Season 5 - Berserker Feedback & Discussion | Forums

[Mr_AwfuL]

No need to complicate things.

1) reduce feint drain

2) increase top heavy to 45

Zerker can now trade properly.

[dinosaurlicker]

You’ve put berserker into the top tier of play, but you have also made him extremely unfun to play against whilst also taking away the moves that contributed to his identity.

My credibilty:
I was diamond 3 in season 4 1v1 using old kensei 80% of the time. In certain matchups i would switch to shugoki or warlord.

Berserker character changes:

Ranking:
Berserker is now on the level of pk, glad, and sham. He was the only non-trash-tier character to get massively buffed. Highlander, kensei, and conq were all garbage and nobushi didnt get a clear defined buff. The only thing berserker lacks now is a neutral unblockable, which is unneeded to be top tier (proven by pk). To me, berserker is actually now a buffed version of pk. This is not good.

Gameplay:
Ill start off his deflect. The change should be reverted and his heavy after a deflect should have hyperarmor. I dont play berserk too much but ive had multiple plat-diamond level players get a deflect and then get no punish on me due to the deflect change, too much room for error on a move that shouldnt have any.

Next ill talk about what puts him in top tier, and that is the ability to soft feint his attacks into a 400 ms light attack with awkward timing and hyper armor. Shaman (whom i still think needs nerfs) and aramusha both have soft feints which are done correctly. Their soft feints punish you for trying to parry the heavy they feint, yet are easily parried if predicted. Sometimes they will even catch an opponent trying to block, but its not as if the soft feints are unblockable. They come out right when it seems they should and are near instantaneous but not quite. Aramusha and shaman also have body movements that match.

Berserker, on the other hand, has soft feints which are incredibly hard to predict and even when predicted near impossible to parry. Berserkers body motion while soft feinting makes no sense and the soft feints are basically unparryable. This is coming from someone who used kensei and relied on parrying to get to diamond 3. The indicator on the feints also seems messed up which makes the light look like its 300 ms instead of 400. Not to mention these soft feints are uninterruptable, and combo into a continuation of the infinite chain. They also do an absurdly high 15 dmg for how fast and hard to predict they are. Plus they dont really seem to cost any stamina.

Identity:

Berserker to me was always the ballsy character that got huge damage at high risk, except before the rework it was too risky- to the point where there was no point in taking risks. Now zerker is super safe and has no ballsy moves worth using. The top unblockable does no damage and will almost always be soft feinted into a ******edly hard to parry light attack which is pretty much completely safe. There is literally almost no point in trying to parry a zerker anymore as the lights are incredibly hard to parry and the heavies can be feinted and arent worth the damage off a parry anymore. Its so unfun to fighta zerker now, shaman pk and glad are satisfying to beat while zerker is just as hard to beat but not satisfying at all, if you know what i mean.

What needs to be done:
Nerf zerker’s soft feints and buff his unblockable damage. Soft feints should be 500 ms and do 12 dmg and also cost slightly more stamina. Doesnt even matter if zerker goes oos anyways as hes an assassin and can just spam backdash against half of the cast. Unblockables should do 40 dmg and all non soft feints should use slightly less stamina. Deflect change needs to be reverted.

[MrLaz.]

about Berserker everything is fine but one thing is making me mad it is deflects.... i did not like the change of deflect actually i hate it it u cannot do deflect while u in oos i want pre-deflect of zerk..

[Knight_Raime]

Just want to say something very fast and easy:

You cannot give any character a move that is Unblockable, Uninterrumpible, AND feintable... I mean c'mon! it is worse than a 50/50, you're creating the.... 33/66¿? You're transforming a game of ability into a game of chance...

Also, unblockables in a chain when you just increased chip damage is a bit over the top... but this is not that bad, as long as chip damage is not excessive...

50/50's don't exist in for honor. A 50/50 means there are 2 options. There are no tells for either option. Forcing the person to guess. if they guess wrong they take damage. If they guess right they're safe at the very least or in the best case can punish. In for honor every hero can roll away from any mix up in the game. Soft feints and hard feints are telegraphed. Meaning you absolutely can tell what's coming with either option. Assassins can back dash most mix ups as well. When you have an option that doesn't require the receiver to guess and it trumps both options it's no longer a 50/50.

Unblockables in a chain usually means you have ample time to react since they're preceded by other moves. Neutral mix ups are harder to deal with because you need to know the animation a bit better. versus a combo where you can recognize the combo string and go "oh he's going to do this unblockable next."

The only move berzerker has that is all 3 of those things is his top heavy finisher. Which is preceded by an attack. Giving you ample time to react.
Further more the additions he received do not change the core gameplay of berzerkers neutral game. Meaning if you've built good knowledge of his kit and decent muscle memory reacting to him shouldn't be much different. Also. Since chained heavies got faster you can't delay the heavy after a light anymore feint wise. You have to input the feint immediately or it's going to fly. So there is that. Also his new faster lights from a feint are not only preceded by a heavy but the input on the light has to be immediate. So again. You can't really vary your timing here for the benefits you gain.

All in all the changes did buff him in some areas. But not absurdly. Because his core gameplay is the same. All the changes do is give him slightly better access to his combos and a potential way to open up people who only block. And because core gameplay is basically the same it's not hard to deal with zerker if you were already good at dealing with him.

[bmason1000]

What needs to be done:
Nerf zerker’s soft feints and buff his unblockable damage. Soft feints should be 500 ms and do 12 dmg and also cost slightly more stamina. Doesnt even matter if zerker goes oos anyways as hes an assassin and can just spam backdash against half of the cast. Unblockables should do 40 dmg and all non soft feints should use slightly less stamina. Deflect change needs to be reverted.

Berserker does not have soft feints, 12 damage is what the opening lights currently do, 500ms is the speed they used to have.

[bmason1000]

No need to complicate things.

1) reduce feint drain

2) increase top heavy to 45

Zerker can now trade properly.

45 may be excessive. Honestly I'd settle for 35. Just that one little smidge to make trades worth it.

Either way with those two changes, possibly a change to slashing rush stamina drain, zerk is now as close to ideal as they're going to get.

[Vartan79]

I'd like to mention that alot of good points as to why this is a negative change to berserker were posted over here, here and here

I don't have much time so i'll go over some highlights.

1) extremely stamina intensive, you're basically fighting against yourself, feinting yourself into the ground, good players know how to block those pesky little feint-lights and leave you low on stamina.

2) trading potential. the trading potential is now against us, we'll take even or more damage while trading for less, most players can eat through our unblockables and weak damage output.

3) 2nd and 3rd heavy are useless. This is not beta people, nobody falls for these.

4) top heavy is useless. it's easily dodged out of/parried or eaten, nobody is scared of this move anymore, it's weak as all hell now, laughable even, if increased a bit to 40-45 it can be made good again, feinting it is the only option but players expect that and dodge out of or counter it.

All in all berserker is much tryharder to play and less rewarding, This was undoubtedly a nerf, he is weaker in damage and easily shutdown by decent players.

Welcome to problems most of all the other heros have. Zerk is still one of the strongest and fastest heros in the game.

[Tirik22x]

The damage to the overhead top was asinine... it’s parried 99% of the time, and only worth 30 damage?! How can that seem ok? Especially when Shamans superwoman dive/bite has CRAZY range and insane damage. You’re telling me that a 115 lb woman can bite harder than a grown a$$ man can swing two axes?! Gtfoh!

She needs a nerf, and Zerk needs that overhead buffed. The juice is NOT at all worth the squeeze.

[XJadeDragoonX]

Put deflect back how it was


Buff top heavy damage

🤷

[Mr_AwfuL]

Welcome to problems most of all the other heros have. Zerk is still one of the strongest and fastest heros in the game.

Top heavies were risky but if times correct you were able to pull off some amazing trades, after the update we're forced to rely on hard feints and light attacks which are very stamina intensive, causing us to become vulnerable quite rapidly. I do not believe zerker is balanced as it is now, he needs a decent top heavy and a solution to the massive stamina drain, especially since he is now forced into a situation where he's required to constantly hard feint to put that damage out there.