Berserk finally got buffed! - Latest beta build

Classes Druid
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In an upcoming build, Feral will find some new things and some rearranged things around Berserk, Incarnation, Shred, and Rake. The main goal is to put more power and interest into baseline Berserk.

  • Berserk (without requiring a talent) now makes Shred and Rake deal damage as though you were stealthed, and makes finishing moves refund 2 combo points.
  • A new upgrade to Shred makes it generate an extra combo point when used from stealth (and by extension, during Berserk).
  • Incarnation, as always, lasts 30 seconds and grants all benefits of Berserk, plus one additional effectā€“now, some energy cost reduction. It continues to allow one in-combat restealth.
  • Stealth bonuses to Shred and Rake rebalanced somewhat (Shred higher than live, and Rake lower than live) both to make them more competitive, and to reflect their presence on a baseline cooldown.

Not much more to be said, but Berserk should pay off more as a core cooldown, substantially improving various abilities and amping up the pace of your rotation, without putting you under heavy Energy pressure. Let us know any feedback!

This is great news! however I do still hope they address our utility in groups and give us treants and innervate or leader of the pack.

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Iā€™m getting reports that its not that great of a rework and you are now energy starved during it.

Hopefully more get to test it out and give feedback, but early news isnā€™t good :frowning:

Iā€™ll edit when I get more feedback.

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Its a night and day improvement over the previous version and anyone who tells you otherwise should probably quit the game.

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I will agree its nice to see them addressing it. Iā€™m expecting better results as folks get max level and more of the other borrowed power things that are in game. EG Lego and Convenient stuff.

If Iā€™m reading it correctly the 1/2 cost of moves is removed now? Big them Iā€™m hearing/reading is we are energy starved so its a net loss ?

Also Iā€™m sure more tuning to come?

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After removing every piece of gear with procs on it:
ilvl 100
Non-berzerk shred 255
Berzerk shred 398

Not during berzerking, i am able to get in 8 shreds, and 2 ferocious bites, in a similar 20 second window.

During berzerking, i still run out of energy very quickly, and im just waiting for the regen to happen, meaning you very quickly are at 1 shred every 4 seconds. I was able to get 9 shreds in thanks to some lucky clearcasting.

Worst case is you did 60% more damage on those 9 shreds, so like 5~ish free shreds worth of damage every 3 minutes, which in my case is only 1275~ish damage, less than a non-crit 5cp bite (1975).

You get double crit chance as well, which give you extra combo points. In my trial, which is obviously not representative, i had 8 of the 9 shreds crit. Several cp were lost as the crit happened on what would have been my 5th and 6th cp. I was able to get out 2 bites, with enough combo points for another 5 cp bite at the end, but berzerk had run out by then.

I am running soul of the forest, so the bites gave me energy back. If i just spammed nothing but shreds, i can still only on average get out 9 shreds during berzerk.

TLDR: Worst case is berzerk adds about as much damage as one 5 combo point ferocious bite, and depending on your crit, you might have generated enough combo points to cast one more 5 cp fb.

Iā€™m not sure that this is that strong of a cooldown if over 20 seconds its only helping you pump out ~2 ferocious bites worth of additional damage. Maybe it is, idkā€¦

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Iā€™d like to try the new berserk with moment of clarity

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For anyone getting their hopes up, this post is for Cat Berserk. Bears donā€™t get improvements.

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Goes without saying round these parts

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ā€œWhat is a bear? There are no bears!ā€ - Blizzard

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This was my worry.

3 min CD and still sounds like it is falling flat

You mention the crit at 4 combo points and wasting one, Iā€™ve brought this up in the past like (what happens to it, can this become an orb we collect later)

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Some flaws in your analysisā€¦

Firstly your worst case scenario assumes no shreds crit, and the fact you only got 2 bites during means you are definitely doing something wrong.

Second youā€™re not factoring in Rake at all.

Third the new berserk benefits WAY more from blood lust, whereas the old berserk barely even benefited from lust.

Fourth if you are using TF during stealth donā€™t bother, opening Rake is much weaker now without BT and the nerf from 100%-60% bonus damage. Use your TF early in the berserk window to get the energy back (right before you rip is probably ideal).

Also beyond already being stronger, this zerk should scale better the later the xpac goes.

Lastly, this makes berserk actually interesting, whereas the old one was ā€˜ignore energy management, pooling, and just spam.ā€™ Now the abilities have some weight to them, thereā€™s a new snapshot with Rake, and real benefits during lust.

Above all, and speaking subjectively, Feral doesnā€™t need to have a wings or combust level CD baseline, it means weā€™d be balanced around that. Do you really want to play a spec that does a huge portion of its damage during a 3 min CD and then feel weak outside of that? Me personally, I enjoy the consistency of Feral, in that we more or less are equally strong throughout a fight or in any pack. The new zerk buffs an incredibly weak cooldown while also making it more interesting.

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Hammer-Check
Nail-Check
Said hammer making direct contact to the nailā€™s head-Check

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I donā€™t play Feral much but considering it for SL. How does this Berserk buff help AoE? Snapshotting rakes?

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Yeah overall its a buff. Makes it worth while to beserk in aoe focus situations, as we can put bigger rake crits on other targets/adds, while focusing one target with our shreds and bites.

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It doesnā€™t, it will be best on ST and also quite good on 2, and even 3 target/aoe if thereā€™s a priority target as the above poster mentioned. Current Berserk isnā€™t great for AOE though regardless, because Predator is often used in AOE alongside MOC and SOTF, all of which provide a lot of energy sustain, and itā€™s unlikely these talents, or at least most of them, will change for AOE/mythic+ in SL.

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Thats what worst case meansā€¦ You only get the guarenteed portion of the damage buff, the 60% to shred damage, while not getting benefit from the things that have a chance not to happen.

True i didnt factor in any dots. So 2 less +60% shreds would be cast, for 2 +60% rakes.

How is that? Energy regen is fairly predictable, berzerk activates the gcd. You get 19 seconds during the berzerk window to do your rotation. Assuming you start with a full energy bar, thats 100+190=290 total energy during berzerk window. Rake costs 35 energy, shred costs 40, fb costs 25. Your first 5cp fb is going to cost you 140 energy assuming you crit both shreds for extra cp, otherwise itll cost even more. Of course you have a 5% chance to proc clearcast, but thats not exactly reliable. With soul of the forest you are energy neutral on a non-pooled fb, so you are looking at 115 energy for a raked 5 cp fb. How exactly were you going to fit in 3 of these into the window when you only have access to 290 energy (the 5cp fb with shreds only is actually more expensive at 120 energy assuming 100% crit)?

Repeated attempts on the target dummy result in the same results, 2 fbā€™s with enough or almost (4cp) enough combo points for a third as zerk falls off. The issue is, during the last 15cp, you are mostly just auto attacking because of energy starvation.

This was never addressed in my post. I didnt address any outside buffs, or buffs requiring another class to be present. The spec should be able to stand on its own.

Iā€™m not even sure its needed early, since there is no energy issue at all for the first 10cp. I understand that it gives additional % dmg, im speaking strictly about the energy constraints.

Cat has always scaled extremely well into late expansion, requiring lots of crit to reach full potential.

Never said it wasnt. Itll just turn into a fire on cd and continue rotation as normal.

So it cant be good? Its a 3 minute cooldown, which is fairly long in the cd world. It cant be brought off cooldown faster by doing our rotation like recklessness. Combust is very powerful, 2 minute, can be shortened by doing the normal rotation.

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I think his point there is that sure it can be good, but it canā€™t be combustion levels of good. Otherwise youā€™ll be balanced around that. Which is exactly how fire mages work. They do insane amounts of damage within that 10 second window, then for 1:50 minutes theyā€™re very very weak.

Itā€™s a balancing act, and from what Iā€™ve seenā€¦ retail berserk almost feels like a waste clicking itā€¦ This definitely looks like a buff to the cooldown and looks like itā€™ll also scale better later in the expac. People are mentioning resource starvation being a major problem with it, but later in the expansion when our secondaries are much higherā€¦ I bet this wonā€™t be a problem.

As an example, hereā€™s my mage on Ily: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/ZQDhCdMXa7m1NzRw#fight=25&type=damage-done&source=165

If you want berserk to burst between 300-600k (there are adds there as well to be fair)ā€¦ then youā€™ll have to accept that in between your berserk windows youā€™ll be doing 30-60k dps. Which is pretty much EP levels of sustain damage.

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My preference would be to not even have it. Just make feral the king of sustained dps. If you absolutely needed a cd for burst for an encounter, incarnation exists.

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Iunno, Iā€™ve always been hesitant about specs that have zero burst capability. Most fights typically have burst portions, even if theyā€™re extended. Heck pretty much all end-bosses this expac have had points of burst. My concern there would be that incarn would just become the only viable choice in that tier unless it was massively undertuned.

Iā€™d sorta rather we had a bit more of an in between. But maybe thatā€™s just me.