BERSERKER!!!!!!!!

[Ehayte]

Thought maybe we could see something like this in 2.4 or 2.5, when Fenrir rears his ugly mug. I'm not a theory crafter so the math behind the bonuses granted and the rewards you can exchange the units for may be not work out 100% correctly, but the idea is that you should gain DPS by exchanging the units for those skills. TP management would be a big deal with this class.

Forged in the fires of the Sangoali Desert, the Berkserker is both an astute disciplinarian, and a raging psychopath. Wielding large, sharp weapons, often bordering on the impractical, the Berserker relies on their training under Pugilist masters in combination with their time spent as unbridled Marauders to realize their full potential.

As "Little Ala Mhigan Madmen," the Berserker can often be found howling with wolves at the full moon. Some even say that the Berserker draws its strength from the pale, heavenly body.

The AF armor (etc) would be animal pelt-based with the helmets mimicking animal heads, the face of the Berserker in the mouth of the animal. I would imagine green and brown as color themes.

The Relic would be something like "Fenririner," a giant pole-arm with an extremely large wolf's fang fastened to the top.

MRD 30 / PUG 15 - can also use LNC X-Class

Level 30 - Wax
- Removes all enmity+ Additional Effects from all abilities.
- Effect ends upon reuse.
- Every time you connect a physical attack to an enemy, you gain a stack of "Howl at the Moon." Each unit of Howl at the Moon increases Determination by .5% and critical hit by 1%, while increasing TP consumption by 1% and increasing damage taken by .5%. When 30 units are reached, the Berserker gains "Rampage."

Level 35 - Wain
- Off GCD | 15s Cool Down
- Potency 170 Attack, single target, 3y
- Additional Effect: Discipline - 10s effect that consumes 1 unit of Howl at the Moon per second. For each unit consumed in this way, the Berserker is healed for 25 potency (ATK based) and regains 25 TP.

Level 40 - Voice of the Berserker
- Off GCD | 30s Cool Down
- The next physical attack you make will have double potency and double range.
- Additional Effect: If the next attack you use is a single target attack, it is given the same range, AE, and cone as "Overpower"
- Consumes 10 units of Howl at the Moon

Level 45 - Derail
- Off GCD | 45s Cool Down
- Range of 20y
- Rush to target, 130 potency blunt attack, pacifies target and prevents target from turning for 5 seconds, even if target is moving.
- Additional Effect: increases target's movement speed by 50% for 5 seconds. If target is moving when hit by Derail, the target must continue to move for 5 seconds.
- Some bosses may be immune to these effects.
- Consumes 10 units of Howl at the Moon

Level 50 - Deathblow
- On GCD | TP Cost: 175
- Potency 500, single target, 3y
- Consumes 15 units of Howl at the Moon
- Can only be used under the effects of Rampage


EDIT: Typo! I meant to say that each unit of HatM increases TP consumption by 1% per stack.

[Moonwolfthegrey]

Lol, sounds like a fun job

[Kitru]

Level 30 - Wax
- Removes all enmity+ Additional Effects from all abilities.
- Effect ends upon reuse.
- Every time you connect a physical attack to an enemy, you gain a stack of "Howl at the Moon." Each unit of Howl at the Moon increases Determination by .5% and critical hit by 1%, while increasing TP consumption by 1% and increasing damage taken by .5%. When 30 units are reached, the Berserker gains "Rampage."

The first part is completely unneeded. If it's a DPS class, it shouldn't have the high enmity modifiers at all and would be removed when switching to the job.

I realize that you're trying to copy Wrath without directly copying it, but 30 stacks is *way* too much, especially given the stacking benefits you're providing (30% +crit, even with the costs attached, is insanely huge). Keep in mind, even if you include auto-attacks (roughly once every 3.15 seconds), it's going to take ~40 seconds to get up to 30 stacks and the incremental gains along the way are tiny (especially with TP cost: 30% increase in TP cost for your baseline rotation is 19 and wouldn't even be noticed until it were above 10%). Even if you intend upon it being a consumed resource, you'd be better served if there were fewer stacks gained in a slower manner with more discrete changes in effect over time. You've already got them being consumed in increments of 5 so it would be better to have it max out at 6 stacks that are generated in only by t3 combo attacks (7.5 seconds * 6 = 45 seconds so it's nearly the same).

I'm not entirely sure why you have it increase damage taken given that the tank stances are largely there to serve that purpose. The higher defenses due to heavy armor aren't going to matter much, given that the devs evidently don't care about the difference between LNC and PGL defense stats. In PvP, it would actually be a massive detriment given that defense is ignored and replaced by morale (or whatever it's called).

The benefits themselves need to be tweaked as well. MRD/WAR is already pretty intense on the burst damage front and giving them a nearly 50% crit chance is just nuts, especially since you only consume 10-15 stacks at a time. You would be able to maintain 15-20 stacks at all times with no appreciable decrease in ability to use your consuming attacks. The determination increase also means next to nothing. If you want it to be an increase to attack power or damage, list it as such. Increases to secondary attributes are terrible.

Level 35 - Wain
- Off GCD | 15s Cool Down
- Potency 170 Attack, single target, 3y
- Additional Effect: Discipline - 10s effect that consumes 1 unit of Howl at the Moon per second. For each unit consumed in this way, the Berserker is healed for 25 potency (ATK based) and regains 25 TP.

That's insanely overpowered. Even if you assume that TP costs are increased by a flat 20%, you're providing a single off-GCD ability that nearly doubles TP regeneration (50/GCD and you're providing 62.5/GCD with 66% uptime, which is an average of 41.67 additional TP/GCD. The healing is also completely and utterly borked since that's a potential 250 potency every 15 seconds (given your stack accumulation rate as written, that's more than possible), or 16.67 healing potency per GCD. Compare that to Second Wind, which is 650 every 120 seconds, or 5.417/GCD.

Seriously, this is completely and utterly nuts. If you want to push the Wax/Wane (a wain is a wagon or cart; waning is getting smaller) moon dichotomy, either make them separate stances or have Wane turn off and prevent the reactivation of Wax while it's active (and have it burn through all of your stacks during the process). It doesn't make much sense to have Wane not even take you below half before you start Waxing again.

Consider this:

What you have referred to as Wax becomes an innate part of being a Berserker: all of your on-GCD special attacks, in addition to their normal effects, generate a buff called Waxing Moon that lasts 20 seconds, stacks up to 10, and provide a 1.5% attack speed buff per stack. Your level 30 ability would then be the equivalent of Wane (likely as a nice big bursty attack), which consumes all Waxing Moon stacks and replaces them with Waning Moon stacks which provide a 3% damage buff per stack but are *consumed* by all of your on-GCD attacks. The other 4 job abilities would then be built around this central construct: either generating Waxing Moon stacks faster than normal or consuming Waning Moon stacks faster; it would even be possible for the attacks to have separate effects based upon which buff is currently active.

It makes more sense than having Wax exist as a stance and Wane exist as an attack because it allows the central conceit on the job to be present from the very start, while also being much more cohesive (since the moon has to set all the way before it can start rising, and vice versa).

Level 40 - Voice of the Berserker
- Off GCD | 30s Cool Down
- The next physical attack you make will have double potency and double range.
- Additional Effect: If the next attack you use is a single target attack, it is given the same range, AE, and cone as "Overpower"
- Consumes 10 units of Howl at the Moon

That's another pretty borked ability. You're basically allowing MRD, which *already* pushes the envelope on big nasty, bursty attacks, to become bigger *and* to provide MRD, which already has incredible AoE capabilty, even *more*. It also makes some abilities friggin' *nuts*. Imagine using Storm's Path with this: it becomes a 520 potency attack to everything that would be hit by an Overpower for no additional cost, applies a 10% damage debuff to all targets, and heals you for 50% of the damage dealt. Also, given your Wax state as written, it would generate 1 stack for every target hit. Seriously, it's insane. Looking at Deathblow, imagine Berserk>Deathblow>Voice>Butcher's Block. You're talking about the equivalent of 1484 potency (1.4 * (500 + 2 * 280)) in 2 GCDs. Combine that with Internal Release and your Wane stacks as written, and you're also talking about having a better than even chance of at least one of those attack scoring a critical hit.

Level 45 - Derail
- Off GCD | 45s Cool Down
- Range of 20y
- Rush to target, 130 potency blunt attack, pacifies target and prevents target from turning for 5 seconds, even if target is moving.
- Additional Effect: increases target's movement speed by 50% for 5 seconds. If target is moving when hit by Derail, the target must continue to move for 5 seconds.
- Some bosses may be immune to these effects.
- Consumes 10 units of Howl at the Moon

The entire point of gap closing abilities is to close the gap. Forcing the target to keep moving and having them move *faster* after closing the gap with them is basically redundant. Preventing them from turning and pacifying them on top of this is basically just a roundabout way of saying "stunned" since you're basically preventing them from doing anything (they *could* cast instant spells and/or use CDs, but, honestly, the entire intent of this ability is to stun without activating stun DC). I'm not even really sure how "derailing" someone would cause them to move faster in the direction that they were already heading. It would make a helluva lot more sense for it to be a knockback since, you know, you're straight up forcing them off of the rail (i.e. their planned route).

If you wanted it to act as both gap closer and knockback utility (i.e. close gap then knock back), have it increase *your own* movement speed by 100% for 5 seconds afterwards so that you can run them down after knocking them back. It preserves the gap closing functionality while still letting you knock the target around.

Level 50 - Deathblow
- On GCD | TP Cost: 175
- Potency 500, single target, 3y
- Consumes 15 units of Howl at the Moon
- Can only be used under the effects of Rampage

As said before, crazy powerful burst damage. The highest potency attack in the game, at the moment, is Chaos Thrust, which provides 500 potency, only 200 of which is up front. The rest of it is spread out over 30 seconds. The next closest is Full Thrust which is only 300. You're going *way* above that. Even consuming those stacks and bringing a high TP cost (which, as I said before, means nothing given what you have Wane, as written, providing; since Wane is 170 potency off GCD and the stacks bring so much +crit, I'm not even sure that you would *want* to use this except in PvP since you'd probably get more out of just keeping the stacks and just using Wane and Voice on CD).

I would definitely reexamine the fundamental mechanic you decided to go with since, as written, Wax less what a stance is supposed to be like and more what a passive aspect of a job is supposed to be like. Wrath qualifies as a stance for WAR because it decreases damage taken. Yours is supposed to be an explicit damage increase that you would never want to turn off; as such, it makes more sense the way I suggested.

[Ehayte]

The first part is completely unneeded. If it's a DPS class, it shouldn't have the high enmity modifiers at all and would be removed when switching to the job.

OK

I realize that you're trying to copy Wrath without directly copying it, but 30 stacks is *way* too much, especially given the stacking benefits you're providing (30% +crit, even with the costs attached, is insanely huge). Keep in mind, even if you include auto-attacks (roughly once every 3.15 seconds), it's going to take ~40 seconds to get up to 30 stacks and the incremental gains along the way are tiny (especially with TP cost: 30% increase in TP cost for your baseline rotation is 19 and wouldn't even be noticed until it were above 10%). Even if you intend upon it being a consumed resource, you'd be better served if there were fewer stacks gained in a slower manner with more discrete changes in effect over time. You've already got them being consumed in increments of 5 so it would be better to have it max out at 6 stacks that are generated in only by t3 combo attacks (7.5 seconds * 6 = 45 seconds so it's nearly the same).

I don't see the difference, as you pointed out, between offering huge quantities of stacks versus smaller, harder to get ones, except that the smaller version is more susceptible to RNG/luck screwing you out of some DPS. As stated in the OP, I said that I had not done any math at all, but realize that the mechanic behind the TP costs versus the increase in damage versus the DPS additions of the 40-50 abilities were supposed to function as: You must use Wane (I meant it to mean wagon wheel! I swear!) to be able to regenerate your TP, as you would starve yourself staying fulling Waxed all the time, so that while it might take 40s to build up to full Wax, you are going to need to use Wane periodically to keep yourself under control, making the time it would take you to get to Deathblow actually more like 1min-90secs. This is my idea for berserker by the way . . . not based on other things that have happened in past games (not directed at Kitru).

I'm not entirely sure why you have it increase damage taken given that the tank stances are largely there to serve that purpose. The higher defenses due to heavy armor aren't going to matter much, given that the devs evidently don't care about the difference between LNC and PGL defense stats. In PvP, it would actually be a massive detriment given that defense is ignored and replaced by morale (or whatever it's called).

The defense stats don't matter? Have you ever gotten hit by a 4 stack hoodswing as a MNK? It hits you A LOT harder than on a PLD or WAR. The dmg+ is to counteract the HP advantage a BSK would have over the other DPS classes. I didn't consider PvP, but I don't see how defense being replaced by morale would change the max hp offset of the increased damage. I might not have done the math right (or at all) on the % it should be increasing damage taken by, but I still think its a more fun way to meet DPS eHP equilibrium without a boring HP reduction.

The benefits themselves need to be tweaked as well. MRD/WAR is already pretty intense on the burst damage front and giving them a nearly 50% crit chance is just nuts, especially since you only consume 10-15 stacks at a time. You would be able to maintain 15-20 stacks at all times with no appreciable decrease in ability to use your consuming attacks. The determination increase also means next to nothing. If you want it to be an increase to attack power or damage, list it as such. Increases to secondary attributes are terrible.

A 50% crit chance that has nowhere NEAR 100% uptime. It is intended to starve your TP too quickly to maintain for any reasonable amount of time. I added the Det to add something incremental and subtle to the ability, you may have a fair point on just making it dmg+, though.

That's insanely overpowered. Even if you assume that TP costs are increased by a flat 20%, you're providing a single off-GCD ability that nearly doubles TP regeneration (50/GCD and you're providing 62.5/GCD with 66% uptime, which is an average of 41.67 additional TP/GCD. The healing is also completely and utterly borked since that's a potential 250 potency every 15 seconds (given your stack accumulation rate as written, that's more than possible), or 16.67 healing potency per GCD. Compare that to Second Wind, which is 650 every 120 seconds, or 5.417/GCD.

Seriously, this is completely and utterly nuts. If you want to push the Wax/Wane (a wain is a wagon or cart; waning is getting smaller) moon dichotomy, either make them separate stances or have Wane turn off and prevent the reactivation of Wax while it's active (and have it burn through all of your stacks during the process). It doesn't make much sense to have Wane not even take you below half before you start Waxing again.

But if you had 66% uptime your DPS would be about equal to a wet noodle. I'll happily agree that my numbers are out of whack as I didn't even try to do the math, but you get the idea. The healing is to offset stuff like Tumults and large unavoidable AE DMG because of the +dmg taken mechanic of Wax, another "resource" you have to manage. Obviously the #s would get "unborked" if someone put any actual practical effort into this, but me knowing that I was just writing fun fan fiction for a video game, I just wanted to get the concept out : D

Consider this:

What you have referred to as Wax becomes an innate part of being a Berserker: all of your on-GCD special attacks, in addition to their normal effects, generate a buff called Waxing Moon that lasts 20 seconds, stacks up to 10, and provide a 1.5% attack speed buff per stack. Your level 30 ability would then be the equivalent of Wane (likely as a nice big bursty attack), which consumes all Waxing Moon stacks and replaces them with Waning Moon stacks which provide a 3% damage buff per stack but are *consumed* by all of your on-GCD attacks. The other 4 job abilities would then be built around this central construct: either generating Waxing Moon stacks faster than normal or consuming Waning Moon stacks faster; it would even be possible for the attacks to have separate effects based upon which buff is currently active.

It makes more sense than having Wax exist as a stance and Wane exist as an attack because it allows the central conceit on the job to be present from the very start, while also being much more cohesive (since the moon has to set all the way before it can start rising, and vice versa).

I spent some time thinking about a dual stance of Wane as the solo stance, etc, but I scrapped the idea. What you laid out seems like it could work, and I really like the idea of your 35-50 attacks have different Additional effects depending on if you are Waxing or Waning as that would add an extremely fun planning portion to the job. However, my vision was one of TP management combined with insane amounts of burst damage once in a "blue moon." And the multi-stance didn't seem to lend itself to that very well.

That's another pretty borked ability. You're basically allowing MRD, which *already* pushes the envelope on big nasty, bursty attacks, to become bigger *and* to provide MRD, which already has incredible AoE capabilty, even *more*. It also makes some abilities friggin' *nuts*. Imagine using Storm's Path with this: it becomes a 520 potency attack to everything that would be hit by an Overpower for no additional cost, applies a 10% damage debuff to all targets, and heals you for 50% of the damage dealt. Also, given your Wax state as written, it would generate 1 stack for every target hit. Seriously, it's insane. Looking at Deathblow, imagine Berserk>Deathblow>Voice>Butcher's Block. You're talking about the equivalent of 1484 potency (1.4 * (500 + 2 * 280)) in 2 GCDs. Combine that with Internal Release and your Wane stacks as written, and you're also talking about having a better than even chance of at least one of those attack scoring a critical hit.

Yeahhhh... 30s CD was probably a little low! hehe. But all I can think of that the MRD has in AE is the TP expensive Overpower, which at 120 potency isn't very strong. Maybe if this ability also double the base TP cost of the next ability and the CD was switched to 45s? And yes I can imagine that awesome scenario that you just described, and I can imagine the BSK having no +crit, no +det, and no TP for about 8 GCDs after that happens as well, lol.

The entire point of gap closing abilities is to close the gap. Forcing the target to keep moving and having them move *faster* after closing the gap with them is basically redundant. Preventing them from turning and pacifying them on top of this is basically just a roundabout way of saying "stunned" since you're basically preventing them from doing anything (they *could* cast instant spells and/or use CDs, but, honestly, the entire intent of this ability is to stun without activating stun DC). I'm not even really sure how "derailing" someone would cause them to move faster in the direction that they were already heading. It would make a helluva lot more sense for it to be a knockback since, you know, you're straight up forcing them off of the rail (i.e. their planned route).

If you wanted it to act as both gap closer and knockback utility (i.e. close gap then knock back), have it increase *your own* movement speed by 100% for 5 seconds afterwards so that you can run them down after knocking them back. It preserves the gap closing functionality while still letting you knock the target around.

Not intended as a gap closer, this was intended as stop-gap CC/gap closer hybrid. If a mob breaks the pack and goes for the healer, the BSK can Derail it, causing it to go off the rails of its normal path. This would allow the healer to side step the mob, the mob will overrun where it was intending to go, and the buys the healer at least 7 seconds of time to shake the aggro, all the while allowing the tank to do whatever they want to the mob, allowing the DPS to DPS it, etc. A knockback would certainly work as well, but I thought this would be way more fun!

As said before, crazy powerful burst damage. The highest potency attack in the game, at the moment, is Chaos Thrust, which provides 500 potency, only 200 of which is up front. The rest of it is spread out over 30 seconds. The next closest is Full Thrust which is only 300. You're going *way* above that. Even consuming those stacks and bringing a high TP cost (which, as I said before, means nothing given what you have Wane, as written, providing; since Wane is 170 potency off GCD and the stacks bring so much +crit, I'm not even sure that you would *want* to use this except in PvP since you'd probably get more out of just keeping the stacks and just using Wane and Voice on CD).

Yup, the strongest burst attack in the game. And the most costly ability in the game, or at least I intended it to be, I haven't studied every class/job. Jack up the TP cost and increase the amount of stacks it consumes to balance it.

I would definitely reexamine the fundamental mechanic you decided to go with since, as written, Wax less what a stance is supposed to be like and more what a passive aspect of a job is supposed to be like. Wrath qualifies as a stance for WAR because it decreases damage taken. Yours is supposed to be an explicit damage increase that you would never want to turn off; as such, it makes more sense the way I suggested.

I like the fundamental mechanics of this made-up fun job to think about. You certainly made some solid points regarding the costs and benefits and naming, but like I said in the OP, I didn't try to do the math on any of it. I think most of the problems you had could be fixed with changing TP costs, %s, or potencies. One or two things you mentioned had some design flaws that could be fixed with adding TP costs or increasing CDs, but for me, I think that they way I laid it out would be more fun to use.

[MrDiezel]

I kinda figured Warrior was the "berserker" class with a twist. Especially considering it has a skill called "Berserk"

[Kitru]

I kinda figured Warrior was the "berserker" class with a twist. Especially considering it has a skill called "Berserk"

MRD is the one that actually has Berserk, and the job is intended to branch off of that. Basically, they're both "Berserker", but WAR is just the tank Berserker while BSK(?) would be the DPS Berserker.

[MrDiezel]

MRD is the one that actually has Berserk, and the job is intended to branch off of that. Basically, they're both "Berserker", but WAR is just the tank Berserker while BSK(?) would be the DPS Berserker.

Good point!

[Royze]

Berserkers usually come from colder climates. Desert isn't appropriate with the lore.
Also I don't think TP management should be a main theme for berserker. They're brutes with endless physical stamina and endurance. Their weakness is the increased damage they take by sacrificing all defense for pure attack.

TP management and more well though out play is for jobs such as Thief, Rogue, Samurai and Ninja. Berserkers are all about pure raw offense with nothing holding them back, and they take increased dmg as a result.

[Mihael_Longclaw]

Berserkers usually come from colder climates. Desert isn't appropriate with the lore.
Also I don't think TP management should be a main theme for berserker. They're brutes with endless physical stamina and endurance. Their weakness is the increased damage they take by sacrificing all defense for pure attack.

TP management and more well though out play is for jobs such as Thief, Rogue, Samurai and Ninja. Berserkers are all about pure raw offense with nothing holding them back, and they take increased dmg as a result.

Increased damage receieved as a DD is useless in this game, if the tank is doing his job, the penalty is negligible, as well as avoidable attacks.

But then say the increased damage taken from Berserker means he can't even survive Tumults 100% unavoidable, no one would bring him.

It's a useless mechanic :T

[Sylari]

In this implementation, they're actually a decent model of an evasion tank.

My thought actually was that it might be a decent potential tank archetpe for the pugilist. "Sacrifice defense for offense" is definitely one of the general berserker themes, but so was the idea of being so tough/enraged that they could simply shrug off injuries or pain that would debilitate a normal person.

Increased damage receieved as a DD is useless in this game, if the tank is doing his job, the penalty is negligible, as well as avoidable attacks.

But then say the increased damage taken from Berserker means he can't even survive Tumults 100% unavoidable, no one would bring him.

It's a useless mechanic :T

Can agree with that. I've seen plenty of dragoons drop because they b4b'd right before a phase 5 tumult.