Berserker/Melee Ability Balance

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jestdoit

FNG / Fresh Meat
Dec 31, 2013
63
0
0
Play on Suicidal or HoE. A max level berserker won't survive 2 hits.


Well, HoE is doable with zerks. It's just that the team's entire focus shifts to following and supporting his royal arse, because if you don't people start dying. The medics are too focused on him to be able to support people spread out around the battlefield. The killing speed plummets since the medics aren't fighting/meleeing offensively themselves, and zerks are constantly running away.
 

ZetaBladeX13

FNG / Fresh Meat
Feb 22, 2011
11
1
0
Sounds like someone made a tank in an MMO and forgot to put any stat points into VIT or STR.

Man, that sure sounds like a good class to play, doesn't it? /sarcasm
 

Nenga

FNG / Fresh Meat
Apr 24, 2015
522
0
0
If I'm not mistaken they nerfed the melee damage that berserkers get when they nerfed the pulverizer right?
Wait wait wait they nerfed the pulverizer before EA and it's still the berserker's strongest weapon? I would love to see what godly level it was at before.
 

weeman2412

FNG / Fresh Meat
Jan 11, 2010
359
48
0
Wait wait wait they nerfed the pulverizer before EA and it's still the berserker's strongest weapon? I would love to see what godly level it was at before.

Tripwire did a good job making the worst class become even worser. Berserker nades use to be so potent, it could stun flesh pounds. They got rid of that of course. They then proceed to nerf the damage of the berserker to the point where a commando can out dps a berserker with the scar rifle, and even have more health than the berserker.

Tripwire knows how to make a very good looking game with great core mechanics, but it seems like whoever is doing their balance is completely clueless.
 

ZetaBladeX13

FNG / Fresh Meat
Feb 22, 2011
11
1
0
This is why it's in EA though.

They felt it was a good idea to get community feedback to balance the game. I'm certain some perks will be re-balanced multiple times before the full release.
 

SteelSoldier

FNG / Fresh Meat
Dec 25, 2009
155
0
0
Shouldnt bash tripwire right off the bat, they decided to do early access to get info and numbers and see what they need to do in order to make each one of the perks more reliable and not overpowered.
 

UserSD

FNG / Fresh Meat
Jan 8, 2012
424
14
0
Berserkers are pretty useless, and I've been playing one for a bit. To survive on HARD, you actually have to dance around like a monkey and hope to god you don't have to handle more than 3 enemies at once or else you are dead.

When a scrake comes, you have to parry, stun him with the hammer, and hope to god people do enough damage to kill him or else you die even with medics healing you.

The 5% damage reduction might as well not be there. Imagine a scrake attacks you for 30hp a swing (about a rough estimate without armor, they probably do more). Of that swing, you negate 1.5 damage. It takes about 4 swings to kill you, whether you have that 5% damage reduction or not.

25% melee damage? Pretty useless. Compare the number of swings other classes take to kill the same mob.

Siren resistance is lackluster since they aren't that much of a threat

Boat resistance is pretty lacking, even a medic which doesn't have to have contact with a bloats bile to kill them has a scaling bile resistance. A zerk, however, will have a very hard time not getting hit by bile whether by attacking a bloat or accidentally (from teammates shooting nearby bloats).

Movement speed is nice.

attack speed is the best of the bunch.

So in passive stats the zerk is really not that great, with only 2 stats that really end up making a difference, and even these do not provide the necessary defence


Moving onto perks...

Bulk ammo might be somewhat useful if you use the nailer, won't make much of a difference with the eviscerator due to it's low total ammo count.

Night vision is pretty lackluster, with a low use time, blurry vision, and not much brighter vision

Frenzy is moot, medics will heal you pretty fast so you're likely never low on HP. With your low total health, in a situation where you would loose enough health to make a difference, you would die.

Fake out is great, helps a lot with mobillity and fighting melee

Furious Defender - See frenzy, same logic applies.

Formidable is nice, especially against big zeds. You first attack will ensure they do less 15% damage if you fail a parry. Can be nice on large groups of gorefasts.

Take cover is very situational. Might get you of trouble if **** hits the fan, but let's face it, if your hp drops below 20 you're most likely dead whether you run faster or not.

Indimidate, well... 10% of light attack? not really that much. 15% of heavy attacks? With how much time they take to execute, not really consistent, more like a lucky strike.

Zed Time perks are more or less OK.

So yeah, a zerks perks are also pretty useless for most melee combat.
Zerk needs a buff.
 

Maddoxx

FNG / Fresh Meat
Sep 16, 2011
941
46
0
Earth
Heeeh!

Well, yes, zerk seems nooby now!

While trying him out in KF2 and noticing him being a novice, i missed the zerk from KF1.

So....i installed KF1 this weekend for the first time since spring 2014..

Ohh, that was a rush....i missed the zerk.... So beautiful perk....when effective enough.
 

Severeaids

Member
Mar 17, 2015
100
0
16
Wait wait wait they nerfed the pulverizer before EA and it's still the berserker's strongest weapon? I would love to see what godly level it was at before.

Yup the pulverizer was nerfed like a day or 2 into the beta. According to them it was doing too much damage. While I agree it was because it was killing scrakes and fps in like 2 hits they also reduced the berserkers melee damage scaling and increased the damage of primary swings of melee weapons or something like that. A nerd to the pulverizer would have been just fine just now other perks can pick up a pulverizer and be a better berserker. However it is early access and fom the data they received about zerks and pulverizer doing too much damage it was probably just a "oh **** this thing is killing everything" kind of nerf so they are probably reading all of our complaints on the berserker. I'm not losing hope lol
 

KingJoker

FNG / Fresh Meat
Jun 15, 2009
762
3
0
Far Far Away
Zerk just need an HP pool IMO. Zerk is a trash killing class and is great at it right now, but when the big dudes come out and i can land my parries but my team is ****ING STUPID, and won't kill him while hes staggered... thats when problems happen.


Zerk just needs HP, thats it, not DPS... well maybe a bit especially when dealing with the ****ing Husk and a bit of a nudge in damage when dealing with biggies.


The ZED is in a good spot imo, he just needs some slight tweaks here and there. I like what they want the zerk to do, it just needs a polish. He's a trash killer and not a boss killer this time around, i like it, it's where he belongs.
 

Chucklehead

FNG / Fresh Meat
Aug 20, 2011
39
0
0
25% melee damage? Pretty useless. Compare the number of swings other classes take to kill the same mob.

Movement speed is nice.

attack speed is the best of the bunch.

So in passive stats the zerk is really not that great, with only 2 stats that really end up making a difference, and even these do not provide the necessary defence.
It's depressing when all the other perks become noticeably stronger as they rank up. Much faster reloads, larger magazines, armor repair, extremely fast syringe recharge, increased survivability etc.

During my last solo suicidal run, I accidentally swapped perks on wave 6 out of 7 from lv23 zerk to my lv4 medic and the only noticeable loss was my pulverizer swung more slowly and that clots might have been able to grab me. Hans probably wouldn't have gone any slower if I hadn't changed perks back either.

Time spent leveling, ranking up 23 times sure feels like a huge waste when I don't feel any stronger than I was at lv1.
 
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UserSD

FNG / Fresh Meat
Jan 8, 2012
424
14
0
Zerk just need an HP pool IMO. Zerk is a trash killing class and is great at it right now, but when the big dudes come out and i can land my parries but my team is ****ING STUPID, and won't kill him while hes staggered... thats when problems happen.


Zerk just needs HP, thats it, not DPS... well maybe a bit especially when dealing with the ****ing Husk and a bit of a nudge in damage when dealing with biggies.


The ZED is in a good spot imo, he just needs some slight tweaks here and there. I like what they want the zerk to do, it just needs a polish. He's a trash killer and not a boss killer this time around, i like it, it's where he belongs.

A trash killer? What have you been drinking? The only time a zerk can ever hope to be useful now is for parrying scrakes and fleshpounds. Commando is a trash killer. Medic is a trash killer.

Zerk? You'd be lucky reach a pack of trash mobs before someone headshots them all.
 

Chucklehead

FNG / Fresh Meat
Aug 20, 2011
39
0
0
A trash killer? What have you been drinking? The only time a zerk can ever hope to be useful now is for parrying scrakes and fleshpounds. Commando is a trash killer. Medic is a trash killer.

Zerk? You'd be lucky reach a pack of trash mobs before someone headshots them all.
Believe it or not, my friends and I found it pretty useful to have me slapchop most of the zeds in the first couple of waves on HoE because it'd save a bunch of ammo.

The crovel is very good with increased swing speed. On HoE where zeds can run up to you before your commando can kill all of them makes zerk actually pretty good at clearing early trash with a medic there for heals. However, in a public match and a difficulty where zeds are much less sprint-happy, yea, good luck trying to hit anything with the shovel.

And despite the completely **** scaling passives and skills we get, a zerker makes it very possible to reach Hans on HoE with a smaller team (3manned as zerk/commando/medic) but that's just a testament to how good the zerker weapons are on an utterly lackluster perk.
 

outofrealman

FNG / Fresh Meat
Oct 29, 2009
1,848
336
0
What about successful parry will automatically perform a ripose attack which does...more than normal damage? So parrying is not just a stun lock, it can actually do damage. And have berserker perk increase the ripose damage per level.
 

Savage Rodent

Member
Mar 29, 2015
290
1
18
What about successful parry will automatically perform a ripose attack which does...more than normal damage? So parrying is not just a stun lock, it can actually do damage. And have berserker perk increase the ripose damage per level.

I would definitely like this, if parrying was consistent and doable on higher difficulties. The way it is right now, parrying a raging scrake is more luck based I feel.
 

UserSD

FNG / Fresh Meat
Jan 8, 2012
424
14
0
I would definitely like this, if parrying was consistent and doable on higher difficulties. The way it is right now, parrying a raging scrake is more luck based I feel.

I can parry them pretty well on some servers. I feel like some server where the scrakes attack is very well in sync I can parry about 80% of the time if I put my mind to it, while on other server where the scrake is kind of desyncing a bit I can get hit a couple of times

The spinning chainsaw attack however is pretty hard.
 

Shining Wolf

FNG / Fresh Meat
Dec 13, 2011
879
5
0
Zerk just needs HP, thats it, not DPS... well maybe a bit especially when dealing with the ****ing Husk and a bit of a nudge in damage when dealing with biggies.

I don't care if husk gets a specific weakness to the pulverizer, but with the refire rate of the alt and the fact that zerkers need to get right next to a husk that can attack from range to kill it, the alt should absolutely one shot husks anywhere it hits.
I can parry them pretty well on some servers. I feel like some server where the scrakes attack is very well in sync I can parry about 80% of the time if I put my mind to it, while on other server where the scrake is kind of desyncing a bit I can get hit a couple of times

The spinning chainsaw attack however is pretty hard.

Parrying becomes way off even with 30 ping. Being able to parry perfectly on a local game and then missing most parries means something needs to be changed.
 
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SteelSoldier

FNG / Fresh Meat
Dec 25, 2009
155
0
0
Honestly here's my personal opinion, instead of making it like you need to time it perfectly, give it a bigger timeframe, like instead of making it almost instant when the enemy attacks, widen the time frame a bit for the berserker.

Potentially make it so he can only parry 1 or 2 times and then it has a cooldown before you can parry successfully again.
 

Shining Wolf

FNG / Fresh Meat
Dec 13, 2011
879
5
0
Honestly here's my personal opinion, instead of making it like you need to time it perfectly, give it a bigger timeframe, like instead of making it almost instant when the enemy attacks, widen the time frame a bit for the berserker.
Basically this or make it clientside, but I'd prefer this since clientside means someone would make parry hacks or whatever. Maybe make blocking not a purely worse option as well. It's not like parrying the slower attacks is difficult with no latency, anyway.