Yet another eviscerator rant...

[Mewo]

EDIT:
Too much of a wall of text,decided to make it much shorter.
Basically, just the combination of zerkers passives and the fact that eviscerator is just good at everything makes me question why wouldnt we all just play as zerker at this point in our lives.Now I am not stating to be a super elite and pro player(unlike some people below :d) but I played some amount of hours in this game and I must say that I cant really find anything better than berserker with eviscerator.Some small changes like reducing damage or ammo(or what I suggested before making fuel infinite but force to use only eviscerator) could surely help a bit in balancing the game or at least adding more reason to use other (in theory even more broken) weapons.
As before,leave comments and your suggestions below <3
EDIT2:
"This is pretty inexperienced opinion." yeah honestly dont listen to anything I said,Im just some random noob who played this game for 2 hours or something,just dont even bother with me.

EDIT3:
*giggles* guess I was right

Designer Notes - The Eviscerator was a weapon that was highly effective against small and large Zeds. The adjustments made should help reduce that effectiveness against the larger Zeds while keeping the same consistent gameplay behavior for the smaller Zeds.

[Syncourt]

Originally posted by rango_90:

Off-perk rail

• SC 2 shots
  
• QP 2 shots
  
• FP 3 shots

Evisc Butcher+Parry(activated)+Smash

• SC 2 sawblades
  
• QP 2 sawblades
  
• FP Bash+3 sawblades

Evisc Butcher+Smash

• SC 2 sawblades
  
• QP 3 sawblades
  
• FP 4 sawblades

It's a pretty disgusting state of balance for the hardest difficulty. 2 for SC 3 for QP and 4 for FP is how it should be all the time for the railgun. With perks. Off-perk weapons should never be useful for killing large zeds anywhere near as fast as perked ones.

Rather than 1 person doing it all, at least require a little teamwork to down them so quickly on HoE. There should be no such thing as solo 6 man HoE unless you're a one in a million god at the game. It should take minimum of 2 good players tackling an enemy as a team to obliterate a FP on HoE before it can get close to them. It's meant to be a team game, not a game for showing off how little you need your teams help to defeat everything.

Zerk shouldn't ever have the damage ability of a sharpshooter either.
It's already bad enough that they have such high damage resistance and self-healing. It's common knowledge that you simply don't give the melee tank ranged DPS abilities or everything goes to ♥♥♥♥. If anything, make the perk choices offer either ranged damage OR important tanking skills, so the player can pick only one efficient focus.

They can already run fast, take less damage, block/parry to absorb a massive amount of damage from big enemies which otherwise would wreck the player if they are not killed before they reach them, they also have a very decent heal over time which in combination of the previous 2 abilities allows them to heal themselves up much easier when kiting.

I think it's really enough that they can tank the damage so well and heal themselves a lot faster than any class aside from the medic.

I'd even be notching that passive healing down to 1 HP per sec down from 2. Healing is the medics job.

[Judge Scrubb]

Just passing by.
Can't this be fixed by just limiting the Eviscerator's ammo to just 10-15 saw blades?

[Sikobae]

Originally posted by rango_90:

Also The Meta-build for Zerk in the highest levels of play is Zweihander+VLAD-1000.

I did this for a meme a couple times but, why the nailgun?

[TheDjango90]

Originally posted by Sikobae:

Originally posted by rango_90:

Also The Meta-build for Zerk in the highest levels of play is Zweihander+VLAD-1000.

I did this for a meme a couple times but, why the nailgun?

I sorta already answered this in the discussion

Originally posted by rango_90:

Assuming you use Evisc+katana+Deagle, your only ranged option for trash clearing is a deagle and the katana is not a great side-arm. It's about a Side-grade to the Crovel.

You should consider the alternative, The Zweihander+VLAD-1000 loadout.

The Zweihander can kill scrakes in 2.2 seconds or 1.2 seconds (with a medic boost) and the VLAD-1000 Is the best weapon zerk has for fleshpounds and ranged trash clearing.

The Eviscerator has a 51,000 Slashing DPM. The Nailgun has a 41,000 shotgun DPM. However Fleshpounds have a 50% slashing resistance but only a 25% shotgun resistance. So with quick napkin math, VLAD has 30,000 DPM vs fleshpounds and the evisc has 25,000 DPM. The VLAD-1000 is the most effective weapon zerk has for fleshpounds.

As for trash clearing it's pretty self explanatory. It's still a shotgun. It's zerk's only on-perk ranged weapon for trash clearing.

Using the alternative loadout, you gain greater giant slaying and Trash Clearing potential. You are effectively a Hybrid perk similar to support or gunslinger.

The Evisc+katana build is a GIant Slayer build similar to RPG+C4 demo or Railgun Sharp. However Zerk is too weak to even compare to a dedicated giantslayer so I'd think it's more proper to call it a back up giantslayer, for when you let the others die.

It's probably the best way to "clutch" a wave, but you could have prevented the deaths by filling in a more effective role. Such as being a proper Giantslayer such as demo/sharp or be a hybrid Zerk.

I can however provide more numerical breakdown of my min-maxing. I focus on being a Hybrid Build that can clear trash and large zeds effectively. I I min-Max weapon types and Damage types to do this.

First I min-max my TTK or Time to kill on big zeds. I Prioritize TTK vs Fleshpounds, the toughest enemy in the game durign normal waves. That means Nailgun bois.

Nailgun has an effective 31000 DPM vs Fleshpounds, which means you can kill them in less than 2 seconds. This is 5000 more effective DPM than the evisc (25000.). This is because of Fleshpounds massive slashing resistance of 50% and only minor resistance to shotguns at 25%

Nailgun has the same effective DPM of 31000 vs Quaterpounds, which is only a mere 800 less DPM than the evisc (31800). Good trade-off imo 5000 more for FP and 800 less for QP. QPs have the same Shotgun resistance of a FP but less slashing resitance at 38%.

Nailgun has severely less DPM vs scrakes, at 37000 DPM vs 51000 of the evisc. However you must consider Breakpoints. Scrakes have only so much HP, and this damage is in a unuseful range. It's not strong enough to One shot scrakes, and 2 shots are Overkill. The Evisc only needed the same DPM of 31800 to kill Scrakes in 2 shots, so the extra 20,000 is a waste.

So in actual gameplay, The Nailgun isn't much worse for scrakes than the evisc. This is reflected in the TTK, Evisc has a TTK of 1 sec and Nailgun has a TTK of 1.1 secs, same as Quaterpounds.

Nailgun vs FP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ef0PqQ5xs0M

Nailgun VS QP and SC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-PVL8rZFOQ

As elaborated before, since the nailgun is a shotgun, it's effective against all types of zeds. While the low saw blade reserve and single shot nature of teh Evisc makes it only effective against medium-Large zeds. And the secondary, is weak and poor range, really only suitable for fast weak zeds such as crawlers and stalkers that close the distance for you.

And you get a more effective melee, the Zweihander instead of a katana, Albeit the zweihander is only good in skilled hands, which I can breakdown as well if you desire. Zweihander VS Katana

Basically Nailgun > evisc
Zweihander > katana

therefore Zwei+vlad > Evisc+katana

[xtro]

Seriously dude. You can't take the raw numbers(damage per minute lol), paste those stupid vids with one enemy spawned and say that x weapon is superior to y weapon.

There are more factors than that. With the evi you are safe and sound with much much more margin of error. Shoot(snipe from the safe distance), parry, shoot(miss) parry again and so. With the nailgun/Zwei/pulv you need to engage in close combat, where stalkers, crawlers, other zeds are just waiting to ♥♥♥♥ you up. Also FPS/QP/SC often spawn in packs and and there is no room to fight them 1vs1.
With the evi you just enrage them 1 by 1 and kill safely.

So the evi> everything else

Evi+katana the most versatile and safe combination

Zwei+nailgun- hipsters loadout

[Syncourt]

Originally posted by xtro:

Seriously dude. You can't take the raw numbers(damage per minute lol), paste those stupid vids with one enemy spawned and say that x weapon is superior to y weapon.

For the majority of players, evisc will be more powerful than the VLAD hands down. You need to know exactly what you're doing and have the skill to beat the evisc with the VLAD. Which very few KF2 players actually would.

The thing about the evisc is that it's so easy and convenient to use. To the general KF2 player it's a power reward compared to most top tier weapons and it requires less skill to boot. They'de only ever efficiently use the VLAD for clearing trash.

You're right that not everything is about raw numbers. More often than not it comes down to accessibility. Nobody cares if a weapon is stronger when it's really hard to use.

[TheDjango90]

Originally posted by xtro:

Seriously dude. You can't take the raw numbers(damage per minute lol), paste those stupid vids with one enemy spawned and say that x weapon is superior to y weapon.

There are more factors than that. With the evi you are safe and sound with much much more margin of error. Shoot(snipe from the safe distance), parry, shoot(miss) parry again and so. With the nailgun/Zwei/pulv you need to engage in close combat, where stalkers, crawlers, other zeds are just waiting to ♥♥♥♥ you up. Also FPS/QP/SC often spawn in packs and and there is no room to fight them 1vs1.
With the evi you just enrage them 1 by 1 and kill safely.

So the evi> everything else

Evi+katana the most versatile and safe combination

Zwei+nailgun- hipsters loadout

"need to engage in close combat"
God forbid I engage in close combat as a berserker.

"With the evi you are safe and sound with much much more margin of error."
Margin of error isn't a problem if you git gud. Take the nailgun and do big damage. at higher levels of play you judge things based on their top potential, not on if it's easy or hard to do.

Originally posted by Sikobae:

Originally posted by rango_90:

Also The Meta-build for Zerk in the highest levels of play is Zweihander+VLAD-1000.

I did this for a meme a couple times but, why the nailgun?

This is original context of my response. The META build as in Beyond. Fullest potential.

"Seriously dude. You can't take the raw numbers(damage per minute lol), paste those stupid vids with one enemy spawned and say that x weapon is superior to y weapon."

This is a bit unfair because in the original context that's exactly what I was meant to do. list off numbers and feats to explain why Nailgun is taken over the evisc at higher levels.

Here's a real game. and there's plenty more. ALthough This one chosen specifically because it was nailgun heavy. The others tend to be zweihander heavy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEhuWamVQgI

As zerk you are so tanky, you might as well tank all the damage face first and get that damage in.

Here's a super indepth infograph about why nailgun is superior[i.redd.it]

[xtro]

Aha, so this is the famous "highest level of play"

Spam nailgun, be hit all time while being babysitted by the medic. The majority of players can do that.

[TheDjango90]

Originally posted by xtro:

he majority of players can do that.

You really shouldn't say that. You're opening yourself to the good ol' "hurr durr well how bout you do it"

It's not like server's like that are exclusive clubs. just join tantalus-masochist[discord.gg] and ask for a GSO_v (Get "pooped" On difficulty) game. They are hoping to build more regulars.

Zerk is a very poor pick at higher levels considering it's the second worse perk at higher levels. we were Breaking in the new CD server that came out. Hence the zerk and demo c4 memes. For more serious games I go Support.

Also if that's all you got I assume you concede to these 2 points

Originally posted by xtro:

Also FPS/QP/SC often spawn in packs and and there is no room to fight them 1vs1.
With the evi you just enrage them 1 by 1 and kill safely.

literally getting hit all the time doesn't matter when you're zerk, and you get better numbers with nailgun and the video shows it's just fine as handling multiple FP,SC,QP.

and if you think it's so easy then that invalidates muh

Originally posted by xtro:

with much much more margin of error

Just use a nailgun then and instantly perform better then. Hit all 7 nails every shot and land all 5 meatshots to kill fleshpounds. if it's not hard, then make the switch

[xtro]

You ignored the most important part, about being constantly pumped with medic darts. A good zerker doesn't need to be babysitted. Without that, you wouldn't survive 20 sec playing like that.

Even with 175hp, you were below 100 most of the time.
This went off topic. You are probably the only person on this forum who claims, that zerk is a bad perk and the evi is a bad weapon. But it's quite the opposite.

Over and out.

[Syncourt]

The devs (attempt to) balance this game for the official difficulties.
Not for some modified one.

How is that gameplay relevant to the discussion? and who cares about how bad (definition of bad = not pro) zerks and demos are in that? They do just fine if not fantastically in the supported difficulties.

Maybe discuss that balance on the mods discussion forum or something? Surely there's somewhere that cares about it.

[B Dawg]

Originally posted by rango_90:

Here's a super indepth infograph about why nailgun is superior[i.redd.it]

This needs to be in the artwork section :P

[amathy]

Originally posted by Syncourt:

The devs (attempt to) balance this game for the official difficulties.
Not for some modified one.

How is that gameplay relevant to the discussion? and who cares about how bad (definition of bad = not pro) zerks and demos are in that? They do just fine if not fantastically in the supported difficulties.

Maybe discuss that balance on the mods discussion forum or something? Surely there's somewhere that cares about it.

the best strats in cd are the best strats in vanilla
there's nothing about cd that radically changes gameplay
zed health is the same as hoe, they have the same movesets, etc.
there's just more large zeds and more zeds spawned at once

[Syncourt]

Originally posted by 『amathy』:

the best strats in cd are the best strats in vanilla
there's nothing about cd that radically changes gameplay
zed health is the same as hoe, they have the same movesets, etc.
there's just more large zeds and more zeds spawned at once

I don't see how. Many strats that work in cd would be complete overkill for HoE and entirely unessesary. On the other hand strats that work in HoE like evisc/katana zerks are laughed at and called noobs for bringing them into cd. Yet they work perfectly fine in HoE pub games.

They may be the best solid strats for sure (arguably the most uninteresting too), but playing HoE makes other fun strats a lot more viable. Ones that are much easier to pull off by the common player and require little co-ordination or reliance between team mates. Perfect for random pub games, which is the high majority of KF2 servers.

I never see zerkers sitting there tanking everything and using the nailgun while the med heals him in pub HoE games. cd zerker gameplay only goes to show how OP certain things really are, like the zerkers healing and damage reduction abilities. If you look at it from another angle, it's not really the nailgun that's making the zerk so strong there. It's the same thing that's making the zerk such a good lone wolf in official difficulties.

[Mister Torgue Flexington]

Originally posted by Revalopod:

Originally posted by Sraigius:

Cmon guys, Eviscerator is the ultimate solution for the Berserker class. Tier 4 weapon. What are you gonna do to it, nerf it to oblivion? A tier 4 weapon is MEANT to be the most powerful weapon at any classes disposal. It costs the highest price from Zerk's lineup (1600 dosh, one hundred more than bone crusher), and it weighs one kilogram too much (so that you cannot get yourself a Pulverizer that we all love and cherish). Tier 4 weapons are supposed to be acquired LATER in the game, but if you're very good at monetary funds marination - you can get an eviscerator before wave 6 out of 10. And, as you know, things can get very neurotic during the later waves, because the game spawns increasing amounts of brutes and mediums, so, is it OP?
Only if you're smart enough to make it that way.
A veteran Berserker with Eviscerator + support's HZ12 bullpup shotgun as offperk backup is practically invincible. Even on the highest difficulty.

HZ12 as offperk? why?
Usually the offperk shotgun of choice is the DBS

^this

while playing as the Berserker with a few friends and randoms, my backup weapon (to go with the Eviscerator) was the Doom Stick (aka "Double-Barrel Shotgun") which would take care of the trash mobs quite nicely, on top of sending dead enemies flying across a room.