Lets talk Quickness on Zerker. First impression.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

Heat the Soul

• Quickness: 3,5 Seconds
• Fury: 5 Seconds
• ICD: 5 Seconds

First of all, Fury is nice!

On Axe Spam, this works fine. But on other weapons, not so much.

Primal Burst have a CD of 3,75s.  So either, you dont use them on cd so you get Quickness every 5 seconds, or you get quickness every 7,5 seconds (every second primal burst).

 

My First impression is that Axe/Axe berserker works fine.

Trying stuff like Rifle zerker (openworld) was not good at all.

 

 

 

 

[Dahkeus.8243]

Go condi and takes runes of the Firebrand.  It's good.

[DanAlcedo.3281]

1 minute ago, Dahkeus.8243 said:

Go condi and takes runes of the Firebrand.  It's good.

3.5 x 1.4 is 4.9s. Thats not even perma my dude.

[Dahkeus.8243]

5 minutes ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

3.5 x 1.4 is 4.9s. Thats not even perma my dude.

Somethin's off with your math.  It is perma, but the rotation is tight.  Realistically, you'll probably want some boon duration on gear to some extent just to give yourself some wiggle room.

Edited June 27, 2023 by Dahkeus.8243

[TexZero.7910]

They either need to remove the ICD or Increase the Base Quickness to make this viable.

As is the ICD is acting as a dual gate as (most) Burst skills already have a cooldown. Between needing a resource and already being gated by the weapon of choices burst skill an ICD in my opinion is unwarranted.

[GamerToad.9248]

for me they need to fire balance team and just reroll the balance patch

[Pinkunicorn of Dethecus.32]

I really enjoyed banners, honestly. Maybe I'm in the minority, but being able to hand out my boons, in a predictable way, was pretty satisfying.  I was having a good time buffing up my friend who was new to the game, making her feel like she was really contributing to fights.

Plus, I could have access to Quickness for Out-of-Combat uses (harvesting, using objects, randomly buffing passers-by, etc.).

Now, not only is all of that utility taken away, but even with my char having nearly full Diviner's gear plus Concentration Sigils (just missing neck, a ring and accessories,), I still can't pump out Quickness on training golem to keep up decent quick on allies, let alone in the actual world.

Again, I might be in the minority here, but I've lost solid utility and predictability for quickness that only works if I am standing on top of the people I'm granting it to, which seems significantly worse.

Am I missing something obvious here? I'm kind of at a loss for words at how obtuse this feels.

Edited June 27, 2023 by Pinkunicorn of Dethecus.32

[feeper.5287]

46 minutes ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

Heat the Soul

• Quickness: 3,5 Seconds
• Fury: 5 Seconds
• ICD: 5 Seconds

First of all, Fury is nice!

On Axe Spam, this works fine. But on other weapons, not so much.

Primal Burst have a CD of 3,75s.  So either, you dont use them on cd so you get Quickness every 5 seconds, or you get quickness every 7,5 seconds (every second primal burst).

 

My First impression is that Axe/Axe berserker works fine.

Trying stuff like Rifle zerker (openworld) was not good at all.

 

 

 

 

Conid w/firebrand runes is maybe fine but on power it's sadly pretty bad. From what I've tested so far you need 58% boon duration which is about 10 diviners pieces and thief runes to crit cap in zerk mode...and then when you drop zerk mode your dps plummets. I really think they need to redesign berserker and move quick to spellbreaker

[Arewn.2368]

1 hour ago, TexZero.7910 said:

They either need to remove the ICD or Increase the Base Quickness to make this viable.

As is the ICD is acting as a dual gate as (most) Burst skills already have a cooldown. Between needing a resource and already being gated by the weapon of choices burst skill an ICD in my opinion is unwarranted.

I don't think they should get rid of the ICD all together, just reduce it to 3.5s so that it doesn't impact most Primal Bursts, but prevents Axe from being able to spam. That way Axe isn't clearly superior, which is what would happen with no ICD (and ironically, what is happening now with a missaligned ICD).

[Dahkeus.8243]

After playing around today, quickness on zerker seems ok, but the mechanics of it, like Berserker in general, seem better for strikes/raids than Fractals since fights there are shorter.  
 

On the flip side of things, that exact nature of Fractals does seem to work heavily in favor of alc Bladesworn.

[Katary.7096]

6 hours ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

Heat the Soul

• Quickness: 3,5 Seconds
• Fury: 5 Seconds
• ICD: 5 Seconds

First of all, Fury is nice!

On Axe Spam, this works fine. But on other weapons, not so much.

Primal Burst have a CD of 3,75s.  So either, you dont use them on cd so you get Quickness every 5 seconds, or you get quickness every 7,5 seconds (every second primal burst).

 

My First impression is that Axe/Axe berserker works fine.

Trying stuff like Rifle zerker (openworld) was not good at all.

Sounds like they should set the ICD to 3.5 seconds. And maybe even increase quickness duration to 4 seconds. Certainly ironic that the existence of an ICD hinders Axe Berserkers the least, when the Axe Primal Burst is the reason that the trait has an ICD at all.

[Riba.3271]

What are you guys talking about? If your Primal bursts are on 3.75s cooldown, you're running discipline, which means your weaponswap is on exactly 5 second cooldown, which means you have primal burst available exactly every 5 seconds.

🤭🤭

Now if you have alacrity and don't run discipline, that is understandable issue.

[Jzaku.9765]

43 minutes ago, Riba.3271 said:

What are you guys talking about? If your Primal bursts are on 3.75s cooldown, you're running discipline, which means your weaponswap is on exactly 5 second cooldown, which means you have primal burst available exactly every 5 seconds.

🤭🤭

Now if you have alacrity and don't run discipline, that is understandable issue.

You think Berserker only uses their Burst skill once every 5s on literally any build? Have you even looked at the spec before posting this? 

[Riba.3271]

1 hour ago, Jzaku.9765 said:

2 hours ago, Riba.3271 said:

What are you guys talking about? If your Primal bursts are on 3.75s cooldown, you're running discipline, which means your weaponswap is on exactly 5 second cooldown, which means you have primal burst available exactly every 5 seconds.

🤭🤭

Now if you have alacrity and don't run discipline, that is understandable issue.

You think Berserker only uses their Burst skill once every 5s on literally any build? Have you even looked at the spec before posting this? 

I was talking about swapping weapons off cooldown every 5 seconds, like you usually do in PvP gamemodes. Since seems it wasn't obvious: When you weaponswap you get access to burst skill that is off cooldown and Discipline traitline makes your weaponswap.... 5 seconds. Granted I am not too familiar with PvE traits but it should work fine on any build that runs Discipline (5s weaponswap) or Other open world builds that aren't given alacrity (5s base cooldown)

Also please, I never said you would use burst skill only every 5 seconds. By weaponswapping, you won't be using 1 burst skill every 5 seconds, but 2 of them, or 3 if you reset it with heal skill, and only one will be giving the boons in AoE.

Edited June 28, 2023 by Riba.3271

[Jzaku.9765]

For PVE it looks like:

• Power qZerk is basically unplayable (too much boon duration needed without a Quickness Dura rune, and you have to juggle 100% crit chance with boon duration)
• Condi qZerk is ~32k DPS so its alright

But all that is kind of irrelevant when 99% of Berserker players in endgame content will drop zerk due to making any single mistake in the rotation tanking both your effectiveness as a quickness and as a DPS (both sides of the qDPS role).
Berserker is also an extremely high APM build (despite the actions themselves being simple) so that also lends to it's unpopularity. 

4 hours ago, Riba.3271 said:

I was talking about swapping weapons off cooldown every 5 seconds, like you usually do in PvP gamemodes. Since seems it wasn't obvious: When you weaponswap you get access to burst skill that is off cooldown and Discipline traitline makes your weaponswap.... 5 seconds. Granted I am not too familiar with PvE traits but it should work fine on any build that runs Discipline (5s weaponswap) or Other open world builds that aren't given alacrity (5s base cooldown)

Also please, I never said you would use burst skill only every 5 seconds. By weaponswapping, you won't be using 1 burst skill every 5 seconds, but 2 of them, or 3 if you reset it with heal skill, and only one will be giving the boons in AoE.

I understand what you mean now - to summarize you mean its possible for the Warrior to use their weaponswap CD with Disc as an indicator for when their ICD on Heat the Soul is available. 

I just think it's pretty self-evident that you don't ALWAYS want to swap off CD in any game mode - and the second you don't, your ICD desyncs with your weapon swap CD. 

[Valate.2594]

 

3 hours ago, Jzaku.9765 said:

For PVE it looks like:

• Power qZerk is basically unplayable (too much boon duration needed without a Quickness Dura rune, and you have to juggle 100% crit chance with boon duration)
• Condi qZerk is ~32k DPS so its alright

But all that is kind of irrelevant when 99% of Berserker players in endgame content will drop zerk due to making any single mistake in the rotation tanking both your effectiveness as a quickness and as a DPS (both sides of the qDPS role).
Berserker is also an extremely high APM build (despite the actions themselves being simple) so that also lends to it's unpopularity. 

I understand what you mean now - to summarize you mean its possible for the Warrior to use their weaponswap CD with Disc as an indicator for when their ICD on Heat the Soul is available. 

I just think it's pretty self-evident that you don't ALWAYS want to swap off CD in any game mode - and the second you don't, your ICD desyncs with your weapon swap CD. 

So to be completely clear, quickness power berserker does not work, and condi quickness berserker does the same damage it did before with a more punishing rotation, less utility than when it had banners, and if you either make a mistake or are fighting the 90% of bosses that will guarantee you to drop berserk and have insufficient uptime for quickness to be competitive, correct? 


Well, that's great!

Edited June 28, 2023 by Valate.2594

[Volcanis.4872]

Even after using Scorched Earth and/or Combustive Shot, they will trigger Heat the Soul because the fields they leave behind still counts as a burst skill.

Just tested my quickness condition build with 50% quickness duration (Firebrand runes and concentration sigil) and it seems that with Scorched Earth (4 second duration) and level 3 Combustive Shot (3 pulses, 9 second duration), I can maintain 100% quickness uptime with decent DPS. Soul Pastry and Potent Lucent Oil can give me a little bit more leeway.

[Valate.2594]

2 minutes ago, Volcanis.4872 said:

Even after using Scorched Earth and/or Combustive Shot, they will trigger Heat the Soul because the fields they leave behind still counts as a burst skill.

Just tested my quickness condition build with 50% quickness duration (Firebrand runes and concentration sigil) and it seems that with Scorched Earth (4 second duration) and level 3 Combustive Shot (3 pulses, 9 second duration), I can maintain 100% quickness uptime with decent DPS. Soul Pastry and Potent Lucent Oil can give me a little bit more leeway.

That's odd when I tested it was only generating quickness on the cast of the burst, not the fire fields, and would have 1/2-2 second gaps pretty often with 50% bd. Did they hotfix it? That would almost make it playable (again assuming bosses that don't teleport, go immune, have ranged only phases etc.)

[Dahkeus.8243]

The more I play with it, the more I layer on more ritualist pieces.  Trying to have a perfect rotation to keep up quick without much more than firebrand runes just isn't realistic and ritualist gear is a very small downgrade in DPS for a condi build anyways.  Seems decent, but not as comfy keeping up the boon as alac sworn is.

[Valate.2594]

10 minutes ago, Dahkeus.8243 said:

The more I play with it, the more I layer on more ritualist pieces.  Trying to have a perfect rotation to keep up quick without much more than firebrand runes just isn't realistic and ritualist gear is a very small downgrade in DPS for a condi build anyways.  Seems decent, but not as comfy keeping up the boon as alac sworn is.

It's just kind of odd, it feels infinitely worse to play than it did with banners, the ICD just makes it so awkward.

 

Edit: also losing precision messes with fire aura generation, so it will probably do significantly less as you add ritualist gear to try and make it work. I'm just making my warrior pure condi, even SPB doesn't work properly at the moment... I really hope it isn't like this until July.

Edited June 28, 2023 by Valate.2594

[Dahkeus.8243]

13 minutes ago, Valate.2594 said:

It's just kind of odd, it feels infinitely worse to play than it did with banners, the ICD just makes it so awkward.

 

Edit: also losing precision messes with fire aura generation, so it will probably do significantly less as you add ritualist gear to try and make it work. I'm just making my warrior pure condi, even SPB doesn't work properly at the moment... I really hope it isn't like this until July.

Pure Condi Zerk is benching 42k, so even with a decent hit to DPS, I doubt DPS will be much of a concern for a quick variant.  That being said, I haven't seen any benches, so I don't have any facts to back that up.  Personally, I am far from SC level at benching, but I did find that I was able to put out some pretty decent DPS for a DPS quick build using a decent mix of ritualist gear. 

 

I do agree that it isn't very fun though.  Feeling forced to use big skills just to keep up a boon isn't fun and that seems like what we ended up with Berserker.  It's not as bad as healers needing to spam heals when they don't need to, but I really wish devs would just handle it like they handle it on other classes with generous base boon durations on alac/quick.  That's probably why Alac sworn is actually pretty fun to play for an alac DPS role.

[Jzaku.9765]

26 minutes ago, Dahkeus.8243 said:

Pure Condi Zerk is benching 42k, so even with a decent hit to DPS, I doubt DPS will be much of a concern for a quick variant.  That being said, I haven't seen any benches, so I don't have any facts to back that up.  Personally, I am far from SC level at benching, but I did find that I was able to put out some pretty decent DPS for a DPS quick build using a decent mix of ritualist gear. 

 

I do agree that it isn't very fun though.  Feeling forced to use big skills just to keep up a boon isn't fun and that seems like what we ended up with Berserker.  It's not as bad as healers needing to spam heals when they don't need to, but I really wish devs would just handle it like they handle it on other classes with generous base boon durations on alac/quick.  That's probably why Alac sworn is actually pretty fun to play for an alac DPS role.

I'm extremely bothered that Berserker is only one step removed from their crusade against Utility skill spam for boons, yet this somehow causes everyone to lose their minds when this is pointed out. 

• Spam Utility skills => provide Quickness

Is only one step removed from:

• Spam Utility skills => to upkeep berserk => to provide Quickness

I hate having my utility slots permanently spammed off CD, and Berserker's margins are so unbelievably tight you can miss a single one and absolutely tank your own performance.

And before anyone tells me that you can upkeep quickness with Core Bursts - There's 2 sides to being a Quickness DPS. And half of it is literally DPS. 

[Dahkeus.8243]

18 minutes ago, Jzaku.9765 said:

I'm extremely bothered that Berserker is only one step removed from their crusade against Utility skill spam for boons, yet this somehow causes everyone to lose their minds when this is pointed out. 

• Spam Utility skills => provide Quickness

Is only one step removed from:

• Spam Utility skills => to upkeep berserk => to provide Quickness

I hate having my utility slots permanently spammed off CD, and Berserker's margins are so unbelievably tight you can miss a single one and absolutely tank your own performance.

And before anyone tells me that you can upkeep quickness with Core Bursts - There's 2 sides to being a Quickness DPS. And half of it is literally DPS. 

True and agreed.  However, if I play devil's advocate, I'd say that you'd still need to do this for a pure DPS build, but that's probably one of my beefs with so many builds in GW2.  I personally think every build should be afforded at least 1 utility skill that's not required for keeping up DPS to handle actual encounter mechanics. 

 

I mean, utility skills to bring utility may seem a bit wild...so hot take here, but that's where my head is.

[Myror.7521]

Okay for condi quickness U wana use firebrand Rune. Will end up been around 32k DPS. On Power u might wana sweap some gear to Diviner and sweap some gear to Assassin's to hold the 100% crit cap on my last try i got something Like 26k on it so not Wurf using now (also cause Power zerker is Just nerfed in General) 

[Valate.2594]

12 minutes ago, Myror.7521 said:

Okay for condi quickness U wana use firebrand Rune. Will end up been around 32k DPS. On Power u might wana sweap some gear to Diviner and sweap some gear to Assassin's to hold the 100% crit cap on my last try i got something Like 26k on it so not Wurf using now (also cause Power zerker is Just nerfed in General) 

I think the concerns are more that it's tied to burst usage, and the ICD does not line up with when bursts go off. They did add it to the fire field ticks so it's a little better but because of the ICD, you need more than just FB runes or it will have small lapses between triggers because it's 5 second duration with a 5 second internal cooldown (ICD not affected by alac since it's a trait), so it won't pop until the next tic. You need at least 50% BD, FB only gives 40%. Like I said, it's clunky, banner quickness condition was 32k bench as well but also provided regular stability and superspeed, and continued to provide quickness during boss phase changes.