NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

[Nightfish]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

This isn't a MF-build. You can MF mephisto relatively well but certainly not at a speed rivaling sorcs. Area runs are possible but I'm sure you can see how anything with a single target attack isn't godlike in that respect. As far as gear goes, you can let go of pretty much anything except the weapon and some crushing blow if you do want to run meph.

 

[mindfocker]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

Thanks for the tip. I'm now currently following this. I am at clvl 34. And so far so good. But I'm still using Concentrate as my main attack because at slvl 1, both Conc and Beserk do the same damage. Don't know how well I'll do with Berserk.. :-/

my D2 version is 1.12, should I be worried about some changes?

and is a Windhammer a good option? I do have a Steeldriver, but the Windhammer has CB and is faster and I don't think I will ever find the runes to upgrade to a thunder maul.

and how much IAS from my gear do I need to get to those "breakpoints" using a Shael'd Windhammer/Steeldriver?

 

[Polydegmon]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

German weapon speed calculator -- get to know and love it.

A Shael'ed Windhammer has 80% ias on it already, so the relevant breakpoints are 109, and 163 ias. For Steeldriver (60% ias w/Shael) the relevant breakpoints are 78, 105, and 152 ias. I omitted the last couple BPs for both options because I don't think they're possible to meet. Does that answer your question adequately, or would you like gear suggestions for meeting some of those breakpoints?

 

[mindfocker]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

thanks for the link. I don't fully understand this breakpoint stuff.. so for the Windhammer, do I need another 109 IAS or 29 (109-80) IAS from gear to get 1fpa faster?

another q, how do I keep my mana up? War Cry costs quite a bit..

 

[Nightfish]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

No changes to the game since 1.10 in terms of balance. Mana stays up with damage goes to mana items (you get hit, you get mana. don't confuse this with "leech" ) and, surprise, potions . You can obviously use just about any weapon, the more damage it does, the better. I used a steeldriver because I had it and it left a lot of stat points for vitality. Ideally I'd use an upgraded ribcracker which is quite obviously the best weapon ever conceived

As for berserk vs conc.... Well, duh... No skill points, no damage. If you compare this at higher levels there is a pretty big gap, not to mention that there are very few things resistant to magic and quite a few resistant and even immune to physical.

Also, what's the point of playing a berserker if you want to use conc? If I wanted physical damage I'd go with whirlwind, frenzy, double throw, double swing, leap attack and then conc. In that order. I probably wouldn't use bash or stun over conc but overall it's a crappy skill.

 

[Polydegmon]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

thanks for the link. I don't fully understand this breakpoint stuff.. so for the Windhammer, do I need another 109 IAS or 29 (109-80) IAS from gear to get 1fpa faster?

another q, how do I keep my mana up? War Cry costs quite a bit..

You need an additional 29 ias from the rest of your gear (so 109 ias after counting the Windhammer).

As for mana, potions are always an option. If you're using an act 2 merc, you could give him an Insight weapon. I'm going to disagree with Nightfish on the usefulness of "damage taken goes to mana" items. The whole point of War Cry is so you don't take damage. You could also focus on using Howl instead--it has a much lower mana cost, and its larger radius is extremely useful once you start seeing huge mobs of ranged enemies around act 5 nm. The only downsides are that it is a bit more involved (enemies run away, and you need to use Taunt to pull them back a couple at a time), and that it won't work on OKs or Lister's mob.

@Nightfish: I'm pretty sure the conc vs. berserk issue is because of the order in which you suggested maxing skills. Even with saving up points early on, it's going to take a while to max both BO and War Cry before you start investing heavily in berserk. Until then, conc will leech, is uninterruptible, and gets synergy damage from BO. Berserk turns out better in the end, but gets there slowly if you wait to invest in it. You can feel free to disagree with me, but I think that 5-10 points in Howl early on ought to be good enough crowd control until you're done maxing berserk.

 

[mindfocker]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

thanks!
I do have a Ribcracker, don't have the runes to upgrade though.. I use it to kill bosses for now. Awesome weapon.

I will be using Berserk, I'm just worried how good I'll be.. I think it will be fine with a 5 sec. stun later on.

for survivability, what should I focus on? FHR, %DR, PDR?

 

[Nightfish]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

I never needed PDR or %DR to survive. I don't think I ever went out of my way to get FHR beyond what happened to be on my items anyway. Howl / Warcry / HP Pool were quite enough. It worked fine for me in HC untwinked and that was when I was just starting with HC so I guess it's pretty easy. Definetly a lot better than the conc barb I played more recently.

 

[ares]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

(this is mindfocker. my account got banned due to a bad username.. )
my NM Hellforge dropped a Pul rune, so I decided to upgrade my Ribcracker.. OMFG this weapon is gamebreaking! It does more damage than my Windhammer now.. I really wanted to use a maul, since it looks so cool.

 

[Kiss My Axe]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

How do you hit anything with a barb if you don't put anything into Dex and Weapon Mastery? Why would you ever want to surpass critical strike?

 

[stephan]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

You can get more than enough +AR from items and Berzerk has +AR% enough. Investing in dex for AR is about the worst thing you can do. It's a nice side effect of going for max block or having a high dex weapon, but that's about it.

The guide is also intended for untwinked play, which does not really allow a high investment in a Mastery.

 

[Jason Maher]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

3.a. Two-handed Weapon vs. one-handed / Shield

We're going with a high damage two-handed weapon on our berserker. The reason for this is simple: We want to deal a lot of damage, and thus we need a weapon with high base damage. Remember, all the Enhanced Damage (ED) from the weapon itself, other gear, skills and strength bonus gets applies to the base damage of the weapon. That is why we don't want a one-handed weapon. A concentrate barb with a two handed weapon would probably beat a berserker with a one handed weapon in terms of damage while being at least as safe as we are. We'll get our resistances from other sources than a shield, don't worry.

Well, now this thread has been necroed, may as well point out the sentence I highlighted is, as I understand it, incorrect. The skill and strength bonuses and off-weapon ED all add together and then multiply the final wepon damage (i.e. base weapon damage x on-weapon ED).

****MATHS WARNING****
Numerical example: let us suppose we have a mythical Unique weapon, the Sword of Slaying Everything Except Squid, based on the equally mythical 2-handed Sneaky Bastard Sword (base damage: 50-100). This weapon has 260% on-weapon Enhanced Damage (-100% ED against Squid, which I suppose would include Baal with all his tentacles). Let us further suppose we have socketed this sword with a 40% ED jewel. Let us further further suppose we have socketed our helm with a 40% ED jewel, and are wearing a Fortitude armour (300% ED). Let us further further further suppose we have 260 strength after items (=260% ED). Let us further further further further suppose that after items and Battle Command we have a level 25 Beserk, level 5 Sword Mastery, 12 hard points in Howl, and 1 hard point in Shout, for a total of 700% ED from skills (510 + 60 + 120 + 10).

So in total, we have 300% on-weapon ED (-100% against squid), and 1300% off-weapon ED. Let us apply the two differing scenarios:

Scenario 1: All sources of enhanced damage add together and multiply the base weapon damage. Thus we have a grand total of 1600% ED (1200% against squid), or 17x base weapon damage (13x).

Everything Except Squid: 17x(50-100) = 850-1700 damage (1275 average)
Squid: 12x(50-100) = 600-1200 damage (900 average)

Scenario 2: The on-weapon enhanced damage mulitplies the base weapon damage, and this total is tghen multiplied by the combined off-weapon enhanced damage. We have 300% on weapon (-100% against squid) and 1300% off weapon ED, or 4x (0x) base weapon damage, and 14x final weapon damage.

Everything Except Squid: 4x(50-100)x14 = 2800-5600 damage (4200 average)
Squid: 0x(50-100)x14 = 0-0 damage (bugger-all average)

Now to apply this to Nightfish's original point, that a one-handed weapon is a waste of time, assume that the Sneaky Bastard Sword in 1-handed configuration (we are talking about Barbarians) deals 20-60 base damage. Then the numbers in the two scenarios become:

Scenario 1:

Everything Except Squid: 17x(20-60) = 340-1020 damage (680 average)
Squid: 12x(20-60) = 240-720 damage (480 average)

Scenario 2:

Everything Except Squid: 4x(20-60)x14 = 1120-3360 damage (2240 average)
Squid: 0x(20-60)x14 = 0-0 damage (bugger-all average)

Note that 680/1285 = 2240/4200 = 480/900 = 0.5333333... (!= 0/0 ), so I'm not entirely sure what point Nightfish was trying to make.
****END MATHS WARNING****

Now of course I could be reading Nightfish's somewhat ambiguous statement incorrectly, but it does appear to be asserting scenario 1, while everything else I've ever read concerning damage calculations (including the occasionally incorrect Arreat Summit) asserts scenario 2. Though as pointed out above, the bearing any of this has on the choice between 1-handed and 2-handed is precisely nothing. 2-handed does more damage (roughly 2x), but 1-handed can hit 1-frame faster (9 frames vs 10 frames), allows the wearing of a shield for blocking and resists, and allows dual-wielding for style points (about the only point to a dual-wielding 'Zerker ).

 

[Kiss My Axe]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

You can get more than enough +AR from items and Berzerk has +AR% enough. Investing in dex for AR is about the worst thing you can do. It's a nice side effect of going for max block or having a high dex weapon, but that's about it.

The guide is also intended for untwinked play, which does not really allow a high investment in a Mastery.

Then why is my barb constantly missing? All my characters are untwinked. I'm level 26 and it's killing me that I only have 1 pt in concentrate, 6 pts on axe mastery. I put some in dex to so I can hit things. The minute I get into normal chaos sanctuary, I'm missing all the time. My concentrators that I build don't have this problem. My other berserker I built sucked also. I'm not to impressed with this skill.

 

[Rhone]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

I think you may have been taking NF a little too literally, Jason. I don't think he was trying to claim anything about all the %ED modifiers working the same way, just that how much you get out of them is affected by the base damage of the weapon. More specifically, I think the point was that War Cry is your main defense, so more damage is better than blocking. He makes pretty much the same recommendation in his Tiger Strike assassin guide (since the assassin has CoS for defense).

 

[stephan]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

Then why is my barb constantly missing? All my characters are untwinked. I'm level 26 and it's killing me that I only have 1 pt in concentrate, 6 pts on axe mastery. I put some in dex to so I can hit things. The minute I get into normal chaos sanctuary, I'm missing all the time. My concentrators that I build don't have this problem. My other berserker I built sucked also. I'm not to impressed with this skill.

This doesn't make any sense. How are you going to evaluate a skill on a level that you can't even use it?

 

[Kiss My Axe]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

This doesn't make any sense. How are you going to evaluate a skill on a level that you can't even use it?

Because I've had berserkers before that have had a few points in Berserk and they sucked. No leech, no defense. I thought concentrate was much more useful. That's why I'm following this guide.

If you look at the guide, NF doesn't say that weapon mastery is necessary. He advocates using a maul, so you don't need to put any points in dex. How the F are you going to hit anything at lower levels then? What is your plan whilst leveling up to use berserk in the first place? One point in concentrate and 0 in weapon mastery ain't gonna get it done.

 

[NagisaFurukawa]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

As far as chance to hit is concerned, it really shouldn't be a problem at any point for a character like this, although I'll admit it can get tedious trying to level an untwinked Berserker.

1) Are you using Battle Cry? It lowers the enemy's defense (and offense), and doesn't require much mana or skill point investment.

2) What kind of mercenary are you using? Act 1 rogues have Inner Sight, which can help whenever they cast it, and Act 2 Offensive types have Blessed Aim. They aren't always the right choice, but they can help, although a Blessed Aim mercenary will require you have at least some +AR, as it of course gives %AR.

3) How much +AR are you getting from your gear? Dexterity gives 5 AR per point. You'll almost certainly find blue/yellow rings (and possibly other equipment/charms) with a decent chunk of +AR. A ring with 60 AR provides as much as 12 points in dexterity would.

As far as your concerns about leech and defense, those aren't really that troublesome. The warcries will keep most enemies at bay, and potions drop frequently enough. :wink:

 

[Kiss My Axe]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

As far as chance to hit is concerned, it really shouldn't be a problem at any point for a character like this, although I'll admit it can get tedious trying to level an untwinked Berserker.

1) Are you using Battle Cry? It lowers the enemy's defense (and offense), and doesn't require much mana or skill point investment.

2) What kind of mercenary are you using? Act 1 rogues have Inner Sight, which can help whenever they cast it, and Act 2 Offensive types have Blessed Aim. They aren't always the right choice, but they can help, although a Blessed Aim mercenary will require you have at least some +AR, as it of course gives %AR.

3) How much +AR are you getting from your gear? Dexterity gives 5 AR per point. You'll almost certainly find blue/yellow rings (and possibly other equipment/charms) with a decent chunk of +AR. A ring with 60 AR provides as much as 12 points in dexterity would.

As far as your concerns about leech and defense, those aren't really that troublesome. The warcries will keep most enemies at bay, and potions drop frequently enough. :wink:

+112 AR ring thus far. I have a steel two handed axe (the big double edged one).

I have a defense merc, so maybe a blessed aim one would be better. I completely forgot about battle cry. I'll have to use that one and see what happens. My resistances suck and I keep dying from fire breath. It's frustrating because nothing decent is dropping and I'm low on money. I can't even get money to drop.

The best barbs I've had all maxed weapon mastery out first. This one is a bit different.

 

[Pär]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

Loving the guide, but the lowbie hit issues are a pain. Guess I'll have to twink in some Dex or AR charms or gear or go Blessed Aim merc.

 

[TheRebel22]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

Great guide. I'm going conc/ww hybrid I've decided and so far I loveee howl/taunt/battle cry. I have 1 point in War Cry right now, but I hardly ever use it. Do you guys think that War Cry is THAT important to need a bunch of points that would be taking away from conc/ww? I've got spear mastery maxed, and BO is up there, but I'm going to finish off WW now (it's at like lvl 9). I mean, I definitely think howl/taunt are crucial for my success. They make pvm soo much easier. Will War Cry be that useful in hell and will I need it because howl/taunt won't be as effective or what? I'm definitely, 100% about survival right now. I'm not trying to lvl super fast, mf super fast, do anything super fast. I'm taking my sweet time and staying alive at all costs.