The Berserker - A melee defense powerset

For a long time now, I've wanted to see a "defensive" set that really was just a lot more offense. Technically, shields and fire hold the spot as aggressive defense, but somehow that wasn't enough for me. What I originally thought up was a set that says "I don't care what happens to me, I'm going to get you." I actually suggested something like this once before, but I've done some reworking since then. The first iteration was very much an "I want to die" set, which seems really fun in theory, but in reality it just doesn't work. For one: Tanks can't use it because it begged for defeat. Similarly, it would harm brutes and their fury.

So here's the remix. This version is a balance of doing extra damage and living on the edge. I'm combining some elements from the Super Reflexes, Willpower, and the old Defiance, as well as adding some new powers in the hopes to create a very unique set that can be exciting to play.

What I've settled on for a theme is a berserker. This set should be most appropriate for scrappers and brutes, less so for stalkers and tanks, but still doable.

(Tier 1) Perseverance - The berserker has a strong drive to see his enemies fall, and feels less pain than most because of this drive. Sensing the end only makes him stronger, and as he comes closer to defeat, his perseverance shines. I imagine this being the largest source of the set's survival. This power should grant a minimal (10-15%) resist to all damage that you can enhance, plus a scaling portion of resist that starts to increase at 75% health. The increase should be logarithmic in that it leaps fairly quickly until 40% health and then slowly climbs the rest of the way to the max at 20% health. In my mind, fully enhanced and at 20% health scrappers, brutes, and stalkers should have about 75% resist all total from this power; tankers should be at or close to their 90% cap.

What this should do is create a "comfort zone" at about half of the health bar. At full health, you'll be easy to damage, but once you're down under that yellow line of halfway, your resists are enough that natural regen brings you back up. Just over half, though, and you get hurt some more. A kind of equilibrium will be reached.

(Tier 2) Battle Cry - The berserker emits a deafening shout, invigorating himself while knocking back and terrifying his foes. This power will be the second largest source of survival for the set. I see this power not as a heal, but a short term regen buff that has a PBAoE knockback(down) and chance for fear that does no damage. When things get ugly, you can click this to get some space and regenerate some health.

(Tier 3) Adrenaline - You don't have a particularly large vocabulary, but "tired" is certainly not a word you know. You refuse to let fatigue slow you down. This grants the same recovery bonus as stamina, which is two thirds that of quick recovery from willpower and regen, but layers murky cloud value recovery debuffs and end drain resistances on top.

(Tier 4) Resilience - Able to shrug off things that should keep another person down, the berserker is undaunted by fear and other effects. Standard mez protection toggle without resists or defense added in. What it should also have is resistance to tohit and perception debuffs.

(Tier 5) Unnerving Presence - Merely standing in the presence of a berserker inspires fear. Those that face him often break eye contact and find it hard to land a blow with full strength. I really liked the name of this. It's a toggle taunt aura that provides some mitigation. I want this toggle to have a PBAoE -tohit and -damage, but it might be too powerful because it helps the whole team. If it were only one effect, I think -damage would be more fitting. Perhaps a minor chance to cause low magnitude fear for flavor.

(Tier 6) Frenzy - The signature of a beserker is his frenzy. As a berserker sustains damage, he becomes more determined to defeat his foes. His desire for combat is strong, though, and suffers when not immersed in combat. Toggle power with two effects. The first effect is a -15% self defense debuff if your health is above 75%. The second is a scaling damage bonus similar to the original defiance. Damage bonus starts at 10% once health is under 75%. I think a linear scale will work best, increasing to 200% damage at 20% health. Considering the benefits of a fully saturated Against All Odds, I do not think this is out of line. The debuff helps you get into the damage buff range, but disappears once you start taking that beating.

Why didn't defiance work on a blaster? I believe it's because a blaster can't hang on to that last shred of life. This powerset will be able to leverage the damage buff. Think back to that equilibrium point of half health. At that equilibrium, you get a constant 100% damage bonus, which is nothing to scoff at. Again, this is on par with saturated AAO.

The way I designed this to work is to stay at that equilibrium, but if a player decides to toe that line, he can get in over his head and be almost defeated for the maximum bonus. It's a high risk, but the resistances should allow him to hang on a little longer and the damage bonus will allow him to beat up the boss/LTs quickly.

(Tier 7) Hasty Assault - A good Berserker is quick to position himself, quicker to strike, and resists attempts to slow him down. Quickness clone, complete with resistance to speed and recharge debuffs.

(Tier 8) Walk it Off - A true berserker never stays down for long, and defeat offers only further encouragement. I'm thinking a simple self rez, no buffs with it here, but the recharge should be relatively short. It'd be nice if the animation had the character dust off his shoulders or something to that nature.

There was an idea to add fear to this, but I think I've taken care of that with the Battle Cry. Get up, click to knock 'em back, then toggle up and start smashing again.

(Tier 9) Death Wish/Final Gambit - Every berserker seeks the glory of a battle against insurmountable odds. They desire to be overwhelmed and take down as many foes as they can before the end which is sure to come. In this state, the berserker is all but impossible to defeat while he attracts as many foes as he is able. In the end, however, the exhaustion from this causes the berserker to collapse. The way I envision it, this is the godmode tier nine to end all, balanced by a crash like no other. I think it should be massive buff to resistance and defense to all damage types, along with a huge area and high mag PBAoE of taunt.

The first version of this powerset had a power that would do PBAoE damage when you died, but after some suggestion, I'd like to roll that into this power. Think of it like a blaster nuke scale damage (not the same damage as a blaster's nuke, mind you, I mean the same scale for whatever AT this set is on) when this power crashes. Two or three minutes of nigh perfect invincibility and a nuke when it's done. How is that balanced? Because the "crash" of this power is defeat. Unstoppable's crash leaves you to die, this actually kills you. No amount of inspiration gobbling or accolade popping will save you. That's the balance in the power. You will die.




My concerns: Personally, I feel that there isn't really a throwaway or skippable power, which may be a problem. Most people skip the self rez in a set, but with the "on the edge" feel I've tried to create, I get the feeling that it will be necessary.

Perhaps berserker is too narrow of a theme. Can you think of something that fits the theme but may be a bit more broad? Really it's just a name, people will RP things how they like, but still.

I know I didn't give the set any glaring holes either, but I reason that this is balanced by the fact that the greatest mitigation is only possible very near death. Also, this set will suffer greatly from burst damage and critical hits. Trying to be objective, I think this is in line with the current balance of power. Thoughts?

I worry that someone would softcap the set to S/L or melee and be able to live too easily on that edge. The game isn't supposed to be balanced around IOs, but I'm trying to account for them and not allow super game breaking stuff.

I am unsure what to do for stalkers, but I'm thinking I would get rid of the taunt aura, move the first four powers up one tier and put hide as the tier 1 power.

Well, there you have it. Where does this fit in to the current game balance? Do you see any potential game-breaking abuse of the powers? What problems do you see with the set? Is it unique enough to be its own set, but broad enough to appeal to a large portion of the player base?

Would you play it?

This goes great with a character idea I had.

I'm not sure this would be first on my list for a defensive set.

That aside, I would like to see some debuff resistance added: for instance Quick Recovery (possibly change it to Adrenaline?) could have an endurance recovery debuff resist, and Quickness could have a recharge debuff resist.

Also, add any kind of outside healing to the team and suddenly the 'benefits' of the set are not allowed to appear.

I like the idea behind the improved resistance at low health; it's similar to Super Reflexes in that respect.

However, SR is all about Defence with the resistance mitigation (which is unslottable) occuring in the passives. I see a fair bit of defense debuff, with nothing particularly bolstering defense in the first place, and with a fair amount of resistance (but not a great deal) elsewhere.

Solo, this might work out fine (but become frustrating when faceplanting - assumed with the self-destruct is that the defeated player is untargettable and so on a team would have to rely on wakies or frequent trips to the hospital).

In teams, and especially those that are reliant on tanks to take the brunt of the damage, I could see this set becoming very problematic: If a Blaster plants, unless they were silly and drew aggro back, teams can recover fairly quickly from that defeat. If the Tank drops, and has powers which encourage fighting at those very low levels of health, then all that aggro which is generated is transferred to the team. On TFs/SFs, that copuld be incredibly frustrating.

Overall I like the idea - or rather the concept - but the implementation needs more work. I think it needs to be a defensive set that works well either at full health or low health, and not geared towards the low end at all times.

Hmm...I think you'd have to make a whole new AT, with a bar akin to rage, but increasing as you were damaged (not hit and miss as rage is now, but as you slot health. Wether you regained that health shouldnt matter though)
So, the more pain you had taken, you simply get tougher and tougher, and just as ticked off.

It's a cool idea though, and some obvious thought has gone into it =]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zwillinger GG, I would tell you that "I am killing you with my mind", but I couldn't find an emoticon to properly express my sentiment.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Captain_Photon NOTE: The Incarnate System is basically farming for IOs on a larger scale, and with more obtrusive lore.

I agree with Techbot_Alpha

This idea is interesting and I can see the concept behind it clearly, however it strikes fairly close to "Willpower"; a set we already have, so might not be different enough for developement.

I do like the idea of a major debuff taunt aura though. We currently have three sets with AoE taunts (+regen/-tohit, +def/+tohit, +dmg) so something that was more focused on debuff would be interesting and due to lack of regen, defense, and resistance of large amounts it could work. I would take away the penalty and just make it a flat (and large) debuff of their tohit and damage. This would simulate Defense and Resistance, but only to enemies in range. Then I think you could fit in some ranged and aoe defense somewhere else to bring it up to par with other sets, because as you balanced it, I think its a tad on the weaker side.

Bio

Some minor edits to the first post.

I refuse to let this idea die just yet.

I'm gonna look over it and see what, if any, suggestions I can offer. Later though

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus This entire post should receive some kind of award for being both hysterical and fantastic. Well done.

I would call the powerset "Adrenalin Junkie". Of course, that's what I call all my blasters as they skate close to the edge as well.

Tier 1: Breath of the Dying

Summary: Self-cast Fallout (essentially) on defeat.

Recommend: Adding +HP boost to power. Use the Old-School Nemesis Vengeance code for it.

Implementation: Taken from the Stone Armor revamp discussions, I recommend making this power Absorption based on HP. By itself, I think it should boost your base HP like Willpower does, so there’s actually something to slot for. Essentially the power should be two-pronged: While alive, it boosts your HP; but as you take damage (Let’s say, to enable the power you must take 5x your base HP for it to trigger upon defeat) it then enables the power to explode in Berserker fury on the way down.

Speaking of Berserker Fury, when the power animates it should override the dying stance, have you beat your chest, and then explode in fury in a PBAoE of about 10 feet of smashing damage. THEN die. I’d love that


Tier 2: Perseverance

Summary: ~12.5% resist to all (averaging your range) plus unenhanceable resistance scalar to HP loss.

I like it.


Tier 3: Adrenaline

Summary: Stamina-esque recovery

Recommend: Considering if it comes too early in the set.


Tier 4: Resilience

Summary: Standard Mez Toggle

Recommendation: Is perception debuff thematic? Also, is it necessary? I think of a Berserker of being kind of a dumb brute and so being able to confuse him would be the only way to stop a physical juggernaut such as him. Confuse might be the loophole in the mez protection for thematic reasons, and perception debuff as well. (PVPers can weigh in and tell me yay or nay on that)


Tier 5: Unnerving Presence

Summary: PBAoE Toggle (Effects uncertain)

Recommendation: Taunt Aura (Not stated, just reaffirming) doing [Foe –ToHit, -Defense, Minor Fear]

Your presence causes foes to doubt themselves, causing them to miss more often and give away openings for attack. Your effigy can also causes enemies to openly weep, or run in terror.


Tier 6: Frenzy

Summary: …Complicated. 20% defense debuff on self, Damage scalar below 75% health.

Recommendation: Reach another sort of equilibrium like you did with Perseverance. Add defense debuff resistance to this power, to avoid a debuff cascade. Have the defense debuff taper off starting at 50% health and every 5% health down to 25% adds 5% defense back to your character until 25% health nets you no debuff anymore. *brain explodes*


Tier 7: Hasty Assault

Summary: Self +Recharge, +Slow Res (Attack and movement)

Recommendation: Who WOULDN’T want this? Perhaps to balance this set a tad though, the speed buff value is greater (badass stomping across caltrops) but the recharge resistance is less? (still vulnerable to that glue arrow, you dumb brute!)


Tier 8: Rebound

Summary: Self Rez

Recommendation: Half Health/End, Add FEAR. Make sure, after standing upright, that you howl for a large AOE fear if around enemies.


Tier 9: Death Wish/Final Gambit

Summary: Granite Armor without the toggle; kills you when its over.

Recommendation: If it’s going to kill you anyway, I’d toss out the defense all together. The set really doesn’t have much defense, and what would be cool, to me, is capped resistance to all, with +400% regen for 120 seconds, THEN the kill. You’re taking hits and just won’t stop, your body is absorbing bullets and blades and energy beams alike. But it catches up with you in 2 minutes and BAM. This power should empty your progress on Breath of the Dying, unless you intend to make the set cyclical and have the tier 9 feed the tier 1, then have the Tier 8 add fear to rebound.

Conceptually? I would lose many pairs of underpants if this became a set. Good work.

Feel free to correct me on any of the finer points of the set I may have overlooked.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deus_Otiosus This entire post should receive some kind of award for being both hysterical and fantastic. Well done.

I *REALLY* like the idea of this kind of powerset, with scaling buffs based on your HP for a melee glass cannon.

The issue on how it'd play in a team, with them not getting the full benefit due to buff/debuff/heal powers, is problematic though. How about, with Perseverance, it scales with defense at high health and into resistance at low health? 100% health, you have 0% resistance and ..20% defense(?) to all (numbers pulled out of my ***..istant), 75% health it goes to 10% resistance and 15% defense, 50% health is 20% resistance and 10% defense, 25% health is 30% resistance and 5% defense, 10% health is 40% resistance and 0% defense?

That way, there's still protection at high health but it may be prone to defense debuff failure, and as your health goes down there's more reliable protection. High health: quick and nimble, dodging attacks; Low health: you're angry, starting to slow down but you grit your teeth and ignore the pain instead.

Edit: The numbers I came up with were thinking in terms of Scrapper protection, if there's going to be a defense debuff with the damage buff

Hello Dechs,

The more I look at your idea, the more I like it.
Your reasoning for the failure of the old blaster "defiance" makes alot of sense.

Having more time to review and think about it and having just taken a WP/Fire Tank to 50, here are my newest thoughts on this Powerset.

The -20% defense in Frenzy is pretty harsh. It makes complete sense from a concept point of view, but mechanically, this set would be starting off with the WORST survival in respect to defense. It does get negated somewhat by "Unnerving Presence" depending on the debuff amounts, but I would simply take it away. The whole concept works well from the standpoint that you start out "squishy" and then get tougher as you get hurt.

Personally, I am not a fan of "death" related powers. And your set has two of them.
If I may suggest something a little different than "Breath of the Dying", how about a power called "Berserk Rage"; PBAOE Med Damage, Mag 2 Fear with 10 sec duration approx. You would be able to Fear and Debuff your opponents and still fall back on the "Back against the wall" concept of the set. Enhanced you should be able to get this effect to 20 sec duration, 20 sec recharge +damage (Lots of Frankeslot possibilities)

Or...
if Fear is not what you are after, make the effect a knockdown with damage. "You Bellow and fly into a rage Knocking all your opponents back a step". This could provide a tactical breather if you start getting too much incoming damage. The damage should be reasonable since the cooldown should be on a fairly slow timer. 40sec maybe? Probably the power would be moved later in the set (e.g Footstomp, Shield Charge) like similar powers.

And finally, I kinda like the whole idea of the Tier 9 crash you designed. Maybe take the effect of "Breath of The Dying" and ADD it to the crash. So when it crashes "you Die". If something is unlucky enough to be standing near you; he dies, she dies, they ALL DIE!

Alright, looking at the powers, referencing to Mids and using my lack of common sense, I'll give my thoughts/versions on numbers. I'm running these based on Scrapper defenses.

Breath of the Dying: Toggle, no endurance. When deactivated upon death, deals roughly the same damage as Fire Sword Circle in an 8ft radius (same as normal melee PBAoEs), 16 second recharge.

Perseverance: Toggle, 0.26/sec endurance drain, offers scaling protection from Defense to Resistance. At 100%hp, it will offer 12% defense to Melee and Ranged unenhanced. Every 5% health you loose will lower the value of defense by 1% base, and add 2% resistance to all damage. 75% hp will change to 7% defense, 10% resistance. 50% hp will change to 2% defense, 20% resistance. 40% hp and below will stop at 24% resistance to all damage, unenhanced.

Adrenaline: Auto, Stamina level +recovery, 20% resistance to endurance drain, slow and recharge debuffs.

Resilience: Toggle, 0.21/sec endurance drain, Indomitible Will mez protection, 10%
resistance to Smashing, Lethal, Cold, Toxic.

Unnerving Presence: Toggle, 0.56/sec endurance drain, taunt aura. PBAoE foe -damage (15%), -tohit (5%), every 10 seconds it ticks with a 10% chance for mag 3 fear with a 5 second duration (unenhanced).

Frenzy: Toggle, 0.21/sec endurance drain offers a 10% damage buff for every 5% health lost, self -regeneration (500%), -tohit (5%) (as opposed to the -def)

Hasty Assault: Auto, Quickness clone

Rebound: Self ressurect, 50% HP, 25% End, 300 second recharge, self +damage (30%) for 60 seconds.

Death Wish: Click, 90% resistance to all damage, 1500% regeneration, 300% damage buff, 120 second duration, 1000 second recharge, 5000 unresistable damage to self on crash. Upon crash, you become untargetable, only awakens or your self rez will save you from a hospital trip.


Working it out, with 3 defense/resistance, 1 endred and 3 -tohit slotted, this is how these numbers would look over the course of 100%, 75%, 50% and 40% for a level 50 Scrapper.

Constant values:

Unenhanced:
15% 'resistance' through -dam
5% 'defense' through -tohit
0 Regeneration
1.24/sec endurance drain

Enhanced:
15% 'resistance' through -dam
8% 'defense' through -tohit
0 Regeneration
0.74/sec endurance drain

Full Health, unenhanced:
12% defense (Melee/Ranged)
10% resistance (Smashing, Lethal, Cold, Toxic)
No +Damage

Enhanced:
19% defense (Melee/Ranged)
16% resistance (Smashing, Lethal, Cold, Toxic)
No +Damage

75% health, unenhanced
7% defense (Melee/Ranged)
20% resistance (Smashing, Lethal, Cold, Toxic), 10% resistance (Fire, Energy, Negative, Psi)
50% +Damage

Enhanced:
11% defense (Melee/Ranged)
34% resistance (Smashing, Lethal, Cold, Toxic), 16% resistance (Fire, Energy, Negative, Psi)
50% +Damage

50% health, unenhanced:
2% defense (Melee/Ranged)
30% resistance (Smashing, Lethal, Cold, Toxic), 20% resistance (Fire, Energy, Negative, Psi)
100% +Damage

Enhanced:
4% defense (Melee/Ranged)
47.5% resistance (Smashing, Lethal, Cold, Toxic), 32% resistance (Fire, Energy, Negative, Psi)
100% +Damage

40% and below, unenhanced:
No defense
34% resistance (Smashing, Lethal, Cold, Toxic), 24% resistance (Fire, Energy, Negative, Psi)
120% +Damage

Enhanced:
No defense
54.4% resistance (Smashing, Lethal, Cold, Toxic), 38% resistance (Fire, Energy, Negative, Psi)
120% +Damage

30%: 140% +Dam
20%: 160% +Dam
10%: 180% +Dam
Under 5%: 200% +Dam

Dechs,

Glad that I could participate. I am one of those people that really loves to see new things added to the game and it is obvious you put alot of thought into this Idea.

Great Idea, and looking forward to more.

I'm curious how this set would ever work?

For one, it encourages bad play styles. That's why blaster defiance 1.0 was griped at for so long. Regardless of the AT, bringing yourself to a low amount of HP just to get performance is not going to go real friendly with the rest of a team. No one is every going to invite you to a "Master of..." if you're going to be close to death constantly.

Also, this set needs a scaling resistance or defense once it hits the lower percentages of health. So what if you're doing awesome damage at -75% hp? You get three attacks off... maybe an AoE and then you're faceplanted. You don't want to rely on inspires at low health just to make your player work. And telling healers to "back off I'm on a roll here" is either going to fall on deaf ears or earn you a bad place in their book when you need the 15th rez per mission.

I don't want to bash the set; there's a lot of potential within it. But, the only power that will keep you alive long enough with personal buffs is the tier 9 which negates the rest of the set, save for the PBAoE that does debuffs and fear.

Yes, and factoring that very low percentage in, it would still not be enough to keep up with the ratio of getting slammed by a half-full mob. Exploiting the low health would help sweep up stragglers, but give poor performance in steam rolling.

Might be decent at solo play, but against +2 and higher mobs, particularly those that can favor range (like malta) are going to hit too hard and too fast. If you've teamed in mid-higher level, that's the average teams like to set difficulty. The repercussions of the low health and maybe 23% resistance at the most when enhanced isn't going to offer much when the taunt is on the player. (and if you don't have other factors that help your regen, the mobs are going to hit right through the buff; ie a set heal or the balance within WP's powers)