Perspective

[dakeyras]

Zerkers are inline for a 35-40% style damage decrease (hasn't gone live yet).

If this does go live then Zerkers will still do more damage than their dual-wielding cousins and yet the cry of 'gimped' is echoing around the DAOC world atm.

If this makes Zerkers 'gimped' then just what are Mercs/Bm's???

 

[old.Alliandre]

Uber gimps

 

[Fafnir]

Well mercs got their dirty tricks to get the zerk to miss or what ever it does. Bm's got tripplewield. Zerks got hamster mode with no defensive skills.

 

[case-rigantis]

tbh i think mercs are currently very well balanced. on the whole my paladin loses in duel`s against them although it`s usually very close it genrally comes down to the fact they do so much damage dual wielding i`d definatly not say mercs or bm`s are gimps they`re well balanced all in all damage for defence

zerkers however well urm getting hit for 700+ in 1 hit wearing plate with capped slash resist is a bit excessive don`t you think? i mean seriously i`ve seen 1 zerker take out a whole group solo after they were AE mezzed... wizzy 1 hit...theurg 1 hit..minstrel 2 hits..paladin 3 hits.. etc etc

Sb`s i`m not sure since i rarely meet one who isnt buffbotted anymore what i do see is that they always outdamage my infi and i have 50+13 thrust 28+13 dual wield so there`s certainly something wrong there i usually hit for roughly 150 ish and get hit back for 300+

 

[Flimgoblin]

firstly, duels mean nothing

secondly - buffed zerkers were doing double the damage of every other tank out there - they'll be doing 20% more damage if they put 1.62b in...

mercs/bms have both had their bleed styles and positional styles improved - the extra damage chains are both side chains... these are impossible to get off normally... you need someone else to mezz/stun/slam whatever them...

Mercs at the moment do a little bit more damage than armsmen due to the offhand weapon - that's it. Come 1.62 next patch they'll do some extra bleed damage and a fair bit of damage on someone if they can get side positional on them. Plus they have the fumbles.

 

[dakeyras]

I would agree.

I think mercs are fairly balanced and that is why I was against the call to 'bring DW up to LA level'.

The problem is definetly one of perspective. When a player has being playing an over-powered class, whether or not they are bandwagon jumpers, they perceive it to be their 'right' to do that sort of damage. This leads to the creation of urban myths i.e. 'the melee realm', 'we were always meant to hit this hard' etc etc to try and justify it.

When they are balanced, they feel nerfed. They have become used to a playstyle where they can cut through the enemy like a knife through butter and now that they can't they don't like it.

One interesting point I have seen made was on relative skill levels of high RR zerkers/Mercs/BM's. The Mercs/BM's have had to become much, much better players to achieve the same success. What we will see know is the truly good zerkers adapting and the rest jumping to savage or Alb/Hib

 

[old.Trine Aquavit]

Bringing Zerk damage down and BM & Merc damage up to about the same level seems pretty fair to me (yes, even as a Mid). Boosting mercs & BMs special abilities (neither of which have any negative effects) when the zerkers special ability has significant negative effects seems harsh.

As they are very similar classes, and don't offer up any special group support it's fair to consider the outcome of a duel between any of these three.

1. Zerk vs Merc

Damage - slight zerk advantage
Special abilities:
Zerker:
Berzerk - crits on every hit (50% damage boost) with no defense

Merc:
Dirty Tricks - enemy will miss 25% more often, fumble 50% more often AND now immune to crit damage
Flurry - extra instant attack

Outcome: Merc

Dirty tricks will totally negate the zerk, confer additional defensive advantages (misses & fumbles) and will give all the offensive bonus of fighting a tank in studded armour with no parry or evade. The extra attack from flurry will likely balance out the slight damage advantage the zerker has.

2. Zerk vs BM

Damage - slight zerk advantage
Special abilities:
Zerker:
Berzerk - crits on every hit (50% damage boost) with no defense

BM:
Triple Wield - 50% damage attack AND immune to crit damage
Flurry - extra instant attack


Outcome: BM

Again, the slight damage advantage will likely be balanced somewhat by Flurry. In the special ability stakes the TW will totally negate the zerk, have a 50% damage add and have the offensive bonus of fighting against a defenseless zerk.


I realise this is pretty theoretical, but it does look like the zerk will be nerfed below the merc & BM. Is it balanced? Doesn't look like it. Is this fair? Possibly, as zerks have had quite some advantage in the past.


I guess the same will go for SB's. I would expect them to be uncompetitive against infils and balanced against nightshades after this patch.

 

[dakeyras]

Originally posted by old.Trine Aquavit
Merc:
Dirty Tricks - enemy will miss 25% more often, fumble 50% more often AND now immune to crit damage
Flurry - extra instant attack

Never read about Mercs being immune to crits..where was that in the patch notes?

 

[old.mattshanes]

Merc is a good class just the dw line isn't the best,but never the less they still do the best overall damage in alb(yes they do i can prove this if you want me too ).Chain is very good armour in rvr having that crush resist with it is pretty good,the zerker nerf is pretty over the top they have reduced it too much.

A zerker with 90 quick is hitting a lower cap than my merc who has 132 quick using a 99 bastard sword 411 cap the zerker had 405 cap with snowsquall and 4.0 speed axe.So maybe the damage of zerker has become the same as merc/bms but i still disagree with lowing it so much to this why couldn't they just increase dw/cd by 20% damage i am real pissed off at the moment with the merc changes the aren't that great.

Over a year mercs/bms have suffered with the unfinished spec lines of their classes and be compared to zerker damage often which in my opinion shouldn't be done.They should of lowered left axe by about 10-20% not 40% and give bm same damage since they have same absorb armour with merc slightly less but with evade 2 or they could of just made bm/merc hit both weaps all the time at least and lowered la damage by 20% or so not 40% that's too much.

Anyway people keep looking at the one huge hit of a style and never look at the overall damage of a class,let's say i played a rr7 5 merc recently and he did 300-400 every 1.5-2s unbuffed on yellow mobs maybe 400s+ crits sometimes,i still can't see an alb melee class matching that damage overall.With ra's high a merc/bm can do very good damage but a zerker in ratmode easily outhits them but non rat it wasn't too much in rvr well from what i seen unless they have 35 quick...

They need to sort that LA damage out and not have it as it is at the moment on pendragon,give mercs and bms hit both weaps all the time then it could be balanced....although i would like to cd/dw styles better definetly.Enjoying my merc anyway.

 

[Flimgoblin]

the various abilities are better in certain situations

(note that mercs don't get crit immunity - that's just blademasters as far as I can see)

Zerkers will still have more style damage, and for tearing through casters there's nothing like being able to add 50% onto your damage... albeit it's a bad idea if you're getting chopped up or are fighting a tank.

Triple wield is a similar effect - again very good for cutting through casters, but I don't think it's as much of an increase - and the BM styles aren't as good for chopping people up - side positionals are no good on fleeing mages (or people turning to face you).

Mercs will be pretty good at slowing down a tank charge - if they're fumbling 1/3 of the time they're not going to be butchering your casters but that aside - they're not going to be able to cut through the cloth-wearing folks as fast as a merc or a BM. They do have better armour - so if 5 people are bashing on them they'll last a smidgeon longer.. (if there's only one person on them evade will make up for the armour)

I don't think these changes make zerkers worse than bm/merc at all... if anything they're still going to be better in normal RvR at the "light tank job" which the players have decided is chopping up casters/healers/etc. (rather than the mythic view of assisting a main tank - something to try I guess)

The new merc/bm styles are only good if they can get someone else to slam or somehow distract someone long enough to get on the side... side positionals are very very difficult to pull off normally. The only other style improved in this manner for mercs is based off evade - evade 1... *pukes*

I'm glad mercs are not getting turned into mk 2 zerkers...
casters with good equipment can survive for long enough for a non-insta healer to keep them alive against me.... not so against a zerker mk 2.

(mk 1 zerker is pre-1.50, doublefrost nasty, no end regen,
mk 2 is post 1.53 with the improved style damage and end regen,
mk 3 is whatever zerkers are after 1.62)

 

[old.Trine Aquavit]

My mistake, mis-read the notes, the BM gets the immunity to crit, DT gets 50% fumble rate for 10 secs on a proc. Still negates a lot of damage, though.

From patch notes:

MERCENARY AND BLADEMASTER UPDATES

Blademaster Changes

- The Blademaster Triple Wield special ability has been updated. It is now on a 7 minute re-use timer (it was previously set to 30 minutes). It now will stack properly with other damage adds - it will always increase damage no matter what other buffs or damage adds are currently affecting the Blademaster. Triple Wield also now makes Blademasters immune to critical melee damage.

...

Mercenary Changes

- The Mercenary Dirty Tricks special ability is now on a 7 minute re-use timer (it was previously set to 30 minutes), and has changed in effect. It now activates a 30 second offensive proc effect on the Mercenary that applies a 10 second debuff on the Mercenary's target every time it is hit. This debuff gives the target a 50% chance to fumble all their melee attacks while under the debuff's effect.

 

[Alrindel]

That was later corrected to "35% chance to fumble...", not 50%

 

[Kharok Svark]

They should really look to fix some of the Zerker issues though.

In Vendo, there is no Evade

The level 50 L Axe style is crap

Tundra ... A 2H RA style is a complete joke

 

[Flimgoblin]

yep I agree

zerkers have issues - hopefully they'll get addressed now...

same way the archer no-los arrow bug is annoying but archers have so many issues it'd be unfair to fix it.

 

[Flimgoblin]

Originally posted by old.mattshanes
Anyway people keep looking at the one huge hit of a style and never look at the overall damage of a class,let's say i played a rr7 5 merc recently and he did 300-400 every 1.5-2s unbuffed on yellow mobs maybe 400s+ crits sometimes,i still can't see an alb melee class matching that damage overall.With ra's high a merc/bm can do very good damage but a zerker in ratmode easily outhits them but non rat it wasn't too much in rvr well from what i seen unless they have 35 quick...

Currently, a buffed shadowzerker out-damages my buffed merc - and that's with them hitting at capped-speed. So much for 30% less weaponskill....

and zerker's aren't hitting slow - they're hitting at 1h weapon speeds for polearm damage... this is why they're nerfing.

 

[old.mattshanes]

Originally posted by Flimgoblin
Currently, a buffed shadowzerker out-damages my buffed merc - and that's with them hitting at capped-speed. So much for 30% less weaponskill....

and zerker's aren't hitting slow - they're hitting at 1h weapon speeds for polearm damage... this is why they're nerfing.

What are your stats unbuffed and buffed? and spec?