Zerk and IOD

ILikeTeddyBears · August 2016

I decided to try out doing IOD BAMs on zerk. My zerk literally had to beat 6 Hydraths to death with just white damage, no crits. Pure [filtered] white damage. I have 235 total crit. What the [filtered].

ILikeTeddyBears · August 2016

I'm on AV but at this point I'm just wondering how much crit would I even need to consistently crit on my zerk ;w;

Nopi · August 2016

Hello. Since you didn't post how are you doing these and your setup, here's a few basic pointers. Are you attacking from behind? Front has a lot of crit resist. Side has a bit less, back is weakest. 235 total crit may also be a little low for these fights but you should be seeing some crits. Still, more crit is welcome. Also make sure every crit glyph is enabled. For back damage, use dash and study the monster patterns so you can position yourself and attack from behind when it's locked in an animation.

ILikeTeddyBears · August 2016

I'm hitting from the back and I have pretty much all the cyclone and TS glyphs on with a backcrit setup. Even when I'm hitting from the back, all I see is white damage. Even when I wait for it to attack and I try to backcrit TS, it just doesn't crit. I'm not sure if the crit resist is just stupidly high because my slayer/warrior with similar crit have no problems with critting.

Jordansb1 · August 2016

I've had so many problems critting as a Berserker that I just quit maining the class. I love the playstyle of it, but after 200+ crit, priest and mystic buffs, a crit factor scroll, (getting my crit up to about 500 total) I still saw way too much white damage on IoD. I've experimented with this combination a lot with other consumables (basically getting my crit anywhere from 100-350) and still, almost half of my damage was white damage, yes all while attacking from the back. I'm not sure why IoD is so different from dungeons, but I've seen Berserkers able to crit for literally every single hit, so I guess you could say I quit the class out of jealousy. Either way, I geared my warrior to the same as my Berserker and noticed a substantial DPS and crit rate increase. If you like a faster play style than Berserker and want to see a bit higher crit rate (with about the same if not more DPS on average I think), I'd recommend going to Warrior. Berserkers just don't seem like an up to date crit class at the moment.

Unless of course I'm wrong and all the super pro berserkers are gonna hate me for this post. xD

Just a disclaimer that all of the above was all my personal experience with the class at IoD. ^^

ILikeTeddyBears · August 2016

I just want my zerk to crit. I like the class but the crit rate just kills me ;w;

Zeroplus · August 2016

What's your name on AV?

JasonGenerix · August 2016

I dont really have crit problems and I do IOD bams with 205 Crit Rate.

Ccoffee · August 2016

I know this seems like a farcry from what this topic is about, but i do these bams in the tank mode (d-stance) on zerk and crit from just diagonal to the front of the bams. I know that technically you have less crit rate and it's not where meta says the best crit rate is, but i've always found that i crit more from this position, the tank mode is so i can get the endurance bonus and use counter.

Nopi · August 2016

I haven't done IoD in awhile. Sure, done it in this patch cycle so values are the same. Found myself critting less than other classes, yes, but full white damage no. Crits were common. I'd say about 50%. And yes, I did try all T3 bams as a zerk and other than specific bam nuances, the experience with critting was similar. Pop dash, pop fiery rage, make bam lock itself in animation, run behind while charging TS and I usually got a crit. Again, far from 100% but not low enough to make me scratch my head.

YellowGem · August 2016

IoD BAM crit resistance are so high that I get salty after many sets with 3 different alts (slayer, zerk, archer). But I guess that is the grindy part of it, no easy shade token for u. For T3 I get some buff from "hotspots" (is that what they called? or different term in this game?) and charm up with keen instead of powerful, at least that helped quite a bit.

Side question: How do u manage to keep backcritting as zerk? For slayer I abuse fairly hard on evasive roll but zerk can't seem to afford that goes to cooldown until certain situations.

Nopi · August 2016

YellowGem wrote: »

IoD BAM crit resistance are so high that I get salty after many sets with 3 different alts (slayer, zerk, archer). But I guess that is the grindy part of it, no easy shade token for u. For T3 I get some buff from "hotspots" (is that what they called? or different term in this game?) and charm up with keen instead of powerful, at least that helped quite a bit.

Side question: How do u manage to keep backcritting as zerk? For slayer I abuse fairly hard on evasive roll but zerk can't seem to afford that goes to cooldown until certain situations.

The way I do it is to have dash up, run a bit in front of the bam so it locks itself in an attack animation, and either evade through it or quickly run behind it while charging TS. If you want more movement speed, Fiery rage also has a glyph that gives 20 points to move speed. But there's better use of your glyph points elsewhere. Just remember it if you feel too slow and can sacrifice something else. As for cyclone, I don't try to back attack it unless it's stunned or knocked down. Instead, I charge it and make it go through the side of the bam so it's front attacks miss more often. These fights need mobility, so charging and overcharging a cyclone may be more difficult to pull.

Knock down skills aren't as effective on these guys either. At least not while using DN weapons. Maybe Slaughter and up (which has more impact) may see me more KDs, but so far flatten, tackle and overwhelm have proven of little use for KD purposes to me, so I fight assuming the bam won't be stunned for too long on each encounter. Staggering strike has a better chance at a stun at least, but even that fails once or twice as well.

All in all, IoD bams need to either be stunned for as much as you can, or be able to move fast around them while they attack, or both. Unless you have a weapon with massive impact, don't count too much on zerker's knock down attacks. Instead, milk your movement skills and your stagger strike and learn the bam patterns to be able to find the most back time possible.

RakWraithraiser · August 2016

zerk and slayer with up to 220 cf still suffered from lacking of crits. I'm happy with my dn archer with 170 cf and its crits more on tier 3 bams

BlackMagesKool · August 2016

I solo on lancer to practice tanking more and i use a half power build on lancer i hardly ever crit (also im not a lancer main) but the spammable nature of the moves and the 100% shield counter crit make up the dmg

voidy · August 2016

IoD BAMs have really really really high crit resist. It's so bad that I don't even bother with that place on my zerk anymore because I get tilted as [filtered] and the rewards are barely worth it. While your crit factor could definitely be a bit higher, you're approaching that point where it gets expensive to push the number higher than it already is, and the returns for those expenses are barely going to be noticeable. In other words, yeah, you could buy an innerwear that gives 16 crit factor and puts you back like 100k gold, and then you put it on and go to fight BAMs and you'll still see a bunch of white. Just being real with you. Earlier today I did Demokron Factory and, despite having +250 personal crit factor alongside another 50 from a mystic's auras, and a quickcarve brooch, AND another 20 from that stupid lamb consumable, I still white-hit 3 thunder strikes in a row and basically wasted my cooldowns. Used evasive smash to dodge the laser every time, and not one of them crit the entire round despite being glyphed and all that jazz. My frustration was palpable. Best way to play zerk is to not even look at your numbers, or you'll just get pissed when you still don't crit despite being decked out in [filtered] that's supposed to make you crit more often.

On a side note, Ghilieglade has this issue as well, with the crit resist. Ghilie ain't hard on zerk once you know what to avoid, but you can have runs that take forever because RNG decides to make you its [filtered]. Devs might not realize it, but every time they design solo content with crazy high crit resist, they're basically shitting on zerk since zerk relies on critical hits from relatively infrequently occurring strikes. Hell, the very nature of zerk's design makes it so dependent on others for positioning and mana/health support, that solo content in general is rarely enjoyable on my berserker. I do iod dailies quicker on my lancer and my mystic, just because it's easier to pump out consistent DPS. Even when my lancer's not critting often, she's HITTING often, and each hit is like another roll of the crit dice. Don't even know why I'm saying this here, the devs probably don't even speak English or even come here.

To help you out, all I can say short of "don't do iod" is boost your crit factor some more. I didn't feel "okay" with things until I passed 240. For me that was my magic number. Not saying you'll get 90% crit rate or some archer-tier [filtered] with that, but at least you won't constantly feel like crap.

FelipeThomaz · August 2016

You just need a little bit of crit and will be fine. No biggie. Get a corvette / shadowgate crit mixed jewelry, keen 2 etchings (both glove and wep) and a +12 inner. You will have 265-270 crit on dps stance, and 225 at intimidation stance.

I would rather farm using def stance than dps for t3. Specially hydraths, because their frontal range is shorter than our 8m TS, so you can roll backwards and load, axe counter has a nice dps as well Tackle, overwhelm, ryze flatten has some chance of kd.. And there's no cyclone and no awful ES to frustrate you. Carving double pounding and wrathful are my crystals to make it.

Edit: crystals are focused | pouding | wrathful | carving. My mistake.

Zerk and IOD

Comments