Rage Skill Berserk extension - Is/Was it a good idea?

[Jzaku.9765]

I believe this entire mechanic is largely irrelevant for PVP, as nobody is taking bad skills on their bar to maybe get some minor value. As such, this thread will largely be about PVE.

It's been about 4 years since Rage Extension was introduced as a mechanic on April 23rd, 2019. What do you guys think about this mechanic introduced into Berseker?

 

Personally, I think the concept of Rage extension is alright but the implementation was a mistake from the beginning.

• There have been 2 wildly differently performing versions of Berserker - one permanently Raging (PVE) and one not (PVP/WvW). This adds a lot of overhead for changing Berserker because the effects of any change will vary wildly between game modes. Presumably, this is why Berserker changes are always so small.
   
• The very concept of Rage extension itself came from a need to lock PVE Berserker's DPS behind utility slots to prevent it from taking stat-boosting Banners.
  Stat-boosting Banners has been addressed in 2023, so now Berserker utility slots are mandatorily taxed for a reason that no longer exists - an issue that Spellbreaker thankfully dodged due to not being good at the time (though there was a period from Nov 2017 - Jul 2018 where they tried the exact same thing with Peak Performance before realising it was a bad idea)
   
• The recent Wild Blow change really got my goat. A unique utility tool (Long-distance knockback) was removed from Warrior's already tiny toolkit, making a skill far worse than traited Bull's Charge (which it always is traited in PVE). This is following the bad logic of:
  "Power Zerk has to use Wild Blow" > "Wild Blow's knockback caused some annoyance in group PVE situations" > "The solution is to change Wild Blow" 
  When "Power Zerk has to use Wild Blow" was the problem in the first place. They have that locked on their bar, and used off-cooldown without respect to the situation because they need the Rage Extension effect. The exact same thing can be said of Scrapper's Blast Gyro which was affected in the same way in the same patch for their Quickness build.

Utility skill slot flexibility is a core part of a build's strength. I thought the balance manifesto stream implied that Anet understood this - but signs of changes improving the current status quo for many builds, not just warrior, are far and few between. Many builds are just unfairly taxed in many ways.

 

To that end, I would make a simple suggestion to keep the theme of this Rage Extension mechanic while completely freeing up Berserker's utility skill slots:

• [Fatal Frenzy] is renamed to [Always Angry]. In addition to it's current effects, this trait now also reads "Extend the duration of Berserk mode when landing a strike with a Primal Burst." ICD 2 seconds.

[Arewn.2368]

I think it's a good direction, but they need to add more ways of managing going in and out of berserk alongside it.

-Exit button should be base-line.

-Eternal Champion should also reduce the cool down of Berserk by 5seconds.

-Heabutt should cause you to enter Berserk for 5 seconds.

I wouldn't mind if the durations were actually reduced across the board if they added more ways to enter it. They could even outline two distinct playstyle around that based on trait choices:

One that's focuses on maintaining 100% uptime on  Berserk.

And another with short but frequent Bersker periods, making greater use of the "on entry" (and "on exit with EC) traits.

Edited February 22, 2023 by Arewn.2368

[Jzaku.9765]

It's been half a year since this thread was made. In that time, Anet has pushed towards providing every class the ability to perform the 3 endgame roles of pve: Offensive Support (e.g., qdps Herald), Defensive Support (e.g., heal FB), and DPS. 

Our options as players have blown open and the competition is stiff. The top dog Berserker is competing against is Quick DPS Herald. Herald in general is one of the most popular builds in the meta, at an impressive ~10.03% play rate, beating out Firebrand (at 7.74%) and blowing Berserker out of the water (1.31%). 

In other words, Herald is about 7.7x more popular than Berserker, and has eclipsed the previous quickness king, Firebrand. 

People have undoubtedly come to the conclusion that this build is strong, reflected in it's play rate. There are many reasons why this might be the case, but I want to raise the possibility relevant to the thread topic:

Herald has FLEXIBLE UTILITY. 

We live in a world where every class (and increasingly, anet is pushing for every elite spec) deserves good DPS. By this metric, quick Herald is actually ~2k DPS behind quick Berserker.

Yet people intrinsically are able to identify that it is the FAR stronger build. The Revenant class mechanic essentially guarantees that your utility skills always provide value. Jalis gives Stab and damage reduction. Glint gives practically every boon in the game bar Alac. Whatever your team needs for the encounter - it's a swap away without crippling your effectiveness too much.

Contrast this with Berserker's situation, where your utility skills are locked into a specific set of low value skills to be spammed off cooldown, or suffer serious performance losses. 

This isn't even referencing how the (staff?) Quickness Healer build for Warrior will compete in the meta.

 

Rage Skill Berserk extension was a horrible mistake. 

Edited September 22, 2023 by Jzaku.9765

[anbujackson.9564]

No amount of dps will make the clunkiness of berserker any better.

Having no real control over your mode slowly killed my passion for it. 

I would rather have a fixed duration and with your utilities having the small sideeffect to reduce the CD of berserk. 

I dont know, its just meh. Give me some real burst at the cost of overall dps or a manual exit at least. Just something to increase the usability. 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

17 minutes ago, anbujackson.9564 said:

No amount of dps will make the clunkiness of berserker any better.

Having no real control over your mode slowly killed my passion for it. 

I would rather have a fixed duration and with your utilities having the small sideeffect to reduce the CD of berserk. 

I dont know, its just meh. Give me some real burst at the cost of overall dps or a manual exit at least. Just something to increase the usability. 

That wouldn't solve the problem, just invert it.

 

Berserk should function like photon forge or shroud. Can enter at any adrenaline level, primals have no adrenaline cost, adrenaline drains at 1 adrenaline every 2s. Decapitate would have a 1s CD instead of instant refresh. Manual exit at any time on F2. Berserk would have an 8s CD.

Heat the soul would be quickness on rage skill use or primal burst use, 5s per rage skill, 3s per primal burst.

Other traits could be changed to grant more effects on rage skill or primal burst use. There could be a trait to pulse effects while in berserk mode.

[anbujackson.9564]

10 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

That wouldn't solve the problem, just invert it.

 

Berserk should function like photon forge or shroud. Can enter at any adrenaline level, primals have no adrenaline cost, adrenaline drains at 1 adrenaline every 2s. Decapitate would have a 1s CD instead of instant refresh. Manual exit at any time on F2. Berserk would have an 8s CD.

Heat the soul would be quickness on rage skill use or primal burst use, 5s per rage skill, 3s per primal burst.

Other traits could be changed to grant more effects on rage skill or primal burst use. There could be a trait to pulse effects while in berserk mode.

I would like that. I am a huge PBM holo enjoyer after all. 

What I dont like is giving quickness like that or pulsing boons. Its just so passive. Then again, the whole game is turned and balanced this way so whatever.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

2 minutes ago, anbujackson.9564 said:

I would like that. I am a huge PBM holo enjoyer after all. 

What I dont like is giving quickness like that or pulsing boons. Its just so passive. Then again, the whole game is turned and balanced this way so whatever.

I agree, but that is what is working at the moment for heralds, harbs, and FBs.

[Jzaku.9765]

53 minutes ago, anbujackson.9564 said:

No amount of dps will make the clunkiness of berserker any better.

Having no real control over your mode slowly killed my passion for it. 

I would rather have a fixed duration and with your utilities having the small sideeffect to reduce the CD of berserk. 

I dont know, its just meh. Give me some real burst at the cost of overall dps or a manual exit at least. Just something to increase the usability. 

I'm not sure when you last played but Manual Exit on Berserker at the cost of DPS is already a thing - Eternal Champion now does exactly this. 

In context you seem to be thinking about PVP/WVW in this post, but I'd like to point out that reducing Berserker CD is essentially exactly the same thing for PVE - it will be mandatory because so much efficacy is tied to actually being Berserk. It'll be worse, in fact, since then half the time you'd be disincentivized to even use your utility skills. 

Edited September 22, 2023 by Jzaku.9765

[anbujackson.9564]

5 hours ago, Jzaku.9765 said:

I'm not sure when you last played but Manual Exit on Berserker at the cost of DPS is already a thing - Eternal Champion now does exactly this. 

In context you seem to be thinking about PVP/WVW in this post, but I'd like to point out that reducing Berserker CD is essentially exactly the same thing for PVE - it will be mandatory because so much efficacy is tied to actually being Berserk. It'll be worse, in fact, since then half the time you'd be disincentivized to even use your utility skills. 

I know that but loosing 20%+ dps for a QoL feature that should be baseline?

Thats not even funny.

[Noro.2879]

Berserk and rage are fine and fun and give a learning curve to an otherwise relatively simple class fantasy.

Arc Divider is not fine. Greatsword has no skills at all that feel good to press.

[Jzaku.9765]

15 hours ago, BANNED.9527 said:

Berserk and rage are fine and fun and give a learning curve to an otherwise relatively simple class fantasy.

Arc Divider is not fine. Greatsword has no skills at all that feel good to press.

This thread is about the pointless opportunity cost mandatory to play any version of Berserker through Rage skill usage requirements to extend Berserk. 

Having an issue with the very concept of Berserk would be unhinged bordering on insanity. It's the entire concept of the Elite Spec.