Guild Wars 2

I think now that players are warming up to Spellbreaker and the outrage over the nerfs might be lessening, how about talk about changes to Berserker.

While the changes might not be to everyone’s liking, I do enjoy how it gives core Warrior a decent foot to stand on while Berserker/Spellbreaker would be more side-grades to change up tactics. That being said, I think there could be room to improve Berserker and differentiate its style and mechanics. What are your thoughts?

Make Berserker a meta-raid spec? Improve its sustain? It’s burst DPS? Balance it or specialize it in condi or power?

My personal opinion is simply make Berserk Mode more of a drastic change and make it the center of the build similar to how Full Counter is for Spellbreaker. Also, give more options for staying in berserk mode or maintaining it in some way and more bonuses for being in berserk mode vs just going in and out of it.

I hate meta raid specs, it basically enforces the whole “Go this or you can’t join us”. I get raiding is supposed to be hard, but it’s literally made a game mode where you HAVE to be the “meta”, which currently is Condition PS warrior, making berserker, a condi spec, more meta, would basically mean “screw you” to eveyrone who dislikes condi… like me.

Yeah, you’re talking to a person who has done 0 raids and not much into that whole scene. I was more stating that to cover more grounds for discussion.

My personal wish is to emphasize berserk mode more and give you alternative uses for it depending on the grandmaster you choose. Like a power berserk mode, a utility/condi berserk mode and a bruiser/sustain berserk mode. I feel, because there’s not enough emphasis on F2, players fixate on the primal bursts and the benefits from using them above all else.

All that is needed is a numbers tweak. They have to buff Greatsword and Axe DPS by 20% and add 1-2 more damage multipliers.

Due to how raids are designed I feel like it’s way better to have a role and it be well defined is probably better than being left out entirely. They designed it around requiring certain roles to be filled and we give condi and grant might. What I’m worried about is how any of the new elite specs on other classes fill that role. That being said, if they do it equally well that’s great, more class variety. If they do it better though we’re in trouble.

I think it was a smart decision to change how berserker Bursts work because if they had stayed as is Spellbreaker would have looked worthless by comparison. Now they just need to go back and do that for all of the other Gen 1 Specs.

Hopefully the new content will be boon heavy so SB has a place in groups. I’m OK with it being PvP focused but kitten I want to use daggers everywhere.

Personally, I feel like Berserker bursts make sense only counting for 1 bar. It kinda feels like berserker is the all in juggernaut, become super strong for a short time then tire out. Entering Berserker mode should grant a big barrier (25% of your hp, dead or alive grants another barrier if it triggers in addition to healing) and the fury and quickness should last longer, if not pulse throughout the mode. Or something, i dunno, a straight damage boost would be dangerous.

Core warrior is more about a practiced soldier, disciplined, confident, able to use any weapon to suit the job. War is his job, which means extended sequences of battles should be his forte thanks to his strength and endurance.

Spellbreaker needs to break more spells, it is currently very limiting as to which weapons synergize (aka hammer and mace) with the theme (locking down enemy magic). Stripping boons regularly is difficult (you must not miss any hammer or mace bursts), and the utilities have long cooldowns for their effect.

Nope, still outraged at the Primal burst nerfs. But what can you do? It’s too close to PoF launch to change anything. Either there’s some sort of fix or there’s not – probably not. Either way, you’ll never know until you read the patch notes because ANet now provides such dismal communication to the player base.
Spellbreaker has some promise. Full Counter is awesome. And we get access to stuff we almost never did before: boon stripping, anti-stealth, Protection, etc. Nonetheless, it’s not my style. So, I’m not very excited about it.
As for Berserker, it has plenty of damage. It needs its sustain back. To their credit, ANet tried to make the “must have” trait lines less mandatory – for other classes, as well – which opens up some build flexibility. Unfortunately, they did it so hard to Berserker on the Defense line (AH & CI)- without viable alternatives – that it just crushed us for WvW/PvP (Raids/PvE are more than fine). I think some degree of undo is appropriate (some have suggested that the 1st burst in Berserk could still count as 3 bars (after all, you need 30 adrenaline to get there)). But in keeping with the theme of trying to make Defense less of a mandatory pick, ANet at least tried to offer some sustain in another line (Might Makes Right in Strength). However, it doesn’t fit well with the condi theme of Berserker and is well short of what Defense used to provide. Maybe adding some sort of sustain option to Arms would help. But, really, I just want my tier 3 bursts back.

Still pretty outraged about it.

Berserker power should just be a stacking buff that is refreshed by any burst.

The most important thing for competitive wasn’t berserker power, but cleansing ire and Adrenal heal.. which was a massive hit.

Berserker power was the pve trait that was barely keeping power in trash tier dps. Some times you wonder what goes on in these balancers heads.

So i hear some people complaining at the loss berserker suffered, but for the sake of discussion, if getting what was lost (in PvP, higher sustain from adrenal health/cleansing ire; in PvE, more power from berserkers power) is off the table, then what changes would you see filling in A gap? Mind you, it may not fill the same gap that was made.

Kiroshima.8497:

Personally, I feel like Berserker bursts make sense only counting for 1 bar. It kinda feels like berserker is the all in juggernaut, become super strong for a short time then tire out. Entering Berserker mode should grant a big barrier (25% of your hp, dead or alive grants another barrier if it triggers in addition to healing) and the fury and quickness should last longer, if not pulse throughout the mode. Or something, i dunno, a straight damage boost would be dangerous.

Core warrior is more about a practiced soldier, disciplined, confident, able to use any weapon to suit the job. War is his job, which means extended sequences of battles should be his forte thanks to his strength and endurance.

Spellbreaker needs to break more spells, it is currently very limiting as to which weapons synergize (aka hammer and mace) with the theme (locking down enemy magic). Stripping boons regularly is difficult (you must not miss any hammer or mace bursts), and the utilities have long cooldowns for their effect.

Good to know I was hopping to go Hammer/dagger dagger, hammer was always my favorite warrior weapon. Now if only they speed up those telegraphs just a weee bit. hehe

The Berserker changes were wholly incompetent and lazy. I hope the developer hired for these gets canned.

With all that time they saved re skinning animations for PoF, you would think a Triple a title would take a moment to approach balance without simply gutting builds. HoT Powercreep, losing ESL, bunch of the “pro scene” mocking them, bugs and glitches that last for YEARS without attention, changes reinforcing passive/braindead gameplay….

This is another example of completely inept change. They had all the time in the world to figure out Tradeoffs, but instead they gutted a spec a month before an expansion.