(Interstellar Insanity) Why the Survivalist is a better Berserker than Berserker

[flashn00b]

After playing the Zerker myself in a server that isn't empty, I think it's safe to say that the Berserker is actually pretty bad right now. Even if you ignore the fact that the time it takes for a Zerker to get into his most optimal range for zed killing is also time it takes for other perks to kill them, the reduction in damage resistances is to such a degree that even if you time your parries correctly, you'll still get chewed up like you're made of paper.

Now if we don't ignore the fact that Killing Floor is a ranged game, I think i have some points as to why Survivalist in the beta branch is a better Berserker than Berserker.

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Weapon Damage and Level 5 skills
While definitely not as good as playing other perks and using their respective guns, the comparison is more directed towards the Berserker. By the time the Berserker gets into his most optimal range to kill a zed, someone else will have already gotten the kill. On versions 1113 and earlier, the seemingly ridiculous power that he has is more to make up for being a melee class in a game focused around ranged combat.

What Survivalist brings to the table is the ability to shoot guns better than the Berserker while also being similarly proficient in melee weapons (I'll get to that in better detail later). For now, what you need to know is that he can shoot zeds while making his advance, thinning whatever horde is in front of him before his mag runs out and by that point, he can switch to melee to finish off weakened enemies, while also benefitting from Tactical Reload skills based on what perk skill he chose at Level 5.

Damage resistances
Having been able to actually try the Zerker's balance changes in a server full of people, I can't help but note that even if you time your parries correctly, zed groups can still chew the Zerker up like he's made of paper (Resistance only brings your max Damage Resistance up to 25%, while Parry gives a 35% resistance on successfully parrying). Meanwhile, a Survivalist can get a 25% damage resistance simply by being Level 25 and on top of this, he has Heavy Armor Training similar to the SWAT's Heavy Armor Training skill, but as a passive. Yes, a Zerker with Parry will still have more damage resistance than a Survivalist, though the Survivalist more than makes up for it by having a gun to thin out whatever horde he plans on engaging in melee, so he'll already be taking fewer hits than what a Berserker will take when going into melee.

Melee weapons
The meat of the Berserker. If you're taking Butcher, then yes, you CAN do more damage than the Survivalist, though this amounts to a 95% damage bonus on bodyshots and 120% on Headshots. However, if you pick Vampire to mitigate the impact of received blows, then you'd be looking at 75% on body hits and 100% on headshots. However, the nerfs to Vampire kinda make the health recovery on kill pretty pointless so the usage of Vampire's pretty irrelevant at this point. So, Is a 95% damage bonus (120% on headshots) worth not having a gun? I guess that one's debatable though I have my personal doubts when considering that Zerker's damage output is weighed against the Survivalist's 90% extra melee damage with no extra damage on headshots, 15% extra damage with ranged weapons and faster reload speeds based on Level 5 skill selection

Other
On top of having a 25% damage resistance and SWAT's heavy armor training, Survivalists opting to only carry 15 blocks or less can make use of Medic Grenades to heal his teammates and/or heal himself in a sticky situation. That's gonna be a pretty big deal if you plan on Zerking as a Survivalist. In addition to this, you also have the Spontaneous Zed-Splosion skill at Level 20, which can help soften your targets in both melee and ranged combat.

With all that in mind, can people say with a straight face that Zerker is still worth playing when you consider what Survivalist brings to the table?

 

[Aze]

Melee weapons
The meat of the Berserker. If you're taking Butcher, then yes, you CAN do more damage than the Survivalist, though this amounts to a 95% damage bonus on bodyshots and 120% on Headshots. However, if you pick Vampire to mitigate the impact of received blows, then you'd be looking at 75% on body hits and 100% on headshots. However, the nerfs to Vampire kinda make the health recovery on kill pretty pointless so the usage of Vampire's pretty irrelevant at this point. So, Is a 95% damage bonus (120% on headshots) worth not having a gun? I guess that one's debatable though I have my personal doubts when considering that Zerker's damage output is weighed against the Survivalist's 90% extra melee damage with no extra damage on headshots, 15% extra damage with ranged weapons and faster reload speeds based on Level 5 skill selection

Just want to point out something here in regards to melee damage from the two respective perks:

Berserker:
Smash's heavy attack bonus is an outlier; It's a multiplicative bonus, rather than additive. This means that, as a level 25 Berserker, with Butcher, Smash and Parry, your heavy melee attacks will deal this much more damage than someone unperked:

((Passive+Butcher+Smash headshot+Parry) * Smash heavy) = (1,25 + 0,2 + 0,25 + 0,35) * 1,5 = 3,075x multiplier. Accounting for DPS with attackspeed added in, you have 3,075x * 1,2 = 3,69x multiplier.

Survivalist:
Survivalists' skills are all additive. This means:

(Passive+MeleeExpert) = 1,15 + 0,75 = 1,9x multiplier. Accounting for DPS with attackspeed added in, you have 1,9 * 1,2 = 2,28x multiplier

So Berserker is still offensively much stronger, at least.

 

[Humam2104]

What's the purpose of a zerk that can't heal himself? Do I have to buy the hemoclobber every time?

 

[flashn00b]

What's the purpose of a zerk that can't heal himself? Do I have to buy the hemoclobber every time?

Pretty much. Meanwhile, a Survivalist focused on melee combat can throw a medic grenade at his feet before engaging waves and/or large zeds. Heck, he could elect to empty his guns before entering melee.

 

[OnionBubs]

Just want to point out something here in regards to melee damage from the two respective perks:
<snip>
So Berserker is still offensively much stronger, at least.

This, plus the fact that Smash greatly increases your stumble power, allowing Zerk to actually chain together 0->death combos that Survivalist absolutely doesn't have on any melee weapon that isn't a one-shot to begin with, or to stagger an entire horde at close range if he doesn't kill them outright.

What's the purpose of a zerk that can't heal himself? Do I have to buy the hemoclobber every time?

The stuff I read makes my head hurt.

Dreadnaught has existed since Early Access to allow you to function as a damage sponge for Zerkwalling and to survive hits from bosses that would instantly kill lesser perks (or lethally injure Skirmisher zerks), and its effectiveness is exponentially improved when used in conjunction with a LLLLL Medic because the bonuses stack to give you an insane amount of effective health.

Pretty much. Meanwhile, a Survivalist focused on melee combat can throw a medic grenade at his feet before engaging waves and/or large zeds. Heck, he could elect to empty his guns before entering melee.

The Survivalist running a melee build can get off my team unless his name is Fat Cat, because he could be running something useful instead of taking up an extra player slot. On top of that, if one of your base strategies for tackling a horde necessitates use of a medic grenade on the bounds that you expect to eat hits while doing so, then you have an inherent problem with that plan.

But regardless, the Survivalist is objectively worse at killing things than the Zerk. Also, Zerk has guns. The Eviscerator is still fine when taking all of the bonuses into account, the Nailgun can still be spammed for full damage bonuses with Parry and Smash, and the Teslauncher can still be used to cheese large Zeds by setting up HVT kills for your team while still letting you contribute to chaos teams via headshot damage (although it's probably not the best idea cuz afterburn exists).

And yes, Parry/Smash/Butcher affect all of the above to some degree (if memory serves the raw damage boost from Smash doesn't apply to the Evisc, even though the headshot damage booster does). They may not be the best guns in the game, but hey, that's the tradeoff for running a perk that gets multiplicative damage boosts along with speed and HP tanking capabilities (including regen on kill).

Yes, Survivalist can use guns, but their actual decent *builds are basically limited to "the offperk weapon list, and I guess Frost Fang." I'd still rather have a teammate that knows how to score headshots with a specialized perk and not someone running Diet Zerk (or diet anything, for that matter).

 

[Humam2104]

Pretty much. Meanwhile, a Survivalist focused on melee combat can throw a medic grenade at his feet before engaging waves and/or large zeds. Heck, he could elect to empty his guns before entering melee.

You can run out of grenades.. and die

The stuff I read makes my head hurt.

Dreadnaught has existed since Early Access to allow you to function as a damage sponge for Zerkwalling and to survive hits from bosses that would instantly kill lesser perks (or lethally injure Skirmisher zerks), and its effectiveness is exponentially improved when used in conjunction with a LLLLL Medic because the bonuses stack to give you an insane amount of effective health.

I was actually talking about the survivalist.. he can't heal himself unless he has the hemoclobber or medic grenades.

 

[CitronVert]

After playing the Zerker myself in a server that isn't empty, I think it's safe to say that the Berserker is actually pretty bad right now.

Haven't tried multiplayer in the beta yet, but based on solo play, no I don't think it's safe to say that. Zerk is way worse than before, but still probably OP in the right hands.

If survivalist is now a better berserker than berserker, then it means survivalist needs to be nerfed as well, and I guess nerfing hemoclobber is probably enough for achieving that purpose (which TWI has said they were looking into).

But I don't think survivalist is a better berserker than berserker, or at least, I would like to fix your comparison.

Weapon Damage and Level 5 skills

[...] By the time the Berserker gets into his most optimal range to kill a zed, someone else will have already gotten the kill. [...]

This is a very misleading statement.

If we're talking about a farming map in low difficulty where zeds align in front of your visor without doing anything, then yes, your statement is true.

But if we're talking a realistic game, not even HoE, zeds will most likely not be as friendly as you make it sound, and in this situation, Zerk has many valuable strengths: AoE attacks, no need for ammo, no need to aim as precisely as other perks, not as disturbed by trash, can stun big zeds, can not be grabbed by clots, etc.

Survivalist being better at distance than zerk is not a strength, because zerk being melee-based is not a drawback, and even if it was, you could simply take an offperk weapon or nailgun because zerk weapons don't weight a lot.

So now, the comparison.

Damage resistances

I agree with this part. Survivalist may be slightly more tanky than zerk now. With skirmisher though, zerk still has +1 hp/s regen which helps a lot when kiting. Probably similar to healing grenades in power level.

Melee weapons
The meat of the Berserker. If you're taking Butcher, then yes, you CAN do more damage than the Survivalist, though this amounts to a 95% damage bonus on bodyshots and 120% on Headshots. [...]

So Berserker does more damage than survivalist at the expense of being a bit less survivable, that's just like other classes. Also don't forget that Zerk can stun with right clicks.

Other
On top of having a 25% damage resistance and SWAT's heavy armor training, Survivalists opting to only carry 15 blocks or less can make use of Medic Grenades to heal his teammates and/or heal himself in a sticky situation. That's gonna be a pretty big deal if you plan on Zerking as a Survivalist. In addition to this, you also have the Spontaneous Zed-Splosion skill at Level 20, which can help soften your targets in both melee and ranged combat.

With all that in mind, can people say with a straight face that Zerker is still worth playing when you consider what Survivalist brings to the table?

But zerk also has the following strengths:
- Best zed time perk
- Auto regen
- All the benefits of Parry
- EMP grenade has its uses against husks/EDARs
- Better starting weapon
- Much easier to lvl up than survivalist

Summary

Survivalist is not a better zerk than zerk, it is an alternate version of zerk with some upsides (ranged, resistance), some downsides (no regen, no parry), and probably close in power level, which is how it should be.

 

[Bonana]

Berserker even can't use new melee weapon!

 

[Kittenmittens]

Berserker even can't use new melee weapon!

If you are talking about the new HRG Blast Brawlers, those are not a melee weapon. They are a shotguns, a ranged weapon. They do not have the same behaviors as melee weapons.