Ok, I’m throwing up this topic to discuss careers with an edge against berserkers although they are not intended to be one-trick-ponnies and to avoid power creep. Due to me not being a “numbers guy” I won’t throw a ton of numbers and stats and stuff around but focus on general tactics and main sthick for the careers.
The main reason to create this thread is that at this moment berserkers, in my experience, needs either an ult or a special weapon, not available to every career, to reliably take care of them. Together with a need for reactive tactics on part of the players instead of the common proactive tactics of the game this means that in my opinion there could be an opening for careers that might have a little bit of a different approach as in either favoring a reactive playing style or offer proactive ways to fight berserkers also in melee.
So the careers that I propose are; Grail Pilgrim (Salty) and Sellsword (Kruber)
Grail Pilgrim (Saltzpyre)
Basic idea here is reactive strength and “one-man-against-the-horde”. That is that the career is focused on that when they get forced back, they launch a devastating counter attack. The more brutal the assault on them, the more brutal is their counter. Think the crazy zealot, warrior fan-boy and also the part of in GoT’s Battle of the Bastards when it seemd like Jon Snow would face the whole Bolton army himself.
Thus in my vision the focus would be on 1, the more nearby enemies the harder the Grail Pilgrim fights and 2, blocking and/or taking hits gives a boost to the character.
While 1 is probably a bit self-explaining, more nearby enemies = greater boost, the idea of 2 is that when under heavy attack, such as from a berserkers’ attack chain, then each attack launched gives the character a boost in order to launch a counter attack with increased damage and speed. So that if I have two or more berserkers hammering away at my blocks then I can quickly raise up a significent bonus and launch a counter attack to kill these guys. Same also when swarmed with other enemies or when the team is down and a whole mixed horde or patrol is descendning on the last surviving hero, outnumbered 40-1. Thus a kind of “heroic actions in desperate situations” kind of career. And note, the second isn’t supposed to be like the Zealot’s health point related bonus, but that you get a time limited bonus from every hit you take, blocked by your weapon, shield or by your face.
And lorewise I kind of find it to be a promesing source of banter if Kruber becomes a Grail Knight and Salty turns into Kruber’s fan boy companion. To turn their original relationship on its head.
Sellsword (Kruber)
The idea here is that one precise blow will do what 10 blind hits can’t. That is that instead of just doing normal damage and possibly stagger and leave, the Sellsword career is focused on the idea that vital hits as opposed to a number of flesh wounds wins fights.
Inspiration for this comes from the GoT/Asoiaf and concerns Bronn in his fight against Vardis Egen and naturally Oberyn Martell against Gregor Clegane (in a way that fight is kind of the standard formula of Handmaiden vs Chaos Warrior but you know, there’s probably space for inspiration for more than one career there).
Thus instead of button smashing there would be less attacks but instead that each hit has a great capacity for damage as manifested in chance for primarily bleeding damage but also other effects like decreased movement, attack speed and so on. Thus while the fodder is killed like with almost every other career, the elites, monsters and bosses are more whittled away into oblivion, or set up for the rest of the team to finish.
I will admit that this makes this career a more supportive choice as it is more about forcing penalties onto the opposition than having a direct damage output. But this is a concept I personally think could be interesting as having one of these in the team to put, for example, a few % reductions in movement and attack speed on a Chaos Spawn or Nurgloth or something, could mean that other careers with more damage output can deliver that output better. Possibly this penalty on the target can be tied to time and/or critical hits so that it can be good but not something that outright neutralizes lords and monsters too fast with permanent penalties which stack up to high.
And this especially comes into action with berserkers. The idea is that this the berserkers comes running. This career gets a hit in before it turns to block and dodge, at which point the berserker is taking some significent bleeding damage and is slowed down, the Sellsword hits again and then lets the bleeding damage kill the berserker while keeping away from its now slower attacks. Thus we find a, in my opinion, mix between attack and defence to defeat the enemy. Thus emulating the mentioned inspiration in taking down physically more imposing opponents with a few precise blows as opposed to a rain of blows from a heavy metal object.
Banter and storywise I think that this could either be a bit bland or make Kruber into a darker figure who when confronted with Bretonnian chivalric practices or the Imperial army’s disinterest/incompetence, something breaks inside of him, and Kruber disowns higher morality. Not my prefeered direction for the character but a possibility.
EDITED: Three pictures added.
