NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

[Kretschmer]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

My FishyZerker is currently sitting in Act 3 Hell (lvl 75), and I'm looking forward to making him my first Barbarian guardian. Crossing my fingers for that elusive Pul rune, so I can up my stashed ribcracker into a true implement of death. Until then, Bloodtree Stump is thud thud thuding enemies down, slowly mashing a path through hell...

As an untwinked, mostly-hardcore player, I had pretty much given up on Barbarians. Low damage without exceptional luck and tremendously reliant on a few very specific drops to beat physical immunes in hell...not a great combination. But this guy is working. If I had to describe the build, it would be "competent but plodding." I'm enjoying myself, but it will be a very, very long time before I play a single-target attacker again. Pack of flayers? *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* Pack of skeletons with a mummy? *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* (%&*()@*%) *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* (%&*()@*%) *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* (%&*()@*%) *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* (%&*()@*%) *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* (%&*()@*%) *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* *thud* (%&*()@*%) It's clear that this class would be much smoother with an accessible cleave or AoE, and I look forward to playing Diablo 3's barbarian.

A few thoughts:
*Don't bother switching to berserk until you get about 5 points in it, 5 points in war cry, and an insight. Then pop on a nice big +mana ring and enjoy the regen!
*I feel dirty playing this guy solo. With his amazing buffs and crowd control, the build just screams for party play!
*Barbarians always seemed like melee powerhouses with great buffs and some crowd control...nothing is further from the truth. Untwinked barbs feature incredible crowd control, fantastic buffs, and middling melee attacks. Stun 'em and whittle 'em down!
*Prayer is utterly worthless for a berserker. Your huge life pool moves in chunks, not 5 damage here and 50 there. Since you're already chugging reds to mitigate damage, prayer will be completely unnoticed. The only time a prayer merc makes sense is if you're playing a class that takes rare incidental damage (like a summoner) and you want to maintain full health without a belt row of reds.

Hopefully you'll see a SPF writeup, soon.

 

[hyuj]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

Ok, great guide, I think I will give this a go.

Is this character fun though?

If so, please give me some helpful advice, such as what modifiers to look for in equipments.

I am going to max 20 in:

BO
Berserk
Howl

Then 10 in War cry and another 10 in Shout for Berserk synergy, does this sound ok?

Any advice, if you have played zerk barb, thanks such as what Runewords

Thank you ^_^

 

[Nightfish]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

Is this character fun though?

Yes, it rates 12.6 mega-rofls on the lol-scale.

I am going to max 20 in:

BO
Berserk
Howl

Then 10 in War cry and another 10 in Shout for Berserk synergy, does this sound ok?

Sure, just put points whereever you want. That's what guides are all about!

Any advice, if you have played zerk barb, thanks such as what Runewords

No, sorry, I never played one. I just write the guides. Playing them on top of that would take way too long.

 

[Vulpine]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

How does Critical Strike / Deadly Strike interact with Berserk? Does it work? Does it double all magic damage dealt via Berserk skill?

 

[hubb]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

Yes. Berserk works exactly like the other melee skills, its damage is just converted at the very end. Crushing Blow and additional elemental damage isn't affected by the conversion.

 

[Nightfish]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

Critical Strike works fine but more often than not you won't notice a difference between having it and not having it. Especially if you're thinking about actual critical strike from the mastery and not deadly strike.

 

[Vulpine]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

Especially if you're thinking about actual critical strike from the mastery and not deadly strike.

Well, sorry for being inaccurate in my previous post. I did mean Deadly Strike (HLW + Death combo should provide a descent percentage of DS at 80+). But does Crit and DS work in different ways? If they don't, I seem to be not getting the point of the quoted part of NF's post.

 

[Nightfish]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

My point is: You do so much damage without critting that a lot of things die in one hit. A relatively low chance to do double damage does not seem extremely helpful in that case. You might have a case against act bosses, but those are usually done with crushing blow. So yea... DS is a very low priority on my zerkers.

 

[crawlingdeadman1]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

Well, sorry for being inaccurate in my previous post. I did mean Deadly Strike (HLW + Death combo should provide a descent percentage of DS at 80+). But does Crit and DS work in different ways? If they don't, I seem to be not getting the point of the quoted part of NF's post.

it works exactly the same, doubling damage. the thing is they dont work together exactly as one would hope by stacking together. 25% CS + 25% DS =/= 50% chance to double damage. one attempts to go off (believe it's critical strike) and then if that doesnt work, the other one (deadly strike) attempts to go off.

what you're left with is that if you have a lot of one, a ton of the other wont help as much as you'd like.

 

[Takth]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

I love this guide, it's given me a way to finally play a Barb without all the confusion.

But I have a question about this statement:

Rings and Ammys: Only one recommendation here: 2 Angelic Rings and the Angelic Halo. That gives you insane AR - you'll need it.

Are the 2 Angelic Rings part of the Angelic Rainment set that are actually called "Angelic Halo"?

If so I am not sure how to equip 3 rings. :whistling: Is there a typo somewhere or do the Angelic Rings refer to something completely different?

 

[hubb]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

Ye, he means two Angelic (Halo) Rings and Angelic (Wings) Amulet.

 

[Takth]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

Ye, he means two Angelic (Halo) Rings and Angelic (Wings) Amulet.

Ok thanks, didn't want to make any assumptions.

After all I m the dolt who wasted a lot of time trying to figure out why every build seemed to require a "Shako", when as near as I could figure Shako meant some ugly cap with no special properties but in reality it was always referring to the Harlequin Crest. :jig:

 

[zabu]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

Hello, I have 2 questions That I am going to copy paste.

1. Well, so with Zerk I have to one hit every single monster out there? Or just kill act bosses and superuniques and bosses in general?


2. And also this question

Also I found nightfish guide. It says to max 20 into BO, Zerk, Howl and War Cry.
May I ask why use howl and war cry? Only choose 1 for crowd control right? Why both?

Isnt it better to invest to shout for defense and synergy?

 

[jiansonz]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

I think I can answer #2.

You want both Howl and War Cry because they have slightly different uses. High level Howl sends away monsters far away for a long time (it is also really cheap to use, mana wise), while War Cry is used on the close pack you are currently fighting. It has a much shorter duration and is a lot more mana intensive.

While you use Berserk, you have 0 defense so Shout doesn´t help with that. Synergy points for more damage isn´t wrong, if you can spare them, but with a good weapon, you are probably doing enough damage anyway.

 

[crawlingdeadman1]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

1. up to how you want to do it.
2. howl doesnt work on anything champion or higher or on oknights. WC is for when you're surrounded by a bunch of monsters you cant howl away or if you're surrounded by a bunch of monsters you dont want to howl away.

 

[jdkerr]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

Stun a handful of monsters with war cry, throw in a howl to make all the monsters in the rest of the screen leave you alone, kill those monsters with your Typhoon of Magical Blows, and repeat.

In some cases, that is more convenient than howling all the time and therefore chasing single monsters one at a time all over the map. War cry does not handle large crowds well unless you are casting it repeatedly (which is a different build), and it's range is not sufficient for dealing with ranged attackers (at least, not at range).

 

[zabu]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

Ok, I will try use this guy and see how to play with him.

Also, is 1 in Find item enough? Surely I want this guy to be used for MFing too.... so is 1 find time enough?

You guys must use Find item too, right? Especially after killing superuniqes/bosses/act bosses?

 

[crawlingdeadman1]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

You guys must use Find item too, right? Especially after killing superuniqes/bosses/act bosses?

it doesnt work on them.

 

[zabu]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

really? I used to find item eldritch, shenk etc. = /

Well, you guys DO use find item right? To get good items? Even if this guide says to put only 1point?

 

[jdkerr]

Re: NF's 1.10 HC Berserker Guide

"Find item" is one of the primary advantages of playing barbarians. It only takes a few points to get a 30-40% chance to hork, and the extra drops add up quickly. I would probably aim for about a level 6 find item, which might only require one hard point, assuming you are horking on your +skills/+mf switch. Later on when you have better gear and more skill points to spare, you might consider getting your hork percentage higher, but it is certainly not worth spending 20 more skill points to get 15% more drops if you are struggling to kill quickly and survive.