I've been noticing that achieving the backwards-moving zone attack with Berserker (Slashing Rush) is incredibly unreliable, and that certain actions prior to activation like dodging backwards or forwards, will often (but not always) cause a standard, forward moving, zone attack to be triggered instead of the desired backwards-moving Slashing Rush.

When this does get triggered to happen, it will continue happen until a separate action somehow resets the issue and backwards-moving Slashing Rushes are again achievable until something else sets it off, for example feinting seems to be the most reliable way to reset it, whereas simply moving/dodging either forward or backward screws it up, but dodging or moving to the side alone is fine.

I've really strongly considered for a long time that I just simply couldn't get the timing of it, but after trying multiple combinations of the back key and the zone attack the problem still persists. I find it worth noting that the backwards-moving basic heavy and light attacks that all classes have access to work fine and Berserker too has no issues with them, if you're trying to move backwards while doing the first attack in a chain it will always work regardless of how poorly you combined the buttons. But not if it's a zone attack.

I just find it quite frustrating when I'm trying to get the very unique properties of the backwards-moving Slashing Rush, that being having immediate uninterruptability (relatively immediate for Berserker,) making a lot of space without having to dodge, and the biggest part is that it doesn't cost HALF my stamina bar, but instead is only like 10%. I don't even get a lot of opportunities to use this ability in matches, but when I do I really depend on the attack I intended coming out.

If I lose half my stamina bar instead of 10%, not to mention get parried on the predictable last hit of the standard version, that could be the difference between a win and a loss through no fault of my own except in my decision to even try, simply because this ability is wildly inconsistent but has uses which are irreplaceable, regardless of how niche those uses are.

So here's a formal writeup of the supposed bug:

[PC] General: Consistently differentiating a standard zone attack from the special backwards-moving version is near impossible due to certain difficult-to-define actions causing the special ability version to only ever come out as the standard version, unless further, different, difficult-to-define actions are preformed to reset the bug (what I presume is a bug anyway.)
Reproduction rate: 3/5
Bug Types: Gameplay
Character(s): Berserker

Additional info: Basically it comes down to the fact that you can be in a fight, and something you did in the process prevents you from preforming the special version of your zone attack, so when an opportunity presents itself for that special version, but not the normal version which presents a plethora of more risks, you're not able to take it because of some unknown action you did while fighting. It can be as simple as moving forward any quicker than a few seconds before you intend to preform the ability. From which point, it will continue to only allow the standard version until something as simple as a feint is preformed to, for some reason, reset the problem, until something else sets it off.

Replicate: Going into a practice bot match against a level 0 bot will suffice. Simply attempt to preform the backwards-moving version of your zone attack after various actions that would naturally be performed in a fight. After attacks miss, after attacks hit, after various dodges, after various movements, after feints. From my testing it would seem it will almost always work after a feint, but it will almost never work after moving forward at all, unless you've waited at lest 2-3 seconds before attempting. Sometimes both of the scenarios I've described will have an opposite outcome as I've described for no apparent reason.

All I can say for sure is that this particular special ability in the Berserkers arsenal is incredibly unreliable to the point where I'm quite sure there's a bug at hand, and the punishment for such unreliability occurring is high enough to prompt me completely stopping my attempts to use it (even though it would be quite helpful if it worked) because I will simply lose fights by trying.