Why The Berserker Changes Are Overdoing It

[mandala.8507]

So, after watching the balance patch preview livestream, it was almost immediately apparent to me that the devs had underestimated just how strong these buffs are to power berserker, and more specifically to a possible quickness variant of the build.

To make sure I wasn't missing something, I decided to go in-game and put together a hypothetical build with these changes in mind and test it out on the golem. Unsurprisingly, it seems like the changes to Smash Brawler and Heat the Soul well overshot the mark and will likely make power quickness berserker hilariously easy and overpowered.

Let me explain.

Firstly, here is a video that demos the key practical concerns I have with these changes:

So, to break down what you're seeing here, I set up my warrior as if I was on the new patch and did a mock-pull of the golem. What concerns me here are how the new berserk extensions and heat the soul boon application procs interact with this hypothetical build.

To break it down: From 30 seconds in the video until 54 seconds, we do 33.6k dps over 24 seconds with the following procs of our rage and burst skills:

• 6 Arc Dividers
• 5 Decapitates (would have been 6 if I didn't mess up)
• 2 Blood Reckonings
• 2 Wild Blows

With our new extension via Smash Brawler, this means that over a 24 second period, we extended our Berserk mode by:

• 6 Arc Dividers for 2 extra seconds each = +12 seconds
• 5 Decapitates for 1 extra second each = +5 seconds
• 2 Blood Reckonings for 2 extra seconds each (still works this way on current patch) = +4 seconds
• 2 Wild Blows for 4 extra seconds each (still works this way on current patch) = +8 seconds

So in total, we extended our berserk mode by 29 seconds (30 if I hit all my decapitates) over a 24 second period when it already has a baseline duration of 20 seconds.

And so it is clear that power berserker can pretty much never fall out of berserk mode as long as the person playing it is even remotely sticking onto a boss.

But this isn't the most concerning change to Berserker.

To break down how our skills interacts with Heat the Soul:

• 6 Arc Dividers for 3 seconds of group quickness each = 18 seconds of quickness
• 5 Decapitates for 2 seconds of group quickness each = 10 seconds of quickness

So in total, we are generating 28 seconds of quickness (which would have been 30 if I didn't skip a decapitate) over 24 seconds with ZERO additional boon duration.

And to be honest, the 33.6k number is going to be far lower than what someone who actually knows what they're doing is going to pull off. I'm not even a 90% benchmark player on power warrior and this build and rotation was something I theorycrafted and tested off-the-cuff in like 30 minutes with no infusions and no grinding as basically a power berserker novice who's skill-clicking their utilities.

I just can't see how this build won't be hysterically broken come patch day.

Anyway, just something I thought people should be aware of. Thanks for reading.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

The Berserk extension when hitting with a Primal burst was the right thing to do. Full Stop.

Now, that quickness uptime from Heat the Soul may need to be touched down, but let me remind you that when they expanded the alacrity and quickness roles they made it too difficult to upkeep initially. There is a video from around that time showing how lazy it is for a qFB to maintain quickness versus what other classes had to jump through at that time to do so. Here they are adding it in almost for free into a high APM build.

Now whether or not it needs BD will depend on the other boons it opts to provide as a support. They fixed this trait, but are still sitting on the Tactics traits...

[mandala.8507]

1 hour ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

The Berserk extension when hitting with a Primal burst was the right thing to do. Full Stop.

While I think the concept of more elements in the kit besides rage skills adding to the ability to extend berserk is good in theory, the numbers they chose invalidate the entire mechanic. It's the same thing that happened when they made life force management irrelevant on reaper. Now the mechanic basically doesn't exist because you don't have to think about it pretty much at all (I'd say at least on reaper there are decisions I can make that matter when it comes to life force, whereas on this warrior build there aren't ANY decisions that need to be made. I'm in berserk as long as I want for free, regardless of how well or poorly I played as long as I'm not completely trolling), and instead of being able to play well to get more out of it, it can only serve the purpose of being a nuisance in any encounters that interact with the mechanic so poorly that it then becomes relevant again.

I feel like they're slowing sucking the depth out of elite specs that don't fit well into the tired optimization culture that has leapt from other MMOs into this game. If your class has any actual weaknesses or rough edges, it's trash. That's the mentality I think changes like this cater to, for better or for worse.

1 hour ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Now, that quickness uptime from Heat the Soul may need to be touched down, but let me remind you that when they expanded the alacrity and quickness roles they made it too difficult to upkeep initially.

It was never "too difficult to upkeep". On every implementation of quickness warrior, it was pretty easy to give 100% quickness uptime. The problem was with how much you had to give up to do it. On the first banner version, you just needed to sacrifice too many parts of your build: an offhand weapon, 2 specific traits (with one of them on a suboptimal line), 2-3 utility skill slots, and a decent amount of concentration stats. All of these together just sucked the dmg potential completely dry.

This could have been an opportunity to iterate on the positives of this version, which is that it was an entirely different playstyle from the pure dps variant, but backlash was so harsh that they just did a bandaid solution and made banners super broken, but still unsatisfying. I actually spent a lot of my time during that period putting together silly game-breaking banner builds like 10-man heal quickness, 10-man core quickness, full cele quickness, etc., because the design principles behind the op banner version were extremely poor.

The initial implementation of the heat the soul variant once banner quickness was removed was boring and weak-sauce design, but at least it was functional and allowed berserker to engage with the parts of its kit that make it enjoyable to play. Banners were a bane to the berserker playstyle despite it being the best elite spec to play them on, whereas at least this heat the soul version allowed you to play berserker in its most fun form: pure dps.

However, once again, it just wasn't quite optimal (despite it actually being perfectly powerful and playable for the condi build, imo), but they'd already given in to the crowd that just wants everything to be mindless and exasperatingly equivalent when it comes to dps supports, so instead of working to make it a smoother implementation, they overbuffed it.

And so once again, quickness berserker was completely broken.

...And so they absolutely shadow-realmed the condi builds for berserker in the last patch, making it pretty bad for anything but open world...

And now we have this version, which is again super broken, and they will nerf it into the ground too until they find another quick fix rework that ends up also being broken.

This cycle will repeat until they realize they need to actually force us to build concentration and come up with a version just intricate-but-comprehensible enough to fully utilize the systems in place for GW2 buildcraft instead of trying to take all these shortcuts that attempt to make support builds just a single trait change away.

1 hour ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Now whether or not it needs BD will depend on the other boons it opts to provide as a support.

And I'm not sure what you mean by this. You'll provide perma quickness (and presumably fury, unless they're stealth-removing that functionality), and then your healer will provide the boons that they are expected to bring anyway (alacrity in this case, protection, regen, might, also fury, and sometimes swiftness and vigor).

There aren't any other boons it would need to provide as a support in PvE (although it would be helpful not to make the healer wholly responsible for might).

Hence, you will be running no boon duration stats at all, because you already have too much breathing room for your own good on the quickness uptime without them (for the power build).

...

I understand the desire to take a build that isn't being picked up and make it appetizing, but that doesn't mean deliberately throwing the math to the wind and making something so blatantly abuseable and broken as this version seems to be. Even if it ends up coming just short of being actually game-breaking, it will just come back to bite them later. They took a version that was boring, but worked, and threw it away for something slightly more interesting, but that is a metaphorical hornet's nest when it comes to balancing it across all builds.

It just doesn't come across as a well-thought-out rework to me. It lacks restraint while also not really being all that interesting, unfortunately.

They just need to think a little bigger, imo. The scope of these versions is too narrow, which is why they keep coming up short and running into issues with them later down the road. More precisely, I would advise them to think about how they could implement more robust guardrails to providing quickness on warrior builds. Requiring more elements than just a single trait would keep the build better under control. It keeps running away from them precisely because it asks nothing in exchange but a single trait change, meaning it can interact too freely with other changes they make to the class as a whole.

But now I'm rambling, lol.

[DKRathalos.9625]

2 hours ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

The Berserk extension when hitting with a Primal burst was the right thing to do. Full Stop.

I am actually surprised they finally do this though, I think we have been talking it for a long time at warrior forum right? Was it you who suggest it or something?

Anyway on the serious note this is Anet injecting copium again to warrior something around "We read the forum." 🤣

[Fueki.4753]

Now, try it on something that actually fights back and has mechanics, not a dummy.

The fights against Scruffy 2.0 in Season 4 or Balthazar in Elon Riverlands would make for far better testing environments.

Also, don't forget to consider that not everyone uses Greatchunk and Axe.

30 minutes ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

If it does to much dmg, just nerf the dmg.

Warrior's damage already plummets as soon as a mechanic has us get out of melee range, because we have no decent ranged weapons. The damage doesn't need to be neutered any more than that.

Edited October 29, 2023 by Fueki.4753

[DanAlcedo.3281]

21 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

Now, try it on something that actually fights back and has mechanics, not a dummy.

The fights against Scruffy 2.0 in Season 4 or Balthazar in Elon Riverlands would make for far better testing environments.

Also, don't forget to consider that not everyone uses Greatchunk and Axe.

Warrior's damage already plummets as soon as a mechanic has us get out of melee range, because we have no decent ranged weapons. The damage doesn't need to be neutered any more than that.

Ohh you know.

Power Zerker has a 43k benchmark. Im super suprised that they didnt hand out nerfs this time to get it down to 38k or something.

With a roughly 2% Playrate of Zerker now. If Zerker actually gets not kitten to play and the playrate goes to like 5%, there will be nerfs.

The only reason it isnt nerfed ist because noboy plays it.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

Tmw youre busy coping because the changes to zerker specfically avoid any competitive buffing (defense and discipline are mandatory on power zerk, as is savage instinct, so the changes largely do not affect pvp power zerk), and someone writes an essay about why the berserker buff will break pve because it pushes a boon that already is 100% covered by most competent groups if it hugs the boss constantly

Edited October 29, 2023 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Myror.7521]

@mandala.8507 I am gotta say. The new Warrior quickness build might gonna be around 36-38k bench. But question it yourself.... is a build that only provite quickness to your group with a 5k lower Bench than its DPS only Version realy OP? 

There are Builds that are Sharing tons of other boons to their group aside quickness and alac. They normaly doin around 30k bench. But also they Sharing around 4-6 boons permanently. So a Warrior share quickness only though a group with this Bench is not rly OP.

[Fueki.4753]

1 hour ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

The only reason it isnt nerfed ist because noboy plays it.

That hasn't stopped them from nerfing Warrior in the past.

[DKRathalos.9625]

@DanAlcedo.3281Honestly though we just need you to deliver more of those high quality copium to warrior players. I need another package deal (Plus Dino Nuggets+Drink)

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

7 hours ago, DKRathalos.9625 said:

I am actually surprised they finally do this though, I think we have been talking it for a long time at warrior forum right? Was it you who suggest it or something?

Anyway on the serious note this is Anet injecting copium again to warrior something around "We read the forum." 🤣

It's been so long that I don't even remember.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

3 hours ago, Myror.7521 said:

@mandala.8507 I am gotta say. The new Warrior quickness build might gonna be around 36-38k bench. But question it yourself.... is a build that only provite quickness to your group with a 5k lower Bench than its DPS only Version realy OP? 

There are Builds that are Sharing tons of other boons to their group aside quickness and alac. They normaly doin around 30k bench. But also they Sharing around 4-6 boons permanently. So a Warrior share quickness only though a group with this Bench is not rly OP.

This^

I'm pretty sure that if rage skills were not needed then a support zerk could squeeze in defense banner, tactics banner, and fgj. Maybe even a warhorn to boot with BR and Headbutt to keep berserk up.

[Jzaku.9765]

Quick
Condi qUt: 36.3k
Condi qHarb: 35.1k
Condi qHerald: 34.3k
Condi qFb: 33.8k
(current) Condi qZerk: 32.8k
Power qHerald: 32.6k
Power qScrap: 32.1k

Alac
Condi aRen: 35.5k
Condi aSpect: 33.9k
Condi aMech: 32.5k
Condi aScg: 32.4k
(current) Condi aMirage: 31.3k

 

So you're predicting that Power qZerk DPS will pretty much fall right into the band of existing boondps builds? Aren't you overreacting?

The new balance team seems exceptionally good at DPS number balance, so the real strength of builds will lie in the value they can provide outside of their respective quick/alac and DPS (e.g., Stab, pulls, stat-agnostic value). And in that aspect, Berserker isn't too hot.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Which if all of one's utilities are taken up by rage skills to maintain Berserk, then there is not much utility now is there?

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

I would like to study this general atmosphere of people going out of their way in various extents to make sure power zerker isn't enjoyable.

Just an aside. I'm probably like, going insane with bias or something; but this happens a lot. 

Edited October 29, 2023 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Fueki.4753]

19 minutes ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

I would like to study this general atmosphere of people going out of their way in various extents to make sure power zerker isn't enjoyable.

Just an aside. I'm probably like, going insane with bias or something; but this happens a lot. 

You are not crazy. Some people just hate on Warrior for no defendable reason.

Among them likely also are salty people who can't read Warrior's animations, partially because other professions cake all over it with their particle vomit.

[Obtena.7952]

Don't really see a problem ... if the changes 'overdo' it ... it will be up to Anet to decide and they will make yet another change to 'underdo' it. This is the cycle of life. 

The part that is offending isn't how much things under or overdo it. That's always going to happen. The offending part is the inconsistency. Some massively under/over done things get little tweeks for years ... while seemingly benign things get absolutely crushed in a single patch. 

Edited October 29, 2023 by Obtena.7952

[mandala.8507]

2 hours ago, Jzaku.9765 said:

So you're predicting that Power qZerk DPS will pretty much fall right into the band of existing boondps builds?

No.

I am not a benchmark player. I am just messing around and easily hitting the high end of benchmark dps range while clicking my skills on this build. I hit like 36k on my current reaper build on average and that's full dps and the build I'm most comfortable with in end-game content right now.

We really should stop calling them benchmarks, because it invites these comparisons to normal players. They really should be called "class records", because that is what they are. The record top dps someone can hit on a build out of everyone who plays it after grinding it for hours.

My guess is it lands somewhere between 37k and 40k when a benchmark power berserker player picks it up, because the only difference between it and the full dps version, which ALREADY has a bench of 43k, is one trait change. And that full dps bench is going to go up because they can now drop a rage skill for a more potent dmg utility and don't have to struggle to maintain berserk mode utpime AT ALL.

2 hours ago, Jzaku.9765 said:

The new balance team seems exceptionally good at DPS number balance

I really don't agree with this. I think very little has changed since the shift in balance leadership. It's about the same; maybe a little more ambitious and a little less innovative. But again, it's basically the same as it was before June 2022. If there was some great improvement, I'm not seeing it on the player side of the balance situation.

And my biggest issue with this change to quickness berserker is that the numbers feel entirely made up and not grounded in any actual testing of how this build will play when it goes live.

The good thing is, I don't have to convince other players that I'm right. If the devs don't believe me, they can get the best warrior player on the team to go log into their dev environment RIGHT NOW and do a couple golem pulls of power quickness berserker and then see if anyone can get a higher number from their team on ANY other quickness build. It would take them all of 30 minutes to make sure. My guess is they won't be able to get remotely close to whatever they are hitting on this power quickness berserker build. Because in my testing, the trait change is only about a 10% dps loss. So when power berserker is able to hit 44k+, this quickness build will be just under 40K.

And it's not really about whether the balance truly matters, because it doesn't. It just matters that the implementation of these changes was super random and basically deletes any decision making you have to do around the profession mechanic or the gearing of your build as a support.

[mandala.8507]

6 hours ago, Myror.7521 said:

@mandala.8507 I am gotta say. The new Warrior quickness build might gonna be around 36-38k bench. But question it yourself.... is a build that only provite quickness to your group with a 5k lower Bench than its DPS only Version realy OP? 

Yes. It doing comparable dps to pure dps builds is really OP.

[mandala.8507]

44 minutes ago, Fueki.4753 said:

You are not crazy. Some people just hate on Warrior for no defendable reason.

Yeah, I surely hate warrior. This is why I have 2.5k+ hours on it. Because I hate it. Surely.

[mandala.8507]

40 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Don't really see a problem ... if the changes 'overdo' it ... it will be up to Anet to decide and they will make yet another change to 'underdo' it. This is the cycle of life. 

But therein lies the problem, Obtena. They made a change to how it works that will be abuseable by good players because the numbers are absolute overkill.

This will lead to them being forced to inevitably hard nerf it.

Then, we just have power berserker being even less potent just for fun, but now there's nothing even a good player can do to squeeze more out of it, because they excised the class mechanic almost entirely.

We have to think more than 1 step ahead. Where does this build land when they realize it's giga-broken? 

The answer: in an even worse spot for casual warrior players than it already is from a potency perspective, and then even hardcore warrior players will get nothing of consequence from being good at playing it because there's nothing left to be good at.

[Obtena.7952]

19 minutes ago, mandala.8507 said:

But therein lies the problem, Obtena. They made a change to how it works that will be abuseable by good players because the numbers are absolute overkill.

This will lead to them being forced to inevitably hard nerf it.

Then, we just have power berserker being even less potent just for fun, but now there's nothing even a good player can do to squeeze more out of it, because they excised the class mechanic almost entirely.

We have to think more than 1 step ahead. Where does this build land when they realize it's giga-broken? 

The answer: in an even worse spot for casual warrior players than it already is from a potency perspective, and then even hardcore warrior players will get nothing of consequence from being good at playing it because there's nothing left to be good at.

It's been a "problem" for 11 years ... but really, the problem we are talking about here isn't the one you think. Good players know how to take advantage of combos and strong effects? That's not a problem . In fact, that's exactly how any reasonable player would expect a well-designed game with build and action choice to work. The problem here isn't some difference between over and under done things in the game. The problem YOU are talking about is the difference between players, from scrubs to the 1%ers. 

Builds is gigabroken? Maybe, but certainly not based on some opinion. That kitten gets measured ingame and if it is, it get's fixed. There isn't any 'WE' or 'need' to think more than one step ahead. The only 'we need' thing to do here is stop pretending someone has the perfect crystal ball and Anet should do what this crystal ball owner tells them to do. 

TLDR: Anet can't fix the 'problem' that some players are better than others. 

Edited October 29, 2023 by Obtena.7952

[mandala.8507]

12 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

TLDR: Anet can't fix the 'problem' that some players are better than others. 

Sure. But they CAN design traits that don't exacerbate this problem.

[Obtena.7952]

9 minutes ago, mandala.8507 said:

Sure. But they CAN design traits that don't exacerbate this problem.

Sure they could do LOTS of things. That's not a reason to do those things. 

Just because you label it a problem doesn't mean it is one. Good players do better than bad ones and what you need to do is recognize that's the hallmark of a well-designed game ... ANY game.

If you want equality between good and bad players ... play games that are pure chance. Otherwise, deal with it. 

Edited October 29, 2023 by Obtena.7952

[mandala.8507]

2 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

I mean, it's simply NOT a problem that good players do better than bad ones, so that's definitely not a reason for Anet to design traits in a way that don't allow differentiation between players of different skill levels. 

I vehemently disagree. It is an absolute REQUIREMENT that they consider the degree to which skill differential affects the potency of certain builds and trait choices and try to the best of their ability to offer build and trait options that hit an intended range between skill floor and skill ceiling and that offer an appropriate learning curve for players to move through that skill range.

For example, it's kinda strange that only 1.5 years after EoD release they are realizing that empowered empowerment on catalyst is designed poorly with a ludicrously all-or-nothing skill check. And even this new version is still pretty silly and unimaginative. There could be something actually cool that changes the way catalyst does dmg in that slot, but instead it's just a flat stat enhancement and STILL an all-or-nothing skill check to jump from its skill floor to it's skill ceiling, just a smaller disparity between the all and the nothing now.

I have zero clue why they like it being this way.