tundra berserker RA.

Started 14 Sep 2018
by egidorp
in Ask the Team
hello, where is tundra berserker RA is the most basic dmg ra on the berserker and its seems its not implanted here. do you plan to implant it ?
Fri 14 Sep 2018 10:27 PM by Magesty
Sadly, this realm ability is useless. All of the RA styles are useless. I understand they were broken for some time on Uthgard 2.0, but on live they were never worth the points.

The reality is the entire OF RA system needs to be re-evaluated. It is rife with useless abilities that have prohibitively high costs. In most cases a class’ ‘unique’ RA is either absolute trash or it is class/meta defining. RA styles fall firmly into the former category.
Fri 14 Sep 2018 10:51 PM by phixion
New RAs were better, yeah... I said it! Come at me bruh!
Fri 14 Sep 2018 11:51 PM by relvinian
1.87 patch level on classic server was better.
Mon 24 Sep 2018 8:05 AM by schreon





Kudos to Thebest for telling me he used the tundra style in combination with vendo when I reached out for him via discord.


I assume this is the broken state which Magesty mentioned earlier? ^^
Mon 24 Sep 2018 10:24 AM by schreon
Also, I tested the Razorback Hero Style RA today at a training dummy.

Wearing a 5.6 Celtic Spear with 99% quality
327 Strength
110 Quickness
no hastebuff






Of course, Heroes can't pull off that guaranteed-crit combo with vendo. Also, when hitting a real target, the damage will probably be much lower than 978 due to spec AF etc.

I have mixed feelings about those RA styles. If you can reliably burst a target down, they may be worth their hefty RA cost. On the other hand, reliably bursting down a target like this feels a bit lame. Especially as these RA styles only gain their full potential if you have low haste and low quickness. This encourages awful min/maxing like cancelling your haste- as well as dex/quick buff and unequipping any gear with +quickness. As soon as you equip a faster weapon or play a high quickness/haste character, these RA styles become useless.

Hence, one might consider changing the mechanics of those styles to some extent. As there is a 10 minute cooldown on these skills, the usual DPS-based balancing of style-damage should not be applied here IMHO. Thus, haste and quickness should not be taken into account when the damage of RA-Styles is calculated. Weapon speed might be considered, as switching in a special weapon that is extra-slow seems like reasonable micro-management that adds a tiny bit of extra difficulty. However, classes which do not have access to two-handed weapons are at a disadvantage in this respect (blademasters, mercenaries). Thus, it might even be adequate to also discard weapon speed for the damage calculation of RA styles. On the other hand this would render them almost equal to an extra Flurry-like instant DD with a larger cooldown ...

Balancing these skills is obviously not easy and maybe that is the reason why Mythic abandoned this concept back then when they re-designed the RA system.
Mon 24 Sep 2018 9:31 PM by schreon
I tried to use this style in combination with Rain of X level 1 in RvR today, as a Hero. I did not play much, but I hit a Sorc for about 940 damage. It was a rather high RR sorc and I suspect he had Spec-AF up (but therefore probably less absorb than the dummy , however I also got less strength because I specced det instead of aug str). She did not die, because she got focus healed before and after that Razorback swing. Then I got zerged. Unfortunately I did not make screenshots, but I would be willing to do more testing in duels against various targets, if that helps.

I did some more thinking and discussed this stuff with guild mates. They told me that on Uthgard, they simply nerfed the growth rate of all RA styles in order to prevent zerkers from abusing this so hard. In the end, the RA styles became even more useless. They appeared in the list of RA option in order to satsify 1.65 purists / fetishists, but had no use at all.

IMHO that is not a good way to go. Hitting for 900-1000 damage in one stroke comes with a hefty swing delay afterwards. It is clearly a good finisher, that can only be used once in 10 minutes and comes at a large RA point cost. IMHO that amount of damage is okayish, some people might pick that up, some don't.

It is just the 1300-1600 damage strikes due to crits that are way over the top. IMHO, RA styles would have their place if they would work like this:

- Mirror the RA-Styles for all classes among all realms (yes, this sucks, but most RAs are also mirrored)
- Static damage of circa 1000 on a 26% melee resistance target with 0 absorb and no spec AF. No matter if 1h, 2h, DW, H2H or whatever.
- The only thing the weapon determines is the damage type
- 0% crit chance, no matter vendo, mastery of pain or whatever
- Scale that damage down depending on more AF and absorb, so if you hit a plate-target with it, it's way less than 1000
- Make the style immune to miss/parry/block/evade and penetrate bubble, so it should be a guaranteed hit
- Add a constant swing-delay of 5 seconds or so afterwards, no matter the speed of your weapon

Depending on how strong this turns out to be, fiddle with the 1000k damage (probably tune it down further) and with the Cooldown.

IMHO it is obvious that Mythic wanted to design these styles as some kind of "finisher". Either remove RA styles entirely, or change them drastically so they actually work as a finisher, but don't 1 shot full-buffed tanks who are above 80% health.
Mon 24 Sep 2018 10:00 PM by Cider
"- Static damage of circa 1000 on a 26% melee resistance target with 0 absorb and no spec AF. No matter if 1h, 2h, DW, H2H or whatever."

That is way too OP IMO. That does not make it a finisher, its just an out right no contest killing blow, basically impossible to counter with no skill to perform. I would suggest just giving it a relatively high growth rate compared to other anytime styles while having it penetrate any defence (miss/block/parry/evade/BT) should still make it viable and more of the finisher you are proposing. I just dont think it having extra high damage needs to define its usefulness and would even argue that gr set 1.5 is too high for an anytime, even with a cool down, as it still takes no skill to perform (unlike PA etc). I would suggest somewhere in the 1-1.3 range.
Mon 24 Sep 2018 10:13 PM by schreon
Cider wrote:
Mon 24 Sep 2018 10:00 PM
"- Static damage of circa 1000 on a 26% melee resistance target with 0 absorb and no spec AF. No matter if 1h, 2h, DW, H2H or whatever."

That is way too OP IMO. That does not make it a finisher, its just an out right no contest killing blow, basically impossible to counter. I would suggest just giving it a relatively high growth rate compared to other anytime styles while having it penetrate any defence (miss/block/parry/evade/BT) should still make it viable and more of the finisher you are proposing.

Hey, please read my full post That is why I wrote "Depending on how strong this turns out to be, fiddle with the 1000k damage (probably tune it down further) and with the Cooldown."

Also, as far as I understand you, what you describe is exactly what this style is right now. The problem with that is that mercenaries and blademasters can't wear slow 2handed weapons. Hence they hit barely stronger than with their regular attacks. That renders RA styles completely useless for those classes, but very strong for classes with 2handed. And it becomes insanely strong in combination with crits, especially vendo-form of the zerker.

The whole style-based system contradicts cooldown timers. I explained that in detail above. Hence the idea to make the damage static, ignoring swing-speed, with a static swing-cooldown afterwards so all classes get the same benefit for the same cost and suffer from the same delay afterwards. It would still be a style, so it's different from a simple DD.
Mon 24 Sep 2018 10:22 PM by Cider
I get you, just the problem with it having a set delay after, you suggested 5 sec, this still gives the 2h users a large advantage as they already have a similar delay and would basically be almost unaffected while leaving the faster weapon users damage over time reduced, making it kind of counter productive for them. I think the penetrating defence is the key to balancing this, as you suggested.
Mon 24 Sep 2018 10:47 PM by schreon
Hey Cider, thanks for the discussion! I see what you mean regarding the ~5 sec delay (I am not married to those 5 sec, it is just a number for reference) being unfair to fast-hitters, but if you look closely at it, it is actually the way around. You have to consider the DPS of that style. Let's assume it does 1000 damage and comes with a 5 sec delay afterwards. Thus it has 200 DPS.

If you make the delay depend on the weapon's delay, a warrior with 3 seconds swingspeed would end up with about 333 DPS, whereas a mercenary with a very fast 1.5 swingcap weapon would end up with a whopping 666 DPS.

If you make a style deal static damage independent from swingspeed, you have to add a constant delay. Else, you end up in a situation again where some classes benefit more and others less, to an extreme extent.

The only attribute that would be okay to take into account for damage modification are the damage attributes like strength and dexterity.
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