance's buff worthwhile numbers.

Edited October 6, 2022 by ZEUStiger.3590

[Skie.8904]

Doing god's work.

It's like we still haven't recovered from the precision lost after the banner/spotter changes.

Edited October 6, 2022 by Skie.8904

[Stadsport.8714]

Thanks for doing all this work and compiling this all together. I hope @Cal Cohen.2358 and the rest of the dev team see this and address this in the next patch. The changes you list would basically fix every problem I have with Power Berserker. It's my favorite build to play and it's frustrating to be less competitive even when you're playing at your best. 

[REMagic.8937]

5 hours ago, Jzaku.9765 said:

I fully agree with the premise of OP but it feels like being fixated on the bug of it being Additive vs Multiplicative is kind of pointless, they can just bump up the number on it to make up the difference, or any number of ways to buff Berserker that doesn't involve trying to fix some eldritch longstanding bug. 

Just two clarifications:

1. Bloody Roar is not an eldritch longstanding bug. It broke in August 2022.

2. Bumping up Bloody Roar even more (as additive modifier) is going to make other additive modifiers "less important" (math is a bit counter-intuitive at this point, so I'll leave it in quotation marks). This is not necessarily a good thing imo. Warrior already has by far the highest number of additive modifiers,  and as a result each of them (e.g. Force Sigil, Impact Sigil, ...) is way less impactful than advertised. For that reason I'd really prefer it if Anet made it multiplicative again.

Edited October 6, 2022 by REMagic.8937

[Jzaku.9765]

6 hours ago, REMagic.8937 said:

Just two clarifications:

1. Bloody Roar is not an eldritch longstanding bug. It broke in August 2022.

2. Bumping up Bloody Roar even more (as additive modifier) is going to make other additive modifiers "less important" (math is a bit counter-intuitive at this point, so I'll leave it in quotation marks). This is not necessarily a good thing imo. Warrior already has by far the highest number of additive modifiers,  and as a result each of them (e.g. Force Sigil, Impact Sigil, ...) is way less impactful than advertised. For that reason I'd really prefer it if Anet made it multiplicative again.

The "Eldritch longstanding bug" I'm referring to is whatever makes a modifier Additive or Multiplicative - I'm fairly confident Anet is not sure what makes a mod act this way - if it was an easy change, you'd think it would be consistent across all modifiers by now, or at least Bloody Roar would have been fixed by now since Anet_Doubletap explicitly knows about it. 

Like I said, I'd really prefer if they squished the DPS difference between berserking and not-berserking, which means I'd be happier with putting this DPS buff elsewhere and not in Bloody Roar specifically. 

  

11 hours ago, ZEUStiger.3590 said:

The problem with the rest of warrior's toolkit is that it's rather bad. There's a reason why bannerslave build was completely overshadowing the dps build, and part of is that there isn't anything significantly better than banners. If you make dps utilities bad, you're practically signing yourself up to be bullied into being the quickness provider via banners again. And there aren't any other "dps utilities" other than rages skills and, begrudgingly, signet(s). Even physical skills are not worth it, because anet is too afraid to give Peak Performance's buff worthwhile numbers.

The relatively newly buffed defensive Banners are incredible stat-agnostic team support, and Bladesworn at least has a Projectile-destroying wall. The rest does kind of suck but we do have good options, if our Utility bars werent specifically Rage extending skills for Berserker and exactly [Flow Stabilizer][Overcharged Cartridges][Dragonspike Mine][Tactical Reload] for Bladesworn. 

Edited October 7, 2022 by Jzaku.9765

[ZEUStiger.3590]

8 hours ago, Jzaku.9765 said:

are incredible stat-agnostic team support

I hope you realize that this only exacerbates the risk I mentioned. I think it's a Very Bad Idea if you can provide boon support without any investment into BD gear, as this will cause the support and dps builds to blend together once again, instead of being a distinct two builds.