Possible Suggestion for a Berserker buff

[Undedd Jester]

I was thinking about a couple of threads that have suggested the Beserker should have an eve greater damage resistance than he does now to make him more functional against the different foes. He already gets up to a 25% reduction and some suggested as much as 50% reduction.

I personally felt this was too high, and to be honest anything above 25% does sound a tad overpowered. So I started thinking whyat has caused the Berserker to suddenly become so ineffective compared to how it was originally? The list is: -

- Chainsaw headshots multiplyer switched to 0.25 making using it alot more difficult and awkward
- Specimens being updated to not stand in place while attacking (Gorefast and Scrake)
- Fleshpound random rage, and their instant decap removal.
- Addition of the Husk to cuase players more difficulty from range.

Well chainsaw does need fixing to be fair, but the others are things that really do help the game rather than hinder it, and shouldn't really be changed. A buff to his overall resistance is going for too overpowered, however I thought there may be a way to address the Husk issue.

Although the Berserker does get his reduction in damage, getting set on fire causes his precious armour to rapidly melt away due to the continual damage. Bloat does inflict DoT but the Zerker is resistant to that so it isn't an issue. However whats to say this couldn't be used for the Husk as well?

Simply make the Berserker immune to being set on fire. This isn't the same as immune to fire damage like the Firebug, he would still take damage as normal when hit by the Husk, but he simply wouldn't be ignited (at least while he still armour) and therefore his armour would stay significantly more intact.

The Husk was a good addition to make things more challenging for all classes, but the Berserker was particularly punished by its addition. This small change would improve the survivability of the Zerker, without making him an unstoppable tank against every other specimen to which he is pretty well balanced.

This is assuming the Berserker needs a survival buff, as I know from my own feelings of the Firebug, fans of the Berserker may not want to see it buffed at all. But its food for thought at least.

 

[YFGHNG]

I wouldn't say give the zerker immunity to being set on fire, while having armor. Because that would literally give the zerker immunity to everything but the husk's melee and explosive radius of his projectiles.

I'd probably go for a small part of the firebug's immunity to fire attached onto the zerker. Like maybe starting from lvl 3, the zerker would have 5%, 10%, 10%, and 15% resistance to fire. It would also apply to his armor, which would still be burnable, but not so quickly.

 

[Entangler]

I don't particularly agree with the suggestion itself, but your train of thought is certainly interesting. Personally I've always been of the opinion that the Berserker perk doesn't need any changes at all - specifically, that its survivability issues rest solely with its armoury rather than its bonuses. In fact, I plan to post a thread of my own on that very issue shortly.

About the suggestion: I can see where you're coming from, but I think you've made the same mistake as the people who suggest the huge damage resistance buffs: "The Husk is another Berserker weakness, and currently he has one too many, so this one needs to be curbed." To be honest, as a Berserker myself, I never find Husks to be that big of a deal except when facing the Berserker's other weaknesses at the same time - that is, when facing a spread-out group of Crawlers or when Sirens are hiding in the pack two metres away. Then, certainly, Husks can be the last straw, but the rest of the time they're fairly harmless. Instead of focussing on how the Husk contributes to situations like that, I think it'd be best to consider how the Berserker ends up in those situations in the first place.

So I'm afraid I'm going to have to vote no, but I appreciate the thought you've put into it. I'd be interested to hear your feedback on my own take on the Berserker issue once I post that new thread.

 

[Undedd Jester]

Its a fair point dude, to be honest I think the issue at the minute is that like the Firebug, the Berserker doesn't reign supreme over everything, which to be fair is what I love about the class.

My line of thinking was the Firebug only really has 2 specimens that it is inherantly weak against (Scrake and Fleshpound), and is OK against 1 other (Gorefasts... damn their quick). The Berserker far as my experience goes is weak against 2 (sirens and fleshpounds) and is OK against another 2 (Husk and Crawler). Plus there has been alot batted around that the Medic is better at berserking than the Berserker due to his armour protection, however I myself noted that while his armour is up the Berserker is a freight train.

Not being a true Berserker myself I appreciate that improving the Berserker unnecessarily would put true fans of the class off. I like the idea of partial resistance instead of immunity actually YFG, I'd forgotten that the Zerker already has a damage reduction to the projectile as well

But yeah definately I'd be interested to see your take on improving the Zerker (if he needs it )

 

[Zerotick]

In Most cases, i would say a 6 Medic can do a 6 Berserker Job just as well, Perhaps even better. So I've been thinking, Since the Berserkers job is to be on the frontline beating back specimens, I've thought of A couple ideas to help him out on this, ANY Input/Suggestions are WELCOME.

First, He has all those Zed Time extensions, sure it's nice, but it doesn't really Help as much as i'd hope, I figure since he has all those extensions, he should get a very useful boost from it by:

Uninhibited Movement and Swing speed during Zed Time (While a Melee weapon is equipped).
Reason i think this would be helpful and Balanced: He has all those Zed time extensions, But Zed time isn't Very useful for him, Sure it gives him a second to analyze the threats (which he can't do well since he's in a Zeds face cutting it off) But Good Berserkers analyze threats before they enter Melee range. This would help the berserker dominate threats at close range (which is his job)And give Berserkers a reason to WANT to see zed time.

+10% more Resistance damage to all attacks. for a total of 35%. 25% just doesn't seem to be enough to me. and 45%+ Seems like too much resistance to me, he's supposed to be tough, not invincible.

Starting at level 4 The Berserker obtains MINOR health regeneration capabilities 4: 1 point every 5 seconds, 5: 1 point every 4 seconds, 6: 1 point every 3 seconds. As i said, he's supposed to be tough, not invincible.

Damage And Swing Speed:
Damage wise, I feel it's fine as is, He does TWICE as much damage per Melee Attack, than any other perk can.
Swing Speed i feel he needs a 10% boost as well. 25% just doesn't seem fast enough to me.

Any suggestions or concerns with my Idea are Welcomed.

NOTICE: Most of my statements are based on a Level 6 berserker. I haven't thought out which abilities would be obtained on 'X' Perk Level except for Regeneration.

Thanks for reading :3

 

[Vaecrius]

How about an armour discount and/or spawning with armour? I mean, that is the big thing besides the speed boost that makes medics so effective, and it would also give the zerker more money to buy a ranged weapon to avoid overspecializing.

 

[9_6]

Armor discount should be a berserker-thing imo rather than a medic thing.

 

[Vaecrius]

It should be both. Playing as med being able to physically get between a critical teammate and the zeds can be very useful to buy some time and let people recover - and if the zerk is doing their job they'll be too busy hacking stuff apart to perform such a maneuver.

 

[9_6]

No 2 perks should share the same bonus.

 

[Salad Snake]

No 2 perks should share the same bonus.

This is also my train of thought, but Berserker is really reliant on armor (like Medic) and becomes much weaker without it. Which lead me to the conclusion that Berserker should get an armor upgrade, but in a different way then Medic (still accomplishing the same thing but in a different way).


My idea was to let higher-level Berserkers use two armor suits (or upgrade his armor with extra padding/thickness/whatever you want to use to explain above 100 armor points). Strange idea, I know, but hear me out. Just like adding an extra 9mm, wearing another armor suit adds 4kg's or so, and slows you down by 5-10%. The upshot to this is that you, of course, have 200 armor points. While this is functionally the exact same as Medic's armor, it's done in a different enough fashion that it doesn't seem redundant to players who use both perks. It also gives Berserkers something else to waste money on (after buying a Katana and X-bow they're pretty set except for grenades and armor repairs).

 

[Compass]

Why not make the Berserker an actual berserker? Give him a damage buff bar as he gets kills.

Every 10 enemies in a wave he kills, he gets an additional 1%*Rank bonus, so at Rank 4, he gets additional 4%. If he doesn't kill anything for 15 seconds, reduced to 0. So he gets STRONGER as you play a wave.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

I think the problem is less with Zerker and more with the Medic. I've seen Level 6 Medics completely surrounded by Clots and Crawlers, yet he was still able to cut them all down while still having over half his armor left. Simply put, I've seen plenty of players whom by all rights should have been killed because they got clumsy, but made it out alive due to the extreme survivability of his class.

I think it's less that we need to buff the Zerker's survivability/offense and more that the Medic's armor needs to be nerfed a little. I'm definitely cool with the Medic having higher survivability than the rest of the team (while his armor is up), but I've watched it prove time and time again to provide too much protection. I think a better fix for the Berserker's problem would be to set the Medic's armor protection to cap-out at it's Level 5 value of 50% improvement.

 

[9_6]

This is also my train of thought, but Berserker is really reliant on armor (like Medic) and becomes much weaker without it. Which lead me to the conclusion that Berserker should get an armor upgrade, but in a different way then Medic (still accomplishing the same thing but in a different way).


My idea was to let higher-level Berserkers use two armor suits (or upgrade his armor with extra padding/thickness/whatever you want to use to explain above 100 armor points). Strange idea, I know, but hear me out. Just like adding an extra 9mm, wearing another armor suit adds 4kg's or so, and slows you down by 5-10%. The upshot to this is that you, of course, have 200 armor points. While this is functionally the exact same as Medic's armor, it's done in a different enough fashion that it doesn't seem redundant to players who use both perks. It also gives Berserkers something else to waste money on (after buying a Katana and X-bow they're pretty set except for grenades and armor repairs).

Or just give him +50% self-heal potency and 50 more health.
Medic is the armor shield, berserker is the meat shield.

 

[Vaecrius]

No 2 perks should share the same bonus.

Isn't the firebug already supposed to spawn with armour at high level? And I'm sure there are other examples.

I'm flat-out against anything that would increase the player's health above 100, as that would be the game's first step to a place from which there is no return.
YouTube - WoW - Heroic Oculus - Epic Boss Fight

 

[Zeron]

Isn't the firebug already supposed to spawn with armour at high level? And I'm sure there are other examples.

I'm flat-out against anything that would increase the player's health above 100, as that would be the game's first step to a place from which there is no return.
YouTube - WoW - Heroic Oculus - Epic Boss Fight

Lawl, that guy is using the default UI. What a failure.

Anyways, i think it would be neat to be able to have health over 100. You're a tank, get some resistance stats like one. And one of those stats is higher base health.

 

[9_6]

Isn't the firebug already supposed to spawn with armour at high level? And I'm sure there are other examples.

Those are all things the upcoming patch will fix. Hopefully.
Obviously the firebug only has the flamer and the zerker has no higher tier weapon than the "pre nerf " chainsaw.
There's also no reason to let the support spec have grenade bonuses anymore and boat bile resistance isn't really something a medic needs etc.

I'm flat-out against anything that would increase the player's health above 100, as that would be the game's first step to a place from which there is no return.

That's funny cause 25% damage resistance already effectively increases the health to 125 yet people still want to increase that.
By that logic, you should be against any sort of bonus.

 

[Vaecrius]

Support needs the grenade bonuses because he's the one who welded all the damn doors.
It's been already established that the firebug not having armour is the bug.
The medic's bile resistance is part of the medic's job in rushing into bad places.
You don't "really" "need" any of the perks at all, so I don't get what your "isn't something ___ really needs" attitude is about.

Damage resistance != more max hitpoints, I thought we'd gone through this. Nevermind the mathematical difference of what sort of damage it's better against, but... Let's say a medic's shot heals 40 health (pulling the number out of my bottle of glass). Right now that always means boosting someone back up by 40%. A target with 200 HP however enjoys only a 20% boost. So you either scale the syringe according to the target's health (and make each HP increase that much more potent), or leave things odd and counterintuitive, or offer an upgrade for the medic to match this that creates yet another arms race within the game development.

Right now we've got gradual increases in player firepower, player abilities, monster health, and monster attack power. Player health is the only constant metric by which we can measure the absolute power of a given actor - and if we lose that, we might as well scale everything like another 80-level MMORPG with no sense of proportion between two random human beings.

I don't think most of us bought KF to play that kind of game.

 

[Zeron]

Those are all things the upcoming patch will fix. Hopefully.
Obviously the firebug only has the flamer and the zerker has no higher tier weapon than the "pre nerf " chainsaw.
There's also no reason to let the support spec have grenade bonuses anymore and boat bile resistance isn't really something a medic needs etc.


That's funny cause 25% damage resistance already effectively increases the health to 125 yet people still want to increase that.
By that logic, you should be against any sort of bonus.

25% damage reduction =/= 125 health bro.

 

[Undedd Jester]

TBH I made this suggestion well well back, and there have since been a number of much better suggestions to buff the Berserker. First and foremost the Chainsaw.

But seriously if people want to debate about how to buff the Zerker, personally I think Entangler hit the nail right on the head with a much better thought out idea.

http://forums.tripwireinteractive.com/showthread.php?t=43669

 

[Sammers]

It's either a damage-decrease buff or a weapon buff that the Beserker needs. +1