Difference between revisions of "Talk:Berserker"

Revision as of 19:16, 19 May 2015

From Lujo:

Can someone pls tell blovski the following, as I can't be part of the discussion:

- Pointing people towards Apheelsick with Bersekeres is very important. One of the few things I actually learned from the wiki (not just about berserkers but in general).

- Elf Berserker's very playable Vicious even without Mystera. Berserkers' spellcasting penalty is much more problematic when you're limited to 13 mana without shennanigans, Elf isn't. Elf converts 3 things you're got 2 Fireballs, 4 pops and you've got Cydstepp + Getindare, etc. It's a very low-ulock way of getting a very well rounded Berserker. Also one of the if not THE best examples of what Elves generally do for any character which is add spellcasting capabilities and open up opportuinities. You prep Elven Boots, you have full MR and 2 fireballs before you can blink, you don't even need Mystera.

- Goblin berserker isn't sub-par at all. If a class is already inclined to worship GG and good with GG, it's always gonna work with Goblins. In addition to the usual stuff, Since Goblins have a very easy time getting Enlightment, they can also easily become a spellcasting Berserker. Also, Berserker has an easy time fighting magic damage monsters, but finding proper targets can be a pain. Goblins can easily skip situations where there's not a good target at your current level, but there is one if you ding once, and they don't have to sacrifice much popcorn (or exploration looking for targets). Berserker has 50% damage resistance and +20% damage (+1 per level), he actually likes levels as they make both abilties stronger, he just doesn't want lvl 10. Another thing is that absolving a bunch of things early takes a lot of exploration for regening a large health pool (especially if you also go humility right away, and after a hard fight), goblins are kings of efficiently refilling lerge bars after a tough fight that didn't level you up. They're kinda brutal if someone points to them correctly, they just sinergize with different aspects of the Berserker than an Orc would.

• Also, works with JJ, wonnafyt is an extra hit for a Bersekere wihch is good, extra health is good on a berserker, and extra mana combined with the 3 natural mana boosters is 2 fireballs, works fine as well

- Gnome Berserker is sub-par, but is so sub-par that you need to jot down how you need to play him as there's not that many ways to do it effectively (while getting anything meaningful out of the gnome) and it's likely the berserker that people would need help with the most. GG, JJ, finding uses for mana potions via Trisword or Alch Scroll or preping Elven Boots for full magic resist with some spellcasting capability right off the bat is usually good enough, there's other stuff.

- !!! Important thing about Gnome Berserker - he's much better with Mystera than the Elf, because if you take 2 points of mana from mystera and Mystic Balance, you get 1 fireball per potion and you can also get (some) proper use out of refreshment, while the Elf is more likely to just pop a few glyphs and stuff to get to a 2-fireball pool early without Mystic Balance (and while in whatever god), or even a 3 with Mystic balance.

- Human Berserker just has to be played differently. Again, both bersekers abilities are good for efficient leveling and get stronger with levels, Human just adds a proper "reward" for using his skills to level up and converting glyphs for boons. Makes for a fine glass cannon high level berserker, especially vs Phys guys which you can't ussually get too many hits in against anway.

- Dwarves also work in much the same way, Berserker has a somwhat easy time leveling, and then you have a highly DMG resistant guy with a lot of health, all you need is refills. Drac + Dragonshield and you're a complete monster tank, what you want is refills.

You can add advice for any race with just a few sentences. And probably should, that's what people can use pointers on. The original article starts out with "Berserker is one of the more specialized classess" - and that's completely untrue, it's only like that if you only ever play Orcs (or Humans played like Orcs) with him. All the other guys make him waaaay more flexible and multi-practical. I playd 0 Orc Berserekers for full rainbows on the last playhtrough, did VT stuff with them regularly, never felt them either narrow or specialized. Played them without Vicious Rewards most of the time, too, and surprisingly little GG.

Beresrkers are only narrow and specialized if the wiki explicitly tells you only that and you buy into it. When you get down to it, Phys resist stuff and dungeons without much magic damage enemies are such obstacles to the typical Orc/MOAR DMG berserker that once you've got familiar with the other ones you begin to wonder what the actual point to recommending those is - everyone else has way fewer downsides without Namtars Wards, Dragonshields and Cleansings and such... Easier time picking targets, more opportunities, more relevant things on the board, whathave you.

An Elf Berserker with Mystera could be hilarious for the shenanigans. I think most players would rather play to the synergies than compensate for weaknesses, though. There could be situations where you'd want a mix of damage types, so oddball builds have a place. Even then, there are probably better hybrids out there who don't devote 60 piety just to erasing a weakness.

I think Dwarf Berserker is respectable enough to deserve a mention as "good" tier IMO. Goblin is hard for me to speak about. Gnome is definitely garbage tier. Human is probably fine, but the synergy is stronger with Orc, though I imagine the Human begins to outscale around 8 or 9, and is probably MUCH better for places like Naga City where DING MAX is inevitable. Conversely, if you're not going to hit 10 regardless, then hitting 9 instead of 8 as an Orc because of the stronger leveling phase could pay dividends. - MTaur

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Lujo:

There's a good reason why Berserker Gold looks the way it does.

The thing is that the Elf Berserker doesn't really need Mystera, and that the Gnome just gets more out of her - you can Pissorf spam VT's with the Mystera Gnome berserker, and I've done the same with the Elf Berserker in Slime Pits. "Most players wanting to play to the sinergies rather than compensate for the weaknesses" only makes sense if you only see one dimension of the class. Knowing that there's more to the berserker turns Slime Pits a palce you don't want to be in with a Berserker (only magic damage monster also has curse, lol) into something you're not worried about at all. A hoarder berserker is already fine enough at fighting uphill if you pick and choose targets, mediocre against some targets, and awful against physical resistant targets. Orc doesn't really do all that much for him, especially if you waste exploration looking for targets and CP. Orc makes him better at what he does already but that's pretty meh and really narrow as the Beresrker's good enough at that anyway and terrible at stuff he's bad at. A spellcasting Berserker (Elf, Gnome), an easy refill berserker (Halfling, Goblin), or to a degree a berseker with a huge late game (Human, Dwarf) - those things actually "break" the class and open up the board for him. It's why Orc Monks are so great, or why Dwarf Rogues are so great.

And it's quite hard to find a better Hybrid than the guy with starting 50% resists and no damage penalty. A spellcasting regen fighter > a non-spellcasting one. An Elf with Apheelsick/Halpmeh/Fireball (with very probable full mr from square 1) can make other options look stupid (not to mention still be able to spellcast while in Taurog). And if you're paying 60 piety on a gnome, but you get it just for casting utility/first strike/cydstepp while looking for targets means at one point you'll have a berserker who does a barrage of fireballs... Game has enough trouble dealing with Berserkeres who don't. You only need to build up melee because you can't ussually do that, if you can - it's just lolololol. Orc gets into "how do I deal with X" situations (as do humans and dwarves), other guys just don't.

It only sounds unorthodox because Darvin or whoever wrote the wiki had a narrow outlook on the game, in part because most of it was written when we were pretty nooby. And if someone doesn't believe it's difficult to convince a newbie of way too many things ask the devs if we ever bought into the idea that all tier 2 classess were designed to be hybrids. They all are, and they all point the player to reap the benefits of fixing their deficiencies with unintuitive-at-first race choices. Except we were sort of stubborn in our noobness and kept forcing what we saw as their "strenghts" or even deciding things are "just terrible" rather then even contemplate using a race which "didn't make sense" or whatever "only way to play" currently was. People were more inclined to recommend a vicious rewards like Dragonshield or Namtar's Ward as "core" on stuff and proclaim "class only works that way". Because yeah, if it was designed to be played in a way which never occured to you, ofc they'll only reliably work if you tack on "cheats" like Cleansing or whatever ("Cleansing = that thing which is supposed to stop you dead if you play like a dumbass dissapears") XD

Err, in short - what the "optimal" or even "sinergistic" way to play something is in fact extremely subjective. And so many things in the game are unintuitive.