I'm just curious how in the grand vision of the mud being *nearly* balanced, how do Berserkers fit into the scheme of things. Deathblow is a grossly outrageous skill, stacking bloodlust on top of that is ever more ridiculious. I am not complaining, I know there is still a chance to beat one berserker. Although I'm asking why villagers are allowed to use these deathblows when going out leveling on NPC's and looking for gear. Seems ridiculious to have two villagers shelling out the damage that four standard warriors can deal even on non mages or enemy(Cabal) warriors. I mean arial villagers sticking unspeakable blows with a swords is a bit looney. Why do they not suffer any penalties while traveling together ganging people down and why does it work on NPC's at all or even at a reduced damage or frequency?

I think this subject is unfortunately, too often blown out of proportion. I do not believe berserkers/deathblow are overpowered. In fact, I think that out of any class/cabal combo in the entire game, they have it the "roughest" when it comes to pk.

Lets examine what it is to be a berserker, a lineup of Pros and Cons
(mind you, I have played plenty of village/non village in my time)

Cons:

Besides race/class inherent abilities they can not prep..ever period. This means, unless they have inherent flight, they can't even do that.

No magical transportation/no recall/teleport. Everywhere they go they have to "huff" it. This makes them extremely vulnerable to mv reducing skills Fatigue/Hamstring/Plague etc. And, you never have to worry about flee/quaff with them.

No healing, unless they are lucky enough to have a defender nearby (not usually the case) They cannot go anywhere to heal. The only healer they may use offers no direct healing, and only cures ailments. And, whatsmore that healer is in their Cabal.

They can't use magical gear. This means, no spiffy progging swords/prayer beads/blademasters gloves..half of the cool stuff in the game, nope. They must deliver beatdowns with crappy old iron/steal weaps.

Parity! they must give you an honorable fight, if they don't they are suspect to being kicked out of their cabal, and losing the only things that could possibly make such a sad sorry non magic using/prep using/non healing warrior worth a damn.

Pros:

They get detect invis

They get a fluctuating damage resist buff (up to 33% if the veil is thick, I beleive)

They get a _random_ (and I stress random) chance to deliver a deathblow, which scales with level. 90% of the time these deathblows can be parried/dodged/shield blocked. The occasional sweet parting blow deathblow being one of a few exceptions.

They get bloodthirst. Which is haste/immunity to strength loss/bleeding/disease for the duration (disease/bleed/str loss will still be there when they lose thirst) and some hit/dam boost. So, to counterbalance thirst as soon as they are done thirsting, they get fatigue which is no hp/mv regeneration, slowed, and -hit/dam. Not to mention, they hit everything you put in front of them while thirsted.

I have to say, I love ragers. Both when I am playing them (Its a fun ride) and when I am fighting them (I find them easy/predictable kills). In honest, I beleive the cons to being a berserker outweigh the pro's. Sure, you might "get lucky" with a deathblow and land a kill when you shouldn't...but hell the rest of the time you are getting pummeled. Look at it this way, a lot of people tag the fort as a noob cabal...how many fortress members do you see con dying at or under 200 hrs, vs how many villagers you see con die in that time?
Do some hard looking, and rethink how overpowered you beleive them to be.

-S

.

Why are there more warriors than healers? Is it because healers are trash?

News flash, everybody on this ####ing MUD wants to be Rambo. We should have called it RamboMUD.

I'd rather be "The Bride". Or Jason Bourne.

nt

as a battle rager berserker and then tell me deathblow is overpowered. Or for instance lets say there are imperials sitting on eastern road with centurions and a gank. Or you walk through galadon and get summoned into the locked room. Air shifter scions/vindicators. so on and so on and so on.

Sure db is powerful as hell nobody is disputing that. The justification that everyone keeps saying is that there are so many weaknesses going on in a ragers life that they get such big bonuses to counteract these. If you choose not to capitalize on their several weaknesses then your just not playing the game very well.

I just wanted to say that I play alot of ragers and to date (at least to the best of my knowledge with PBF) my highest grossing kill rager was a defender warrior. Now, I'm not exactly a PK machine, but, all things being equal, in this case my skill, all of your arguements makes it seem like the berserker is the ultimate killer. It isn't.

While I like ragers because they are self-reliant. It is also a huge drawback. I get bored having to collect gold, and preps etc, but, I'll tell you what, it sure would be nice to be able to pay the village healer to save your ass when your bleeding to death or being raided. Not to mention how nice it would be to quaff out of a bad situation.

Lastly, as a berserker I've gotten tooled by some warriors who knew what they were doing. Fjarn is completely right when he says the one time you get burnt by DB you think its the worst, but, as a berserker that fight was one in a small handful of your fights that that actually happened.

Have you ever been in a group where your tank has a slightly better than avg resistance to damage, no healing, if said "bloodlust" is used they attack everything on sight w/huge added no seeing promp (-) healing and (-) damage afterward, no chance of flight unless its natural to your class, no bash prot, no spells to increase strength or quickness, no wording or teleporting when you get stuck, the grouping range of a scion, the said DB which is greatly reduced by the right type of protections, and who is hunted by members of nearly every cabal in thera, much less the rest of the group? Just a question. Take it or leave it.

nt

It's not like it's difficult to use it with the right timing. Just use it when your opponent has lagged themselves and then do your own lagging move. They'll inevitably eat a DB due to the haste.

Bloodthirst also occasionally reduces lag like Harmonious so if that happens at the wrong moment your target will either slip away or eat your face in a way you didn't expect.

Plus why the hell does everyone say damage reduction is a: easy to get and b: completely negates deathblow?

Unless you are certain race/class combos chances are good your total HP is not breaking 700 or 800 with average gear. This means that even if they are DBing for mangles all it takes is five of them to more or less have the same results as two DB's for unspeaks or close.

People playing berserkers are intentionally rolling the dice. And it pays off in dividends. You can more often than not eat DB's anytime you ever get caught in melee trying to execute more elaborate strategies, and at any time the Rager can realize what you're trying to do and decide he isn't interested in killing you anymore. Which is pretty much when he's caught you more than 5 areas over from the Village.

They throw excessively large fits about their (and their cabalmates) gear, more than other people of similar classes (since they are all gear based) because the 50+ damroll is exactly what allows the DB to exceed every single disadvantage that they have, especially when you add in thirst. If you can't tank the DB's you're ####ed. Even if you can, you're going to get unlucky and then a small percentage of the time get nasty tells bragging about it. However they can be plenty lethal with an average set of gear and avg 18 weapons. DB can very often buy them a way out of permalag and damage reduction isn't widely available enough to fight off 2-4 of them for a party that is smaller or equal in size to them. Add in a bard or defender and #### just gets messier, but scouts and defenders are quite balanced. It's not hard to gear critical hit to do what DB does, on command, and past dam redux.

Someone posts about how ragers are overpowered. Daevryn says "I bet you're not playing one." Someone agrees with him. Someone else posts about how they're really overpowered, for real this time.

A month passes.

Someone posts about how ragers are overpowered.

Two points from teh Fjarn:

1) Good rager berserkers have high kill counts, thanks to deathblow and thirst.

1.b) Good rager berserkers have high death counts, thanks to deathblow and thirst.

2) It's a matter of perspective. If all you see is combat against the rager, you probably see a lot of thirst and deathblow and think it's overpowered. If you're a rager berserker, you only get to reap the benefits of thirst and deathblow in that short period of time that you're actually fighting. The rest of the time, you're dealing with the myriad penalties.

By the way, if you die once to a 500 point deathblow, it sticks out in your mind as an overpowered skill. If you get 10 kills against ragers, it's just some pk.

So in essence, Daevryn's got it nailed. The drawbacks to ragerdom are severe and many. This is obvious when you play a rager, and less than obvious when you're swearing at your monitor after dying to "the perks". Perspective.

For what it's worth, I've been frustrated on both sides.

I also suspect this entire post won't change anyone's view on the matter. That's why "Fjarn" rhymes with "Futility".

Not really. It's actually pronounced Fyarn.

Maybe we could have pick a berserker day. You either get to be a RBW with semi-decent to good gear, or your pick of rager-killing gruesomeness. Let's see who wins *evilgrin*.

(Me? I'm taking shaman.)

>1.b) Good rager berserkers have high death counts, thanks to
>deathblow and thirst.
>The rest of the time, you're dealing with the myriad penalties.

I don't think average "Joe Doe warrior" cares after being two rounded.
Please try see his way...
Joe practices his skills, he gets gear, he can hold his own against other classes.
Rager comes and kills him with random sh1t which requires no skill or even input from said rager (ie deathblow).
And then said rager taunts how much better he is then said non-rager warrior.

Yes ragers got bunch of drawbacks. But they all do not matter in this fight.


A long time ago I proposed to swap deathblow and critical hit.
So it would actually be an improvement for ragers while fighting abs-despoiled-Scion-shifters (people ragers ought to be fighting).
And not so punishing against average Joe Doe warrior.

Deathblow would work like a charge of morossa for scouts.
So scouts would have to use tactically.


I am interested in contractive feedback from immortals.

Thank you in advance.

Called "q return" or "q teleportation" or "get magic and other things available to you".

Unless you've made some rp choices that force you to fight ragers, no warrior like you describe should ever die to a rager berserker.

You typically dont have time to flee/quaff.
Bash/db/db/You have been KILLED!!

http://www.qhcf.net/phorum/read.php?3,662668

Yes could quaff every time you see rager.
But don't you think this would be a little humilating for warrior?

Unless you're talking about a thief or assassin, then there's not really any reason to die. Most berserkers are warriors, by far, and they have to walk everywhere, they can't just pop up next to you. If you don't see them until they bash you, that's your mistake, not their ability.

"Don't to fight them unless you can gang or execute an elaborate strategy to drop MV's during which you can still be 2 rounded at any point"

Something is broken regardless of the extenuating circumstances.

People keep suggesting damage reduction as a legitimate tactic. I'm sorry but unless it's class-based and not on a Paladin, I consider damage reduction is a special case only, and with the breaking of sets is completely variable on the player's luck and hours sunk into actually finding the a/b/s if it's a mage, a large number of mages me included never find all three wands and many limited sources are maxed out by either the liches or hero level shapeshifters/transmuters (not even mages in general) that have been around a while. Again, as Daevryn also said, you need more damage reduction the more stupid #### you plan on doing.

Currently fighting a Berserker toe to toe is 'stupid ####' and has been for over ten years when it really shouldn't be. I'm not saying they shouldn't stand a decent chance of killing you, I'm saying it should be less than it is now and wholly predictable (within the realm that anything is predictable in CF), especially with the prevalence of dagger due to dex now being important even to giants. The entwine/flurry is never funny but it can be avoided by lagging the warrior to death when his mainhand is empty.

What isn't funny is losing 400 HP in the round prior from 1-3 DB's trying to execute some strategy or even seal a kill on someone with 100 HP left. Especially if you were winning despite having little or no d/r.

Jhishesh claiming no warrior should ever die to the rager is disengenuous and he should be shot for claiming it. There's any number of situations you can't or don't want to quaff return even as an uncaballed:

A Berserker walks in and attacks or lags you while you have your hands full with another opponent. The berserker is probably not aware you're busy with someone else if this happens.

Cabal defense.

Other people, usually entire other cabals in your PK, can have exhausted your resources and you may not be in a position to have the gold or potions on hand.

Explore areas and other terrain. Granted, this is rare because they will never be outside of walking distance of the village with 50% MV, but it's happened.

What Jhishesh is proposing is a means of escaping a cage-match situation. Very little of CF is a cage match situation but DB certainly gets ragers out of plenty of those.

And it's not the DB alone, while a royal lifespan shortening pain in the ass, that's the issue. It's the combination of it with spellbane and thirst, in situations where running may not be an option.

CF is about PK. Tactical retreats are fun. Running away from people and praying they turn stupid is not fun.

Woldrun nuked me with DB wearing ragesteel and pit gear using his hand to hand spec while I was a fully geared tiger. Then he proceeded to talk about how awesome it was to nuke me with no effort at all for a perceived slight when I was about to give him some #### back that would let him survive but not two round people. Mirfalaus then proceeded to give him back everything that WOULD allow him to two-round people but that's not the point. This is stupid as hell no matter what you think his drawbacks are, he was raiding the cabal.

Bard Repertoire Clarifications:
http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=6&topic_id=23735&mesg_id=23735&page=

The problem is you cannot balance the game based on the lowest common denominator. No matter what character race/class/cabal combo you (Scrimbul) play, your only options at landing PKs is to gank or pray for luck. If you played a rager berserker warrior, your death thread would be something along the lines of:

"Sacer was on crack. Conjurers are stupid #### and broken. Ragers can only use resist, and can't prep up the ass like other characters to handle the conjurer's broken ass magic missle - aka "one round mana-laced flurries of death." What were the IMMs thinking giving conjurers a flurry attack at level 1?? And then giving them a healer? And a mob that can detect hidden and camo?? I got 4 rounded by a conjurer wearing ragesteel. Yeah I ganked and full sac'd him after that. Ragers should be able to gank conjurers. Period."

The solution is really for you to swallow your pride, accept that you are a student, and just get better at the game. It would lend so much more credibility to your arguments re: game balance.

>The problem is you cannot balance the game based on the
>lowest common denominator. No matter what character
>race/class/cabal combo you (Scrimbul) play, your only options
>at landing PKs is to gank or pray for luck. If you played a
>rager berserker warrior, your death thread would be something
>along the lines of:
>
>"Sacer was on crack. Conjurers are stupid #### and broken.
>Ragers can only use resist, and can't prep up the ass like
>other characters to handle the conjurer's broken ass magic
>missle - aka "one round mana-laced flurries of death." What
>were the IMMs thinking giving conjurers a flurry attack at
>level 1?? And then giving them a healer? And a mob that can
>detect hidden and camo?? I got 4 rounded by a conjurer
>wearing ragesteel. Yeah I ganked and full sac'd him after
>that. Ragers should be able to gank conjurers. Period."
>
>The solution is really for you to swallow your pride, accept
>that you are a student, and just get better at the game. It
>would lend so much more credibility to your arguments re: game
>balance.

Simple way to ruin a conjurer's day:

DB the elemental to death. It has no HP and no damage reduction. This goes double if the conjurer is using a book to conjure, in which case he can't get better than perfect match barring strange circumstances I haven't accounted for yet since the conjurer can't put extra mana into a book conjure.

DB the demon/angel to death. Unless it's a challegha with oozeshield it has no damage reduction. Again, it also has only as much HP as an average player.

Dent the archon/devil's HP. Even if you don't kill it, if you hurt it enough you signifigantly increase the chances of it turning on the conjurer, especially if it's evil.

There's no reason for you to have to continually pound on a brick wall if the conjurer has A/B/S. It will either get out of your hair or die when one of the servitors goes down, and prior to that get overconfident because you're not swinging at the conjurer.

A Rager has better options to accomplish any of this because of resist and spellbane, without even being a berserker, at hero if they gear properly. Most folks have to tackle this with few or no preps in situations where ONE of these stupid mobs can solo them down.

Furthermore it's right in the story of Thera that conjurers > Ragers. What they didn't put in the story is that unless you're using demons for damage output and a/b/s to protect yourself you're probably not killing the Rager unless the Rager lets himself get rotted by the devil.

Meanwhile no matter which servitor you swing at you still stand a decent chance of wrecking the conjurer's day real fast, with killing the elemental being the easiest of options. That archon's not going to be doing much if it has to choose to heal the conjurer over damaging you when the elemental is gone, and ANY servitor in the game can get pissed and jump the conjurer when he has no mana if it's hurt enough.

And finally, you can still walk away from a conjurer on foot unless the conjurer has put 300 some-odd hours into perfecting an exotic weapon skill that isn't swing.

Bard Repertoire Clarifications:
http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=6&topic_id=23735&mesg_id=23735&page=

>Simple way to ruin a conjurer's day:

You've missed the point.

Do you know why you know all these things about conjurers? It's because you've actually played one or more seriously. You've seen all the many reasons that what looks, from a certain perspective, to be unstoppable really isn't.

Why don't you know these things about Battle berserkers? It's because you haven't played one.

(Aside: I got curious and looked up the kills/level/hours on my last hero range battle berserker and my last hero range conjurer, and they're almost identical across the board -- although the conjurer died a lot less.)

What you learn playing Battle berserker for a long while, for the most part, isn't anything you can easily break down into bullet points. People try anyway, and it works only up to a point.

Mostly, I think you develop a sense of the situations in which you're screwed -- the thousand times you think to yourself something like, I hope X doesn't attack me right now, because if they do, I'm dead for sure or almost sure. Fortunately, in a lot of those cases people who don't know better will be scared of deathblow and back off.

Playing non-Battle characters now I have a sense for this. I see Battle berserker warrior #894 who (for whatever reason) is the enemy of the character I'm playing at the time, and I'll think to myself, they wouldn't be doing what they're doing if they were in any condition to fight. I may not know how or why they aren't, but I'm not often wrong. Or I'll know when I have a good guarantee of catching one far away from the Battle cabal, or beat up, or someplace they can't thirst and live, or whatever.

But typically in a 6 round fight you get like three injures on a berserker and take 20ish decimate-mutilate spellbanes as a conjurer. I've played around 7-8 hero conjurers. Magic Missile is more pain than it's worth on a berserker with the head and certainly not anything to get excited about.

>People keep suggesting damage reduction as a legitimate
>tactic. I'm sorry but unless it's class-based and not on a
>Paladin, I consider damage reduction is a special case only,

Dunno man. I've seen a couple skilled, well-geared, prep-chugging non-village warriors pretty much own the berserker warriors they've fought.

Now, granted, they're not always fighting someone on the "high end" like Woldrun. Also they're skilled, well-geared, and toting around tons of preps. So they pretty much represent the "upper limit" of warriordom.

But, then again, there's probably always going to be one or two of these type guys running around. The Kostyans, Hunsobos, Igbahs and Humberts of the world. You don't think they crushed their fair share of berserkers? And I'm not just talking about when the village doesn't have its item. So if you're playing a berserker, it's almost guaranteed that at some point you're going to have to deal with someone who can punk you in melee. And, unlike him, you don't have word or teleport.

>Dunno man. I've seen a couple skilled, well-geared,
>prep-chugging non-village warriors pretty much own the
>berserker warriors they've fought.
>
>Now, granted, they're not always fighting someone on the "high
>end" like Woldrun. Also they're skilled, well-geared, and
>toting around tons of preps. So they pretty much represent
>the "upper limit" of warriordom.
>
>But, then again, there's probably always going to be one or
>two of these type guys running around. The Kostyans,
>Hunsobos, Igbahs and Humberts of the world. You don't think
>they crushed their fair share of berserkers? And I'm not just
>talking about when the village doesn't have its item. So if
>you're playing a berserker, it's almost guaranteed that at
>some point you're going to have to deal with someone who can
>punk you in melee. And, unlike him, you don't have word or
>teleport.

How is this related to the original point?

Yeah, there's builds that can beat berserkers.

However being a berserker sharply reduces the chances of beating the same build as if he was a non-berserker.

Why would the average denominator give a crap about whether the higher end folds would beat you in melee? That happens all the time. It's far outstripped by the people you accidentally kill. 'Woops, I just did 600 some-odd damage to you in a single round. Too bad that's over half of your HP unless you're hoarding limited HP gear. Sorry.'

Prep-chugging is the key problem here. Somehow everyone forgot this aspect of the game eats time like no other and it got swept under the rug and everyone stopped bitching because it wasn't required for everyone else. Suddenly haste is gone but thirst exists, there's no edible barrier, and everyone is happy? Why?

Furthermore if the disadvantages are so ####ing hard why is the Berserker so popular still relative to the other two paths, both of which would vastly increase your survival rate? Because variable unpredictable damage gets kills and thirst more than any other skill instantly changes the tide of a fight going sour, especially right near the village. That's why.

I should point out that the Village pit is the only pit that is still consistently packed with gear relative to other cabals, which only have this happen intermittently while in power. Empire basically has no pit, and the other cabals are leaving so much gear in their opponent's corpses their own pits don't see as much use. This is indicative of how many freaking Berserkers are around, not Ragers.


Bard Repertoire Clarifications:
http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=6&topic_id=23735&mesg_id=23735&page=

I really don't feel like dignifying this with a response but maybe the pit is stacked because people in battle try to look out for each other. Until you have had a villager and been through not only the nice times when they have the head, but the crap times when your outnumbered 5 to 1 without the head should you even be allowed to speak on the matter. If the village looses the head I am betting most of these berserkers are still going to give you a beating, it may not be the lucky/unlucky 2 rounder but odds are they are still pretty stout and somewhat experienced because all they do is fight. So go ahead and throw your final word out there and get it over with because like most people who have responded to your posts we all agree that you need to see if the grass is really greener or your just colorblind.

Unless I'm mistaken, you haven't and are not now playing a rager, so how would you know what's in the village pit ever, let alone "consistently"?

In short, you're proposing a fix to something I think is not broken.

>>1.b) Good rager berserkers have high death counts, thanks
>to
>>deathblow and thirst.
>>The rest of the time, you're dealing with the myriad
>penalties.
>
>I don't think average "Joe Doe warrior" cares after being two
>rounded.
>Please try see his way...
>Joe practices his skills, he gets gear, he can hold his own
>against other classes.
>Rager comes and kills him with random sh1t which requires no
>skill or even input from said rager (ie deathblow).
>And then said rager taunts how much better he is then said
>non-rager warrior.

Why in gods green earth is "Joe Doe Warrior" even having to fight said battlerager? Not even a matter of running away, but I can't remember any of my melee-based characters getting attacked by a rager unless I've picked fights with them first. I know there's always exceptions, but I've played this game a long time, and I'd be willing to bet you're doing something to get yourself involved in this fight. Maybe you're an Imperial? I've had ones that're friendly with ragers. Trib protecting town? You have LOTS of options that don't even involve him getting a chance to target you. Nexus? Honestly, you picked their enemy cabal. Grouping with a mage? I'm not even going to answer that.

Again, this is all about perspective.

Joe Doe Warrior gets two rounded, and yes, it sucks. How can it be that luck can win the battle? How can it be that I prepped and used strategy and some stupid random number generator just dealt 400 points of damage to kill me when I was in the lead? How!? Why!? KHAAAANN!!

If you look at it from the berserker's perspective, he's probably got about a 40% pk ratio, and more often than not, deathblow doesn't fire exactly when he needs it to. In fact, with my luck, it typically gets parried or dodged, and my regular hits are the ones that land.

It's actually a relief to finally have that one battle go your way, where you can land a bash and get a pair of deathblows before the lag wears off. But in my experience, that's far beyond the norm.

The norm is, it doesn't go the berserker's way.

Which brings us back to perspective. If you fight the berserker and it happens to go his way, it's going to go really really badly for you. That fight will stick out in your mind, and you'll think the berserker is overpowered. You won't really think about the other 4 fights you had with him this week where you sent him packing (or regearing).

>The norm is, it doesn't go the berserker's way.

Indeed.
Except if deathblow did not fire, berserker would not automatically lose anything.
It is just gonna be warrior vs warrior fight.
In which rager will almost always have resist/ability to thirst.
And other warrior possibly having some protections.


>That fight will stick out in
>your mind, and you'll think the berserker is overpowered.

Correction: Deathblow overpowered, not berserker.


>You
>won't really think about the other 4 fights you had with him
>this week where you sent him packing (or regearing).

Are you implying if no deathblow happened non-rager warrior would win 4 out of 5 fights against berserker rager?

You ought to know this is quite far from reality.
Resist/thirst makes rager very powerful. Non-rager warrior has to come with a lot of protections to compensate.


Deathblow just adds extra 20% chance to win (using your logic).


This is why I am pushing deathblow to be replaced by randomly firing critical hit for berserkers.

Instead damage x5, you deal critical hit which nullifies ABS.
Excellent against Scion shifters but not such unnecessary killer against Joe-Doe-Warriors.

So, you're saying resist/thirst is *MORE* than enough to stack the decks for a rager? In simplest terms, you're getting a crappy sanc, and haste.

Now, I *HATE* prepping with a passion, but I can easily get stone skin and shield, and if it's at all relevant (a lot of ragers are evil), protection. So, we've already out-protected the rager. Not to mention if the Veil's thin.

So, now we've got haste, which I'll be honest, I couldn't get on a day-to-day basis, but honestly...this is haste at the cost of attacking *EVERYTHING*. Lead him somewhere with mobs. Or maybe bash him so he can't call thirst. Or trip. Remember all those preps he can't use? Oh, yeah. Have you ever seen how much a warrior w/ Greeting SLAUGHTERS ragers? Guess not. Or maybe a defense spec? Eterlu had enough logs posted where he'd survive just fine.

Bleh, I need to just stop arguing with people. It's not worth it.

*Edited to add: You never did answer my question as to why you're this poor random warrior getting picked on by the big bad ragers anyways.

>You ought to know this is quite far from reality.

It's really not.

You're welcome to your opinion, but the reality of the game (such as it is) doesn't back it up.

They are quite powerful if you lack heavy damage reduction, hitpoints, they have the magician's head, and they can prevent you from fleeing. Lightly prepped characters are easy lunch, because the Battle cabal is specifically meant to offer entertainment for the 2k hp air/offense ABSS scions.

Berserkers typically favor damroll/strength builds, leaving them more vulnerable to mental attacks (Did you notice how there were four bards in Empire around the time of the Rites?) and supplications if they neglect spell saves. Scouts and defenders take a different approach, but your complaint is against deathblow.

Cloud giants, arials, and what's-his-name's-gnomes are the only villagers who fly, leaving many vulnerable to quicksand, pits, and trip. Their inability to use magical transportation, healers, and healing preps means that sapping their movement is a valid tactic in many circumstances. It should not be surprising that antipaladins, necromancers, most rangers, evil conjurers, and shaman all can attack movement. Transmuters and shapeshifters instead have superior movement capability.

To fight berserkers one on one, consider the following tactics:
1. attack when they don't have the Head.
2. catch them when they are crippled
3. melee: haste, aura, shield, stoneskin, reduce/enlarge. Mages: add barrier. Communers: add protective shield.
4. If they like to rage, lead them to or summon powerful mobs for them to rage into. Nothing like trying to defend near the giant and encounter Orumous the Strong.
5. And of course if you aren't a prep fiend, don't attack them solo, as that is stupid.

There are some pretty severe drawbacks to being a villager too.

I'd rather have Imperial or Scion powers over village powers any day.

It's pretty obvious you haven't played a Battle berserker.

The short version is, it's not as great as you think.

When somebody complains about rager powers it is obvious he hasn't played one.

There are two kind of players.
1) Those who have a clue
2) Those who never played a rager (at least, seriously).

Hey now. I've never had a rager. But...maybe I don't have a clue.