The Downsides of 10 Second Major Berserk and its Sources

Erickson9610 · July 2023

This is an informative post to compare the sources of Major Berserk that last for 10 or more seconds. To balance the long duration, there is a downside of some sort to compensate.

Here are the sources of 10 second Major Berserk from skills:

Reaper's Mark is a Nightblade skill which costs 2700 Magicka. Only one can be active at a time, and it requires the marked enemy to die for the user to gain 10 seconds of Major Berserk.
Concealed Weapon is a Nightblade skill which costs 2295 Magicka. You gain 10 seconds of Major Berserk when you leave Sneak, invisibility, or use Concealed Weapon on an enemy while you have Major Expedition in combat.
Hircine's Rage is a Werewolf skill which costs 5063 Magicka. To get 10 seconds of Major Berserk, the skill must be cast while at full Health, and by doing so, you will take 5% more damage for the duration.
Summon Storm Atronach (and its morphs) is a Sorcerer Ultimate which costs 200 Ultimate. It requires an ally to activate the synergy to grant 10 seconds of Major Berserk.

And here are the sources of 10 second Major Berserk from item sets:

Heem-Jas' Retribution is a 5 piece medium armor set which grants 10 seconds of Major Berserk when an enemy within 28 meters of you that you are in combat with dies.
Kinras's Wrath is a 5 piece medium armor set which grants Major Berserk for as long as you maintain 5 stacks of Burning Heart, gained by dealing damage with light or heavy attacks.
Unchained Aggressor is a 5 piece crafted set which grants 12 seconds of Major Berserk when you Break Free, up to once every 14 seconds.
Sea-Serpent's Coil is a mythic necklace which grants 10 seconds of Major Berserk whenever you take damage at full Health, and also snares you by 40% for the duration.

In my opinion, some of these sets and skills have much more severe penalties than others. Heem-Jas' Retribution is a 5 piece set which does less than Reaper's Mark, for instance. Sorcerers have an Ultimate that requires a nearby ally to proc a synergy in order to gain Major Berserk. By far the worst penalties are the ones you get from Hircine's Rage, as even Sea-Serpent's Coil only penalizes your movement speed rather than your damage taken. The sources of 10 second Major Berserk need to be re-evaluated and re-balanced.

Panderbander · July 2023

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

"...Hircine’s Rage gives Werewolves access to Major Berserk for 10sec, which is a significant amount of time for it to be up. More than double the time of Major Berserk from Chains of Devastation. So there must be a cost to balance the power of Hircine’s Rage. In this case, the balance is to take additional damage."

...and also a massive Magicka cost on a spec that is literally incapable of bulk-restoring Magicka through non-set, non-potion means, and a requirement to be at absolutely perfect health to proc it.

Tannus15 · July 2023

The really funny part of this is that not only is concealed weapon easily the easiest source of major berserk, but changing it from a 10% damage buff to major berserk was a nerf!

Zodiarkslayer · July 2023

Tannus15 wrote: »

The really funny part of this is that not only is concealed weapon easily the easiest source of major berserk, but changing it from a 10% damage buff to major berserk was a nerf!

True, it was a nerf. And now, Nightblades have TWO sources for Major Berserk and 5 other classes still have none!
Talk about balance...

Mr. @ZOS_BrianWheeler, I hope that is on your radar, sir.

Vaqual · July 2023

You don't have to pretend that the Berserk on Reaper's Mark has a practical use outside of farming trash mobs and noobs. The uptime in serious encounters is low and unpredictable. This skill is not worth the slot in its current form.

Foxtrot39 · July 2023

Reapers marks is trash tho

Try to make use of it on a boss ,you only get the benfits after he dies where they become useless

Only good on trash mob as tank if you want a full heal but you dont decide when the mob dies making too unreliable to be usefull

You can use it on trash mob for the damage boost, but trash mob tend to die so easely you're more likely to wipe them out in a single cleave making you loop back to obtaniing benefits when they have no use anymore

Only usable aspect is the major breach debuff on it, but why not use caltrops which has boths an AOE snare and m'breach on top of dealing damage then?

Panderbander · July 2023

I think they were just making a comparison of all sources of Major Berserk that persisted for 10 seconds or more.

Dr_Con · July 2023

reaper's mark is dogwater

Zastrix · July 2023

Foxtrot39 wrote: »

Only usable aspect is the major breach debuff on it, but why not use caltrops which has boths an AOE snare and m'breach on top of dealing damage then?

vSS portals, but again you would use the other morph for increased duration and less cost per cast.

Lykeion · July 2023

If you ever tried to use reaper's mark you will find It's not a reliable source of Major Berserker. It's not even a skill that will be taken into consideration

WoppaBoem · July 2023

Well put together, thank you

Erickson9610 · July 2023

I think that Reaper's Mark should gain some other benefit and let Concealed Weapon keep the Major Berserk. I don't know a single person who uses Reaper's Mark as it is.

I also think that Summon Storm Atronach and its morphs should be a self synergy, so it would become possible to gain Major Berserk when playing solo.

Finally, I think that Hircine's Rage should give Major Berserk at any health percentage, rather than just at 100%. It's too challenging to get back to full health and still have magicka to burn on the heal in order to gain the damage buff when in combat.

As for the sets, there's a reason Kinras's Wrath and Sea-Serpent's Coil are widely used. I'd give more benefits to Heem-Jas' Retribution and Unchained Aggressor to make them viable options to compete.

Zastrix · July 2023

Erickson9610 wrote: »

I think that Reaper's Mark should gain some other benefit and let Concealed Weapon keep the Major Berserk.

NIghtblade is severely lacking in PvE damage and with Major Berserk instead of the unique passive they get an additional 10% damage nerf. Remove it from other sources then it's okay to keep it but don't keep it if you're not gonna remove it from, let's say, the storm atronach ulti.

Edit: I now understood what you meant from your future comment. Yeah give reaper's mark a 10% buff and keep major berserk on SA.

Panderbander · July 2023

If ZOS wants to bring NB numbers in line in PvE without further buffing them in PvP (where they are currently remarkably strong), why not have Concealed Weapon give Major Slayer or some other buff that only functions on monsters?

Erickson9610 · July 2023

Zastrix wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

I think that Reaper's Mark should gain some other benefit and let Concealed Weapon keep the Major Berserk.

NIghtblade is severely lacking in PvE damage and with Major Berserk instead of the unique passive they get an additional 10% damage nerf. Remove it from other sources then it's okay to keep it but don't keep it if you're not gonna remove it from, let's say, the storm atronach ulti.

It's true that Nightblades are receiving a 10% damage nerf because of the change. Maybe Reaper's Mark should apply a unique 10% damage taken debuff to afflicted enemies? Would that help Nightblade catch up in PvE?

Zastrix · July 2023

Erickson9610 wrote: »

Zastrix wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

I think that Reaper's Mark should gain some other benefit and let Concealed Weapon keep the Major Berserk.

NIghtblade is severely lacking in PvE damage and with Major Berserk instead of the unique passive they get an additional 10% damage nerf. Remove it from other sources then it's okay to keep it but don't keep it if you're not gonna remove it from, let's say, the storm atronach ulti.

It's true that Nightblades are receiving a 10% damage nerf because of the change. Maybe Reaper's Mark should apply a unique 10% damage taken debuff to afflicted enemies? Would that help Nightblade catch up in PvE?

I mean maybe (in a good way)?

I'm not 100% sure in content would NBs be on par with other classes, but it's probably a good approach to make NBs have more damage for single target damage (as it should be, nightblades should have the highest single target damage ofc).

Give it exactly to reaper's mark and drop the Major Berserk buff, add a unique 10% buff but only incoming from the caster to the target, rather than from everybody.

Hell, if PvP peeps are raged if NBs get a buff of 10% via reaper's mark, just make it affect only monsters and keep the other morph PvP-based (the one which doesn't invisibility).

ZhuJiuyin · July 2023

NB and Sorc should be the classes with the highest single target damage.
But actually they don't perform well in PVE (according to esologs statistics), any nerff for these two classes is ruining the player's experience.
Single target damage is not effective in the current environment, and the damage of NB and Sorc is not particularly higher than other classes to make up for their lack of AOE.

WuffyCerulei · July 2023

The sorc major berserk source actually differs a lot due it being a group-wide buff, hitting up to twelve people. Sorcs in solo don’t really use atro for the major berserk anyways. Its single target damage is mainly why.