Berzerker Lifesteal Balance

[wolfmane]

I'm posting this in Doom's stead because he's currently streaming some elite zerker play.

Apparently Blood Hunger is OP. I just watched Doom go face to face with Grell on elite and he made it look way too easy. I think he only pot'd twice during the fight and wasn't really in danger of dying even though he was taking full shots from the boss. He's generally breezing through elite at the moment. The skill just grants far too much life steal, he only has 5 points into the skill which gives him 10% lifesteal. That implies that at 15 it will heal for 20%. It also gets a little more ridiculous when you combine that with Frenzy Mastery to increase the duration of the frenzy state.

[hawkn]

What is he dumping stats into, and what weapons does he have equiped?

[Mannam]

Spoiler: show

You happen to have a video of this, though?

[wolfmane]

What is he dumping stats into, and what weapons does he have equiped?

He was dumping into strength(Edit: I was wrong, he's more usually matching stats to meet item requirements). Now he's currently putting points into dex and has been for the last 3-4 levels. Not sure about the weapon. He's using a sword/shield combo. He might switch over to dual wield soon though.

Spoiler: show

You happen to have a video of this, though?

I'm watching him do it right now.

[adoomgod]

It's completely OP. I had a unique shield and a super unique berserker rings among other things but it didnt matter. I initially pumped str to get item reqs but then i did dex for other item reqs.

Dex = crit. Crit = heal. 10%+ heal per crit = OP. Especially mixed with the shadow wolf rush burst spell thing.
After i killed all boss' adds i could literally stand next to them without moving. I killed grell when i was equal to his level without moving an inch away from him. I just wailed on him with lmb. Frost zone a bit harder but still easier compared to other classes.

I'm pumping all dex now so i constantly get crit heals.

[travisbaldree]

You are gonna be so mad when we nerf this, aren't you?

[adoomgod]

You are gonna be so mad when we nerf this, aren't you?

No travis, I knew wolf was watching. He asked me if I was going to put it up and I asked him to do it so I can continue to stream. Look I know I play around in most games and love breaking stuff, and I found a few things in the D3 beta that I never brought up, but I really care about this game.

The whole reason I'm continuing to pump into blood hunger is to show you balance issues. I want to help make the game balanced. If u guys are on tomorrow I'll show you in person how bad it gets lol.

This thread was my intention.

[travisbaldree]

Currently this heals over a second, and is exclusive ( that means you can't trigger it more than once a second )
Thinking of making the heal duration 5 seconds and exclusive - limits it more, (once every 5 seconds ) but a single crit still gets you the same heal long-term, although it can't be stacked crazily.

[adoomgod]

What about capping its max skill lvl at 8 and make it only go up 0.5% per skill lvl?

[travisbaldree]

My preference is usually to give you a more potent effect but just to limit corner cases where it stacks and blows out - it's so much nicer to put a point in something and get a real number instead of a super-incremental gain.

[ALTHiR]

What about capping its max skill lvl at 8 and make it only go up 0.5% per skill lvl?

I was just thinking the same. This would make it less op for sure :p

[travisbaldree]

Erich is going to look at it some. Just watched the vid.
You can definitely get a nice bump during rage, but rage is hard to maintain. We're going to suss it out a little more before acting.

[adoomgod]

Travis, may I help? God I need to talk to you devs more in game. I keep getting wrapped up in streaming:

In the frost area its not as good because you get chilled, reducing your attack speed and therefore hits ans therefore critical hits and therefore heals, dramatically.

But as it is now:

Blood hunger at rank 15 will give 20% hp back per crit -.-.

I focused strength at first but with only like 45 dexterity I have 11% crit, without frenzy rage!
With +crit chance items this is easily OP.

Increased Frenzy duration at rank 15 is what? 21 seconds of all crits?

It's a skill that becomes more over powered the farther you get.

Also, by stacking +hp items you are making the crits heal you for more since it's a percentage of your max hp that's healed per crit.

10% of 500 hp is 50 pet crit. 10% of 1000 hp is 100 per crit. And it is easy to stack hp.

*edit*
Btw, you watched my vid? :3
Watch me fight Grell. I literally stand next to him without moving and just wail with lmb. I could have won with just lmb and 0 deaths.

[turnipz]

A fix could be to stop or hinder the healing when you get hit by something, so that you die if you get swarmed but it doesnt have to be totally ineffective. I dunno its a hard thing to fix without making enemies one shot you. I'd think just giving it some weakness would be better though, it was fun in diablo 2 being so powerful with it and im sure its fun in this game too.

[adoomgod]

A fix could be to stop or hinder the healing when you get hit by something, so that you die if you get swarmed but it doesnt have to be totally ineffective. I dunno its a hard thing to fix without making enemies one shot you. I'd think just giving it some weakness would be better though, it was fun in diablo 2 being so powerful with it and im sure its fun in this game too.

Not really so hard. Either lower the heal or make the heal over a longer period of time, or a combo of both, and possibly a lower max skill level cap. Done. Its just deciding what nerf feels best.

[Zidders]

Doom puts the 'Sexy' in 'Breaking your game'

[PhoenixDown603]

Instead of every critical setting the healing effect off, why not just make it every 5th critical instead? You could also reduce its effectiveness while Rage is active to a 1/3rd of its normal ability. That or instead of it stacking, it just resets instead. Couple of ideas to throw around.

[Jerich]

You were twinking. Of course that will make you somewhat overpowered versus a relatively light encounter like Grell. I don't think healing 20% of your life every second is overpowered. Most monsters in elite do that in a single hit. In order to survive elite, melee needs serious tools.

I played an untwinked build and was fine until act 1.5, then died about 50 times total.

[hawkn]

Considering how much of a pain in the ass it is to play melee in Elite, I'm fine with crits healing 20%, because you're losing out of HP and pure damage in favor of Dex.

[surrealitycheck]

In my opinion you should change what it does. Life steal attached to offensive properties is always hugely problematic, because it both reduces the amount of damage you take from any given monster (they die faster) while increasing your effective health pool while you do so. It's like a double swing!

Maybe consider making it not a heal but some form of advanced mitigation (stacking hit blocks), that kind of thing. Maybe even projectile reflects etc