Level Up (A5E) Berserker too strong?

[Xethreau]

At level five, players get access to either third level spells or extra attack, which vastly increases your power overall. There's a part of me that wonders whether the power boost the player feels is because of switching from barbarian to berserker, or from reaching fifth level.

 

[thuter]

Some numbers for perspective. Assuming 50% base chance to hit, 18 strength, advantage, a greatsword, and 18-20 crit range using relentless attack on a critical hit. I don't know if the extended crit range of the weapon also increases chance to hit or damage. If that is the case, the damage would increase a bit. At this level a maximum of 2 extra attacks can be generated by Relentless Attack, assuming the first two attacks crit.

[0.25 * 0] + [0.4725 * (7+4)] + 0.2775 * {[0.25 * (7+4)*2] + [0.4725 * (7+4)*3] + [0.2775 * [0.25 * (7+4)*4 + 0.4725 * (7+4)*5 + 0.25 * (7+4)*6]]} = 15.17 damage.

On 4 attacks, this is a round output of 60.68 damage. This does cost the barbarian some resources in the form of maneuvers, but even after those are used up the resourceless dpr (assuming advantage can be maintained) comes to 30.34.

The illustrious Lightning Bolt in deals 8d6, which averages 28 damage, halved on a succesful Dex save. Assuming 50% chance to deal full damage again. Per target this comes to an average of 21 damage.

This means a full turn of hitting things with the Berserker is comparable to attacking 3 targets with the Lightning Bolt spell.

A wizard has 2 of these a day, 3 with arcane recovery. The Berserker has 3 of these full-attack turns per short rest. Of course, a wizard has lower level spell slots as well, and the safety of range, and the Berserker needs to be in melee with 2 targets for this to work, but even without 2 targets and exertion points the Berserker deals about 30 dpr. This all assumes advantage, I don't know how easy that is for the Berserker to keep up, because I don't know your campaign. I will let people draw their own conclusions on the powerlevel.

If I missed something, let me know.

 

[Sepulchre]

Some numbers for perspective. Assuming 50% base chance to hit, 18 strength, advantage, a greatsword, and 18-20 crit range using relentless attack on a critical hit. I don't know if the extended crit range of the weapon also increases chance to hit or damage. If that is the case, the damage would increase a bit. At this level a maximum of 2 extra attacks can be generated by Relentless Attack, assuming the first two attacks crit.

[0.25 * 0] + [0.4725 * (7+4)] + 0.2775 * {[0.25 * (7+4)*2] + [0.4725 * (7+4)*3] + [0.2775 * [0.25 * (7+4)*4 + 0.4725 * (7+4)*5 + 0.25 * (7+4)*6]]} = 15.17 damage.

On 4 attacks, this is a round output of 60.68 damage. This does cost the barbarian some resources in the form of maneuvers, but even after those are used up the resourceless dpr (assuming advantage can be maintained) comes to 30.34.

The illustrious Lightning Bolt in deals 8d6, which averages 28 damage, halved on a succesful Dex save. Assuming 50% chance to deal full damage again. Per target this comes to an average of 21 damage.

This means a full turn of hitting things with the Berserker is comparable to attacking 3 targets with the Lightning Bolt spell.

A wizard has 2 of these a day, 3 with arcane recovery. The Berserker has 3 of these full-attack turns per short rest. Of course, a wizard has lower level spell slots as well, and the safety of range, and the Berserker needs to be in melee with 2 targets for this to work, but even without 2 targets and exertion points the Berserker deals about 30 dpr. This all assumes advantage, I don't know how easy that is for the Berserker to keep up, because I don't know your campaign. I will let people draw their own conclusions on the powerlevel.

If I missed something, let me know.

This analysis seems to have a few problems. Perhaps the most major is that it doesn’t appear to account for the fact that the second crit on relentless is gated behind the first crit. So the ex ante chance of getting two extra attacks from each swing would be (1 - [0.2775]^2), or about 7.7%.

It also does not appear to consider that the relentless can proc off both attacks from extra attack, so there is at least a (1 - [0.7225]^2) = 48% chance of at least one extra attack on a full attack actions. The reason I say at least is that that math does not account for the possibility of relentless triggering twice on one swing. But either way, that is less than 4 expected at-will attacks, and it is heavily dependent on chance.

The bottom line is DPR calculations with relentless are relatively difficult. Someone smarter than me would need to really drill down to account for all the probabilities.

 

[thuter]

Perhaps the most major is that it doesn’t appear to account for the fact that the second crit on relentless is gated behind the first crit.

It is, I tried to make it more clear by using the brackets. The calculation is a single attack with advantage, with the second attack gated behind the first crit (hence the 0.2775 multiplier), and the third attack is gated behind the second crit (hence the 0.2775 multiplier within the first crit bracket. Each base attack (including triggered attacks from Relentless Attack) deals 15.17 damage, assuming advantage and 50% base to hit.

It also does not appear to consider that the relentless can proc off both attacks from extra attack

Each attack is considered separately, can crit, and is adjusted for miss chance and crit chance. 15.17 expected damage is from a single attack given advantage and 50% base to hit, and this includes damage from triggering attacks from critting because of Relentless Attack. So with multi-attack, the expected damage is 30.34 (given that each attack, even the extra ones from Relentless Attack can crit and thus deal more damage).

In the 1 in 28.438 chance that all 4 base attacks and for each of those the first Relentless Attacks crit as well, you get a total of 12 attacks, each dealing 11 average damage (2d6+4), which are doubled on a crit in my calculations.

But either way, that is less than 4 expected at-will attacks, and it is heavily dependent on chance.

4 At-will attacks was based on the mentioned use of Cleaving Swing for each of the 2 base attacks from multi-attack. I admit to some error here, as the spawning of these secondary attacks is not based on hitting in my calculations and I ignored the fact that using this maneuver is a reaction, and can thus be taken only once per round.

So: 30.34 expected damage from the first two attacks from multi-attack.
There is a 93.75% chance of at least hitting once, enabling Cleaving Swing (given a target for it). So the added damage from the Cleaving Swing Attack is 0.9375*15.17 = 14.22

Bringing the total expected DPR to 30.34 + 14.22 = 44.56 instead. Still one-rounding CR2 creatures and even some CR3 and 4.

 

[lichmaster]

Bringing the total expected DPR to 30.34 + 14.22 = 44.56 instead. Still one-rounding CR2 creatures and even some CR3 and 4.

Now consider what can happen when a target is paralyzed (all hits are crit), and let the fun begin...

 

[Steampunkette]

Reading this thread just makes me want to roll up a Berserker and Press the Attack while Flanking.

 

[thuter]

Now consider what can happen when a target is paralyzed (all hits are crit), and let the fun begin...

Oh that is relatively easy, as all the regular attacks fall out and the only concern is missing:

0.25 * 0 + 0.75 * [(0.25 * (7+4) * 2) + 0.75 * {0.25 * (7+4) * 4 + 0.75 * (7+4) * 6}] = 38.16.

Multiattack and usage of Cleaving Strikes would net you:

38.16*2 + 0.9375*38.16 = 112.10 expected damage, enough to one-round a Rakshasa if you attack with +6, while in actuality at this level you would already have +7 at least.

If everything hits and you roll max damage (miraculously) for each of them, the total comes out to 198 damage by the way, not too shabby for a lvl 5 character.

 

[lichmaster]

Yep, I already did the math, that's why I mentioned it
The damage output of the berserker is quite ridiculous at this level, especially wrt the resources required to pull this off.
A paralyzed NPC is pretty much dead, as not only the berserker will be able to go all out this way.

 

[messythekoala]

I personally don't have enough experience in A5E yet to feel qualified to answer this question so I'll ask it here; has anyone done an analysis of Berzerker to Fighter to Herald to see how it compares round over round to the other "main" melee damage dealers? I don't feel Adept is a fair comparison because it has so much outside combat utility to balance out its lower expected melee output but that might be my 5E experience coloring my perceptions.

 

[VanguardHero]

I personally don't have enough experience in A5E yet to feel qualified to answer this question so I'll ask it here; has anyone done an analysis of Berzerker to Fighter to Herald to see how it compares round over round to the other "main" melee damage dealers? I don't feel Adept is a fair comparison because it has so much outside combat utility to balance out its lower expected melee output but that might be my 5E experience coloring my perceptions.

The Out Of Combat vs In Combat balancing point has always been godawful design and seems to be one of the main things A5E sought to end by giving every Class out of combat abilities to meaningfully engage with every portion of the game. Adept has a ton of build versatility being built more like the Warlock, and can end up with a wide range of things to spend it's increased Exhaustion Pool on. Which makes it hard to compare because what exactly an Adept is can vary so much, but between versatility utility and adaptable Nova potential I'm confident it can hold it's ground, unlike the o5e Monk which is a spit in the face to the very concept of competent design. As for a DPR analysis of Martial Strikers, haven't seen one but would definitely love to.