User:Masel/Builds/Berserker
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Spear Power Berserker[edit]
Criterion | Rating |
---|---|
Burst Damage | 4/5 |
Sustained Damage | 5/5 |
Utility Options | 3/5 |
Survivability | 5/5 |
Difficulty | 2/5 |
Power Berserker is a very strong build for instanced content, even with a simplified rotation with like the one I use. It's also a great pick for solo gameplay, as it provides itself with good amounts of the most essential offensive boons: Quickness, Fury and Might. Through Relic of Zakiros, Might Makes Right and Fried Golden Dumpling, it can achieve excellent self-healing and Endurance recovery, making it a very durable spec to choose. With the usage of Spear as the main weapon, it further has high range, allowing you to deal great damage with flexible positioning.
Link to the DPS Build on the Editor
Playstyle & Skills[edit]
Skill Type | Skills | |||||
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(Primal) Burst Skills |
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Spear Skills |
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Utility (Option 1) |
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Utility (Option 2) |
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Berserk and Adrenaline Management[edit]
- As the name implies, Berserker is made for angry people. It's probably best described as one of those Uruk-Hai from LotR that hit the gym a little bit too often.
- Berserk is the key mechanic of Berserker, which gives you access to Primal Burst skills and reduces the maximum adrenaline you can have to 10 (down from 30).
- That means that it becomes much easier to gather up Adrenaline for powerful burst skills, but Primal Bursts count as tier 1 bursts for all traits that benefit from them.
- Since you have much more powerful stats inside Berserk mode (higher Power, Strike damage, Ferocity etc.)), you'll want to try and extend its duration by using Rage skills.
- Managing Berserk duration requires some practice, as it has a ~8 second cooldown once it runs out before you can enter it again. You don't want these 8 seconds to occur during Burst phases, because that will lose you substantial amounts of damage. Overextending Berserk is therefore not always a good thing.
Rotation Concept[edit]
You can find my most recent rotation showcase here. Link to Damage Log
Rotation Flow[edit]
Section | Notes |
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General Stuff |
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Opener |
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General Flow |
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CC Skills for Breakbar Damage |
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Utlity Skill Notes[edit]
Default Skill | Notes |
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Blood Reckoning | Rage skill that heals you for 33% of the damage you deal. Insane healing tool for both instanced content and open world. This will recharge ALL primal burst skills, not only Decapitate. Since it also grants 10 adrenaline, you can always use your primal burst again after using this inside Berserk. |
Signet of Might | Just there for the passive damage, can be replaced by anything else you might need. |
Outrage | Rage skill and short-cooldown Stun break. More importantly, it will grant you 10 adrenaline when an enemy is nearby (5 when there is no enemy), allowing you to instantly gain access to Wild Throw when it is off cooldown. |
Option 1: Shattering Blow Option 2: Wild Blow |
Option 1: Rage skill used for more flexible Berserk duration management. Use it right before to Head Butt to negate the self-stun on it via Stability. Option 2: Use it to apply CC and extend berserk mode. |
Head Butt | Rage skill that does damage, applies Stun and grants maximum adrenaline so that you can always enter Berserk immediately after it. Careful: this stuns yourself, so you need to either apply Stability at the right time or break the stun it applies right after. |
Gear & Traits[edit]
Important Stats in Hero Panel (descending in Importance):
- At least 60% Critical Chance: Fury and Smash Brawler give the remaining 40% (in Berserk).
- Maximize Ferocity
- Maximize Power
Armor | Prefix | Rune |
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Head | Berserker's | Superior Rune of the Scholar |
Shoulders | Berserker's | Superior Rune of the Scholar |
Chest | Assassin's | Superior Rune of the Scholar |
Gloves | Berserker's | Superior Rune of the Scholar |
Legs | Berserker's | Superior Rune of the Scholar |
Boots | Berserker's | Superior Rune of the Scholar |
Trinket | Prefix | |
Amulet | Assassin's | |
Ring 1 | Berserker's | |
Ring 2 | Berserker's | |
Accessory 1 | Berserker's | |
Accessory 2 | Berserker's | |
Backpack | Berserker's | |
Weapon | Prefix | Sigil |
Spear | Berserker's | Superior Sigil of Force Superior Sigil of Air |
Purpose | Item Type | Source |
Damage | Ascended Food | Cilantro Lime Sous-Vide Steak |
Damage | Non-Ascended Food | Bowl of Sweet and Spicy Butternut Squash Soup |
Survivability | Ascended Food | Peppercorn-Crusted Sous-Vide Steak |
Survivability | Non-Ascended Food | Oysters with Zesty Sauce |
Damage | Utility | Potent Superior Sharpening Stone |
Survivability | Utility | Potion Of Karka Toughness |
Damage | Relic | Relic of the Claw |
Survivability | Relic | Relic of Zakiros |
Tactics | ||||||
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Strength | ||||||
Berserker | ||||||
- For a budget variant, simply replace all ascended armor pieces of Berserker's with rare/exotic Berserker's.
Open World Build[edit]
Link to the Open World Build on the Editor
You can find my most recent open world build showcase here.
For OW, it can make sense to make a build more forgiving, so that you can sustain on your own.
Increasing General Survivability[edit]
- The first major step to increase survivability is to use Relic of Zakiros. this will heal you based on your damage dealt. Combined with Blood Reckoning, you can reach massive amounts of healing.
- Spear gives you high range, allwoing you to kite a lot of damage and keep distance to the target.
- I recommend getting a bunch of cheap exotic Diviner's trinkets for higher Boon duration. They cost around … each, totaling up to … for an Amulet, 2 Rings and 2 Accessories. Just make sure that you still hit 60% Critical chance.
- A great allrounder choice for open world is to swap out Tactics for Defense. Doing that will drastically increase your survivability and still include strong enough damage modifiers:
Defense | ||||||
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Strength | ||||||
Berserker | ||||||
- Adrenal Health is a strong passive heal, and you just need to use burst skills on cooldown to maintain 4 stacks of it.
- Your damage with this will scale with Weakness and Stability due to Cull the Weak and Stalwart Strength. You will cover good uptimes on both of them natively in your rotation in open world.
- Defy Pain will trigger on every cast of Head Butt and makes you immune to strike damage for 4 seconds every 20 seconds.
- For even more passive sustain, use Might Makes Right and Forceful Greatsword in Strength.
- On top of that, you can use use Fried Golden Dumpling for additional Might on critical hits.
- Combined with the trait changes in Strength, this leads to massive healing and large amounts of Endurance via all the stacks of Might you apply to yourself, so you can dodge a lot. Sources of Might and Endurance:
- Forceful Greatsword
- Reckless Dodge - don't underestimate how strong dodges are on this build.
- Phalanx Strength will heal you for massive amounts whenever you are not alone.
- Jade Tech Offensive Overcharge and Jade Tech Defensive Overcharge gives 150 permanent Toughness, Vitality, Condition Damage and Power as well as all boons aside from Stability, Resistance and Resolution on entering combat. These effects can be pre-stacked by using an Enchanted Snow Diamond Tonic repeatedly when out of combat. The Protection from this is another free massive gain to survivability!
Boon Coverage[edit]
- Might coverage is explained above.
- Swap to Heat the Soul in Berserker to cover a good uptime on Quickness and Fury on yourself (and allies around you!).
- Swap in Frenzy for additional uptime on Quickness and another Stun break.
- Via Wild Blow & Heat the Soul, you will also cover Fury.
- Thick Skin yprovides a bit of Protection on yourself.
- Brave Stride and Stalwart Strength will give you a really good uptime on Stability, oncreasing your damage and allowing you to ignore incoming CC!
- For Swiftness and thus higher mobility, use Charge on warhorn on cooldown.
- Call of Valor will provide a ~50% uptime on Vigor for even more dodges.
- In case you don't want the hassle of reapplying jade protocols, you can abuse the synergy between Relic of the Cavalier and Blast from the Skyscale to apply lots of Aegis, Resistance, Might and Quickness to yourself. It does not have an internal cooldown and applies the boons on every hit of Blast. This also works with any other mount engage when hitting multiple targets.
Skill Choice | Notes |
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Blood Reckoning | As explained above. Use when you are on low health and stay on the offense to heal back up. |
Wild Blow | Covers Fury, applies Defiance bar damage and grants Adrenaline. |
Outrage | Fully fills Adrenaline in Berserk when an enemy is nearby. Great short-cooldown Stun break too! |
Frenzy | For better Quickness uptime, also provides a decent heal through Might Makes Right. Another Stun break. |
Head Butt | With Brave Stride, this will apply stability on cast, allowing you to automatically ignore the self-stun. Great opener for combat, as it also allows you to immediately use Berserk. It's also another Stun break. |
Dealing with Conditions and Control effects[edit]
- Call of Valor cleanses 3 conditions off of you and allies around you, so swap to warhorn when you need to cleanse conditions.
- That synergizes well with Brawler's Recovery in Discipline, since that will cleanse another condition whenever you swap weapons.
- If you need more frequent condition cleanses against bosses, swap to Cleansing Ire in Defense. That will also increase adrenaline inflow whenever you get hit.
- Wild Blow removes Weakness, Slow and Blinded on cast.
- Outrage is a short cooldown Stun break.
- Frenzy is also a Stun break.
- Head Butt is also a Stun break.
- "Shake It Off!" can be used instead of Frenzy; it is a Stun break and cleanses conditions, so it does both. Also affects nearby allies.
Optional: Discipline and Dual Axes [edit]
- For general open world roaming and instanced content, you can also swap out Tactics for Discipline
Discipline | ||||||
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- Axe Mastery massively increases Adrenaline inflow, allowing you to spam Decapitate more often. Through this, it also gives you a little more freedom on when to use Blood Reckoning and Outrage since you don't need the adrenaline from them as much.
- Warrior's Sprint gives 25% increased movement speed whenever you use at least one melee weapon (Axe, Sword, Dagger, Greatword etc.). Due to this trait, your damage also scales with having Swiftness!
- Fast Hands allows you to weapon swap faster, which has multiple benefits, such as cleansing a condition and gaining 5 adrenaline.