Let's make a deal.. [Berserker re-balance]..

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

Restore his old tradeoff - no access to core bursts.

In exchange reduce zerk mode cooldown.
Or allow use of primal bursts when not in zerk mode but at cost of full 3 adrenaline bars.

As it stands core and spellbreaker can't get nice (condi) things via buffing the former because zerker.
It is the only warrior e-spec with no tradeoffs whatsoever, making it a balance nightmare.

Removing them was understandable when it was underperforming and in dire need of buffs.
But that is no longer the case and if anything he is the top dog now.
Time to put reigns back on and move out of the way of giving new buffs and roles to other warrior specs.

Edited February 1 by ZeftheWicked.3076

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Pass.

[Firellis.7954]

berserker's access to core burst was a QoL change not a nerf nor a buff

Edited February 1 by Firellis.7954

[Fueki.4753]

9 hours ago, ZeftheWicked.3076 said:

Restore his old tradeoff - no access to core bursts.

No thank you.

When I play my Condition Berserker, I hardly ever hit Berserk, because I don't want that distasteful discolouration of my character.

That aside, Berserker has its old trade-off back already, which is having access to  only T1 core Bursts.

Them reverting the removal of core Bursts was a one of the exceedingly rare not-negative changes they have done to Warrior.

9 hours ago, ZeftheWicked.3076 said:

As it stands core and spellbreaker can't get nice (condi) things via buffing the former because zerker.

Skill split between elite specializations does exist. They only need to apply it more often.

9 hours ago, ZeftheWicked.3076 said:

It is the only warrior e-spec with no tradeoffs whatsoever, making it a balance nightmare.

As written above, Berserker has a trade-off.

9 hours ago, ZeftheWicked.3076 said:

if anything he is the top dog now.

Try to play any type of Warrior on a fight that moves a lot or has high amounts of AoE vomit. You'll see your damage plummet sustantially, once you have to move out of melee range.

For this, I recommend the Balthazar story mission on the spire in Elon Riverlands.

9 hours ago, ZeftheWicked.3076 said:

Time to put reigns back on

They never took the "reigns" off Warrior in over a decade.

9 hours ago, ZeftheWicked.3076 said:

Or allow use of primal bursts when not in zerk mode but at cost of full 3 adrenaline bars.

If they completely removed Berserk mode and gave Berserker access to T1-3 Primal Bursts, that could be something I might consider to exchange for core Bursts. But I don't know how many other Warrior mains would like that.

But as long as Berserk mode is a thing, Berserker needs to have access to core Bursts.

Edited February 2 by Fueki.4753

[Dadnir.5038]

I don't think berserker is the reason other warrior specs aren't that great at dealing condition damage. And I doubt even more that berserker's access to core burst have anything to do with this situation.

The main reason warrior don't have a good array of condi build is that few of it's skills apply conditions. Out of all warrior's utility skills, only 2 apply damaging conditions (Banner of discipline and Shattering blow) and one of these is a berserker only skill. Out of the 8 (soon 9) main hand weapon of the warrior, only 2 apply damaging conditions (sword and longbow). Even for the off-hand, it's 2 out of 8.

If the devs wanted to open up condition build diversity for the warrior, it would be very simple. They would just have to add damaging conditions to:

• Full counter, meditations or something bound to the spellbreaker's thematic. (I'd go with with a trait that say something like: "removing a boon apply x stack of torment for y seconds".)
• Gunsaber, armaments or something bound to the bladesworn's thematic. (For that they just have to add a trait that say: "explosions apply x seconds of bleed". Cyclone trigger burn foes on hit.)

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

10 hours ago, Firellis.7954 said:

berserker's access to core burst was a QoL change not a nerf nor a buff

Having your healing or buffing skill's radius increased from 240 to 360 is a QoL change.
Being given access to second sets of bursts when not in zerk mode vs having none at all in that state was a straight up buff.

 

1 hour ago, Fueki.4753 said:

That aside, Berserker has its old trade-off back already, which is having access to  only T1 core Bursts.

That's Spellbreaker, not Berserker. The latter can use T3 bursts just fine, tested it.
Zerker is essentially "core warrior plus" having perfect access to all things core with plenty of his own features on top.
Which means we can never have real balance between the two because Zerker is always more, simply by being an add-on to core with no side effects.

 

1 hour ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

I don't think berserker is the reason other warrior specs aren't that great at dealing condition damage. And I doubt even more that berserker's access to core burst have anything to do with this situation.

I respectfully disagree.
Other warrior e-specs being purely power oriented may be by design, but what of core warrior?
Core specs are to perform roughly equally on both fronts and even a guardian of all things has a vicious core burn build.

Meanwhile core warr is left in a ditch bleeding...
This can be fixed by nerfing e-specs where necessary and giving that power to core, which in turn will buff them back to previous levels.
However this time around it would make core far more viable as well as possibly provide e-specs with new ways to be played even when spec itself was not purely designed for it.
Strong foundations etc. etc..

But as long as Zerker is "core warrior+" inheriting anything core at 100% efficiency while adding tons of his own stuff on top we cannot have real balance here.
 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

There are 2 ways that Spellbreaker and Bladesworn could be given condition builds.

• Body Blow: As I am loathe to suggest this as I want it to be changed to power damage, they could increase the number of bleed stacks to 2 in PvP/WvW and 4 in PvE.
  • I'd also give Smoldering Arrow daze in PvP/WvW to help this along.
• Fierce as Fire: Changed so that explosions inflict burning per hit per explosion. The original trait dropped a shell that exploded that did not work well in practice, just adding burning directly to explosion skills would work though. A single stack (to clarify 1 stack per explosion per foe it, so multi hit explosions do multiple stacks), duration depends on game mode. Blooming Fire would hurt a lot finally. P5->P4->P5 would cause lots of QQ though...

Note however, that the presence of Berserker isn't crowding out the choice of condi builds on the other specs, its how there isn't sufficient traitline support for them. That is a design choice from Anet.

 

Edited February 2 by Lan Deathrider.5910
Clarity

[Dadnir.5038]

1 hour ago, ZeftheWicked.3076 said:

I respectfully disagree.

Disagree all you want, condition wise the difference between berserker and other specs (core included) are Primal bursts, Last blaze, king of fire and Shattering blow. The impact of the core bursts in this is null and thus whether they are there or not change nothing to the advantages of condi berserk.

As a matter of fact:

• Burst out of berserk mode were needed and that's why the devs put them back there. That is because the warrior have a lot of it's design built around spending adrenaline and gating burst behind berserk mode that have a CD was impending the gameplay (it is especially true in competitive modes where berserk mode CD is set at 15s).
• Giving primal burst to the out-of-berserk mode berserker would result in a buff of condi berserker which would increase the inegalities you perceive even more.

In other words, you are full of good intents but, ultimately, your target is wrong.

[Dadnir.5038]

12 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

There are 2 ways that Spellbreaker and Bladesworn could be given condition builds.

• Body Blow: As I am loathe to suggest this as I want it to be changed to power damage, they could increase the number of bleed stacks to 2 in PvP/WvW and 4 in PvE.
  • I'd also give Smoldering Arrow daze in PvP/WvW to help this along.
• Fierce as Fire: Changed so that explosions inflict burning per hit per explosion. The original trait dropped a shell that exploded that did not work well in practice, just adding burning directly to explosion skills would work though. A single stack, duration depends on game mode. Blooming Fire would hurt a lot finally. P5->P4->P5 would cause lots of QQ though...

Note however, that the presence of Berserker isn't crowding out the choice of condi builds on the other specs, its how there isn't sufficient traitline support for them. That is a design choice from Anet.

Burn on explosion for bladesworn would destroy the game, that's a terribad idea. Bleed would be fine, thought.

Also, there are many e-specs that have some core traits adjusted so your change to body blow seem to be in the realm of possible.

Edited February 2 by Dadnir.5038

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

3 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Burn on explosion for bladesworn would destroy the game, that's a terribad idea. Bleed would be fine, thought.

Also, there are many e-specs that have some core traits adjusted so your change to body blow seem to be in the realm of possible.

Burn would be more thematic. It would have to be a reasonable duration though. No more than 2s in PvP/WvW, maybe even 1.5s in PvP. Over in PvE I can see it with 2-3s and not rolling bosses anymore than DS-Force does.

I would make the Body Blow change count for any espec. As it is now the bleed stack isn't enough with the CC cast times from any of the specs/utilities to build a reasonable amount. But, it if were 3-4 stacks in PvE then I can see it getting used by Spellbreaker for a DPS build. Spell would need some sort of damage condi on CC or meditation trait to really lock it in though.