Why The Berserker Changes Are Overdoing It

[DanAlcedo.3281]

6 minutes ago, mandala.8507 said:

So yes, they also concluded it was a bit much and made an adjustment. We'll see where this lands the build. It will probably still be insanely strong, but will move from numerical outlier to simply one of the top candidates for strongest quickness dps build now.

Good stuff.

Man, I thought you would post like 0.1 Nano seconds after the Patch notes.

You took your time 😄

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

On 10/29/2023 at 3:17 AM, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

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.

The prophecy was fulfilled, f

[DanAlcedo.3281]

1 minute ago, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

The prophecy was fulfilled, f

Now we watch Warrior playrate go below 2% again.

[Grand Marshal.4098]

10 minutes ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

Now we watch Warrior playrate go below 2% again.

100% divided by 9 means that warrior is clearly not supposed to amount to even 10% of it's supposed playrate. 

[DanAlcedo.3281]

Just now, Grand Marshal.4098 said:

100% divided by 9 means that warrior is clearly not supposed to amount to even 10% of it's supposed playrate. 

I see it this way. 27 elite specs means 3.7% is a health presentation.

Berserker sits at 3.6% (raids) and 3.63% (Strikes)

Which for me sounds like a perfectly balance class.

But Anet balance is about benchmarks. Sooo who cares

[Grand Marshal.4098]

12 minutes ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

I see it this way. 27 elite specs means 3.7% is a health presentation.

Berserker sits at 3.6% (raids) and 3.63% (Strikes)

Which for me sounds like a perfectly balance class.

But Anet balance is about benchmarks. Sooo who cares

Even if zerker is in a hypothetical healthy spot, does that counter the imbalance of classes with much higher representation than ideal? How are these nerfed and toned down to match warrior and maintain that percentage on player benchmarks? 

Clearly class balancing bias. As always.

[mandala.8507]

5 hours ago, Grand Marshal.4098 said:

Even if zerker is in a hypothetical healthy spot, does that counter the imbalance of classes with much higher representation than ideal? How are these nerfed and toned down to match warrior and maintain that percentage on player benchmarks? 

Clearly class balancing bias. As always.

Playrate should not affect balance unless that rate of play is due to imbalance. 

Berserker doubled in playrate because it was broken. It was mostly skilled players picking it up and abusing it, which is why it was a problem. If everyone's playing mech because they like it thematically, that isn't a balance issue. It would actually be horrible policy for the balance team to actively seek to nerf builds with high playrates that weren't overpowered.

The "class bias" you think is happening is just players gravitating toward builds they actually like and understand. This is not a concern for the balance of the game.

[Myror.7521]

@mandala.8507 bad thing about this Patch is again.... they not only hit the quickness Berserker but also the power Berserker. To this maner its a realy bad Patch xd

[Obtena.7952]

23 hours ago, mandala.8507 said:

So yes, they also concluded it was a bit much and made an adjustment. We'll see where this lands the build. It will probably still be insanely strong, but will move from numerical outlier to simply one of the top candidates for strongest quickness dps build now.

Good stuff.

Certainly. Also take note that the 'good stuff' here is that Anet didn't make some pre-emptive nerf based on a player armchair calculation. There is a process, it's clear they are following it. Relevant for the next time someone thinks Anet should make game changes because of 'calculations'. 

[mandala.8507]

1 hour ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Certainly. Also take note that the 'good stuff' here is that Anet didn't make some pre-emptive nerf based on a player armchair calculation. There is a process, it's clear they are following it. Relevant for the next time someone thinks Anet should make game changes because of 'calculations'. 

No, they could have made this adjustment before. It's just numbers, Obtena.

You're so incorrect about this.

No one needed to test any of this, because it's all just numbers.

They were forced to make the adjustment because people were breaking records with full berserker comps and the class was still rather unpopular.

It's not a big deal, but I was correct and adjusting it beforehand was the correct play for the devs. There is no debating this.

The real question is why they chose not to. If it's because they just didn't know and don't read forum feedback? Fine. Whatever. I wouldn't wanna read the takes here either.

If it's because they DID read the feedback and said, "nah, it will be fine", then I'm a little more concerned, because it means they either aren't very good at math or that they have some misconceptions about how builds work in GW2 and need to bridge the knowledge gap between themselves and the community.

A third reason could just be that they didn't wanna touch the patch build by the time they understood it was too big a buff, which is also fine. But if they release patch notes over a month in advance and that's not enough time to make numerical changes to the patch, then their feedback mechanism isn't working and they might as well just hold their cards closer to their chest to avoid backlash.

[cryorion.9532]

1 hour ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Certainly. Also take note that the 'good stuff' here is that Anet didn't make some pre-emptive nerf based on a player armchair calculation. There is a process, it's clear they are following it. Relevant for the next time someone thinks Anet should make game changes because of 'calculations'. 

What process exactly? That they open Snow Crows website, check benchmark numbers and nerf stuff because of high numbers? It was pretty obvious that there wasn't big enough damage impact when using Heat the Soul instead of Blood Reaction. The nerf is completely justified and reasonable, but don't pretend you know exactly what Anet is doing.

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

On 11/3/2023 at 6:33 PM, Azure The Heartless.3261 said:

Tell you what, if it turns out that what is essentially perm quickness gen on zerker for landing bursts causes the class to get crippling nerfs when/if the devs decide they don't want us to do that, I will apologize for not believing you.

 

@mandala.8507 I'm of the opinion that the nerf to this was rather tame given the  context of the rework and doesn't amount to crippling, but I'll apologize anyway since it appears that the current proposed adjustment has satisfied you, AND the playstyle remains largely intact. 

Sorry, apparently there was -indeed- an issue~

I still think your reasoning for this is strange,  but I'll shelve that for now. Was fun. Lets run it back next time power zerker does things. 

@DanAlcedo.3281

I don't think the damage loss here is going to be anything that puts off anything beyond diehard speedrunners. The point of the rework, that is, making power zerk more entertaining to play and allowing it to offer some support to group at that, still works just fine. 

 

 

Edited January 13 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Azure The Heartless.3261]

4 hours ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Certainly. Also take note that the 'good stuff' here is that Anet didn't make some pre-emptive nerf based on a player armchair calculation. There is a process, it's clear they are following it. Relevant for the next time someone thinks Anet should make game changes because of 'calculations'. 

I still think Anet makes weird changes, but in this case they were not as heavyhanded as I expect, which is either an expression of thoughtfulness or an oversight that I will gladly run away with. 

I don't trust their calculation, I'm going to need a track record of not weird changes before I do that. 

Edited January 13 by Azure The Heartless.3261

[Obtena.7952]

6 hours ago, cryorion.9532 said:

What process exactly? That they open Snow Crows website, check benchmark numbers and nerf stuff because of high numbers? It was pretty obvious that there wasn't big enough damage impact when using Heat the Soul instead of Blood Reaction. The nerf is completely justified and reasonable, but don't pretend you know exactly what Anet is doing.

I don't think that's their process. I'm not sure what you see that suggest that what it is either. I didn't say the nerf wasn't justified. I didn't 'pretend' to know exactly ANYTHING. There, whatever argument you are trying to have with me ... avoided. You should probably stick to Fast Hands should be baseline or something. 

My point was that there should NEVER be nerfs based on some player-based calculations like the OP was attempting to  suggest be done. It seems like the change is vindication for the OP. It's not, because the change wasn't based on his proposed calculations. It's based on what Anet sees happening in the game and their comfort levels for such things. 

Edited January 14 by Obtena.7952

[Obtena.7952]

6 hours ago, mandala.8507 said:

The real question is why they chose not to.

It's simple ... because they aren't basing their changes on what someone calculates on the forums. 

Again, if you don't think Anet are following some process for making changes, you aren't paying attention to how the game works. 

Edited January 14 by Obtena.7952

[cryorion.9532]

13 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Maybe you should just try to stick with hitting me with Fast Hands as baseline again instead.

Well, you still haven't proposed good argument why shouldn't Fast Hands become baseline. And maybe the reason why FH haven't become baseline trait yet isn't that the suggesstion is bad/unnecessary... but maybe it is the same reason why e.g. Rush skill has not been fixed yet. Something something there isn't real warrior enjoyer among balance team devs OR devs who don't balance warrior profession are a little bit too enthusiastic.

15 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

My point was that there should NEVER be nerfs based on some player-based calculations like the OP was attempting to do. It seems like the change is vindication for the OP. It's not, because the change wasn't based on his proposed calculations. It's based on what Anet sees happening in the game and their comfort levels for such things. 

Well, obviously Anet should do their own, more precise math to adjust stuff properly. But OP's core idea is correct. Heat the Soul trait is very potent compared to Blood Reaction and the damage trade-off wasn't significant enough. When players post feedback, it is impossible to deliberately write it in a way so it can be applied right away into the game because players don't have access to the data Anet has and players don't know what exactly balance devs want. So in the end, OP's math doesn't even matter. What matters is the core idea about the issue.

Also, I would like you to explain, how did you come to conclusion that "Anet didn't make some pre-emptive nerf based on a player armchair calculation. There is a process, it's clear they are following it". How do you even know Anet didn't decide to nerf it based on OP's math?

[Ironhide Wolf.3275]

As a warrior main, I still don't like how Quick zerker feels... It feels clunky. As in it's slow to ramp up quickness uptime for small moments you need to do something.  

The issue isn't the rotation, which yours is good. The issue is the quickness uptime and build-up for situations like getting CC'd, having to do a mechanic randomly, having a 'human moment', Missing the target to a blind or just bad timing or positioning, etc... I've played this build, often times I find myself having to swap some stats over to Diviners to build any sort of reliable quickness uptime for these little moments. Then in fights where folks normally put out 25-30k+dps, i'm hovering around 15k dps. which seems like a pretty big hit to damage for a Quick"DPS".

IMO that's probably why we don't see this build in the wild too often. It's easier for a harald or FB to vomit quickness without hitting anything but you, and if they screw up, they can use one of their other many skills that proc quick. Warriors are all in on a clean F1 hit = quick or bust. 

 Great in theory (like on the cat-bot), but shaky in practice (god forbid you need to successfully hit Mai Trin in AH). 

idk, pretty sure i'll just get "just suck less 5-head". out of these forums like I normally do. 

[Obtena.7952]

12 hours ago, cryorion.9532 said:

Well, obviously Anet should do their own, more precise math to adjust stuff properly. But OP's core idea is correct.

Right ... which is exactly my point because I never said the OP's idea wasn't correct. That's not my beef with this thread. It's with the claims about how the OP believes they are some substitute for Anet's own (or lack of) balancing calculation work. 

That "do their own, more precise math to adjust stuff properly" is part of the balancing process I'm referring to that you seem hellbent to argue with me about. I don't know why you would try to argue with me about that ... obviously being aware they have one. 

Edited January 14 by Obtena.7952

[mandala.8507]

22 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

Right ... which is exactly my point. That "do their own, more precise math to adjust stuff properly" is part of the balancing process I'm referring to that you seem hellbent to argue with me about.

They aren't doing more precise math. They're doing almost no math at all, by my estimation.

[Obtena.7952]

7 minutes ago, mandala.8507 said:

They aren't doing more precise math. They're doing almost no math at all, by my estimation.

You don't know that. You don't know what they do or aren't doing. What we DO know is they have a balancing process and it's highly unlikely they are substituting any 'balancing math work' they should be doing with fishing the forum for players to give them the answers they need to make game changes. 

Edited January 14 by Obtena.7952

[mandala.8507]

1 minute ago, Obtena.7952 said:

You don't know that.

Except I do, though. Because I did the math, and it wasn't hard. It's middle school level algebra. Anyone doing the math wouldn't have needed to make this secondary adjustment, they would have gotten it right the first time.

It's tough love, but it's the truth.

[Obtena.7952]

10 minutes ago, mandala.8507 said:

Except I do, though. Because I did the math, and it wasn't hard.

No, there is NO relationship between your choice to do some math calculation, its difficulty and how Anet executes their balancing process, whatsoever. Those are completely independent things. Therefore, it's nonsense to conclude that your calculation demonstrates Anet's not doing something. 

Edited January 14 by Obtena.7952

[mandala.8507]

Just now, Obtena.7952 said:

Again, no you don't know what they do and don't do. Whether you did the math on that or not has NOTHING to do with what you THINK Anet is doing or not. 

I'm done with this back and forth. Needless to say, I don't agree with you and think you are wrong in thinking there was some greater process happening here. My math was good, and the balance team didn't do the math. It's that simple.

[Obtena.7952]

3 minutes ago, mandala.8507 said:

I'm done with this back and forth. 

Good, because you are wrong. Your calculation is not demonstrative of things Anet balancing team is or isn't doing in their balancing process. For all you know, Anet did the EXACT calculation you did ... and wanted to see how it would work anyways by putting it in the game.

Your calculation is neither a crystal ball telling the future of things to avoid NOR is it an view into the details of a completely unrelated activity. 

Edited January 14 by Obtena.7952

[mandala.8507]

Just now, Obtena.7952 said:

Your calculation is not demonstrative of things Anet balancing team is or isn't doing in their balancing process.

My calculations are a prime example of things the Anet balance team isn't doing.