The real saving grace for this class is the 7 temp HP (at 24 Con) each round. A single Ancient Red Dragon round:
Bite 21 piercing + 14 fire —> reduced to 3 piercing and 14 fire (using 7 temp HP)
2 Claws 17 slashing —> reduced to 16 slashing total.
So the average damage each round will be around 33 damage. Which is equal to a Bear Totem Barbarian.
Versus a less damaging enemy, you really start to get the temporary HP to work for you. A Hill Giant will only be able to muster about 11 damage per round against you. An Orc or similar? Literally cannot hurt you.
I agree Battlerager is underpowered, but I have yet to put it to practice to see how it would actually hold up in a pitched battle.
That is certainly some good suitability, yet it requires CON at 24 and Bear Totem has the same kind of reduction available at level 3 you say? Of course this is all scaling but I'm not overly impressed by spending a Bonus Action to gain about 5 HP. It's good, because you can do it (almost) every turn but using your Bonus Action to put down foe's faster will reduce incoming damage also quite well.
So yeah, it's difficult to compare things in a white room, that's really true. Yet I think if your Barbarian is putting out 50% more damage, is that more worth than gaining 7 HP each round? To me it sounds more versatile, because it deals better with multiple enemies, if the party is counting on the Barbarian to be that DPR. So all have their place but some sub-classes seem created more equal.
The battlerager 1d4 bonus attack deals more damage than you think, its always free and has no cost other than you need the armor on. 1d4+str every round for free, not to mention the extra 3 damage on grapples is a nice bonus as grapples are extremely effective way to keep a creature from running off. I would put battleranger ABOVE berserker. Grapples for barbarian should be there a top priority as rage gives you advantage on them and the bonus attack will take that away also the bonus attacks from the berserker advrage damage is only slightly higher, further more as I stated in the past: just take great weapon master, exhaustion is not fun not to mention getting knocked out of rage means you have to trigger ot again and then you get screwed. And as once again, fear and charm effects are very rare and there are other ways to get disabled, blinded, invisible creatures, force cage. And if we are talking level 20 berserkers has no utility so they mostly become dead weight unless they pick up great weapon master witch gives a free bonus attack rendering your subclass POINTLESS
The battlerager 1d4 bonus attack deals more damage than you think, its always free and has no cost other than you need the armor on. 1d4+str every round for free, not to mention the extra 3 damage on grapples is a nice bonus as grapples are extremely effective way to keep a creature from running off. I would put battleranger ABOVE berserker. Grapples for barbarian should be there a top priority as rage gives you advantage on them and the bonus attack will take that away also the bonus attacks from the berserker advrage damage is only slightly higher, further more as I stated in the past: just take great weapon master, exhaustion is not fun not to mention getting knocked out of rage means you have to trigger ot again and then you get screwed. And as once again, fear and charm effects are very rare and there are other ways to get disabled, blinded, invisible creatures, force cage. And if we are talking level 20 berserkers has no utility so they mostly become dead weight unless they pick up great weapon master witch gives a free bonus attack rendering your subclass POINTLESS
Getting the bonus action attack for 1d4 + STR mod + Rage mod is indeed nothing to sneeze at. Yet it does come with some opportunity costs:
You need to play a dwarf, but this isn't bad since the race has very goot racial bonuses to attributes and your DM might just wave this prerequisite.
You need to actually wear the Spiked armor, which at AC 14 + Max 2 DEX mod AND Disadvantage to stealth, isn't the best. Apart from the physical fact that putting spikes on armor actually helps catching slashing weapons, which explains the poor AC 14.
It's a bonus action, so you might not consider some powerful other features to gain a use from your bonus action. And of course this means that it can't be used during the turn you start your rage.
I didn't find a rules clarification but we will presume that a Battlerager is proficient with the attacks he makes with his Spiked Armor.
So yes indeed, we can say that the relative damage boost from a Frenzy Attack is significantly lower compared to the Battlerager.
If we assume a STR of 18 and the use of a Longsword, which allows for versatility to grapple or go two handed for maximum damage. Than the Frenzy only allows for on average +3 damage per round. Disregarding critical hits, this would slightly increase the average damage in favor of Frenzy of course.
The bonus damage from grappling, is more fluffy than mechanically relevant, as it's once per grapple and a static 3 piercing damage. If only it would have been per round the grapple is maintained and would scale with the levels.
If you actually want the bonus damage for grappling, like all grappling, you need a free hand. So it's rather difficult to combine with a shield, which would seem nice to boost your AC, as with Reckless Abandon, you might prefer not too low to make the most use out of it.
Which brings is to Reckless Abandon, which is a great feature at level 6. It will encourage you to make max out CON faster than STR, which does bring down the damage a little. But being able to generate 5 THP per round is very good, since while your rage this equals to 10 HP due to resistances.
So yes, both Berserker and Battlerager are very much comparable until level 6, only the Berserker has immunity to very important status effects (from fighting FOR the party, to doing NOTHING useful to FIGHTING AGAINST the party) and doesn't impose any prerequisites. The Battlerager has the advantage that it's features are always on during raging and are used more frequently.
At level 10 the Battlerager has a more useful feature (Battlerager Charge) yet at level 14 the Battlerager is quite at disadvantage, sure all enemies take this 3 piercing damage and this will offset the constant use of Reckless Attack for Reckless Abandon but the damage might have scaled some more, or be flat out 6 piercing. To compare it to Retribution with a STR 20 two handed Longsword and assuming 65% chance to hit, which does on average 9.05 dmg during rage, at the price of a reaction of course.
Now on the remark that GWM would be a wasted feature on a Berserker, is quite pointless. It's quite clear that you don't always want to be using Frenzy and thus you won't mind gaining extra bonus attacks during other rages but also being able to add more bonus damage is always good when you are building your barbarian to output more damage.
It's rather the Battlerager that wants to avoid GWM because it competes with it's core feature. But again, even the Battlerager wouldn't mind to trade his 1d4 bonus attack for a 1d8 or better bonus attack on top of the -5/+10 feature.
So thank you for pointing out that Battlerager is pretty good until level 6-10 and quite viable. I was rather blinded by the stupid idea of wearing spiked armor but mechanically it works.
Ok so first off....your a barbarian, with point buy your going to have around 16 AC anyways and furthermore you have the largest health pool in the game and take half damage from most attacks so your arguement vs the armor is moot
Second off who is going to use a longsword, everyone is going to be using a greataxe, yea it is two handed but you can still make a grapple with it but all further attacks with it will have disadvantage, your hands are not glued to your weapon!
Going onto the dwarf thing its necessary, as it states in the PHB that the DM can rule you dont have to be a dwarf so that point is also moot
And lastly GWM is extremely powerful on a barbarian because of reckless attack, yes you get -5 to hit but with barbarians strength score it shouldn't impact your to hit score more so at end game where your strength score should be 24 or higher, this means your base to hit with a +3 weapon should be 16, so +11 to hit with advantage to hit for 1d12+14 even at Lower levels even more so as you dont need to use the -5 to hit, you get the bonus attack when you kill a creature or critical hit. The downside to reckless attack is creatures have advantage to hit you, with a low AC on advrage your going to get hit anyways but reckless let's you do your job as a frontline meat shield better by making yourself a larger target and when it comes to saving throws the advantage on attack rolls don't make a difference anyways.
And lastly CHARM EFFECTS HAVE DISADVANTAGE OF THE CREATURE USONG THE CHARM HOSTILE and normally another player can snap you out of it and when it comes to fear effects "oh no I can't move towards you and I have disadvantage on my attacks"...hello, reckless attack, goodbye disadvantage lol there are a few fear effects to keep your eye out for but 90% of the time it let's you repeat your savings throw every turn to get rid of it and your can normally shake it off or break the casters concentration.
So I said this many times because of all of this before on how the many mechanics of how fear, charm, exhaustion and rage work makes the berserker the weakest of all the barbarians.
And lastly CHARM EFFECTS HAVE DISADVANTAGE OF THE CREATURE USONG THE CHARM HOSTILE and normally another player can snap you out of it...
That is not true. Only the spell Charm Person and two other spells intended for non-combat use grant advantage to hostile targets. There are another dozen spells and some very deadly monster abilities that involve making a save against the Charmed condition. The majority of those could take you completely out of a fight until you succeed the save.
Ok so first off....your a barbarian, with point buy your going to have around 16 AC anyways and furthermore you have the largest health pool in the game and take half damage from most attacks so your arguement vs the armor is moot.
...
I would disagree, it's not because you are resistant to all physical damage while you rage that you don't care about getting hit. The difference between AC 16 and giving away advantage at AC 16 is rather big. When you have a +6 to hit, this comes down to 55% hits vs AC 16 and 80% hits with ADV. Disregarding any crits. Relative percentage this is an increase of 45% and with crit chance this moves from 5% to 9,5% almost doubling.
So now we see why a Barbarian get's resistance, giving away ADV increases the damage coming in quite dramatically.
Keep in mind that an attack that misses deals no damage, which is the ultimate damage mitigation. For references, AC 18 would bring these numbers to 45% and 70% with ADV.
So yeah, the AC of the armor isn't the biggest factor, it's giving away advantage to multiple sources of attack that increase the chances of receiving a critical hit. It's not because you have a big hit pool that you should make it easier to have it depleted. You are most probably the meat shield, not the arrow magnet or sword sponge. If you are loosing HP faster than you are removing threats as a party, you are loosing the battle of attrition.
What my biggest issue with the armor is though, is that it gives disadvantage to stealth for a rather low defense but okay, it get's compensated through the 1d4 bonus attack. Which is really good at low-mid levels.
... Second off who is going to use a longsword, everyone is going to be using a greataxe, yea it is two handed but you can still make a grapple with it but all further attacks with it will have disadvantage, your hands are not glued to your weapon!
...
You can't use a two-handed weapon with one hand, not even at disadvantage. PHB p 147: "Two.Handed. This weapon requires two hands to use."
So yeah, you can hold your weapon in one hand while you use the other hand to grapple a foe. Yet you can't attack with it. That's why I used the Longsword as an example as it is versatile.
...Going onto the dwarf thing its necessary, as it states in the PHB that the DM can rule you dont have to be a dwarf so that point is also moot ...
Which is exactly what I said, not a real issue, even if your DM decides you need to be a dwarf, there are still good race choices. What might be a bit of a trouble is obtaining the Spiked Armor, if your DM decides those aren't easy to come by at the time you hit 3rd level but let's not assume your DM is going to make your life hard.
...And lastly GWM is extremely powerful on a barbarian because of reckless attack, yes you get -5 to hit but with barbarians strength score it shouldn't impact your to hit score more so at end game where your strength score should be 24 or higher, this means your base to hit with a +3 weapon should be 16, so +11 to hit with advantage to hit for 1d12+14 even at Lower levels even more so as you dont need to use the -5 to hit, you get the bonus attack when you kill a creature or critical hit. The downside to reckless attack is creatures have advantage to hit you, with a low AC on advrage your going to get hit anyways but reckless let's you do your job as a frontline meat shield better by making yourself a larger target and when it comes to saving throws the advantage on attack rolls don't make a difference anyways. ....
I don't get why you take an example of the numbers at level 20. As far as I know not many campaigns even go that far and even when they do it's only a limited number of sessions. So that 's why I prefer to look at the numbers for sub-classes around level 6-10. Which turns out to be pretty good for Battlerager and Berserker. It's only the Berserker that really get better at level 14.
To me making the assumption that you are always going to simply using Reckless attack to overcome the -5 to hit isn't a good choice. Sometimes your opponents AC is just too high to make a reliable hit, even with ADV. I know there is a graph where it's calculated that ON AVERAGE you break even at AC 18 with reckless attack and GWM. Yet if you are a little unlucky you are missing for a round while taking more damage. Another example would be that your are outnumbered by foes and/or they have ranged attacks. While giving away ADV too all enemies in order to better hit one isn't best here, because you will soak relatively more damage that the increase of damage output.
But then again, I was arguing that the Bonus Action Attack of GWM is competing for the same action economy as the Battlerager's basic feature. But I wouldn't mind because I don't want min-max optimisation.
And on the topic of IMMUNITY to FEAR and CHARM, we'll have to disagree, this horse is beaten beyond death. Yet I fear that your mechanical understanding of the charm and fear effects my be a little off. Maybe your barbarian is always accompanied by a Paladin who makes sure those Save or Bust effects don't affect your barbarian as they could.
So I can understand that you don't see the potential of the Berserker on paper, with that perspective.
It's not a prespective, its simply how the game works.
So first off if your going to reckless anyways for multiple reasons, a barbarian that doesn't crit fish is not a good barbarian.
Moving on I did state that early on GWM is very very powerful going with point buy at level 4 you can pick up GWM or you can be a human or your DM gives a bonus starting feat. Your to hit bonus should be at least +5 and most creatures dont have a AC over 16 so attacking with advantage with a flat d20 means you will hit most creatures.
Berserker brings nothing to the table other than a new way to give yourself exhaustion, you have no new ways to support your group, at the end of the day a barbarians job is not to deal damage but to be a meat shield and there main way if dealing damage is just taking the advantage on attack rolls and crit finishing, some even take 3 levels in fighter for champions riot feature. And breaking down all the barbarians zealot, battlerager and storm herald come out with much higher overall damage and utility.
Your a level 5 barbarian, you have all of your tools, your not really getting anything new from the main class and berserk gives you next to nothing, you get fear and charm immunity while raging witch is kind of dumb as most charms will not work when you are hostile they dont work anyways and you can counter most fear effects with reckless attack. All the other subclasses gives you tons of utility effects that help you deal more damage, take less damage, get higher AC or just effect that change battle flow or just straight up make it ok for you to die if you have a cleric (using resurrection spells on you dont need material components) this is why berserkers sits at the very bottom because most barbarians pick up great weapon master witch gives you a bonus attacks when you kill something or land a crit.
The main boss of the game has been introduced as an Ancient Dragon, so I'm pretty sure it can, and will, charm/scare my Barbarian even in a Frenzy without Mindless Rage. At least with MR, I'm not so worried about how the encounter will go once the battle starts.
EDIT: As for your last post, I have to be a tank because the rest of my party is squishy (with exception to my cleric and paladin party members) for long-range and stealth. Having the Feat: Alert also works to my advantage as a Berserker.
My DM resolves this problem with one of my favorite magic items, a Heroic Mug (note the Red Bullette):
This mug is made from the skull of a crushed enemy and the steel of their weapons. If used in combat, it is considered a magic weapon and does 1d6 bludgeoning damage. On command it can fill with brutally strong alcohol. The alcohol vanishes if not consumed within one round.
As a bonus action, the wielder can command the mug to fill with a special drink which can be consumed using an interaction. The mug has 7 charges. It regains 1d6 + 1 expended charges daily at dawn. If you expend the mug’s last charge, roll a d20. On a 1, the mug remains a magic weapon but can only produce non-magical lite beer. The mug can produce the following drinks:
Battle Brew Beer (1 charge): For one minute whenever you make an Attack roll or a saving throw you can roll a d4 and add the number rolled to the Attack roll or saving throw.
Fire Vodka (1 charge): You gain cold resistance for one minute.
Bernard Rum (1 charge): You heal 4d4+4 hit points.
Wild Whiskey (1 charge): For one minute you inflict an extra 1d4 when you hit with a melee attack.
Thunder Tequila (2 charges): For one minute you inflict an extra 1d8 thunder damage when you hit with a melee attack.
Red Bullette (1 charge): You recover from 1 level of exhaustion
—
This keeps me from searching for potions of vitality at every city we go to.
My take on fixing Berserker looks a bit like this:
Frenzy: When you enter your rage and as a bonus action while you're raging, you can make one melee weapon attack.
(The other Primal Paths, besides Battlerager, provide their bonuses immediately upon raging; RAW Berserker doesn't AND comes with a penalty for using it. Grant the benefit and drop the penalty)
Mindless Rage: no changes. It's great as is; don't fix what's not broken.
Frightening Presence: As an action, you can attempt to terrify a creature within 30 feet of you that can see you. It must make a Wisdom saving throw (DC = 8 + proficiency bonus + strength modifier); on a failure, it is frightened of you for 1 minute. At the end of its turns, if it is more than 30 feet away from you and can no longer see you, it can repeat the saving throw, ending the effect early on a successful save.
A creature that succeeds its saving throw is immune to this feature for the next 24 hours.
(Forcing the berserker to spend its action every turn to maintain the fear effect is counterintuitive; making it scale on charisma is insulting. An action is warranted for starting a powerful crowd control effect.)
Retaliation: a great capstone. No changes needed.
EDIT: We'll also need to make changes to the Battlerager, as there's a distinct overlap in its features and those of the Berserker.
Spiked Armor: You can add spikes to an already existing set of armor or create a spiked overcoat for 25 gold pieces (a spiked overcoat is not armor). While you are raging, when a creature hits you with a melee attack from 5 feet away, and whenever you grapple another creature, you can automatically inflict piercing damage to it equal to your strength modifier. This damage counts as magical if spikes are added onto magic armor you are currently wearing.
(AC 14 + Dex (maximum +2) with disadvantage on stealth checks is rather bad on most barbarians. In addition, this changes the initial role of the Battlerager from an arguably better RAW berserker to a wall of thorns; Spiked Retribution's counter damage fits much better here than at 14th level. Making the automatic damage scale with strength shouldn't break the game, as most battleragers at 3rd level won't have a strength score higher than 17.)
Reckless Abandon: no changes, it's a great feature.
Battlerager Charge: When you rage, and as a bonus action while you are raging, you can take the Dash action.
(Same QoL improvement as we did for Frenzy.)
Spiked Ram: You are proficient with your spikes as a melee weapon. When you take the Attack action while you are raging, you can use a bonus action to make a melee weapon attack with your spikes. On a hit, it does 1d4 piercing damage plus your strength modifier.
(Since we moved Spiked Retribution's counter damage to the Spiked Armor feature, we can reintroduce the bonus action attack here; additional attacks are almost always relavant.)
What I would do to fix the Frenzy/exhaustion issue is to just take out the exhaustion setback entirely. Plain and simple. It's still perfectly balanced as is, in my opinion, as there are plenty of other classes/feats that give you this ability without any setback whatsoever. The whole flair for the class is to put everything into attacking anyway, so seriously what is the harm in just giving the Berserker an extra attack option when they go into a rage? I think it makes sense thematically and mechanically.
If you really must have some sort of "balance" for it(even though I don't think it is necessary), you could always attach the ability to reckless attack, preventing the barbarian from being able to have a third attack without doing a reckless attack, which would still feed into the whole risk/reward theme of the class.
I really don't think giving the Berserker Barbarian an extra attack for free is unbalanced (given that he is required to be raging in order to use it), especially considering how the fighter just gets up to 4 attacks for free plus a bonus action afterwards.
I currently play Path of the berserker variant as described on dandwiki ( the one with the save after every frenzy) and I can say that if I didn't have that variant path I would never take berserker. berserker RAW is too crippling. It's just too much of a liability. You become so crippled after 1 or two levels of exhaustion that you just can't participate. I know people would argue that you don't 'have to' frenzy. well if you aren't gonna frenzy, why the hell are you even a berserker. You don't have to order pancakes at IHOP. You don't have to drink water when your thirsty, but wow is your life dull and meaningless if you don't do what you feel like you need to. dandwiki homebrew version is easily 50 times more well designed than RAW subclass.
Bear RAW is just so much stronger. 0 downsides, so much stronger with tons of damage mitigation. Wotc just screwed it up hard. they should have had either had a con DC save like in dandwiki or given exhaustion that is removed by a short rest. Either would have made it acceptable.
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That is certainly some good suitability, yet it requires CON at 24 and Bear Totem has the same kind of reduction available at level 3 you say?
Of course this is all scaling but I'm not overly impressed by spending a Bonus Action to gain about 5 HP. It's good, because you can do it (almost) every turn but using your Bonus Action to put down foe's faster will reduce incoming damage also quite well.
So yeah, it's difficult to compare things in a white room, that's really true. Yet I think if your Barbarian is putting out 50% more damage, is that more worth than gaining 7 HP each round? To me it sounds more versatile, because it deals better with multiple enemies, if the party is counting on the Barbarian to be that DPR. So all have their place but some sub-classes seem created more equal.
The battlerager 1d4 bonus attack deals more damage than you think, its always free and has no cost other than you need the armor on. 1d4+str every round for free, not to mention the extra 3 damage on grapples is a nice bonus as grapples are extremely effective way to keep a creature from running off. I would put battleranger ABOVE berserker. Grapples for barbarian should be there a top priority as rage gives you advantage on them and the bonus attack will take that away also the bonus attacks from the berserker advrage damage is only slightly higher, further more as I stated in the past: just take great weapon master, exhaustion is not fun not to mention getting knocked out of rage means you have to trigger ot again and then you get screwed. And as once again, fear and charm effects are very rare and there are other ways to get disabled, blinded, invisible creatures, force cage. And if we are talking level 20 berserkers has no utility so they mostly become dead weight unless they pick up great weapon master witch gives a free bonus attack rendering your subclass POINTLESS
Getting the bonus action attack for 1d4 + STR mod + Rage mod is indeed nothing to sneeze at. Yet it does come with some opportunity costs:
Apart from the physical fact that putting spikes on armor actually helps catching slashing weapons, which explains the poor AC 14.
So yes indeed, we can say that the relative damage boost from a Frenzy Attack is significantly lower compared to the Battlerager.
If we assume a STR of 18 and the use of a Longsword, which allows for versatility to grapple or go two handed for maximum damage. Than the Frenzy only allows for on average +3 damage per round. Disregarding critical hits, this would slightly increase the average damage in favor of Frenzy of course.
The bonus damage from grappling, is more fluffy than mechanically relevant, as it's once per grapple and a static 3 piercing damage. If only it would have been per round the grapple is maintained and would scale with the levels.
If you actually want the bonus damage for grappling, like all grappling, you need a free hand. So it's rather difficult to combine with a shield, which would seem nice to boost your AC, as with Reckless Abandon, you might prefer not too low to make the most use out of it.
Which brings is to Reckless Abandon, which is a great feature at level 6. It will encourage you to make max out CON faster than STR, which does bring down the damage a little. But being able to generate 5 THP per round is very good, since while your rage this equals to 10 HP due to resistances.
So yes, both Berserker and Battlerager are very much comparable until level 6, only the Berserker has immunity to very important status effects (from fighting FOR the party, to doing NOTHING useful to FIGHTING AGAINST the party) and doesn't impose any prerequisites. The Battlerager has the advantage that it's features are always on during raging and are used more frequently.
At level 10 the Battlerager has a more useful feature (Battlerager Charge) yet at level 14 the Battlerager is quite at disadvantage, sure all enemies take this 3 piercing damage and this will offset the constant use of Reckless Attack for Reckless Abandon but the damage might have scaled some more, or be flat out 6 piercing.
To compare it to Retribution with a STR 20 two handed Longsword and assuming 65% chance to hit, which does on average 9.05 dmg during rage, at the price of a reaction of course.
Now on the remark that GWM would be a wasted feature on a Berserker, is quite pointless. It's quite clear that you don't always want to be using Frenzy and thus you won't mind gaining extra bonus attacks during other rages but also being able to add more bonus damage is always good when you are building your barbarian to output more damage.
It's rather the Battlerager that wants to avoid GWM because it competes with it's core feature. But again, even the Battlerager wouldn't mind to trade his 1d4 bonus attack for a 1d8 or better bonus attack on top of the -5/+10 feature.
So thank you for pointing out that Battlerager is pretty good until level 6-10 and quite viable. I was rather blinded by the stupid idea of wearing spiked armor but mechanically it works.
Well said
Ok so first off....your a barbarian, with point buy your going to have around 16 AC anyways and furthermore you have the largest health pool in the game and take half damage from most attacks so your arguement vs the armor is moot
Second off who is going to use a longsword, everyone is going to be using a greataxe, yea it is two handed but you can still make a grapple with it but all further attacks with it will have disadvantage, your hands are not glued to your weapon!
Going onto the dwarf thing its necessary, as it states in the PHB that the DM can rule you dont have to be a dwarf so that point is also moot
And lastly GWM is extremely powerful on a barbarian because of reckless attack, yes you get -5 to hit but with barbarians strength score it shouldn't impact your to hit score more so at end game where your strength score should be 24 or higher, this means your base to hit with a +3 weapon should be 16, so +11 to hit with advantage to hit for 1d12+14 even at Lower levels even more so as you dont need to use the -5 to hit, you get the bonus attack when you kill a creature or critical hit. The downside to reckless attack is creatures have advantage to hit you, with a low AC on advrage your going to get hit anyways but reckless let's you do your job as a frontline meat shield better by making yourself a larger target and when it comes to saving throws the advantage on attack rolls don't make a difference anyways.
And lastly CHARM EFFECTS HAVE DISADVANTAGE OF THE CREATURE USONG THE CHARM HOSTILE and normally another player can snap you out of it and when it comes to fear effects "oh no I can't move towards you and I have disadvantage on my attacks"...hello, reckless attack, goodbye disadvantage lol there are a few fear effects to keep your eye out for but 90% of the time it let's you repeat your savings throw every turn to get rid of it and your can normally shake it off or break the casters concentration.
So I said this many times because of all of this before on how the many mechanics of how fear, charm, exhaustion and rage work makes the berserker the weakest of all the barbarians.
That is not true. Only the spell Charm Person and two other spells intended for non-combat use grant advantage to hostile targets. There are another dozen spells and some very deadly monster abilities that involve making a save against the Charmed condition. The majority of those could take you completely out of a fight until you succeed the save.
I would disagree, it's not because you are resistant to all physical damage while you rage that you don't care about getting hit. The difference between AC 16 and giving away advantage at AC 16 is rather big. When you have a +6 to hit, this comes down to 55% hits vs AC 16 and 80% hits with ADV. Disregarding any crits. Relative percentage this is an increase of 45% and with crit chance this moves from 5% to 9,5% almost doubling.
So now we see why a Barbarian get's resistance, giving away ADV increases the damage coming in quite dramatically.
Keep in mind that an attack that misses deals no damage, which is the ultimate damage mitigation.
For references, AC 18 would bring these numbers to 45% and 70% with ADV.
So yeah, the AC of the armor isn't the biggest factor, it's giving away advantage to multiple sources of attack that increase the chances of receiving a critical hit. It's not because you have a big hit pool that you should make it easier to have it depleted. You are most probably the meat shield, not the arrow magnet or sword sponge. If you are loosing HP faster than you are removing threats as a party, you are loosing the battle of attrition.
What my biggest issue with the armor is though, is that it gives disadvantage to stealth for a rather low defense but okay, it get's compensated through the 1d4 bonus attack. Which is really good at low-mid levels.
You can't use a two-handed weapon with one hand, not even at disadvantage. PHB p 147: "Two.Handed. This weapon requires two hands to use."
So yeah, you can hold your weapon in one hand while you use the other hand to grapple a foe. Yet you can't attack with it. That's why I used the Longsword as an example as it is versatile.
Which is exactly what I said, not a real issue, even if your DM decides you need to be a dwarf, there are still good race choices.
What might be a bit of a trouble is obtaining the Spiked Armor, if your DM decides those aren't easy to come by at the time you hit 3rd level but let's not assume your DM is going to make your life hard.
I don't get why you take an example of the numbers at level 20. As far as I know not many campaigns even go that far and even when they do it's only a limited number of sessions. So that 's why I prefer to look at the numbers for sub-classes around level 6-10. Which turns out to be pretty good for Battlerager and Berserker. It's only the Berserker that really get better at level 14.
To me making the assumption that you are always going to simply using Reckless attack to overcome the -5 to hit isn't a good choice. Sometimes your opponents AC is just too high to make a reliable hit, even with ADV. I know there is a graph where it's calculated that ON AVERAGE you break even at AC 18 with reckless attack and GWM. Yet if you are a little unlucky you are missing for a round while taking more damage.
Another example would be that your are outnumbered by foes and/or they have ranged attacks. While giving away ADV too all enemies in order to better hit one isn't best here, because you will soak relatively more damage that the increase of damage output.
But then again, I was arguing that the Bonus Action Attack of GWM is competing for the same action economy as the Battlerager's basic feature. But I wouldn't mind because I don't want min-max optimisation.
And on the topic of IMMUNITY to FEAR and CHARM, we'll have to disagree, this horse is beaten beyond death. Yet I fear that your mechanical understanding of the charm and fear effects my be a little off. Maybe your barbarian is always accompanied by a Paladin who makes sure those Save or Bust effects don't affect your barbarian as they could.
So I can understand that you don't see the potential of the Berserker on paper, with that perspective.
Peace out!
It's not a prespective, its simply how the game works.
So first off if your going to reckless anyways for multiple reasons, a barbarian that doesn't crit fish is not a good barbarian.
Moving on I did state that early on GWM is very very powerful going with point buy at level 4 you can pick up GWM or you can be a human or your DM gives a bonus starting feat. Your to hit bonus should be at least +5 and most creatures dont have a AC over 16 so attacking with advantage with a flat d20 means you will hit most creatures.
Berserker brings nothing to the table other than a new way to give yourself exhaustion, you have no new ways to support your group, at the end of the day a barbarians job is not to deal damage but to be a meat shield and there main way if dealing damage is just taking the advantage on attack rolls and crit finishing, some even take 3 levels in fighter for champions riot feature. And breaking down all the barbarians zealot, battlerager and storm herald come out with much higher overall damage and utility.
The main boss of the game has been introduced as an Ancient Dragon, so I'm pretty sure it can, and will, charm/scare my Barbarian even in a Frenzy without Mindless Rage. At least with MR, I'm not so worried about how the encounter will go once the battle starts.
EDIT: As for your last post, I have to be a tank because the rest of my party is squishy (with exception to my cleric and paladin party members) for long-range and stealth. Having the Feat: Alert also works to my advantage as a Berserker.
My DM resolves this problem with one of my favorite magic items, a Heroic Mug (note the Red Bullette):
This mug is made from the skull of a crushed enemy and the steel of their weapons. If used in combat, it is considered a magic weapon and does 1d6 bludgeoning damage. On command it can fill with brutally strong alcohol. The alcohol vanishes if not consumed within one round.
As a bonus action, the wielder can command the mug to fill with a special drink which can be consumed using an interaction. The mug has 7 charges. It regains 1d6 + 1 expended charges daily at dawn. If you expend the mug’s last charge, roll a d20. On a 1, the mug remains a magic weapon but can only produce non-magical lite beer. The mug can produce the following drinks:
Battle Brew Beer (1 charge): For one minute whenever you make an Attack roll or a saving throw you can roll a d4 and add the number rolled to the Attack roll or saving throw.
Fire Vodka (1 charge): You gain cold resistance for one minute.
Bernard Rum (1 charge): You heal 4d4+4 hit points.
Wild Whiskey (1 charge): For one minute you inflict an extra 1d4 when you hit with a melee attack.
Thunder Tequila (2 charges): For one minute you inflict an extra 1d8 thunder damage when you hit with a melee attack.
Red Bullette (1 charge): You recover from 1 level of exhaustion
—
This keeps me from searching for potions of vitality at every city we go to.
My take on fixing Berserker looks a bit like this:
Frenzy: When you enter your rage and as a bonus action while you're raging, you can make one melee weapon attack.
(The other Primal Paths, besides Battlerager, provide their bonuses immediately upon raging; RAW Berserker doesn't AND comes with a penalty for using it. Grant the benefit and drop the penalty)
Mindless Rage: no changes. It's great as is; don't fix what's not broken.
Frightening Presence: As an action, you can attempt to terrify a creature within 30 feet of you that can see you. It must make a Wisdom saving throw (DC = 8 + proficiency bonus + strength modifier); on a failure, it is frightened of you for 1 minute. At the end of its turns, if it is more than 30 feet away from you and can no longer see you, it can repeat the saving throw, ending the effect early on a successful save.
A creature that succeeds its saving throw is immune to this feature for the next 24 hours.
(Forcing the berserker to spend its action every turn to maintain the fear effect is counterintuitive; making it scale on charisma is insulting. An action is warranted for starting a powerful crowd control effect.)
Retaliation: a great capstone. No changes needed.
EDIT: We'll also need to make changes to the Battlerager, as there's a distinct overlap in its features and those of the Berserker.
Spiked Armor: You can add spikes to an already existing set of armor or create a spiked overcoat for 25 gold pieces (a spiked overcoat is not armor). While you are raging, when a creature hits you with a melee attack from 5 feet away, and whenever you grapple another creature, you can automatically inflict piercing damage to it equal to your strength modifier. This damage counts as magical if spikes are added onto magic armor you are currently wearing.
(AC 14 + Dex (maximum +2) with disadvantage on stealth checks is rather bad on most barbarians. In addition, this changes the initial role of the Battlerager from an arguably better RAW berserker to a wall of thorns; Spiked Retribution's counter damage fits much better here than at 14th level. Making the automatic damage scale with strength shouldn't break the game, as most battleragers at 3rd level won't have a strength score higher than 17.)
Reckless Abandon: no changes, it's a great feature.
Battlerager Charge: When you rage, and as a bonus action while you are raging, you can take the Dash action.
(Same QoL improvement as we did for Frenzy.)
Spiked Ram: You are proficient with your spikes as a melee weapon. When you take the Attack action while you are raging, you can use a bonus action to make a melee weapon attack with your spikes. On a hit, it does 1d4 piercing damage plus your strength modifier.
(Since we moved Spiked Retribution's counter damage to the Spiked Armor feature, we can reintroduce the bonus action attack here; additional attacks are almost always relavant.)
What I would do to fix the Frenzy/exhaustion issue is to just take out the exhaustion setback entirely. Plain and simple. It's still perfectly balanced as is, in my opinion, as there are plenty of other classes/feats that give you this ability without any setback whatsoever. The whole flair for the class is to put everything into attacking anyway, so seriously what is the harm in just giving the Berserker an extra attack option when they go into a rage? I think it makes sense thematically and mechanically.
If you really must have some sort of "balance" for it(even though I don't think it is necessary), you could always attach the ability to reckless attack, preventing the barbarian from being able to have a third attack without doing a reckless attack, which would still feed into the whole risk/reward theme of the class.
I really don't think giving the Berserker Barbarian an extra attack for free is unbalanced (given that he is required to be raging in order to use it), especially considering how the fighter just gets up to 4 attacks for free plus a bonus action afterwards.
I currently play Path of the berserker variant as described on dandwiki ( the one with the save after every frenzy) and I can say that if I didn't have that variant path I would never take berserker. berserker RAW is too crippling. It's just too much of a liability. You become so crippled after 1 or two levels of exhaustion that you just can't participate. I know people would argue that you don't 'have to' frenzy. well if you aren't gonna frenzy, why the hell are you even a berserker. You don't have to order pancakes at IHOP. You don't have to drink water when your thirsty, but wow is your life dull and meaningless if you don't do what you feel like you need to. dandwiki homebrew version is easily 50 times more well designed than RAW subclass.
Bear RAW is just so much stronger. 0 downsides, so much stronger with tons of damage mitigation. Wotc just screwed it up hard. they should have had either had a con DC save like in dandwiki or given exhaustion that is removed by a short rest. Either would have made it acceptable.
It doesn't matter how smart you think are you. No one will want to work with you if you're an *******.