Guild Wars 2

Hammer primal burst seems like a step down due to immobilize. One second immobilize doesn’t give much time with a slow weapon like hammer. Berserk mode seems to have a downside when I lose a CC on hammer.

Blood reckoning is very nice with enhanced crit chance. Good enough sustain that I’ve been able to use it in PvE and PvP successfully.

Sundering leap is with damage boost, but range feels a little lacking when I’m using it to stop someone from escaping, especially when they blink/shadowstep/etc away far outside of my range.

From the perspective of active PvPer, Gun flame now is OP, pretty much.

The ideal & acceptable nerf to Moveable Killshot(Gun flame) would be that it keeps Moveable, but emits some light from body like Pin down with some noticeable sound while casting. So only skilled user can dodge. Of course, they can lower its casting time exactly similar to Pin down. AlsoN animation of Killshot and Gun flame need to be same I guess. (otherwise it every people would use rage trait only, so no build diversity)

Also, I think that Skull Grinder and Skull Crack , their animation need to be unified : Skull crack to leap skill like Skull grinder.

Rupting Smash, this should at least have stun, or knock back but anet can actually lower damage if they think it is OP.

Outrage is also defiNitely OP with Gun flame. break stun per every 10sec is just OP. Don’t even need to explain why. CD time 20~25sec like shake it off but with more adrenalime gain instead sounds like more balanced.

here is my feedback:

ps. sorry for low quality

hammer primal burst needs to be a little more useful. i don’t know who called for nerfs on hammer but right now it hits like a wet noddle and doesn’t even cc. you lose a lot of the effectiveness of hammer when you go into berserk mode.

the way it was in bw2 was perfectly fine. just revert the changes, easy fix

This feedback is in regard to Gun Flame.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Gun_Flame

From testing, my partner and I noticed that the damage packets from the projectile and explosion aren’t identical, as one can cause a critical hit and the other might not. The explosion will discharge from the first target hit by the projectile from Gun Flame, and that player will take double damage. If traited with pierce, other players that are BOTH in the projectile’s arc and inside the explosion’s 180 radius (there is only one explosion) will also take double damage. We don’t know if the double damage caused by this Burst skill is intended or not, and we would like the development team to look into it. If this burst skill can hit twice, the base damage output may be too high.

I agree completly with Zietlogik in a PvP and WvW perspective.

Zietlogik.6208:

Sacrificing Strength: Strength currently adds enough utility and damage to power specs that the Elite spec cannot in any way shape or form overtake it in terms of usage. Damage on dodge, several damage% modifiers, endurance recovery and physical boosts. Berserker’s Power ’nuff said.

Sacrificing Defense: This is the main form of condition cleanse and management with a power spec, Cleansing Ire and Dogged March (unless running shield) are vital to this playstyle, especially with the additional adrenaline gain with CI. If you are running shield then the extra defense is crazy good, reflects, stuns and might on demand. This is the second spec I can see being replaced by Berserker, but gives up so much defense (i know…) + Defy Pain ’nuff said.

Sacrificing Discipline: This is the primary spec I can see being replaced by Berserker, but what do you lose? Quite a bit of quick burst potential, the combination of Berserker + Versatile Rage + Burst Mastery means you can get 4-5 Primal Bursts off within a decent time frame with added damage. So replacing this means you have to play a playstyle that sits on one weapon set for a while, without Fast Hands, Versatile Rage and HF/Burst Mastery it drops that potential greatly.

So what would you give up to have what Berserker can give you? I say nothing really…

You are unable to remove any of the traitlines in a power based build because you either have to remove your damage, defense or utility to get none of those.
Fast hands in Discipline is such an important trait that Discpline is picked in every single warrior build out there – without you lose so much.
You NEED NEED NEED to make Fast Hands a warrior baseline. Open up for warriors to pick other trait lines and not be locked in the same 3.

Currently I have no reason at all to pick berserker traitline over the others. If Discipline (because of Fast Hands) wasn’t such a vital part of the warrior, berserker could be picked instead of discipline but currently? That’s not going to happen unless they want to be camping greatsword the whole game = not fun nor viable.

LET POWER SPECS BE ABLE TO PLAY BERSERKER IN PVP/WVW TOO!

Also in regards to the Berserker Primal burst skills (PvP/WvW perspective):
I really like the current state of Axe, Greatsword (the new is perfect), Sword, mace and rifle (if it weren’t bugged). But I still feel like having a worse burst skill while in Berserk Mode I am talking primarily about Hammer and Longbow:

Rupturing Smash:
The primal burst in Hammer is so much worse than the normal burst skill. When/why would you ever want the exact same skill just with a 1 second immobilize over a 2 second stun? The answer is never.
Suggestion/Fix: Earthshaker is to me such an epic and good skill that the primal burst at least need to be just as good or better than – not worse.
Either remove the stun/immobilize effect all together and make it do a high damage instead or do the opposite and make it deal very little damage but do both 1-2 second stun and 1-2 second immobilize at the same time.

Scorched Earth:
Then there’s the longbow primal burst which too me also just seems like a worse version of the normal burst skill. When/why would you want to fire a straight line in PvP when the original skill perfectly covered a capture point. The original burst skill even has 3 times longer duration which is what makes it awesome: You put it down and it covers the area for a long time making you able to do other stuff – unlike the primal burst where you have to keep on using it and lessens the combos if you want to weapon swap (which you do).
Suggestion/Fix: I am not sure about this one… To me the whole skill seems wrong and boring and a redesign would really suit it (like you did with greatsword burst). When I think “Berserker” I think of something dangerous and fast, which I don’t see currently. Maybe make it something that has a fast effect instead of slow pulse? Maybe a damage or burning burst?

After hours of testing, I have to take back some things I said a few weeks ago. I told people not to compare Reaper with Berserker, because one is for sustained damage and the other is for bursting. After playing Reaper and Berserker back and forth, this just isnt true. Reaper bursts harder, lasts longer, gives more active defense and is on a shorter cooldown. There was a recommendation for Berserk mode to not have a CD and I thought that was ridiculous, but now im on board with that. The CD just makes adrenaline an annoying feature and tedious rather than something I look forward too. When I have full Adrenaline and cant use it because im waiting for berserker stance, or I use it and then wait for more adrenaline, im losing dps, and im losing any reason to have it in the first place. I had some success for sure, but for both pve and pvp its nothing worth taking. Berserk mode is fine for the most part, I like it (despite the fact it looks like your fell in a red slurpee) but comparing it to Reaper I just cannot justify using it. No GM trait for power builds, no synergy with other traitlines. I somewhat understand why they havent made fast hands baseline in the past, but with berserker I dont get to swap between my weapons enough to take advantage of the mode, so now without fast hands I feel like berserker mode just makes me more frustrated than anything else.

Chrono, Reaper, Scrapper and Herald all felt like they fit their spec perfectly. the patch that changed all the traits a few months ago gave mesmer so many QoL buffs, like shatters shattering on you, that it really shines now in the chrono and it feels good. With Warrior I feel so tied so certain traits that im starting to think im really going to skip berserker altogether. Again, its not that I dislike it because I really do think its awesome, its just not a viable replacement for anything. If I cant be in berserker mode more than not, then im losing a lot of damage. im already losing PS/EA/Signet Mastery/Fast hands by taking berserker, dont take my damage away too.

Make power viable, make berserker better for power builds, make torch better for power builds (if possible).

I think the Primal Burst skills need to become unblockable. I dont know its just that the fact that if were so angry we do like this whole new skill set can be blocked kinda seems underwhelming and annoying when it is blocked I mean it wouldn’t be broken and it would help out warrior alot since almost every class has some sort of access to blocking now

I haven’t been able to decide how I feel about the Berserker. In concept, I think it’s a great idea, but there are a few issues that don’t quite make it work for me. I think perhaps most of all Berserker still feels very sluggish to me. I don’t feel like a fast-paced attacker by any means. Maybe we need a 10% attack speed increase minor.

Torch – This works just fine for me. I don’t mind not being able to really use this as a power weapon because that doesn’t make much sense to me anyways. xD

Berserker Mode & Primal Bursts – I hate that Berserk is on a CD. This is perhaps one of my absolute least favorite parts of the entire elite specialization. Having to wait to activate Berserk because it’s on CD wreaks havoc with the Berserker’s ability to deal damage. At the very least, cut the CD down significantly. No more than 10 seconds untraited or the Berserker is screwed.

Primal Bursts are fun and serve as the real draw of this elite specialization, but some of them could still use a little fine tuning, perhaps. Overall, though, this is what’s working the best for me, not to mention they are suitably flashy.

Rage Skills – I’m having a hard time really deciding how I feel about these. On the one hand, I am a fan of Physical skills and these have a very similar feel to them, but on the other hand I wonder if they’re effective enough yet.

Blood Reckoning – I think this heal is in a much better place than before. I’m not sure if I, personally, would take it as I tend to use Hammer, but I think it definitely has its uses now.

Wild Blow – I actually like this skill quite well, even if it’s not as flashy in reality as it sounds in theory. The damage is adequate, the knockback is really useful for my build and in general and the CD seems appropriate.

Sundering Leap – I find this skill to be a bit underwhelming. It’s not really BAD, but more boring than anything. I think if perhaps this skill provided a more interesting effect upon landing it would be a different story (an additional condition perhaps?). I understand that this is clearly there to give another Leap finisher option for interacting with fire fields, but this skill just doesn’t really cut it right now.

Outrage – I’m pretty happy with this skill, actually. A stun-break on a 10s CD is pretty nice on its own since similar skills for other professions would be closer to 30 or 40 second CDS, but with the addition of serious Adrenaline generation this is one of the more useful Rage Skills.

Shattering Blow – I don’t see this one being of much use to any Berserker that isn’t running a condi build. It looks pretty cool, but feels rather weak to me right now, but I think that’s more of an issue with the current state of Bleeding, rather than this skill itself.

Head Butt – Completely unremarkable in appearance, but this skill definitely does its job. The stun is nice and gives the Berserker a little more breathing room, but the adrenaline gain from this skill is really where it’s at. I’d be fine with it staying as is.

Traits
Currently I think the traits are generally fine. I think they all have clear jobs that they’re designed to do, although I’m not sure there is a ton of synergy with other specializations. I think like many other parts of the Berserker, they work but don’t really have any frills.

I have had some thoughts on making unique and more worthwhile improvements to the Rage skills and Traits for Berserker at least. I really would like to see making trait choices more competitive as in, make a player decide since any trait is in a good position to be beneficial. Rage skills I feel need to be quicker to use at least so mostly cool down reductions (with exception of Outrage gaining cool down due to a trait change suggestion).

One twist I add in is making the Berserker, crave being burned. Giving it a special kind of twist.

Fatal Frenzy – Add a 3 second Resistance Boon upon activation of Berserk Mode. Leave Quickness as is. Increase swiftness to 5 seconds and add Fury to the list for 5 seconds.

Blood Reaction – Overhaul this trait. Pure Passive Stat bonuses are just boring and only taken if other traits just outright don’t do any build benefit. New trait effect: Gain adrenaline when taking damage from Bleeding and Burning conditions (If you are taking damage from Bleeding and Burning, that’s 2 adrenaline per second gained, 1 from each condition). Reduces incoming damage (not duration) of Bleeding and Burn by 20%.

Savage Instinct – Removes 2 conditions in addition to making Berserk Mode a stun break.

Heat the Soul – Auto trigger “Flames of War” when a warrior critical hits a target with 3 or more stacks of burning. The logic behind this is they are invoking the flames from their opponent onto themselves. Shares cool down reduction benefit. You do not need to equip Torch to auto trigger “Flames of War”. (Similar to Guardian’s Torch Trait)

Last Blaze – In addition to its current effect: Add 20% Cool down Reduction for Rage skills. 33% cool down reduction if the Berserker has the Burning Condition active on them when the skill goes on cool down.

Smash Brawler – Remove berserk mode recharge and make it baseline of 10 seconds. Primal Burst Skills now remove 1 boon upon hit and reduce their recharge by 33%.

Bloody Roar – Add 5 seconds of weakness for every inflicted target in addition to the Taunt and Bleeding conditions. Increase range to 600. Honestly give it shout like range to be desirable and weaken foes in that the Berserker is doing an intimidating roar.

King of Fires – Add in this effect in addition to its current effect: Any incoming Burning Condition applied to the Berserker is increased by 20% in duration. Burning while in Berserk Mode keeps adrenaline at maximum (you are only limited to Primal Burst cool downs). Each stack of burning that is removed from a Berserker reduces the Berserk Mode cool down by 1 second.

Rage Skill Adjustments

Increase Outrage’s Cool down to 15 seconds. It will still be good especially when traited with Last Blaze (You can get the original 10 second cd with burning active).

Reduce Wild Blow’s cool down to 25 seconds. Add 10 stacks of Vulnerability for 10 seconds for each target that is affected by Wild Blow (the first target and any targets that collide with the initial target).

Reduce Sundering Leap to 20 seconds.

Just brought the HOT and tried the berserker, i felt the entire concept is lackluster. I really hope Anet redesign it. If not now, please do it in the future.

In order to use zerker, we need to dedicate the entire trait line for it. And for what? To have it active for 15 sec in a fight? At this point warrior is not a sustain class, I highly doubt you can activate it several times in a fight. You either win or lose or run in a short period of time. I could get it to activate once, twice if I am lucky with the rage elite.

And what exactly do I get in the Zerker mode? In general I felt the f1 skills are weaker, with the exception of gun flame. I much rather just take rampage and be done with it. either way I can only use it 1 time in a fight. At least rampage only require 1 trait.

The biggest problem is adrenaline management. You start with 0. You need to hit 30 times to get to use zerker mode. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that if you get to hit 30 times, the fight is mid way through.

The other way to get adrenaline faster is take CI, which mean you need to get hit, and can’t take balance stance nor Rousing Resilience or take the Discipline line, which means you are giving up either power or defense line.

Maybe Arms, defense, zerker line for full conditional build. Other than that I don’t see the point.

Ok guys I’m back and I just finished berserkin in power mode!

First things first, this is from a pvp perspective.

Alright. I had a blast. It was so much fun. I’m freakin serious guys this is not /sarcasm. I’m sure you’re all wondering how so I’ll get to that. So it looks like lots of new berserkers tried to just swap out one of their existing lines for berserker, and it seems like that didn’t go over too well considering all the disappointed feedback. So starting from scratch I crafted a new shiny zerker.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vJAQRAse3XnMdAlkidhAmhAElilfAz4BEAKAIxgcQL495Wd/uA-TpAOgAA7PEXGAA

SO no fast hands are you nuts fail build lol scrub. Well, turns out anet killed it with the new smash brawler. Camping weapons (at least axe) is possible thanks to smash brawler pumping out bursts in just 3 seconds.

Blood Reaction. Honestly I wish there was more traits like this for the berserker. This is the only trait that’s dedicated to direct damage AND its the only trait that has any synergy with a direct damage weapon. Why aren’t there other traits like this?? I mean its fine for me because I like axes. Its still decently effective without the axe trait but oh well. Maybe in that GM choices? That’d be a great place for power weapon/damage synergy. We don’t want 2 condi choices there.

So defense line to stay alive… but this isn’t a build explanation, it’s feedback! The rousing resilience buff was fantastic. It synergizes really well with the new skills, outrage and headbutt. I run with endure pain and balanced stance as well so its just stun breaks for dayZ. Really great stuff I always appreciate good synergy.

And onto headbutt. I really hope this is a tooltip error!! Its hitting hard. Real hard. I critted a glass mesmer for 6.9k. It’s base damage reads 1,755 and I have 246% crit damage So somethings going on here. I’m critting light golems for over 5k.

Honestly I think that smash brawler COULD (maybe) make up for no fast hands baseline IF berserker had a power weapon or damage GM trait. Also, I’m not a fan of the CD on berserk mode. Whats up with that? Is my toon sedated or something? With the new CD on DoA, berserk mode could be balanced without one.

Overall I had a much better time on a power berserker than condi, and am looking forward to testing a gs/rifle build when gun flame isn’t bugged.

More thoughts on Berserker (most WvW roaming).

• Berserker has 0 sustain so i’m forced to use stances and tanky gear (would be nice if when you are on berserker mode instead of adrenaline rage skills gave you health).
• Condition berserker is really good (plz don’t nerf it).
• Most of the rage skills will never see any use in any place (i can be wrong).
• The Cooldown on berserker mode is a little high (maybe make it 10 sec base line).
• Blood Reckoning is super massively terrible. (i would suggest to remake it).
• Minor Bug: Sometimes when you enter berserker mode after using a burst skill you will find your primal burst skill on a 3 – 4 sec cooldown.

I will admit I haven’t played berserker all too much but I do notice some problems. I will admit it is better than before but there is still much work to do on the spec.

Let me start with the primal bursts.

Decapitate and Rupturing Smash feel very weak. Decapitate I feel like you should remove the AoE, increase the dmg coefficient and have it cause an additional effect like your next 3 attacks are unblockable or you gain might after unleashing a devestating attack or increase the range of it to like 500 or 600. Rupturing smash kind of sucks right now too, a 1 sec immob is way weaker than a 2 second stun. I think it should be something like people who are directly hit by the attack take heavy damage and then the shockwaves knock everybody in a 360 area for 1 second but take less damage. Flaming Flurry feels kind of weak too, I mean the burns are strong but I feel like it is way too hard to land. I think it should have some cripple to it so it can land better and the projectiles should fire faster as well as up the dmg a little bit. Scorched earth is OKAY but I feel like something a little more can be done with it. Like if you hit the person with the first rectangle they get 1 stack of burn, the second rectangle 2 stacks, 3rd one 3 stacks, final one 4 stacks of burn. Would make the skill more dynamic. The rest of the bursts I feel like are OKAY. The primal bursts overall should be unique from the non-primal counterparts but not necessarily weaker. Right now many of them are objectively weaker in most situations.

Also another thing. I feel like for speccing entirely into a trait line in order to use berserk mode, that it should inherently be an advantage when you attain berserker mode. You are confronted with awkward situations like whether to use your more powerful non-primal bursts and not get the benefit of berserker mode or go into berserker mode and use your weaker primal bursts. To me it is just too conflicting and awkward. I think you should be able to have a choice whether to use the non-primal and the primal bursts, but obviously balance around that, i.e (using a non-primal burst ends your berserk mode) to avoid spam. It just gives the specialization more variety, more choices and makes it more dynamic.

Another thing too. I feel like the traitline overall doesn’t really offer too much that warrants taking it over things like Strength/Discipline/Defense.

If you don’t take strength you lose so much damage it is ridiculous. If you don’t take discipline you lose fast hands, movement speed which are huge. If you don’t take defense you lose a lot of condition removal. Instead when you take berserker you get stability/stunbreaks, which the warrior already has plenty of to begin with (endure pain/balanced stance/dolyak signet/outrage/rampage/last stand) take your choice.

You get some condition removal and faster adrenaline gain, but Defense and Discipline already has that. You don’t really get a huge damage increase, the trait line just seems kinda meh.

King of fires isn’t that strong for a grandmaster, perhaps have it grant an additional effect like critical hits against foes who are burning also grant 2 might stacks.

fatal frenzy swiftness i feel like could be replaced with something like might which makes more sense or maybe superspeed.

Dead or Alive I feel like can take a different turn. Something like, the lower your HP, the more toughness and - condition duration you have, or the more condition damage and power you gain. Something that adds an element of risk and reward.

As for the rage skills, IDK how I feel about them, the outrage one seems kinda interesting and the headbutt one but the rest seem kinda lame.

Also another idea, for eternal champion, I think it should be resistance instead of stability. Maybe 3 seconds is too long for resistance but toy with the idea of making it a 2 second resistance. Or try something like gain 2 seconds of stability and 2 seconds of resistance. I think this will help de-emphasize the stances a bit more. If it is too OP then put a cooldown on it like 15 seconds.

These are just ideas that are bouncing around in my head as I play the class.

Gun flame is bugged and hits twice but besides that with 1 hit too i think the damage is too high OR the animation is too fast for a similar damage.

I mean the kill shot is fine imho because there is an high damage but a slow animation and u’re rooted during the cast. Gun flame is not balanced imho (besides the bug)

Besides that i think main zerk problem is a core warrior problem (speaking about pvp) too linked to discipline for fast hands and defense for condi removal,/tankiness, this makes huge issues for a good build with Berserk line.

Remus.7312:

Spurrlock.3219:

You also acknowledged that its bugged so why call for nerfs on something that hasnt been properly tested?

Because even if it doesn’t bug out it can still kill people with 1 shot or at least take off 80% of their HP. With all the other factors it is considerably better than kill shot, which I thought was not the intent of these skills as they only need 10 adrenalin to activate.

you realize that we still need 30 adrenaline to enter berserk mode yes?

gun flame is fine, leave it alone.

well, maybe the auto dual hit insta gib needs to be fixed a bit though.

philheat.3956:

Gun flame is bugged and hits twice but besides that with 1 hit too i think the damage is too high OR the animation is too fast for a similar damage.

I mean the kill shot is fine imho because there is an high damage but a slow animation and u’re rooted during the cast. Gun flame is not balanced imho (besides the bug)

Besides that i think main zerk problem is a core warrior problem (speaking about pvp) too linked to discipline for fast hands and defense for condi removal,/tankiness, this makes huge issues for a good build with Berserk line.

gun flame does less physical damage than kill shot.

Im in love with zerker, but please fix gunflame lmao, way too silly if its intended.

And one question, does wild blow really have the beast thingy showing cuz I don’t remember seeing it at all

As it is now you either loose damage or defense (spvp) with the berserker.
if you change out the strenght talant you loose:

-peak performance 30% dmg
-Forcefull greatsword 10%cd + might
-Stick and move 10% dmg
-Berserker power 20% dmg

all this for measly 15% attackspeed

Hircine.6175:

As it is now you either loose damage or defense (spvp) with the berserker.
if you change out the strenght talant you loose:

-peak performance 30% dmg
-Forcefull greatsword 10%cd + might
-Stick and move 10% dmg
-Berserker power 20% dmg

all this for measly 15% attackspeed

yes. I did care about the numbers and enjoyed berserker anyway, but when I sat and really looked at it, taking berserker is just a loss

After another day of testing the Berserker, please please please revert the change to Rupturing Smash. The original version was fine. Knockbacks was still useful. This current change to 1 second immobilize really make using Hammer in Berserker mode useless.

Hopefully the dev will consider all these feedbacks and undue the change to Rupturing Smash. It’s just too weak right now.

I tried a power Berserker in PVE. It was kinda alright, but needing 30 adrenaline before you can enter berserker means that the zerker mode only sees use in extended fights.
The Axe primal burst is really nice against multiple enemies, and with the short CD might even mean a dmg increase against single target if you can spam it.

The downside is that, as many have said before, it is REALLY hard to give up one of the other traitlines for Berserker.
You need Strength for either the Axe mastery or Berserkers power GM traits.
Arms is also hard to give up with Signet mastery, and the 100% crit on bursts is also kinda neat with axes.
Without Discipline for Warriors sprint, Brawlers recovery or Destruction of the empowered, and Heightened Focus or Burst mastery are also hard to miss … and the main one ofcourse Fast Hands.

I played Berserker as an Axe/Shield—Hammer warrior. Here is my feedback for BW3.

1. General
I always thought that “Berserker” was supposed to be an extension to warrior that synergises well as its a Specialisation. The problem that i had was that i could not use my main spec “Axe-Shield” effectively. Here are the main reasons.

• Key traits are scattered around.
• Forced to take Discipline because of “Fast-Hands”.
• Forced to choose between “Strength” and “Defense” trait lines. Axe is on “Strength” and Shield on “Defense” trait line.

A suggestion would be to make “Fast-hands” and “weapon traits” baseline. Remove the damage bonus from the weapons and make it give only the reduce recharge. That way you will free up the cluttering of key traits across the trait lines.

2. Berserker

The overall feeling is that it still feels underwhelming when entering “berserker” mode. Part of it has to do that it looks that you want to force an elite-slot to the adrenalin mechanic. Here are two alternatives to consider :

• Berserk as Elite-slot skill instead of “Head Butt” if you want to use the 15 cd. Otherwise please remove the cd as currently works against the warrior.
• Automatically enter Berserk when reaching the adrenalin threshold.

2a. “Primal Burst”

As my spec was “Axe-Shield”—“Hammer” i can comment on the following :

• Decapitate “Leap at your foe with a powerful attack. Foes behind your target take half damage.”

Why not change it to the Guild wars 1 variant with a unique warrior condition “Deep Wound” and remove the 5 targets. ?

• Rupturing Smash
  Why the 1 second of immobilize ? Why not something like " Causes knock-down if target foe is attacking. " If the reasoning was to move away from the Knock-down and Knock-back as “Burst”, maybe you could make it conditional. Something like Guild Wars 1 variant of “Belly Smash”. Hammer Attack. Inflicts Blindness condition to adjacent foes (x seconds) if target foe is knocked down.
  or “Enraged Smash” Gives you x strike[s] of adrenaline if you hit. Deals x damage and causes knockdown if target foe was moving.

2b. “Rage Skills”

I tried to use all the rage skills, but i only ended using only “Outrage” or “Head Butt” since there is good synergy with “Rousing Resilience”. The rest was feeling more like situational and lackluster.

Regards

Seed

The one thing that still bothers me with the berserker is the adrenaline paradox in the spec, if I’m not in berserk mode then any adrenaline I can get my hands on is useful, making traits like furious very valuable, the rage skills also have a bit of adrenaline generation which feels nice, but as soon as I’m in berserk mode I have no idea what to do with the adrenaline, there simply is no way to spend it, there’s so much of it that is simply wasted and the bits I can use create weaker burst skills that also fill my adrenaline bar by themselves because of the furious trait, so I’m always at full adrenaline but can’t make use of it while in Berserk mode.

The new killshot burst is brokenly OP. The trait line is okay as a whole, i feel like the base warrior traitlines are rather too potent to give up.

Hey all, i found “rage” skills same like a physical, just another named. Maybe need another mechanic for these like a “every n crit strike reduces cooldown for 1 sec”, or increase duration of Blood Reckonning when in berserker rage or for every n crits? Something what have synergy with rage. Still think current berserker “power” build is weak in PvE and dont see power orientieret GM trait, think here need a small damage buff with another mechanic of trait in strengh line. Maybe roar change to stacking ~3/7/10% melee damage/something other for ranged weapons buff with short duration to dont be OP in pvp? Berserker cooldown i see like a weakness after rage in many other games.

Balsco.3682:

The one thing that still bothers me with the berserker is the adrenaline paradox in the spec, if I’m not in berserk mode then any adrenaline I can get my hands on is useful, making traits like furious very valuable, the rage skills also have a bit of adrenaline generation which feels nice, but as soon as I’m in berserk mode I have no idea what to do with the adrenaline, there simply is no way to spend it, there’s so much of it that is simply wasted and the bits I can use create weaker burst skills that also fill my adrenaline bar by themselves because of the furious trait, so I’m always at full adrenaline but can’t make use of it while in Berserk mode.

^This

Also, Fast Hands. It’s so mandatory now if you want to fully use the Berserk mode and even with FH you have more adrenaline then you can spend. Making Fast Hands baseline or move it to another specialization line doesn’t make discipline obscure (you will still miss out on warrior’s sprint and burst mastery for example). Right now the Warrior suffers from a 4 slot syndrome and the Berserker line is on the lower priority list.

Okay i will give my voice a matter here too due to the beta weekends last day

• The Berserker as a whole is not too shabby, it has potential (at least the traits has) the utilities are pretty meh from a PvE aspect (from a PvP one or WvWvW one i can see some being used).

• The Primal Burst Skills on some weapons are IN MY OPINION useless. (Not including GS, Longbow. Axe being weak but i can understand that we cant do 12k eviscerate aoes twice (although this renders this primal burst nearly useless in pve).

• I really the buffs you get when you activate berserker, i can notice that i hit faster which will let met cash out more dps in a short moment.

• Torch wont be viable in PvE (in it’s current zerker state), cant see it happen that it will replace a warhorn or a mace – as for PvP it could be a thing for a condi warrior.

• Headbutt is also a twisted thing for PvE – short cooldown, decent damage – remove one stack of defiance. How ever, it wont bypass the uses warbanner has or signet of rage to be fair. In PvP i think this skill would be EPIC in a one-on-one situation or WvWvW roaming maybe.

• Warriors are more or less bound by 3 trait lines in PvE dungeon/fractals at the moment, Strength/Arms/Tactics. If a warrior want to achive it’s highest dps we go Strength/Arms/Dicipline. And these are quite vital, Strength and Arms are a “must” to be honest. At the moment i can’t see berserker line finding a use in PvE.

Summary

Berserker is more or less a flavor for PvP i would say, it will have to require some testing to find out if a Strength/Arms/Berserker warrior can out match a Strength/Arms/Dicipline warrior. But i feel that dicipline gives the warrior more “good” things then berserker can offer.

And fix Gun Flame.

Increase the immobile on Hammer berserk burst to 2-3 seconds. Like most things warrior it is very well telegraphed(same as normal hammer burst). Changing it to be a pull would be cool as well. Change the mid tier traits for crit dmg to 12%/24% or greater (if greater than +25%dmg, reduce healing received by other players by 33%) and the heal on fatal to 50% of maximum hp make it affected by poison if it’s not already.

Before even mentioning existing problems with the Berserking mechanic and the mostly bad Rage abilities, I don’t think Berserker will even get a chance to see play because of poor trait design in the vanilla Warrior. Until a dev takes a serious look at Warrior traits, Discipline, Defense, and Strength are all better than Berserker.

Warrior has a serious problem with “mandatory” traits.

Want to deal damage? Strength is mandatory (so, basically all builds take it).
Want to stay alive? Defense is mandatory (again, all builds).
Want to play Warrior the way it is designed (swapping weapons frequently)? Discipline is mandatory.

And hell, pve players are even worse off! Strength AND Tactics are mandatory, to shoehorn you even further! There is literally only one viable group pve build, and Berserker will not change that.

Please look at our traits, Anet.

Even more thoughts on Berserker.

• Adrenal Health still doesn’t work properly on berserk mode, it only count as 1 bar of adrenaline.
• Dead or Alive is pretty much useless (maybe add 33% heal efficiency on heals done by you on you while you are in berserker mode).

Berserker does not bring anything new over the normal warriors builds. Maybe condition but it’s not that the berserker is strong condition wise. It’s the basic condi warr that is very weak.

It’s a big meh so far and the warrior’s issue is that we are so much locked on those 3 trait line to be viable.(not even OP)

I haven’t preordered so I don’t have a chance to test it but does Dead or Alive scale at all with healing power? I’m running a Cele build in WvW and I can see it replacing Strength/Arms (D/D) for us hybrids builds.

Fix Gun Flame, Then nerf it – no skill should do 12k crit base on an 8 sec CD.

Old Timez.5194:

I haven’t preordered so I don’t have a chance to test it but does Dead or Alive scale at all with healing power? I’m running a Cele build in WvW and I can see it replacing Strength/Arms (D/D) for us hybrids builds.

In HoTM jumping from a berserker ammy (0 healing power) to clerics (1200 healing power), Dead or Alives heal rose from 5220 to 5268.

So yes! it scales

Right now I felt marginally stronger when I was in Berserk but without it I really felt weaker, dunno outside of condi builds which I’m not going to run I don’t see any reason why I would take this elite spec.

Oh and I think the biggest letdown for me is that Berserker feels like it adds nothing really new to the class, it’s just more of the same. The elite spec doesn’t change basic warrior gameplay one bit and that to me is the biggest problem. I mean you can’t have one class essentially staying the exact same in terms of how it plays and 6 other classes getting completely new ways to play. I’ll be honest I often forgot I was even playing on an elite spec because it felt so very similar to how Berserkers already play, I can’t think of too many other classes where that’s the case.

I’ll be honest as well, after trying out quite a few of these elite specs I got bored with Berserker far FAR faster than any other, it just didn’t feel fresh it just felt flashier. I’m still just running around after players trying to smash face it’s just now I’ve got weaker bursts (gun flame excluded) bursts, more sparkles and way lower survivability and damage every 15 sec as well as a very clumsy feeling berserk mechanic. I don’t want to rag on the class I’m just pretty let down atm, war was my first character I ever made and my main all the way since the first beta weekends and I’m thinking about walking away from her.

Man I wish Anet had gone a different direction with this class and had actually added a new way to play.

I would like to suggest a small ICON change/adding of an ICON.

The icon of your primal burst abilities, will only become visible, once you go into berserker mode.

I would like to suggest that you can see this icon and what the primal burst ability will do, at all times.

This can be done just by adding an extra icon next to the burst finisher.
So that you can always see (if you have the berserker spec selected in your specs) what both your burst finisher and primal burst finisher do.
That you see both ICONS.

Sure i can memorize what all my primal burst finishers do but I think it would be a good change to just see both ICONS.

I feel absolutely no synergy with Berserker mode. It just doesn’t float with the adrenaline mechanic. I always find myself either waiting for adrenaline or waiting for a cooldown on Berserker. There’s a point where Berserker has 5 seconds left and I can choose to use my original F1 skill or wait for berserker. At this point, berserker has to be so good that it’s worth waiting. It’s not. Not anywhere near, sadly. I feel like I’m just worse at everything when duelling other classes in the beta. It’s like they have gotten all new shiny things and I’m just there like… “I have a cool name…” It feels like all the other classes has gotten a metric kitten ton of control in terms of cc and soft cc and berserker got all these fancy stunbreaks to deal with it.

I will not stop play warrior, I love my warrior. But there’s a storm coming, and all the other classes has houses and we’re just sitting here with 2 walls and no roof.

Tested it like 5 minutes. Its a condi centric line in a power based and THEMED class, regarless of it being subpar or not, its not worth my time.

Apolo.5942:

Tested it like 5 minutes. Its a condi centric line in a power based and THEMED class, regarless of it being subpar or not, its not worth my time.

There’s no such thing as a power “themed” profession in the game, just because you don’t like it doesn’t make your reasoning valid.

I played the Gun Flame “flavour of the beta” build in spvp and had far too much fun to be playing on a Warrior. People got pretty salty and upset which was fairly understandable when their entire team got downed by a well placed Gun Flame. However you do have to kitten yourself quite significantly to pull this off so any sincere focus by the other team usually forces you to switch to greatsword and back off or land some seriously clutch Gun Flame shots before they close in on you.

I tested a few other Berserker setups in spvp but none of them stuck out to me. The specialization feels a bit lacking at this moment in time. Rage skills don’t justify their place on my utility bar and the trait line lacks a lot of bite. I hope the specialization receives some critical review as it currently doesn’t warrant it’s place in the meta.

pvp map chat said berserker is the reaper beta

Well, at least our Berserker Icon is pretty friggin awesome. Competes with Herald imo.

During the short time I try out Berserker, all I can say is, “Iyiyiyiyiyiyi!”

Very fast paced and sometimes I got carried away with my axe/torch and rage skills. I kill things quickly but I tend to get myself killed a few times due to how fast things go. I went with Carrion gear, but I’m sure it’ll be better with Sinister or even Rampager.

The class just has no viable synergy as expected with having to take discipline inorder to make the most of the burst skills which is what the class is entirely centered around. The best thing the class has is 10 sec stun break to proc rousing resilience heal which isn’t even that great and greatly sacrifices the ability to clear condis.

Cons
-The damage is less then normal wariror
-The sustain is still just the same as normal warrior (non existent just a meat bag with HP)
-Still get kited by everything making the new heal pointless and zerk transformation too since they just kite till your out of it.
-No team support.
-The physical rage skills are pointless. basically just more physical skills that don’t really add anything. There’s Zero reason to take them over stances. Unless your desperate for a tiny bit extra burn damage.
-CD on rampage means your losing out on DPS when not in form.
-Still no variety added to the class. It plays the exact same as a warrior just weaker in every area except for maybe a tiny bit of burn damage (Still weakest condi class).
-Not sure what the idea was with the new hammer primal burst.

Pros
-The new GS primal burst is decent I guess. It has good range and okay damage.
-The 10 sec stun break and headbutt are good skills.
-Good pressure for first few seconds of zerk transformation (flatlines shortly after)

Suggestions
-Constant swiftness in zerk would form to allow us to catch kiters and make the most of it.
-Revamp the new healing skill; go a different route because a warrior having to rely on hitting other classes which do nothing but kite is just not a good idea I can’t see why anyone would take it over Healing Signet.
-Lower CD on zerk form
-Maybe give us stacks of might when we transform so we can get some more damage off.
*PLEASE MAKE FAST HANDS BASELINE* <——- would allow for new builds and actual synergy.

I was just testing out Druid and I’m impressed with how that specialization makes rangers feel like a new class. Glyph skills that have 2 effects each, based on if you are in celestial avatar form or not. Celestial avatar form gives 5 new skills. Druid gets new pets. Druid’s astral force doesn’t decay out of combat.. All of these things could be used as a ground work for fixing Berserker.

My recommendations for Berserker based on Druid:

Change Berserker from needing adrenaline. Change it to “Rage”, make it a bar above the hp orb just like Druid’s “astral force” bar. This will allow warriors to keep using their regular weapon rotations and adrenaline without having to save it up for going into Berserker mode. This will make the cool down of berserker much more bearable since we won’t have to time up our adrenaline along with a cool down.

Change the primal rage trait to include:

Rage per outgoing Damage: ¼%
Rage per incoming Damage: ¼%

Make “Rage” not decay out of combat.

To fix the rage skills, have them synergize with going into Berserker mode. Instead of gaining adrenaline, make them gain “rage” for going into berserk. And make each rage skill have an extra effect within Berserker mode like how our bursts turn into primal bursts. This will make them much more valuable to use.

Fast hands should be baseline for berserker. Even if going berserk doesn’t require adrenaline to activate, we’ll need more adrenaline for regular bursting will the rage skills accumulate rage. Having fast hands base line would make the berserker more synergistic with other builds too.

Change Dead or Alive trait to:

Taking fatal damage while in berserk mode ends berserk but heals you and converts remaining RAGE into health.

Change Eternal Champion trait to include:
Increase damage of Rage skills 5%

Increasing damage of rage skills while berserk will help with power builds instead of focusing on only condition damage berserkers.

Currently, half of the blame resides with the design of the Berserker and the other half lies with the base Warrior. It’s hard to build a good house on sand.

The Issues with Berserker:

The trait line isn’t bad, but it brings nothing that makes it worth taking over Strength (Arms in some condi builds), Defense, or Discipline.

Rage Skills are basically just a different breed of Physical skills.

As a result they will not generally be used for exactly the same reason. I don’t LIKE using stances, but not using them means you’re a poor Warrior unless you’re playing Shoutbow. I can see Reaper being used on a team because while it can be very selfish it does some very useful things like AoE Chill and boon stripping. What do Rage skills bring to your team? A (very) brief reflect.

Now the obvious exception is Outrage. It has good synergy with Rousing Resilience…but you’ll still probably just see people bring Last Stand. Oh, and I’m pretty sure Savage Instinct isn’t triggering RR even though I’m pretty sure it should. Head Butt isn’t bad….but feels really clunky and inconsistent.

A focus on condi when now many, many, many specs have a plethora of removal/negation options.

Applying a good amount of Burn means bringing Rage Skills, which means you’ll have much less sustain. Now, you can go for just a moderate amount of burning but I was under the impression that the theme was supposed to be “everything is on fire all the time!” with the differentiation to Burn Guards being that the Guard is more about burst burning while Berserker is about sustained burn.

The design of the Berserk Mode itself.

I’m assuming that in an effort to differentiate Berserk from Death/Reaper Shroud the Devs gave the form a CD. However, this does not only make me not feel like a Berserker, but it also hurts it mechanically as well. When you aren’t in Berserk mode you feel weak. The CD also means you probably won’t see any Berserkers in organized PvE either.

Now, if Shroud is an ability that is a bit slower to gain but lasts a long time, why not make Berserk easy to enter but harder to maintain? Make us have to constantly smack enemies to stay angry but if they pull a invuln/chain blocks etc. you just have to get full adrenaline aging rather than sitting around waiting for the form to come off CD and not using your class mechanic cause you wanna make sure you can enter the form when it’s off CD.

The Issues of the Base Warrior:

Like several classes, Warrior is almost required to run certain specs depending on the game mode. However, many of those classes are just tied to a single spec, Warrior is tied to two. In fact, depending on what kind of build you’re going for your other spec is often decided for you as well.

No Defense? Have fun melting to even a small amount of condi pressure once your Berserker Stance wears off.

No Discipline? Enjoy 10 second weapon swaps on weapons clearly designed around rapidly swapping. No Warrior’s Sprint also means you’ll be a breeze to kite.

Going Power w/o Strength? Enjoy dealing much less damage and losing out of your GS trait (you’re probably using GS). Oh, and if you want to make a condi build using CC weapons you need this as well for Body Blow and Distracting Strikes.

Going Condi (in base War why would you though?) without Arms? You now have much lower condi application

While in theory having Strength and Arms decided for you depending on what type of damage you want to do is fine, being forced into Defense and Discipline is not.

Warrior is great for stomping noobs, but someone with any sort of knowledge about the class will just easily squash you unless they majorly screw up.

I’m totally cool with Shouts and Stances being there for new players, but just because the class is designed around mechanical simplicity doesn’t mean it can’t offer a bit more for veteran players.

Looping back around to Rage skills, why can’t sundering Leap be the Warrior version of Blink/Flash? Obviously you can’t make it work on all ledges/bridges but being able to chase after classes that can reach them would go a long way. Shattering Blow is just…there. A Warrior with a shield and/or mace has a lot of reflect already and the duration is too short to be reliably timed (It can also randomly swing you the opposite way of your target). Being able to move while constantly punching rocks (not “summoning”) like the Dragon Hunters’ block only with reflect would at least add a bit of team utility.

Being able to have a bit of nuanced sustain that involves positioning and timing and is also VIABLE would open a ton of options.

One last thing I’m going back and forth on, while many agree that Fast Hands needs to be baseline, I’m starting to think that the movement speed increase with melee weapons needs to be baseline as well.

Why? Even with baseline Fast hands you become very, very easy to kite. Warrior’s Sprint could still be a trait…maybe make it remove Chill and Slow as well? Warrior is a class focused on melee combat, sure we have ranged options but they’re almost never the main focus of a build. Right now, Reapers and Scrappers feel more like Warriors than Warriors in terms of melee sustain.

This was a longwinded rant I know, but I’m just so utterly disappointed by Berserker that I want to get all my thoughts out.

Told you all, Conjurations based Elite Specialization would have been more interesting…..

Now that I’ve played it over the weekend (PvE only), all I can say is that I find it hard dropping Defense for it. No way I’m dropping either Strength or Tactics, those two synergise too well together.

I was using Savage Instinct as a replacement for Cleansing Ire, Dead or Alive as a replacement for Defy Pain and dropped Dolyak Signet for Outrage, using Eternal Champion for stability.

On the whole, I had a good DPS boost but a drop in sustain, mostly through losing Dogged March and Adrenal Health. Not having a true “anti-gank” like Defy Pain when out of Berserk Mode also put me on my kitten a few times. Definitely a L2P issue, though. It’s high(er) risk, high(er) reward, and I’m afraid I may be too casual for it.

When I switched back to my normal Defense build, things were no longer dying as fast (although still much faster than in BWE2) and I felt pretty much untouchable. Also not interested at all in using Torch, so overall not worth making the switch.