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Originally Posted by Itlan  Several ways to deal with this. First of all, resists is the most obvious. There's a reason to having resists in the first place. Second, a quick buff that negates AE damage for x amount time with a y cooldown. Rather obvious, wouldn't you say? The third is actually quite simple too, wards. We've seen them in both Vanguard and EQ2. Wards could act as a way for the Zerker to maintain low health while avoiding an AE assault. Fourth, get the fuck out of the way. Fifth, combat rezz. FIVE WAYS! 
This would not be an easy class to play, and would take careful aggro management and tons of skill. If this were the case in EQ1, it would've been a useless class due to HP aggro. However, this isn't the case in the new MMOs, so this class can certainly be created with the features enlisted.
EDIT: And after a quick thought, there is also another way. Nearly all raid bosses have a certain timer on their AEs. This is pretty much fact, so an easy way is to fully heal the zerker prior to the AE onslaught. Most have suggested a reactive type healing effect for the Zerker, so he could simply click the reactives and be at full hp in a hurry. The greatest part is, after the onslaught, no need to heal him. |
Resists: You must not have raided VG. Resists in Vanguard are more a matter of mitigation than complete avoidance (like in EQ). The thought is (I believe) that the resist mechanic of EQ essentially trivializes content once you reach a certain gear level. In Vanguard you must deal with the AEs beyond a simple resist spec.
Short duration buff: This is a tough balancing issue. No matter what you set the timer at, there will be some fights where the class is a waste of a spot (a real issue in VG raids), and other fights where it's perhaps the best class available. This in itself isn't a huge problem, as long as you accept that for certain content your class is essentially worthless. And honestly, given the history of VG and current dev team (RIP Avarem), they are more likely to screw it up, either making the class OP or total crap. If they adjust it perfectly the class becomes the best in short fights, worst in long fights, and average the rest of the time. Odds are that future content makes the class less rather than more desirable, since the trend has been toward more and more AE fights that require endurance.
Wards: Same problem of implementation. A self cast ward essentially means you are your own healer, not such a bad thing at first glance, but hard to get right. Give them too powerful of a ward, like one to absorb an entire AE from Zaygius (3-6k depending on debuffs), and they become the new fotm solo class. Raid mobs at the end of APW throw out 3k+ AEs every 20-30s, so if you can get that ward up every time you just became the most overpwered solo class in the game, and also the best melee raid dps. Can we say broken?
The "get the fuck out of the way" and combat rez ideas don't apply to VG raiding at all (combat rezing is very limited in Vanguard). You're a melee class, and AEs in VG tend to go through LoS, and go off with little regularity. (They work on ability timers, and so mobs that do lots of shit end up stuck doing lots of shit all at the same time, chaining cast timers and delaying stuff like crazy. On top of that performance and UI issues make dodging unreasonable most of the time, though there are exceptions.) These problems also make your edited suggestion unreasonable. Kotasoth for example has something like 4-5 AEs. Sometimes more than one lands at the same time, and sometimes they are staggered. Some begin with a % hp trigger, others are timed. Theoretically it would be possible to do a few attacks, then heal and wait, but VG raiding is so imperfect that theoretical plausibility often becomes a waste of time.
It wouldn't be impossible to balance something like the spell buff idea, but it would certainly be difficult. Even if you did properly design the mechanic, you've essentially created a class that will be the least desirable in any long duration AE fights, which seem to be standard mmo design. My point isn't that it's impossible. Rather my point is that a mechanic you must balance against such a standard in content design is extremely problematic.
EDIT: A better solution might be to make the class more vulnerable to a certain kind of attack, likely melee dmg, while performing certain long dps chains. It seems the intention is to stress aggro control as a key component of the class, and a vulnerability would essentially mean they died every time they pulled. There are melee based AEs in Vanguard, but maybe it could be coded to only apply to incoming single target dmg.
As a raid leader, and someone who built a raiding guild, I hated that certain classes were so worthless on AE fights. I'm bias against the whole "kill yourself to do dmg" idea. I can't count the number of times our Psi's killed themselves.