Paladin is the better tank, but Warrior is the better class

[Gooner_iBluAirJGR]

Did anyone read the OP?

[Kitru]

I don't, it's an interesting mechanic and draw back to a powerful ability.

The problem with the drawback on Berserk is that Berserk really isn't strong enough to justify a drawback if you're looking at all CDs as if they're supposed to be balanced. Since it increases attack power rather than damage outright, it's closer to a 40% increase in damage dealt for the duration than the 50% that a lot of people say it is. On top of that, the Pacification neuters the practical value of Berserk: you're doing 140% total damage for a time and then spend a quarter of the time you were buffed doing only 25% of your total damage (you only get autoattacks, which make up slightly more than 25% of total DPS). That ends up being a total of an average 12% damage buff over the 25 seconds that Berserk is affecting you. Compare that to Fight or Flight which is straight up 30% for 30 seconds on the exact same CD: FoF provides more than double the increase in damage and lasts 20% longer on top of it. Over time, thanks to the Pacification, Berserk provides you with a whopping 3.33% increase to total DPS. Fight or Flight provides a 10% increase. Cross-class Blood for Blood provides 5% (20 * 20 / 80). Berserk provides as much as a Bard's Raging Strikes, which is its second weakest CD *out of the 5 that it gets*.

Berserk is weak as hell. It is nowhere *near* as strong as some people think it is. It lets you flash big numbers, but it doesn't actually add all that much over time. As a CD, it's pretty terrible, especially given the fact that it's a unique CD that is improved by a trait.

If the Pacification on it were removed, it would be stronger (8.88% over time) but still weaker than Fight or Flight.

Of course, I don't really think that Berserk needs to be fixed or change much. WAR and PLD damage/enmity is *really* well balanced so it doesn't really matter that Berserk sucks noodles compared to Fight or Flight because WAR doesn't *need* a CD like FoF to do its job. People just need to realize that Berserk is pretty low on the spectrum of relative CD strength.

[Ehayte]

Theorycraft Garbage ... Berserk is weak as hell.

It gives you a stack of Wrath off the GCD... If you can't apply that to be extremely useful you are a garbage player. Just because you can't fit that into a a long multiplication equation doesn't make it "weak as hell".

(Also, I'm aware you can add that into a multiplication equation to find out how much more often you can use inner beast through its application, and how much more healing over time you get through that in a theoretical value, but that multiplication does not quantify how useful an instant stack of wrath is - I don't care what you say)

[ZDamned]

Super angry at someone who mathematically proved something that I disagree with.......

If your saying 1 stack of Wrath makes up for 5 seconds of not attacking, then you are the garbage player. =/ You could have built 2 stacks in the time the Pacification period is up, so that makes Berserk still sub par overall, IF your using it when you don't have 5 stacks already. I don't see how adding that stack makes the skill any better honestly, unless it added 3-4 or even acted as a 2nd Infuriate, then I can see the skill being far stronger in terms of realistic usage vs other class's Cool Downs. What Kitru is saying is 100% accurate, and you seem to be blinded by a big flashy number which is only useful in a Burst scenario, Titan Heart, or finishing off a sub 10% HP Boss.

[Ehayte]

...you seem to be blinded by a big flashy number which is only useful in a Burst scenario, Titan Heart, or finishing off a sub 10% HP Boss.

Using Berserk exclusively to boost your Inner Beast is dumb. Think about this: Heavy Swing > Inner Beast > Infuriate > Inner Beast > Vengeance > Maim > Berserk > Storm's Eye. That's two inner beasts and back to 4 wrath stacks in 5 GCDs. It allows you to combine skills to regain 4 stacks of wrath in 2 GCDs...so your sentiment of "unless it added 3-4 or even acted as a 2nd Infuriate" is pretty close to what it actually does.

What do you want, a 12% damage increase over 25s, 5 stacks of wrath, and 1,000,000 gil added to your retainer every time you use it?By the by, you can still produce enmity in the 5s a WAR is paci'ed. Unless you are asserting that WAR is a dps, then not being able to do damage is NOT the end of the world, in fact, if you use it in concert with anticipating running out of TP, you can use that time to Flash>Brutal Swing>Flash to recover TP and generate enmity.

In addition, if you add Bloodbath and Vengeance into the mix, along with internal release, you can create a period of moderate health regeneration that ends with an IB that heals for...what, 350% of damage done by a berserked and crit buffed IB?

Also:

A) Yes, I am angry at people spouting theorycraft that damages public opinion of WAR way past what it should be (WAR is NOT as viable as PLD, but its closer than people think).
B) Her math was not all inclusive, it did not take into account the increased healing % you get from a wrath stack, the +crit % you get from a wrath stack, the additional uses of IB you can get from quicker Wrath regen, or the fact that DPS is not entirely what makes a WAR effective.
C) You still attack during paci, Kitru stated herself that you still retain 25% of your dps through auto-attacks. Also, what do you consider an attack? Is brutal swing an attack? Flash?

[Paikis]

If you look at the Warrior's skills over the long period, they aren't very good. This is a mistake that a lot of people make. The game doesn't care that over the next 7 seconds you will complete your Butcher's Block combo for an average threat of 600 per second. It cares that you've only hit Heavy Swing so far and that the Black Mage just used a firestarter proc and stole agro from you RIGHT NOW. Averages matter, but you cannnot base your entire play style around them.

Berserk's value lies in the fact that it gives you stuff NOW. 1 stack of wrath NOW. Extra damage and threat NOW. Extra healing when used for Inner Beast NOW. Don't forget also that while you are pacified, you can still use Flash. Berserk is a large gain in enmity, even if it isn't a massive gain in damage and you should be using it almost every time it is available. Even if it worked out to be no net gain, it would still be worth using simply because it gives you stuff NOW.

Inner Beast is another skill I see people doing this with. "Don't use Inner Beast unless you have Infuriate available". This is what people will tell you, and they are all wrong. Every one of them. Once again, it is a trade off. You get healing NOW in exchange for healing later. I can trade 15% heal bonus over the next 20 seconds for a chunk of health RIGHT NOW. That looks like a lot of bonus healing you're losing, but actually it isn't that big a of a deal, you are losing a +0.15 healing bonus, you still have the 1.00 part i.e the majority of your healing is not affected. It takes 20 seconds to go from 'Inner Beast used, no wrath' back to 'Infuriated'. Over the course of that 20 seconds you have 5 seconds at 0 stacks, 2.5 at 1 stack, 5 seconds at 2 stacks, 2.5 at 3, 5 at 4 and then you're back at 5. During those 20 seconds, you have lost only 7% of the healing you could have received. Not a big deal. In exchange you got somewhere between 900ish (fresh 50) and 3.7k (my highest) in healing RIGHT NOW. This is the important bit, as most bosses will have large spikes in damage followed by an extended period (sometimes up to 30 seconds) where their damage is easily manageable.

Stop looking at averages, go play the class and you will see that these abilities are useful!

Inner Beast crit doing my best to mimic raid conditions: http://imgur.com/Oni1mvV
463 STR, Berserk used, Maim and Storm's Eye active. HQ La Noscean Toast and a STR buff from a level 30 monk in the party.
This is in my tanking gear, no gear was swapped out for DPS items, I am VIT specced.

[ZDamned]

A) Yes, I am angry at people spouting theorycraft that damages public opinion of WAR way past what it should be (WAR is NOT as viable as PLD, but its closer than people think).
B) Her math was not all inclusive, it did not take into account the increased healing % you get from a wrath stack, the +crit % you get from a wrath stack, the additional uses of IB you can get from quicker Wrath regen, or the fact that DPS is not entirely what makes a WAR effective.
C) You still attack during paci, Kitru stated herself that you still retain 25% of your dps through auto-attacks. Also, what do you consider an attack? Is brutal swing an attack? Flash?

Well, I personally don't use berserk for Inner Beast exclusively. I use it as a way to boost my Enmity, and Spike damage when I know I won't be in trouble from Pacification. No one is saying the skill is bad, but more so Flawed by comparison to Paladin's FoF. I personally think that Warriors are great, and I'm just curious of exactly whats about to change for us soon.

What do I want? Either no pacification, or compensation for the time I am stuck with non Weapon skills. I understand your utilizing it in it's greatest possible aspect, but that doesn't change the fact that Paladins can use FoF on cooldown without thinking, It seems however we need to have these amazingly perfect situational setups to make our skills nearly as viable as Paladins.

A) Don't be angry, the Theory Craft is why we are getting buffed next patch. Without it, no one would have looked at us again.
B) You can't take 1 Wrath Stack into account for the DPS boosting. There are a lot of times where it's used at 5 already, or right after an infuriate anyway in order to maximize our DPS During the Burst period to gain the added Crit%. What her math goes by is it's raw sustained DPS boost over a long duration fight. It was never meant to prove anything else. But you seem to be angry that her 1 statistical analysis isn't magically able to accommodate every unique usage of the skill. If I were to mathematically tell you that Holmgang is worthless, you can argue the same thing because I'm not taking into account special cases. basically, don't get worked up over an analysis of 1 part of the skill.
c) Attacking is not the problem, it's using clutch Weapon Skills when they are needed. You can't always anticipate someone pulling aggro from another enemy off you, and sometimes Flash at that time isn't enough, Brutal Swing is our absolute best option in that case, but it could be on cool down too. Just like you can argue for the best case scenario usage of the skill, anyone else can argue for the worst case. It's taking the total usability and reflecting on all of it combined that truly rates a skill's implementation.

[Ehayte]

Snip

A) To paraphrase Yoshi, WARs are getting buffed because they cannot compete on turns 1 + 4 of Coil with a PLD. These guys wrote the freaking programming and came up with the math that decided this stuff, they know exactly what they did.

B) I am worked up because she made a blanket statement of "Berserk is weak as hell." That implies the skill is weak, not the DPS portion of it is weak. She never disclosed or said or even implied her analysis was only focused on the DPS portion of the skill. She was asserting that it was a bad skill. and YOU asserted that she was 100% correct. Also, you can totally quantify the %crit and %heal gains over time by adding 1 wrath stack every 90s (or make it .5 wrath stacks every 90s to account for 1/2 the time you use berserk you are at 5 stacks already). You just have to use insane assumptions, the most insane of which is omnipresent in theorycraft, which is that everything is only as useful as its average, long term effect on the player.

C) "If your saying 1 stack of Wrath makes up for 5 seconds of not attacking, then you are the garbage player. =/" Your words, not mine (also flawed because you need to take into account the increase in dmg done + the wrath stack against the 5 seconds of not using weaponskills). The pacification is the drawback to a skill that would be too powerful without it. It adds interesting strategy to utilizing the skill, and emphases player skill over average numbers over time, which is fun. It is taking a risk to accomplish something, you are risking your best possible enmity and damage in those 5 seconds, for increased damage in the previous 20s, along with receiving a Wrath stack off GCD. I think even with the disadvantage of weapon skills being out of commission, the skill is still extremely useful. They could have made it NOT give you a wrath stack and NOT give you pacification, but that would make it less strategic, and be more akin to the PLD CDs that are "I HIT AND GUD THINGS HAPPEN HEHEHEHE!!!"

[Leiron]

Getting angry over a video game debate is stupid.
Cut it out and grow up.

[SkoomaMan]

Maybe i just do things diffrent on my war. I grab big groups of mobs pop my defensive cooldowns then flash em, bloodbath, bezerk, and internal realease and spam overpower for some crazy heals sometimes i even infuriate and steel cyclone before bloodbath wears off. Its not enough to sustain yourself on big pulls but the mitigation is really sweet. IDK i like war and its fun as hell to play. Just gotta think like a war would i guess .