Copy/paste from the Steam forums, but this will DEFINITELY come off as an unpopular opinion: I think the Berserker is actually underpowered. The reason I say that is that he really only becomes useful at Level 25 when he has all his skills. Without said skills, the only thing he really has is Perk Weapon Damage, while every other perk (including the Survivalist) have some amount of meaningful passives. Perhaps these changes would be welcome?
Passives
Perk Weapon Damage: 1% * Level
Damage Resistance: 15% + (0.8% * Level)
Damage Bonus on Parry: 15% * (1% * Level) (Parry is now a passive)
Melee Attack Speed: 0.6% * Level
Clots can't grab you
Night Vision
Level 10
Vampire: No longer has a melee attack speed bonus
Butcher: Attack speed bonus reduced to 15%. (Total attack speed of 30% at level 25)
Level 15
Because the neutral damage resistance and the Parry skill have been moved over to passives, this one will be more or less of a rework
Natural Immunity: Gain 20% damage resistance vs. poison, sonic and fire damage
Frenzy: Gain a 5% Damage Bonus for every 6 HP lost. This DOES NOT stack with Dreadnought.
Natural immunity could be seen as a soft counter against Husks with the addition of fire resistance, though i think it would be more meaningful against the fireballs rather than the flamethrower.
Frenzy from my experience with the game back when there were only 4 perks really helped a lot against scrakes because you will botch your parries. Rather than "reward bad gameplay", it's more of a "claw your way out of a bad situation", because bad gameplay will still get you killed regardless if you have Frenzy or not.
Level 20
This is more about me being bothered by Massacre more than anything, but since we are talking about skill adjustments, might as well get this one out of the way
Massacre: Increase damage with light melee attacks and ranged perk weapons by 30% and 15% respectively. Also gain Tactical Reload on perk weapons
Because Smash is always better in most situations. The adjustments to Massacre would at least give the VLAD some amount of utility.
TODO
Level 5 skills. I really don't know how you'd adjust these to make room for better passives.
Passives
Perk Weapon Damage: 1% * Level
Damage Resistance: 15% + (0.8% * Level)
Damage Bonus on Parry: 15% * (1% * Level) (Parry is now a passive)
Melee Attack Speed: 0.6% * Level
Clots can't grab you
Night Vision
Level 10
Vampire: No longer has a melee attack speed bonus
Butcher: Attack speed bonus reduced to 15%. (Total attack speed of 30% at level 25)
Level 15
Because the neutral damage resistance and the Parry skill have been moved over to passives, this one will be more or less of a rework
Natural Immunity: Gain 20% damage resistance vs. poison, sonic and fire damage
Frenzy: Gain a 5% Damage Bonus for every 6 HP lost. This DOES NOT stack with Dreadnought.
Natural immunity could be seen as a soft counter against Husks with the addition of fire resistance, though i think it would be more meaningful against the fireballs rather than the flamethrower.
Frenzy from my experience with the game back when there were only 4 perks really helped a lot against scrakes because you will botch your parries. Rather than "reward bad gameplay", it's more of a "claw your way out of a bad situation", because bad gameplay will still get you killed regardless if you have Frenzy or not.
Level 20
This is more about me being bothered by Massacre more than anything, but since we are talking about skill adjustments, might as well get this one out of the way
Massacre: Increase damage with light melee attacks and ranged perk weapons by 30% and 15% respectively. Also gain Tactical Reload on perk weapons
Because Smash is always better in most situations. The adjustments to Massacre would at least give the VLAD some amount of utility.
TODO
Level 5 skills. I really don't know how you'd adjust these to make room for better passives.