Todds' IK Zerker guide (hc)

[tpiercymtv]

Todds' IK Zerker guide (hc)

Okay I don’t tout myself as the hardcore god, but I have been playing this game for about 4 years and hardcore four about 3. So anyhow there’s my credentials. So, you want to make a barb and not a conc one or a frenzy. Zerk is viable in hell, I have made a zerk barb (In hardcore no less) and am quite pleased with him, although in the start of the build I had my doubts. Zerk is a boss killer period, you won’t be great at crowds although you can deal with them. This makes this build a good mf’er because all of us know that killing bosses will give you good stuff.

So that’s the upside of beserk, killing bosses doing huge irresistible damage, immune to Iron Maiden (you know that curse those Ob knights cast on you in Worldstone and Chaos Sanctuary ) and awesome AR. The downside is your defense is 0 nada nothing. Some people believe that Zerk just lowers your defense no you have no defense when swinging your weapon. Now this is where people say put on a shield but I have found doing this makes you more in trouble than not having a shield. Block lock although not as bad as in 1.09 is still there, and the fact that your only using one hand for your weapon means you won’t have great damage, and with zerk killing fast is your best defense. This build is based around the IK set, not the Armour but all the pieces, angelic ring and ammy plus a raven frost. Getting the pieces to IK isn’t that hard, prolly the hardest piece to get is the hammer and raven frost ring.

So here’s the build:

Stats:
Str: 135 (I’ll explain later)
Dex: base
Vitality: the rest
Energy: base

Now this is a no dex barb. I built this guy in Hardcore so, well living is a little more important than in softcore, so I hel’d the IK maul. I checked in the ias breakpoints and found that putting one 15 ias jewel (or shael) in the maul with the extra ias from the IK gloves was fine, and putting another 15 ias jewel in the maul wouldn’t get past the next break point. (I could be wrong but it’s fast enuff for me in hc)

So you are saying how do I hit with base dex, well angelic and zerks AR bonus will take of that. Right now I have 3.6k health with lvl 25 BO, you will probably have more because I kinda put a little too much in Strength. With zerk you won’t need anymore than base energy, you will have to drink pots but …who cares zerk doesn’t leech so you will be drinking rejuvs to stay alive.

Point Allocation:


WarCries:

Howl: 20
Battle Orders: 20
Shout: 20
Find Potion: 1
Taunt: 1
Battle Cry: 1
Battle Command: 1
Plus requirements

So how does the Zerker survive, it’s howl, it totally owns. It stops range monsters, clears up packs, separates uniques from their packs and stops all of these monsters from hitting you. Also howl is a synergy so it pumps damage for zerk. The only downside of Howl is that it doesn’t work on Champions or Uniques, Champs are a pain for a zerker, which is why you have a backup skill Conc.to wack them, and a trusty cold mage, to slow them down. Dealing with one monster (uniques) is not a problem, battle cry them and kill them.

Combat Skills:

Zerk: 20
Plus requirements

Masteries:
Mace Mastery 3-5 pts
Iron skin: 1
Natural resists: 3-5

You should be able to get to these points by lvl 90. Right now my baba is 79 and I am maxing shout it’s lvl 16 with skill pluses. Why did I leave shout till last well I found maxing howl a lot more useful. Till you are lvl 76 with the IK maul you won’t be killing that fast and having 23 seconds of free time to taunt or cry enemies or have your merc freeze them so you can wack them is real nice.
Don’t get me wrong though, when you put on the Maul you ARE a BESERKER and omg the killing power is awesome. He can out kill my sorc which is a Meteor/Orb one with +4 to all skills. He can’t still kill big packs of monsters as fast as she but tight groups or bosses whoops em. He can kill Hell Andy in 10 hits..Nice eh.

Choice of Merc:

Cold Mage

Why a cold mage well this guy is in HC, you could go Might if you’re in SC but I found that zerk with IK is enuff killing power for me. Also I plan to eventually to do Hell Diablo runs and having a cold mage will make him (like me) immune to Iron Maiden. Resurrecting a merc at 50k a pop isn’t fun. Also the cold mage will render small packs of monsters frozen stiff, giving you tons of time for you to wack them and finish them off.

Plan of Attack:

Enter an area howl all monsters if there is an unique battlecry him and finish him off. The unique will still keep coming at you because he is immune to howl At your leisure, taunt and pull the rest of the monsters in then warcry (or merc will freeze) and kill them. If you’re feeling gutsy you can just warcry the pack and wack them but this is pretty dangerous unless you have a lot of warcry charms to hold up the stun duration.
Champs switch to Conc, battlecry if needed to finish them off. Right now in Act 1 hell with the IK I don’t switch to conc I just battle cry and wack those champs that’s how fast zerk kills.


Gear:

Starting gear:
Twitchroe
Irathas helm, and gloves
Angelic ammy and ring
Bonesnap
Irathas belt
This set up gives you good ias, and resists that’s all you need as a zerker.


Midgear:

Twcithroe (couldn’t let go the ias)
Magnus gloves
Sting of Ears (damage reduction)
Raven frost (AR and cannot be frozen)
Unique +2 Barb skill helm with life
Blood Tree War Stump (fastest 2 handed weap you can get your hands on plus resists)


End Gear:

IK helm, maul, belt, gloves and boots
High defense Smoke (although duriels shell would be better)
Angelic ammy and ring
Raven


So needless to say I am pleased with the character. Right now he’s running pit and hell Andy nooo problems. Dealing 3-6k damage a wack at very fast attack speed. Don’t get me wrong you got to play smart, just cause you can kill fast doesn’t mean you can’t die. Having 0 defense sometimes means your health bulb will go down to half before you jug back some rejuvs (hence the point in find potion) I also joined a necromancer, frenzy baba and we whooped Hell Baal and Hell Diablo. The frenzy baba had nature’s peace so at that time I had 4.2k health with oak sage.

 

[JohnofTesh]

You mentioned warcry, but you don't list any points in it. Do you use it or just howl/taunt?

 

[tpiercymtv]

You mentioned warcry, but you don't list any points in it. Do you use it or just howl/taunt?

Yes mentioned in plan of attack...Howl monsters away taunt them in then warcry to stun. But your cold merc will prolly freeze the monster, meaning then you don't need warcry.

 

[squigipapa]

Is the Maul really the hardest part to get? I was under impression that it was the armor. I've got like 4 mauls on mules .. but only one armor .. donno .. I could be wrong, I thought the maul and the helm were the most common.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

I just had an IK berserk barb and fought it trough hell. It died at level 82 because of lag (i could not even use my keyboard to exit the game anymore)

first thing i notice is with this armor instead of IK armor (i had IK complete) you will not have your resistances maxed. probably around 40 on hell or so?

with my maxed resists, i barely dared to ente hell act5 for the black souls rip you appart in seconds. i really fealt i needed to add a whisp projector to this barb. with less than maxed resists, i would absolutely not go down. You can solve this with 7 max resist charms, but those arent cheap either, so then you might as well go for the IK armor.

another thing i notice is the maxed synergies, no warcry and no might merc. May i note, a might merc ads as much damage as a maxed synergy. If you use warcry instead of 1 of the synergies, you can comfortably use a might merc and your crowd controll will be perfect. As soon as i saw your remark about crowd controll not being good with the berserk barb, i was puzzled. my berserk barb killed crowds faster than i had ever killed crowds with any mellee character. warcry is the key.

i myself had warcry at level 15 (+ bonusses from IK). i had also 4 or so in mace mastery, max zerk, max BO and max shout at lvl 82.

of course everyone plays differently, but my personaly liking and advise is to sacrifice a little of the synergies for warcry.
And the resists (at least light and fire) must be maxed. i know the goal of this build is to be unexpensive, but you cannot venture hell with less than maxed resists.

IMO this build is good in anticipation of getting the IK armor though

 

[WackenOpenAir]

Is the Maul really the hardest part to get? I was under impression that it was the armor. I've got like 4 mauls on mules .. but only one armor .. donno .. I could be wrong, I thought the maul and the helm were the most common.

what armor are you talking about now? as far as i know, all the IK parts are very common, only IK armor is very rare.

as for the smoke armor, its just a lum rune, thats it.

 

[squigipapa]

what armor are you talking about now? as far as i know, all the IK parts are very common, only IK armor is very rare.

as for the smoke armor, its just a lum rune, thats it.

hey,
Sorry I should have been a little more clear, and I should have read the original post a little more attentively! Basically I just skimmed the intro to the guide but caught the last line of the second paragraph "Getting the pieces to IK isn?t that hard, prolly the hardest piece to get is the hammer and raven frost ring."
I diden't catch the part where he wasen't even wearing the IK armor, I kind of took it for granted, that an IK Zerker Guide would wear the whole IK set, so I guess his statment was true, basically, if you're not wearing the armor, the IK maul is the next hardest to get piece.

Sorry for the confusion.

 

[tpiercymtv]

I just had an IK berserk barb and fought it trough hell. It died at level 82 because of lag (i could not even use my keyboard to exit the game anymore)

first thing i notice is with this armor instead of IK armor (i had IK complete) you will not have your resistances maxed. probably around 40 on hell or so?

with my maxed resists, i barely dared to ente hell act5 for the black souls rip you appart in seconds. i really fealt i needed to add a whisp projector to this barb. with less than maxed resists, i would absolutely not go down. You can solve this with 7 max resist charms, but those arent cheap either, so then you might as well go for the IK armor.

another thing i notice is the maxed synergies, no warcry and no might merc. May i note, a might merc ads as much damage as a maxed synergy. If you use warcry instead of 1 of the synergies, you can comfortably use a might merc and your crowd controll will be perfect. As soon as i saw your remark about crowd controll not being good with the berserk barb, i was puzzled. my berserk barb killed crowds faster than i had ever killed crowds with any mellee character. warcry is the key.

i myself had warcry at level 15 (+ bonusses from IK). i had also 4 or so in mace mastery, max zerk, max BO and max shout at lvl 82.

of course everyone plays differently, but my personaly liking and advise is to sacrifice a little of the synergies for warcry.
And the resists (at least light and fire) must be maxed. i know the goal of this build is to be unexpensive, but you cannot venture hell with less than maxed resists.

IMO this build is good in anticipation of getting the IK armor though

I agree play styles are different. I am on HC Ladder so IK "ARMOUR" is pretty much impossible to find.
I personally like howl over warcry. I decided to go with max howl instead of warcry cuz if warcry ends you sitting right next to a whole bunch of monsters ready to kill you, while you have 0 defense. I found howl alot more usefull at separating uniques with nasy auras away from their packs. These uniques by themselves arnt that dangerous bye themselves and once their dead the aura goes bye bye. Also warcry does not work on uniques or champs (well sometimes it works on champs but sometimes it doesnt). I feel alot more comfortable with the separation power of maxed howl. Which would you rather fight a whole pack of might aura udars right next to you or one udar unique with might. Once the unique is dead no more might. Might is such a huge radius in hell too. Sometimes I just spam howl, keeping monsters away for 23 seconds a howl till I can find the source of the aura....warcry wouldnt be as effective for that.

Also maxing shout is good defense against range attackers BEFORE you start swinging especially cuz I don't wear a shield. As stated in the guide I am planning eventually getting this guy to kill diablo and havng a merc which is immune to IM I thought was a good idea. I also use his freezing capabitlites instead of warcry, it works like a dream against normal monsters...freezes them for about 4-5 seconds plenty of time for me to wack and kill em. About resists ...well I socketed the helm with a +15 all res jewel and poison resist rune. This combined with smoke and a few resist charms I am very close to all maxed resists with all the anya quests. Anyhow with maxed howl gloams or dark souls aren't really a problem...it's range is huge and once they run away pull em in with the taunt.

 

[tpiercymtv]

Is the Maul really the hardest part to get? I was under impression that it was the armor. I've got like 4 mauls on mules .. but only one armor .. donno .. I could be wrong, I thought the maul and the helm were the most common.

Yes the armour is hardest to find..this build is for IK set without the IK armour.

 

[WackenOpenAir]

I agree play styles are different. I am on HC Ladder so IK "ARMOUR" is pretty much impossible to find.
I personally like howl over warcry. I decided to go with max howl instead of warcry cuz if warcry ends you sitting right next to a whole bunch of monsters ready to kill you, while you have 0 defense. I found howl alot more usefull at separating uniques with nasy auras away from their packs. These uniques by themselves arnt that dangerous bye themselves and once their dead the aura goes bye bye. Also warcry does not work on uniques or champs (well sometimes it works on champs but sometimes it doesnt). I feel alot more comfortable with the separation power of maxed howl. Which would you rather fight a whole pack of might aura udars right next to you or one udar unique with might. Once the unique is dead no more might. Might is such a huge radius in hell too. Sometimes I just spam howl, keeping monsters away for 23 seconds a howl till I can find the source of the aura....warcry wouldnt be as effective for that.

Also maxing shout is good defense against range attackers BEFORE you start swinging especially cuz I don't wear a shield. As stated in the guide I am planning eventually getting this guy to kill diablo and havng a merc which is immune to IM I thought was a good idea. I also use his freezing capabitlites instead of warcry, it works like a dream against normal monsters...freezes them for about 4-5 seconds plenty of time for me to wack and kill em. About resists ...well I socketed the helm with a +15 all res jewel and poison resist rune. This combined with smoke and a few resist charms I am very close to all maxed resists with all the anya quests. Anyhow with maxed howl gloams or dark souls aren't really a problem...it's range is huge and once they run away pull em in with the taunt.

i also play on HC ladder. and you wont believe it probably, but i actually got the armor for free.....

for the separating, warcry also does that. it stuns the minions but not the boss. even hell minions of distruction are no problem at all. all are stunned except lister. i kill lister, then the rest. It does happen that i am too late recasting the warcry, but this has never brought me in danger yet. With the minions i have not tried that though, there i recast it every 2 seconds or so in order to be sure. but the balrogs for example wouldnt kill me if im too late.

anyway, i wish you more luck than my barb had and have fun