Did we accomplish our Berserker Goal in Round 3

[Yoshiro]

Sorry for the new post, but I screwed up the poll settings in the original thread, so make your votes and comments here

[Merin Redplate]

Yes, it's good now.

[Benjamin]

What was the goal? Making it a viable class again? If so, yes.

[Bandit451]

Yup, yup, I feel like zerker has solid strengths now. He is no longer just a way to get extra cash in the early rounds, but now a part of the team. Katana for wide open spaces, Chainsaw for small ones, they feel equally balanced at their respective jobs.

[9_6]

No. You nerfebatted the katana into valhalla for no reason. Can't call this done until that's addressed.
At least return its attackspeed or raise its damage so you can reliably 1-hit decap husks and sirens and 1-hit bodyshot clots again.
The chainsaw is fine though.
The damage resistance doesn't matter to me.

[Merin Redplate]

Originally Posted by 9_6

No. You nerfebatted the katana into valhalla for no reason. Can't call this done until that's addressed.
At least return its attackspeed or raise its damage so you can reliably 1-hit decap husks and sirens and 1-hit bodyshot clots again.
The chainsaw is fine though.
The damage resistance doesn't matter to me.

1-shot body on a clot isn't a problem, the gorefasts is what doesn't always work.

[9_6]

Originally Posted by Novfanaion

1-shot body on a clot isn't a problem, the gorefasts is what doesn't always work.

Huh?

[Entangler]

I'd say "almost". The Chainsaw restoration is excellent; however, now that it's back in form as a defensive weapon, there remains no justification at all for the damage resistance buff, so that absolutely has to go.

I'd still like for the randomness to be removed and the Axe's headshot damage multiplier increased to 1.5, but won't complain if neither of those ideas makes the cut.

Apart from that, it's looking pretty good. I haven't tested it quite enough to say for certain that that'd complete it, but we're definitely close.

[Merin Redplate]

Originally Posted by 9_6

Huh?

As in; I've never had to hit a clot twice in the beta, only the gorefasts.

[9_6]

Originally Posted by Novfanaion

As in; I've never had to hit a clot twice in the beta, only the gorefasts.

Clots sometimes go down with 1 bodyhit, sometimes they won't.
Gorefasts now take ~2-3 (I think) bodyhits while also not being stunned as long as before.
At no point was it ever possible to 1-bodyshot gorefasts. On suicidal.

[Merin Redplate]

Originally Posted by 9_6

Clots sometimes go down with 1 bodyhit, sometimes they won't.
Gorefasts now take ~2-3 (I think) bodyhits while also not being stunned as long as before.
At no point was it ever possible to 1-bodyshot gorefasts. On suicidal.

Ah, but that's why you aim for the head in the first place.

[9_6]

Originally Posted by Novfanaion

Ah, but that's why you aim for the head in the first place.

Really?

[҈Oc†ө]

Originally Posted by 9_6

No. You nerfebatted the katana into valhalla for no reason. Can't call this done until that's addressed.
At least return its attackspeed or raise its damage so you can reliably 1-hit decap husks and sirens and 1-hit bodyshot clots again.
The chainsaw is fine though.
The damage resistance doesn't matter to me.

I 100% agree!
If we compare the beta zerker agains prepatch one i think it's even less usefull in the later waves. Now the zerker is almost unbeatable in the first waves due to the powerfull chainsaw but when scrakes and FP's get in later waves he's even weaker than before 'cause the katana is no more usefull against them (specially scrakes) and the chainsaw makes you so slow that you can easily get owned (trying to hit them from behind).
Don't missunderstand me, i really like the changes done to zerkers, but as i said in the other berseker thread, the major change is that now we have a "heavy" zerker instead of the "ninja" one. I really think it needs more balance allowing to choose between both gamestyles depending on the situation. Katana looks useless to me now.

If the reason to nerf the katana is the autofire thing, please consider remove autofire and increase at least the swing speed.

[Undedd Jester]

Being required to aim for the head seems fine to me, I'ma call it D-u-n.

[9_6]

Whatever you do:

Do not
touch
the katana autofire.

Pretend it's not there. It's not even a factor in balance, it's a matter of course.

[҈Oc†ө]

I said this about the katana autofire because i've read that this was the factor that made them decide to nerf it's swing speed. I too like to not have to breack my mouse when using the katana

[xebo]

I agree with 9_6.

Nerfing katana to further separate it from close-quarters chainsaw was unnecessary. Roll back changes pls.

[scary ghost]

Originally Posted by Entangler

I'd say "almost". The Chainsaw restoration is excellent; however, now that it's back in form as a defensive weapon, there remains no justification at all for the damage resistance buff, so that absolutely has to go.

I'd still like for the randomness to be removed and the Axe's headshot damage multiplier increased to 1.5, but won't complain if neither of those ideas makes the cut.

Apart from that, it's looking pretty good. I haven't tested it quite enough to say for certain that that'd complete it, but we're definitely close.

Agree with Entangler here. The randomness in melee weapons needs to go. Even though the guns have a damageMin and damageMax variable, the the KFFire.uc only uses damageMax so the guns are always dealing out max damage. The randomness is frustrating at times, especially when going up against scrakes. On 6 man suicidal, axe alt fire to the head might stun him if the random number generator is nice and rolls out enough additional base damage to top the 650 (or 670? LAR head shot from level 6 SS deals 672) damage needed. The damage should be fixed so axe alt fire always stuns from the front, or can only deal enough damage to stun when attacking from the back. Now the berkserer won't have to play guess the number all the time.

Buffing the axe head shot multiplier to 1.5 would be nice. It would make axe the choice weapon for a zerker to use against fleshpounds and scrakes. In that light, up the katana firerate from 0.75 to say 0.67, which would allow a level 6 zerker to get in 2 swings/sec (0.67 * 0.75 = 0.5 sec/swing). This lets katana zerkers deal with sirens and husks in a second, won't outshine the axe when the big stuff comes around, and won't top the chainsaw when clearing out groups or locking down a corridor. It also keeps primary fire DPS < alt fire DPS.

In regards to the damage resistance, the zerker can play two roles. He can be mobile offense or sacrifice that mobility to create a wall of pain so adjusting the resistance is a tricky thing. I'll take +40% but I don't feel it's needed if the zerker is using katana or axe.

[EonSeig]

I need to recant my vote. I didn't intend to say that the previous balance round was better, I wanted to say more work was needed. Label that as a "mis-vote" please.

The Chainsaw is perfect, but the Katana and Axe are now sort of grasping at straws. Melee randomness needs to be removed entirely, preferably with future "set" numbers leaning heavily towards the current maximum range. Axe needs to have a slightly higher headshot modifer and a bit higher base damage to counteract Fleshpound resistances to headshots and melee. Katana needs its firerate brought closer to pre-beta. Auto-fire is a gimmick, not a balance issue. Now that we have it, there's no reason to take it away, but it should not factor into the process of balancing the weapon. I request a 0.67 fire rate, which puts it at almost exactly 2 swings per second at lvl 6.

Darnit Ghost, you ninja phantom.

I will agree that balancing the Berserker's resistance is a tough prospect. It isn't meant to be useful when running a Katana or Axe, but it's absolutely necessary when playing with the Chainsaw. If the resistance was attached to the Chainsaw when the Berserker is using it, that would be nice, but that's a bit of an odd way to balance the weapons.

[҈Oc†ө]

Originally Posted by scary ghost

This lets katana zerkers deal with sirens and husks in a second, won't outshine the axe when the big stuff comes around, and won't top the chainsaw when clearing out groups or locking down a corridor.

I agree, 3 weapons, each with it's own definited job = balance

Also, i'd request that not all melee weapons are binded to the number 1 key, so if i want to switch from katana to chainsaw i dont need to hit "1" for 2 or 3 times (depending how many mele weapons you have). Maybe moove the katana and chainsaw to #3 or #4 for zerkers only so that we have "direct" access to them without so much key strokes?